This question popped into my head a lot of times this week as I went through the long, packed days of TGS.

Three months until the IB begins, two years until graduation.
A lot of pressure?
Definitely.

These are times when I question everything. They are questions that come up quietly and transform into strange emotions instead of logical problems that I can perhaps try to solve.

Even though TGS can intensify stress (with the homesickness and so forth), it also provides a great treatment.

Take, for example, this sight.

Or this.

Or that.

Take opportunities such as visiting ANZAC Day in Germany itself, the center of World War II.

Take, also, the friendships made and the amazing soccer games played. Now that I think about it, we would have had the experience of playing sports (mostly soccer) in six different cities by now! Thursday was a very long day with classes until 5:30. What makes it worth it? The fact that we get to go into the city on Friday and also the beautiful feeling of relief when you play soccer after school.

So, what am I doing? I am having a ton of fun – living, traveling, studying, growing, learning, exploring, making friends, etc. The list goes on.

—

An engraving, permanent and everlasting,
will weather the storms, and prevail through
the howling winds.
A padlock, though
is seemingly interminable.

Two beings step out of a fairytale,
one that little girls and big girls dream of.
Embracing each other passionately,
She pulls an object from her overcoat.

He tentatively reaches out for her hand,
a source of warmth and safety,
from winter’s icy glare.

On a bridge over troubled water,
they stand. I cannot fathom their history,
past, or future,
But at this moment they link,
unbreakable.

The padlock is fastened on the railing,
with a heavy click.
And there it will stay,
throughout history.

Then comes the key,
The only one that can
make the bond surrender
between the padlock’s body
and gripping arm.

She releases it from her grasp,
and down down down it falls.
It cuts through the icy air,
and plops into endless azure,
sending ripples through the deep.

Lost? Gone forever?
Quite possibly,
but that was exactly what they hoped to achieve.

Featured image by Maya M.

TGS students already wrote personal memoirs in Thailand, so they were uniquely equipped to deepen their writing skills in this weekend-long workshop. In small groups and as a community, we shared important moments from our lives, recorded and transcribed them. We also used the writer’s process to edit these moments and turn them into evocative and realistic narratives that are sure to attract the attention of college admissions officers worldwide.

This week, students are completing the process through Skype conferencing with the dedicated Story to College staff. This will ensure that they take their essays through the final stages and give themselves a head-start in the application process.

After observing a group of über-bored Germans on the free exhibition tour, I wanted to provide a guideline while the students discovered the works on their own. For their final project, they are making an audio guide to the Berlin Biennale, one of the city’s largest exhibitions. To help them on their way, I custom-made an audio guide podcast complete with some of the stories and anecdotes I knew about the artists and their works.

Saskia–our guest last week and a local curator–and I sat down and wrote a script. I thought it might be useful to hear some professionals as inspiration for their own guide, so I turned to two actors to record the audio guides: Patrick Heusinger and Anna Rose Hopkins. Patrick has been on shows like Gossip Girl, 30 Rock, Royal Pains, The Good Wife, and will star in his very own show on NBC this fall. Anna has been in Law and Order, CSI, Veronica Mars, and more theatre than you could pack into a NY weekend. In short, they were brilliant, and we were lucky to have such access to their talent.

One of my favorite moments was watching tall Willem bound across the museum (much to the guards’ dismay but too fast to scold) to whisper:

Wait, they’re talking to us? They did this for us?

It was such a joy to watch them shuffle through the space, their voices silent but facial expressions loud. Megan walked in, took a deep breath, and tilted her head up towards the ceiling. Isaac took his time to find each work, exploring all the pieces. I walked over to a group of perplexed-looking guys and asked them what was up. “I don’t get it” they said guiltily. “Me neither,” I replied, “It’s ok to hate some of the art.”

It’s true. Sometimes there is great art, and sometimes there is bad art. As the troops congregated at the exit and shared their experiences—the works they loved and loved to hate—I got more and more excited about hearing what they’ll have to say in their own podcasts.

Speaking with Jawed after class, I asked him what stuck out the most. He told me:

I didn’t like the idea that he had put holy names on the ground because that could be a huge disrespect to the people who believe in a certain religion.

Suddenly, I was reminded of how happy I am to be with TGS. Many people who work in art forget about the people who have to walk on it. I’m looking forward to reminding them.

THE 25TH OF APRIL has been described by some as the birth of two nations: Australia and New Zealand. When the ANZACs were sent onto the beach at Gallipoli, no one foresaw the nationalism that would arise in the Antipodes. Those that had emigrated from Great Britain—whether forced or otherwise—saw that perhaps Britain wasn’t so great after all. This established national identities of loyalty, self determination, egalitarianism and hard work. 97 years later, ANZAC Day is a time when Australians and New Zealanders pause to reflect on those who fought on foreign lands, believing that they were leaving a legacy for the generations after them.

With four New Zealanders and an Australian as part of the TGS community, it seemed like a good idea to attend the ANZAC Day service, this year hosted by the New Zealand Embassy at the 1939-45 War Cemetery in Berlin. Furthermore, they have been studying legacy and memory in World Literature class, and it was an opportunity to integrate the two curricula. Students were asked to reflect on the service and how it is observed in Germany where there has to be a degree of political sensitivity.

Silence

Silence snakes its way through our words.
The courageous, the brave. The ones who tried.
Young Johnny, not yet grown, who never would cry.
The ambitious pilot, the darling son.
Such a terrible fate, when what’s left is none.

Mothers, brothers, sisters, friends.
You can feel the roots here, growing from blood and sweat
“Dearly Remembered” read the stones
Who shall remember, so separated by land?

The rising song of the hymns float,
Light as a feather, dense like smoke
Silence snakes its way through our words.

Because of the dead
Because we don’t know
We are silent.

What a great experience…

Having never met the students before the day of the class, I was actually quite nervous. Cecile had told me a lot about them, how everyone is incredibly inquisitive, open minded, and determined.

I started with a brief historical background about collage, then moved on to the technical aspects of creating multimedia collages. I witnessed the students begin truly interesting collage work in class.

One of our goals with the class was to focus on the ‘process’: to exercise taste and galvanize the students’ thoughts on art, pick components for a piece of collage, find an aesthetic and intention, and build on that. It was really interesting to see what images the students initially chose to work with and even more fascinating to see how they developed their ideas from there.

It was really fun to observe certain trends within the collage items – specific tv shows, bands, movies that kept reoccurring in the collages. Disney films were a definite favorite, along with the television show The Big Bang Theory! I am really impressed with the works the students made. It was amazing to see how they married the images they had chosen along with the sometimes subconscious messages the text and images produced together. At times the messages–or ‘hidden meanings’–were quite obvious, and with others there was a really clear voice from the start.

I am excited to see how the collages finally turn out!

See what other TGS guests have had to say about visiting our community.

It was a long process with much anticipation on our end, but THINK Global School is proud to announce that it has been approved as an IB World school, and will begin offering IB level classes during the 2012-2013 school year. Receiving this authorization is a huge validation of our educational efforts, as all currently enrolled students will have the chance to graduate with an IB diploma in their hand, starting with our current class of tenth graders in 2014.

The coursework at THINK Global School will continue to be academically challenging as the program is implemented further, but the end goal is apparent: have our students graduate and attend the university of their liking in a field that they are deeply passionate about. The IB provides us with a very real opportunity to do so, as quoted by Marlyn McGrath Lewis, Director of Admissions at Harvard:

IB is well known to us for excellent preparations. Success in an IB programme correlates well with success at Harvard. We are always pleased to see the credentials of the IB Diploma Programme on the transcript.

Finally, a big congratulatory pat on the back goes out to all the faculty and staff members who helped bring this to fruition, especially Dr. Sally Booth, our Director of Curriculum. Sally spearheaded the project from start to finish, and deserves a ton of praise for helping turn this into reality.

If you would like to view THINK Global School’s formal IB announcement it can be found here.

Global Studies teacher Andrew McLean sent the students on a scavenger hunt around Berlin, Germany this weekend. Though they were asked to visit points of interest like famous synagogues and the Pergamon museum, students were encouraged to discover new locations and have personal experiences with their new host city. Equipped with their iPhones, they documented each unique adventures to share with their peers and reflect afterward.

The following are some examples of the scavenger hunt destinations and tasks:

Oranienburger Straße Synagogue: Berlin’s famously reformed (liberal) synagogue with a female Rabbi. Task: There are two plaques on the synagogue. Take a photo of the southern one and translate into English. 10pts

Clärchens Ballhaus: An old ballhouse that predates the Weimar era, the main room boasts regular and lively swing, tango, and salsa dance nights for the locals. Task: Sneak into the top room up the staircase, and to the left there are still bullet holes recalling the Battle of Berlin. Take a pic of the bullet holes. 5pts

Kunsthaus Tacheles: Former department store, abandoned and then taken over by artists after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It’s still an art center/squat today. Task: Using Hipstamatic to take the most hipster photo you can of this very hipster hangout. You will be marked on how cool you are, but don’t be too cool. That is so unhipster. 20pts

Here were some of the student responses to the day-long exploration:

I found bizarre sculptures, such as an elephant made out of electrical tape in a tree and weird paintings everywhere. It’s like all the artists have created their own surreal world.

Cameron, Class of 2014

After dinner, we walked back to the hotel, and the night just looked and felt so magical. We walked by the Brandenburg Gate, and it was unbelievably beautiful. As we were walking around town, we just couldn’t stop smiling. We were all exploding with happiness. It was a wonderful night.

Emma, Class of 2014

My highlight was finding this 1945 film camera at a marketplace near the Pergamon Museum. It is still in working order, and I’m excited to try it out!

Hannah, Class of 2015

Based on the reactions from the students and staff, this is bound to be a recurring excursion around the TGS host cities. Browse the students’ photography to see what they saw around Berlin.

Featured image by Hannah C.

NICHE Berlin writes in their portfolio:

Berlin’s architectural landscape is unique. Its distinctive character was shaped especially in the last decades when the city went from being a beating heart of industrialization to the destroyed and rebuilt capital it is today. That process is still visible in abandoned sites and vacant spaces. The creative re-contextualisation of these structures leads to an astonishing and intelligent mix of architecture, triggered also by the city’s constant lack of liquidity, which requires inventive, cost- effective solutions and unconventional techniques. This permanent transition makes the capital’s urban layout so distinctive.

Our students were able to see various examples of buildings utilizing innovative energy conservation techniques, a hot topic in this trimester’s science program. Green architecture is a blossoming industry that will soon become the norm in everyone’s host country, as sustainable development becomes less of a misused commercial label and more of an earnest way of living around the world.

Photography by Lindsay Clark.