n February 5th, German students of RHS walked to their foreign language class expecting to experience a typical day of Deutsch sprechen and vicious umlaut usage.
They couldn’t have been more wrong.
February 5th is World Nutella day, a day dedicated to all things Nutella. Tammy Lueck, German teacher and Nutella advocate, celebrates the chocolaty-hazelnut spread in her classes every year.
“All we do is we talk about what Nutella is and then I show them all a website with hundreds if not thousands of yummy recipes all involving Nutella. Then we cap it all off by eating Nutella on some butter cookies, as I wouldn’t want to harm my students with my cooking. I think teenagers just love to eat and I could probably feed them just about anything and they would love it. I certainly think my students appreciate it. It was kind of an accident as to how it got started. I saw a page on Facebook dedicated to World Nutella Day and liked it. Then I realized it was a real thing so I decided it was a wonderful excuse to bring Nutella to my classroom,” Lueck said.
Lueck’s inclusion of Nutella does partially stem from her own interests, but she also believes it offers an educational bonus as well.
“Nutella and I get along fairly well. Especially on authentic Parisian crepes with strawberries and bananas. I don’t just do it because I like Nutella, I also think it has some novelty educational value for students, because although Nutella is an Italian invention, it is very popular all over Europe, Germany included. It can be found on every German breakfast table alongside salt and pepper; not the knock-off stuff either, actual Nutella. It’s a nice little cultural lesson for my students and they get to eat some Nutella midday,” Lueck said.
World Nutella Day is not only loved by Germans and Lueck; many of her students enjoy it as well.
“I think it’s nice that she brings in Nutella because she doesn’t have to and Nutella is wonderful. It makes me like having her even more because she’s the only teacher who celebrates it. I also think it’s kind of a disgrace that none of the other foreign language teachers do anything for it because they should,” junior Meredith Thompson, German III student said.