School-Class-Struggle

I have now officially finished school. Yesterday was my last day so now I am officially accepted to do the finishing exams for which I have 36 chances all in all, and if I don't pass in 36 times I don't deserve it.

Shortly before we finished though the heated debate about the teachers having to work 2 hours more a week without any compensation went into its last round. Now it seems that they have come up with a phony compromise that doesn't achieve either what the government wanted or what the teacher's unions wanted, another brilliant example of how we're tricked into thinking we have achieved something when what was really done amounts to zilch.

In any case, the point was that last week, for the first time in my life the student representatives thought that they would go at organizing something democratically and called a meeting of the entire upper forms of our school. Meaning that there were a few hundred people sitting on the basketball field in school hoping to come to some conclusion. Unfortunately the head of our school representatives is best described as being spine-less and arrogant.

Sitting on a stage he explained to a large group of intelligent young people what his party told him to say whilst being very careful to stay completely ambiguous so that nobody can blame him for anything later. But the real fun started when the microphone was open for everyone to speak.

It all began by a college of mine explaining the economics of the situation to a room full of people that didn't really want to know about that aspect and our representative speaking in response but not replying. Then a discussion started about who is to blame. The first speaker saying "without a doubt the People's Party!", our wonderful representative (who is supported by the People's Party's student movement) denying that. The second speaker blaming the Socialist Democrats. Then I got so annoyed with the situation that I got up and took the microphone.

I completely understand why it is important to sit and talk about any action to be taken, however this was not the time to talk. Before was the time to talk, now was the time to act. The response either showed our representative's spine-less-ness extremely well, or he did not understand what I was getting at. He seriously responded by saying that there would be another meeting. Wow. More talk. Everywhere else in Austria students went on strike last Friday to protest government educational policy, our representative did not want to rattle his cage so he did not rally anyone, which would have resulted in maybe even our entire school going on strike which would have been over a thousand people more. Instead we signed a statement saying we don't agree with the government.

What people have failed to realize here is that now the government has seen that essentially they can pull something like this off, which means that now slowly but surely everyone will be targeted to work more and earn less, because the economic situation is so difficult and we have to make sure that those who caused the crisis don't have to deal with the consequences. Blatantly ignoring all the facts surrounding this world economic crisis while trying to patch up the system, which amounts more to putting a band-aid on cancer. This wasn't just an attack on the teachers, this situation just begun. Now this was an attack on the teachers and the students but tomorrow it will be on steel workers or on printers. This was the beginning of an attack on the entire working-class of Austria. So no, just because the teacher's union and government officials have come up with a phony compromise this situation is not over, far from it.

What people also have failed to realize is that we have more power than we think. Who is to say that if the ministry of education gets rid of 6 of our free days we go to school? We are not powerless we are only made to believe it.

People in my class say they don't care because they're finished now, another stunning example of Austrian solidarity. People don't care as long as they are not effected because they completely fail to see the big picture. Just because it was only the teachers and students now doesn't mean anything about what will happen next. So essentially everyone should be taken part in trying to stop the madness that was going on last week instead of saying "I don't care. I'm not a student."

Unfortunately I just know that this was the end of the involvement of students in the resistance to this crisis. Because time doesn't flow, if it doesn't effect students it doesn't matter to us because by the time we will have to deal with real life the situation will be different. Yes, because they have decided on everything while we were lying on the couch basking is life's splendours.

Pictures at an Exhibition

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Originally uploaded by aderieg

The beginning of the end of school started Thursday evening with the opening of an exhibition. Christopher, Paddy, Ernest (who belongs to our extended household) and five girls that I unfortunately don't know very well, presented the work they have been doing for two years for the Higher Level Visual Arts course for the International Baccalaureate. It was an impressive exhibition, and it was good to see the boys' work in that context.

For the formal opening of the exhibition there were speeches by a man from the community center where the exhibition was presented and by a philosopher, with whom I most vehemently (albeit silently) disagreed about the significance of this exhibition. I was appalled to hear such enthusiastic musings about how wonderful it is to see "young people expressing their personal creativity". This is the part where I think I am missing Amy again. I imagine that Amy might be able to explain to me from an educator's perspective that "expressions of creativity" might have some merit in certain contexts and situations, but from my own limited perspective, "expressions of creativity" immediately suggest to me the highly dubious pretext of "creativity" as a way to keep people busy with themselves, so that as they become increasingly self-absorbed, they also become docile and less likely to "cause trouble". That is most certainly not what art means to me.

Following the opening speeches, my first reaction was to move swiftly in the direction of the closest exit to go outside for a cigarette, but later it was very, very good to be able to talk with the boys' teachers. I have the greatest respect and admiration for these teachers, and I am deeply grateful to them for the way they have expanded the boys' horizons and encouraged them to explore important issues from different perspectives. I know I have benefited tremendously from their wonderful work in so many in-depth conversations with the boys, in the ways that I sense that the boys have a greater understanding of my work and what matters to me. I was seriously impressed that one of the teachers actually read Art and Revolution and talked about it with Christopher, equally impressed by how Christopher was moved to reflect on his conversations with her. This is not art as an instrument of pacification, this is what matters.

It is, of course, with some chagrin that I must admit now, at the end of school, that my lofty views of what I expected for my children's education proved unrealistic and perhaps even somewhat arrogant. Over the years I asserted again and again that as my sons are so very privileged in so many ways, it is not the school's job to enhance those privileges, but to provide a context, in which my sons might learn to make use of those privileges more wisely, not only for their own benefit, but to help make this a better world for all. I humbly concede now that my sons are not only privileged, they also have needs of their own. I think they have been incredibly fortunate in encountering wonderful teachers willing and able to accept and sometimes even appreciate their respective (not necessarily school system-appropriate) strengths and allow them enough scope to find their own ways of coping with their weaknesses within this system. Let's hear a round of applause for teachers with a sense of humor!

Following the opening of the exhibition Thursday evening, each of the exhibiting pupils was scheduled to spend 40 minutes on Friday with an examiner from the international IB committee talking about what they have learned over the past two years – essentially the first of their IB exams. When I heard that Paddy, who was the first in line, spent an hour and half talking with the examiner and was very happy about how much she knew, my first thought was that even now, at the end of his school career, Paddy has still not grasped the concept that exams are not meant to be an invitation to him to assess how much the teacher knows, but vice versa. That particular misunderstanding has been a source of tension and point of negotiation since he first started school and all the way through to the end. It was more reassuring to hear later from Christopher and Ernest that they also enjoyed talking with the examiner, who was very interested and well informed about their work and different approaches.

My second thought was that Christopher, waiting his turn outside for nearly an hour longer than expected, must have been wanting to strangle his dear brother by then. Paddy and Christopher were scheduled to go first, because they were to be in a performance of "Waiting for Godot" Friday evening. The production that they took part in last year, their friend Alexander's IB project for theater arts, was accepted as part of an international youth theater festival currently taking place in Linz. As much of an honor as this is, the timing is hardly ideal. They didn't have enough rehearsal time even in our living room, let alone the public hall where they were to perform. Christopher was very nervous about not knowing his lines well enough for the second half, they all had to get to the hall to see how things were set up and meet with the technician about lighting and sound, and Paddy didn't even have a costume for the additional role he plays this time. This was really not the best time for Paddy to end up spending over twice as much as his scheduled time slot blithely enjoying talking about art with the international examiner.

The show goes on. The performance last night turned out to be unexpectedly surprising in the end. There is another performance today in a few hours, and I believe all bets are off about how it might end this time. Next week we move on to the Crossing Europe Film Festival and Christopher's first appearance as a waiter, which is of course the first step to becoming an actor. Then there will be more exams, and then …