Everyone talks about integration problems, nobody talks about how badly bureaucracy and working conditions work for teachers. An experience report.

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Working conditions of an honorary teacher

Hello, I am Susanne Hausner. This is of course a pseudonym. Because I am writing about my work as a German teacher in an integration course at a further education institution in North Rhine-Westphalia.

I teach 26-30 hours a week here for relatively little Money People who want to live and work in our country and thus make an important contribution to the integration of immigrants. I experience amazing things that sometimes make you laugh, sometimes make you angry.

The somewhat better slavery

So that you can get a better picture of my job: I earn an average of 1538,125 gross per month. That's not much for an academic, but I still have a few deductions every month. For example, I still have to pay my pension insurance (19,9%), my Health insurance (14,9%) and my long-term care insurance (2,2%) pay completely by myself and so I get an average monthly income of 1051,50 euros.

In addition, I am not paid monthly; I only get money if I have a contract. This is usually every 8-10 weeks. I have to wait about 2 weeks for my money. I still have to pay the taxes to the state that I am forced to pay every month.

By the way: I don't know for sure whether I really have an average of EUR 882,50 a month. If I register for one of my courses with less than 10 pupils, they won't find enough and I won't get any money. If I get sick and can no longer teach, it is also my personal bad luck. I don't get any money for an illness-related loss of hours. I am really happy about such working conditions!

How useful are ARGE languageCourses: Orwell sends its regards!

I am currently in charge of the language management of an ARGE measure. An integration course is even worse paid. What the consortium is wasting our tax money on is really scandalous! What I do should be a preparatory course, but people can hardly speak the alphabet. The consortium seriously believes that it can send these people to the labor market in August. It is absolutely the worst course I have ever had!

This week I had to give them something Education and Vocational Training tell me, for which the consortium did not give me any material either. I had to find everything myself. But the strangest thing is: I also have a husband who speaks fluent German. He actually wanted to do an English course, but the consortium sent him to a German course, even though he is completely underchallenged. And all this just so that the ARGE has a few fewer unemployed in the statistics!

Labor Agency ARGE always remind me of George Orwell's 1984. There was also the Ministry of Peace, which was only concerned with war ...

Job Advisor “That Wouldn't Make a German”: Are the Germans Really So Lazy?

The following story belies all prejudices: The Employees an employment agency finds out that no German would work that much. A Turkish immigrant, new to Germany and about to do a language course, comes to his Adviser at the employment agency: "I'm looking for a part-time job." The job advisor: “You must be crazy. 16 hours of German course and then another 20 hours of work, no German would do that!”

The sad thing is that this is not a joke. That probably really happened to a student in Germany. By the way, he then looked for a job himself. The question that arises: Are the Germans really so lazy? Or does the consultant simply have a very lousy picture of the Germans? But above all: What kind of picture does the obviously very committed Turkish citizen get from his new home country? Then all image campaigns don't help much anymore. In any case, this story is a real sign of poverty: for Germany, integration policy - and of course for the employee of the employment agency.

Inefficient work organization: helplessly handed over to the administration

What I always love about my job are the incredibly efficient administrative processes. For example, there was the story with Mario Ferrera (42), one of my best students. He had found a job after the Start German 2 exams and was no longer able to attend my course. Since I could no longer personally hand over the certificate to him, I went to my department head and asked if we couldn't send the certificate to Mario.

My department head reacted like this: “No, we don't do that as a matter of principle. Mr. Ferrera should pick it up personally from me!” And so Mario's certificate (grade: good) was im Office archived by my department head.

If administrative staff want to impose their work on you: Say no for advanced users

It is always very annoying when the administration staff want to put my job on me: Do you still remember the story with the start Deutsch 2 certificate by Mario Ferrera? A few weeks had passed since one day, when Mario called a section mate, a German, at the institute's office to inquire about Mario's certificate.

The office staff, who otherwise know very little, told Mario's friend that they knew nothing about a certificate and wrote me a message to call said friend. So I went to the office and said that I no longer have the certificate and that it is in the department manager's office. At the office you were that Opinionsthat I should call Mario's girlfriend anyway.

"Why? I don't have it at all! ”I said.

"Yes, to explain it to her," said the fat employee.

“So I this Ms. call to tell her I don't have what she wants?" I asked.

"Yes," said the fat employee.

“From my private connection?” I asked again.

"You can also call from here," said the fat employee.

"No thanks. But maybe you want to do my job today without getting paid? ”

OK I didn't say the last sentence, but I should have done it.

When superiors finally come up with the right idea

And how did the story end with the start Deutsch 2 certificate and Mario Ferrera? I soon received a letter from Mario's girlfriend. She asked again for the certificate. At this point I would like to point out again that Mario's girlfriend is a German. So I wrote to her that I don't have the certificate and that she can pick it up from the department head at any time.

Her answer was not long in coming: “Yours eMail didn't have an attachment that contained the certificate. ” Was Mario's girlfriend really that stupid? How should I scan Mario's certificate and send it to a eMail hang when I didn't have it? Quite apart from the fact that this is not my job.

The next morning I went to the head of the department again and told him a second time about Mario, his job and the certificate, which he therefore no longer received. The department head replied: “Then we'll just send it by post. We could have done that straight away. ” Yes, we would have that!

When lessons get stressful: breaks should be used!

But there are also pleasant things. Breaks eg every morning at 11:00 a.m. there is a break. Ie the course participants have a break. I am preparing the next panel picture or I have to make copies for those who do not have the new book. And what else happens? Maybe Fatima from Turkey will bring me her application for social assistance or Antonella from the Congo will bring me an application for housing benefit. Do I have any idea about it? No.

All I can do is those Ask translate into English and with a lot of good will I can also explain something in French. Another question is, of course, whether that's my job. But if Fatima left school at the age of 9 and doesn't know anyone who can speak German, you still help, even if you know for sure that you are from System is exploited.

Why I wasn't allowed to use the board: Attention fine dust!

Since there is a lack of space at my employer, I also teach at the municipal music school. There is now an increased risk of chalk dust there. Especially children can light over which pieces of chalk fall or get injured on the sharp edges of the dust. My employer is responsible for the dust, or to be more precise, the lecturer Susanne Hausner, who impudently writes with chalk on the blackboard.

The meeting of blackboard and chalk creates the dangerous chalk dust that spreads throughout the room, indeed in the whole city, like a cloud of toxins. Since Ms. Hausner showed no insight and did not want to reduce the chalk dust emissions to 10%, the music school was forced to completely ban writing on the board.

The school had to provide an overhead projector and set up a screen in front of the blackboard, leaving the first two rows empty of students. But that is personal Debt from Mrs. Hausner, who was uncompromising and unyielding throughout the whole process. It's really very sad when you think about who gets to teach our fellow foreigners these days. Attention irony!

Why dividing courses doesn't make sense

As in any job, it is not easy here either, always with your dear colleagues clear get. But that is also due to how the work is divided up by the administration: namely really bad! Background: An integration course has 16 semester hours per week. Now the situation is that two lecturers share a course. So two lecturers should teach 8 hours each. Why the institute for useful is in the stars.

The logic behind it is said to be that if one lecturer gets sick, the other can teach for him. Doesn't sound so stupid at first, but it is. Because, of course, as a lecturer you don't just have a job or just a course. So in the 8 hours that I don't teach, I do a different job so I don't have to sleep under the bridge. So I could not step in for my colleague.

The administration is not interested in the fact that the course sharing does not work in practice. TheCourses will continue to be shared. But we have Stress, because this results in a huge mountain of SMS and eMails, which the lecturers then have to send back and forth: “How far have you come?”, “Have we finally finished lesson 5?”, etc. Really annoying.

The logic of the colleagues

Because theCourses are divided, everything becomes more complex and complicated and, of course, mistakes happen. A colleague recently blamed me for not having any documents that she could have copied herself. She was completely beside herself: “I don't have the task at all. How should I correct the exam now? ”

"I'm sorry but I thrown everything in the shredder," I said.

Unimpressed by the shredder, she started again:

“But I wanted to correct the exam today”

"I threw everything in the shredder," I said again.

But that was not my colleague satisfied. She wanted some kind of personal admission of guilt from me.

"But now I have time to correct everything," she said.

Since my colleague was not accessible to logic at this moment, I repeated the word "shredder" and hung up. A few hours later I received an SMS from my colleague. She wanted to apologize.

I would have put the task in her folder. Sorry, sorry, she wrote. Well, to call around and then apologize by SMS, that has style and shows a strong Personality and Character.

Ingenuity asked: When you have to work spontaneously

Actually, I would have been free last week. I had been looking forward to chilling out at home. But nothing there. At 7 a.m. the phone rang mercilessly: the administration. The colleague is sick. Would I be able to act as your representative ...?

Sure, I could have said "No" - but in view of the extension of the contract and my lavish livelihood anyway, I somehow felt compelled to make a "Yes". So I ripped into my clothes and took the next train.

Of course I arrived an hour late. The first students had already left. And of course I hadn't prepared anything either - how could it be, I didn't even know where my colleague had stopped. Since I could now in front of the class like the last idiot feel and student Achmed said it quite openly: "You have no idea!" I hate being so unprepared. And while my dear colleague at home probably has her feet in cold water, I spontaneously had to come up with a few exercises without anticipating her grammar. Couldn't the stupid turkey have thought about it beforehand that she wants to celebrate sick today?

Second class man

Yesterday I felt like a second-class person. I wanted to heat up my canned food in the microwave in the institute's kitchen when the head of administration came in: she only had a 20-minute lunch break with 10 hours of work a day - and then she couldn't even warm up her food!

And in general, the microwave is not intended for the freelance honorary teacher, but only for the permanent staff at the institute.

Aha, so as an honorary teacher, am I a second-class person? Someone who can't afford to warm up something in the institute's kitchen at lunchtime? So I have to eat out of my meager fee, from which I can already pay social security and travel expenses?

Social security injustices

If the institute, as it would be correct under social security law, would employ me and pay my social security contributions, there would be no such discussion. But for all the injustices, I have to get treated bad now. Just like a second class person!

Incidentally, I also worked 10 hours yesterday. I actually work a lot every day. I only have less money than the head of administration. On the other hand, as the secretaries told me, the head of administration always leaves at 17:10 p.m., but also arrives at XNUMX a.m. I don't even know what the woman does all day.