Baseball for Beginners

This post was originally written June 22, 2013, edited March 09, 2021.

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” ― Benjamin Franklin

Back in November 2012 I signed up to attend the Goethe Institute in my German Advisor’s office. I was under the impression that I would be going to Germany to learn German with a bunch of American students from all over the country. This idea of meeting people from all over the U.S. was exciting to me. Yes, I have met a lot of Americans from all corners of the country…but I was in for a whole lot more.

My first day of class at the Institute in Dresden, Germany, I looked around and saw my age group was a minority, my nationality was a minority, my purpose for being at the institute though, was one and the same. My class only had 4 University students out of 10.

The oldest student in the class was 67 years old. She is a grandmother. She was born in Germany, but at a young age her family moved to the United States. One afternoon I sat down with her and asked her why she was at the Institute. She said she wanted to know the language of her childhood. At 67 she was still willing to learn a language, a culture, and more on herself.

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Germany got a heat wave last week. As I said in my last blog post, a group of us headed to the pool to cool off. The next afternoon a group of us had a picnic in the Groß Garten under a tree. We decided to throw a ball around and it turned into a mini “baseball” game. There were 3 Americans, a Ukrainian, and a Bulgarian.

Georgi, the Bulgarian, was all about learning baseball. After a little while, Joanna joined in as well. It was so exciting watching Georgi run around the bases with the “bat” in his hands, run from the mound to home plate (like in cricket) to get the 'out' rather than tagging Ben at first base. He didn’t know what he was doing, but he was learning. Not only was Georgi a good student, but the guys were great teachers, both patient and willing to learn, laugh, and live.

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In the evenings, my friend Carlos from Spain, teaches me a new word in Spanish. Even though at moments there are things lost in translation, we ask for clarity. We learn by experiencing and asking questions. The other day I said I want to see a “sunrise” while I visit Spain. In Spanish, “sonrisa” means smile. After smiles, confusion, and ultimately laughter, we finally realized we were not talking about the same thing!

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I have realized part of learning is to ask questions when you don’t understand, not just to write a note and google the answer later on my own. As an english speaker, I have to be open to others' questions on how to say something, what something means, or "is there a word for that?" Other peoples' willingness to learn my language (which they already do very well) has opened me to learn their languages. I now know how to say hello in German, Spanish, Czech, Bulgarian, Ukrainian. I don’t say it well, nor could I venture to spell all of them, but it is fun, exciting, and new!

I have spent a lot of time with these people, sitting out “on the stoop” learning, teaching, experiencing. The world is the ultimate classroom, we just have to be open to it.

We are never too old, too foreign, too confused, and never incapable of new learning experiences. “Live, Laugh, Learn.“