Solidarity action by schools for Ukraine is expanding: 1000 Berlin students expected in front of the Reichstag – Berlin
The war was not even two days old when it was already clear to the first schools: We cannot go on as if nothing had happened. Actions are planned, but also specific assistance through the offer to take in refugee schoolchildren.
There is great support for the area of the Lilienthal-Gymnasium in Lichterfelde to organize a commemoration event this Thursday. Since other schools would like to take part, there is no longer enough space in front of the Ukrainian embassy. More than 1000 participants are expected.
“Due to the many requests, the commemorative event ‘Peace and Solidarity for Ukraine’ will be held by the embassy on Republic Square on the Reichstag,” said political teacher Florian Bublys, who had reported the rally to the police. He heads the social sciences department and reports that “Fridays for Future Berlin” also wants to join to show its solidarity.
“One thing is becoming increasingly clear for schools: there is a likely challenge.” The teachers must enable the students to deal with crises, to make their contribution, to make them – “regardless of whether it is climate, pandemic or war”, is the assessment of Sven Zimmerschied at the Charlottenburg Friedensburg School.
In the meantime, it is also becoming apparent what range this challenge can have: “We are already seeing things between Russian and Ukrainian schoolchildren that are not entirely unproblematic,” said Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD) at the Senate meeting on Tuesday. The conflicts of the world also took place “in the schoolyards”.
Targeted advice for teachers
At the beginning of the week, the education administration wrote to all schools again and provided them with information and appointments on how to deal with the Ukraine conflict. On March 2, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., there will be an online training course by a Russian-speaking teacher who has lived in Ukraine for a long time and advises teachers on how the topic at school “is expected to affect children and young people right now family connection to the conflict” should be dealt with.
Some schools are already considering how they could manage to open new welcome classes despite the widespread lack of space. “We have experience with this that we can build on,” says a headmaster in advance of the many Syrian and Iraqi refugees his school took in in 2015. There is that feeling again of being able to make a contribution.
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Unlike in 2015, however, one knows better what to expect, for example which teachers are suitable, which teaching materials and which routines.
In addition, the teachers assume that it could be easier than in 2015 because they have long experience with Eastern European children and young people: there is no country between the Oder and the Urals from which there are no students in Berlin. From the Ukraine alone there are around 640 with the appropriate citizenship and an unknown number of naturalized people.
“First added a chair in each class”
However, Giffey pointed out on Tuesday that new welcome classes would have to be organized first. Until then, Giffey, with reference to Education Senator Astrid-Sabine Busse (SPD), suggested that “an additional chair” could be provided in each class for the transition and “acute accommodation”.
[Mehr zum Thema auf Tagesspiegel Plus: Wie erkläre ich meinem Kind den Krieg? Interview mit einer Psychologin.]
As reported, the Senate Department for Education had the schools sent educational material on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict on Thursday, the day the war broke out.
In addition, the district school supervisory board in Steglitz-Zehlendorf reached out to the schools and encouraged them to take up the topic and allow discussions, “even if we don’t have any applied or satisfactory answers”. Because they wish, write the school boards, “that we succeed in providing sufficient pedagogical support in the schools,” even if they believe “that you and your colleges have never been so challenged as they are now.”