How successful is integration in Germany, where migrant children do not even show basic school maturity? Children can’t hold a pencil, they can’t tie their shoes, and they can’t get along on the toilet.
Around 1,100 teachers are sounding the alarm in the state of Hesse, because more and more children do not meet even the simplest requirements of primary school. It is an urgent letter written by 1100 teachers that reveals the educational disaster in Germany. Teachers are sounding the alarm because more and more primary school students are unable to hold a pencil or tie shoes. Not to mention serious language and concentration problems. “Children have less and less of the skills necessary to successfully participate in school education,” says the decision of the teachers of the Hessian Trade Union for Education and Science (GEW).
Recently, the alarming letter was handed over to the Hesse Ministry of Culture, with a request to provide more qualified teachers, more psychologists and classes of up to 20 students in primary schools. The initiator, Heike Ackermann, said: “The politicians have abandoned the students and us teachers as well.” The GEW vice president and primary school teacher adds: “We as a society are also responsible for the situation that has escalated to this point.” An increasing number of children lack, among other things, “the willingness to exert effort and concentration, the tolerance for frustration and the ability to argue fairly and reconcile”. They cannot listen, think and ask questions, they cannot hold feathers properly, they cannot “cut, glue, sit (upright) for extended periods of time, tie shoes”. Other shortcomings include: “keeping order, accepting and following rules, independent use of toilets”. This means that some children are not used to using toilet paper and dressing themselves.
The union demands significantly more social pedagogues and psychologists. Their reasoning: primary schools must grasp all social problems, from migration to the consequences of war. Heike Ackermann said: “If a Ukrainian student hides under the table and screams when he hears the noise of an airplane, I can’t handle it.”
Added to this are the major learning gaps, including in mathematics: “When parents ask me how they can help me learn the multiplication table, I tell them: play Monopoly or Mensch-ärgere-Dich-nicht,” explains the experienced teacher. However, more and more parents hardly care about their children, preferring to use their mobile phones.
Translated and edited by Hans Seckler