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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.
... 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...
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.
> 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.
I'd like to applaud you for presenting a well written, middle-of-the-road argument in favor of homeschooling. It's one of those things where I fear what I hear, because the only people making noise are whack jobs.
How do you address the social aspects of school? A valuable part of being in school was learning how to interact with new people, larger groups, and authority respectfully and responsibly. Its unfortunate, but part of being a productive adult is working with difficult strangers or at least working around them.
Where was the line for you between, "I'll do this myself" and "Extend/correct/expound/refine what they learned at school"? Of the teachers I know, the best students weren't always the smartest but they were the ones whose parents took an active interest in what they were learning and who added on to that at home. Even the ultra-religious, "Harry Potter is a sin", parents got some respect for actually being aware of what their kids were being exposed to.
Your thoughts? I know you don't speak for the entire homeschool community, but might as well draw some of your good ideas off while we've got someone who's done it.
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!
They're in martial arts twice a week. They're in scouts and sports. We live on a cul-de-sac full of kids. They are on robotics competition teams organized by the homeschool supply store. And they have responsibilities at home which we treat like a salaried job. If anything they are spending too much time with others -- I miss having them around every afternoon.
What tipped the scale for me was hearing them grouse about being bored at school -- even at the private schools (Montessouri and then Lutheran) that we sent them to for four years. Having now taught two students for two years, it seems insane to try to educate more than one or two kids at a time -- they end up sitting bored while the slow kid soaks up all the teacher's attention.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
I got most of my education at private schools. I've met some people who were homeschooled and while they may be socially inept, I was far more brainwashed than they were. I can only offer anecdotes, but I believe private schools are a much bigger problem than homeschooling.
I watched a decent documentary about North Korea the other day (called A State of Mind) and my education (except college) is the same as a North Korean. Just replace "The General" with Jesus and "American imperialists" with "liberals/hippies/communists/scientists" and that's how I grew up.
I learned about how evolution is a lie, dinosaurs existed at the same time as man (or were perhaps fossils were planted by the devil), carbon dating can't possibly work, how the Puritans liberated the Indians from savagery, why the government should enforce arranged marriage, anyone who isn't a Christan is a secret devil worshiper, devil worship is everywhere, Mormons and Catholics are devil worshipers. The list seems endless.
I got decent math education out of it, but I've had to totally reacquaint myself with US/world history and literature.
It's ridiculous that such a place is allowed to exist. There needs to be some sort of oversight; many of my classmates may never recover. Most of the parents had no idea just how radical it all was.
"A valuable part of being in school was learning how to interact with new people, larger groups, and authority respectfully and responsibly."
I do not know what school you went to, but at my high school it looked from my perspective that the kids just learned more about how to break the rules and get away with it then any respect for authority.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Germany is subject to Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights:
Freedom of thought, conscience and religion
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience
and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion
or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with
others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in
worship, teaching, practice and observance.
2. Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs shall be
subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are
necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety,
for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection
of the rights and freedoms of others.
If the parents felt that they were being persecuted, they have a perfectly valid right of appeal via German courts and then the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Article 2 of Protocol 1 of the above convention states:
No person shall be denied the right to education. In the exercise
of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and
to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure
such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious
and philosophical convictions.
So this would specifically be within Strasbourg's jurisdiction.
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. :-)
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.
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)
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.
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.