Re: the requirement that the state *provide* an education

Stephanie schrieb:
<snip>
> I know this is an incindiary post. I don't mean it literally. I am
trying to 
> kick up some sort of different conversation around education in this 
> country. 

Well, in this country we have the Schulpflicht which means sending you 
child to school is not optional, homeschooling/unschooling/etc. is 
forbidden.

On one hand that's a good thing because losing track of a child is very 
hard here. If you have a child that's old enough to go to school (6 and 
over) you will get a letter informing you about which school your child 
is "expected to show up at" and I guess if you don't register at that 
school (I'm not sure if we now have a choice, they changed the laws 
around that I think, but possibly you can register you child at any 
primary school in your district now, anyway..)  you get follow up 
letters and probably a visit from the Jugendamt (cps) to inform you 
about your rights and duties and if you/your child doesn't go to school 
you/your child can be forced to do so, if necessary it'll be picked up 
by the Police and escorted to school.

On the other hand I think for some children homeschooling or private 
tutoring or something along those lines would be better. I think my son 
would have benefited from not being forced into an education system 
where there are 28 children in one classroom in first grade, but he's 
mild special needs (he can not filter sounds and has problems 
concentrating on speech, meaning a loud classroom for him means extreme 
stress and after a while he's simply unable to listen to the teacher 
anymore because there are so many sounds he just can't "hear" her 
anymore, of course everyone thinks it's a isciplinary issue and I'm just 
a really lax mom) he's changing classrooms again the next schoolyear 
which means it's his 6th group in four years, and somehow that's 
supposed to make it all better. Or something.

In recent years there have been families leaving germany because they 
wanted to homeschool, some went to court before leaving the country, but 
it's generally thought of as a good thing that school is mandatory.

cu
nicole