Celebrating Multicultural Education in Austria: Part 2

Below is the second part of a two-part article from Kurier about a multicultural school in Vienna. It was translated from the German by JLH.

Our Austrian correspondent AMT, who tipped us about the article, has included a brief commentary following the translation.

Part 1 is available here.

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Kurier: There are nationalities at the VIS and also German-speaking children but more equitably distributed.

Riesinger: Yes, but how are supposed to solve that in Brigittenau? Maybe send a few children to the 13th or 18th district? I don’t think the parents would agree. Although they travel to Turkey and love the country.

Kurier: Are there crosses hanging in your classrooms?

Riesinger: In some yes, in others no. We never talked about that. St. Nicholas visits one year but not another. We have an Advent wreath and have Christmas singing, but also Christmas song from other countries or continents are sung. When so many nationalities are all pulling together, it is lovely.

Kurier: That is certainly a subject of interest to FP party leader Strache. And for many parents, cultural identity is important for their children.

Riesinger: Basically, I don’t listen to what Mr. Strache says. He is always talking about a parallel society. But we here are a together society. We have to integrate and hold together, not discriminate and exclude.

Kurier: So, is the suggestion of Mayor Häupl to create Islamic schools a stupid idea?

Riesinger: I would rather not comment on that.

Kurier: Cardinal Schönborn has warned against a demographic development where religious instruction in Viennese public schools is teetering on the brink.

Riesinger: I understand that the cardinal is concerned. But [religious] instruction is taking place. There is an hour per week out of a total of 22 hours of instruction. Under the cover of religious instruction, it is about something completely different.

Kurier: It is still taking place…

Riesinger: We are trying very hard for a mix. We certainly cannot help the Church more than we now do.

Kurier: Mrs. Riesinger, do you sometimes wish you were in a different district?

Riesinger: Absolutely not. I have been working in Brigittenau for twenty years, first as a teacher, and for six years now as director here at the Butterfly School. I know the realities of life in this district. Schools are a reflection of that and we all have to deal with that, politics as well as society.

Kurier: If you could have a wish for the next school year, what would it be?

Riesinger: More teachers! I still need four teachers. After this summer, three of them are retiring; one of them is going on sabbatical. Maybe as a result of the Kurier report, a few will apply for our school at the Viennese school council, now that it is in the headlines.

Kurier: Speaking of teachers: are you a fan or a foe of the Kurier school attorney?

Riesinger: I regard him with a certain healthy distance. It is fine for every pupil to be represented, but I sometimes have the impression that bad news outweighs other news.

However, perhaps the negative headlines are just the ones we educators notice.

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AMT adds these comments:

The establishment must be getting desperate to rein in its disciples: More and more articles are springing up in the Austrian MSM loudly praising the merits of multiculturalism and the need for immigration, without which Austria, as the rest of the Western world, will not survive.

This interview is particularly hard to bear for someone who is not a true believer. It is, above all, interesting to note that the headmistress talks about the difficulties of her own heavily enriched school, especially in view of the required religious instruction, but fails to mention that the Vienna International School (VIS) was built to cater to the needs of the United Nations and embassy personnel in Vienna. It is a non-denominational school, its foremost goal being the integration of students from literally all over the world into an international school system, enabling them to finish their school years, where otherwise most of them would lose a year or two in the “local” school system because of the language barrier. However, each student at VIS must study German. There are no exceptions to this rule.

One another note: the headmistress mentions that she refuses to listen to what FPÖ party leader Heinz-Christian Strache says. Considering that, she appears to know quite well what he says and means. As is usual for the multiculti fanatics, she fails to explain precisely the merits of students being held back because the majority does not speak even rudimentary German. In contrast, nearly all students at VIS speak English. That is an important commonality.