Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?

Back to school. Back to school, to prove to Dad that I'm not a fool. I got my lunch packed up, my boots tied tight, I hope I don't get in a fight. Oh! Back to school... back to school... back to school. Well, here goes nothing.

I always wondered what my first day of school would be like. Don't mistake what I'm saying, of course I've attended school before, but this was something wholly different. There's always been some sort of familiarity in schooling, I was pretty socialized on the way the American school system works and really nothing has caught me by surprise so far in my studies in the US of A.

Side note: It'd be very interesting to see if I hold this same opinion once I attend law school. Who knows? Maybe I'll blog about my adventures as a 1L. What do you guys think? 

You'd suppose that I'd be used to school, and in many aspects I am, but there are so many things about my first day of Sprachschule (language school) that have thrown me for a loop. As part of the CBYX/PPP (Parlementarisches Patentschafts Programm)  us Americans start at the Carl Duisburg Center for language school. The schools are located in Cologne, Saarbruecken and Radolfzell (as are us PPPlers), and all follow a uniform teaching/learning methodology. I suppose I can start with the logistics of the matter: the language school is divided into different sections, depending on how well we performed on written and oral practice. They are as follows:

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A1: Basic understanding of the German language (hi my name is...) 
A2: Can engage in very direct conversational exchanges (let's go to the mall...) 

B1: Intermediate understanding of German language (I want to be a lawyer...where is the mall from here...) 
B2: Can engage in conversation within native speaker without strain, can understand interesting complex textual topics can explain an number of topical issues (I think that...I feel as if...) 

C1: Advanced understanding of German language, does not need strain to engage in conversation with native speakers (I think that, because of that, and in spite of that...) 
C2: Can understand almost everything in a nuanced manner, prepared to attend university. 

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So after speaking with some of the teachers at the and taking an online exam, I was placed in the B2 group. I'm excited about my placement, if not only because my teacher rocks and because I'm in a class with familiar, bright faces, as well as some new ones, that will motivate me to improve my German every day. Yet, the competitor in me wonders if I would have been placed in a higher class had I not taken such a massive break from German during my undergraduate studies. Oh well, no use crying over spilled milk is there? 

Back to my teacher. I think I've always had really great luck with German teachers. I will, without hesitation credit certain teachers for my infatuation with Germany even if it seems incongruent with my professional ambitions. Anyone who went to Chapel Hill High School and took German knows exactly who I'm talking about. But if the first day of school is any indication, my new German teacher is going to make learning an entirely new experience. Minus a little potshot she took at Bavaria (my undisputedly favorite part of Germany so far) I'm thoroughly interested in what she's got to offer in my German development. The whole time she spoke, it was in German, and it did something to my confidence to understand every word she spoke. Granted, understanding has never been my biggest challenge, I want to speak like a German, and sometimes I do and it's refreshing but often I know there's a BETTER way to say something in German. 

You know what's really frustrating? And something I have noticed time and time again. Something that grates my gears, yet I have to deal with it every single day in Germany? I'm not sure I'm a better speaker of German than those just learning to speak. I often observe young kids spewing out German sentences left and right and a little part of my soul dies. 

It's as if every one of my personal Horcruxes is placed inside each one of those little twelve or thirteen year olds and every time they spit off a sentence I don't understand...

BANG! There it goes. 

I honestly don't know how much of this I can take where else can I store my German soul but in its hopeful youth? What am I supposed to do when I can't feel more competent than a child? Study more? Speak more? Sure, that'll help, but will it make me forget my mediocre German speaking or the uphill battle? Probably not, but as of now the scoreline reads something like 

German Kids: 100  Clifford: 0. 

This is getting depressing, I'm going to go study.