The day's lesson was on economics and culture. The other goal: to foster international understanding, connecting high school students in America with their counterparts in Germany.
As events unfolded at Ganesha High School in Pomona on Thursday, that would indeed happen.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday February 11, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 1 inches; 36 words Type of Material: Correction
Ganesha High -- The two photographs that ran with the article on Pomona's Ganesha High School in Friday's California section were portraits of students taken after class, not during a class presentation as the captions stated.
But connections of a different sort also took place, the kind high school students can relate to on both sides of the Atlantic.
A trio of girls squealed at the sight of Sebastian Hoffmann, a lanky boy with floppy brown hair and blue eyes, on the jumbo screen set up in Ganesha High's library. They had waited an entire semester -- and bought new outfits -- for this moment.
"Hi," they purred, wiggling their manicured fingers. They had seen photographs of Sebastian, but this webcast was live and confirmed what they had been saying minutes before: He was definitely the cutest boy in the class. The webcast hadn't started yet in Germany, so he didn't hear any of that.
Faren Moreno, Gloria Hernandez, Kendra Pineda and the rest of Alan Loya's advanced placement economics class participated in a two-hour video conference with students taking a similar course in Kulmach, Germany. The Americans took turns lecturing on California and the Federal Reserve System while the Germans discussed the Bavaria region and the European Central Bank.
The video conference was the product of happenstance and friendship.
"I think everything good that happens to us in life is a result of personal relationships," Loya said.
He was snorkeling two years ago in Hawaii when he met German teacher Claudia Renz-Kiefel, who was vacationing with her boyfriend.
She and Loya soon discovered that they were both teachers, and she suggested that they get together again in cyberspace. When they did, they brought their classes along.
Months ago, Loya gave his class the e-mail addresses of the German students, but with one caveat: boys write boys and girls write girls.
Faren, a bubbly Latina of 17 with honey-streaked hair and a tendency to speak in exclamations, was one of those who began sending e-mails across the globe. Although she had been corresponding daily with a girl named Ramona Langer ("But I call her Mona!"), she had her mascara-accented eyes set on "Hoffman. Hoff-man. Hot-man," she giggled.
Faren said this before the lesson had started. Then an accented voice -- Renz-Kiefel's -- cut through the chatter in the Ganesha library. It was time to begin.
