When kids learn all without school

IHow on earth can the authorities consider it commensurate to extract penalty payments totalling more than €20,000 (approx $24,000) from three large families who are educating their children in a manner unforeseen by the current legal framework. In his press conference, the UN Special Reporter for human rights in education, Prof. Dr. Vernor Muñoz Villalobos, declared that the particular selectivity that is a feature of the German education system also closes off some alternative educational forms, such as homeschooling and distance learning.

According to the UN declaration of human rights, parents have the right to determine the form of their children's education. In the case of the homeschooling initiative in Lüdenscheid and the surrounding area, this human right has not been called upon. There are even various particular educational reasons why being in a state school would disadvantage their children. The bureaucrats are harming these families far more than any perceived damage the families are doing to the public interest. Such financial penalties are left purely to the discretion of the school principal. No-one is legally forced to take such insane measures, particularly against one's own conscience.

The fact that there is currently no expanded definition of compulsory schooling in Germany which allows for subsidiary learning organisations or co-operation, should not result in families fleeing to other European countries to live and learn in freedom there, while others are bankrupted in one fell swoop. Imagine having €3000 being debited from your monthly income of €2100 by the educational authorities. Furthermore the car was suddenly confiscated. These families are not even capable of paying for correspondence or private education or for the special or individual educational needs of their children.

Until now, the state has stolidly ignored the tangible educational benefits of self-organised learning, instead referring monotonously to 'regulations'. It ignores children with individual needs such as dyslexia, giftedness, multilingualism, distinctive physical features, disability, hyperactivity, to name a few. To enable these children to live in the family with their totally ‘normal’ siblings and to enable them to determine their own learning to a large extent, the parents organise and finance private teaching and learning opportunities, making the state curriculum more interesting and appropriate to their children’s abilities and development. Meanwhile, they have discovered that their children display above average development when their individual needs are met. The school principal responsible for levying the penalties has not once met any of these children.

In no other country would these families be attacked like this. The educational route which they have chosen for their children is accepted practically everywhere else. At home in Germany they find themselves justifying themselves against the strangest assumptions and prejudices, many of which are based on German provinciality. This in spite of the fact that all these misgivings have been contradicted by experience and by studies in other countries.

Is it right to treat a few happy families with several children living and learning together without school, just like millions of other children worldwide, as criminals by subjecting them to penalty payments and jail sentences? One does not see such instances in any other country. We can’t allow the world’s greatest exporter to lose it’s child-friendliness to overseas! Familial competence and responsibility is becoming rare and is being discouraged by increasing professional supervision – even in cases where such supervision is needed. If we are to stop the emigration of more families who value education, we need your solidarity and support.

IBelow is the automatic wording of the email translated into English. As I don’t know how much English is understood by those to whom the email is addressed, I would suggest sending the German version and adding your (respectful, moderated) comments to it if you wish.

"I have heard that you have levied exorbitant penalties on homeschooling families in your school district. There are no grounds for such extreme measures. They are unjustified in every case and inexcusable in light of German history, even if there were a written law in this case.

Please note that I am hereby registering my vote that I consider the current penalties (and any future ones) against these families to be totally disproprotionate and not in the interest of citizens in general.

I appeal to your conscience, your humanity and your healthy common sense, and ask you to stop this process and reverse the coercive measures that have been taken."

The following readers letter was published (in German) in the local news paper on Thursday, the 27th of April 2006

For four years now, the German/English Skeet children have been educating themselves at home, with the help of their parents, and in cooperation with three other families in the neighbourhood. In their native England, at least 160 000 children of school age are learning in this way, with the respect and support of local education authorities, local schools and the general public. It is known as “Home-Education”, and in all European countries (except Germany and Bulgaria) and worldwide it is permitted, for all families wishing to exercise this right, within the laws concerning compulsory education.

Now, however, for two of the five children, their high intelligence, musicality and bilingualism has become a problem for them – in Germany compulsory education means compulsory school attendance, and the headmistress of the local school has been placed under pressure by the local school authorities to impose 6000€ fines (about 4000 pounds) on the parents. The children, who are being successfully home-educated, are both at least one academic year in advance of their age, and have been nominated for participation in a major youth music contest, are not even known by the headmistress – she has never set eyes on them, or seen them at her school. The parents have never been invited for a conversation.

In many similar cases, the authorities start the punitive process with relatively modest fines. Not so with the Skeets -  whose applications for an exception to be made in their case have all been rejected - who are being treated like criminals. The otherwise respected members of the community, with a relatively modest income, have suffered the freezing of their bank account and the confiscation of their family car. The eldest daughter was traumatised by the appearance of the court-bailiffs in their flat. The father (Care-assistant in home for the elderly) had to walk home after work on Monday. It was impossible to gain access to the account, get money to go shopping, (Not possible without the car anyway!) or make any provision involving money at all.

Once again, German bureaucracy has left a lasting, painful and traumatic impression on a large and otherwise happy family.