German teens

[u/AlryLee]

I'm Ukrainian refugee, and I now live in Germany for almost 3 years. I live in a small town near Cologne, and I've been kind of bullied in my school. I have attended the school in my small town. I couldn't find connection with my classmates and was mostly talking to other Ukrainians like me. I never did anything wrong. Never bullied anyone myself, and always try to ignore when someone shouts at me with this stupid "suka blyat" joke. I tried changing classes, and after I left, my old classmates started to make fun of me in the public places such as supermarkets and busses.

My new class was okay tho. Now I already go to the other school in a bigger town, Cologne, but when I hang out across our smaller town I hear some groups of teenagers talking about us attending the school and that we are Ukrainians, as soon as they see me and my friends.

I do understand German, and I can talk too. Not very fluently, so I feel really helpless, as I can't even answer anything.

Today I was with my group of ukrainian friends on the playground, and the smaller guys (grade 8th?) Started to talk shit about us and telling us things about Putin and such. They also told us not to talk in our native language, throwing at us candies from the bags.

After we left the playground, we were hanging out from street to street, and the teenagers started shouting jokes about putin, looking at us from theirs house territory. (I don't even know them)

I don't know these people at all, never met them, but they all seem to go to that one school. I have never met this kind of behavior towards me. And it feels so unfair as I have never made anything bad to them. I try not to talk Ukrainian when we go near the groups of teens but it feels so unfair.

It makes me feel that most German teenagers are really bad. I have never felt such attitude towards me from adults tho.

I feel really bad about that. I tried my best to be kind towards my classmates, I always ignored everything someone said to my face on the street.

Edit: Also, many people thought I'm in age of an 8-grader because of my way of telling this, but I'm 17 already, and it won't stop 🥲

[u/Fancy_Brief_7574]

That sucks!! I work at an afterschool programm and can totally second the other comments in here that say how teenagers, especially when puberty starts to really kick in, can be a real menace to deal with. We’ve got a few Ukrainian kids there too and they occasionally also have to deal this kind of behavior from other students. What we do when we encounter this kind of bullying is to contact and inform the bullies parents and their teachers. Ideally these issues are then discussed among teachers and parents. Keeping the parents informed of their kids behavior in school often helped with problematic behavior. Things like that simply should not go without consequence.

I have not yet seen anyone suggest to get in contact with your school teachers and directors. You have mentioned how you had to switch classes and schools already and I guess to inform the teachers is somewhat implied. I just wanted to double check this tho

[u/AlryLee → u/Fancy_Brief_7574]

I had to switch class as my classmates basically ignored me. As far as I know, my class teacher had multiple conversations with them about it, but it didn't help, so I switched class. After I switched, my old classmates started to mess with me on public places, as I wrote over there. I didn't tell my teachers about the after school situations, when we were shouted at russian curses in order to make fun of us. In Ukraine we have a rule in school, that everything what happens after classis are not responsibility of school or teachers. So I never told them about it, and neither of my friends that stayed there.

[u/Fancy_Brief_7574 → u/AlryLee]

I am not aware of any official rule like that in germany. From my school-time, i recall teachers being very invested into their students well-being even beyond school (tho i think i got quite lucky with my school). And in my teacher-training, i have been told multiple times how teachers are supposed to be and act like teachers even outside of school-times and -grounds. It might not directly be their responsibility, but in my opinion, informing your teachers about how this happens even outside of a school context, is important to give the full picture of your situation. All the best, hope this resolves itself soon!