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US Grants Home Schooling German Family Political Asylum
A US judge has granted political asylum to a family who said they fled Germany to avoid persecution for home schooling their children. Uwe Romeike and his wife, Hannelore, moved to Tennessee after German authorities fined them for keeping their children out of school and sent police to escort them to classes. Mike Connelly, attorney for the Home School Legal Defence Association, argued the case. He says, "Home schoolers in Germany are a particular social group, which is one of the protected grounds under the asylum law. This judge looked at the evidence, he heard their testimony, and he felt that the way Germany is treating home schoolers is wrong. The rights being violated here are basic human rights."
Germany has school duty for all children older than six years up to 9 to 12 years in school (depends on the actual state). And "duty" means that a state examined teacher is required for schooling. You want home schooling? Then get the exam, and you are perfectly fine schooling your children at home.
That's a brilliant way to get you and your family into the US without having to resort to hiding in a shipping container or over staying a visitor's visa and then buying a fake identity.
FTFA:
In 2006 the Romeikes pulled their children out of a state school in Bissingen, Germany, in protest of what they deemed an anti-Christian curriculum.
They said textbooks presented ideas and language that conflicted with their Christian beliefs, including slang terms for sex acts and images of vampires and witches, while the school offered what they described as ethics lessons from Islam, Buddhism and other religions.
Well, obviously other religions can't offer any ethical guidance, and exposing the kids to them will clearly cause them to hate Christianity. Better not even expose them to other thoughts! And the best place to go for that? Here in the US.
... to all the people who have education problems in other countries? I think we should: all afghani girls who for years could not go to school (did we give asylum to all that requested?), all the africans who cannot go to school because of social problems (did we give asylum to all that requested?), etc. Clearly shows how racist and politically biased the courts are: a group of (likely) right wing white people always get precedence over some poor 3rd world, brown-skinned, poor fellow...
I homeschool my kids. In Texas the laws for home-schooling are quite permissive, since Texas has so many religious whack-jobs. We are required to teach the "basic educational goals of reading, spelling, grammar, math, and a study of good citizenship" -- language from the original statute authorizing private schools. No requirements to teach teh nasty atheist science.
In the 1980s Arlington ISD pulled the same stunt as the German authorities in the article did. The family went to court (Leeper v. Arlington ISD), squandered a fortune, and eventually won a major smack-down to the school district. Since then, we homeschoolers have mostly been left alone. Occasionally a truant officer may harass the kids if they are outside during school hours, but homeschool organizations give instruction to the parents in how to handle the discussion with the truant officer.
We have to keep a basic record of what we taught and when, in case we are challenged about whether we are meeting the "basic educational goals..." listed above, but I do that anyway so that I know what to review later. It's a piece of cake. I can't believe I used to think homeschooling was a scarey responsibility; today I find it equally scarey to trust my sons' minds to a public edifice.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
Okay, so this particular family is helped. Great! Wonderful! What about the other families in Germany? Does this get bumped up to the UN?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Well, aren't we Mr. Tolerance and Understanding Incarnate! Not an ounce of prejudice here, eh? Only among those nasty stupid old home-schooling types.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
The only problem I have with homeschooling is that the vast majority of homeschooling is done by ultra fanatic religious fringe groups who claim their kids would get all those "wrong" ideas (like, say, a humanistic education and values) when they were sent to a public school.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Germany did. And they thought that a child has the right to equal chances with every other child in Germany. And that means that it also has the right to an education equivalent to the education all the other children get, and this right is not to be withhold, not even by the child's parents. They are allowed to homeschool their children if they take the exams required by law to be allowed to teach children. The parents didn't, and so the law said, they weren't providing their children equal chances, and thus got fined.
The nerd angle is this: an increasing number of us nerds (where 'nerd' == cerebral) are dissatisfied with the dull slow lowest-common-denominator pop-psychology politically-correct schlock ladled out at public schools. Meanwhile private schools are not a whole lot better, and cost too much anyway (typically $650/month/child with discounts for multiple children). So we are homeschooling.
TFA represents a major political victory for homeschooling, at a time when that right is under attack (re: California). I, as a homeschooler, feel like celebrating because this judge's decision will be invoked hither and thither in my defense. It may have had a whack-job religious basis, but the decision stands in defense of my ability to give my sons a non-religious hyper-rational high-intensity education.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
From TFA, it appears that the actual basis for asylum here is freedom of religion, not freedom to home-school. The parents pulled their children from public school because they are fundamentalist Christians and objected to elements of the public school's curriculum, including sex education and morality lessons drawn from other religions. The German government apparently does not recognize a parent's right to "protect" children from opposing religious views through home-schooling, and intended to compel attendance. The US recognizes this as an aspect of free exercise of religion, which can form the basis for an asylum petition. Thus, they are actually obtaining asylum on religious persecution grounds. Whether these facts actually establish a valid instance of religious persecution or not is perhaps an important question; just because something is protected by the free exercise clause of the 1st amendment to the US Constitution does not mean it is necessarily a fundamental human right which should give rise to an asylum claim. Germany is not subject the the US Constitution.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
Slashdot likes sparking flamewars related to homeschooling for religious reasons. That's what this will inevitably turn into, and must have been the motivation.
I don't have a problem with people home-schooling to improve the quality of education. I myself was home-schooled for several years.
I do, however, have a major issue with people pulling their children out of public school so they can be home-schooled according to religious criteria. I recognize this is a slippery slope, but based on what I've read so far I support the German government.
Religious freedom allows you to worship, but it does not in my mind give one free license to program children with it. Children are not property. Religious conflict with a secular school is not a valid reason for home-schooling.
Further, home schooled children should be subject to, at the very least, the same aptitude tests and subject material criteria as public school children. (Yes, I know most public school criteria and tests are a joke, but it's at least a starting point.)
Alter Aeon Multiclass MUD - http://www.alteraeon.com
White Europeans are a minority in this world, this is just Affirmative Action for White Europeans.
Good. Raising children is the job of parents, not the Government, and it should be perfectly ok for parents to opt out of the school system if it doesn't suit them for any reason. Fascistic governments hate the idea that parents have the freedom to teach their children whatever they want. In Britain we have seen the Government attempting to smear home educators by getting their mouthpieces to spread fear about unchecked child abuse. The pieces are being put into place for an outright ban, and the sad thing is that so-called "liberals" will probably support it on the grounds that it will stop "the children" being "brainwashed" about Jesus, not realising that they are undermining their own freedom to oppose the Government.
You're an immobile computer, remember?
> Homeschooling is in no way a human right.
I totally disagree. It's the basic right to raise your children with your own views and values. Today that protects the "Christian Activists", but it also protects any family from being forced to have their children educated by the government.
If you think a government being able to force you to send your children to someplace to teach them what the government wants them to learn isn't a violation of a basic human right, then I don't know what kind of rights you think humans should have.
Alright, I didn't think it would come to this on slashdot, but this must be understood.
For most families, homeschooling provides an option to help with constant travel (including military families), family changes, or just plain old bad local schools. I have a few friends who were home-schooled through HS, and they are some of the smartest and quickest people I know. In public school, classes move as fast as the slowest student (or just pass him/her by), at home, if you get it, you move on quickly and have plenty of time to be creative/play sports/do whatever.
This stigma against homeschooling has GOT to go already. Not all homeschoolers are teaching racial bias or inaccurate science. Not by far.
It's always confirmation bias!
Right.... because state schools are completely unbiased.....
> who claim their kids would get all those "wrong" ideas (like, say, a humanistic education and values)
Yeah, but that's the thing with basic rights like this. They don't care what someone's definition of "wrong" is, because everyone has their own opinion on right vs wrong.
Germany doesn't stop you from educating your children yourself. All you have to do is taking an exam required by law to do so.
Prove to me that this isn't an elaborate holographic simulation you're living in, and then we can talk about "the truth". Truth is the regime of philosophers and theologians; anyone who thinks science is about "truth" is naive.
Children taught by the public system that they are special, its not their fault they don't study, no one is better than anyone else, and its not fair if you don't have stuff other people have.
You're making that up. Or you're repeating things other people have made up. This is a myth that is constantly propagated on slashdot. It's one of those "everyone knows" memes that people just repeat to each other without any actual evidence because it meets their preconceived notions. The slashdotters who have children going through the school system almost invariably describe an incredibly competitive, stressful grind that is far more cutthroat than they remember from their own school days.
The fundamental right in question would be that of the parent to raise their own children, as opposed to the State doing so.
This is unfortunately one of those rights that never got expressly enumerated in the Constitution (although in New Hampshire we're trying to fix this) most likely because, much like a right to privacy, the idea of violating it was so beyond the pale in 1789 that no one thought it needed to be written down. What was put into the Bill of Rights were eight articles specifically in reaction to abuses committed by the British government, followed by two catch-all articles clarifying that the powers of the Federal Government are expressly enumerated (Article X), but the rights of the people are not (Article IX). Unfortunately this hasn't worked out too well in practice...
Liberty in your lifetime
How many homeschoolers have you people interacted with anyway? This looks like a case where you've never ever actually met one except that bad kid in the back who argues with the biology professor, who turns out to be one. You then gleefully stereotype every homeschooled kid with that same stamp, along with a few horrific rumours you imagined or picked up on the internet.
I realize there are bad cases out there, but most homeschoolers are never going to be noticed in the end because they turn out just like everybody else. They go on to get normal jobs and like like normal people. There are plenty of cases I could name where people educated in your public schools turn out to be welfare freeloaders and deadbeats.
I'm so glad I live in Canada where homeschooling is actually supported by the government and treated with marginal respect.
Now look, I've refrained from profanity, calling you Nazis, and typing in all caps. All I want in return is to not be treated like some sort of slime because I didn't grow up inside the walls of your public education system.
[/homeschooledkid]
Even with a strict set of rules for curriculum, there will still be parents who give extra qualifying information along with such topics.. ie.. Here's all the nonsense that secularists believe, and here is the real truth according to the Holly Bibble. The material is still covered, and you can't eliminate that loophole, so the only solution is ban home schooling outright.
Yes, because parents would never do such a thing outside school time, would they?
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
As long as it does not disadvantage them later in their life, I'm not directly against it. Quite honestly, if I was in the US I'd probably do it myself after I've seen the school system. I'd try to get a few parents together with different but meaningful skills and form a school for our kids. Because I could probably teach math, logic and history to some sensible degree, but I wouldn't be so sure about English, geography, art or biology. I'm fairly sure, though, that if you get together with like minded parents that you can offer those skills to your kids, and probably better and with a lot more enthusiasm than the average public school system does.
What I fear is just that a single teacher can not convey all skills necessary, at least past the elementary level.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
As far as I'm concerned, as long as home schooling is used to shelter children from real information, or present it from a "religious perspective", it should be outlawed.
If you take issue with home schoolers presenting information from a "religious perspective" then do you also take issue with parents that choose to send their kids to Catholic school?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
It doesn't matter. If we are living in a holographic simulation, well, that simulation is our reality. We are part of a system - if that system is artifical, and we are artificial, it doesn't matter. We do what we do in the context of our existence, we can do no other.
Even if there is a real human body in a slimy podule somewhere, that body is no use to me anyway as it has atrophied muscles and a nutrition system that is entirely dependent on the machines. The Matrix is a movie, if it happened for real then there would be no break-outs.
Maybe there are a lot of "ultra fanatic religious" nuts who homeschool their children.
But there are also a LOT of homeschoolers that are doing it simply to help their children get real educations.
We associate with many other homeshooling families in our area and they range across a good spectrum of religious beliefs: protestant, catholic, mormon, buddhist, agnostic and atheist. Once a week the families get together for some social time and larger group learning. The adults and kids get along great, and have a great time doing fun, active learning. If anything it is the atheists that are the most fervent in bringing up religion during the co-op learning activities.
So your kids are going to be able to go to college with the diploma they got at your home? I was home schooled and I found that mommy and daddy saying so doesn't make it so in the real world. I couldn't go to college because I didn't have the required courses like Math 30. I ended up in the trades so I can make enough money to hopefully be able to go to school one day so I don't have to work in a backbreaking enviroment full of cancer causing dust and fumes. And what about being able to interact with people, do you know what it is like to be 18 just started living on your own with absolutly no social skills? My brother is 26 and he can't even talk to a girl.
If the schools are not teaching your kids enough thats what parents are for. School is the minimum if you want your kids to be better that the minimum show some interest and teach them some of the stuff you know. School teaches more than just math or english it teaches life skills like how to deal with people, scheduling your day, respect for authority, all important thing when they enter the job market. And most importantly there are life skills like how to meet a girl rather than to start learning in your early twenties.
Germany sensibly determined that Scientology is a cult and outlawed it, while the US has raised it to the status of religion and given it tax-exempt status. The Germans also happen to believe that children deserve a basic education that reaches certain objective standards. Nothing prevents parents from adding to that education.
Any further comment would be superfluous.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
For those that oppose home-schooling, do they seriously think that the government does a great job of educating children? I can't believe there are so many that oppose home-schooling, yet Slashdotters in general rail on the poor quality of the American education system.
To me, home-schooling is a great alternative. Parents in general care the most about their children, not the government. Obviously there are the exception (child abusers, etc.), but that's not necessarily an argument to ban all home-schooling outright.
Seems like as long as the children can pass the standardized tests (SAT, etc.), we should support it. In fact, studies have been done that show that home-schoolers often do better than public school students. For example:
http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000010/200410250.asp
Anecdotally, my sister found that some colleges actually prefer home-schoolers for this reason.
"The majority is always wrong; the minority is rarely right." - Henrik Ibsen
I totally disagree. It's the basic right to raise your children with your own views and values
<sarcasm>You are sooo right. I feel so enraged to be denied to teach my children the basic necessary hatred against Americans. How could they ever learn that the highest achievement a person can have is to eradicate Americans in concentration camps? Here is no higher value that that.</sarcasm>
Homeschooling was originally banned in Germany by Adolf Hitler in the 1930s, when he wanted to make sure that all German children were indoctrinated in the ways of the Nazi party. The Hitler Youth was the result.
This is utter BS. "Schulpflicht" (compulsory education) is german law since the 18th century (early 19th for some parts of germany). Google translated german wikipedia page here: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fde.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSchulpflicht
No, the Romeikes were just a pain in the ass, and everyone is glad they are gone. :)
That's a very good concern to have. The great thing about homeschooling in the US today (as opposed to even 25 years ago) is that there is a vast wealth of material to draw from. There are so many companies now competing for offering homeschooling material that there is no reason that a parent couldn't do it. Some of it is quite good in fact. From my own experience, the lessons were well-explained by the material, so much so that I could teach myself (which was excellent preparation for university). For those parents who aren't comfortable with that route or have less self-motivated children, there are video lessons that go through subjects like chemistry, calculus, etc.
My mother never knew beyond high-school math, I was doing basic calculus in jr. high. Many cities have good support groups with classes taught by those knowledgeable in those fields. The best thing is, a parent can give personal attention to a specific need that a public school teacher, with 40+ kids, cannot.
My brother is 26 and he can't even talk to a girl.
Don't talk about me like that ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Whats wrong with packing all the religious nuts off to the New World - its traditional. Europe has been doing it for the last 400 years. :-)
My sister, far from a religious extremist, and then the local PTA president, decided to home school her 3 boys when the school failed to take action on a sexual complaint. Basically, there was an older boy, 5th grade, that was exploring other kids at the school. When he was caught red handed, the school decided "counciling" was more appropriate. 2 years later, when the boy was ARRESTED, she put her kids back into the school system.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
The only problem I have with homeschooling is that the vast majority of homeschooling is done by ultra fanatic religious fringe groups who claim their kids would get all those "wrong" ideas (like, say, a humanistic education and values) when they were sent to a public school.
As a christian, I've met many home-schoolers. And I don't think anyone would consider any of them to be ultra fanatic religious fringe group members. They were definitely christians, but very level-headed. I would love to be able to home school my kids. But I have to work. And my wife doesn't feel qualified to do it. So we send our kids to a private christian school.
Any time the government dictates a certain standard of anything for all children in the country, it infringes on freedom. When a population is allowed to home school, there's always a risk that some kids won't get an adequate education. But you can't legislate away bad parenting.
The next time you feel like we should outlaw home schooling, think about how you would react if a religious nut came to power and mandated that your children take a religion class in public school. Would you want to pull your kids out and educate them in the manner of your choosing?
P.S. In my kids' private christian school, they learn about evolution.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
No. I admit I only have a data point of one, but my experience with home schooling was my ex-wife's niece and nephew where home schooling consisted of 8 hours a day of "Veggie Tales" while the mom sat around the dining room table growing obese. It's really sad. The daughter actually had a quick wit and curiosity that was slowly being burned out of her by her fundamentalist, red-neck parents.
Turn them in. You complain about "someone" not doing your job to fix a problem in your family (ok, your ex-family). Furrfu.
Even the most homeschool-friendly of states (such as Kentucky) allow state officials of one sort or another to investigate serious cases of educational neglect. In Kentucky, the local Director of Pupil Personnel does so (and (illegally) so do social workers). Give the officials probable cause, and they can find these people, require a written curriculum that matches state guidelines, and then arrest for truancy when that doesn't happen.
I personally prefer "lax" homeschool laws because Kentucky (at least) is notorious for having terrible school districts who start going broke because good parents pull out their kids (you know, the ones who pay per seat but don't cost much). Said districts then try to punish the good parents beyond what Kentucky law allows. OTOH, parents of troubled kids who pull their kids out instead of facing expulsion or "prison school" are encouraged to go, just to get their monsters out of the system.
No. I admit I only have a data point of one, but my experience with home schooling was my ex-wife's niece and nephew where home schooling consisted of 8 hours a day of "Veggie Tales" while the mom sat around the dining room table growing obese.
My only experience with black people was getting mugged by one so I guess all black people are all criminals.
Yeah, that's a winning argument you've got there.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Secular schools teach children a lot of non-Biblical things besides evolution and geology (if those things even are non-Biblical, I've read the Bible more than once and I don't think they are).
First and foremost, by handing you children off to someone you don't even know, you are teaching your children that you don't care about them and that you are not concerned about their well being. This sets the stage for greater struggles later in life. As we move into adulthood, gaining self-sufficiency will mean severing all bonds to our parents (as dependency was the only remaining bond). The Bible, by contrast, teaches us that parents should love their children, and that children should respect their parents. So yeah, school turns this one on it's head.
Moreover, you are putting your child in and environment where they receive minimal adult attention and are expected to perform. They are taught that their value as a person is dependent on their academic performance, and they are held to a standard that most cannot meet. As a result, many children are told that they are worthless, simply because they are not proficient at math or reading or some other thing. This contradicts the Bible, which teaches that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, that each one of us has something unique to contribute, and that God loves every one of us.
Finally, school teaches objectification. It teaches us that our own value is only in what we can provide for others, and that others are valuable only because of what they can do for us. Students learn to form social hierarchies where they use lies and rumors and gossip to gain advantage over each other. Later, boys learn to lie to girls in order to use them to satisfy sexual urges, while girls learn to submit to that treatment in order to feel valuable. In contrast, the Bible teaches that people have intrinsic value, and that we should not do things out of selfishness or vain conceit, but rather that we should build each other up and take each others burdens while carrying our own loads.
These are fundamental christian values, and a christian parent needs to be directly involved in their child's life in order to teach them. If you have the time to home-school, that is ideal. I think it's also possible to teach good values to a child who is in school, as long as you spend a lot of time with them outside school.
If you've ever attended a school, then you should understand that there are a lot of good reasons you may want to keep your children out of it. I think that those reasons are much more important than trying to enforce some kind of universalized information distribution scheme. Children don't learn much about those subjects in school anyway (they mostly learn about the kinds of things I've discussed above).
We used to call it Karma, but then we devolved into just up-modding jokes or things we agreed with and down-modding anything we didn't like and now it's just a way of preening ourselves on how good we are.
You're making that up. Or you're repeating things other people have made up. This is a myth that is constantly propagated on slashdot. It's one of those "everyone knows" memes that people just repeat to each other without any actual evidence because it meets their preconceived notions. The slashdotters who have children going through the school system almost invariably describe an incredibly competitive, stressful grind that is far more cutthroat than they remember from their own school days.
LMFAO! I have two kids in elementary school and there is no way their school experience is more competitive than mine was. Instead, it's all platitudes and pats-on-the-back for no good reason. They don't even have detention, they have something called a "green room" where the kids eat lunch instead of the cafeteria if they're bad.
Public schools are a joke; they have been for years and they've only gotten worse. The only reason I'm not home schooling is because my kids begged me to let them keep going to school with their friends. Given secondary considerations in our personal lives that are none of your business, I acquiesced on that. But not for much longer.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Sorry you had a bad experience, and obviously your parents didn't really know what they were doing and didn't plan ahead, but that doesn't mean the practice should be illegal. I was homeschooled for the last nine years before college (yes, I went), and my parents had the presence of mind to work with a private school for the last three of those years. I took lab courses there (one a year: Chem, Bio, etc.), met with a teacher once a week who rubber stamped all the work I did at home for my mother (who put together the curriculum and graded my work). I graduated with a diploma from the school which continues to keep my transcripts.
Homeschooling is an individual experience. It can be done poorly or above reproach. Don't judge everybody based on a limited sampling, even if that's your own family. And as for being social, I have all the friends I want, and I'm married.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Wow, an anti-rationalist evidentialist rants against people whose epistemic system accepts sources for knowledge outside of the One True Prophet of Scientific Method. It's a pity that the author of the post is probably unaware of his kinship with those he apparently despises.
The religious--even the godless religious--always advocate regulating conscience in favor of absolutism. To them, "real information" is a definite known. It is "truth." The True Believer will not tolerate competition. It's easy to spot true believers; I have enough true believer in me to recognize the language. It's full of "outlaw" and "ban" and other such hate talk.
Fortunately for Americans, we have the "Establishment clause" which is designed to protect a certain basic right of conscience from the well-meaning but misguided people who know what is true and best for everyone else. It doesn't matter if one's religion is godless, as the modern secularism is; it is anything but irreligious. Parents have a right to their children, their own flesh and blood; to pass on their traditions and beliefs as they see fit. Contrary to the religious fanatics of all persuasions, we need not all be the same.
reminds me of the kid at school who wore religious t-shirts ("jesus, the choice of the last generation" in the style of a pepsi logo). somehow we got on the topic of the upcoming 84 presidential election, and he said his dad was voting against mondale because mondale wanted to allow teachers that were gay. we were in 4th grade. what a role model.
this is just a placeholder till i send back my real sig from the future.
The German government doesn't give a shit about home schooling. However, every German child has the right to a good education and the law defines that as an education by federally tested and approved* teachers (after all, how else do you ensure that a teacher fulfils basic quality criteria?).
Had one of the two parents passed the First State Examination (there are two but the second applies only if you want to teach at a public school) everything would've been okay. But none of them has and thus the law can't verify that they're actually fit to teach. Since it's not certain that the children are getting an adequate education the usual procedure applies and the police enforce that the children are getting educated by a qualified professional; a public school is the usual place for that so that's where the children go.
The argument behind the whole issue is that the education of our children is too important to leave it to someone who has no idea what he's doing. I tend to agree.
* Apparently, a Master of Education also applies so if you think German universities are going to brainwash you into a slave of the government you can also get your qualification elsewhere.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
In Germany, it is. Chapter 6(2) of the German Constitution states that it is the parent's right and also responsibility to provide education, and Chapter 7(4) and 7(5) define the general acceptance of private schools if they meet a minimal standard. Especially Chapter 7(5) states that a private primary school has to be allowed as community school or for religious or ideological reasons.
So the family Romeike in the above case had the right to educate their children, if they had followed certain minimal standards, which mostly concern the infrastructure of the school and the minimum education of the teachers.
Yeah, just look at this tiny list of colleges that accept homeschoolers:
http://learninfreedom.org/colleges_4_hmsc.html
Tinny little crappy schools like Harvard, Yale, USC, West Point, Annapolis, Rennselaer, Princeton...
If you ended up in trades it's not the University's fault, nor is it the fault of homeschooling in general. You either didn't bother to look for an answer or you didn't think ahead to create the proper portfolio when you were in your last few tears of schooling. Either way, it's a personal issue, not the concept of homeschooling, that's at fault.
Ditto your socially useless brother. For every homeschooler you point to with social issues, I'll point to 100 kids in normal school who are socially inept. Can you really look at society today and say that geeks that can't talk to girls is the fault of homeschooling? Not likely. Homeschoolers are higher in civic participation, volunteerism, community involvement and other indicators. Are some of them awkward? Sure. Are some of them great socially? Sure. Just like the rest of the world.
If you think that there is anything inherently good about public schools you first need to read this essay, then read a book written by a public school teacher of 20 years.
The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher
by John Taylor Gatto, New York State Teacher of the Year, 1991
Call me Mr. Gatto, please. Twenty-six years ago, having nothing better to do, I tried my hand at schoolteaching. My license certifies me as an instructor of English language and literature, but that isn't what I do at all. What I teach is school, and I win awards doing it.
Teaching means many different things, but six lessons are common to schoolteaching from Harlem to Hollywood. You pay for these lessons in more ways than you can imagine, so you might as well know what they are:
The first lesson I teach is: "Stay in the class where you belong." I don't know who decides that my kids belong there but that's not my business. The children are numbered so that if any get away they can be returned to the right class. Over the years the variety of ways children are numbered has increased dramatically, until it is hard to see the human being under the burden of the numbers each carries. Numbering children is a big and very profitable business, though what the business is designed to accomplish is elusive.
In any case, again, that's not my business. My job is to make the kids like it -- being locked in together, I mean -- or at the minimum, endure it. If things go well, the kids can't imagine themselves anywhere else; they envy and fear the better classes and have contempt for the dumber classes. So the class mostly keeps itself in good marching order. That's the real lesson of any rigged competition like school. You come to know your place.
Nevertheless, in spite of the overall blueprint, I make an effort to urge children to higher levels of test success, promising eventual transfer from the lower-level class as a reward. I insinuate that the day will come when an employer will hire them on the basis of test scores, even though my own experience is that employers are (rightly) indifferent to such things. I never lie outright, but I've come to see that truth and [school]teaching are incompatible.
The lesson of numbered classes is that there is no way out of your class except by magic. Until that happens you must stay where you are put.
The second lesson I teach kids is to turn on and off like a light switch. I demand that they become totally involved in my lessons, jumping up and down in their seats with anticipation, competing vigorously with each other for my favor. But when the bell rings I insist that they drop the work at once and proceed quickly to the next work station. Nothing important is ever finished in my class, nor in any other class I know of.
The lesson of bells is that no work is worth finishing, so why care too deeply about anything? Bells are the secret logic of schooltime; their argument is inexorable; bells destroy past and future, converting every interval into a sameness, as an abstract map makes every living mountain and river the same even though they are not. Bells inoculate each undertaking with indifference.
The third lesson I teach you is to surrender your will to a predestined chain of command. Rights may be granted or withheld, by authority, without appeal. As a schoolteacher I intervene in many personal decisions, issuing a Pass for those I deem legitimate, or initiating a disciplinary confrontation for behavior that threatens my control. My judgments come thick and fast, because individuality is trying constantly to assert itself in my classroom. Individuality is a curse to all systems of classification, a contradiction of class theory.
Here are some common ways it shows up: children sneak away for a private moment in the toilet on the pretext of moving their bowels; they trick me out of a private instant in the hallway on the grounds that they need water. Sometimes free will appears right in front of
there's no good answer to this. who's the responsible, moral, educated, fair decision-maker as to what is the best education children can get? the parents or the state? frequently, neither. but sometimes, the parent, other times, the state. i myself, would bet on the state, especially if i lived in california, and if anything, complement the education at home or somewhere else. as to the germans, their education is fine, and i would rather leave them in germany, legel precedents of political asylum notwithstanding. as to what this has to with linux, programming, and the internet, and /. -- nada.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
So are there statistics which prove out that homeschooled kids are more likely to end up in jail than publicly schooled kids? Because I would be willing to bet tht it is vastly skewed in the other direction.
Wikipedia has statistics which fly in the face of most of the posts on this topic here today. Homeschooled kids are much more likely to enter college and to graduate from college than publicly schooled kids. Further, only about 33% of parents cited religious reasons for homeschooling, whereas the slashdot fear factor seems to be that everyone who is homeschooled is so that they can instill intolerance, religious bigotry, and an abhorrence for all secular learning.
If homeschoolers are taught that the Bible is right and science is wrong, then why do home schoolers score better on college entry exams in science (and math, and English), than publicly schooled children? Are they clever enough to hold knowledge of creationism along with darwinism? Well, good for them!
It's great that everybody here has the right to share their opinion and all, but when the facts fly in the face of the opinions, then you just need to shut up and admit you're wrong.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Homeschooling is in no way a human right.
Pardon? As long as the schooling meets minimum state testing requirements, it is and should always be the right of the parents to choose whether to put their child in public school, private school, or homeschool. Depending on where you go, the public or private school education available in your area may involve significant amounts of religious and philosophical propaganda which you won't necessarily want your young child subjected to, even here in the US where that isn't supposed to happen. What's important is that the child ends up getting a testably equivalent (or better) education to what public schooling provides, not that they be forced into attending a state-approved facility.
There are many people, particularly in the US, who would argue that you are utterly wrong on this point, and the law is behind them. Quite a lot of the folks who support homeschooling are NOT right-wing religious nuts, as you seem to imply with your subject line.
My only experience with black people was getting mugged by one so I guess all black people are all criminals.
Yeah, that's a winning argument you've got there.....
But surely you'd lend weight to the experience of thousands of people mugged by black people.
So the "separation of church and state" that atheists harp about so often works to remove "In God We Trust" and voluntary prayers in schools, but when it comes to private family life it isn't applicable?
Speaking as someone who was homeschooled for religious reasons, I thought that it was excellent social and mental preparation for life. I share the sentiment against education based on religious propaganda, I just don't think it is worse than traditional American education.
The main advantage for me was social. When I went to college, I was extremely disturbed by the herd mentality exhibited by most of the other students, whose main goal in life was to look macho for their friends. (primarily by getting drunk and taking advantage of females) I certainly felt better equipped to deal with peer-pressure than the average student was. When you have friendships with people in every age bracket, it's way easier to stay grounded than when all of your friends are the same exact age.
I can't say that far right ultra-religious education is a good thing, but the artificially age-segregated traditional school certainly doesn't seem like a lesser evil to me.
Furthermore, I think independent thinking is more encouraged by homeschooling than one might imagine. I had to learn to learn on my own, an extremely valuable skill. Creationist propaganda gave me the discipline of questioning seemingly obvious conclusions. This gave me the mental tools (and the balls) to question the creationist propaganda itself, as well as many other things that I had previously accepted without question.
This turns out not to be the case.
For what it's worth, historians of science note an amazing number of British "polymath geniuses" from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries -- all of them home-schooled.
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
I got a friend who also 'graduate high school' at 15 via home schooling through American School of Correspondence. I often brags about how ridiculously easy it was to game the system. Basically every test is open book. And since it was all done at his home, his 'book' was Google. I says he would literally get an entire years worth of schoolwork done in a month or two. Biggest benefit for him is being able to put on his resume he 'graduated high school at 15'. People automatically assume he's way ahead of the curve intellectually (he certainly is not) and it has helped his career. He has been offered opportunities that others his age only dream of. Pretty good angle actually.
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FWIW, the National Spelling Bee has been dominated Statistically, the case that home-schoolers average far better than public-schoolers is iron-clad.
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
The basis of your argument in your first paragraph appears to be that belief is equal, regardless of what that belief is in. E.g. Whether someone believes in "Science" or believes in "Religion X", it is still belief and those holding those beliefs share a "kinship". This seems false to me. Why should belief separate from that which is believed in be the unit of comparison? Doesn't it make more sense to say that "belief in X" should be compared with "belief in Y" without the object of belief being discarded? If so, then there are important distinctions between a belief in science and a belief in a religion. Namely an evidential basis.
Now I don't see science and religion as exclusive. I am both myself for example. But I don't think you can pick two hypothetical people who strongly believe in something and equate those beliefs without considering what they believe in. At least not usefully. That sort of relativism is dangerous.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
That's right!
Last thing the US wants to send is some message about welcoming any huddled masses yearning to breathe free...
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
The only stipulation here is that the kids are taught in a classroom setting by certified teachers according to a strict curriculum.
Your stipulation is considered and rejected.
Parents have plenty of rights, but the right to destroy their kid's future by teaching them anti-science and borderline racist interpretations of history ought not be one.
The logical error you are perpetrating here is that gov't is an adequate judge of what "destroys" a kid's future, what is "anti-science," or what is a "racist" interpretation of history. It's not. I am a much better judge than government of what is, and is not, a good education for my children; and more to the point, perhaps, government has no right whatsoever to tell me otherwise.
We have whole states here in the US that are filled with nincompoops because of homeschooling.
You are, of course, making that up. When you invent something like that in this context, it certainly doesn't help your argument about what education for children should be.
Homeschooling begets more homeschooling in an endless cycle.
There's not much evidence of this, actually, since it's only a recent phenomena on a significant scale. So again, you're making it up. (Although since you've not in the least bit demonstrated that homeschooling is bad in any way whatsoever, you also give no one any reason to think this purported "cycle" is a bad one.)
When you try to push morals and religion into education you end up with none of the above.
Oh come on. That doesn't even make a lick of sense. You're literally saying that morals and religion can't be taught.
I take it you went to public school. But despite that exalted education, you weren't able to overcome your own bigotry. Should we hold homeschoolers to a standard that public school cannot meet?
Your comments are highly offensive. You are making snap decisions and claims about homeschoolers and you don't know anything about them, save what you have learned from the hype in the news.
In addition, you instantly think that the solution to your perceived problem is to "outlaw home schooling". You want to see a revolution on your hands, just try it.
I was homeschooled as a child by religious parents. But they believed Franklin's statement that, "When Truth and Error have fair play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter." I only wish more secularists believed that. Instead they want the power of government to enforce their opinions.
Because of the vastly superior education I got in home schooling (which took about 3 hours a day, unlike public school's 7 hours... and they still can't get the kids to pass the tests), I was able to go to college at the age of 14. Being home schooled, I took the GED... and got the highest scores ever in my state. I went on to go to law school (having scored in the 98th percentile on the LSAT to get into law school) at a top ranked school and now I am a practicing attorney.
Now, do you think that I am going to send my kids to public school? Not on your life. And yet you want to outlaw it because the government can't guarantee that there won't be a "religious perspective". Not because I can't guarantee how I will educate my child, but because the government can't. So I'm punished for the government's failings. Is that how you view it? Well, guess what... that, coupled with your ignorant proclamations about homeschooling, makes you a bigot.
As an attorney, part of my practice is dealing with juvenile delinquents. When a juvenile is arrested or put on probation, who is expected to pay the court fees, bail, restitution, etc....? The 13 year-old who isn't allowed to work by law? No. It's the parent. Why? Because in our society we think that parents are responsible for the outcome of their child.
I wonder why that is. Public schooled children spend 7-8 hours every day in school, plus travel time too and from school of maybe another 1/2 hour, plus time the kid spends at home doing homework. And that's if the kid isn't involved in extra-curricular programs, which can take an extra 2 hours every day. The national average for time parents have available to spend with their school-age child is about 4 hours per day. So school gets them for 7-10 hours a day and parents get them for about 4 hours per day. And they want to blame the parents when the child screws up.
The difference is that, by and large, Catholic schools these days have a "religion" class, and then, for all practical purposes, the education is demanding, high-quality *secular* education.
At least, that's how it is in the first world
/went to 12 years of Catholic primary and secondary education
//favorite anecdote: Biology teacher was a Creationist but realized his job was to teach Biology, not preach, so taught a demanding evolution-based curriculum
///not sure why I'm using Fark slashies today
It's very true that you learn to deal with a lot of less-than-social behavior at school - and that's a good thing. A kid that grows up fully sheltered from any evil won't work properly in our society. If you want your kid to be a saint, try teaching him to distinguish right and wrong and to reject the latter, but don't keep them blind about it.
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
It has to do with the fact that in most jurisdictions, homeschooled kids being out and about during school is treated as prima facie evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the parents and can subject them to having their kids forced back into public schools or even taken away in some areas.
And the kids are told all about that, which is why they aren't entirely at ease.
I've dealt with several homeschooling peers; when they were adults they were perfectly fine at social interactions.
I'm not saying that's what you are trying to teach your children, I am saying that's what you are teaching them. I suppose later on when they put you in a nursing home you will understand that they aren't trying to neglect and ignore you, but rather that they are looking out for your own best interests the same way they learned to do it from you.
To a true religious whack-job like myself there is no difference between "ideological and dogmatic" reasons and "pragmatic" reasons. You seem to believe that your life philosophy should be separate from the way go about your day to day life. I submit to you that if that is indeed the case there is no reason at all to have a philosophy.
What it comes down to here is whether or not you support my freedom to practice my religion the way I see fit. Saying that I can believe whatever I want but that I must live the way you say is as contradiction.
You ought to simply come out and say that you don't want me to live as christian, and that you feel that the government should pass laws prohibiting certain aspects of the christian lifestyle which concern you. You ought to say that the government should repeal aspects of the first amendment to allow these kind of bans based on religious grounds. Making a "quality of education" argument, given the state of public education, makes no sense and is disingenuous.
Don't the majority of home-schoolers do it because they're afraid of evil secular concepts like evolution and geological history?
No. Most that I know do it because they believe their kids will get a better, more well-rounded, more detailed, and overall far superior education that way. I know some agnostic and atheist homeschoolers, and a majority of the Christian homeschoolers I know are not anti-evolution.
They are, however, pro-Pluto, and I applaud them for this!
And this should be a clue ... in the evangelical and protestant tradition, perhaps the most pervasive characteristic of adherents is that of independent thinking. This is, of course, how Protestantism began, and it's not stopped since. So when an arbitrary body of men says, "Pluto isn't a planet anymore," the evangelical Protestant often replies, "who are you to define that for me?" You see this response in marriage rights, too, of course, and it was also the main reasoning behind the Scopes Trial: not that evolution was right or wrong, but who are YOU to push it on us, if we don't want to think about it or believe it?
And of course, this also is seen in homeschooling directly: who is GOVERNMENT to tell me I have to follow ITS rules for MY kids? And we see this throughout American history, from the Mayflower colonists through the War of Independence and even the Civil War.
Not that this is only seen in evangelical Protestantism, but it is more pervasive there than in many other traditions/subcultures/etc.
So this independent streak, combined with the very low quality generally of public schools today, have been the main fuel for the rise in homeschooling in recent years.
As far as I'm concerned, as long as home schooling is used to shelter children from real information, or present it from a "religious perspective", it should be outlawed.
"As far as I'm concerned, as long as free speech is used in ways I don't like, it should be outlawed."
Yeah, no, you're not making sense.
Even with a strict set of rules for curriculum, there will still be parents who give extra qualifying information along with such topics.. ie.. Here's all the nonsense that secularists believe, and here is the real truth according to the Holly Bibble.
That's THEIR choice, not YOURS and not the government's.
You expressly want the government to decide for everyone what Truth is. Down this way lies utter madness, weeping, and gnashing of teeth.
Home schoolers rarely follow a curriculum
BWAHAHAHAHAHA.
Okay, that's enough. No, really. Stop it, you're killing me here.
Do you realize how HUGE the homeschool curriculum market is? Many folks order a big box from some place like Abeka or Saxon Textbooks or some other "school in a box" company and hand out the books. Just like "real school". The trade shows and conferences for curriculum are massive. Look on homeschool forums, and 90% of what you find is "Which curriculum should I get for [x subject]?" Online schooling, and satellite school are increasing every year.
It's a running joke that the first thing homeschoolers say when they meet is "What curriculum do you use?"
Seriously, read something about your subject before you post again.
You can quote all the studies you want, but speaking as someone who was ACTUALLY home-schooled from 6th through 12th grade, I can tell you that whatever efforts the parents make simply can't compare to being in a school for 8 hours a day.
I can of course only speak to my experience, but let me tell you my social skills suffered dramatically because of being home-schooled. Through those 6 or so years I was frequently lonely and had perhaps one or two friends throughout all my time there, whom I would see once a month when my mom took me to the school's teacher, who would evaluate my work and my education. My parents made some effort to help - I was on a baseball team throughout my time at home, but it was glaringly obvious how immature I was compared to others my age and so I made few friends.
Now, about those visits to the district education office (required in Riverside County at least); I looked forward to these less and less because most of the kids there were worse off than I was; shut-ins who didn't know how to talk, or attention-deprived obnoxious kids, and, call it a stereotype if you will, but there were plenty of crazy "fundie" parents keeping their kids out of the public schools whom I actually met. In one very poignant case I remember, the mom stepped in and refused to allow her son to read "Beowulf" because it contained "demonic ideas."
Of course, not all the parents were like that. But the kids more adapted to the environment would simply get away with not doing their work - usually by copying out of the solutions (we graded our own work - there would be spot-checking by the teacher but it was easy to get away with small inflations of one's grade).
I regret every year I spent in the program. When I got into college I was naieve, socially-shell-shocked and had trouble adapting. Perhaps it just wasn't for me, but in my opinion the majority of kids taken out of the schools learn less about life than necessary.
Well, I doubt someone who works fulltime is going to be homeschooling. Beyond that, most teachers (particularly at the elementary level) have expertise in educational process/techniques more so than in specific subject matter (though most have some subject matter expertise, but rarely in all - or even most - subjects they teach). Much of this training involves crafting lessons in ways that can be understood and appeal to a broad range of students with different learning styles, needs and capacity. When you have one or two children, whom you know intimately, being a subject matter expert may be much more effective than being an educator. For instance, on a one-on-one basis I know I can teach math and computer science much more effectively than my wife; if I had 30 kids to deal with, perhaps she'd do better simply because she better understands the range of teaching styles and methods available.
My wife is a public school teacher in California - award winning, highly regarded, highly educated, and therefore soon to be unemployed. When we have kids, it may well make great sense to home school, and I wouldn't rule it out.
What your parents taught you to gather from public school is a bit different than what every body else learns. What exactly are you doing to raise your kids so that they don't come to highly critical and sweeping generalizations when they meet my children in the workplace? Is my son bound to be a liar and my daughter a whore, because they did not receive a proper christian homeschooling?
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
I was a candidate for home schooling, but back in the early 80s, it was very harder to do legally and the curricula wasn't there yet, it was in the works.
I spent 1980 to 1984 and 1990-1991 with cancer (ALL) and I had to travel 90 miles each way, three times a week for chemo and blood tests.
My grandmother was educated and a school board president so she looked into it. No joy. So I kept going to the reservation public school, half time, but with full workload, couldn't take time off besides the half days for chemo. In hindsight, I wish I'd been homeschooled, would have made the entire process go easier.
As for your comment about "shelter children from real information", well crap, public and private schools do that too. History, politics, lit and science are pushed in the direction the district and teachers want. As someone who went to a public school/federal school district on a Reservation, I had to attend a year of Lakota Mythology and Tradition. Yep a whole year of religion and beliefs for a tribe I and 1/5th of the students didn't belong to.
They think their children are clay that they must mold according to their beliefs.
Irrelevant to what is being discussed. Let me say it slowly. You want to compel parents to teach their children what you want ("real truth"). I say parents can make those decisions themselves.
Here's your first lesson in Human Rights: YOUR CHILDREN ARE **NOT** YOUR PROPERTY
Children are not anyones property but their care is the RESPONSIBILITY of the parent, not you (unless you are the parent). This is not a question of who's property are they it is a question of who is responsible for them. If my child destroys your property it is my responsibility. Not because they are my property, but rather because I am responsible for them.
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For what it's worth, during most of that period the options were basically home school or no school.
No surprise then that schooling beats non-existent schooling.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
When religion puts a person on the moon, or when a priest receives schematics for a new invention via divine inspiration, or when a faith healer cures anything in a controlled environment then perhaps I'll start listening.
Science works; science delivers the goods. That's the difference.
Jesus used to be my co-pilot, but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.
Why do private schools send more kids to college? Why do elite suburbs? You shouldn't really pat yourself on the back for taking bright kids with involved parents and getting them into college. If the majority of homeschoolers are schooled by parents with college degrees (using Wikipedia article here), and the majority of public school kids do not have parents with college degrees. Then it's not really much of an achievement to have higher test scores than public schools is it?
Caveat: I did one year of homeschooling and one of correspondance. I personally do not recommend it.
As an atheist, I've met many home-schoolers. And I don't think anyone would consider any of them to be ultra fanatic religious fringe group members.
I was homeschooled up until the middle of high school. At that point we had a discussion about my future educational goals and I decided that going to University was what I wanted to do. Although it was apparently possible to just take the SATs and go based on those scores I thought it would be easier to get a high school diploma. So I got the local high school to look through my homeschooling work I had done. Some was deemed equivalent and I got credit for it. Some was close enough, so I just had to take the final exam for the course to get credit. I did take some courses in school because I hadn't completed everything at home, but in most of those courses I was ahead of the rest of the class. I graduated on the honour's list, and got accepted to several universities. I have now graduated from university and am making it in the real world just fine.
Social skills don't have to be learned in school. I was part of several other organizations (cadets, scouts, youth group), where I learned how to interact with other people. Not just other people of my own age group either like I would if I only learned these skills in school.
In high school (secondary) did you ever sit in class and realize that listening to the teacher was a mistake and you were better off simply using the textbook to learn for yourself? Did you ever listen in anguish as the instructor taught the students something that you knew to be fundamentally incorrect? Did you do this in college? I know I had moments like this. Lacking some government certification does not necessarily mean that parents cannot perform at an equal or superior level than so-called experts in the school system. Many involved homeschooling parents are humble and intelligent to pick up a book for themselves, spending time and resources, and teach their children in a complete and responsible manner. Being a passenger in an airplane doesn't make you a pilot but learning to fly a plane does. The pioneers of aviation didn't need some certification to be smart enough to do that. Parents smart enough to educate their own children shouldn't be castigated for being above the cut.
Sand's overrated... it's just tiny little rocks.
I second inviolet's post.
My wife and I homeschool precisely because we were disgusted with both the quality and the direction of the public school in our district. Before making that decision we attended school board meetings, met with our children's teachers, and had private meetings with both the past and present superintendent. While not too surprised what we found was indifference at just about all levels. Both my wife and I are college grads - I majored in the humanities and my wife in the sciences - and neither of us are religious.
Evolution was too controversial, but letting a community church onto school grounds so they could proselytize and pass out bibles to our kids as they got off the bus and walked into the school building was no big deal. Our children were at the top of their classes, but gifted programming was eschewed for individualized learning plans -- a nice idea except all it meant to the teacher was letting our kids finish their work then tutor the other kids. Classrooms of 25 - 30+ kids in 1st grade were not an issue to be concerned about.
What really surprised us were the supportive phone calls we got from teachers after we pulled our kids out. Teachers know things aren't right, but when their job depends upon keeping their mouth shut during these tough times what's a teacher to do?
Now in our second year of homeschooling things are going great. Science and math are an integral part of our homeschooling, our kids have been exploring another language thanks to some decent support materials on DVD and the web, history is as accurate as we can make it, and we don't have to worry about some other parent complaining that the dictionaries in the library define oral sex. As for extra curricular activities our kids are involved in at least one sport every season through the YMCA and YWCA (in our area they're merged). They have friends who they occasionally spend the night with and vice versa. Their bright, inquisitive, social and aren't afraid of science and math (ok - I'm a proud parent too ;-).
No, it isn't, not in America anyway. I doubt it is in any country anywhere.
Society has put limits on this 'right', in order to protect children from extremists and idiots. You are allowed a certain level of freedom, but we as a society have said that we only allow it to a certain level and you must comply with some basic standards for education so your child can eventually have the opportunity to make their own decisions without being brainwashed by you to only believe YOUR viewpoints. You are also required to teach them certain specific things if you want to teach them yourself.
Its a compromise between letting you teach your children your beliefs and preventing you from making them nutjobs (which doesn't require a prefix of religious, there are plenty of other ways to be intolerant bastards). You can teach them and educate them your way, but you also have to expose them to certain other bits of knowledge that we as a society have decided that EVERYONE should know.
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And should the state violently force* its own people to submit to having their children indoctrinated into believing what you think they should believe?
*("police to escort them to classes")
Revive the Constitution.
Thank you for pointing this out. I have heard this absurd socialization argument many times. It is very strange if you think about it. Over the history of humanity, it is only very recently that children mainly interact with social groups very close to their age. It used to be that a child would learn a trade from their parents, and although they had friends/playmates, a lot of their time was spend with their parents. Early is US history, there were many one room school houses where children of all ages would be taught by a single teacher. Why do we think that public schools with near-age peers groups is "normal"?
I heard that a Canadian study on home schooling was recently released and they found very positive results. The results showed that home schooled children were better community citizens (charities, gave time, etc). The study found nothing wrong with their social skills.
When the World Trade Center got hit by airplanes, and people were in panic and looking for leadership, the primary message from the establishment was not "Help your neighbours". It was not "Be charitable". It was "Keep shopping". This should give you an idea what the establishments priorities are, why public schools are the way they are, and what kind of adults they are intended to mold children into.
If you trust the disciples of Ayn Rand and John Nash to administer the education of your children, you shouldn't be surprised if they turn into psychopaths.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
But somehow I see this opening a whole new can of worms. Now Germany is going to restrict people flying to the U.S. - based on facts about children and schooling, and likewise, people might run away to the US claiming they are doing it for their children as opposed to some ulterior motive (other more heineous crimes).
No it does not, lol. Germany and USA have different laws regarding schooling your kids, fine. You miss the point that germany still nevertheless is a "constitutional state" or a "free government under the law". In other words there is no legal way for the state to prevent parents and kids to travel. After all we live in a free country like the US citizens alike.
Many parents that do want home schooling and are in trouble with the law exactly do that. They just live in a different land of the european union where "home schooling" is allowed.
In other words, that particular family did not need to flee germany and did not need to apply for political asylum in the USA.
However the funny thing, in two ways about this is: first they don't need to go through the awkward process in getting a green card, they just apply for asylum which is probably much easier and secondly it is really a slap into the face of our politicians (yes I'm german).
I don't agree that parents have the right to educate their children as they like (it sometimes sounds as if you could do that in the USA everywhere). I strongly believe that there need to be levels, guidelines, tests, common standards or what ever.
However, to give everyone, especially the US and other oversees guys an idea. The law has old roots. The earliest laws about "school duty" (can you say that?) where formulated between 1592, 1598 and 1681 http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulpflicht/ and finally in Preußen (Prussia) at 1717 and Bayern (Bavaria) 1763.
Those laws where badly necessary as the already existing schools where avoided, parents found it more important to send 6 year old kids working in dangerous factories, mines, or mechanized manufactories.
The problems in our days now is that this is no longer appropriated. There are enough examples of home schooled kids where the 5 the 7 and the 12 year old boys learn together. And they do their homework together. And it show that the typical level of an 18 years old making his "final secondary-school examinations" can be reached easily at the age of 15 or 16, because learning at (provided the parents can give that education) is 100% more effective than a standard school, if not even more.
I have seen examples of such families last weeks in TV (because there is a growing movement of "home schoolers" who try to resist the current politicians) where the youngest (like 7 or 9) plays several instruments, speaks about 5 foreign languages can write in all but one of them, is strongly interested in math and physics and is just to smart to be put into a normal school. The oldest basically made "final secondary-school examinations" at age of 16 (normal is 18 - 19) and is now doing a apprenticeship as carpenter because he is basically to young to visit an university ... either to skip time or he just likes carpentry ;D
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Using spelling-bees as a metric for a criterion for how good education is is a really bad idea. Spelling bees are essentially an extracurricular that involves lots of memorization. Moreover, this looks at outliers. That's not useful in that it doesn't tell us anything about either the average of the general sample size. For example, it might very well be that homeschoolers on average spelled about as well or worse than public school kids but since so many homeschoolers get involved in spell bees they still end up dominating the upper tiers of the competition. If you could show that homeschoolers on average had better grammar and spelling that would be a different claim. Or if you could show they did well across the board in intellectually related competitions you might have an argument. Moreover, one could actually argue that this is a negative reflection of how homeschooling functions: homeschooling in the United States is often done by reactionary Christians. Spelling is therefore appealing in that it at first glance seems to be a set of nice, rigid rules.
They are taught that their value as a person is dependent on their academic performance, and they are held to a standard that most cannot meet. As a result, many children are told that they are worthless, simply because they are not proficient at math or reading or some other thing.
Um, that situation is thousands of times better than the school I attended, where academic performance was practically frowned upon, as simply stating you got a good grade on an exam could be interpreted as an insult to your peers. I'm in college now and I live in constant fear of alienating all of my classmates when they ask my GPA and I have to tell them 4.00.
The only metric that was considered valuable was athletic performance, and those who did not perform were deemed "worthless." I would rather have intelligent kids receive positive reenforcement for their scholastic success than idiots receive positive reenforcement in spite of their scholastic failures.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
What it comes down to here is whether or not you support my freedom to practice my religion the way I see fit. Saying that I can believe whatever I want but that I must live the way you say is as contradiction.
Personally, I fully support the right of any free thinking adult to dictate the course of their own life.
I do not support their right to force their ideology onto their children, who are not capable of making those choices for themselves.
I also admit there is no solution which protects children from any kind of indoctrination, and it would be foolish to argue that one method is better than the other, as there can be no real metric.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
The kids I know that went to catholic schools didn't seem to be that extreme. Do they teach evolution at catholic schools?
I saw an interview with a staunch Christian studying evolution at a US university. Basically, he said he believed God created man and evolution was the way he did it.