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When three Holmen teachers went over to Germany as part of a study program, they didn’t expect to wind up being substitute teachers. Nevertheless, they had a good time with it.

Dayce McAndrews, Linda Sorenson and Karyn Tripp, all social studies teachers at Holmen Middle School, recently returned from a three-week trip to Germany as part of a culture study program. The program is sponsored by an organization called Atlantik-Brücke that seeks to form a cultural bridge between Germany and the United States and other countries.

Lucky for the three Holmen teachers, the class they worked as subs in was conversational English. They were able to answer a lot of questions about the United States, the presidential election here, fashions, the price of gas and just about anything the students had a chance to ask.

“They were all very concerned about our elections and our economy,” Sorenson said.

McAndrews and Tripp nodded in agreement and McAndrews said, “They said that when America coughs, everyone gets a cold.”

In between visiting several schools, the three teachers — part of a group of 11 Wisconsin teachers — rubbed elbows with high-ranking officials in the German government. They met with Jorg Schonbohm, minister of the interior, Hans-Ulrich Klose, vice chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Dr. Claire Bortfeldt, assistant head of the division of the Federal Ministry for Family, Seniors, Women and Youth, and other distinguished members of the German Parliament.

“It was like meeting the U.S. Cabinet, that’s how high these officials went,” McAndrews said.

They also met with various levels of school officials to learn about the German school system, which is quite different from ours. The most striking difference is high schools students are separated according to which of three “tracks” they are following.

Students intending to leave school and go directly into the workforce in service jobs attend Hauptschule. Students interested in vocational training go to the Real Schule (pronounced re-al) where they learn technical skills and can get an apprenticeship for such careers as electrician or plumber.

The third level of high school is the Gymnasium for students intending to continuing on to college.

In the United States, schools make an effort to mainstream students with cognitive and physical disabilities or behavioral problems, Sorenson, Tripp and McAndrews said they are notably absent from the German schools and are in a separate system altogether. Whether behaviorally, developmentally or physically challenged, there is no linkage to the mainstream of school society.

Tripp said she was impressed at the level of academic focus. “They don’t have music and the arts or things like home economics or band or anything like that,” she said. “They maintain a serious focus on academics, the core courses of math, language and history.”

That’s what impressed Sorenson. “What I came away with is an appreciation for their constant focus on history, whether good or bad. That history drives almost everything they do. You can touch buildings there that were built in the 1300s. Where in the U.S. can you find that? You just breathe history over there,” she said.

The group was able to visit small villages and large cities while there, as well as concentration camps and castles.

All three teachers were amazed at how the Germans have integrated U.S. culture into their own. From entertainment, to politics and business, they always have an eye towards the United States and what is going on here.

McAndrews was impressed with the efforts to make the German government as transparent as possible to its citizens and to the world. “There are glass walls in government buildings. Everything is glass and its in all the architecture — that openness,” she said. “Compared to their prior history, this is incredible.”

“The students are more global than ours,” Tripp remembered. “They knew stuff about a lot of different cultures.”

In the United States, if you ask a student, or even an adult, what they know about Germany, most everyone talks about the Holocaust and the concentration camps. McAndrews said the whole trip was designed by (and paid for by) the Atlantik-Brücke organization in order to dispel those impressions. “They feel there is not enough knowledge of German culture post-Holocaust and the Cold War.” The goal, she said of the organization, was to discover ways the two countries can learn from each other, work together and influence each other.

The three Holmen teachers were impressed with the ways Germany was trying to unify itself after the Cold War and the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. They spoke with many people who had lived on both sides of the Berlin Wall and observed first-hand how the government is trying to overcome its past.

“We had such a wonderful experience,” McAndrews said. “We are all just so amazed.”

Contact Jo Anne Killeen at joanne.killeen@lee.net or (608) 786-6816.