With their association “Munich Ukraine Tutors,” Gabriel Garbers and David Köthnig help young refugees learn German more quickly. Instead of classic reading, they prefer to practice Monopoly.
There is a moment in the classroom that Gabriel Garbers remembers well. Monday, eight o’clock, German class, it’s about Goethe. Garbers sits in the corner of the room, back left. It is the first day of his internship at a school in the south of Munich. At this point, Gabriel Garbers wants to become a teacher. During an internship before starting his studies, the 23-year-old reacquainted himself with everyday school life, which he left behind only a few years ago. But something is different than Garbers knows from his school days. On the opposite side of the room, at the back right, two students rested their heads on their arms on the tabletop. Not just disinterested, but completely absent. “They clearly didn’t seem to be part of the class,” Garbers says today. He wants to know who that is from their schoolmates. “These are our Ukrainians,” say the children. “They don’t understand German.”