Dave and Shari Nolan, of Brighton, traveled to Neuenkirchen, Germany, for the Entralassungerfeir (German for graduation) of Lisa Mitgoes, who was a high school exchange student at Brighton High School during the 2008 and 2009 school year.
Upon returning to Germany, Lisa had two more years of coursework to complete her graduation from Furstenberg-Recke school. Lisa will attend the university at Beruts Akademie Lingen and will be on work study program with a large energy company called RWE.
We thought it would be interesting to share some of differences we noticed between schools in the United States and Germany. First and most notable is that Lisa had to complete a 13-grade program in order to get into a university program in Germany – 13 years in addition to one year at Brighton High School that was not recognized by her school.
The nearly four-hour graduation ceremony started with a worship service. Lisa’s school is attended by both Catholic and Lutheran students. Although the Catholic priest was 30 minutes late, the Lutheran pastor started the worship service without delay. The ceremony included not only speeches by faculty, students and school administration,the local government official also gave a speech.
Upon conveying diplomas (that included a comprehensive report on grades) all attendees, including students, were served champagne and hors d’oeuvres . Later that evening we were honored to be able to attend a banquet at the school. It was a great opportunity to sample various German food, listen to German “folk” music and watch lots of German dancing.
In Germany all the students are required to take formal dance lessons, and they danced formally throughout the evening. Prior to dinner, the German band played and sung various American country music. We had to keep reminding ourselves we were 5,000 miles away from home and not in Brighton. The lead singer in the band sung really good American country.
Lisa’s family lives on a beautiful cattle farm in Germany.