«We do homeschooling - a provocation for many»
It feels like bursting into a classroom where lessons are in progress - and suddenly 22 pupils are staring at you. Here in Lyss near Biel in the canton of Bern, it's not 22 pupils staring, but just 4. But the feeling of having disturbed a concentrated lesson is the same. The children look up briefly, politely say «Grüessech» and then bend their heads over their books again. It's just after ten o'clock on this Friday; maths is being taught. The atmosphere is familiar, tidy, structured and definitely: Swiss-unobtrusive.
And you immediately feel quietly ashamed of your exotic assumptions before this visit. Possibly meeting dancing hippie parents who teach their children in a caravan. Or to find a clandestine sectarian community where the women wear long skirts and the men preach confused dogmas. This is how we generally imagine parents who do not send their children to school but teach them at home. But you certainly don't imagine them to be like Therese and Marcel Hanhart. Not like a federal railway safety officer and a qualified home carer. They have six children, a house, a family van and are convinced homeschoolers, i.e. parents who teach their children at home.
After their eldest daughters Céline (20) and Gwenaëlle (18), there are currently Naïm (16), Ruven (13), Josia (11) and Rabea (7), whose journey to school could hardly be shorter: down the stairs from the children's rooms to the basement of the house. Here, the Hanharts have set up two classrooms - including a teaching cachet. A large table for working, a kind of blackboard, compartments, pencil cases, school materials, exercise books, flashcards, letter boards, cases and cardboard boxes labelled with names. Welcome to the home schooling of a special family.
Lessons start at eight o'clock at the latest - sometimes even earlier. The three little ones work together all morning, while the older one, Naïm, goes through the upper school material separately. There are normal snack breaks, and once the kids have concentrated on their work, the afternoon is free for them to organise themselves. Respectively, it's pretty packed with sports and music lessons. It all reads like the programme at a children's academy: flute, hornussen, hockey, ballet, football, violin, curling, rhythmics and swimming. It also encourages socialising, says the mother.
The parents are surprised that they always have to defend themselves against the accusation of «isolating their children, sheltering them or letting them grow up unworldly», says the father. Understanding the prescribed education system as an imperative is strongly anchored in our society. They counter this. Each of their children has a different pace of working and learning, which can be better catered for at home. The mother adds that school is considered one of the «last taboo zones» of our time. «Anyone who breaks out of the school system in this country is inherently suspect,» says Marcel Hanhart.
There are many different reasons why parents decide to home-school their children. The Hanharts emphasise that they chose the model neither for religious reasons (as is often the case in the USA) nor for anti-popular school motives, as is the case in some Scandinavian countries, for example, where homeschooling is often practised in protest against state education monopolies. Norway's Education Minister Kristin Clemet, who held office until 2005, became famous for her radical slogan «Homeschooling is a human right».
A small minority that provokes
«We don't separate upbringing and education that much,» says Therese Hanhart. For her, teaching in a private environment is not just about imparting material, but rather she sees it as a privilege to be able to educate the children in such a holistic way. Each of them can cook, clean, travel independently and knows about many things that are helpful in everyday life. «That is our understanding of a healthy social foundation,» says the mother.
In Switzerland, homeschoolers - who incidentally do not claim financial support in any canton - are statistically in the unremarkable zone. The umbrella organisation bildungzuhause.ch estimates that around 500 of the 707,196 children currently attending school are taught by their parents or by private teachers. «That's around 0.7 to 0.9 per cent,» says Marcel Hanhart, and: «For many, we are a provocation.» This ranges from politicians to families in the village. «Because we are constantly scrutinised, we scrutinise ourselves much more,» he says. They also have doubts from time to time, he admits. Many don't understand their arguments. Or don't want to understand them. The fact is, they are polarising with their decision. To date, homeschooling has been a highly emotive issue in Switzerland.
Incidentally, not everyone in Switzerland who wants to can teach their children at home. Each canton has varying requirements. In the canton of Zurich, you have to be a qualified teacher, while in Ticino it is not allowed at all. In Bern, Aargau, Vaud and Appenzell Ausserrhoden, parents without a teaching qualification are also allowed to teach. The proportion of homeschoolers in the canton of Bern is correspondingly high at around 220 (out of a total of 104,533) children.
As with primary school, the compulsory subjects are reading, writing, maths, nature-human-environment and - up to upper school - one or two foreign languages. In addition, artistic and sporting subjects must not be neglected. Regional or cantonal supervisory authorities, who visit the school regularly, monitor the teaching of the subjects at home and the children's social skills.
Cooking for everyone is also part of it
In the canton of Berne, exam-free transfers to grammar school or a specialised secondary school are only possible from primary school onwards. Children from public schools or private lessons must take the corresponding transfer examinations. In principle, it is possible to prepare for the Matura at home. The Swiss Matura examination must then be passed - externally at a school.
Among homeschoolers, there are families who organise their daily and learning rhythm loosely, and those who follow a tight, structured plan. Like the Hanharts. «I spend a lot of time studying on my own, looking for suitable teaching materials and the appropriate teaching methods,» says the cheerful-looking woman, who is starting to think about her lunch menu. However, it's not her cooking, but eleven-year-old Josiah. «He does that a lot. He goes shopping with his brothers. The boys know their way around Migros better than I do,» says the mum, as if this is a matter of course for prepubescent boys of footballing age with braces and gel hair.
The children here don't look like they're just doing it because they have visitors. Josiah ties on his apron and starts spreading toast for the Toast Hawaii menu. He says that his friends «no longer care where I go to school. As long as I play good football in training.» His mother also confirms this kind of competitive behaviour: «The Gielen always want to compete!» That's why she gives them grades. «They need that.» Grades are not so important for the girls, as her experience with her older daughters has shown. Looking back, they both confirm something similar: their high level of independence. Céline, who is about to graduate as a specialist carer for the disabled, says: «Thanks to homeschooling, I have learned that I learn for myself and therefore take responsibility for myself.» 18-year-old Gwenaëlle, who is currently attending full-time BMS in Biel, remembers that she learned to work independently at an early age: «I hardly noticed any lack of socialisation, isolation or similar disadvantages that are often mentioned.»
And speaking of unworldly: Gwenaëlle finished school a year earlier than her friends. And a year ago, she completed her apprenticeship as a perennial gardener. With an overall grade of 5.3.
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