I am the proud mother of a brave, yet frequently anxious, 9-year-old. Over the last 2 years, my American trilingual daughter was presented with the opportunity to spend some time attending elementary schools abroad. With both experiences behind us, I offer this tale of appreciation to the teachers in one of the schools, who so skillfully and empathetically helped the new girl become part of the class community.

In May of her first-grade year, “Anna” left behind her classmates in the United States to fully immerse herself in first grade in a school in Budapest, Hungary (all student names, including my daughter’s, are pseudonyms) . On her first day, Anna was filled with anxious anticipation. As we walked to her new school together, we barely noticed the blooming wisteria around us. Instead, at her insistence, we rehearsed—for the hundredth time—the various scenarios she might encounter and how she would respond to each one in Hungarian. She is a native speaker of English and a heritage speaker of both Hungarian and Polish. All three languages have been used in our home since her birth, but despite our best efforts, in Hungarian and Polish, Anna had mostly basic interpersonal communicative skills and limited cognitive academic language proficiency at the time. However, it wasn’t her lack of language that consumed Anna on this first day to her new school: It was the fear of being different. It was having a different backpack. It was not knowing the routine during lunch. It was being left behind by the others when the teacher would utter the dreaded words: Pick a partner, children!

At last we walked through the door of Room 1A. The class was led by a veteran teacher of early childhood education and a recently graduated math teacher. They received us with a welcoming smile, introduced us to the class, and allowed the new girl to distribute the American placemats she had brought as a gift of friendship. Next, the children were invited to ask any questions they wanted of the new girl. Questions ranged from, “Do you have any pets? I have a hamster,” and “Can you swim? Because I can already do the breast stroke,” to “Why do you talk so weird? and How come you don’t know what your address is?!” The teachers took each question in stride. They treated this as a lesson in empathy and cross-cultural communication. They coached the children on how to rephrase their questions more sensitively. They challenged the children to answer their own Hungarian questions in English, a language they had been studying all year, and when some of them tried and failed, they asked the new girl to do so. She did it easily, beaming with pride. I observed during this first hour as my 7-year-old’s sweaty palms slowly dried up and her initially crackly voice gained steadiness. By the time the bell chimed to mark the end of the first period, she was seated comfortably in a pod of four.

Turning to me, the veteran teacher invited me to return at the end of the school day. This had to have been the politest dismissal I have ever experienced! Since I had been made to promise that morning that I would stay nearby, instead of leaving the building, I simply made myself comfortable on a bench in the hallway. From my vantage point, I had a perfect view of Room 1A. I watched as Kinga, a girl with long blonde hair, was instructing the new girl how to change for gym. A few minutes later, I saw a line forming by the classroom door and my heart began to sink. But instead of a hesitant first grader standing alone in line where everyone else had a partner, I saw a group of seven (!) pretending to be “in pairs” and my daughter was at the center of this amoeba. As the class marched out of the classroom and down toward what I presumed to be the gym, I caught a glimpse of my beaming daughter being led away by her new best friends. This was repeated at lunch time and at the wardrobe where outdoor gear was being kept. Every child enthusiastically wanted to be the one who would show the new girl the ropes.

The success of the first day was repeated many times over the next month. As I deduced from Anna’s excited accounts of her new life, each first grader had been assigned a special role by the teachers. Lilla, a serious girl, was responsible for helping during class. Kinga’s job was to help with routine changes in between classes, such as when to go wash hands, when to change in and out of clothes, when to get a drink of water, and where to put the snack box after use. Izabella, a cheerful brunette was responsible for pairing up with the new kid in the morning and a different one in the afternoon. There were two others who helped with the cafeteria routine and sat with her during lunch. It seemed that the teachers’ careful planning had forestalled every possible instance of insecurity and uncertainty that could have arisen. When I later thanked them for their empathy and effort, they expressed their thanks for the opportunity. The new girl’s arrival exposed their children to a different way of being and the caretaking roles they enacted allowed them to feel responsible and wise.

At the end of May, after many hugs, tearful good-byes, and promises to keep in touch, Anna and I flew back to the United States. With us we carried half a dozen school books with about 20 pages completed in each and memories of “the best school in the world.”

There was nothing remarkable about second grade in the old U.S. school until early March, when our family learned that we would be able to spend the entire following school year in Poland. Months of planning followed. Eventually, we settled on a well-reputed public school in the heart of Warsaw. We petitioned the school that Anna be allowed to attend second rather than third grade due to her budding Polish literacy skills and the fact that Polish-as-a-second-language support at this school was in its infancy. In making this request, we were guided by the desire to ensure that her year abroad would be enjoyable—like the month-long experience in Hungary had been—and as academically stress free as possible. We tried, in vain, to make direct contact with her future homeroom teacher, so I ended up writing a long letter to the school introducing Anna. In it I described her strengths and struggles. I specifically identified her fear of isolation and standing out for not knowing what was expected of her. Meanwhile, with the assistance of the principal of her U.S. elementary school, we succeeded in alleviating Anna’s greatest fear of not being able to continue with her U.S. class upon return: She was guaranteed to be able to attend fourth grade, even if she attended second grade twice and third grade not at all, as long as she would try to keep up with the material on her own.

Anna’s first day at the new school was on 1 September, the first day of the school year. Amidst anticipation and anxiety, we walked through a tree-lined city park, past an accordion player, while successfully evading the pigeons, crows, and ducks, all begging passers-by for morsels of food. After a brief opening ceremony by the school principal in the gymnasium, all children were invited to their respective classrooms to meet with their teachers and classmates. Once in Room 2D, a girl who was sitting alone motioned to the empty seat next to her and my brave Polish second-grader lowered her stiff body. With the children now seated and their parents crowded in the back of the room, the sweet voice of the homeroom teacher filled the air. She welcomed everyone back after summer vacation, went over some logistics, and eventually called roll. She stumbled a little as she read Anna’s name out loud and announced to the class that they were going to have a new classmate. With everyone’s gazes fixated upon the new girl, Anna turned crimson. Her muscles visibly stiffened. The awkward silence that ensued was eventually broken by the teacher reminding everyone to be at school at 8 am the next morning. An opportunity had been lost.

After class was dismissed, we joined the long line of parents wishing to talk to the teacher. When our turn came, instead of holding up the line by asking the many questions that swirled in our heads, we introduced ourselves briefly, exchanged a few pleasantries, and quickly allowed the line to move on. Because this was the beginning of second grade and all the other children had been attending this school since first grade or kindergarten, the teacher made no announcements about customs that everyone took for granted. Thus, we spent the next several hours wandering around the school, looking for staff members who didn’t look overwhelmed and who could answer our basic questions about school life. This way we learned that children had lockers and were to pick up the key from the key lady. We discovered the location of the school cafeteria and the so-called club room, but it wasn’t for several more days that we learned that nearly everyone ate hot lunch at the school and absolutely everyone was signed up for the club room because that was where homework was done and friendships were made. We also learned about indoor and outdoor shoes, spare clothing, art supplies, gym uniforms, and other essentials of daily school life.

The following days and weeks, however, made Anna acutely aware that she was not “at the best school in the world,” anymore. The school day was to begin at the club room, from where at morning bell, all the kids would run to their home rooms. But Anna, not knowing which way her classroom was, just stood confused and embarrassed. Eventually, when she asked a staff member where she should go, she was encouragingly told just to follow her classmates! The problem was that not one did she recognize in the sea of faces. In the first week, Anna also missed her first school trip because I had not been added to the school’s parent communication system. It wasn’t until the end of September that I even learned of the existence of this system and would request that I be added to it. And that all school-age children had to have a picture ID issued by the school we only learned from a train conductor who refused to honor Anna’s reduced fair ticket because she didn’t have a school ID.

All of the above, however, were minor annoyances compared to the rocky road to acceptance that Anna had to travel. Nearly every day she would come home with stories of ostracism at best and bullying at worst. During recess, she would overhear some children say “She’s so weird. Why can’t she talk properly? She’s probably stupid.” When someone would be handing out candy to the whole class, a kid would yell, “But don’t give any to the new girl!” In the club room, when she’d be sitting alone at a table, a group of her classmates would come over, push her off the chair and occupy all the seats. When Anna would protest that that was her seat, the 7-year-old ring leader would confidently proclaim that things were done differently at this school and she’d better get used to it!

My attempts at coaching Anna from home on what to say and how to handle these situations fell flat. Eventually, I had to meet with her teacher, support staff, and the supervisors at the club room. They had all been completely unaware of the bullying but assured me of their fullest cooperation. The school psychologist and school pedagogue promised to observe the class and conduct some activities of integration. The teacher and vice principal promised to crack down on the bullies. The club room supervisors promised to encourage the other girls to include the new girl in their games. I even accidentally ran into the lovely mother of the 7-year-old ring leader and asked her to intervene with her daughter. These efforts, fortunately, put an end to the bullying and open hostilities. This truce marked the beginning of the long road to acceptance. With the school year behind us, Anna is now close friends with several of her classmates. They have attended each other’s birthday parties. They have had several sleepovers at each other’s homes. And she and her two closest friends have made plans for visiting each other next year.

But is all really well that ends well? The critical first month of the Polish school experience could have turned out differently with some forethought, empathy, and communication. Had the young early-childhood teacher thought to design the kind of sensitivity-building activities implemented by the two teachers at “the best school in the world” from the get-go, had Anna’s classmates been allowed to take on the roles of the local guides, had all the children’s encounter with otherness been managed by the school, then many of the negative impulses that guided these otherwise lovely children’s behaviors would have been channeled positively. If only. It easily could have happened.

This is not a story about contrasts between the Hungarian and Polish school systems. In fact, the cultural and institutional contexts are extremely similar. Nothing predestined either school experience to automatic success or failure. Teachers who treat integration as a teaching opportunity to be seized from the very beginning for the benefit of all their children rather than as a problem to be managed after it failed to go smoothly can be found anywhere. As it stands, I can only thank the two teachers in Hungary for how masterfully they practiced their craft.

Ildiko (Ildi) Porter-Szucs, PhD, has been teaching ESL, EFL, and TESOL for more than 20 years. She is a native of Poland and Hungary and resides in the United States. Her professional interests include pronunciation, grammar, assessment, and teacher formation.