The state knows best.
German Homeschool Student Placed in Foster Care, Parents Not told Location Hitler’s influence prevails.
A 15-year-old girl, seized from her family home in a dramatic police raid over accusations her parents were home schooling, has been placed in foster care…The girl’s parents have not been told where she is being held.
Melissa Busekros was home schooled by her parents after she began having trouble with two of her subjects in school. Her four younger siblings are in the German school system. Authorities barged into the Busekros house Feb. 1, with 15 members of the police force at hand and seized the girl. She was then placed in a psychiatric ward for assessment after it was decided she had a “phobia” against public school.
Home schooling was outlawed in Germany under Adolf Hitler–the original edict banning at-home instruction has been resurrected over the past decade, with accelerating persecution of families attempting to keep their children out of the mainstream curriculum.
In January 2005, county education director Heinz Kohler told a group of Christian parents desiring to home school, “you and your children are not living in isolation on some island but rather in an environment posing intra- and extracurricular situations where you’ll have to accept that your world view will be curtailed.”
Might be apropos here to recommend a film I viddied this past weekend: “The lives of others”. A fictional story set in East Germany about the totalitarian state supported by the stasi (state security). Its up for an oscar. viddy well my droogies, viddy well.
This is unnecessarily provocative reporting of a difficult case. It’s irrelevant that the law happened to be enacted under Hitler, the fact remains that education is required. The girl failed Math and Latin, should have repeated, but was pulled out by her parents, who seem to be Christian nuts. The German government has a responsibility to ensure that all kids get an education, even those unlucky enough to be born to religious fundamentalists.
BTW, I used to support home schooling from a libertarian viewpoint, until I saw the statistics of how it’s abused by zealots in the USA. Kids need to learn about science and life, and to restrict their education to a religious viewpoint is IMHO child abuse.
Home schooling your kids doesn’t always infer religious zealotry. It’s a shame that the phrase “home-schooling” brings out the nastiness in people as if you told them you killed babies for a living. We’re considering home-schooling our son, and at the moment, he takes individual classes at a center designed to supplement home-schooling. He also attends a private school two days a week to go along with it. He’s further along educationally than our neighbor’s 7-year old, and our son is 5. He has no problems socializing with other children and call me crazy, but I don’t think he considers learning math, science, and chess abusive. Not all home schooled kids are children of “religious fundamentalists”, believe it or not. Some of us have been through the public school system and know that it’s a joke, and are trying to do better for our kids.
Homeschooling = religious zealotry???
Hadn’t made that connection before. Makes sense though.
Vince–your comment is like saying “not everyone will misuse a hand grendade, so they shouldn’t be outlawed.”
The resolution is clear to me. Homeschooling should be an adjunct to public education, not a substitute for it. That way atleast the little kiddies have a chance to develop independently from all “outside influences.”
Lifesite is one of those nutty religious sites and the article was written by a staff writer who made a reference to WorldNetDaily. I wouldn’t be surprised if this wasn’t picked up and carried by Fox News. The biased slant from this site is obvious.
These parents don’t live in the totalitarian controlled East Germany anymore. They are not held back by a border patrol and a wall. They are free to move to any country they so desire. The reference to Hitler tells it all.
The radical right-wing Christian fundamentalists are slowing whittling away the credibility of home schooling with their mindless rants and accusations of religious persecution. My disdain for home schooling has only increased from this article. They aren’t doing themselves any favors.
Face it John, you were lucky to educate your kids while you could. The modern regimes of the world would put you in jail for refusing to let your children be educated by the state. I hear California is at the forefront of restricting homeschooling in the US.
My grandson is being home-schooled, and is working two grade levels above his peers. Though my son caught a religious meme somewhere, he is not a fundie and the boy is no more brainwashed in that regard than most other people.
My son and his wife yanked the boy out of public school when it became apparent the public school administration would not protect him from bullies. The boy has a mild case of cerebral palsy and the school would do nothing to protect him.
There are many more reasons to pull a child out from the control of school bureaucracies than being a religious zealot. I know all the arguments in support of schools, and understanding public schooling’s decline in the U.S., and political “train for the test” pressures, and suit-happy parents…. but for this particular kid – the bottom line is that home schooling has allowed him to bloom.
The thought of not having that option – of my son’s losing the boy because of electing to home-school – just gives me the willies. Are German bureaucracies that much better than those in the U.S.?
The responsibility for educating children will always fall first on the parents, as it should.
#8 – unless you live in germany, in which case its up to the state… didnt you read the article?
The numbers say conclusively that home schooling matches up with religious zealotry, i.e. insane parents teaching kids things that are out of the mainstream, i.e. the government is Satan. They are kept from school to keep the ol’ brainwashing free from defective input from the infidels. Give me the child until he is 13, and I will own the man, and he will be batshit insane.
My kids were home schooled for the 1st 6 years and are 2-3 grades ahead of their friends in public school.
I still remember getting kicked out of my high school civics class for challenging the teacher when he stated that the only form of workable gov’t for a large population was strict communism.
BTW – It is easy to home school in CA. You just pay a B.S. fee to the state.
#11) Yeah, they did the same thing when the issue was people selling edited DVDs of studio films.
#4, just by seeing your ability to spell, I can only guess that you attended public school…and possibly still do.
#3, Vince,
Yes, I think you are abusing your child. You home school him and then send him to an educational center and then to another school to supplement all that. At five years old !!! Yes, that is child abuse. Let the kid be a kid.
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In reference to your comment about #4. This is an informal site and most spelling, grammar, and punctuation is not considered. In this case, bob spelled ONE word wrong and didn’t space another. The misspelling was just an extra letter, nothing serious. But then you showed your own grammar skills. For numbers under twelve and less, they are written out in full, 13 and over are left as numerals. So that would properly be “seven year old and five year old” kids. Was that your Home Schooling showing?
Wow it sure seems like the person responsible for the post is against what happened in Germany. Must be a newbie to the web or he wouldn’t have used Nazi references since that is the clear sign that you have no other meaningful way to support your point. Surprising that Mr. Dvorak allows moderators of that ilk.
#2 “It’s irrelevant that the law happened to be enacted under Hitler, the fact remains that education is required.”
Then surely it is irrelevant that home schooling parents are Christians.
Either it is a right to educate your children as you see fit or it is not. Christians see education as their responsibility before God, a religious obligation protected by freedom of conscience. For some Christians, to have their children educated by state schools violates their consciences.
The state must demonstrate a clear, compelling interest before overriding a citizen’s conscience. For example, Jehovah’s Witnesses object to blood transfusions on religious grounds. Yet the state forces children of Jehovah’s Witnesses to receive blood transfusions when a child’s life is at stake. This fits with the state protecting the right to “life” declared in the Declaration of Independence.
What “right” are you defending in having the state interfere with parents’ decisions to home school? Do children routinely die from home schooling? Can you provide statistics that demonstrate home schoolers are generally less well-educated or socialized than other children?
Unless you can provide a compelling reason for the state interfering with parents’ educating their children at home, your objection boils down to anti-religious bigotry.
#2 “The German government has a responsibility to ensure that all kids get an education, even those unlucky enough to be born to religious fundamentalists. . . . Kids need to learn about science and life, and to restrict their education to a religious viewpoint is IMHO child abuse.”
Then do you agree with the statement to Christian parents in the article that, “you and your children are not living in isolation on some island but rather in an environment posing intra- and extracurricular situations where you’ll have to accept that your world view will be curtailed”?
If yes, then suppose your religious view point is that Jews are human being “endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights” among these being “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Now suppose the state, hypothetically, of course, thinks Jews should be wiped off the face of the earth. (Such ridiculous notions no longer exist, of course!) Is it just to expect that the parents to “accept that [their] world view will be curtailed?”
I’ve read elsewhere that the German government has justified banning home schooling because it cannot “allow a counterculture to exist.”
So now you’re siding with a policy its proponents defend with a totalitarian agenda. How is the government to discharge its “responsibility to ensure that all kids get an education” without this becoming a pretext for indoctrination?
And by the way, the fact that the German government today objects to “countercultures” fits with Hitler’s totalitarianism, so there is a direct historical and philosophical connection between the present situation and the situation in Hitler’s Germany that created this law. That is not being provocative, that is recognizing history.
#5 “These parents don’t live in the totalitarian controlled East Germany anymore. They are not held back by a border patrol and a wall. They are free to move to any country they so desire. The reference to Hitler tells it all.”
I refer you to my post to #2 above about “countercultures.” This is totalitarianism. If you disagree, answer the following: Should U.S. homosexual couples move to and live in Canada or Spain to marry? After all, “They are free to move to any country they so desire.” In any other context, would you defend a nation’s policies on the grounds that that nation’s citizens can move somewhere else? Please explain.
I’ve read elsewhere that the German government has justified banning home schooling because it cannot “allow a counterculture to exist.”
So now you’re siding with a policy its proponents defend with a totalitarian agenda. How is the government to discharge its “responsibility to ensure that all kids get an education” without this becoming a pretext for indoctrination?
And by the way, the fact that the German government today objects to “countercultures” fits with Hitler’s totalitarianism, so there is a direct historical and philosophical connection between the present situation and the situation in Hitler’s Germany that created this law. That is not being provocative, that is recognizing history.
#4 “Vince–your comment is like saying ‘not everyone will misuse a hand grenade, so they shouldn’t be outlawed.’”
People have objected here that having to resort to references to Nazis shows the argument against what Germany is doing is bankrupt. I’d argue that your analogy is also extreme enough as to be worthless. A hand grenade is by definition destructive. Can the same be said of home schooling? There is no legitimate place for a hand grenade outside of a military context and the state rightly monopolizes the use of force. ON what basis should the state monopolize education? Can you demonstrate the destructive effects of home schooling?
10. “The numbers say conclusively that home schooling matches up with religious zealotry, i.e. insane parents teaching kids things that are out of the mainstream, i.e. the government is Satan. They are kept from school to keep the ol’ brainwashing free from defective input from the infidels. Give me the child until he is 13, and I will own the man, and he will be batshit insane.”
Can you show us the numbers? Do we have the right to believe things the mainstream thinks insane or does the state have a responsibility to insure everyone is exposed to the mainstream? How is the later different from totalitarianism? Since when has it been the state’s business to insure people are exposed to the “mainstream?” How is this obligation prevented from becoming propagandization?