My connection in Chemnitz, Germany is Charlotte Friedrich. As she was once my professor in my undergraduate career, I know her teaching style and the care that she shows her students. Having worked in post-secondary education, Charlotte completed her Masters in Early Childhood in the United States and returned back to her hometown to teach Early Childhood. According to Charlotte, over 12.5 million Germans are below the poverty level. That high of a number has not been seen since Germany's reunification in 1989 and the early 90s. In the small town of Chemnitz, which is a city in East Germany, there are quite a few families that fall under the poverty line, mainly due to the rural lifestyle this city has adopted. With a busy city center, the villages surrounding the main city are mostly farms that grow just enough to sell in the markets in order to survive. Many of Charlotte's students miss a lot of school during the harvest months which puts their education as risk and usually results in a high drop-out rate.
I relate to Charlotte as I have a high Hispanic population of students who miss school during the harvest months as families pull children out to help harvest in order to earn extra money. As an educator, it is heartbreaking knowing these children are missing essential concepts and information that will help them succeed, but as Charlotte says, "when it is a matter of survival, education means nothing".
I was thinking the same thing you reported. In Florida, my sister experienced the situation where many of her high school male students were used to help harvest and missed a lot of school, and the parents did not care about the academic impact. This may be an area where parent training may be important.
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