Celebrating Multicultural Education in Austria: Part 1

“It is a pedagogical and cultural challenge. But it is also an enormous enrichment for both sides.”

— Ilse Riesinger, director of the Butterfly School

Our Austrian correspondent AMT drew our attention to the following article from last week’s Kurier, which features an interview with the director of a multicultural school in Vienna, almost all of whose students are now foreigners.

Note that the director — despite the fact that 98.5% of the children under her care do not speak German as their native language — is still a dedicated Multiculturalist, and takes every opportunity during the interview to celebrate the diversity of her school.

The article will be presented in two parts, with commentary by AMT following the second part. Many thanks to JLH for translating it from the German.

98.5% Foreigners, Only 3 in 200 Children Are Catholic. Now, Straight Talk from the Director of this School in a Kurier Interview

Awarding of certificates at the most cited school in Vienna last Friday. Chechen, Turkish, Chinese, African and Serbian children romp in front of the entrance. One student is leaning against a house wall in a side street, furtively puffing on a cigarette.

Vienna-Brigittenau: In a row here are Café Amor, Pizza Capri, Mek Leskvac Charcoal Grill, Johnny’s Cell Phone Shop. In between is a dart club, as lonesome as the few Austrian passers-by walking Dammstrasse. Of the 200 children in the school at Greiseneckerstrasse 29/1, only three are Roman Catholic — a fact which has caused some uproar in the past weeks. Even Cardinal Christoph Schönborn took the occasion to say some words of warning. The reason: By law, religious instruction only occurs if at least three children participate in it. A close call. The multi-culti school is a drastic example.

Among the directorship, there is a mood contemplating closing the school, but also mild exasperation at the sudden attention. On the wall is a drawing by Anna for the director: “You are the dearest and most beautiful (woman) in the world.”

“This controversy comes to me as the child to the virgin,” laments Ilse Riesinger, head of the truly colorful “Butterfly School,” which has not been an isolated case for some time now. In an interview with the Kurier, the educator spoke of prejudices, parallel societies and why so many different nations in one spot in the “Vienna International School” are chic, and in Wien-Brigittenau are frowned upon.

Kurier: Madame Director, do you understand the excitement that flared up around your school after a newspaper report?

Ilse Riesinger: No, I was horrified! First, it was said that we only had two Roman Catholic children left and religious instruction could not be offered. But that report was in error; there were still three! It would have been nice if we had been contacted, to determine the facts. Now it looks as though we went out with our butterfly net caught a Roman Catholic child somewhere.

Kurier: Don’t take this badly, but a child more or less does not change the fact that, let us say, a great imbalance dominates in your school.

Riesinger: That is true at considerably more schools than ours. This residential area has a great multicultural background. There are Roman Catholic children, Islamic, Serbian Orthodox… Altogether, we have sixteen nationalities: Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Chechnya, China, Pakistan, Somalia, Poland, Germany, Rumania, Philippines, India, Albania, Slovakia, Macedonia

Kurier: How does that affect instruction?

Riesinger: Concerning religious instruction, it is logistically not simple. But we can circumvent the environment. It is sometimes tedious, but where is that not the case? I see it above all as a challenge.

Kurier: Many parents see it as threatening, when the children who cannot speak German are in the majority, which is a polite way of defining 98.5%.

Riesinger: I am happy to invite those parents to come to the school and observe. We make an intensive effort in pre-school to make sure that all children master their mother tongue as well as German. We take that slowly. Because it is our job to bring all children into the boat.

Kurier: And that is not a disadvantage for children who just want to learn?

Riesinger: We complete the same lesson plan as all other schools. To be sure, it is a pedagogical and cultural challenge. But it is also an enormous enrichment for both sides.

Kurier: Why is it fashionable to have so many nationalities in the Vienna International School, but here people wrinkle their noses?

Riesinger: That is due to PR on the one hand, and on other, money. The VIS is sponsored by UNO. The parents have a completely different financial background. Here in Brigittenau, you can have the multicultural environment for free (laughs).