The flames lick under the window, they are only a few centimeters from the steering wheel, terrifying, this picture. It should be, after all, the driver’s door of a monster truck has to do something. Half the body is painted as if the fire brigade is about to arrive, and new cars are piled on three levels on the long trailer. The PS monster is on the windowsill, right next to the cupboard with the many board games, the mini-table football and the yellow plastic box in Lego design.
Welcome to the fantasy world for children, in an atmosphere where they can let themselves go and relax. Here they withdraw when they escape another environment, when they are overwhelmed with a situation and react to it with lack of concentration or aggression. You are then not alone in this game world. Social workers follow them into the playroom of the elementary school on the Köllnische Heide. You play or talk to the children or leave them alone. The situation gives the correct answer.
The kids don’t know they are part of a pilot, and if they did, they wouldn’t care. But Astrid-Sabine Busse, the headmistress, and her teachers and educators are not indifferent. For them, the project is a form of rescue, at least of damage limitation. And for the Senate Education Administration, at some point it will be the answer to the question of whether it should introduce it in other schools.
The project is called “Parents in View – Setting Limits – Building Bridges”, it was started in September 2019 by School Senator Sandra Scheeres (SPD) and, in short, it aims to identify problems that arise in school children at an early stage and to fix it and at the same time involve the parents concerned in overcoming the problem and support them in doing so.
On one day in December, Astrid-Sabine Busse leaned back in her office and said: “We are very satisfied, teaching staff are relieved, the pupils are also helped.” And the social workers who visit parents became frequent received nicely.
Astrid-Sabine Busse raised the public alarm a good year ago, which is why the pilot project was set up at her school. 98 percent of the students are of non-German origin, many of them are of Arab origin, a large number of parents are recipients of transfer payments and have no education, the notorious Al-Nur mosque is only 300 meters away – these are the general conditions. There was tremendous aggression among the students, a teaching staff that sometimes reached their limits, disruptions in teaching and the influence of the mosque. “Many of our children have the Al-Nur Mosque in their hearts,” said the headmistress. “There is a great deal of indoctrination there. What is being taught there does not correspond to liberal-democratic educational goals. “
Other schools also have similar problems, but in the elementary school on the Köllnische Heide the problem intensified, to a considerable extent also due to the influence of the mosque. The school doesn’t have a completely new solution concept, but more staff, that’s the core of the project. Until September 2019 there was one social worker, now four social workers work at the school. A social worker is assigned to both the first and second grade levels, the others take care of the other classes.
Thanks to the greater number of staff, the educators can now activate an effective early warning system. If you have a problem in your class, the teacher in question can immediately contact the social worker responsible and say: “Please take this child out of class, talk to him, play with him, calm him down.” These are the moments in which the child and social worker retreat to the playroom or another room that is suitable for this.
The class is relieved, as is the child. A single social worker could not provide such timely help. At the same time, the social workers can maintain contact with the youth welfare office and thus relieve the teaching staff. Most important, however, at least until Corona, were the conversations with the parents of children with behavioral problems. The starting point is Astrid-Sabine Busse’s assessment: “Almost every child’s problem has its origin at home.”
The number of child welfare endangerments, she says, “has risen rapidly in recent years”. Children who come without food or inadequately dressed, who are overtired or highly aggressive. You and your colleagues have all of this in mind. “You have to show your child that you love them. It has nothing to do with intellect or money. ”Often, the headmistress says, none of this is bad will. “We have overburdened single mothers.” But there are also parents “who do not fulfill their educational mandate”. And of course “we have a lot of parents who take great care of their children.” And, of course, “Child welfare also happens in middle-class districts”. But probably not as intense as at Busses school. The social workers go to the parents who are clearly neglecting their children. “They talk in a friendly and friendly manner, they ask about problems and try to help.”
But due to Corona, these conversations are almost impossible. And so at least the small successes that have existed since the introduction of the project cannot be continued for the time being. That was also evident shortly before the holidays. Three girls asked their social worker with big, sad eyes independently of one another: “Can’t you come to my house?”
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