More than that:
Hüther is a sharp critic of the current school system in Germany, thinking the schools there treat children like objects.[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] He is of the opinion that schools in Germany are deliberately so bad that they produce as minor voters as possible and thus the needs of as many people as possible are disregarded, whereby they seek as many substitute satisfactions as possible, ("[...] so that we have enough customers for the rubbish that we want to sell them here [...]").[19] He thinks that schools are a waste of money because they are too inefficient.[23]
Hüther is also against the Schulpflicht (a German law forcing young people to go to a school) because it is 'the most terrible thing that can ever happen to you'; if you ask young people why they go to school and their only answer is "Because I have to".[19] He thinks that children want to learn[24] and supported the 2019 feature film CaRabA #LebenohneSchule, initiated by Bertrand Stern, which introduces unschooled, free-educated people.[25][26]His ideas as a neuroscientist and as an educationalist come together:
Gerald Hüther is neuroscientist at the University of Göttingen and strongly believes that our brains need some other input than straw. He is member of the expert group for the future of learning in the Federal Chancellor's Office and the council for cultural education in Germany.
Every child begins his life like a hero's journey: brave and confident, open-minded and capable of building relationships, with an urge to discover and to create, equipped with a brain in which we find as many networking options as are needed to learn anything relevant to a healthy and fulfilled life at any place of the world. And then, we send them to school, where their desire to learn rapidly changes into witless frustration. Neither genetic dispositions, nor their brain, but the inopportune learning experiences at school, cause this significant change. Instead of searching for their hidden talents and strengths, teachers would teach, test and select them, as if their brains were barrels meant to be stuffed with knowledge. Instead of reminding of encouraging eyries, most schools equal crammed hen coops. That must change!
Some of his books have been translated into English:
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