“Are there many refugees in the kindergarten? -No there are just kids.”

Meeting Teachers from State Primary School in Kreuzberg:

Today, we had four meetings and the third one was at a primary state school in the Kreuzberg. It was a real chance for us to do this meeting with a school from the Kreuzberg district because Kreuzberg known with their multicultural structure. Our contact was Barbara Walther, a teacher, from that school and when we went there one of Barbara’s colleague, Lisa Doerrie, welcomed us. She is also a teacher and she has a plenty of refugee students. Besides we had a chance to talk with school’s advisor Claudia Bosch. They told us their experiences.

Mrs. Doerrie introduced us the education system in Berlin for a little while. Primary schools in Berlin are until 6th grade. After graduating primary school, students have three choices in front of them: ISS’, Gynasium’s, and Fach Abitur’s. Their disciplines are different than each other. Also in Germany, education is obligatory until 10th grade but what ever they do they have to upgrade themselves with programs until age of 18. Actually teachers play an important role on a child life because they can advice parents regarding the capacity of child. Also students need Abitur for a higher education.

Mrs. Doerrie said that the first refugee student came to their school two years ago. Most of the refugees are staying in the Tempelhof airport. This area was out of order and now it become a place for refugees. They are staying in hangars, living a life of commune. That’s why there are not a lot of refugee kids in schools. For example, in this school, they have 3 classes for refugees, and each class have 15 students.

Unfortunately, refugee students’ schools are always changing because of their settlement problems. Once their parents find flats they have to be transfer to an another school. This situation affects kids and also teachers. Some students stay two months in a school then transfer to another one, and teachers don’t know how to behave when they don’t know if kids are here for a permanent time or not. Also educating them can be hard for teachers. Some of them aren’t able to continue.

Welcoming Classes

Another problem of Berlin primary schools is the lack of qualified teacher. They have “Welcoming classes” for refugees and they need teachers for those classes. Education system looking for teachers who knows Arabic or Farsi but mostly teachers don’t know it. So they are communicating in German with kids. With a language that kids are not familiar to… Some students don’t even know the idea of school because of the war and moving every time.

They have three refugee kids who study with German students. Mrs. Doerrie said “I think it was much more successful” because they can communicate and learn from other students. There are some kids with Lebanon background who can speak Arabic, so they help refugee kids in their school life. Behavior of refugee kids have difference according to their personality. Some of them can be traumatized.

At the beginning of this refugee wave, institutions tried to educate teachers for communicating traumatized kids but it didn’t really happen.

“We didn’t have the material; we have materials for sure to teach German but for kids who already understand German.”

Refugee kids can move forward to mixed classes when they can speak German in A1 or A2 level. In regular classes they have an opportunity to choose Arabic as a foreigner language but refugee kids don’t have any Arabic lessons in welcoming class system. Also Arabic lessons are funded by an Islam federation, they are more likely on religion than language. Before coming to Berlin, we’ve heard from second generations of Turks that they had Turkish lessons in after schools, or in weekend courses. But now the Turkish lessons are funding by Turkish government while they are given in German state schools. We came here for researching, interviewing the integration and the interaction of migrants and refugees. As I understand from the word “Integration” means maintaining two cultures in same time with peace but regarding this information, I can’t really say that Germany’s education policy is “integration-friendly”. If they were, they should have Arabic lessons for refugees.

Advisor’s of school, social workers, and some times volunteers are spending time with kids for their problems, psychological issues. Meeting with their parents is a quit well problem because of the agencies. Finding parents information needs hard work. If they found it, they can speak their own language because one of their colleagues can speak Arabic. So they can state their problem easily.

Mrs. Doerrie said that the interaction between refugees and the other kids is better in the smaller grades than 5th and 6th grades. Mrs. Bosch, school’s advisor, said that they are not talkative when it comes to their life. Some of them spoke about their journey to Germany said Mrs. Bosch and added that there are kids who came with parents or just with one member like a cousin. There are ones who misses their families, or their old life with their houses, pets. Their past is surrounded by war memories and also (for some of them) their future is unpredictable than a normal life. All that they can think of is their present.

The fastest way to have this interaction with non residence and residence students is playing a game. In the classroom, they are interested by each other and being an interaction. Even the games they are playing includes a language, that’s why it is obvious that they need to learn German. Mrs. Bosch said “some times “the welcome classes” define like a refugee classes and discrimination between refugees’ kids and the other kids. Make it closer, maybe making some lessons together. At the afternoon class, they can play an instrument, play football, participate the art class etc”.

Like we said earlier, most of the refugees are staying in Tempelhof, so there are plenty of children. Some of those children started to have hobbies like sports, playing instruments; for example, violin or cello, and they putted through a philharmonic orchestra of Tempelhof. They have a really good program with circuses, volunteers…

There are kids who thinks to go back to their old houses, home countries but there are also kids who have carrier dream, think living here.

Mrs. Bosch told us some memories with refugee, migrant kids. Some of them are not feeling totally German; for example, one boy had told her that he was %100 of Arabian and %50 of German. She said that “he is a %150 a boy”. Besides refugees or Turkish migrants there are a lot of citizen with Lebanese migrant background and Mrs. Doerrei said that even those kids don’t describe them as a German. She said that “I know that all of my class was born in Berlin but when I ask where they are from, they are saying Lebanon”. That’s why she added “we have to be careful for not making the same mistakes. For not having lost generations”.

“It is all of ours problem, it is our responsibility.”- Lisa Doerrei

Mrs. Bosch thought that it would be better if there were more mix. She said that there are a lot of people who didn’t even go out from Kreuzberg, just living with their Arabian butchers, markets, etc.

Mrs. Bosch said that someone asked a boy:

“Are there many refugees in the kindergarten?

-No they are just kids.”

Sometimes kids can be cruel but they don’t see world like adults, they see in a better way. Like Mrs. Bosch said: “Little children are just looking for a friend to play football”. Why adults just can’t remember we are all same and playing in a garden?