The word teacher in different gender spellings (icon image) Photo: picture alliance/dpa
By Birgit Buerkner
Asterisk, colon, slash, pause… A Berlin father fights against gendering at his child’s school. He has now filed a lawsuit with the administrative court.
The reason for this is various incidents in the class. According to this, teachers would consistently gender school assignments, ban words like “jumping jack” (require “jumping man” instead), discredit dreadlocks as cultural appropriation, and require children sitting in a circle to say which pronoun they would like to be addressed with.
“Several teachers behave like activists disguised as teachers,” said the plaintiff, who wished to remain anonymous. “There is a lot of pressure on the children to adapt. This ideology does not belong in the classroom.”
The Spelling Council lists gender signs as not conforming to the norm, the recommendations have been adopted by the Conference of Ministers of Education and are therefore valid nationwide. However, the decision is ignored at the school.
A letter from the father to the school supervisory board brought with it a scandalous answer: they rejected the application for a ban on gender language because the rules of the council in Berlin would not apply due to the lack of an implementation act.
When asked by the BZ, a spokesman for the education senator said it was clearly defined that the spelling rules were to be applied. Irrespective of this, however, children should experience the social dimensions of “gender-appropriate language”.