It has been a joy to share in the experience of having Niklas Geppert observe and interact with our school over the past few months. Mr. Geppert was a student teacher here at Lutheran North from November 2022 to February 2023, primarily studying with Ms. Rachael Kleine. Mr. Geppert will be missed by our staff and our students. We all have thoroughly enjoyed his cheerful disposition and professionalism. We wish him well as he completes his education program and we have full confidence that he will be an excellent educator.

A Note of Thanks from Mr. Geppert

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, dear students,

After 3 months, it feels surreal to remark that my time as a student teacher amidst the LHN community is coming to an end.

Retrospectively speaking, the immense academic significance of this work experience for my professional development can only be surpassed by an augmented intercultural awareness, a deepened understanding of structures immanent to American educational institutions, and the personal connections I have been able to establish here.

As a scholar, an aspiring teacher, and a strong advocate of respectful, transparent, honest, and empathic interaction that is aiming for common ground and mutual understanding, I am appreciative of the school administration, every single teacher, the cafeteria team, the janitor, the secretaries, every student, and every person I have met here, as you have enabled me to reflect, challenge and extend my opinions, values, and personality in your example.

My primary objective of the past 93 days has been to speak, to listen, and to learn. And I am positive that this is exactly what happened. I have spoken to Mrs. Klausmeier about how significant the Romanticist stratum of literature is today. I have listened to Mr. Brandt, as he taught me and other students about how Wendell Berry‘s poetry resonates with the modern tendency to capture moments on social media rather than to experience them. I have been introduced simple tricks to factor trinomials by Mr. Schlump. Mrs. Wilson has strengthened my conviction that passion, philantrophy and the wish to learn is what can turn great teaching into excellent teaching. And I have spoken to Mr. Dumar about how Euklid‘s formula can be used to generate an infinite amount of primitive Pythagorean Triples, which we found to be very interesting. Only to name a few of countless encounters with teachers at LHN.

Furthermore, I had the privilege to speak to young adolescents who have impressed me with their politeness, their interest, kindness, and their incredible talents. Drawings, paintings, essays, athleticism, stage presence, musicality, social intelligence, the potential that is found in these hallways is immense and has reminded me of my own responsibility as an educator to preserve and develop it to the best of my ability.

I would like to dedicate my last words to Ms. Rachael Kleine and Mr. Reincke in acknowledgement of their support long before and after my arrival to the U.S.. Without your steady involvement in my experience at Lutheran North, this experience would have been impossible. I thank you all.

God bless you. Goodbye