This is an article from earlier in the year, but I just stumbled upon it again in the context of something I'm working on, and it made me cranky all over again.

US judge grants German homeschooling family asylum

From the article:

An American judge on Tuesday granted asylum to a German couple who wanted to homeschool their children, bringing international attention to the debate in Germany over the rights of parents to freely educate their children.

The decision came from immigration judge Lawrence O. Burman in Memphis, Tennessee. Judge Burman said the German government violated Uwe and Hannelore Romeike's "basic human rights," according to the website of the Home School Legal Defense Association, a Virginia-based pro-homeschooling organization that represented the couple.

"Homeschoolers are a particular social group that the German government is trying to suppress," Burman was quoted as saying. "This family has a well-founded fear of persecution … therefore, they are eligible for asylum."

...

The Romeikes moved with their five children to Tennessee in August 2008 and applied for asylum shortly thereafter.

The parents identify themselves as evangelical Christians and say religion was the primary reason why they chose to homeschool their children. Hannelore Romeike said public education can never be neutral.....

Seriously? Religious fundies wanting to isolate and indoctrinate their children without interference from the sane world constitute a persecuted group seeking asylum? I think this is an insult to people who are actually persecuted.

I wonder whether the judge would have ruled the same if the family had been hindu or zoroastrian...

An important comment by judge Lawrence O. Burman is missing in the article you linked to, which I found here. The rest of the article is shit though, and full of (religious) homeschooler's persecution syndrome.

“We can’t expect every country to follow our constitution,” said Judge Burman. “The world might be a better place if it did. However, the rights being violated here are basic human rights that no country has a right to violate.”

My bold/blue.

The arrogance and sickening patriottism of this judge is just staggering. His ruling is quite unsurprising though, since this took place in the bible-belt (Memphis, Tennessee).

Bolero's OP made me wonder about the opportunities for homeschooling in my own country, since I've never heard of anyone having been educated this way and it seems to be common practice in the US. The answer is on the same tendentious HSLDA website:

In the Netherlands home education is currently not a legal option. Homeschooling parents may try to get an exemption from school registration, but only for deeply felt religious or philosophical reasons. However, these exemptions are recognized with great reluctance, for children are not considered to be educated effectively without public school attendance. Many are denied. Once a child has attended a school even this option is barred.

Now (the article is from February 4th, 2004, red.) only the parents of about a 100 children have been able to avoid this trap to secure their freedom. Many more families would like to home-educate their children but are not able to get their way without years filled with court cases and child protection investigations. (>> Full article <<)

Apparently, several (European) countries are concerned about the effects of homeschooling on children. Has anyone on this board ever been homeschooled, or know anyone who has been? Positive or negative experiences?

Rubicon wrote:Bolero's OP made me wonder about the opportunities for homeschooling in my own country, since I've never heard of anyone having been educated this way and it seems to be common practice in the US. The answer is on the same tendentious HSLDA website:

In the Netherlands home education is currently not a legal option. Homeschooling parents may try to get an exemption from school registration, but only for deeply felt religious or philosophical reasons. However, these exemptions are recognized with great reluctance, for children are not considered to be educated effectively without public school attendance. Many are denied. Once a child has attended a school even this option is barred.

Now (the article is from February 4th, 2004, red.) only the parents of about a 100 children have been able to avoid this trap to secure their freedom. Many more families would like to home-educate their children but are not able to get their way without years filled with court cases and child protection investigations. (>> Full article <<)

Apparently, several (European) countries are concerned about the effects of homeschooling on children. Has anyone on this board ever been homeschooled, or know anyone who has been? Positive or negative experiences?

My brother was home schooled for 4 years, on a purely secular basis, he's dyslexic, hates crowds, rough immature behavior of his peers and couldn't understand why teachers instead of listening to him just shouted at him and punished him for not being able to complete homework. Mum got so bored of the lack of time any teacher could give him she removed him from the school system all together. Surprisingly easy to do when the school doesn't really give two hoots about children that aren't 'normal'.

She let the local authority know, he was given a card to say he was home schooled (to stop him being picked up by the police for truancy if he was out and about in school hours). Mum relied on home school groups for advise. He went to an outdoor school once a week, learning practical skills, and mum used the private tutor scheme Sainsbury's (a supermarket) has running in their large stores. He learnt a lot from one to one tuition. Mum helped him out with handwriting, reading, cooking and money knowledge and basically how to run a household.

He went back to school last year having an awful lot more confidence in his abilities. He enjoys being a little different from the other kids but now they're all a little bit older they accept differences a lot easier and don't start thumping him for no reason other than . Starting his GCSEs this year so he's dropped all the classes he really didn't like and has a timetable full of engineering, science, maths and english.

pennypitstop wrote:to stop him being picked up by the police for truancy if he was out and about in school hours

Is this just hypothetical, or do the police there actually do this?

I wasn't trying to start another homeschooling thread here - I'm just pissed off that homeschooling for religious indoctrination reasons was considered a viable reason for granting political asylum. I mean, FFS, what a joke!

I'm all for home schooling with a few regulations

1) The children need to learn from approved text books with the option for text books that aren't currently approved to be reviewed.
2) The childs education needs to cover certain subjects
3) The child needs to be externally tested/assessed in exams on coursework to ensure that they are meeting the expected standard of work and understanding for their age.
4) The child must not be brainwashed into any religious or political idealogy (Difficult to assess) but instead should be informed of the various world religions and political idealogies.
5) The chlid must read Why Evolution is True, The Selfish Gene and The 10 Greatest inventions of Evolution.

Reuven_M wrote:

pennypitstop wrote:to stop him being picked up by the police for truancy if he was out and about in school hours

Is this just hypothetical, or do the police there actually do this?

Yes they do this. Obviously they don't send out patrols to specifically pick up stray kids but they will question a school age child to why they're out of school in term time if say they've come across them in a shopping centre.

Not a fan of home-school tbh, obviously, there are circumstances where it's better, as pennypitstop's example shows, but generally I don't think it's a great idea. I know there's tonnes of stuff my kid wouldn't learn, just because I don't have the expertise. On the other hand, I think you have to spend a lot of time picking apart the stuff they do learn in school, because there's generally a lot more pumping information into kids going on than what I'd consider actual education.
I'm not sure about the asylum thing, what does it entail that separates it from "moving to America"?

Rubicon wrote:Has anyone on this board ever been homeschooled, or know anyone who has been? Positive or negative experiences?

I was homeschooled for eight years and had generally very negative experiences, but that mostly had to do with the religious indoctrination and isolation I went through. My parents are anti-social Christian Fundamentalists, and we lived in a house in the middle of the woods throughout most of my homeschooling experience. The only people I can remember ever having talked to as a kid were my family and the few members of our small, non-mainstream church. The teaching was offensively substandard, as my mother isn't very bright, and my socialization skills were nonexistent, and are still severely lacking today even though I am in university. When my parents finally sent me to a small Fundamentalist private school in the ninth grade, I was extremely behind, but worked hard to catch up and everything turned out okay in the long run.

I'm surprised that Germany of all countries would have issues with people avoiding State sponsored educational indoctrination given their Nazi past.

Foxy wrote:

Rubicon wrote:Has anyone on this board ever been homeschooled, or know anyone who has been? Positive or negative experiences?

I was homeschooled for eight years and had generally very negative experiences, but that mostly had to do with the religious indoctrination and isolation I went through. My parents are anti-social Christian Fundamentalists, and we lived in a house in the middle of the woods throughout most of my homeschooling experience. The only people I can remember ever having talked to as a kid were my family and the few members of our small, non-mainstream church. The teaching was offensively substandard, as my mother isn't very bright, and my socialization skills were nonexistent, and are still severely lacking today even though I am in university. When my parents finally sent me to a small Fundamentalist private school in the ninth grade, I was extremely behind, but worked hard to catch up and everything turned out okay in the long run.

Hope you don't mind me asking but how did you see through the indoctrination?

Human rights are a funny thing.

Has anybody ever defined, or have two or more people ever agreed upon, what makes something a "basic human right"? As opposed to just a decision that one particular society has taken about how things should be? It seems to me that this is a largely meaningless concept that people just assert when they feel like it, to make it seem like their POV is absolute and can't be challenged. Where does this judge for example get off deciding - unilaterally as far as I can tell - that homeschooling one's children is a "basic human right"?

Don't get me wrong: I'm in favour of home-schooling being legal, and I can see advantages of it in many circumstances. But that's just how I weigh things and how my country happens to weigh things, unlikely Germany which weighs them differently. It's like the fact that we have different income tax rates. Here the base rate is 20%, but I don't consider that a "basic human right".

Things like protection from being murdered are basic human rights, because you can't rationally expect people to live in and cooperate with a society that doesn't provide them. I think I agree too with the idea of a "right to education" - because people can't properly engage in society without one. But once people start enshrining their specific values about education as human rights, you know they're just trying to make absolutes out of things that clearly aren't.

Beatsong wrote:Human rights are a funny thing.

Where does this judge for example get off deciding - unilaterally as far as I can tell - that homeschooling one's children is a "basic human right"?

I agree

I note the 'human right' is one that the parents hold, no mention is made of the 'human right' of the child......to be educated beyond a particular parents view, not (as in some cases) to be indoctrinated and the opportunity to mix with the rest of society and gain social skills.

However I agree that home schooling should be legal, but only where it widens a particular child's potential not to restrict it to a particular parents beliefs. It can however be an extremely valuable tool for children with particular and some times unique difficulties. It can also be a way to avoid a non secular education. All of which is probably a better argument for a secular education system than for or against home schooling.

Beatsong wrote:Human rights are a funny thing.

Has anybody ever defined, or have two or more people ever agreed upon, what makes something a "basic human right"? As opposed to just a decision that one particular society has taken about how things should be? It seems to me that this is a largely meaningless concept that people just assert when they feel like it, to make it seem like their POV is absolute and can't be challenged. Where does this judge for example get off deciding - unilaterally as far as I can tell - that homeschooling one's children is a "basic human right"?

Don't get me wrong: I'm in favour of home-schooling being legal, and I can see advantages of it in many circumstances. But that's just how I weigh things and how my country happens to weigh things, unlikely Germany which weighs them differently. It's like the fact that we have different income tax rates. Here the base rate is 20%, but I don't consider that a "basic human right".

Things like protection from being murdered are basic human rights, because you can't rationally expect people to live in and cooperate with a society that doesn't provide them. I think I agree too with the idea of a "right to education" - because people can't properly engage in society without one. But once people start enshrining their specific values about education as human rights, you know they're just trying to make absolutes out of things that clearly aren't.

This is well said.

I have nothing further to add - I just wanted to recognise what you've written here.

Ubjon wrote:I'm all for home schooling with a few regulations

1) The children need to learn from approved text books with the option for text books that aren't currently approved to be reviewed.
2) The childs education needs to cover certain subjects
3) The child needs to be externally tested/assessed in exams on coursework to ensure that they are meeting the expected standard of work and understanding for their age.
4) The child must not be brainwashed into any religious or political idealogy (Difficult to assess) but instead should be informed of the various world religions and political idealogies.
5) The chlid must read Why Evolution is True, The Selfish Gene and The 10 Greatest inventions of Evolution.

You're working off the assumption that school subjects and tests are valid and a good way of measuring skill. If you're homeschooling for secular reasons you've probably already realized that is almost never the case.

Beatsong wrote:Human rights are a funny thing.

Has anybody ever defined, or have two or more people ever agreed upon, what makes something a "basic human right"? As opposed to just a decision that one particular society has taken about how things should be? It seems to me that this is a largely meaningless concept that people just assert when they feel like it, to make it seem like their POV is absolute and can't be challenged. Where does this judge for example get off deciding - unilaterally as far as I can tell - that homeschooling one's children is a "basic human right"?

Don't get me wrong: I'm in favour of home-schooling being legal, and I can see advantages of it in many circumstances. But that's just how I weigh things and how my country happens to weigh things, unlikely Germany which weighs them differently. It's like the fact that we have different income tax rates. Here the base rate is 20%, but I don't consider that a "basic human right".

Things like protection from being murdered are basic human rights, because you can't rationally expect people to live in and cooperate with a society that doesn't provide them. I think I agree too with the idea of a "right to education" - because people can't properly engage in society without one. But once people start enshrining their specific values about education as human rights, you know they're just trying to make absolutes out of things that clearly aren't.

It could be argued that not being forced to be subjected to the values and ideas of your government is a basic human right. You may, for example, disagree that rote learning is a valid way to learn something, and so if there are no schools available near you that don't do that you should have the right to homeschool.

Basically you should be allowed to do whatever the hell you want so long as it doesn't harm anybody. I think that's a good general definition.

There is no problem with home schooling itself and from what I saw of the article the judge based his ruling on the parents right to educate their child at home, not the right to give their child a religious education at home. As long as there is some system in place to ensure that children are being home-schooled to an acceptable standard I don't see what the problem is.

Ubjon wrote:There is no problem with home schooling itself and from what I saw of the article the judge based his ruling on the parents right to educate their child at home, not the right to give their child a religious education at home. As long as there is some system in place to ensure that children are being home-schooled to an acceptable standard I don't see what the problem is.

I don't agree that there is 'no problem' with home schooling but agree its all down the parents motivation....however in practice how do you monitor whats happening at home often enough to really know whats going on. What happens with home schooling is with its very low teacher pupil ratio its fairly easy to get the curriculum covered in a couple of days a week the other three are free to be used in any way a parent likes. At best home schooling is monitored by a few visits a year and the satisfactory completion of work in the child's handwriting. Its a system that can easily be abused by a parent with a fundamental religious or other motivation like a super pushy parent that sees academic excellence as a utopia and may be blind to the child's actual ability to become a 'Brain surgeon'.

What worry's me as much is the lack of socialisation outside the family, going to a youth club or scouts for an hour a week etc is no replacement for the 20 -30 hours a week building relationships in a safe environment with strangers and unrelated adults. Learning to take the rough and tumble of the play ground and learning how to work together in a different small sub groups of children in a class on various projects is all missing at home, even when two or three parents combine to share the teaching.

Its whats missing from home schooling that worries me and the motive for excluding a child from these things.

pilot wrote:

Ubjon wrote:There is no problem with home schooling itself and from what I saw of the article the judge based his ruling on the parents right to educate their child at home, not the right to give their child a religious education at home. As long as there is some system in place to ensure that children are being home-schooled to an acceptable standard I don't see what the problem is.

I don't agree that there is 'no problem' with home schooling but agree its all down the parents motivation....however in practice how do you monitor whats happening at home often enough to really know whats going on. What happens with home schooling is with its very low teacher pupil ratio its fairly easy to get the curriculum covered in a couple of days a week the other three are free to be used in any way a parent likes. At best home schooling is monitored by a few visits a year and the satisfactory completion of work in the child's handwriting. Its a system that can easily be abused by a parent with a fundamental religious or other motivation like a super pushy parent that sees academic excellence as a utopia and may be blind to the child's actual ability to become a 'Brain surgeon'.

What worry's me as much is the lack of socialisation outside the family, going to a youth club or scouts for an hour a week etc is no replacement for the 20 -30 hours a week building relationships in a safe environment with strangers and unrelated adults. Learning to take the rough and tumble of the play ground and learning how to work together in a different small sub groups of children in a class on various projects is all missing at home, even when two or three parents combine to share the teaching.

Its whats missing from home schooling that worries me and the motive for excluding a child from these things.

I agree that homeschooling denies a child of the experiences that result in a well-rounded individual. My own parents were happy that I only just failed the 11+ exam because my local grammar school was seperate sex and my mother attended such a school and felt it was unhealthy, and that was just restricted male/female interactions.

At the same time I'm very aware that for many parents the only schools that are available aren't that great. If it wasn't for my eldest brother attending a very good secondary school several miles away I would have had to attend a very poor comprehensive school. I do not know how I would have ended up (Granted a BSc and an MSc haven't improved my employment prospects) but it was luck that I was able to attend a good school rather than a poor local school.

I feel I benefited from being exposed to kids from backroungs ranging from the very rich to the very poor and I've ended up doing jobs working with the disadvantaged of society and genuinly sympathise with them because I know where they come from, if not from direct personal experience but through those I grew up with.

I can't help but feel that you've hit the spot. Segregation is never a good thing. It results in an 'us an them' society.

Thank you for your constructive criticism