Bäck tsu School

"WIR WOLLEN KEINE WANDERKLASSE" screams the sign in large letters, surrounded by more personal messages from individual students. It's a protest against the decision of the school where I'm teaching to force one group of seniors to move classes each period, rather than giving them a room of their own, which is normal. To my students, it's a constant source of irritation, a reminder that they attend a "ghetto school," as several of them have complained to me. (I can't really comment, as I've only ever been to one Austrian school, but my students are really engaged and the building is not lacking in facilities in the least.) To me, however, it's a daily reminder of the ways that Austrian schools differ from the ones I attended in the United States.

A sign, hanging in the main hallway of the school, protesting the school's policies? There's no way any high school in America would let that happen. Because the school belongs to the administration--the students are allowed to attend, as long as they follow the rules and behave themselves. Otherwise, there exists a sliding scale of punishments, beginning with detention, through Saturday detention, in-school suspension, out-of-school suspension, and ending with expulsion.

Here, however, you get the distinct feeling that the school belongs to the students. First of all, teachers don't have classrooms--students do. During breaks (at least 10 minutes between each class), the students roam the halls, blast music from their classroom speakers, head to the Pausenhalle to buy candy, sandwiches, and Schnitzel, or even go outside and smoke.* On the stairs during Pause, I once got nailed in the head by an eraser that a student threw down from the floor above us, trying to hit his friend. But I have never heard a teacher try to control the chaos in the halls during Pause, so I just glared at the student, who did say "Entschuldigung" in a somewhat apologetic manner, and kept on walking.

The teachers, meanwhile, retreat to the Konferenzzimmer (teachers' lounge). This is a large room with two long tables, with spaces divided up for each teacher. At first, I was highly intimidated by the staff room -- teaching running around, surrounded by piles of papers, and constant knocks from students asking "Ist der Herr Professor Blah-Blah da?" It felt like chaos. It's only by spending time in the Konferenzzimmer and meeting the other teachers (I had a great conversation with the people in my corner today about Bauer Sucht Frau) that I've begun to see the calm within the chaos. I now look forward to Pause as a chance to shoot the breeze with my fellow teachers.

This is not the Konferenzzimmer in my school (Brigittenauer Gymnasium), but it looks similar

Because everyone likes Pause so much, moving back into school mode takes a bit of time. Indeed, the bell that rings every hour signals not the beginning of class, but the end of Pause. It is only when we teachers hear the bell that we leave the Konferenzzimmer and head to their next classroom, meaning that class starts 3-5 minutes after the bell rings. During the first week, I didn't realize this, and in my desire to be Austrian-punctual, I spent a lot of time awkwardly standing in front of classrooms, getting funny looks from the students, waiting for the teacher to show up.

So in many ways, the school climate is much more informal than what I experienced in the United States. But at the same time, you can still see remnants of an older, much more formal Gymnasium system. For example, when the teacher enters the classroom, the students must stand up -- acknowledging the honor of a visit from the teacher (always addressed as "Frau Professor" or "Herr Professor") into their classroom. Sometimes, though, they've also forgotten to shut off the stereo system,  so we receive a regal greeting with musical accompaniment by Kanye West.

My students, on the whole, are really great. In almost every class, it's the case that some students are really confident in their English abilities and want to talk, while others disengage. (The worst case happened to me today, when a girl looked at me, said "Ich verstehe gar kein Wort Englisch," pulled her hoodie over her face and went to sleep.) Figuring out ways to reach this second group is going to be a year-long struggle. It's also pretty frustrating, because even though I never do so in the classroom (unless the students want to hear me say "Oachkatzlschwoaf" or something), I do speak German and so have an alternative way of reaching these students that I can't use. I was talking to Martin, an Austrian guy on my floor, last night, and he said that when he was in school, they had a teaching assistant, but he doesn't speak English well so he never talked to her. And that's sad to me -- a very clear example of how language difficulties can lead to missed opportunities for human connection.

Today, though, I had my best moment of intercultural connection. During my standard introductory lesson, where I have the students ask me questions about me and my life in America, a girl in the third form (14 years old, so with still somewhat limited English) said, "I have a Frage. Wait, I need to figure out how to say it." Then, after conferring with some of her classmates, she asked in a voice clearly full of hurt about the Mohammed film and why Americans had made it. I explained that there are some Americans who are anti-Muslim, because of September 11 and because of the wars, but that most Americans thought the film was awful. But that because we believe in freedom of speech, we think it's better to let people say really offensive things, and trust that other people will say, "That's really offensive. How dare you!" But that sometimes, it can be hard for people who are really hurt and offended to just accept that other people can insult them and their beliefs without reason. I had the whole class -- a class where at least 30% of the girls were wearing hijabs -- nodding along with me.

Maybe this representing America thing won't be so bad after all.



*Like drinking, smoking is legal in Austria starting at age 16, meaning that my older students talk about how hungover they are without shame. I did some small-group with a girl today who had "Vodka" written on her arm with the "o" turned into a heart. I'm 22 and still don't feel comfortable talking about drinking with people who are not close friends, so I'm trying to play down my shock. Working with Austrian teenagers has really shown me how Puritanical I really am. I almost choked on my Pausenbrot when one of my fellow teachers asked me, "Is it correct English to say 'unprotected sex'? I want to talk about that with my fifth formers (age 15)."