Perspective is defined as a mental view or outlook. Your perspective is influenced by so much and luckily is not set in stone. Your life experiences, your learning journey, the people you meet, culture, geographic location and the language you speak contribute to your current perspective.

My own perspective  was predetermined by world history as well as my family’s personal history. It has been molded since then by living on three continents, owning three languages and by traveling abroad.

Already a very visual person, as a child, my world view consisted in placing my family and friends on an imaginary map or globe as stick figures. My grandmother stood in Europe, in Germany, my uncle and aunt were sticking out from Singapore and later China, my godfather’s head was placed over Spain. My father usually popped his head out of an airplane flying from one continent to another.

I look at people and am reminded of the metaphor of an iceberg in relationship to culture. Only 10% of their cultural being is visible to me above the water surface. The way they dress, the way they speak, their food they eat, games they play, their literature, traditions and celebrations. 90% of who they are is below the surface: the concept of time, their relationship to death, their rules of conduct, personal space, tolerance of physical pain, roles in relationship to age, class, sex and kinship.

I sleep with my and my family’s passports right next to me. They are in a bag, ready to jump up and make a run for it, in case it were ever necessary. A silly custom? Weird? Why would anyone on earth be compelled to having to sleep with passports on the side?

In my family’s history (both sides of the family) having had to leave their lives on a moment’s notice. Both families, always thinking, that that could NEVER happen to them. They lived in a “civilized” country. They were safe… that it would never have to come to something that extreme…

So, packing up my bags, moving, starting fresh has been placed in my cradle and was practiced from an early age on. Traveling has also been part of my life and has further shaped my perspective. People and cultures that are so different than my own have taught me, if anything, to know that nothing is set in stone. Any “truth” you hold dear, opinion, conviction which is shared with everyone around you in your geographic location can make you an instant outsider when in another place.

Most people know about the term or have experienced the feeling of “homesickness”. Many are unaware, that there is an opposite to that term, called “Fernweh”. Translated from the German, it means “An ache for distant places”. The “condition” describes “A strong desire or craving to travel abroad”.

Coming back to perspective, a mental view or outlook…

A quote from Saint Augustine, a bishop from the 4th century, ” The world is a book, those who not travel, read only one page”. The  perspectives I have gained through traveling, leads me to believe that he was on to something. If you never go beyond the first page, how could you be aware of other points of view?

When I first arrived in the United States, I must say, that I was in culture shock. Nothing was like I had expected it. Not any of the movies, like Rocky, Flash Dance, Poltergeist, Porky’s or Terminator, was really helpful in preparing me for what living in the US was going to be like

The grocery store alone was intimidating with the endless variety of pizzas in the frozen food aisle. The choices overwhelmed me. I was used to picking up a oven fresh pizza and empanadas at the corner Italian Restaurant and now, I was supposed to choose from 20+ different frozen varieties?

Who do we consider poor? Who lives in a third world country? Who needs or deserves the help of other so called “developed countries”? What if the so called help is not wanted?

What if you were an ant? You lived with your ant family on an ant hill. You were born and raised on that hill? You grow up to work on the hill, alongside all the other ants.

The furthest you ever ventured from that hill was to go on an organized expedition with a selected few ant friends. What if suddenly a stranger ant arrives on your ant hill and tells you about places that you were unaware that they even existed?

Perspective is something funny…

HSBC, an international bank uses advertisement to bring awareness to their clients about the importance of “local knowledge” when doing business abroad. Local knowledge meaning the 90% of the iceberg below the water surface.

The same object… the same concept… the same experience… all being perceived differently by different people and cultures…

Ask yourself what do you consider a camping trip…a holiday or hell…. what about a cruise?

How do you define accomplishment in your life?

Let’s talk about friends.

Growing up I was told, that I will be able to count my true friends, friends of a life time, on one hand. When I use the word “friend”, this prediction still resonates deep inside me.  When I talk with my own daughters nowadays and we use the word friend, I need to be aware and have to remind myself of their perspective on that word “friend”. They have 800+ “Friends” on Facebook. We use the same word, but attach a different “mental view” to the word.

What does it mean to be educated? An important questions we need to pose ourselves as educators. Just last week, I had a meeting with the president’s office at our local (public) university. They had instituted the new policy of requiring ALL freshman to live on campus. I was seeking a waiver for my daughter, since we live 20 minutes away from campus.
The university’s reasoning behind the mandate, I was told, was research that showed a higher success rate of retaining freshman in college. I was arguing that we were well equipped to handle my daughter’s progress towards graduation from our home. I was then told point blank, that living on campus, she would receive a BETTER education.

At that point, I was well aware that we were talking at cross purposes. While I was equating education with academics, the was thinking of a typical “American College Experience”, which again conjured up different images in our respective minds.

Let’s look at the influence our perspectives has when we ask the question “Where and How do we Learn”?

Some might have mental images of classrooms with desks and chairs in a row with a chalkboard, whiteboard or smartboard,  a university lecture hall or a quiet library flimmer across you mind. Learning comes from books or experts who are willing to pass on their knowledge.  Others think of learning as a global network of physical and virtual connection. Learning that happens whenever and wherever. Learning doesn’t take place when you “go to a specific location” or “pass a certain test”.

Where do we go for information? Ask yourself that question, ask  a teenager… Will both of you have the same mental view? When we were growing up, there were not many choices. Ask you mother, ask your father, ask your teacher, ask your librarian, look it up in the encyclopedia. Those were your choices. Nowadays the options have multiplied. Do we keep the changes in perspective (or the lack of change in some) in mind when we speak to others?

How does a classroom look like? Again, think of the first image that comes to mind…maybe you even think of your own classroom at school. Then ask yourself,  is there a possibility that your image might look completely different that the person you are talking to? The danger to be talking at cross purposes is great. The awareness of perspectives is more important than ever, if we want to be working together to move education and learning forward.

Let’s look at the way we read. Think of READING…

• Does curling up with your favorite book in your lap or the sound of your morning newspaper come to mind?
• Are you experiencing the joy of having all the books you are currently reading simultaneously in one place, always with you?
• Is  the smell and feel of paper as you turning the pages part of your reading experience?
• Have you experienced the a new dimension as you are reading, annotating, connecting and sharing your thoughts and reaction with others who are reading the same book?

How do we write? When you think about the way you write…

• Do you think of paper and pen first?
• Do you think of handwritten letters, Thank you cards, scribbled notes, yellow notepad papers, composition books?
• Are you thinking of blogging, tweeting, texting, facebooking and emailing?

What does collaborating mean for you? Weekly grade level or subject area meetings? Allowing your students to work in pairs or small groups in the classroom or assigning a group project to be completed outside of classroom time? Does collaboration bring world wide  work to mind, that allows students to experience underlying points of view, have their work added to or remixed with material created by peers or experts? Does asynchronous collaboration come to mind when collaborators live in different geographic locations and are separated by timezones?

How do we communicate? As a family, who is dispersed over many countries and continents, communication between family members has always been an issue. My mental image is of one, when I had to take 2 buses, one train and walk for twenty minutes to a telephone center to ask an operator to place a phone call for me to my grandmother. I then had to wait for an hour to be connected to be able to speak to her for about 3 minutes, since every minute from Argentina to Germany was very expensive. Communication today is a local number stored on my cell phone to be able to call my mother in Argentina or to use a video call via Skype to show my little niece, who lives in Canada, how our garden in Florida looks like in the winter.

Are you aware of perspectives? Are you prepared to recognize moments of talking at cross purposes?

Share an anecdote of when you became aware of talking at cross purposes about education.

Social networking is changing our lives

You are part of a social network, if you are reading this post on my blog because you subscribe via RSS  or are a regular visitor or someone has forwarded you this post as a “must read”.

I am about to test out, if social networking has changed the way we live, work and “do business” enough to not only change our virtual lives…but also help in our face-to face-world.

My husband and I are working with several recruiting firms (Search Associates, ISS (International Schools Services) and AASSA  (Association of American Schools in South America) in order to find a position at an International School starting the school year 2012/2013. This is the first time for us going through the process of applying to become a candidate at each one of the firms, then applying to attend their individual recruiting fairs hosted between December 2011 and March 2012.

It is quite a process, as we are filling out endless questionnaires and writing our philosophy of education and personal statements. We are requesting our supervisors and administrators to write and submit confidential reference letters. We are uploading our resumes, transcripts and certificates.

Once accepted as a candidate, we gain access to a database listing the international schools who work with the recruiting companies to hire their teachers and administrators. My husband is looking to be hired as a Physical Education teacher/coach, but my position is not as clear cut. My 21st century learning and literacy specialist/coach job title does not fit neatly into a category that is listed in these databases. I am as much of a Curriculum Coordinator, Information & Media Specialist, Technology Integration Facilitator as I am a Literacy Coach, Learning Manager and Professional Development provider for a school.

Finding the right position that will allow me to grow in my work is our top priority as we embark on this recruiting adventure.

That is when the idea of REVERSE RECRUITING came in.

“Recruiting” is defined as:

The process of identifying and hiring the best-qualified candidate for a job vacancy.

So what is “Reverse Recruiting”?

The process of identifying the best job vacancy for a candidate.

I am on the lookout for the right school for me, where I can contribute my expertise and  continue to grow as a professional.

Which school has already a position like mine? Or what school is ready to move into changing the culture of 21st century learning and teaching at their school by hiring someone like me? Which school needs someone to support, observe, mentor, model, co-teach, coach and plan with their faculty as they upgrade their curriculum content to prepare students for the 21st century?

In comes the experiment of social networking in the recruiting process. Is my network diverse and powerful enough to reach the right international school? Are the members of my social network able to disseminate (via blogs, Twitter, Skype, Facebook or e-mail forwarding to personal connections) this quest around the world.  Has my participation over the last 5 years in social networking built a reputation in my area of expertize that creates value for recruiting in the physical (not virtual) world?

Can my social network help me find the right position at an international school?

If you are teaching or are an administrator at an International School, take a look at the online hub my husband and I have established to get to know us a little bit better. Pass the information along to your administrator in charge of hiring or creating new positions at your school . If interested, they can contact us via the website or take a closer look at our profiles at the recruiting firms.

We are very excited to find out how this social networking experiment will turn out. We wonder if the world of international schools is ready for a new recruiting process and the transparency that it brings or if we will need to go via the traditional route of attending recruiting fairs or a combination of both worlds.

Stay tuned… and yes…. please blog, tweet, forward and talk about our quest.

When I first learned about the term “Third Culture Kids”, I was relieved since I finally could put a name to “the way I have felt most of my life”.
On the US Department of Statesite, you can read the following definition of the term “Third Culture Kids”

Third-culture kids are those who have spent some of their growing up years in a foreign country and experience a sense of not belonging to their passport country when they return to it. In adapting to life in a ‘foreign’ country they have also missed learning ways of their homeland and feel most at home in the ‘third-culture’ which they have created. Little understood by American schools, where they are often considered an oddity, what third culture kids want most is to be accepted as the individuals they are.

I read the book Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds, Revised Edition by Ruth Van Reken and David C. Pollock many years ago and had checked their website TCKWorld out too.
They define a TCK as:

a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside their parents’ culture.” -

In 2009 Kim Cofino asked me to contribute to her keynote presentation a short video clip about growing up as a TCK (Third Culture Kid).

Today I ran across a movie trailer announcing the soon to be released movie of Third Culture Kids. Especially the poem in the introduction of the trailer moved me…

My life is tethered to a rolling stone
My dreams are anchored in the wind
I come from here, I come from there
In truth I come from everywhere
My tongue does not have a mother
My language is an open mind
Before I learned how to walk, I already knew how to fly
Comfort for me is a constant motion
Continent to Continent, Ocean to Ocean

Are you a Third Culture Kid? Do you know of someone in your life who is a TCK?

My grandmother was a gifted gardener. She spent many hours outdoors taking care of her yard, trees, fruits, bushes and flowers.
It has been almost 22 years since she passed away. Her house is located in Germany in a small village called Waldkatzenbach (Creek of the Forest Cats), at the foot of the highest elevation in the Odenwald called the Katzenbuckel (the Hunchback of the Cat).
Her garden continues to grow the seeds she planted. My aunt, who still lives in Germany, just sent us a few pictures of my grandmother’s roses…still… blooming…in the winter…

Although I am not officially participating in Melanie Holtsman’s Blogging Challenge, I liked the title of this post. My friend Chrissy Hellyer’s response on her TeachingSagittarian Blog convinced me to write one of the same title and create a list of “My Life As a Reader”. I really enjoyed compiling the following list (in random, not chronological order). I think it was a wonderful reflective exercise about how important reading has/is to me in my life.

As I was compiling this list, I asked my mother in Argentina to also share with me her life as a reader, as I wanted to look at similarities and differences…maybe due to the generation gap…or maybe because I love collaboration…or global connections (I am in the US, my mother is in Argentina)…or because I am so proud of my mom that she is maneuvering her way online and has figured out how to share a document with me on Google Docs… or because we live in a time where  it is simply possible…

1. The first book, “Mein Esel Benjamin”,  I remember was a book about a little girl in Spain finding a donkey and becoming best friends with it.
   
2. My favorite author as a child was Enid Blyton (Chrissy: You and I would have talked for hours about her books via Skype between Germany and New Zealand…if Skype would have been around back then
3. I owned all the Famous Five, Mallory Towers and the Twins of St. Claire (“Fuenf Freunde”, “Dolly” and “Hanni und Nanni” as they were called in German).
4. I was thrilled, when on a layover at the London airport, I found a bookstore. I bought the English version of Enid Blyton books (not available in the US) for my daughters.
5. I spent every last “Deutsche Mark” of my allowance buying books.
6. I remember hanging out for hours at the one wall book display at a local department store in Heidelberg browsing the books. The concept of coffee shops, armchairs and comfortable seating in books stores did not exist yet.
7. My favorite genre is Historical Fiction.
8. I read fluently in German, Spanish and English.
9. I could read and understand what the story is about in French, Italian and Portuguese.
10. I am not a “library” kind of person. I like to own my books to re-read them.
11. I jumped on board with e-readers as soon as the Kindle came out.
12. I LOVE reading on my iPad.
13. I dragged my book collection from Europe to South America and then to North America with me.
14. When I travel home, my suitcases fill up with books until I reach the airline weight limit.
15. One of the last memories I have with my father is going to the bookstore “Hugendubel” in Frankfurt, Germany to browse for books.
16. I read “Outlander” by Diana Gabaldon during the pregnancy of my third child.
17. The first Barnes and Noble bookstore I ever went into was in Rockford, Illinois.
18. I used to read at least 10 (picture) books a day to my children when they were little.
19. My children always (mostly) received books as presents from me on their birthday.
20. Going to Barnes & Noble was a favorite outing for me with my three little girls.
21. I don’t like reading “bad” translations of books.
22. I prefer reading a book in the original language the author wrote it in.
23. “Jauche und Levkojen” is the book that makes me feel close to and reminds me of my grandmother and her life in East Prussia.
24. I am usually disappointed when watching a movie after I read the book.
25. I was reading “Harry Potter” as I was flying back from my father’s funeral.
26. I maintain a “Books I Read Around the World” Google Map to keep track of the book’s location/setting.
27. I created and maintained a book recommendation site for German speaking parents who raised their children abroad: Sprachhexen (German word for Langwitches)
28. I imported and sold German books in the US via the Sprachhexen site and Ebay.
29. I used to at least spend 1 1/2 hours EVERY night reading (30 minutes) to each one of my daughters.
30. I tried to read as much as possible German books to them.
31. I frequently write about book related issues on my blog.
32. I am experimenting with different “note taking”/ visualization techniques when reading a book.
33. I am reflecting on the process of buying, storing and reading books nowadays.
34. I enjoy being able to “carry” around all my e-books in one place.
35. I LOVE my book shelf from Ikea.
36. I do most of my reading online and in digital form.
37. I do like the smell and feel of a book in my hands, but I KNOW that I will get over it as I am enjoying the advantages of e-books.
38. I love to read in bed.
39. I started reading online in 1991. It was a Mommy-to-be support group on the Prodigy Bulletin Board group of “Babies to be born in January 1992.
40. I started reading blogs in 2005.
41. I started reading Twitter in 2007.
42. My first “Geek” book was “The FrontPage Bible”.
43. “The Diary of Anne Frank” was the book that inspired me, like so many other girls, to start writing a journal at age 11. I also give her credit to prepare me for becoming a blogger decades later.
44. I keep an inventory of the books that I read, have read (since 2008) and plan on reading on Shelfari.
45. I only read a manual as a last resort.
46. I can read (not great) old German type.
47. I was able to read and understand Spanish long before I stared speaking it.
48. The first book I read in Spanish was “El pajaro canta hasta morir” (Thornbirds) by Colleen McCullough. The next one was “En el nombre de la Rosa” (In the Name of the Rose) by Umberto Eco
49. I remember that we read, in my last English course in HighSchool, “The Cather in the Rye” by J.D.Salinger. I learned the English word “phony” with this book.
50. The one and only book I ever read in French was called “La Maison des Hirondelle”.
51. I don’t like to read subtitles in movies.
52. One of my favorite books I read as a teenager was “The Source” (Die Quelle) by James Michener.
53. A book that went down in family history for my daughters was “Once upon a Potty”.
54. I loved reading “Bibi Blocksberg” books to my girls.
55. The only comic books I have enjoyed reading were/are “Asterix & Obelix”.
56. As teenagers, I used to read two magazines “Bravo” and “Maedchen” until I moved to Argentina.
57. I have over 500 RSS feed subscriptions in my Reader.
58. I collect travel guide books of the places I have been to and would like to travel to.
59. I have read books to my little niece (who lives in Brazil) via Skype.
60. My favorite authors in the Spanish language are: Mario Benedetti, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Isabel Allende.
61. Some of my favorite author in the English language are: Noah Gordan and Ursula Hegi.
62. I took many Hispanic literature classes for my undergraduate degree and LOVED reading authors of different Latin American countries and periods in history.

Here are my mother’s notes to “Her Life As a Reader”

Her notes are written in German (my translation follows in parenthesis).

1. Als kleines Kind in Ostpreussen kann ich mich kaum an Buecher erinnern,  die mir vorgelesen wurden.  Vielleicht nur an Geschichten, die mir erzaehlt wurden und Maerchen, wie die der Gebrueder Grimm und Hans Christian Andersen. ( I can barely remember any books that were read to me as a young child in East Prussia. There were only stories told to me, fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson.)
2. Nach dem Krieg und nach der Flucht gab es kaum mehr Buecher.   Als ich anfing zu lesen (in der Volksschule) fielen nur alte abgegriffene Buecher von Freunden und Bekannten in meine Haende,  da erinnere ich mich, dass ich immer wieder “Die Deutschen Heldensagen” gelesen habe.   Es gab lange keine Buecher zu kaufen und man hatte auch dafuer kein Geld. In dieser Zeit fiel dann auch der Klassiker  “Heidi” von Johanna Spyri. ( After our flight, after the war, there were not many books around. When I started reading in Elementary School, I only got my hands on old used books from friends. I remember now that I started reading “German Heroic Sagas”. For a long time we could not buy any books, nor did we have the money. During that time I ended up with the classicer “Heidi” by JOhanna Spyri in my hands.)
3. Dann kam die Epoche der Karl-May-Buecher.   Ich glaube, die habe ich zusammen mit meinem Bruder Norbert fast alle gelesen.   Sie haben mir das vermittelt,  was ich mir immer wuenschte,  Reisen und Abenteuer zu erleben. ( Then came the period of reading the books by Karly May. I believe that together with my brother Norbert, we read all of them. They gave me what I always dreamed of, traveling and adventures).
4. In dieser Zeit kamen wohl auch die ersten “Heftchen” heraus:  Kurzgeschichten,  Mickey Mouse von Walt Disney.  Die waren billig und schnell gelesen. (In the same time, the first magazines came out. Short stories, Micky Mouse from Walt Disney. They were cheap and a fast read.)
5. Waerend meiner Schulzeit (Gymnasium)  habe ich mich auf die Schulbuecher konzentriert (ganz besonders Geschichte).   Geographie war auch mein Lieblingsfach und ich habe viele Reiseberichte gelesen,  eines davon war von Sven Hedin, dem Schwedischen Entdecker.  In der Schule habe ich dann auch mit den Klassikern: Goethe, Schiller, Lessing etc. Bekanntschaft gemacht (nicht mit besonderem Interesse in der damaligen Zeit).  Wir mussten immer Gedichte auswendig lernen! (I concentrated on textbooks during my High School years (especially History)/ Geography was also one of my favorite subjects and I read a lot of travelogues. One of them being from Sven Hedi, a Swedish explorer. In schools I read most of the classics: Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, etc., with little interest at that time. We always had to read and learn poems!)
   
6. Mein erstes Buch,  dass mir meine Freundin Karin Eckstein zu meinem 18. Geburtstag geschenkt hat,  hiess:   “Ein Baum waechst in Brooklyn”. (My first book, that my friend Karin Eckstein gave to me on my 18th birthday, was ” A Tree grows in Brooklyn”.)
   
7. Dann haben wir Teenager auch die neuesten “Liebesromane” (Schundliteratur, wie die Erwachsenen es nannten) ausgetauscht.  Ich erinnere mich nicht an einen einzigen Titel! (As Teenagers we exchanged the newest “Love Novels”(Trashy literature, as the adults called them). I can’t remember one title.)
   
8. Waehrend meiner Zeit in England (1959/1960) habe ich kein deutsches Buch gelesen.  Mein erstes Buch in englischer Sprache war: ” Pride and Prejudice “. (During my time in England (1959/1960), I did not read one book in German. My first book in the English language was “Pride and Prejudice”.)
   
9. Weitere deutsche Buecher:  Romane von Johannes Mario Simmel.  Waren die Bestseller in den 70er Jahren.  “Hurra, wir leben noch”  war wohl das Bekannteste. (More German books: Novels by Johnannes Mario Simmel were the bestsellers of the 70s. “Hurrah, we are still alive” is one of the more famous ones.)
10. Romane von Hans Habe:  “Off Limits” und “Wie einst David”  sind zwei, an die ich mich erinnern kann. Diese Romane hatten alle mit der Nachkriegszeit zu tun, die ich ja indirekt auch miterlebt habe. (Two novels, I can still remember by Hans Habe are “Off Limits” and “As once David”. All of these books had to do with the post war times, which I indirectly lived through as well.)
11. Dann kamen historische Rome hinzu, die mit der Vertreibung und Erinnerungen an die verlorengegangene Heimat zu tun hatten:  ” Die Muecke im Bernstein”  und “Jauche und Levkojen” (Then came the historic novels that had to do with the banishment and memories of a lost homeland: “The Mosquito in Amber” and “Jauch and Levkojen”.)
12. Dann gab es eine Zeit, in der ich nur “Krimis” gelesen habe.   Es waren so viele, dass ich auch da mich nicht an die Titel erinnere. (Then there was the time when I only read thrillers. There were so many, that I don’t recall one title.)
13. Die Zeit in der meine beiden Kinder klein waren,  habe ich nicht allzuviele Buecher gelesen.   Es waren wohl nur Informationsbuecher ueber Schwangerschaft/Baby und moderner Erziehung.
    (I did not read many books during the time when both my children were little. There were mostly informational books about pregnancy, babies and modern child rearing.)
14. Nach der Uebersiedlung in meine neue Heimat (Argentinien) haben mich alle meine deutschen Buecher begleitet.   Sie standen in all unseren Wohnungen und Haeusern auf Regalen fuer alle zur Verfuegung.
    (All my German books accompanied me after I moved to my new country (Argentina). They were available in all of our apartments and houses on shelves, available for everyone.)
15. Jetzt gesellten sich natuerlich auch die spanischen Buecher dazu.   Es dauerte eine ganze Weile, ehe ich sie verstehen und lesen konnte.
    (Then books in Spanish were added. It took a while until I could understand and read them.)
16. Das Buch von Garcia Marquez: “Hundert Jahre Einsamkeit”   habe ich in einer Nacht/und dem darauffolgenden Tag verschlungen.
    (I read the book”One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez” in one night and the following day.)
17. Ich muss gestehen,  dass ich mich (heute bin ich 70 Jahre) nicht mehr an alle gelesenen Buecher erinnere.   Wenn ich sie sehe, oder ihren Titel hoere,  dann faellt es mir wieder sofort ein.   War es ein fuer mich ein spannendes und interessantes Buch,  erinnere ich mich auch an die Handlung.   War es dies nicht, ist mein Gedaechtnis blank!
    (I have to admit that today (at 70 years old), I can’t remember all of the books that I read. I remember only when I see or hear of a title. If it was an enthralling and interesting book, I can also remember the plot. My memory is blank if it was not. )
18. Es kommt auch sehr selten vor, dass ich ein Buch 2 oder 3 mal lese.   Dies passiert nur,  wenn ich das gleiche Buch in einer anderen Sprache lesen moechte.
    (I seldom read a book two or three times. It only happens if I want to read the same book but in a different language.)
19. Bei jedem Besuch bei meiner Tochter Silvia in USA stoebere ich mit viel Lust und Interesse in ihrer Bibliotek, um  ihre “Lieblinge” zu lesen.   Ich erinnere mich an die Zeit, in der ich alle Baende von Diana Gabeldon verschlungen habe.  Da sie auch in USA immer Zugang hatte, deutsche Buecher zu bestellen,  haben wir uns beide richtig satt gelesen.
    (I poke with much interest around the library of my daughter Silvia when I visit her in the USA. I remember the time when we devoured the books in the Diana Gabaldon series.)
20. Das Schoenste ist, abend vor dem Schlafen im Bett ein gutes Buch in der Hand zu haben. Auch heute ist es noch eine liebe Angewohnheit vor dem Schlafen zu lesen und ich tue es jeden Abend.
    (The best thing is to hold a good book in your hand before going to bed at night. I have the same custom still today.)
21. Waehrend des Tages,  lese und informiere ich mich mit meinem Laptop, den ich seit 3 Jahren besitze.   Es ist fazinierend, mich in meinen drei Sprachen zu orientieren,  wie ich es gerade brauche.
    (During the day, I read and inform myself on my laptop that I have owned for the past three years. It is fascinating for me to orientate myself in three langauges, depending on my needs.)
22. Trotzdem gehe ich jeden Samstag zum Zeitungstand, um mir mein “Argentinisches Tageblatt” zu besorgen.
    (I nevertheless walk every Saturday to a newspaper stand to buy the “Argentinean Newspaper” in the German language.)

Through technology, I have been able to connect with more and more people who have or make their home in different parts of the world.

Being passionate about teaching global awareness to my students, comes partly from the fact that I grew up with different perspectives of what is “home”. I have the heritage on my shoulders of  parents, grandparents and great-grandparents being displaced against their will from their “homes” and making new lives in a different land. Nowadays my family is choosing to live in different countries than our birth country.

I ran across the following post on Travel Bliss “Where is your home” Erica Johansson starts out by writing:

A home can have several meanings, depending on who you ask.

She includes several quotes about what home means to others. The last one is a dialogue from the movie “Pulp Fiction”, which she interprets

… about walking the earth, he secretly wishes he will eventually find a place to call home – his real home, where he is meant to live. Or, he is merely content with traveling from place to place and might come to see the journey as his home.

My grandmother, Ruth Herzog, wrote down her thoughts almost 30 years ago about where and what home means to her and the difference to “Home” and “Heimat”. She was an amazing writer. Some of her eloquence does get lost in translation from German to English. I do hope it does her justice though.

In the German language there are two words “Zuhause” and “Heimat”, both translated into English with the word “home”. They are nevertheless two distinct terms. I will use the word home and the German word “Heimat” to make that distinction.

Observation about Family, Home and Heimat by Ruth Herzog (1980)

Today everything is different than before. Some things are better, some things are worse. This can be debated. Also the word “home” is different than before ! Home means for me, still today, family and “Heimat”. Home still today includes the old fashioned word Heimat .

Old fashioned, because many cannot imagine or associate anything with it. You don’t need the notion of a “Heimat” many think here and there. The home and the “Heimat” is there wherever your family lives. That is enough. With that, one does not understand the real meaning of the word “Heimat”. The core of the word, mind you.

In the past, the “Heimat” was the localized bases of the family seat, a foundation with many corresponding details.
There was for example a particular ancient Linden tree, the with unevenly constructed stones horse stable, the tick alder bushes along the shore of the lake, the skinny birches at the pond, the shady path under the Hazelnut trees, an old with berries overgrown ruins, lime-tree blossoms, the rush of the water from the Watergate, the noises from the sleds in the winter and many more things!
Particular, unmistakable characteristics, noises, smells, views and feelings. Everything was bound to the land, the surroundings of the house of the family. There, we children grew up as trees, rooted to these unique surroundings. Later, as we were scattered across far away countries and cities, the word “Heimat” stayed in our souls, utterly relentless and never to be extinguished.

When I think of the word “home”, I think first of “Heimat”. The “Heimat” was my home. It included the family. The “Heimat” is so strong that it always will pull me back, no matter where I am.

Why do still so many people return to the “Heimat”? What is it that even with the current neglect of the polish administered East areas, we still feel pulled back? Why can the Polish, with the smallest amount of touristy offerings, still make big business?

Maybe the”Heimat” is still in our souls? Maybe the feeling of “Heimat” is so deeply rooted in us, that we cannot dissolve it for as long as we live? Maybe it is because of that our little family could not find a real foundation anymore. It seems that the little rented apartment at the edge of town cannot be that foundation for us and cannot replace the”Heimat”. Otherwise we could not move from one apartment into the next or move to other cities so easily.

The little family of today has to be very strong in order to do without and greater foundation and the peculiarities of a “Heimat”. Its bond has to be extra durable to give each member ground. The “Heimat” from before has to lie in each of us now. It is our only chance that our little family has.

My grandfather, Siegfried Rosenthal, never spoke to me about his experiences the night of November 9th, 1938, Kristallnacht. The night that the SS came to his door and arrested him in front of his seven year old son and pregnant wife for simply being a Jew and taken to a Concentration camp. He did write his thoughts down at one point. I am glad he did, otherwise his story, his voice would have been lost to me, my daughters and their future children.

That brings up the question of each of our own responsibility of telling our stories, so they will not forget. My grandfather wrote his story on a typewriter. That piece of paper was passed down to my father and then to me. How long, how many generations will it take before that paper gets lost ,destroyed or vanishes forever?I

I offered to give a presentation to students, when each of my children were in 6th grade, which is traditionally (here in the US) the time that they get an introduction to the Holocaust in Social Studies. I created a PowerPoint, the tool I had available at that time.

As I continue to think about the importance of storytelling, media literacy and teaching students with “their” media in order to reach theme, to make a connection.  I feel it is time to re-tell my grandfather and our family’s story. Trying to make the words jump off that paper, that my grandfather wrote so many years ago. I am sad, that the technology was not as readily available before 1993, when he passed away. Today I could have filmed and recorded him easily across the distance between Germany and the US.

Today is 9-11, yes, the 9th of November, as the date is written in German (first the day, then the month).

Today, 70 years ago, is remembered as the Kristallnacht, or the night of the broken glass. It is the day  the Nazis orchestrated open attacks on Jewish individuals, property, and businesses. It was the night they destroyed synagogues and started burning books of Jewish authors. The night Hitler showed the world what he was planning to do with Jews and the night Germany demonstrated their reaction about standing up or defending their fellow citizens and neighbors of Jewish faith. The reaction was to let it happen…

It was also the night that thousands of Jews were arrested and taken to concentration camps. My grandfather Siegfried Rosenthal was one of them.

We can never forget… the story has to be told… My grandfather never spoke to us about what he experienced…but he did take the time to write it down… I translated it into English so my children (who speak German) and their future families (who will most likely not speak German anymore) will never forget…

I’d like to answer your question about my past and about my life.
When 1933 the hunt against us German Jews started, which sounded absurd and unthinkable for us, since 12000 Jews died on the field of honor during the War from 1914-1918.
The thought, that someone could lead an annihilation  process against us Jews would have never occurred to me. A cousin of mine, who served in the marines from 1912-1918 and was decorated with the Iron Cross I and II, told me during that time: „..But we are Germans, fought for Germany and were honored and decorated officers. They would never do anything to us.
That’s what all Jews believed, since we believed ourselves good Germans.
I overheard a conversation between a husband and a  wife, friends of mine, who were from Poland, but have been settled in Germany for many years. The wife told her husband, that he was mistaken, that never anything what happened to the Jews in Russia would happen here, since the Germans were civilized people and would never allow such an atrocity.“

She was wrong, it got much worse than Russia.

I was in Germany during 1933 – June 1939.
I must mention that my father, who was an old men, was living with me when I tried to emigrate. He did not want to leave , since in his words „ you don´t transplant an old tree“.

I experienced bitter times during that period in Germany.
People who knew me were not allowed to greet me when they saw me, since it was forbidden to greet someone Jewish. We were outlawed.

As the older generation knows well,  „Der Stürmer“, distributed sickening, humiliating and untruthful things about us. I ripped this paper in front of a Nazis  and threw it in his face, when he showed it to me during 1935. I can thank my father that nothing happened to me. He was well known and respected in the German-National circles, since he was a co-founder of the German Red Cross in Wattenscheid and had received numerous high decoration during the First World War.

On November 9th, the so called Kristallnacht, a police officer , who came to our front door, asked me politely to come with him to the police station in regards to an investigation. When I arrived there, I saw that already several other people had been arrested. They had to stand with their faces against the wall. I was yelled at and had to face the wall too.

Later we were herded under floods of insults, into a huge truck and taken to a prison in Herne.
From there we were loaded into a train. We did not know where to.
I must admit that the police, who guarded us, behaved very correctly towards us.
The train stopped at night in the middle of nowhere. . They opened the doors of the train and the SS hit us with the back of their riffles out of the wagons. Weather young or old, we were herded across the fields to the concentration camp Oranienburg. An old teacher of mine, way over 60 years old, fell and I took him on my shoulders and carried him to the KZ. When I took him off my shoulders an SS officer hit me in my neck, because I had helped him. There we stood , around 800 “prisoners” for 12 hours against a wire fence. No one was allowed to move until we were taken to the barracks.

I don’t want to talk about the details of the camp and the life there. My father died while I was in the camp. A short while later I was released. I received a letter from the camp officials that I had to leave Germany within 3 weeks. I had to sell my properties for pennies. I tried to receive Asylum for my family and me in Bolivia, where in the end emigrated too. We stayed there until 1946, when we went to Buenos Aires, Argentina. I followed my sons back to Germany in 1970 and live since then in Walldorf.

You ask me if I still feel German? I want to answer this question honestly. Us, German Jews, were better and more enthusiastic Jews, than many others, who called themselves German.
Prrof is that 12000 Jews died for Germany during WWI. Many highly decorated officers of the first World War were transported to Poland and shot or gassed.

Can I still feel as German as I used to?
I DO have the German citizenship…….

It is in my blood… I have moved over 20 times in my life. After about 2 years coming in the same door, driving along the same street, parking in the same drive way, going to the same grocery store… I feel it is time to literally move on!

It is odd going back to the place you called home at one point in your life. Memories of building the house, planting trees and shrubs, bringing babies home for the first time, saying goodbye for the last time to loved ones, waiting for the school bus as your Kindergartener comes home on the first day of school, seeing your kids play in the snow, waiting our a hurricane….

Some houses we return to see on a regular basis, since they are in the same area we currently still live in, others not so often, since they are a few hours away and are only visited when going to see the grandmother. Some of the houses we saw for the last time, when we closed the door and drove away with the moving van.

Google Maps, now offers a “Street View“, that allows you to virtually move down any given street and have a 360 degree look around. Type in the address in Search, then click on Street View.

Here is my Trip down Memory Lane of the last 20 years living in the USA of houses.

I am very excited!

My article "Unterwegs mit Teddybaer und Technik /On the Road with Teddy Bear and Technology" was published this week in Germany’s Social Studies Magazine "Weltwissen ". The entire edition is dedicated to Egypt Studies.