Inside King's-Edgehill School
One of the aspects of King’s-Edgehill School that makes our school environment so unique and the school experience so rich are the many cultures and languages that are being brought to us from our international students. The value of our cultural environment becomes especially apparent during this time of a worldwide pandemic.
Recently, those students in Grade 12 who are taking IB German as a second language (German ab initio) and those students who are from Germany not only had the opportunity to join in a class together but to actually have a full immersion field trip.
With 12 students, our alumnae Ella Brown (2013-20), and four staff members in tow, we made our trip to the beautiful South Shore town of Lunenburg on November 6. Lunenburg is an ideal language and cultural field trip destination due to its German history and heritage. The town is very quiet during this time of the year (and during the time of COVID-19). However, our students brought life into its streets. In small groups we embarked on a Schnitzeljagd – the German word for scavenger hunt which literally translates into “Pork Chop Hunt” or the “Hunt for the Pork Chop”. This Schnitzeljagd brought them all over town, exploring some of its history and architecture, and most of all practising German (and English) as the groups were made of a native speaker of German paired with a German language learner. All answers, however, had to be produced in German.
We tried to take the translation of the word Schnitzeljagd literally: at the end there was indeed a pork chop (Schnitzel); except we did not have to hunt it ourselves. Lunch brought us to the “Old Black Forest Restaurant” in Lunenburg. The owners opened the restaurant earlier just for our group and gave us many lunch choices besides the beloved Schnitzel. Among the choices were some traditional specialties like Wurst (German sausages), Käsespätzle (Swabian Cheese Noodles), and Maultaschen (pasta squares filled with meat or vegetables). Reading and learning about the history of Lunenburg and trivia accompanied our eating experience which culminated in Schwarzwälderkirschtorte (Black Forest Cake) or ice cream as dessert.
We had a wonderful day that was not only filled with knowledge and food but also with beautiful sunshine and warm temperatures in this unusually warm November. We want to thank our students for their enthusiasm which made this field trip memorable and fun, and we also want to thank the staff of the “Old Black Forest Restaurant” for accommodating us so easily! Danke! Es war sehr lecker!
