I couldn't believe this when I read it. Here's the link. It is amazing in this day and age that a government would go to such lengths to destroy one family for choosing to homeschool. This family is being treated like terrorists. Apparently, they applied for asylum status and were denied by the Obama administration. So they went back to Germany and look what happpened.
Since the only news easily found is from websites that promote homeschooling and religion, it's hard to evaluate this situation. The country doesn't allow homeschooling. These parents defied the law. I'm guessing there was plenty of interaction between the authorities and this family before the current outcome of forcible removal of the children. It would also appear the family was defying the law as a form of activism to get the law in Germany changed. There's enough activism on this matter in Germany, at least one family sought and lost asylum requests to immigrate to the US to homeschool their kids, and there is the organization mentioned in the article, The Homeschool Legal Defense Association. The problem is, child protection laws bring out a lot of emotion, but there will always need to be some lines drawn on the continuum between children's rights and parental rights and there will naturally be a cultural influence where that line is drawn. Where do you draw the line? If a family was bringing up their children to worship Satan including animal sacrifice, is that a matter of parental rights? How about teaching your children white superiority and racial bigotry? If you homeschool your kids so you can teach them your religious beliefs, what happens when those beliefs leave the child poorly equipped to survive in the country where science means evidence based reality not Creationism and a 6,000 yr old Earth? I can see both sides and I'm not outraged just because this has been played up based on the tactics used. Who knows how many opportunities to follow the law these parents were given. Who knows if the family threatened a Waco style resistance? I need a more neutral news account to make better sense of what went on here.
The point is that the role of government is to serve the people and this is an example of government losing sight of this. What you're advocating, Ginger, is the government forcing parents to raise their children according to the governments tenants and beliefs. This flies in the face of what America was founded on. Freedom. I know this is Germany but it's not a large leap to see this happen here. The government offers public schooling as a service to its population, not as a mandate to force children into some government re-education camp. Judging by your reply, it seems you think that its okay for governments to forcibly remove children in Christian homes, by gunpoint if necessary. These were good kids in a happy, healthy home with no abuse or neglect. I don't see how you can agree with the state forcibly destroying a family. This scares me so much. I have kids, my friends have kids and we raise them by our beliefs. If people like Ginger were to gain power and pass laws, we would have to go underground to protect our family. You better believe that if you came to take away my children at gunpoint because we were Christians and we decided not to send our children to public schools, where kindergartners are taught sex education, they would be met with the barrels of my own guns and in my opinion, would signal the beginning of the end for America. When the government forces it's citizens into a state-mandated belief system and enforces it at the end of a gun, what have we become? Seriously, what in the unholy hell have we become? “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein."
I'm a Catholic and am sent to a Catholic school. Now, I think homeschooling is a good idea, if say, I decided to take my future children around the world on a boat. Or if the public schools in my area were terrible and I could not afford private school. But laws are laws are laws. You can fight to change them, but at the end of the day, you deal with them. If homeschooling is not allowed, it is not allowed. You can send your kid to a public school and then teach them anything else after school, or on weekends. (As all my friends who attend Sunday School.) And kindergarteners are not taught sex ed in public school. Not sure where you got that idea.
So enforcing a draconian, totalitarian law by violently kidnapping a family's children is justified then, right? I imagine people in the South justifying Rosa Parks' arrest and imprisonment used the same logic. "She was warned several times to get to the back of the bus! She didn't comply and broke the law!" Anyways, I have a few friends who live in Germany, and it's one seriously fucked-up socialist hell-hole. Hell, even media entertainment like video games and movies are either censored or outright banned in that country. As bad as things get in the US, stories like this remind me that many European countries are even worse. While liberals demonize home-schooled kids, at least it's still an option (and a thriving one at that) here. Luckily, there are multiple laws against this, and it has nothing to do with allowing homeschooling or not. Liberals arguing against homeschooling often use such exaggerated examples to draw the conversation from the actual topic. 99% of parents homeschooling their kids aren't wackos. They're just people who want to see their kids get an actual education, instead of wasting their minds in useless American public schools. How about the fact that parents can teach their children all these things without homeschooling them, anyways? Which part struck you as biased?
That is true, but there is a difference between "being exposed to something 24/7" and "Learning about different viewpoints via school and the neighborhood" There IS nothing wrong with homeschooling though, so I agree with you on that. But the kids involved need to be socialized with other children. In some home-schooled homes, they aren't. And it has absolutely nothing to do with being a "Wacko". It's called "elitism" and happens in lots of homeschooled homes.
There are certainly negative aspects to homeschooling, and you touched upon several of them here. While I have known a lot of very smart home-schooled kids, the most well-adjusted were very involved in sports, and/or socialized with kids in their neighborhood, to make sure they weren't missing out on that vital component of that development, too. I wasn't home-schooled, and if I could do it all over again, I'm not sure whether I would want to be. But again, we agree. I'm a Libertarian, and think that people should have rights as long as they don't harm others. They shouldn't be dictated and controlled by a fucking government. So marry whoever you want, do whatever drugs you want as long as you don't become violent, get abortions as often as you like, buy as many firearms as you want, legalize gambling and prostitution, and on a less shocking note, educate your kids as long as they pass all the school-mandated aptitude tests.
That is quite true. (Wouldn't want to be homeschooled, though.) I don't know what a libertarian is, but I definitely agree about the whole rights thing. They are YOUR kids after all, so, especially if they are intellectually disabled, homeschooling may be the better option. Not for everybody, but it's your judgement, you're the parent.
No, it is not. Again, not sure where you got that idea. My mother worked in a public kindergarten. That never happened, except in your false news.
False news? Yes, I created a website that looks exactly like CBS News Chicago to prove my crazy lies. Did you even read the article? This may not be happening everywhere, but it is happening in a major city. Just another reason not to send my kids to public school.
Well, that's fine then. Send your kids to a parochial school, or homeschool them. I am, I assure you, not the German police. But they're essentially being taught "stranger danger" and "some kids have 2 mommies or daddies". Not really being taught real sex ed. And if you had READ THE ARTICLE, you'd know!
To defend JJ Maxx, sex ed varies wildly based on state and sometimes even school district. Here in California, when I went to public school from kindergarten to 8th grade, our first sex education class was in 4th grade, and continued every year until I went to a private high school.
OK, then. It does vary wildly, but I still highly doubt they are giving kidnergarteners graphic images. I had "sex ed" in 5th grade, and it was essentially an infomercial for Kotex tampons.
Of course I read the article since I was the one that posted it. The discussions are, in my opinion, outside the scope of my taxpayer-funded public school system. It is up to the parents to teach their children about their sexuality, not the government. I also do not need my five-year old children being force-fed homosexual ideologies, evolution or being told what to call their private parts or anything of that nature. That's what parents are for. I'll have to find the article but schools are making more and more decisions against the wishes of the parents. Schools used to be social neutral and therefore were welcomed by all people. Now they have become defacto parents ingraining children with the governments system of beliefs. Teach a child about math, about science, about history and how to read and all people will be accepted at school, no matter their religion or non-religion.
I don't claim that what I think is right for children, all people should agree with. The point is, however, that society reserves the right to override a parent's wishes on some matters. And not everyone is going to agree where the line is. We likely agree you shouldn't be able to feed your child nothing but lettuce because you believe that is a healthy diet. Leaving a 2 yr old alone while a teen mom goes out on a date is not acceptable. It gets trickier when people want to withhold lifesaving medical treatment for a child. How about the Jehovah's Witness that doesn't want their child to get a blood transfusion? How about the parent who would choose to let their child die because the child doesn't want any more chemotherapy but the treatment has a very high cure rate? Then you have parents who want to decline vaccinations. In the US some states allow the parent to refuse to vaccinate and other states don't allow parental refusals. The point again is, the line where the state steps in and revokes parental rights is not something everyone agrees on where to draw it. And they'll never be perfect agreement of this matter. There are reasons for assuring every able child receives a basic level of education. Typically people advocate for home schooling because they don't like how the State deals with very specific issues. Evolution and age of the Earth beliefs, sex ed, tolerance for homosexuals, and vaccinations are common reasons parents in the US home school their children. I don't know the situation in Germany re the law, societal consensus, and the typical concerns parents who want to homeschool have with State schools. I don't think it's particularly fair or healthy for parents to indoctrinate their children. Teach them, sure, show by example, of course. But give them a fair chance to decide on their own if they choose to believe what the parents believe. The outrage that's being manufactured here by the faux portrayal of Gestapo jack booted thugs should give everyone pause. We don't know what led up to it but I can guess it wasn't something undertaken by authorities out of the blue. One might consider being more outraged by the parents in this case letting it come to this, using their children as pawns in the parents' fight for their own political/religious beliefs.
The German government may be of the opinion that homeschooling is damaging to children, their future prospects and their social education. The position would be from the point of protecting the children. I'm sure the law was put in place for a reason, and therefore they ARE enforcing it for the benefit of the people. It's like cops in America arresting prostitutes. They are enforcing a national moral code. And personally, Europe is decades ahead of the US on social issues.
Look, gay people exist. Your kids are gonna find out sooner or later. Evolution also exists. If you don't like it, put your kid in catholic school. But I still learned about evolution and gay people. And yes, Europe and certain parts of Asia/Oceania are decades ahead of us. Also, I saw a 5-year-old boy standing outside yesterday holding a huge sign that said "IMPEACH OBAMA NOW." Believe whatever you wanna believe, but don't have a 5-year-old standing outside on a sweltering hot day for your beliefs.
These still amount to your personal beliefs. Society finds it useful to teach tolerance in an era where kids are bullied into committing suicide and kids are beaten to death because they are gay. As for the science thing, there are millions of dollars being put into a campaigns around the world to teach the Bible's Creation story as if it were a valid scientific theory. So maybe you don't have a problem with that, but someone else does. Society finds it valuable to teach kids tolerance and I've given you specific reasons supporting that concept.
Heh, I can't help but think of all the stories where despotism was birthed out of this sense of 'greater good.'
Following Ginger, I learned from my RELIGION TEACHER at a CATHOLIC SCHOOL that the story of Adam and Eve was actually a fable. So,yeah....
I find this is a common viewpoint among people who have never actually lived in Europe. For those that have, we find it comical. We still, despite the crappy economy, immigrate to the US in huge numbers for a reason.
But that's your personal opinion and not everyone holds that opinion. Isn't democracy a tenant? You have a very hard time recognizing where you agree with a belief or tenant making it 'right' and where you don't believe, making it 'wrong'. Your straw man hyperbole does not advance this discussion. We don't have the whole story, we only have a heavily opinionated piece. I'd like to know more about the situation before I would draw this conclusion. And if the family in the news story felt the same way, one can imagine why the German government may have sent in armed police. Some beliefs are so extreme they are scary. I might put this belief in that category.
