Ingo Niestroj

Biographical Information

Quite a long time ago
I was born and raised in Germany. My earliest years I spent in Westphalia, that is in Northern Germany. Maybe that accounts for my stubborness - A Westphalian Mule might be the best translation for a Westfälischer Dickkopf. Anyway, my family moved to Ulm, a larger city in Wuertemberg (southern Germany between Stuttgart and Munich)

Ulm is known for the tallest church steeple in the world, the Ulmer Münster. It is also the place where Albert Einstein spent his youth.
After finishing high school - Gymnasium - I attended University in Mannheim where I started out with macro economics and ended up in linguistics and literature - What a change, eh.

I had to stay at university until I was past the age of 28, as the State really wanted to invite me to an eighteen-month stay in their beautiful resorts, commonly known as army barracks. Each term I let them know that I had to decline their invitation, as I was a slowpoke and wasn't quite ready for my exams yet ;-(
During that time, I worked to support myself; I spent years at the foreign students' office as a support worker for mainly North American students helping them with student visas, rooms, social and cultural integration showing them pubs and making them appreciate German wine. At that time, I got my first exposure to computers - a large Siemens mainframe. I got a job at the IDS Institut für deutsche Sprache, a language research institute in their linguistic data processing department. Here we did real word processing ;-)
We are now close to the point where I had to inform my potential resort hosts that unfortunately I past the maximum age for their establishments - isn't that discrimination?
A long time ago
After spending about ten years at university I needed a change of environment. I needed to get away from everything. Well I had good contacts to different professors in Canada due to existing exchange program so I decided to participate in an exchange program as a student. I came to the University of Waterloo to complete my Master's degree in Germanic Languages and Literature. During that time I met my wife and we got married. My wife was working on her Ph.D and she got a scholarship to go to Germany. So we went back, I got my old job back at the IDS and I also was 'recruited' to teach German and cultural integration to late emigrants and political refugees. After our son's birth and staying two years in Germany we decided to come back to Canada. Europe is great for students, or people who have no dependent children, but we felt that Canada is a bit less crowded and a safer place to raise a family.
Some time ago
Back in Canada I soon got a job at Lambton College. I have worked in various 'social programs' where we are trying to integrate students with barriers to employment into the work force. Even though these are considered social disabilities, quite often one could identify more severe problems which got me interested in Special Needs. A few years ago I went back to Brock University to take some courses dealing with adult special needs students in the post secondary education system.
Intermittently I have also taught some Mathematics and an Introduction to Computers but my main focus is on employment / employability skills and to a certain extent on life skills. I have tried to integrate computer applications into the employability skills as a part of it deals with areas where the use of word processors, spreadsheets and data bases is unavoidable. I feel that the Internet is an incredible tool in education, and over time, it will also take over the placement function of employment offices. With this, people have to learn that they might have to go where the jobs are, not only on a national but also international basis.
My interest in social matters and betterment got me involved in the labour movement. I have been on the executive of our local for quite some time and have created and maintain the Local 125 homepage
Back to Top

Personal Interests

Travel
I have travelled throughout Europe extensively. In Europe, much more than in North America, you only have to travel a short distance to be exposed to a different culture, different food, architecture and art.
Education
Life long learning is the term of choice. Channelling the information that is available into the right direction and affecting people's lives is my daily challenge.
Work life
Leaving a mark in a student's life, being able to have people realize that change is necessary, initializing this change and seeing the result at the end , sometimes after years, sometimes after initial setbacks, are the spice in my working life.
Family
Sharing interests and pursuing common goals, observing growth and change, seeing children growing up and vying for and finally gaining their independence, and growing up together make family life worth while. You are never too old to learn and you are never too old to grow up either.
Interests
Anything that is not canned - I enjoy good food and I am supposed to be quite a good cook. I enjoy music, fine art, and theatre. I am not too crazy about television - I would rather sit at the computer. I enjoy learning. I am interested in genealogy even though I have hit some road blocks.
Back to Top

E-mail any commentary to ingo.niestroj@lambton.on.ca

This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page