TGIF
Austria's education minister brings Matura exams to hospital beds, Ukraine gets cyber-attacked, tennis Jesus gets the boot, BJ dead man walking, and some great Russian podcasts.
I took this photo during the first week of school, full of optimism and that burst of activity you have every September when you think maybe this year it will be different, an inevitably by December you realise this year will be just like every other year, there was really no point in getting all excited.
Yesterday I saw this crazy headline posted by @simonefeichtner and my knee jerk reaction was of course horror and then the realisation that every time we hope for the better with regard to Austrian politics, we always, without fail, are offered politicians even more incompetent than their incompetent predecessors. So this kind of went viral for obvious reasons.
I was also amused, after I got over my initial horror, at the range of reactions. Nine out of ten people totally agreed that you cannot say such a thing, that maybe a person in the hospital has other things to worry about beyond a high school graduation exam.
But what really surprised me were the responses explaining this has always been the case, that really sick kids should still be able to graduate, that the exams may be “brought” to them, and I have to ask myself, people, do you listen to yourselves? Why not, and here is a novel idea…give the really sick kid a pass, just give them the Matura if they did all the classwork, don’t make them take the exam, just give them the diploma.
That is the ultimate problem with this rigid, still stuck in the Hapsburg monarchy thinking that is pervasive in Austria — rules are rules and cannot be changed but look how flexible we are in modern times, we bring the exam to the hospital bed because the kid has leukaemia. No, that is utterly wrong. Let the kid fight leukaemia and just graduate him/her. Period.
Matura itself is in my opinion an outdated instrument carried forward by people who suffered through it themselves, designed to force kids “on track” until the very last day of their school careers. Many other countries simply let you graduate after you passed 12 years of school. Why would you use a single day to measure knowledge gained over more than a decade, instead of the grades the students earned over those years?
I understand the need for a benchmark, but in that case you could offer an optional standardised test, much like the SAT/ACT, although that of course has its downsides, namely that rich kids can afford tutoring. But we have the same problem here with the Matura and it is not optional. Moreover, it’s totally useless when you take it in May of your senior year of high school if you plan to attend a competitive university outside of Austria, as you have to apply in the fall of your senior year anyway, and decisions will be made based on your grades up until that point. Matura will come too late to be included in the decision-making process.
But in Austria, you might argue, someone might care about your Matura grades. Which brings us to the next problem. Unlike Germany, Austria’s universities are not hard to get into, they don’t discriminate or even use your Matura grades to determine who can or cannot study, so what is the motivation to even do well on your Matura if you can study at the university you want to go to anyway? Now some will argue it’s great there is affordable higher education available to all, and while I totally understand that argument, the importance of an affordable price tag, it is a problem when a country doesn’t have a single institution of higher education that is highly ranked on a global scale. It means you aren’t able to raise the bar higher, or don’t want to raise the bar higher, or think it’s fine where it is. Which is basically stagnation. Which is the one of the main Austrian problems now in 2022, and not just in education.
Every conversation you have — whether about education, the school system, the healthcare system, any kind of government bureaucracy, ends in the same conclusion. “We’ve always done it that way and it cannot be changed”. I would really like to take issue with that sentiment. Of course the powers that be, the vested interests, the people sitting in positions of power, like the new education minister, don’t have any motivation to change anything because at best they are publicly criticised for trying, at worst they fail completely. Austrian society doesn’t applaud change or innovation, resistance and fear are real and palpable.
One notable exception is the amazing Klima Ticket, and you get the impression the responsible minister simply put head down, focused on the task at hand, tuned out all the noise, negotiated hard, and got shit done. Remarkable also because it so rarely happens like that in Austrian politics. Usually ministers spend more time talking to the press than actually doing any work. And both press and government seem to be happy with this sad co-dependent but comfortable and familiar relationship.
I don’t know what you have to do to wake people up, to encourage people to take risks, and demand better. I am on a weekly basis frustrated with what feels like a lack of care or empathy from fellow parents. Sometimes I think the school could reinstate corporal punishment and some moms and dads would even be ok with that. I know people are tired and busy and just can’t deal with everything. I completely get that.
It worries me so much that young people have no examples of anyone standing up to anyone in this society, with the notable exception of young people like Mati Randow, not afraid to speak up eloquently and publicly and address issues impacting students. If you haven’t read the open letter this week, do take a moment. This is what we should be seeing from adults, too, but they are silent. I guess because it’s what they learned and it’s what has worked for their careers to date. Austria is, after all, the size of a village.
On the school topic — so much is said about covid and schools, but so often it’s adults who talk around children, and no one asks the kids about what they are experiencing right now. This podcast is a great look at all sides of recent Omicron tensions in Chicago’s public schools. I loved that they interviewed kids of different ages too. A truly inclusive look at at all the issues, well worth your time:
Circling back on the “why can’t Austria change” philosophical discussion, one reason is it’s sometimes harder to see the forest through the trees. Foreign reporting on Austria is often much more nuanced than the play-by-play we read here in the domestic press, of course in large part because international media do not receive taxpayer funding, unlike almost every domestic media outlet operating in Austria. This, in English, is well worth your time:
Ukraine cyber attack
News coming out this morning that many of Ukraine’s main government websites have been hacked and its primary citizens’ portal is also down. Journalists warned this week that this might be one of the ways the Russian state may make itself heard. Two days later, they were proven right.
I’m still thinking about frozen mud, I’m still very worried about a war in Europe, I’m even more worried that everyone seems to be either indifferent or accepting it as a done deal at this point. Lavrov will be hosting Germany’s new green foreign minister next week in Moscow, and I imagine that will go down about as well as Borrell’s trip just after Navalny’s arrest. Lavrov will surely enjoy the pleasure of eating Baerbock for breakfast.
Meanwhile, @juliaioffe writes in her newsletter the U.S. is already quietly sending Ukraine money for security, and warning there may be more to come, as “they’re watching the weather to forecast the risk of an invasion...” she writes in her Puck newsletter, Tomorrow Will be Worse.
Russian podcast recommendations
If you understand Russian, some great podcast recommendations for you. The first is in an interview with Viktor Shenderovich, the latest victim of the Putin-forever political scene. This interview made me nostalgic for Moscow and sad, sad and hopeful, but mostly sad. The second is an interview with Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan on their work over the past two decades (!) investigating the role of the security services in Russia.
Tennis Jesus is going home
How could I forget? Novak is getting the boot! Can’t wait to hear his father declare war on behalf of Serbia against the western world.
Was really surprised to see the New York Times devote an entire article to the role of Novak in Serbia today but here we are. Generally, when the NYT starts writing long feature pieces trying to understand the Balkans, and Serbia in particular, it’s time to hide, somewhere very far away.
Is Boris Johnson toast?
My mother is extremely worried about Prince Andrew and the poor Queen, but it certainly looks like BJ might finally be dead man walking, politically speaking, despite being the cat with a zillion lives. Can’t really imagine anything more offensive than this, even by tolerant British standards:
On that upbeat note, wishing you all a great weekend and thank you for reading this week! You are all an integral part of my little experiment to preserve my mental health while living in a country that still makes me nervous every time I have to open my mouth and put together a grammatically correct sentence in German.