The First Day at Ben Davis

I was very excited this morning when I got up  because it was my first day at Ben Davis High School (see picture 1). Raven and I got up at 5:30am (!!!). In Germany I usually get up at 6:30am, so it was really early for me today.

Photo 1: Ben Davis

We drove to the school with a yellow school bus, like those from the American movies we watch in Germany (see photo 2).

Photo 3: The German Room                                Photo 2: A Typical School Bus

Raven took me to Mrs. Dawn’s room (one of the two German teachers) (see photo 3) where we waited to get a tour through the building. Mr. Ziliak (the other German teacher) picked us up at the room and led us to another hallway. After a few minutes we met one of the assistant principals called Mr. Rodney Smith. He greeted us and showed us around the school.

On our tour through the school we saw A LOT OF  things we don’t have at our school. For example Ben Davis has its own bookstore (see photo 4), a military class, its own theater (it is as big as the assembly hall at our school at home), the choir room, the hall of champions, the fitness center, the career center and much more.

Photo 4: The Bookstore at Ben Davis

At first Mr. Smith told us about lunch break. They have a lot of students at Ben Davis (about 3.000 students attend the school), but the cafeteria (see photo 5) where the students eat lunch isn’t big enough, so there is more than one lunch break. Every lunch break is about 27 minutes long and there are different lines so the students can get different food. The first group has lunch between 10:06 and 10:30 a.m., the last group between 12:06 and 12:30 p.m..

Photo 5: The cafeteria at Ben Davis

After that we saw the Hall of Champions: There are a lot of pictures and trophies from students who were at Ben Davis High School and are now famous, for example football players.

Then we saw the big fitness center and the school’s own swimming pool (see photo 6). The pool is twice as big as the pool in Letmathe.  Mr. Smith told us that you HAVE to learn how to swim before you graduate because of the safety and they want less people to drown. We also saw that the High School has more than just one gymnasium.

Photo 6: The Pool at Ben Davis

There is one part of the building which is only for the Marching Band. Marching Band is a really big deal at Ben Davis and they are really good too.  About 300 students take part in the Marching Band.

Also the school has its own TV and Radio Station. In the Radio Class they have their own Radio Channel. WBDG-FM is broadcasted on a FM frequency of 90.9 Mhz and came into existence in 1966. The station operates 24 hours a day. If you are interested in listening to the station, you find a link on the following page: www.wayne.k12.in.us/bdwbdg/  . In the TV class they learn for example how to make commercials and they have their own TV News Show every Friday afternoon. Students from 11 other schools come to Ben Davis use the facilities. If you want more information, please look at www.wayne.k12.in.us/bdtv/ .

Photo 7: The TV Studio at Ben Davis

At 8:12am every day every student gets up and puts his right hand on his heart to speak the “Pledge of Allegiance”. With it the students show loyalty to the country. After it they have a short moment of silence and then a voice makes announcements about the school.

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.”

Something I thought was really interesting is that they are allowed to use mobile phones all the time, even during class and nobody cares about it, because it is a new law at the school since the school year has started. 

The school has a hallway called the “World-Language Hallway” because here are all rooms where you can learn a language. At Ben Davis you can learn Latin, Spanish, French and German.

We came back to the main hall in which you can find a little bookstore. You can buy things like pencils and papers in it. We came there to have a picture taken of us to get our new student IDs. You can use them for example to get lunch at the cafeteria.

After that we met the principal of the Ben Davis High school. Mrs. Squire, the principal, welcomed us and told us a lot of things about the school (see photo 8). She told us e.g. that all the clubs at Ben Davis are excellent and that all of the clubs won in lots of competitions. We even got some bracelets from her which are normally for achievers.

Photo 8: Meeting the Principal

Then Mr. Smith showed us the career center, which is also called Area 31. In the center you can learn about things like journalism, engineering, cooking, architecture and being a police officer and cars (see photo 9). The journalism class publishes a newspaper every three weeks. (They have got an online version too: www.bdspotlight.com) The architects build one building per year and sell it to the community. In the career center and generally in the whole school there are a lot of students from foreign countries. It is a so-called minority  majority school. The majority of the students belongs to minority groups. In the whole school 15 different languages are spoken, But – of course -everyone speaks English, too.

Photo 9: Some students learn everything there is to know about cars

Everyone was impressed by the big school because ours at home is much smaller. And we did not even get to see the area outside the building.  When we finished the tour we got picked up by our exchange students and continued the day with the schedule of our exchange student.

After school, Raven and I visited the museum at the Motor speedway in Indianapolis. We saw a lot of old racing cars and had much fun there.

Jana Walter