German Authorities Seize Children and Jail Parents

[TM7]

Homeschooling parents get arrested in Germany and children seized. The State claims "children are not being socialized properly" by homeschooling parents.
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20070227-084730-5162r.htm

fyi....TM7

[totallycustom]

That is a very interesting article.  I am a teacher at a public school and do beleive that home schooling is bad for childrens' socialization.  I have worked with many home schooled children that have both transfered to my school and at a local youth kayaking group, and those kids' social development is severely retarded compared to other students I work with daily at school. 

I understand peoples rights to educate their children but I firmly beleive that homeschooling is overall not a good option.

[Brett]

The key is to make sure the child gets plenty of interaction with his pears threw church, youth sports leagues, etc.  Just because a child is home schooled doesn't mean he/she is locked away in a closet.  I know a couple of girls who were home schooled who are an absolute delight to be around.  They are well spoken, courteous, and look you in the eye when you have a conversation with them. 

[williamlayton]

Education may be bad in public, private or home schools---or good.
I tend to believe that large schools are generally a bad influence on childers development. I like smaller schools where children don't have too act out for attention.
One room school houses are not my thoughts when considering this reply--niether is homeschooling when considering it too small.
Folks-
We have children to raise and parent---and we are not doing it. We are depending on others to develop our kids attitudes, morales and social abilities. This is fundamentally asking for failure.
Blessings

[JoeG52]

Both public school and home school work IF the parents do their part. Like williamlayton said, parents are depending on others to raise their children.

[beemanbeme]

There is a lot to be said for both types of schooling.  I have known many folks that home schooled their kids.  Some of them worked very hard to ensure their children got a well-rounded education.  In Tulsa, there was a home schooling assoc. that planned field trips, guest speakers, parties and other social interactions for the kids.  Unfortunately, too many of the people that were supposidly home schooling their kids were doing it for all the wrong reasons.  And to make short work of that statement, let's just say they were raising little copies of themselves with all of their bigotry, ignorances and biases. "I ain't having my kids go to school with niggers" is not a valid reason for home schooling, IMO. Another couple pulled their kid out of school because the school was teaching a 6 weeks "enrichment"  class on Greek Mythology.  "They ain't gonna teach my kid no devil worship."
There is no way a home schooled child can have the educational assets of a pulbic funded school.  The training tools, the computers, etc.  Where we have failed is the parents are not held accountable for their children.  Children are not being sent to school with a desire to learn; with the self desclipline,  the social graces, morals and ethics to thrive in a group invironment.  A friend of mine taught first grade.  She said, "when all of my time is spent dealing with children that are NOT toilet trained and whose social skills are learned from watching various "in your face" TV programs, how can I be expected to teach?" 
I could and have written pages and pages on this very subject but basically, if our education system is to survive, we have to make the parents accountable for the conduct of their children; we have to make the parents become involved in the education of their children.  Better teachers without the support of the parents is not the answer.

[Brett]

Well said and I agree 100%. 

[dukkillr]

This is a hot topic in KC right now.  This appeared in the Kansas City Star yesterday:

Recent letters have extolled the value of home schooling. Clearly many young people have done well in this type of learning environment. Kudos to these students and especially their parent/teachers.

However, there is a darker side to this issue. The nature of my work brings me into contact with public high school students with disabilities, learning disabilities being the most prevalent. I have on occasion been called upon to assist home-schooled students transitioning from school to work or to higher education.

Some of these students enter the public school system in their mid to late teens after their parents or the students themselves discover that home schooling did not work out as planned. The public schools are then called upon to repair the damage.

These students are functioning academically at an elementary school level. Most are socially inept as well and painfully aware of their deficiencies as compared to their age group. To say it will be difficult for them to succeed in life is an understatement.

Sadly most of these students were home schooled due to their parents’ religious beliefs or negative views of public education.

Home schools need to be held accountable for these tragedies as well as their successes.

J.D. Hansen

Topeka

His experience matches my own.  One of my best friends in law school was homeschooled and kissed his first girlfriend when he was 25.  34 ACT but socially behind.  Sports, 4H, church, and other activities are all good, but they cannot equal 8-10 hours of socialization a day.  That being said, parents have every right to homeschool their kids.  I'm just not sure it's always (or even usually) a good idea.

[beemanbeme]

TM7, I had a rather long post pretty much refuting what you wrote.  Some of it was pretty much what Dukkilr said but it didn't post or was deleted.  Don't know which.  I posted a couple of things at another topic that didn't appear.  Maybe I'm banned.

[beemanbeme]

Those of you who think of the family as "untouchable" haven't seen the DHS in action.  I don't know too much about the german situation but I am sure the our DHS could force you to send your kids to a formal school if they determined you were an unfit teacher.  I don't see that happening as they can't keep on top of their case loads of unfit parents. I can see a department of the school system being set up for monitoring home schooled kids.  Counselling the parents about what it is they face and periodic testing of the kids. Few of the home schoolers I talked to, even the good ones, realized on the front end what a daunting task it was going to be.

[beemanbeme]

Since the state and the people are supposed to be a symbiotic relationship, you should be able to say either one. 
The basic truth, however, is there are many "parents" that should have been sterilized before they had the first kid. Much less tryijng to teach them. I have a young man that does day work for me around the place.  Nice young man but he can neither read nor write.  He cannot do simple figures.  He was home schooled.  His lazy a$$ed mother didn't want to be hassled with getting him off to school and she didn't have too much edjimacation herself so she declared she was going to home school him.  Do you think the state should have stepped in in this case??? 
We can both find extremes to prove our points but the whole point of having a central school system is to teach, not only the 3 r's, but a civic awareness.  Civic pride.  National pride.  I see home schooling of a further fragmenting of America. 

[Bear Rider]

Since the state and the people are supposed to be a symbiotic relationship, you should be able to say either one. 

Wrong!

The state is supposed to serve the people. Period.

[beemanbeme]

Let's see, the people create and maintain the state, which is in place to serve the people which it does so the people will continue to maintain the state so it will continue to serve the people so that..................  Yup, looks symbiotic to me.  Each one comes away with something of value.

[beemanbeme]

Too true.  It also sez "of the people" which has turned into kind of a laugh.  How many "common" folks do you know that are serving in the gov'ment?  Common folks are too busy working their a$$es off to pay taxes to support the state in it's bloated sense of self worth and to pay for all the "entitlements" it promises the bottem feeders so they'll continue to vote them into office.

Nawwwww, I ain't bitter.

[ironglow]

  Shazam !!...Have to agree with almost everything TM7 has said here..
 
  OK..TM..now you can pick yourself up off the floor !..LOL

        Yes; there may be some homeschoolers that are poorly socialized but I know many, many home schoolers and haven't met any.
  Of course, that is one of the many problems with most public school systems...they "Socialize" them too much.that is with a capital "S" as in Socialism...LOL
   I have 3 grandsons who attended primarily, public schools. Having visited their classrooms on "grandparents day", I was rather appalled by the chaos. youngsters conversing while the teacher was talking, wearing hats in class, chewing gum and doing sundry other things that were "verboten" in my generation's more orderly classrooms.
 
    My grandaughter (now is homeschooled, and yes she does miss out on a few things..such as:

  A) Learning that her Dad and myself being hunters, are evil people..
  B) Learning that there are two kinds of workers..union & "scabs"
  C) Learning that she is only a product of evolution and NOT any form of God's creation.
  D) Learning that perversion is OK and only "another choice".
  E) Learning all those choice, filthy, usually four-letter words.
  F) Learning about the "drug culture" and all it's attendant vices.
  G) Learning that her parents were wrong when they said that she should remain pure until marriage and by inference, that God himself is also wrong !

   While being homeschooled she does learn:
  A) How to read and spell phonetically..not " Just guess at it, and whatever you come up with is fine !".
  B) How the US Constitution was arrived at and what each article of the Bill of Rights means; 1st article, 2nd article and all the rest !
  C) That siphoning off unnecessarily, funds that other taxpayers have provided, is stealing.
  D) That there ARE moral absolutes.
  E)  About courtesy and manners and that there are certain ways young ladies and gentlemen are expected to act and anything less is failure..
  F) That political Liberalism is not the ONLY choice a person can make.

    She will be guided and reminded all through the day with proper values and respect for her nation, flag and historical uniqueness of her home country.
   She will learn from God's word as well as man's..
   She will learn that God's word began to be written down some 4,000 - 5,000 years ago and has proven to be valuable in every generation since then..of course, God's wisdom is from prior to that time..eternal..
   She will learn that God said certain lifestyles and actions are sin and not to be emulated by any person in their proper mind.

   When we speak of homeschooled children not being "socialized" properly..How many public schooled clicques have planned group suicide ?
  How many home schoolers have carried off a "Columbine" ?
 
  Home school perfect ?... NO !..Nothing fallen mankind does is perfect..but I think public school system could bevastly improved...just to get back to where they were 50 yuears ago !

   Beeman says he knew a homeschooled man that couldn't read or write..if as is normal, he probably knows a number of publicly schooled ones that can do no better. Someone should be punished for child abuse in both cases..
  He goes on to say that the point of centralized (collectivized ?)school system is to teach civic awareness,civic pride, national pride etc ,etc...
  Doesn't look like much of a success, when I see on the news, 15-17 year old students demonstrating..condemning their nation and it's elected leaders and disrupting things around their taxpayer funded buildings..

  Don't know where you sit, but from conversations I've had , even with family members that are teachers...if the NEA had the power, they would do the same thing these German "authorities" are doing.
   ..shades of the Gestapo !

[beemanbeme]

going to, going to, going to. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  No one says " I want to raise a poorly trained, anti-social child so I am gonna home school him."  No, they are "going to" raise a little Einstein with perfect manners and an admirable fear of God and His teachings.  Sadly few of the folks that choose this road are capable of doing it.  And many, many  of them choose home schooling for all the wrong reasons.  All of you folks that are "going to" home school your kids, come back and see me in oh, about 12 years.  Tell me how you made out.  Tell me how many of you actually made it.  And how many of you, after a couple of years of 24/7 child care and training, decided public school isn't so bad after all.  'Course by then Little Johnny had picked up on all the bad mouthing you had done about public schools and bad teachers so he goes back to public school with an attitude.  And becomes a discipline problem but that just proves that public schools and teacher are bad, right. 
As I said, I have known some very serious, dedicated folks that home schooled their kids.  It seems there is no middle ground.  The parents do an excellent job or they ought to be put in prison for child abuse. 

BTW, (and this will bring the flames) IMO, it is not the public school's place to teach your child piety nor religion.  That's your job at home.
Don't bother with the flames guys.  I'm gonna be out of town for the next several days. 

[gypsyman]

I have two boys, 8 and 5. Both in the public school system. Every night, for a minimum of 1/2 hour, usually closer to an hour, my wife and I sit sown with the boys, and go over homework, read and go over math. So far, maybe it's the school system we live in, I've not noticed any indoctranation, or liberal agenda. Just yesterday, the 19th, I helped my 5 year old with a paper. He is learning about letters. This week it's the letter R. He had to paste 5 picture's of something that began with the letter R on it. The top picture was a picture of a bolt action rifle out of an old issue or the American Rifleman. He got a star on it. Here is my belief. Parents have got to be diligent in raising their children. Don't let the teacher push his/her personal opinion into the classroom. Just the facts ma'm! And don't be afraid to go right to the teacher/principal/counseler, and get in their face. These people are not any different than civil servants/politicians. They work for us. It's up to us, to make sure they get the job done right. Don't whine so much, get off your butt and make it right. My opinion.We keep trying peace, it usually doesn't work!!Remember(12/7/41)(9/11/01) gypsyman

[Brett]

BTW, (and this will bring the flames) IMO, it is not the public school's place to teach your child piety nor religion.  That's your job at home.

I agree fully.  However, It's difficult to instill morals and religious principals in your children when the public school system is doing every think within their power to undermine your work with reading materials and lessons  such as "Little Johny has two Daddies and it's Okay"  and teaching evolutionary theory as fact , etc.