March the 5th, 2021 - A highly questionable piece of school work aimed at young impressionable Croatian children has been doing the rounds on social media. A religious studies teacher apparently deems it acceptable to ask children whether or not they´d want to travel with a gay man, someone infected with AIDS, a Serbian soldier from Bosnia or a prostitute from Berlin. Yes, you read that correctly.
As Index/Andrea Topic writes, a Croatian religious studies teacher from a primary school near Rijeka handed out papers to children which contain some deeply derogatory terms which are above all unacceptable, but even more unacceptable to put into the hands of young Croatian children.
This religious studies ¨task¨ also problematises "an African woman who is selling leather products", mentions "a Roma person who has just been released from prison", then "an Indian woman with a one-year-old child", as well as "a Croatian tycoon".
Among those mentioned on the list were an abortion specialist, a computer hacker, a Jehovah's Witness, a very successful Hollywood actress from Turkey, an English footballer, a rapper living an alternative lifestyle and a young artist suffering from AIDS.
It is difficult to even know where to begin when it comes to just how wholly inappropriate and offensive such a list is, and to repeat myself, giving such a list to children who nowhere near the age at which such things would enter their heads is almost beyond comprehension.
The question addressed to the eighth graders reads as follows:
¨You´re boarding a train which is going to travel along the Zagreb-India route. The journey will take one week. You are travelling in a compartment with three other people. Imagine getting a list of people you can choose from as companions in your compartment. The people are the following...¨ the religious teacher begins when asking innocent school children to list three individuals they would like to travel on this train with and three people they would not want to travel with at all.
The competent Ministry is now involved.
Sandra Krpan, the principal of the Milan Brozovic Kastav Elementary School, was later made familiar with the offensive content that is still spreading across social media much to the disgust of parents and other users.
"The religious studies teacher did give a textbook out to the eighth grade students. I asked her to provide me with a written statement after a phone conversation. The school's expert associate, a social pedagogue, was involved in the conversation because we consider the content inappropriate, although the religious studies teacher said that the work was given out to teach the children not to hold any prejudices against other people,¨ claims the principal of the school which is located in Kastav.
She added that her institution is absolutely committed to peace, tolerance and respect for diversity.
The translation of the document in full is below:
EURO-TRAIN
You are boarding a train heading between Zagreb and India. The journey will take one week. You are travelling in a cabin with three other passengers. Imagine that you have been given a list of those other passengers and you can choose who you travel with in your cabin. The people are as follows:
A gay man
A Serbian soldier from Bosnia
An African woman selling leather products
A young artist infected/suffering with AIDS
A Roma person who has just been released from prison
A rapper who lives an alternative lifestyle
An Indian woman with a one-year-old
A prostitute from Berlin
An English footballer
A Turkish actress who has become very successful in Hollywood
A Croatian tycoon
A Jehova´s Witness
A computer hacker
A doctor who specialises in abortions
An older monk with a bible in his hands
Your work task: Choose three people with whom you´d like to travel and three with whom you definitely wouldn´t want to travel.
List the reasons for the choice of either being FOR or AGAINST
The task at hand is allegedly there to promote tolerance and this appears to have been backed up by an original document written in English. It was published in 1995 (what we can offer you is the second edition of the manual, published in 2016: link opens a .pdf file) as an education pack by the Council of Europe, aimed at non-adults and their intercultural education. The original of the document which made the rounds in the Croatian media today can be found on the page 80, and it includes a Serbian soldier from Bosnia, an overweight Swiss financial broker, an Italian disc-jockey who seems to have plenty of dollars, an African woman selling leather products, a young artist who is HIV positive, a Roma man (Gypsy or traveller) from Hungary just released from jail, a Basque nationalist who travels regularly to Russia, a German rapper living a very alternative life-style, a blind accordion player from Austria, a Ukrainian student who doesn't want to go home, a middle-aged Romanian woman who has no visa and a 1-year old child in her arms, a Dutch hard-line and aggressive feminist, a skinhead from Sweden ostensibly under the influence of alcohol, a wrestler from Belfast apparently going to a football match, a Polish prostitute from Berlin, a French farmer who speaks only French and has a basket full of strong cheese, and a Kurdish refugee living in Germany who is on his way back from Libya.
A careful reading of the two lists will have you puzzled, obviously. The Croatian list includes "a homosexual" and "a doctor who performs abortions", both obviously missing from the international list from the posted link. Why was it that those two categories were added? If only we knew... And, besides, in an exercise such as this one, what is inherently more interesting than the questions asked is how the answers are received. And we're only left guessing as far as that goes.
The Ministry says it is not their responsibility.
"That is what we teach our students. We´re sorry if these were inappropriate messages to give out to our students. We will inform the Ministry of Education and the Archdiocese of Rijeka about everything and act in accordance with the rules and the law," concluded Krpan.
Index asked the Ministry of Education for a statement, but they said that the control over professional and pedagogical work is carried out by the Agency for Education, and that the catechetical episcopal office takes care of the employment of religious education teachers. They then contacted the aforementioned agency and are still waiting for a response.
The Rijeka archdiocese said they were gathering information on the matter. "We are waiting for the official statement of the said religious teacher and the school. In that sense, we cannot give you any other sort of broader statement," they said briefly.
Article update - some feedback from a reader who went the story in more detail:
Re Index article and TCN translation about the vjeronauk class: The story of the questionnaire about prejudice gets interesting. I took the trouble to scan through the document one of the commenters quoted. This is a document designer to offer a toolkit to teachers and others to expose various prejudices. Clearly well thought out and a lot of work went into it. However, on p 80, the list is somewhat different. It is much more neutral. For example it does not include 'homosexual' or 'doctor who performs abortions'. Clearly someone has adapted the list for their own purposes.
Here is the list as given in the document:
THE SCENARIO
You are boarding the « Deer Valley Express » train for a week-long ride from Lisbon to Moscow. You are travelling in a couchette compartment which you have to share with three other people. With which of the following passengers would you prefer to share?
1. A Serbian soldier from Bosnia.
2. An overweight Swiss financial broker.
3. An Italian disk-jockey who seems to have plenty of dollars.
4. An African woman selling leather products.
5. A young artist who is HIV positive.
6. A Roma man (Gypsy or traveller) from Hungary just released from jail.
7. A Basque nationalist who travels regularly to Russia.
8. A German rapper living a very alternative life-style.
9. A blind accordion player from Austria.
10. A Ukrainian student who doesn’t want to go home.
11. A middle-aged Romanian woman who has no visa and a 1 year old child in her arms.
12. A Dutch hard-line and aggressive feminist.
13. A skinhead from Sweden ostensibly under the influence of alcohol.
14. A wrestler from Belfast apparently going to a football match.
15. A Polish prostitute from Berlin.
16. A French farmer who speaks only French and has a basket full of strong cheese.
17. A Kurdish refugee living in Germany who is on his way back from Libya.
