How would you feel about leaving your friends and family to spend a year of high school in another country? Excited? Nervous? Downright scared?
Ten international students have spent the last year in the Battlefords attending John Paul II Collegiate, and they have certainly experienced a full range of emotions. Liz Fohrenkamm, a 17-year-old Grade 11 student from Lubeck, a German city near the Baltic Sea, said she was excited to come to Canada but sad to leave home. "Once I got on the plane, though, I was fine."
Sixteen-year-old Helena Beikes from Aarhus, Denmark, was "totally ready" to spend a year away from home. "I wasn't sad, only excited. Everyone else was going to the next grade, but that was too mainstream for me."
Through programs like Shecana International and Global Partners, students wanting a Canadian experience came to the Battlefords from Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Japan for the 2012-13 school year. The three Japanese students had limited English skills, and attended a four- to six-week English immersion course in Prince Albert before coming to the Battlefords for the year. The seven European students, however, spoke English fairly well, having studied it in their home countries since elementary school.
Liz applied for the program "because I wanted to learn the language better and live somewhere without my parents." She chose Canada because she saw pictures of how beautiful it is, and because she wanted "to live somewhere where I could snowboard more than once a year." Liz did snowboard at Table Mountain more than a few winter weekends, but doesn't think her skills improved much.
Helena wanted to do something different than everyone else in her grade back home, and to experience a real winter. "Winter was awesome. It was nice to be where there was a lot of stuff to do so you can enjoy it." The students went ice fishing as a group, some snowmobiled, and Helena also snowboarded at Table Mountain. "Snowboarding was so fun. I was so scared at first but it was hilarious." Like Liz, Helena wanted to come to Canada to improve her English, hoping it will help with her goal of becoming a journalist.
While students may have many reasons for wanting to experience life in another country, why might a Canadian family want to host a student for a year? Unlike other exchange programs such as Rotary, students with Shecana and Global Partners usually stay with the same family for the whole year.
The host mom of the family Liz stayed with for the last part of her year was an exchange student herself in Grade 11. "I had a great time on my exchange. I saw a lot of Germany, and my host family also took me to Austria and Switzerland. Some of my best memories are from that exchange, and I wanted to reciprocate. The more that people from other cultures learn about each other, the more we can accept different beliefs and ways of life."
Another family had hosted hockey players in the past, and thought that hosting an international student would be a good experience for their two young children and would also be a way to give back to the community.
Certainly, living in a new environment with people you don't know at first "can be sometimes trying for students and families for various reasons," says Dave McQuaid, area representative for Shecana and Global Partners, and a teacher at JPII. "But I think students see their time here as positive overall. The students have been great for [JPII]. They've brought a culture climate into it and an excitement."
All of the students had to attend school for their year in Canada. For some, like Liz, their class work at JPII doesn't count back home, so they will have to repeat their grade. Shiori, a Japanese student, is taking classes at JPII and working on her classes for her school in Japan by correspondence. And despite the language, three exchange students made the honour roll. After the JPII awards ceremonies, Liz and Helena noted that they don't have such ceremonies at their home schools. There are also fewer school sports teams, and no PA systems.
Clothing is another big difference between Europe and Canada. "Nobody wears sweats to school in Germany," said Liz. "I think it's also because we don't just get on the school bus, go to school and come home. We travel on the city bus, sometimes waiting one or two hours, so you are out in public. You are downtown."
As far as making friends goes, the international students certainly hung out with each other, but they also made some Canadian friends. For 18-year-old Noor Everts of the Netherlands, the friends she has made here have been the best part of her experience.
McQuaid feels that having 10 international students in one school may have hindered the students from branching out more because the students tended to group (or be grouped) together. The Battlefords were slated to have only a few students, but other school districts have begun to charge up to $11,000 tuition per international student, and so more students were placed here.
Many of the students visited Banff or Jasper while they were in Canada, either with an organized group, or with their host families. Helena says the Banff trip was a highlight of her time here. "It was so beautiful there. Me and Lisa [another exchange student there at the same time] were texting back and forth on the way home about how sad we were to leave."
Some students even travelled with their own parents. Liz's father is visiting for the last week of June, and they went to Jasper together. The programs generally discourage visits from home, at least until closer to the end of the year, because they feel the students will become homesick. Noor says after about three months in North Battleford, she became very homesick. Although things improved after the new year, when her parents came to visit in May, she realized how nice it was to see them.
The technology available today can mitigate - or intensify - a student's homesickness. Noor commented that when she would Skype her parents at the beginning, it made her miss them more. But for Helena, texting her mom helped her feel better. Liz Skyped for an hour or two at a time with her parents, but still, it's not the same as seeing them in person.
As their year in Canada comes to a close, the students are looking forwards and backwards. Many attended JPII's graduation ceremonies, which naturally brought talk of the future. Liz says she feels sad to leave, but is excited to see her family - and is looking forward to a trip to Morocco the week after she gets home. Noor is excited to see her two older brothers, and will be travelling with a friend through France. All students have greatly improved their English. Helena says she knows she's become almost fluent because "when I think of my friends in Denmark, I think of them talking in English!"
