Edsel Ford Students Shine on Stage at University of Michigan

By Jeffrey Williams

Congratulations to the 60 students from Edsel Ford High School for another outstanding showing at the German Day competition held recently at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Our students won a school record nine awards in various categories. Every year for the past eight, Edsel Ford joins hundreds of students from across the state to compete in linguistic, artistic and performance-based competitions all done in German. The event gives us the opportunity to demonstrate our ability to speak the language, understand the culture, and have fun with the language.

"As I tell my students, German Day is my favorite day of the year," Stephon Sedore said. “It's an opportunity for our German students to show off their hard work learning a difficult language and to test their skills against outstanding German students from schools all over the area.”

Edsel Ford entered the “German For All” category, which is a German outreach project. For its community outreach, German III and German IV students visited a Spanish class at O.L. Smith middle school and hosted their own version of the German Oscars.

German students presented four short films and encouraged the O.L. Smith students to vote on their favorite film. Students who picked the winning film were entered into a raffle, and the winning prize was a Goldener Bär (Golden Bear).

The assignment impressed the judges enough to award Edsel Ford a first place finish in the outreach category. In addition, student India Hines earned first place in poetry and extemporaneous reading competitions.

The German program is always looking for new students who want to learn more about the language and culture. If you’re up to the challenge, schedule German to have the chance to be a part of this unstoppable team.