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Center for Technology, Essex
3 Educational Drive, Essex Junction, VT 05452 | (802) 879-5558

Foreign Exchange

GERMAN TEACHER/STUDENT EXCHANGE PROGRAM

Unfortunately, due to world events the Foreign Exchange Program has been put on hold.

The Center for Technology, Essex had been involved in a teacher exchange program with three technical high schools in Erfurt, Germany since 1996. Several years ago we added a student exchange component to the program.

In October each year a group of teachers and students from Erfurt came to Vermont and spent time with host families from our center and two other technical centers. While here they also spent time visiting various places of interest in our area in addition to visiting our different centers.

The following Spring a group of our students and teachers traveled to Erfurt and spent approximately 14-16 days visiting the schools and various places of interest around Germany. The students who traveled to Germany hosted a German student the prior October.

The German students usually ranged in age from 16 to 19 and were from a variety of technical programs in their school in Erfurt. The German students were accompanied by a teacher from their school and that teacher also stayed with a family associated with one of the three participating technical centers.

Each of the students stayed with one of our technical center students and their family while they were in Vermont. In this way, our German guests had the opportunity to get to know an American counterpart, see how we live in this country and learn, first-hand, something about our culture. CTE students had the same opportunity when they traveled to Erfurt, Germany.

Erfurt, Germany is located in Thuringia, an eastern section of Germany and was, until 1989, in East Germany behind the Iron Curtain. Even though the wall has been down for several years the effects of the division are still felt and to a certain extent seen. Erfurt itself is a beautiful medieval city, once the crossroads of central Europe. The educational system, while similar in some ways, is quite different from ours.

While our students were in Germany they had the opportunity to visit and tour the City of Erfurt, the City of Weimar, Buchenwald, the Wartburg, Eisenach and learn about some famous Germans, such as J.S. Bach, Goethe, Schiller, and Martin Luther.