Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Expanding Resources

I chose the Childrens Defense Fund located at: http://www.childrensdefense.org/
The history of this organization tells of being born from the Civil Rights movement in Mississippi near my own hometown and founded they year I was born, 1973. They have been involved in such activities as seperating children and adults in jail cells, medicaid reforms, pregnancy prevention, vaccination programs, and most recently worked with my favorite television show: Idol Gives Back. The foundations has opened a retreat Center called Haleys Farm that trains activists and others for working with children. I subscribed to updates and information as well as the newsletter to stay informed of current progress and actions.
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Established Contact with My German Childhood Professional

My contact actually changed from Tonya Schmidt to Thomas Volz. He studied in New York and Turkey. He taught school in Turkey and in Boveria at the Abuture, which they call the place of higher learning durin ghte first years. He also taught Turkish students to speak English for 4 years. He has 3 boys of his own that are 11, 12 and 15 years old. Whe I asked him to tell me about povery in Germany that he might have experienced and how it affects children, this is what he wrote to me:
"In Germany the federal social security system is (still) so comprehensive that you hardly notice any differences between rich and poor students in class. As (still) most of our schools end at 1pm, lunch, nutrition and healthcare is predominantly considered a private matter. People are very touchy about the government interfering in these questions. So it is left to health care providers to inform and teach the public on a voluntary basis. Of Course schools support this, but not as an integral part of the basic curriculum. The stress is on academic subjects".
"However, times are changing. More and more schools exand their lessons into the afternoon and the schools provide lunch. This is generally a cheap alternative to private lunch served at home. Here the schools monitor ingediences and nutrition very closely because many parents are very aware of this topic"
"The gap between rich and poor is, however, quite obvious on a higher academic level. Children that are academically supported at home are more likely to proceed to higher education and achieve better results on the long run. This more a question of how educated the parents/families are. But as education and income are unextricably entwined the link between academic achievement and income is a sad (German) fact"