Multicultural

Libby

I am an American, and have lived and worked in the Czech Republic for 8 months, teaching ESL at a local private high school and Spanish in a local language school. There is an Easter tradition here where boys go to girls asking for eggs, and the girls get swatted with willow switches. Most of the time it’s like a mix of trick-or-treating and a game of tag, and no one gets seriously hurt. However, when it happened as I was teaching, the male principal led the boys charging and whooping and hollering into the classrooms. Two boys would grab girls out of their chairs yelling while a third would whip them with willow sticks five or six times. The girls were screaming and crying, shouting stop, stop. Having already informed my boss that I would not be participating when he told me to prepare my backside for the tradition, I was backed against the wall. My male students and my boss came at me next with their switches and hit the backs of my legs with them, even when I was saying in Czech, “no, stop that,” and thrusting my knees at their balls. I was told, “calm down, it’s just a tradition.” They left and went to another classroom, and as I could hear the girls screaming from other rooms, the girls in my classroom were crying, and saying 5 or 6 times is way too much.” I heard the guys coming back, so I braced my back against the doors, and told my students, “I won’t let them get to you.” The guys rammed the door so that I fell away from it, and as I caught my balance I was face to face with my boss, his willow switch high in the air. I screamed at him in Czech, “NO! THAT’S ENOUGH!” He spoke to me like I was a student, “calm down, it’s just a tradition!” I screamed back, “I don’t care, THAT’S ENOUGH.” The guys moved off awkwardly as my students applauded. 25 minutes later, I went to the bathroom to check my still-smarting legs, and passed my boss. Again speaking to me like a student, he asked me, “did you calm down yet?” He apologized to my husband (not to me) when my husband called him to check him on his barbarism (my amazing and supportive husband’s words), but accepted no blame or fault, defending himself and his actions. He later complained to a male colleague that I had ruined his Easter celebration, and he would not give up this Czech tradition. The most supportive thing that I’ve heard is that yes it’s a horrible tradition, but it’s not going to change, and you will just have to figure out how to work with other people whose culture and traditions are different than yours (in other words, suck it up in the name of multiculturalism). As if I, who has lived all over the U.S., Spain, and the Czech Republic, speaks 4 languages and have traveled to 20 countries, needed a lesson in cultural sensitivity. Were it a slight against me alone, I would have already quit and reported him, but as it is, I don’t want to leave my students in this environment where no one fights for them.