January 1, 2006

Education integration

Dear Friends,

There are a number of school-age children in the refugee camps in Hungary. While it is mandatory for these children to attend school, the reality is that for a number of reasons some children end up not going. Until last year Hungary was considered a transit country on the way to the "real" Europe, and there was little point in putting a lot of energy into making children go to school if they were likely to be in an other country in a few weeks or months. Some children, especially the younger ones, did attend neighborhood schools and learned the language fairly quickly, as young children often do.

Teenage children present more of a problem. Many have not been to school for a long time, sometimes years, as they went from place to place, camp to camp. Many enjoy the freedom that comes with not having to go to school. Starting school now is often met with resistance. The parents, who are often depressed or preoccupied, lose control over their rebellious teenagers. Additionally, in some cultures the girls are not expected to go to school, but to learn housekeeping from their mothers until they are of marriageable age. When they do go to school teens cannot keep up with their classmates because they can't speak the language well enough for high school class work, and they don't know the culture. Some have suggested putting students in a lower grade until they learn enough for high school. However, an older student in a lower grade is disruptive to the class and embarrassing to the student, and the student often stops going to school.

I have personal experience with this problem. In 1956 I was a 12-year-old Hungarian refugee in the United States. In my first months of school I too was assigned to a lower grade and then slowly moved up. Once when the class was given some task to complete I just sat there because I didn't even understand that we were to do something. The somewhat insensitive teacher called me lazy. I had to look up the word to realize that I was insulted . Because I didn't speak the language many teachers assumed that I was stupid. When I did get a problem correct, it was assumed that I cheated. The reality was that I was at least two school years ahead of my age group. When I went to high school I didn't miss a beat despite only doing the last two months of eighth grade due to an administrative oversight. I went on to get a masters in education and had a career in teaching.

In 2004, when Hungary became a member of the European Union, the education of refugee children became more important, but the government was poorly prepared to deal with the problem. Hungary has accepted foreigners in their schools in the past but they were children from surrounding countries who already spoke Hungarian. They had never had to address the complexity of integrating non-Hungarian-speaking children into the educational system.

In the spring Kathy and I, with the help of the mission department of the Hungarian Reformed Church, started to address this problem. In Hungary, the Reformed Church has a system of schools much like some of the denominations in the United States have schools. We decided to approach these schools to see if they could serve as locations for the language integration program. The support of the bishop of Hungarian Reformed Church was instrumental in getting our foot in the door at some of the high schools. Often school personnel were skeptical or openly resistant to having the headaches of foreign students in the building. They agreed to give it a try only after we convinced the staff that if in the first year the students only learn Hungarian and get used to going to school again, then we would consider the project a success. Later, with a grant from the European Refugee Fund, we were able to hire a language teacher to help the students keep up and to learn Hungarian in a more formal way.

We visit the school regularly and encourage the staff to call us if there are problems (and there are), but this is our first year and we are working the bugs out. Next fall, we hope to have a special classroom for refugee teens where they will study Hungarian and catch up on subjects so that they are able to join their peers in regular classes.

Though this work is slow and there are many frustrations, there are also surprises. An unexpected plus is that the ex-communist government, which usually is in conflict with the church, is starting to see the church as a partner and not a critic. In this project, the government is still unprepared. We are working on solutions that are constructive and cost effective. The church is getting experience in working in partnership with the government, something that for two generations was not even allowed.

Kathy and I are grateful to serve God through this project. As foreigners, we can sometimes imagine things that for Hungarians are unthinkable. But all is impossible without God's leadership.

Joe and Kathy Angi