By Caden Borcherding

Kicking field goals and taking names, Fiete Bollmeyer is the new member of the Flora football team and community. Fiete Bollmeyer arrived in America on Aug. 5 and is scheduled to return to Germany on June 8. In addition to being a full-time student at FHS, Fiete is the Flora Wolves football kicker.  

In America, students don’t think about other countries’ education systems. In the last couple of months has had the opportunity to compare us with his in germany.

“I would say there’s no system which is really better, but one of the big differences is that if you go to high school, you have options to learn so many new sports because you can try anything out during the school year, like everybody can play tennis, football, basketball, track, baseball, and whatever,” Bollmeyer said. In Germany He went on to explain that schools have nothing to do with sports. If a student wants to play soccer or baseball he or she has to join a club and practice after school too. Most children just start to play a sport at age 4-5 and normally don’t change the sport they play. He added,”you learn more sports in America through school, but in Germany you meet way more people because you go to different sport clubs, and there are people from different schools.”

In Germany there are many sports, but Bollmeyer chose to play soccer. Here he is already playing football and kicking field goals in America. Later in the year, he plans on shooting hoops in basketball and running with the track team.

The German education system teaches their children many different languages at a young age. When Fiete was young, he learned to speak German, English and a little bit of French. He also learned to translate Latin. The big question for all Americans is when do all these children learn to speak all these languages. Fiete explained, “I have had English since first grade and French and Latin since 6th grade. French and English are required, and I took Latin, but that was optional.” 

In Germany there are many villages, cities and mountains. Fiete’s home in America is smaller than his home in Germany, but his community is much different. Fiete said,“It’s a bit smaller than Flora. I live more in a village. It’s bigger than Xenia, but there are more people that live there.”

Adjusting to a new environment for people can be difficult, but for Fiete it’s a piece of cake. Fiete said,  “It’s easy because the people are way more open minded and it helps so much.” Fiete will have plenty to tell his family and friends in Germany about America when he returns home. “The brilliant food, the friendly people and about what is gonna happen in the next 9 months,” Fiete said.