Culture in Graz: Classroom, Ethnicity and What it Means to be “Foreign”

Tomorrow begins my first day as a high school teacher here in Graz. The school systems in Austria are organized differently than in the U.S., so I will teach ages 11-19 at the “Gymnasium”. The students attending Gymnasium are on a college bound track; after a few years of general study they will begin to choose specializations. I am teaching at two different schools, one that emphasizes sports and one emphasizing music.   I’m excited to work with older students, as most of my students in prior years were elementary or middle school-ers, and I hope that I can inspire them to care about my lessons. The TA’s I trained with last week went to one of my schools, and brought back reports of both lovely and terrible classes. This is normal. I had some classes in Korea that I looked forward to everyday, and some where I felt like a referee more than a teacher. Some students just don’t like some teachers, and vice-versa. Of course, as a new teacher, you hope to charm them all, although out charming Austria is something even other EU countries have struggled with.

In America we have pretty lofty goals when it comes to teaching. We have fairly strict classrooms, and fairly high expectations that students will behave. A good learning environment is tidy, quiet and attentive.  One of the first rules I’ve learned is to try to let that go when teaching abroad. My Korean students were in school for more hours a day than not, and their excess energy in class made being strict equivalent to herding bees. I didn’t have any calming smoke (although Justin Bieber, Abba, and Sound of Music songs usually had some effect) and I didn’t have any real authority or disciplinary power. It was far easier to barter than it was to uphold mutual respect. All the respect in the world can’t hold down antsy kids forever.

It’s hard to base any opinion after one experience, but after observing a class and teaching a class (I had 12 year-olds) these are the big differences we see in Austrian classrooms.

1) Students chat a lot more during class; sometimes there’s steady hum of chatter. Once in our lesson, the Teacher asked for quiet, but it doesn’t seem bothersome if students talk among themselves, as long as the teacher can still be heard. The trick of course, is to captivating their attention enough that they won’t chatter, but every lesson just can’t be enthralling all the time.

2) Teachers are much more direct here. In our class observation, the Teacher encouraged classmates to pick out each other’s mistakes, and mocked some of his students for them. I don’t believe that this behavior is encouraged or typical, but I have noticed that people speak much more directly here. A saying someone shared with me is: “in America they treat the students like geniuses until they prove they are idiots. In Austria, it is the other way around”. I am almost always awed by my students language skills, as they start so early in other countries that what seems natural for them I remember as a struggle. Remembering what it feels like to learn is definitely helpful when teaching!

3) Austrian schools are chaotic! Teachers run from room to room rather than students changing. Students decorate their classrooms and divide classroom chores among themselves. Each week the students have 13 subjects, that are subject to change around field trips, practices and tests.

4) Students have fewer tests than in America; the tests they have are more like our exams. It sounds like a quite stressful experience.

5) Scheduling is more difficult when teachers rotate rather than students. It is uncommon to have an office or desk; teachers have a spot at a long conference table in the Konferenzzimmer: the coffee/workroom. It does not seem common for teachers to have working computers or laptops at their desks or in their classrooms.

6) A teacher warned me that “anything more complicated than a poster probably won’t work”. The district I am teaching in is one of the lower-income distracts and does not have much extra money for repairs, but you would be surprised what you can do with a little creativity and a chalk board!

Astonishingly, one of my schools has elected to segregate one class to “immigrant only” members. The school is in a neighborhood with many foreign families, and for the first time (to the dismay of other schools) they elected to divide up a class. I can’t imagine what this would be like in America, but in Austria if feels like there is a lingering fear of “foreign”, a word that seems to mean “Asian” or “Eastern”. In America, we constantly struggle to decide what separates our own migrant pasts from those who are just beginning their futures as immigrants in our country. I can only say that here, all my experiences have been pleasant, and that like the direct words of a teacher, attitudes about race are more direct here. It is not considered impolite to say “black person” or “black music” because the language literally translates as such. There is no world for Africa American, unsurprisingly, because people with darker skin are more likely to have ancestors who’ve immigrated from countries all over the world. As an American it is hard to grasp that direct language.

This video was presented in a lecture we attended last week, and I found it pretty awesome. The singer explains what makes him Austrian.  Ösi: (Oh-zee) is a nickname for Austrians, Bua is slang for guy/lad/or man. The concept of someone who doesn’t look racially Austrian actually being Austrian is really interesting, especially after living in the homogeneity of South Korea. Anyone in the world can look “American”, and it was a great experience to explain that idea to my students. The issues of country, identity and patriotism are very real issues EU countries today as they struggle with integration, assimilation and the adaptation/shared lineage that comes from combined cultures and new inhabitants.

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