If October had you hearing gaggles of unfamiliar people speaking in endearing incomprehensibility, you probably encountered our German Foreign Exchange Students. Timpview was all the more endearing this fall, with 18 German Exchange students, and 2 teachers, visiting from Meissen (or Meißen), Germany. It’s a part of, what will become this year, a 25 year long relationship with Meissen as Provo’s sister city. Meissen is 30,000 people large and 1,000 years old. Its landscape is distinguished by vineyards, Gothic Cathedrals, porcelain, and red tile roofs; built along the traverse of the Elbe river, 15 miles upstream of Dresden. This small city in Saxony boasts, not only the oldest porcelain factory in Europe, but the oldest castle in Germany: Albreich’s Castle, built in the 15th century, but operating as a fortress as early as 929.
The reason why Meissen, specifically, is Provo’s sister city can be attributed to Karl Maeser. Born in Meissen in 1828, appointed by Brigham Young in 1876, Maeser is considered BYU’s founding principle, leading it through its precarious early days and into a secured future. As Provo is undeniably shaped by BYU, and BYU by Karl Maeser, it feels appropriate that Messien, the city that shaped Maeser, be our sister city.
More specifically, Timpview High School and Gymnasium Franziskaneum Meßien are sister schools. Every year Timpview and Franzikaneum switch off between who visits and who hosts. Students in the German program at Timpview have the opportunity to participate in the exchange, with students of any year able to sign up to visit Germany themselves, or host a German exchange student here. Following the end of last school year (2024-2025), nearly 20 Timpview students visited Germany for 3 weeks in June, spending most of the trip with host families in Meissen, immersed in the German everyday, going to school, and parties, and into town with their classmates and German counterparts. The rest of the trip was spent visiting cities Frankfurt, Quedinburg, Spreewalt, Dresden, Munich and others.
(Collection above all photographed by Timpview students on 2025 exchange.) Dresden is the 3rd largest city in Germany, formally called “the Florence on the Elbe,” Saxony’s capital was considered one of the most beautiful cities in the world before WWII where bombing nearly destroyed the entire city.
The German exchange student’s visit here is much the same, visiting bigger cities in the United States like Chicago and San Francisco, while spending most of their time immersed in the lives of their host families.
Our exchange students arrived in Salt Lake City from Chicago on the 5th, joining us at school the following day until fall break on the 16th, staying with us in Provo a week and a half before leaving to spend a few days in Bryce and Zion with some of our Timpview Students. Afterwards going to San Francisco and then back to Germany.
Outside of engaging with the German classes—giving various presentations on different aspects of Meissen and Germany, and practicing English an
d German alternatively in interview questions with students—they’ve been visiting different classrooms, either shadowing their host or going as a group to specific classes like Ballroom, ASL, AP Research, Journalism, Cooking, and ELD 4. On the 9th they went o
n a field trip to Salt Lake City with some of our Timpview Students learning German. In Salt Lake they visited Ensign Peak, hiking to the top and learning some Utah history while overlooking Salt Lake Valley; afterward, getting a tour of the State Capitol building, and, in addition to the regular tour, a special tour of the Lieutenant Governor and Governor’s office, and then the Utah Special Emergencies room. With the remaining time, students were free to go explore downtown Salt Lake in groups, getting lunch and going to the mall before returning to the bus to get back to school before the bell rang.
Outside of school, it’s get-togethers and games. Games being some of Timpview’s sports games they’ve attended, but also, playing kickball, board games, and party games. During their visit, one of our Germans, Ilka, had her 17th birthday, (Ilka was actually born on Friday the 13th, and in October); Host Lees Mecham, Senior at Timpview High School and 4 year German Student—who also attended the exchange this summer, hosting the same person that hosted her—threw her a birthday party that night with many of the Germans and Timpview students. Cards and a Crumbl cookies, a translingual telephone game, and a delightful juxtaposition between the biggest truck I’ve ever seen and sparkling water–worlds colliding.
The Germans are exceptional at English. They begin lessons for it in the 3rd grade, further supplemented by the profuse exposure granted by English’s dominance in globalization and mass media. But in perspective to Germany’s global prominence, the language itself is anything but ubiquitous. People often like to remind me that it’s considerably inconsequential in terms of practicality. This is evident in the lack of infrastructure there is for German learning in Utah and Provo City School District. In the state of Utah there are only 2 German DLI programs (in Tooele and Bluffdale,) according to the Utah Dual Language Immersion (DLI) website. While unfortunate, it can be rationalized in considering that Utah doesn’t have a substantial population of Germans/German speakers, especially when compared to other parts of the country; this is further exacerbated by the immense number of Spanish speakers in Utah, distinguishing Spanish as the second language with real functional value. French is probably most comparable to German in its situation, although it would probably still be said that German falls just behind French in its cultural or even practical value, (French has about 3x the number of speakers).
Consequently only 4 years of German in high school is offered in our district–which isn’t to say that Timpview’s German program isn’t remarkable–many students take AP German, and many graduate with the Seal of Biliteracy. Beyond the achievement of students, German teacher, “Stephan” (Mr. Van Orden), is both Nationally Board Certified, has a Doctorate in education (Ed.D), and 32 years of experience in teaching German. But the impact of learning German at Timpview is more profound than that: it’s everything you’ve experienced–from the going to Christmas Market, to filming movies, to being in a class with people for 4 years, to Salt Lake, to going to Germany, to building connections with people across the world, to really learning a language and being able to form sentences; it’s profound.
But all of that to say, with consideration to the above disclaimer, it is only natural that the Germans are substantially better at English than we are at German. (But also! German is classified as being harder than both French and Spanish for English speakers to learn, per The Foreign Service Institute’s (FSI) language difficulty categorization—so humph). But all that to say, the Germans come with low expectations. Assuming that we can’t understand them–which is only mostly true. A handful of students can usually understand enough words to make out the meaning of their conversations. This makes out for an amusing surprise to many of them. During Ilka’s birthday party, after we acquired the free Crumbl cookie, one of the Germans, Aurel, asked the group in German what we were doing now, and when no one else responded, I answered in English. He just looked at me for a bit. Then, genuinely perplexed, he asked, “you can understand me?”. When I answered, smiling, in the affirmative, the soft confusion on his face turned frantic. Then he was on his feet, a rapid exchange of German behind me. Then his friend, Tobias, credited class deviant and cat lover, was in front of me with the same line of questioning, “how much can you understand?!” and despite telling him I was lucky to get just 50% of the words, it was enough to prompt the synchronized, prolonged exclamation, “noooo!” between the two. Smiling and sporadic, they were enjoying their comical panic as much as me. It made to be one of my favorite moments until their last night in Provo—that was even better.
That night, their last night in Provo, I asked them as we were walking into In-N-Out post football game, about their reaction that night, and it was indeed because they were worried about everything I had heard. Let’s just say they thought they could say anything without us understanding. Devious, and I love them for it. I also learned that night, sitting in the back of Bella Fillmore’s car with Sabrina Carpenter playing, that Aurel, 6 foot something member of Germany’s national karate team, had read Twilight—I’ve never been so okay with someone being Team Jacob.
After In-N-Out, per Ilka’s request, we played white girl music, then we rolled down the windows and blasted it, indulging them in that central aspect of car culture.
In Germany, you can only really get your license once you’re 18; at 17, it’s like a learners permit. But because of that, all of the driving culture that is so central to the teenage experience, they don’t have. I didn’t really realize what a big role driving played in teenage culture until all the aspects that were so familiar to me, so much so that I never paused to think about them, they were completely unfamiliar with. Like, of course, the aforementioned blasting of music with the windows rolled down, singing as loudly and poorly as the public is receiving you; or late night drives lore dropping, whether it be the deepest conversations or giggling over gossip; whether it be that you’re doing this at a lookout with friends, drinking Dutch…or something else, with something else. Or the way they didn’t know what it meant—late-night, teaching them stick-shift in the church parking lot—the parked car with their lights on. I asked them to send me the videos they took of each other driving stick—one of the videos is me explaining starting in first, the other is me explaining spotlighting. Neither really knew how to drive, but somehow they ended up being the best I’ve ever taught.
It’s not hyperbole when I say I don’t think I’ve ever laughed as hard and as much in this school as I did one day with Gustav and Lassa from the 2023 exchange. Sitting on blocky wooden chairs in the orange, crusty, cozy atmosphere of the old library, cackling over a chessboard with Hailey Hall. Should the opportunity present itself, please ask Hailey Hall about American Chess.
I told them to take me with them. But Aurel’s plan failed. Someone didn’t think ahead to bring a bigger suitcase. But it’s never too late–unless you’re an upperclassmen–otherwise! They’re back in 2027 and anyone can get involved: join them for the kickball game, come sit by them at the football game, come say hello. They’re so sweet, and funny, and honestly such an incandescent, joyous, highlight in my high school experience. We made some silly interviews with them on our Instagram, @timpviewthunderbolt, so go check those out and you’ll see what I mean.
