Educating Germany

In an email from the Schulbildung in Familieninitiative e.V. they highlighted the common 'problem' in Germany (and familiar to many of us as well) of home education being unknown.

Their suggestion was for english-speaking people to write letters to government officials (akin to the intentions of this forum); and for those fluent in the german language to write letters in response to articles in German newspapers. (German speakers could also phone talk-back shows - there's still the element of anonymity but people get to hear you are a real (normal and passionate) person too.)

This makes sense to me, at least - those 'outside' of the country can be working on positively swaying the opinion of the officials (with facts, empathetic requests, personal experiences and appealing to established EU and International charters) and those 'inside' the country can concentrate on social marketing of the home education concept.

ACTION POINT ONE

Here are some great guidelines from the International Society for Human Rights for

Writing Letters to Government Officials (English)

Writing Letters to the Editor (English) (Deutsch)

ACTION POINT TWO

Another idea that I really like and where I could see the support of those 'outside' for those 'inside', is advertisements being sponsored in the regional and local papers, written in German, promoting the positives of home education. There would need to be continuity of message, presentation and accuracy but it would have to have an effect, wouldn't it?!

Something along the lines of "Every Child deserves a Quality Education, that's why we Homeschool."

A similar campaign (not for home education) that I am familiar with, brought much media attention, generated the opportunity for the message to be heard, educated and mobilised the masses. It definitely can work.

If this sounds like something you want to be involved in, please leave a comment and I will see what we can do.

ACTION POINT THREE

And the last but not least suggestion involves a book by Dr Thomas Schirrmacher, who has devoted hundreds of hours researching the most current information about home education "Bildungspflicht statt Schulzwang" (in German). The idea is to get a copy of the book (only 7.90 Euro which includes postage and packaging) into the hands of every law-maker in Germany.

Dr Schirrmacher was one of the contributors to the report filed in an earlier post "Individual and Free Tuition: Suppressed and Persecuted: Free Education Handicapped by Old German Educational System: The Ultimate Call to Deregulation."