A Friend From Germany

Antonia John has made the social adjustment from Germany to small town USA rather easily.

She has lots of friends and throughly enjoys being the basketball manager at Kimball High School. Her foreign exchange father, Albert Hargreaves, said, "You have made so many friends in just the five months that you have been here."

Antonia lives with Amanda, Albert and Charlotte Hargreaves. Charlotte, a freshman, went from being an only child to having an older sister.

"It has been a big change for me, but it will be for the better," Charlotte said.

Antonia began taking English as a third grader and that led her to Kimball.

"I just wanted to mainly get better at English and have new experiences and gain some confidence," she said. "I had my set of friends and didn't like to make new friends."

But she has stepped out of that role now and has many friends.

Amanda and Albert's parental philosophy is "be firm, but fair." The Hargreaves have discovered that it is difficult to make someone's daughter comply with the same rules because Antonia was allowed to go to the big city on the weekends.

"My parents even let me go to Berlin with my friends," she said. "My parents trust me. They just let me make my own choices and decisions and trust that I am being smart with what I am doing and that I am not doing stupid stuff."

Antonia described the differences between school in Germany and Kimball. She is convinced that school is harder in Germany, but their school day is shorter, only from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. No lunch, no intervention, no study hall, no extra curricular activities – and there is not one single day when a teacher says, "I don't have anything for you to do today."

According to Antonia, it is easier to get good grades here as opposed to Germany. To get a good grade in Germany, everything must be perfect on a paper or test. German students do not use computers. Everything is done with pencil and paper.

Even though she has met lots of new people and enjoyed her experience here, Christmas and her birthday were difficult times for this 17 year-old.

"She handled it really well, but it was still hard," Albert said.

Amanda said, "It has been fun and interesting, but she gave up on teaching me German."

Antonia is from Hildesheim, Germany, and her mother is a surgical nurse while her father has a prosthetic supply company. Antonia has an older sister, Paula.

Antonia will return to Germany after her graduation from Kimball High School. She will complete her education in Germany and then has plans to attend college and is contemplating the field of law.