A LARP is Live Action Role-Play. Larps can be based on history, science-fiction, post-apocalyptic theory, real-life, or fantasy. They might have a lot of magic or none at all. A larp is not just a recreation of an historical event, (although re-enactments have their place in larping), but instead it relies heavily upon the improvisational acting abilities of each player. Many larps are based upon science-fiction or fantasy books that have been written (HP Lovecraft, Robert Jordan, JRR Tolkien, etc.) or movies that have been produced (primarily science-fiction and post-apocalyptic), while others are completely new creations, pulled from the imagination of the gamemaster.

A gamemaster (GM) creates a scenario, characters, chooses a setting and then runs the game with anywhere from two people to well over 100 people. While most of the players have specific characters, there are also NPCs, or Non-Player Characters: generally, people who are used for target practice. No, not really—well only sometimes. NPCs can help characters rally support for his or her activities, they can run errands, make connections and all without being a defined character with a specific goal. One of the most fun parts of larping is the battle. Larpers in Europe make weapons (swords, battle axes, knives, etc.) using thin fiberglass rods, foam and covered with thick liquid latex and paint.

The more complicated part of the larp is keeping track of your own rank points and life points. There is no paper to keep notes during a battle. Each player has abilities, and depending on the kind of larp, magical powers or fighting invincibility, which are all kept track of through the character’s actions and memory. Of course, keeping track of 3 healing spells is far easier than keeping track of 30 bonus points on a particular kind of strike. There are many rules and the rules are different for each type of larp, but once you learn them, they tend not to change.

Walk-In

Before this conference, we were able to participate in the Mittelpunkt “Walk-In,” which was geared for early-arriving guests to visit with locals and see some beautiful areas of the Rhine River valley. We have been fortunate to stay with a high school teacher and a university master’s degree student in beautiful Ingelheim. We visited the Marksburg castle above the town of Braubach for a very cold tour, and saw Marc Chagall’s stained glass work in St Stephen’s cathedral in Mainz. We tasted quite a bit of local food and beverage; the Germans are certainly well known for their sausage and beer, and the Rhine Valley is known for its white wines. The people here are very friendly and we were also we able to visit with the Latvian women who arrived early and were nice enough to cook up a Latvian meal for the group of us (they love their sour cream!).

My initial reason for attending Mittelpunkt was because my connection to Østerskov Efterskole in Denmark asked me to be on his panel at the convention. I was more than glad to share about my experience at the larping school and to see a couple of my colleagues again from there. Larping and thematic education go extremely well together, as evidenced by the large number of teachers at the conference.

In addition, since I was the token guest from the U.S., I was asked to hold a discussion about Larping in the U.S., about which I have very little knowledge. I know a bit about the “larping outside of larping,” as one person put it. That is, I am familiar with Renaissance Faires, the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism), re-enactments, Japanese cosplay, and murder mysteries. So I told about them, researched a few US larping sites on-line, and found a couple of other people who could tell about their experiences larping in the US and called it good. It actually turned out fairly well, and the larpers were quite surprised at the number of Japanese cosplayers that there are on the West Coast of the United States. (We have 15,000 at the Seattle conventions, and the convention in Los Angeles has 45,000 attendees! This conference had about 135 people).

photo courtesy Jansfotos.de

Mittelpunkt was a conference for people from all over Germany, plus several people from Denmark, Finland, Latvia, the UK, and Russia—and us. While there were mainly people in the late 20’s and 30’s, there were a couple in their late teens, and few in their 40’s. It was very interesting to go to workshop sessions about how to make latex swords, how larping is used with young people in school or therapy settings, and to find out about the kinds of larps that are run in Latvia and Germany. Most importantly, it was an opportunity to meet other creative thinkers from a different part of the world and make new connections.

There was another wonderful side benefit from this convention: I was able to meet and talk with teachers and make arrangements for short visits to three more schools/programs in Germany!

Christmas Day photo of Hélène and me (far right) with my daughter (far left), and Hélène’s son and daughter.

We spent the holidays in Provence (SE France) visiting my penpal Hélène and her family. She and I have been corresponding since we were 13 years old! While we were there, we went through her boxes of correspondence and found the very first letter that I wrote to her when I was in 8th grade. The last time I saw her was in 1980 when I came to France with a university program. We reminisced about that visit as well. Xena had the opportunity to meet her kids as well. She has a son who is 23 and at university nearby, and a daughter who just turned 13. We will be able to go back in February to visit her daughter’s school and will also be able to visit the school where her sister-in-law teaches.

Because schools are not open during the holidays, I have not been able to connect with very many people and of course, I have not been able to visit schools. I was able, through a connection at a hostel in England, to make a connection with a university staff member in Palestine (Israel’s West Bank), and he is making contacts for me to visit schools when we go there. Right now, the conflict occurring in Israel is very dangerous, but we are watching the news and will have people who live there taking us places and keeping us safe. I will be buying our plane tickets after this weekend if the situation stabilizes. Some of you may remember Ami Fields, the former principal at Blue Heron middle school. She is living just south of Haifa in Israel and will be scheduling visits for me at her school and at her former school there. A good friend of mine in PT with family and friend connections in Israel is making the rest of the arrangements for us, including homestays (Thanks, Dena!).

Our next stops, before going to Israel, are in Liechtenstein, a very small country between Switzerland and Austria, and at the Mittelpunkt convention in Germany. In Liechtenstein, we will have a few days to get some work done: to pull videos from the DVDs, update the blog with photos, do schoolwork. Liechtenstein is one of the few countries in the middle of Europe that is not yet part of the Schengen agreement. They did not join when Switzerland became the 25th country to sign the Schengen agreement on December 12th, so this stay counts as time out of the region for us. Remember, we are limited to 90 days within a 6 month time period.
The Mittelpunkt convention is an opportunity for educators and gamers to meet together for role play activities and for sharing how to use role playing activities inside and outside of the classroom. Because of our stay at Østerskov Efterskole in Denmark, we have been asked to be part of a panel discussing the use of role playing in curriculum at that particular school. I have also been asked to put together a very short informal presentation about roleplaying activities in the United States. While I have limited experience with the level of roleplaying they are accustomed to, I will be able to show a few pictures and explain a bit about the prevalence of RP video games, Renaissance Faires, Japanese cosplay, and my own use of thematic instruction at school.

For our remaining school visits, I am waiting to hear back from the ministry of education in Romania for school visits at the beginning of February, and am also reconnecting with a former PT teacher who is now teaching in Bulgaria. We will be staying with her and visiting her school at the end of January. I am also reconfirming school visits we had arranged with Hessen schools in Germany during the middle of February.

We are still scheduled to return home at the end of February, so we look forward to seeing you during the first week of March!

Happy New Year 2009!

Outside a preschool in Rostock; the former Eastern Germany has a very strong government-funded preschool system.

I was fortunate to be able to visit with the sister and nephew of a friend in Port Townsend. She’s been in Germany since 1992 and her son was born there, in Rostock. She is a university senior lecturer and he’s in 7th grade. We had a much-too-short visit, and I hope that we can continue our conversations via email.

Helene Lange Gymnasium; Art class: student bring all their own materials

I also visited a bilingual high school in Hamburg, which provides two tracks of education for its students: International Baccalaureat (IB), and the traditional Gymnasium. Both tracks are designed for preparing students for university entrance. This is different from the Gesamptschule, or comprehensive school, that we call high school in the U.S.
Students who attend the Realeschule (vocational/trade school) that many students choose to attend (or are recommended to attend) after 9th grade may choose to pursue their “A levels” after graduating so that they may attend university, but most go straight into technical jobs or job training.
Lower achieving (or less-motivated) students often go to a Hauptschule, where they get a basic education for service jobs.
Students start first grade at age 6 and have 13 years of school. All male graduates must perform one year of military or social service after high school, and most students travel to another country for a year after graduating. This makes most students starting university about 20-21 years old.

This school has been bilingual in practice for over 30 years, and officially a Hamburg bilingual school for 15 years. There are currently ten English bilingual schools in Hamburg and two French bilingual schools. They feel strongly that bilingual education must start early (most start English in 3rd or 4th grade, and there is an effort to start English lessons in 1st grade), and that students benefit both in language and academically from this. I spoke with a woman from Stuttgart, and she said she knew of two English bilingual schools and one French bilingual school there, as well.

Unfortunately for the teachers in Hamburg, the government has only just begun to see value in technology for schools, so the schools here have overhead projectors and maybe one or two small computer labs per 3000 students. Teachers do not have computers in their rooms, only one or two to share in the staff room. As in other schools we have seen so far, teachers share a planning area, a staff room, and move from room to room to teach their subject area. They are envious of teachers in the U.S. who get their own rooms and require the students to move instead. My daughter sees value in the students having their own classroom and therefore the space to keep in-progress projects, despite the fact that the classrooms are fairly small and have little storage space.

The math level in Germany is much higher than I have found in other schools. Students are using cross-cancelling and mental shortcuts and order of operations with multiple fractions and are working in pre-calculus at 10th grade. Students here are surprised that geography is not a required, separate subject in American schools, but after sitting in a geography class, I realized that our geography studies are not missing, but enveloped into science as earth science coursework, and into history as map and social geography studies. In 6th grade art class, students are working with contrast using color. They have a textbook for art that is referenced by students from 5th grade through 8th grade.

While there are some textbooks available, there are few made for bilingual schools, so the school selects its own texts to best meet the state requirements for the subject area, and teachers often create their own materials to supplement concepts. They have a sister-school connection with a high school in Illinois, and after a visit there, several teachers were able to provide information and pictures for the textbook that they use for American Studies.

This particular school is known for being at the high end of the scale for schools in Germany, and especially in the Hamburg state. They offer an IB program as well to further challenge their university-bound students, and students are tested twice a year, including oral exams, and give group presentations beginning at an early age. Public speaking is important, and they encourage argumentation skills and independence of thought.

The biggest challenge for German schools right now is that the school system is changing from a grades 1-13 program to a 0-12 program. Students already in the system now have to crunch 9 years of secondary education into 8 years, and with specific learning expectations and school-based decision-making for its structure (including profiles, or interest groupings, that put students into academic teams), this puts extra stress on the teachers as well.

I will be visiting another school later in my journey and look forward to hearing more about German school issues as they are addressed in another one of the country’s states.