On May 29, 2020, fifth graders from our Embassy Adoption partner class at LaSalle-Backus Education campus, a public school in northeast Washington, DC, were celebrated with a virtual promotion ceremony to mark the end of elementary school. Like so many students around the world, they could not complete the 2019-2020 school year as planned.
Unfortunately, coronavirus also cancelled Embassy Adoption Program in-person events and visits: No Austrian folk dance class. No Mini UN. No capstone presentation.
Nevertheless, we recognize all the students in Mr. Derek Tyler’s class for their curiosity and enthusiasm in all things Austrian with a special #throwback below about the time we’ve shared together.
On a final note: On behalf of the entire Embassy of Austria staff, we wish you all a safe and healthy return to school in the fall and good luck in middle school, but first – have a wonderful summer!
Visit and Tour of the Embassy and Consular Section
Our “adopted” partner class visits the Embassy and Consular Section on November 19, 2019
What happens in the Austrian Embassy? How does it look like in Austria? Moreover, how does it taste? Fourteen fifth-grade students from LaSalle-Backus School and their teacher Mr. Derek Tyler visited the Embassy of Austria on November 19, 2019, to learn more about their “adopted” country.
All of the students have never been to an embassy before, so they were quite impressed by all the gates, the bright assembly hall and the spectacular paintings. The Director for Press and Information at the Austrian Embassy, Johannes Dopsch, gave a tour through the embassy building where the students could get a glimpse of how the working environment looks like. For the first time ever, the students got the chance to visit our “Oval Office,” the office of the Austrian ambassador – which is usually not open to the public. They were excited to see what the place looks like where an ambassador is fulfilling his duties.
Later the students visited the Consular Section to learn more about passports and visas. The students of LaSalle-Backus could try the biometric fingerprint scanner and see their fingerprints getting scanned and monitored live – quite an adventure for them!
The students did excellent in the mini German language course, where they figured out the meaning of classical Austrian German words like Madl [mah-dle] for “girl”, Baba [bah-bah] for “bye, bye” or the phrase A Wahnsinn [ah-vaahn-sin] for expressing amazement.
At the end of the visit, a culinary exploration was waiting for the students: They experienced the taste-bud-challenging vanilla ice cream topped with Styrian pumpkin seed oil and crunchy pumpkin seeds. Getting this special taste of Austria was a wonderful way to end the journey on “Austrian soil!”
Saint Nicholas Visit
The fifth graders were overwhelmed when Saint Nicholas, the “real” Santa Claus, paid them a surprise visit on December 6, 2019, at school. Needless to say, all our students were on his nice list.
Some of the thank-you letters we’ve received from our partner class:
The Embassy Adoption Program is a partnership between DC Public Schools and Washington Performing Arts, which pairs embassies with fifth and sixth grade classes for a year's worth of cross-cultural learning, projects, and enrichment activities.
#EmbassyAdoption #DCPublicSchools
Edited by: Lisa-Maria Neussl and Julia Assl