Homeschooling question - Page 2

[P.J.]

I'm sorry I don't have time to pull up an article about this right now, but I know there was somewhat recently (last few years) a case where a German family was granted asylum status and got full American residence permits (I guess that's a green card?) based on the fact that they wanted to homeschool and weren't allowed to here. I think that's great! Although I think it SUCKS that Germany is the only EU nation where homeschooling is totally illegal. There are other countries with "Schulpflicht" (mandatory schooling), but homeschooling counts towards that. Here in Germany "Schulpflicht" means you have to actually go to the building called 'school' and sit in your desk and have lessons, etc.

So, so lame.

[Tigerle]

Originally Posted by Kanna 

I guess when people in Germany hear about homeschooling, they think of images like this one : http://agonist.org/files/active/2/homeschoolers.jpg and get a negative view of the whole subject.....

 Well at least there would be a good reason wouldn't it?

Seriously, apart from a strong statist and identitarian tradition (again I'd suggest this is not a Nazi legacy but rather these are much older traditions that made Nazism so appealing to Germans in the first place) it is mostly German compartmentalism. As another poster noted above, it is hard for Germans to accept that anyone who does not have the mandatory degree in teaching their subject and the mandatory two years' teacher training and the resources of a school at their disposal might be qualified to teach a child. And they'd wonder how authorities could make sure that a homeschooling parent would teach just the same way and get just the same results as a state school would, as they'd expect them to.

[AJ's mommy]

UPDATE!!! Hello everyone! wow it's already been 2 years since my original post. We are still in Germany (and sorry to say still don't speak German... too many German speaks English ) So DS1 is 4 1/2 now and over the summer while we were home in the USA for a few months we received THE "invitation" for the Delfin4 test so when we came back we had received tons of letters. We had my DH employer translate and then after freaking out a bit (DS1 doesn't speak a word in German and we are hoping he understands us when we speak to him in English lol) we called the contct name on the letter and start to explain we were only in Germany until Spring 2012 (which in part is the truth since my DH contract expires then but we didn't tell them there was a chance we could still come back for 2 more years). So she said that if my DH employer could send a letter explaining that we were leaving in the Spring then DS1 would be exempt from the test (for now I guess... one step at the time ) And I guess it worked cause we never heard from them again... they also were asking for 528 Euros if we didn't want to take the test...  But again DH employer took care of it!!! Thank God for their help. 

As for the ped visit we stand our ground until last Spring (so from October 2009 until April 2011)... when we received court letters for both our DS. They even sent a lady to talk to us about the visits and the fact that it was free of charge for us (money was not the issue here at all). But we ended up going... yes to the same stupid ped I took DS2 when he was newborn!!! She still looked at me weird when I said no to vaccination and I told her I was still nursing my then 18 month old!!! She also looked quite surprised when I answered her that my kids don't get sick after she asked me if they had any sickness or bad injuries. We haven't got any more letters but I'm expecting them to start coming soon again... since DS2 turned 2 in October. What is more frustrating is that we havent recived any kindegeld since our first year in Germany... I guess DH's employer is working on it but my point is if we are in Germany and need to be registered so they can track us in our every move can they at least be sending the kindergeld. 

Well so that's the update... oh and we just found out we are expecting our 3rd baby and let me tell you even if there is a chance DH might miss the birth we are stongly thinking about birthing in the USA to just make everything much easier on all of us... So again thanks to all for all your help in the last 2 years. If we are back again for 2 more years then I will let everybody know how we can get out of sending DS1 to school... cause that's still the goal!