43
Foreign exhange program enriches Springfield High
NEW MIDDLETOWN
A few months ago, Constantin Dibbern didn’t even know where Ohio was.
Now he lives and goes to school here.
He, along with Giovanni Giacobbi, are exchange students through the World Heritage Program, an international organization that places high-school students in countries where they want to study.
Constantin is from Hamburg, a city in northern Germany, and Giovanni is from Udine, a city in northeastern Italy.
They live with the same host parent and attend Springfield High School, where Constantin is in 10th grade and Giovanni is in 11th.
“I wanted to have an experience to understand how teenagers live here, and study here,” Giovanni said. “And it’s very important for us to learn good English.”
“And because of basketball,” he added with a laugh.
Since they moved here at the beginning of the school year, they’ve had to adjust to several aspects of life in the United States that are different from life at home.
For one thing, school is much different, they both said.
“It’s like another world,” Giovanni said.
“We don’t change classes in Germany and Italy. The teachers change,” Constantin explained.
The biggest adjustment, though? The food.
“For me, it’s the dinner in the evening,” Constantin said. In Germany, people eat a snack rather than a large meal for dinner, he explained.
“We’ve increased our weight,” Giovanni said, laughing.
Both, though, said they love their experience at Springfield High School, and in America.
“It was easy,” Giovanni said of making friends. “Everyone came to us.”
Both said they enjoyed playing basketball before the season officially started, and went to most of the football games.
And, “We saw the Indians playing, and the Cavs,” Constantin said.
“I know all the stats,” Giovanni said. “And of course, the best player in the world, Lebron — we know about him.”
Before they leave at the end of January, they look forward to a possible trip to Florida with their host dad, Howard Mounts.
One 10th-grade student at Springfield, Tricia Bair, who knows Constantin and Giovanni, said getting to know them has changed her perspective on the world.
“I think it’s really cool being able to hear about their experiences here, and compare it to here,” she said. “I think it inspires other students to go travel and be exchange students.”
High School Principal Anthony DeFelice said that is one of the best aspects of the exchange program, which he said Springfield has done for many years.
“It’s a good experience for some of our students ... to interact with students from around the globe and get a better grasp of how their society functions,” he said.
And, “I think they have better impressions of Americans, so when they go back they can express those positive sentiments,” DeFelice said.
“I think it opens up a whole new world,” Tricia said. “In history they talk about different cultures, but you have to actually see it.”