Back to school, part 2

Had to sit on this a few days to process my thoughts. What I've been up to: a meeting with the Vienna city government, some eye-opening parent meetings in schools.

This week I had a long-scheduled meeting with a few bureaucrats working for the office within the Vienna city government in charge of oversight of social issues and refugees. It is always hard to tell in such situations who is in charge. The actual response is carried out by other state/NGO organisations, but I was left with the impression that the city government plays at least an oversight role. In their capacity, they kindly invited me for a chat, albeit, frankly, two and a half years too late. I will not elaborate on the details as I assume the conversation to be private amongst ourselves, but I can tell you that I tried to convey what I believe to be the most pressing issues at the moment. These range from a lack of capacity to host new arrivals, and real concerns about the fall and winter as Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s cities continue and electricity cuts are affecting most major Ukrainian cities on a rolling basis. Logic would tell us that once it gets colder, more people in Ukraine will start to ask themselves if they should leave. Some of them will, and some of them will come to Europe. I again stressed the importance of clear communication, that if Austria’s capital is “full” and out of temporary housing, it needs to say as much, rather than turning exhausted families away at the door once all the beds are full. This situation is made even more challenging by the fact that basically all the other cities in Austria closed the doors to their own “welcome centres”. There seems to be a profoundly disturbing belief that if one does not build infrastructure to host those fleeing war, they will not come. This is, of course, madness.

There are far fewer critical issues to discuss, and more small details. I mentioned the precarious financial position of pensioners, and the ridiculous, sometimes enforced, sometimes not procedure of asking them about the amount of their pension payments in Ukraine, and sometimes (it seems to be a lottery) deducting this amount from the meagre payouts they receive here from which they should buy themselves food and pay for public transport, etc. We talked in broader terms about Ukrainians, unlike other ethnic groups with permanent residency status once asylum has been granted, not having access to any of Vienna’s social programs for low income families: not the apartments for low-income residents, not the much more generous basic income payments. I mentioned how positively surprised I am by the number of Ukrainians actively applying for a new status now open to them (the so-called “red white red plus” RWR+ card), the equivalent of a work permit which is the equivalent of permanent residency, initially for 1 or 3 years. The catch? You have to earn enough to qualify. This means that you cannot apply for any of these social benefits, because your entire status is that of a skilled worker who came here to work.

In other words, for one ethnic group in this city, there is no safety net: Ukrainians. For everyone else once they have been approved to stay in Austria, they have the same rights and benefits as locals. Interestingly, the mayor of Vienna spoke out this week arguing that family reunification, which is men from countries like Syria finally brining over their wives and children, should only be permitted if family member seeking to bring relatives over is already employed and has an apartment. Because Vienna offers vastly more generous social benefits than other regions of Austria, many immigrants who arrived here via the asylum process then move to Vienna once their applications are approved seeking to tap into these payments and housing options. A classic example of something having been designed decades ago for a domestic issue — affordable housing for low income families and a cushion to prevent childhood poverty, now being used by entirely different groups in a totally different setting. The laws were never changed, the whole thing has now morphed into something entirely different than what the original intentions were, and you have headlines about immigrant families receiving €4600 per month in benefits while not a single family member goes to work.

So this is the context.

And now I would like to share with you some things I witnessed in my capacity as helping Ukrainian mothers with translation at parent meetings in their children’s public schools in Vienna. I am not going to tell you the names of the schools, nor their locations. I am fully aware the people we met with did not think they were being observed by anyone with a public platform. On the other hand, they are all employees of the state and therefore, theoretically at least, under the public eye all the time.

One hot, sticky evening, I went to help a Ukrainian mom of a 7th grader at her child’s middle school. It was sweltering inside the building. As we entered, it was unlike any school I have ever been inside in Austria, and I have, meanwhile, seen quite a few schools. I didn’t hear German. I saw more women with headscarves than without. But mostly I saw men, fathers, many of whom who were not dressed as I expect parents to dress when they come to school. We entered a large but sparsely decorated classroom and were greeted by a very kind teacher, a native speaker of German. We were told that the assistant teacher would be simultaneously translating the meeting into both English and Arabic. I was surprised because I have never heard of anyone speaking anything other than German inside the walls of any school in Austria. This is like a golden rule. And yet I understood why, because of the children in this class, only half of their parents showed up. The other half were absent. When we signed an attendance form, some wrote only their first names in wobbly block letters. I listened carefully to all the accents, and I did not hear a single native speaker of German in the room. Some were working class parents who have clearly been here a while and speak good German, explaining they are working night shifts and therefore cannot be the class representative parents. In the end the job was handed to a mom who herself just arrived and they told her she could speak English and it really doesn’t matter she just has to show up so the class has a representative on paper.

I did what I normally do not do and began recommending to the mom that she switch schools. It became glaringly apparent to me that fluent, academic German could be learned on a middle school level in a class where the basic level of German, on average, must be incredibly low. And yet you have kids who grew up here, and kids who don’t know anything, all together, and what does that do to the overall learning experience? The teacher was an angel and I still think about how she must get up every morning and go do what must be an incredibly hard job with no specific training for this and little if any support.

The mom I was translating for was upset as her child had been moved to another classroom without warning, separated from friends. The explanation was this was a decision “from above” because they had to add a class over the summer. The school got rid of an entire grade (I wonder if the 8th graders are all in the so-called container classes now), and now has only 5, 6 and 7th grades. We were told to go downstairs and find the director. We found him/her speaking what I think was Turkish to a parent downstairs. I was very surprised to hear this because in an official capacity in Austria, especially inside a school, one must usually only speak German. We waited our turn, explained the situation, and were told the decision was final. “We received 100 Syrian kids this summer, we had to make changes. I am not god, but the decision is done.” The mother I was translating for got very upset, started yelling. This ended about as well as you can imagine it did. We finally walked outside, where we could breathe a bit and it wasn’t as hot as inside the building, and I said to her, calmly:

“Look for a new school.”

The next morning I was also invited to a school, this time a primary school, in a neighbourhood where I would have expected to see a lot of upper middle class Austrian kids. The building from the outside was modern and welcoming, with signs on the front doors in dozens of languages greeting the children. As I waited outside, I heard many languages coming through the doors but not German. Once all the first graders were lined up, I observed 80% of them were recent immigrants who fled wars based on the languages they spoke (Arabic, Ukrainian). There were a handful of kids who seemed to know German better, may be here for longer already. The teachers were amazing and it was incredible to witness how a handful of adults will be ultimately responsible for teaching two dozen kids a new language over the course of four years. We had a private conversation between the Ukrainian mom and the teacher, and I was really impressed when I saw the “to buy” list and it was a color printout with photos of all the school supply items to be purchased. I have never once seen such a list in anything but word form. The teacher explained they did it this way, this year, as they know many of the parents do not speak German well, yet.

I was left with a very positive impression of this primary school and yet the whole experience smelled like segregation — I know this neighbourhood is home to many, many young kids who speak German at home. That must mean, by my logic, that there are now, essentially, public schools for Austrians and public schools for everyone else. Now there may be an explanation for this from the perspective of educators, but I do wonder if, with centralised assignment of school places by the city’s education department, if this is de facto segregation from the age of six.

I suppose, though, in fairness, there has always been segregation in education: private vs. public, by neighbourhood, even the opportunity to receive an education I the first place. It is just that in Vienna they like to act as if it is one curriculum and equal opportunity for all but the reality is night vs. day. I was also recently at a parent night for a private school, and there was a two-hour long meeting with a long power point presentation, and a room full of older parents all of whom spoke German at home save for a handful of Ukrainians who could afford the tuition and, I suspect, wanted their kids to be surrounded by native speakers. So segregation by race and native language is happening by default anyway in the school system. Except this is the quiet part no one in a position of authority wants to say out loud. This particular primary school was also positioned directly next to a middle school. Aha, I thought. Many immigrant parents will not even know “gymnasium” is an option. They will see the school next door and follow instructions.

I am so far removed but I wonder if other countries too have schools with 90% students who do not speak the language of instruction at home, and if so, how do they manage? I keep thinking about all this with our elections here in a few weeks. When you ask people, privately, what they think might happen, it feels like everyone is braced for the worst. So what that may also mean, hypothetically, is that this segregation may only grow even stronger. Finally, I truly believe many Austrians cannot imagine what “school” looks like inside some of these walls because it is so fundamentally different from their own experiences and those of their children if they are in schools with a high percentage of native speakers. I thought I had seen a lot over the years, and even I was surprised — the first evening, quite negatively, and the next morning, very positively.

The teachers are doing heroes work. No question. I question the format. And if it is the right approach. Clearly those in charge of education have no real plan to deal with huge numbers of refugee children arriving, especially in cities like Vienna. Time will tell how it all works out (or doesn't).

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This week I also hope to send out some more Hofer cards. It has been a long time, frankly, and I do still receive requests for help. This period feels a bit like the calm before the storm, with colder weather and more uncertainty ahead in Ukraine.