Mark Your Calendar for
March 9, 2012
at Saint John’s University
Dear Minnesota High School German Teachers!
Minnesota DeutschFest is just ahead -- March 9, 2012. In
2010 three hundred Minnesota high school students and their teachers
arrived at Saint John's for a morning of upbeat competitions and an
early afternoon awards ceremony in the abbey church to honor Minnesota
high school teachers and students. We have set a goal to double the
attendance this year!
Please mark your calendars and talk with your colleagues about bus
transportation. The trophies and ribbons are wonderful, and will be a
great addition to your school's trophy case!
We hope you'll be able to make it. Encourage your colleagues to in
German to attend as well!Activities start about 9 AM and finish about 1
PM on March 9.
Liebe Grüsse,
Mark Thamert and the DeutschFest Team
Questions welcome!
email mthamert@csbsju.edu
phone 320-363-3520 mornings
Note: The idea of a state-wide German competition for high school
students was brought to Minnesota by Karl Fink of Saint Olaf College,
Northfield, Minnesota. We are grateful to Professor Fink for
setting up the various categories and for leading the first Minnesota
Deutsches Fest at Saint Olaf in the early 1980's.
Collegeville MN as a destination!
Turn at exit 156
Please PRINT THIS OUT: CATEGORIES AND JUDGING CRITERIA
Happy Planning and see you in about on March 9, 2012!
Here is a note from John Elwell of Saint Paul:
Hi, Mark and all interested German teachers,
At St. Paul Central we enjoyed the 2010 Deutschfest a great deal.
Memorizing poems or songs, preparing skits, making videos, drawing or
sculpting, ...there was something for everybody in the program. We
had about 30-35 contestants and would have had more if the event had not
been scheduled on the same day as the AP Human Geography test. The trip
to St. John's takes only about an hour from our school, and the campus
was beautiful in May. Of course, the award ceremony was
great fun because Mark Thamert was brilliant and funny, and also lots of
Central students won prizes. But we would have enjoyed the day
even without them. The students enjoyed preparing something for a
competition, even if they didn't know their competitors. The event
organizers care about German education in Minnesota and have been
promoting it for years.
As far as tips for the spring, please know that Central would be happy
to share the costs of a bus to SJU with another school in the metro
area, especially with schools in the western suburbs, but basically with
anyone who could coordinate pickup and drop off with us...we're at
Interstate 94 and Lexington Parkway in St. Paul. Our school starts at
7:30 AM, as we do not pay attention to research that shows that high
school students do not function well in the early AM.
(geschweige
denn Lehrer...)
Just for fun, I'm attaching a video I made at Deutschfest 2010 of one of
our entries, a live commercial for Haribo Gummi Bärchen. I think
it shows how much fun the project can be. Sorry about the quality
of the video, but you can get the idea, and the German and the
dancing are delightful. The boys probably spent more time preparing
and practicing for that performance than they did studying for tests.
Well, maybe not, but...
Die nächste Folge von Deutschfest! Ihr dürft es nicht verpassen!
John Elwell
St. Paul Central German
