I was looking for some funny “you know you are german if..” jokes and instead stumbled upon this gem from the Washington Times. LINK
It’s a critique on the home-schooling situation in Germany, which means we don’t have one. Home-Schooling is not allowed in Germany, as we have a good and spread out public (and private) school system. While I understand the need for it in America, where sometimes the time to travel to and from school is great and perhaps the opinion on the quality of the school system is often controversial, I see no need for it in Germany.

To be fair, I went to a private school, however have looked into many public schools in Germany and have never found a flaw in the system. Our higher school diploma, the Abitur, is seen world-wide as a very high school standard, so I see home-schooling as something “below” this standard. Additionally, I believe social interaction at schools, as well as the extensive and well-organized sport and outside-school activities offered as very valuable to every child’s school-life.

However, what really gets to me in the article is the quote: “Home-schooling has been illegal in Germany since Adolf Hitler outlawed it in 1938 and ordered all children to be sent to state schools. The home-schooling community in Germany is tiny. As Hitler knew, Germans tend to obey orders unquestioningly. Only some 500 children are being home-schooled in a country of 80 million. Home-schooling families are prosecuted without mercy. “
Who is he to decide that all Germans supposedly “obey orders unquestioningly”. I believe this to be the biggest unjust statement in an already (in my eyes) completely retarded article. This constant referral to our history is getting more and more on my nerves and is really starting to get over the top.

However, there is an answer to his article written and formulated much better than I could ever formulate it: LINK

Things like this make me so angry! Yes we Germans love our rules and regulations, but damnit we can still think for ourselves, thank you very much!

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 3rd, 2007 at 1:23 pm and is filed under The meaning of life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

I was looking for some funny “you know you are german if..” jokes and instead stumbled upon this gem from the Washington Times. LINK
It’s a critique on the home-schooling situation in Germany, which means we don’t have one. Home-Schooling is not allowed in Germany, as we have a good and spread out public (and private) school system. While I understand the need for it in America, where sometimes the time to travel to and from school is great and perhaps the opinion on the quality of the school system is often controversial, I see no need for it in Germany.

To be fair, I went to a private school, however have looked into many public schools in Germany and have never found a flaw in the system. Our higher school diploma, the Abitur, is seen world-wide as a very high school standard, so I see home-schooling as something “below” this standard. Additionally, I believe social interaction at schools, as well as the extensive and well-organized sport and outside-school activities offered as very valuable to every child’s school-life.

However, what really gets to me in the article is the quote: “Home-schooling has been illegal in Germany since Adolf Hitler outlawed it in 1938 and ordered all children to be sent to state schools. The home-schooling community in Germany is tiny. As Hitler knew, Germans tend to obey orders unquestioningly. Only some 500 children are being home-schooled in a country of 80 million. Home-schooling families are prosecuted without mercy. “
Who is he to decide that all Germans supposedly “obey orders unquestioningly”. I believe this to be the biggest unjust statement in an already (in my eyes) completely retarded article. This constant referral to our history is getting more and more on my nerves and is really starting to get over the top.

However, there is an answer to his article written and formulated much better than I could ever formulate it: LINK

Things like this make me so angry! Yes we Germans love our rules and regulations, but damnit we can still think for ourselves, thank you very much!

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 3rd, 2007 at 1:23 pm and is filed under The meaning of life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.