Visiting schools in the Czech Republic
Prague 2007: Common Ground
The voices of students and the sounds of skis slapping the floor mingled in the gymnasium at Prague’s Practical Basic School on Vinohradská Street. A group of children clad in winter trekking gear shuffled about at the foot of a small stage. The kids were rehearsing for a performance of “The Voyage to the North Pole,” “written” by the invented Czech playwright Jára Cimrman. The drama teacher directed half of the kids to pretend to be microphones so that the actors could get comfortable using them and she arranged the group into two rows that faced each other. “Microphones don’t talk,” she said when the children began to chatter back-and-forth.
The bell rang and most of the kids disappeared. We were treated to a short concert by a Roma girl who sang “Killing Me Softly” by the Fugees while accompanied by a teacher with a guitar. Her fine voice filled the room as she tapped her foot along with the tune. Zuzana Fořtová, the school’s vice principal, said that the girl had missed a lot of school over the last year because of problems at home.
This was one of the many scenes we witnessed during visits to two special/practical schools in Prague. I entered the schools prepared for the worst because most of what I had read about the Czech Republic’s “Special Schools” had been negative. Reports led me to imagine ancient, sour-faced instructors who were completely indifferent to their students’ needs. While bad conditions for Roma most likely do exist in the special/practical school system, my impressions upon visiting could not have been more different from the stereotype.
Zuzana Fořtová was straightforward and kind and seemed to truly care about the students at her school. Asked whether the Roma and Non-Roma students in her school were integrated, she looked surprised and said “Of course!” She led us into a few classes through hallways decorated with photos of students on school skiing and hiking trips. The classes for kids with developmental disabilities were very small, with just five or six students per class. The teachers in these classes sat working with their students at their desks. The practical classes had 6 to 10 students and the teachers were standing up and giving lessons to the whole class. Most classes had both Roma and non-Roma students in them.
We received a somewhat guarded welcome at the Odborne Učiliště and Practical School on Chabařovická Street. Dana Vlasáková, the school psychologist, gave us a haphazard tour of the high schools. In delicious smelling kitchens we saw students dressed in white baker’s smocks making pastries and measuring flour for cakes. Vlasáková showed us a special classroom that is half kitchen and half dining room with tables for students to sit at and enjoy their creations. We also saw kids in normal, more academic classes.
Proud of the equipment available for the students, Vlasáková showed us the computer room, the school library and a room with exercise equipment and ping pong tables. About thirty kids were milling outside the school on break. About a third of them seemed to be Roma and everyone was hanging out together.
After our tour, we retired to the office of the school principal Jitka Cachová where we sampled the delicacies made by the students. Mrs. Cachová was concerned about negative reports of the school system she had read in the international press. From her perspective, such reports are written by people who come to the Czech Republic for a short time, and who focus solely on the negative stories without seeing the bigger picture.
When I said that these were just the sorts of reports I had read, Cachová replied that it was the same with stories in the international press covering racial discrimination in the United States. To read the stories, she said, one would think that the U.S. is inhabited by a bunch of racists. The problem with the media, she said, is that it doesn’t focus on the positive stories. As a parting comment Mrs. Cachová urged us to “Tell the truth.”
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