In the past few decades, the popularity of homeschooling in the United States has noticeably grown. Statistics show that in 1983, 60,000 to 125,000 school-aged children were homeschooled. By 1990, the number rose to 250,000 to 350,000. Now, in the year 2005, approximately 2 million children in the United States are homeschooling. Why is this? One of the main reasons parents are choosing to homeschool is because of the moral decline of the public schools.
It is not only in American public schools that there is moral decline. In Germany, the morals in the public schools are fading quickly, but for the Germans, homeschooling is not an option! For many years, homeschooling in Germany has been illegal. According to the German government, by not sending their children to school, parents are negligent in their care for their children, and homeschooling is considered not sending their children to school.
In his article “Persecution of German Homeschoolers Intensifies,” Chris Klicka reported, “The judge ruled that the school has the authority to determine what is against the conscience of the parents. The judge also ruled that fundamentalist Christians, who do not want their children to attend the government schools, are not protected by the constitution!” Who cares if the schools are teaching sexual immorality, homosexuality, and evolution? Who cares if they are showing pornography to young German students in their language courses? After all, the school has authority to determine what is against the conscience of the parents! Yeah right.
Despite the difficulties, numerous German parents strive to homeschool. It has not been easy. Many German homeschooling families are being forced to flee Germany to another country or stay in hiding to continue to homeschool. Some parents have lost custody of their children to German judges, meaning that at any time the court-appointed guardians can take the children to school by force, even by police.
Is there hope for these German homeschoolers? Thankfully, there is. The homeschool legal organization in Germany, School Instruction at Home, and also the Home School Legal Defense Association have been working for them. Chris Klicka, Senior Counsel of the Home School Legal Defense Association reported,
These are the actions currently being requested by the HSLDA. To stay up to date on the Germany issue, please visit http://www.hslda.org/hs/international/Germany/
1. Call or email the German Embassy and give them this message:
“Please make homeschooling legal in Germany. Do not prosecute the seven families in Paderborn (the Pauls, the Pletts, the W. Blocks, the A. Blocks, the Geislisngs, the Sterubels, the Zins, and the Trivoniches). Also, dismiss the fines and cases against the Loeffler and Grosseluemerns families in Bavaria. Furthermore, drop the charges against the Guenthers, who have been only trying to help, and are being prosecuted for their attempts to mediate on behalf of the Paderborn families. Homeschooling must be allowed in Germany. To be known as a truly free nation, parents should have the right to choose the best form of education, including homeschooling, for their children.”
Wolfgang Ischinger Ambassador German Embassy 4645 Reservoir Road NW Washington, DC, 20007-1998 (202) 298-4000
The embassy can be emailed from its website: http://www.globescope.biz/germany/reg/index.cfm
You can give an account of the success of your own homeschool in your communication.
2. Email the school superintendent of Schul-und Bildungsministerin von NRW Ute Schaefer. ute.Schaefer@msjk.nrw.de with this message:
“Please do not prosecute the seven families in Paderborn (the Pauls, the Pletts, the W. Blocks, the A. Blocks, the Geislisngs, the Sterubels, the Zins, and the Trivoniches). Also, dismiss the fines and cases against the Loeffler and Grosseluemerns families in Bavaria. Furthermore, drop the charges against the Guenthers, who have been only trying to help, and are being prosecuted for their attempts to mediate on behalf of the Paderborn families.”
3. Please continue to support School Instruction At Home, which HSLDA helped to establish in Germany. This organization now has 180 homeschooling members, and is working around the clock to represent these families in court and mediate before school districts. Their funds are running low again after your generous outpouring six months ago. Please consider donating to School Instruction at Home to help them continue the legal fight. We believe we are making significant progress and are getting closer to victory.
Please go to http://www.hslda.org/elink.asp?ID=1211 to make a tax-deductible gift to the organization.
HSLDA and other homeschooling sites are currently trying to draw attention to the hundreds of German families fleeing the country to move to the U.K. and U.S. so they can continue homeschooling their children.
It’s appalling that this Hitler-originated law is being used to jail well-meaning, loving parents and to remove their children from their care!
First of all, annoying the gov with some complaints from foreigners, who dont know any more about Germany and German school system than what they read in american media, will certainly not solve the problem. Neither will comparing the responsibles to Hitler and Nazis. It is absolutely inappropriate.
Secondly I do find it important for children to come in contact with other people of the same age, other beliefs and races to let them learn tolerance. No one forbids the parents to teach the children what ever they want after school, they may even teach them that evolution and whatever is wrong, but the kids should be given a broad knowledge, so that they can choose for themselves.
And about pornography stuff: to be allowed to attend sexual education course you need an explicit allowance by your parents (onless you are adult), if they dont allow it, you will spend the lesson in a seprate room or on the schoolyard, doing homework, chatting, listening to music or alternatively watching some educational film about a different topic.
I can’t remember having EVER been shown pornography at school. Don’t know where you got that one from. There is a pronoscene in the film of Orwell’s 1984 (British film btw), but our teacher exempted us to leave the room or look away during it, if we didnt want to see such stuff.
I think, homeschooling is more dangerous, cause the parents will force their believes on the kids, without even giving them the possibility to learn about other beliefs, political or social or whatever views. On the other hand, in school you learn about all the different religions, political systems, political views in stuff without anyone asking you to choose one or presenting one as the best. In school we learn to be critical and make our own opinion on everything. I have always had good marks, despite the fact that my views mostly contradicted the “general knowledge”, and often even got extra points for creativity. I have never felt like school was there to form me into anything “the government” or whoever wants, but actually I have grown up to be pretty anticonformistic.
By the way the topic is no deal on german media and I got the feeling, that the only people writing about it are americans who have never even left their homestate. No offence, but please don’t write that agitative against something you don’t know anything about.
Geetings from Germany
Reading about the situation in Germany makes me thankful that our family lives in Australia where home education is gradually becoming accepted as a successful and viable alternative to school based education by all state education authorities. My sympathies go to those German families that despite persecution and the threat of legal action continue to follow their heart and champion their children’s educational needs.
Beverley Paine
http://homeschoolaustralia.com
http://alwayslearningbooks.com.au
To Tenshi:
I am one of those incredibly rare Americans who did actually leave their homestate… I live in Germany! Unfortunately, I didn’t know it was illegal to homeschool here until I arrived (contracts signed, welcome aboard, no turning back now…) I didn’t think I’d ever want to homeschool, but after experiencing many issues with the “international” school my child attends, I wish I had the option to homeschool.
I don’t care about “pornography” or evolution or anything like that… I care about the fact that my child is LOST in a class and forced to try and keep up with over-acheivers who are being pushed by their parents and a curriculum which is far tougher than what I faced in the same grade…
I have particular issue with your comment that homeschool parents will “force their believes[sic] on the kids”. Do you live in the real world? Where do you think all kids get their beliefs? They model what their parents do and say… not what the school tells them. (They “learn” that because they have to, it’s not usually what they “believe”.)I teach my child more about other beliefs than my child’s school does! If it were not for me, my child would not know about Buddha, American Indians, Ghandi, Hindu, Darwinism, Catholicsm, Atheism, Islam or anything other than Judiasm and mainstream Christianity (which are the only topics I’ve seen covered so far…)
Not to mention the fact that who is really more concerned about MY CHILD- the school who has to please everyone and not offend anyone and make everyone fit the “mold” of “good student” or me who understands my child and can reach them and help them make sense of everything thru intimate knowledge of the individual child?
Yet another rare American expat residing in Germany who agrees with the American mom above. From our entry into this country (my husband and child are both German citizens as well as American), we have been told we are doing it all incorrectly. Man macht das nicht!
From our bilingual education methods to our pre-teaching of reading, religion, math, history, arts, etc. (initiated based on child-driven questions and curiosity), we have heard over and over that it is best to leave the education of our children up to the state. Who are we, as parents, to think that we could possibly be better educators than the state itself. How very bold of us and so non-conformist. Well, despite the naysayers (and there have been many and will continue to be) our child is proof that homeschooling is viable, educational, humanistic, tolerant among a long list of other positives. To detail her achievements of mind and spirit will be left to the conversations with grandparents and those who love her and not to this forum. There are thousands to hundreds of thousands of examples all throughout Europe and North America of how very effective homeschooling is and can be. If only Germany would catch up and catch on! Since it hasn’t yet, we will either be forced (and I mean forced) to put our child into a school system that continues to turn out a population of “The State will take care of me” thinkers or we will have to leave the country (like so many others have done) in order to educate and raise our child the way we choose. How very sad for my husband and child (as German citizens) and for this country with such great potential.