Have we talked about this? German Homeschooling Family Seeks Asylum in US

[QueenCat]

 

And Rosa Parks should have stayed at the back of the bus. Why didn't she explore

her legal options instead of pursuing an illegal course?

 

 

Ugh.......... she didn't have any other legal options if she didn't want to sit in the back of the bus, short of not getting on the bus.

[Melissa in Australia]

I think the US should grant them asylum because this is where they applied for asylum.

 

So are you saying that you think that anyone in the world that has a gripe with their country should be allowed freely to shift to America without any restrictions on the number arriving each year? have you thought through how that would affect your country?

[Wheres Toto]

 

I guess we have identified the basic difference. I believe parents should decide exactly

how to raise their children and decide exactly how to educate them, and what their children

should be taught, religiously or educationally. If the government wants to be in the

business of educating children, that is fine (I happily pay my taxes so others can be

educated--I don't begrudge anyone that). But I believe the government in any country

should have no say at

all in whether children are taught at home, or what they are taught at home.

 

 

This isn't the case even in every state here. Some states have fairly strict guidelines of what can be taught at home and how. I think even the super-easy states require some form of "an equivalent education".

[Melissa in Australia]

jhschool, your arguments are illogical because you are arguing for a change in German law being brought about by American sympathy, as if our sensibilities are the primary force driving German law or opinion. This has nothing to do with us, or with how we feel about homeschooling or parental rights!

 

We can't change Germany's laws or national ideology by being American. We just can't. Also, we should be open-minded enough to examine whether our American sensibilities really are appropriate for the entire globe or whether it's possible that we don't know what's best for everybody else. Legal options were in place for this family. They could have moved freely within the EU to homeschool-friendly states. They did not have to homeschool illegally in Germany, and they did not have to come to a nation with no provision for granting them asylum based purely on their desire to homeschool.

 

We have laws regulating our practice of asylum for endangered persons. Just as the Romeikes should have challenged their nation's laws with which they disagreed through legal challenges and not through rogue actions, so should we remonstrate with our powers-that-be to have our laws concerning asylum changed if we don't like them. Ginning up un-informed sympathy and political action on the part of American homeschoolers is manipulative.

 

As it stands, the German family had and has legal options available to them but they are choosing to pursue an illegal course, instead, for reasons that we all might never fully understand. They were willing to break the law in Germany, and they are willing to try to force our government's hand to accommodate them, as well.

 

:iagree:

 

And MANY countries do things differently and it works ( in our non American opinion) better.

[Orthodox6]

To take just this one point: YES. Yes, I find it unreasonable, and wrong, to raise my child to think what I believe instead of raising my children to think for themselves.

 

 

BIG can of worms rearing their heads if I take that literally! Many, if not most, parents try hard to raise their children to share the same set of core beliefs. They know that, once a child is an adult, the child makes his or her own choices, which may include rejecting parental beliefs. But they consider it negligent to leave a child totally on his own, and just hope that worthwhile beliefs are absorbed, magically, out of the atmosphere. I am not restricting my words to religion, because my viewpoint encompasses more than that. Of course, raising a child with a set of core beliefs automatically entails learning about other beliefs and systems. One cannot defend, or reject, a principle without knowing the alternatives.

[Melissa in Australia]

I think you have hit on the basic difference.

We believe in freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom

of expression, and freedom to pursue happiness...

 

I never understood this before... the way freedom is engrained in us...

 

 

And other countries have different freedoms... including freedom to go get medical treatment even if you are on a lower income

[FaithManor]

 

And other countries have different freedoms... including freedom to go get medical treatment even if you are on a lower income

 

 

 

So true.

 

I think that if Americans want to brow beat other nations about the "fundamental right to homeschool" then we should be prepared to take a massive beating on the world stage for the sheer number of individuals in this nation that die horribly for lack of health care. The neighbor, three doors down, who died of a non-malignant, fully treatable brain tumor at the age of 35 because it is not illegal for your insurance company to refuse to pay for treatment for 18 months and the hospital doesn't have to treat you either...the preemies allowed to die who are fully viable because mom and dad are uninsured, meanwhile my friend's mirco preemie twins live and thrive because their father had a cadillac premo insurance plan from his defense contracting job, right here on this board our dear Joanne whose husband will die of a very treatable liver condition, the Amish child down the road that died of a treatable epileptic condition that her parents refused to seek assistance for because of their religion and they weren't prosecuted, or the 10 year old Amish boy in the same community that died of a closed head injury because his parents didn't believe in hospitals, or the diabetic child that died because his Christian Scientist parents didn't believe in modern medical treatment and their right to believe this trumped the child's right to live...and they were.not.prosecuted., and the list goes on, and on, and on....

 

I can't wrap my brain around homeschooling being a basic human right that is alienable for all, but medical treatment is not! Of course, I am moderate enough to believe that no one's religious belief gets to extend to the point of medical neglect, endangerment, and death of innocent children because I think the child's right to live trumps the parent's right to believe.

 

Faith

[regentrude]

BIG can of worms rearing their heads if I take that literally! Many, if not most, parents try hard to raise their children to share the same set of core beliefs. They know that, once a child is an adult, the child makes his or her own choices, which may include rejecting parental beliefs. But they consider it negligent to leave a child totally on his own, and just hope that worthwhile beliefs are absorbed, magically, out of the atmosphere. I am not restricting my words to religion, because my viewpoint encompasses more than that. Of course, raising a child with a set of core beliefs automatically entails learning about other beliefs and systems. One cannot defend, or reject, a principle without knowing the alternatives.

 

 

My problem was with the exact phrase "raise my child to think what I believe". THAT, I find unacceptable.

I certainly raise my child to know and understand what I believe. But not to automatically think and believe the same things I do.

That I do consider wrong. Because a child that is raised to think one particular way does not have the freedom to evaluate his parents' beliefs and to freely accept or reject.

 

I already have the situation that my 15 y/o does not agree with some of my beliefs and challenges my ideas. I consider this a positive thing, because it means that she is equipped with critical skills that will help her make sense of the world when nobody is there to tell her what she should be thinking.

[Audrey]

The child's right to live trumps the parent's right to believe.

 

Faith

 

 

 

This should be sewn on a flag. A really, really big one.

[Orthodox6]

My problem was with the exact phrase "raise my child to think what I believe". THAT, I find unacceptable.

I certainly raise my child to know and understand what I believe. But not to automatically think and believe the same things I do.

That I do consider wrong. Because a child that is raised to think one particular way does not have the freedom to evaluate his parents' beliefs and to freely accept or reject.

 

I already have the situation that my 15 y/o does not agree with some of my beliefs and challenges my ideas. I consider this a positive thing, because it means that she is equipped with critical skills that will help her make sense of the world when nobody is there to tell her what she should be thinking.

 

Thank you for clarifying further. Maybe I'm too stubbornly independent, but I don't see how thinking can be forced. (I'm excluding water drip torture, sleep deprivation, and other stereotypical thought-manipulation techniques.) As a parent, I stand on my right to teach what is right and what is wrong. But I never would assume that my children are doormats made of PlayDough, onto which I carve my beliefs. They think, they react, they question, they accept, they reject, . . . -- because they are individuals born with fully-functioning freewill.

 

Probably we are in agreement, but expressing ourselves with different words?

[LucyStoner]

Thank you for clarifying further. Maybe I'm too stubbornly independent, but I don't see how thinking can be forced. (I'm excluding water drip torture, sleep deprivation, and other stereotypical thought-manipulation techniques.) As a parent, I stand on my right to teach what is right and what is wrong. But I never would assume that my children are doormats made of PlayDough, onto which I carve my beliefs. They think, they react, they question, they accept, they reject, . . . -- because they are individuals born with fully-functioning freewill.

 

Probably we are in agreement, but expressing ourselves with different words?

 

There are parents who don't see this as you do and believe that it is their RIGHT to make their kids think the way that they themselves do and who do all they can to isolate their children from hearing about any other ideas except to the extent that those ideas are wrong. That is the sort of thinking that I (and others here) have an issue with and which Regentrude so eloquently encapsulated.

[Lang Syne Boardie]

Thank you for clarifying further. Maybe I'm too stubbornly independent, but I don't see how thinking can be forced. (I'm excluding water drip torture, sleep deprivation, and other stereotypical thought-manipulation techniques.) As a parent, I stand on my right to teach what is right and what is wrong. But I never would assume that my children are doormats made of PlayDough, onto which I carve my beliefs. They think, they react, they question, they accept, they reject, . . . -- because they are individuals born with fully-functioning freewill.

 

Probably we are in agreement, but expressing ourselves with different words?

 

One way to teach children to think what you think is to deprive them of access to information.

 

Teach them the Bible verse, "Sanctify them by the truth. Thy word is truth." (John 17:17) But don't ever let them learn of the Hindu teaching of satyagraha that influenced Ghandi. Teach them that Jesus said, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," but do not tell them that Confucius said, "Do not do to others what you would not wish them to do to you."

 

Let them read Common Sense but don't even tell them about The Age of Reason. Omit primary source material and instead study American history as David Barton tells it!

 

Teach creation science and don't even allow a book that mentions "millions of years" into your home. Do your best to protect your child from ever hearing that anyone believes in evolution of any kind.

 

Make sure your children are card-carrying members of a church that entirely reflects your beliefs and a homeschool group that does the same. Carefully screen anyone who lurks around the perimeter of either. Always have a statement of faith ready. No signature means no relationship. Non-signers are non-persons, and your children will not know of their existence.

 

Once you've carried on like this for their entire childhood, you'll have to ask yourself what you can do to keep any other influences from ever coming into their lives when they're grown up. Because even you can see that they will be jarred out of their bubble in a very painful way if it finally happens now, and they might even blame you for utterly failing to prepare them. (It'll be like that movie with Brendan Fraser, where they thought a nuclear bomb went off so they lived in the bomb shelter for 20 years, and he finally emerged...not pretty. He made his way in the new world, btw, but his parents were psychologically damaged for life.) So what do you do about it? How do you protect them into adulthood so that they will always and forever only think and know what you've approved?

 

Homeschool leaders (self-appointed) are standing by to talk about keeping sons and daughters at home, under their fathers' thumb, until they marry approved persons and establish new homes identical to the ones from which they emerge. No college for either. No jobs for girls. No dating. No friendships with people outside the church and homeschool group, even as young adults.

 

This is happening right now in the American Christian homeschool community. Anyone who doesn't know it is being deliberately ignorant at this point, head in the sand, because these are not hidden agendas.

 

An entire paradigm exists within some homeschooling circles with the goal of teaching the children what to believe by hiding all the rest of the world away. If their children reject their parents' opinions it will be by rebellion, pain, and heartache, because they will have to reject their parents and leave their homes to even find out what other ideas or other kinds of people might exist.

 

Yes, it's possible to keep them from thinking anything else. It's possible to mentally and emotionally imprison children through homeschooling. I think it's time for the rest of us to be real about that. Especially for those like myself who are Christians. We need to quit pretending we don't see it.

[Orthodox6]

I have read about people shielded as extremely as you describe, but have had only superficial exposure to them.

 

 

QUOTE: One way to teach children to think what you think is to deprive them of access to information. END QUOTE

 

I addressed that already, when I wrote this: "Of course, raising a child with a set of core beliefs automatically entails learning about other beliefs and systems. One cannot defend, or reject, a principle without knowing the alternatives."

 

 

 

QUOTE: This is happening right now in the American Christian homeschool community. Anyone who doesn't know it is being deliberately ignorant at this point, head in the sand, because these are not hidden agendas. END QUOTE

 

I see that in the American Protestant Christian homeschool community. I have not seen it amongst Catholics or Orthodox homeschoolers. Nor do I suspect it of Jewish or Muslim homeschoolers.

 

__________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Of course my children were raised in the church of their parents. Three are adults now, and have made their own free-will choice to continue in their birth religion.

 

Don't worry about my homeschooling group because I do not belong to one. As an Orthodox Christian, I have been barred from joining the local Christian groups because I am "not a Christian".

 

 

 

 

 

One way to teach children to think what you think is to deprive them of access to information.

 

Teach them the Bible verse, "Sanctify them by the truth. Thy word is truth." (John 17:17) But don't ever let them learn of the Hindu teaching of satyagraha that influenced Ghandi. Teach them that Jesus said, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," but do not tell them that Confucius said, "Do not do to others what you would not wish them to do to you."

 

Let them read Common Sense but don't even tell them about The Age of Reason. Omit primary source material and instead study American history as David Barton tells it!

 

Teach creation science and don't even allow a book that mentions "millions of years" into your home. Do your best to protect your child from ever hearing that anyone believes in evolution of any kind.

 

Make sure your children are card-carrying members of a church that entirely reflects your beliefs and a homeschool group that does the same. Carefully screen anyone who lurks around the perimeter of either. Always have a statement of faith ready. No signature means no relationship. Non-signers are non-persons, and your children will not know of their existence.

 

Once you've carried on like this for their entire childhood, you'll have to ask yourself what you can do to keep any other influences from ever coming into their lives when they're grown up. Because even you can see that they will be jarred out of their bubble in a very painful way if it finally happens now, and they might even blame you for utterly failing to prepare them. (It'll be like that movie with Brendan Fraser, where they thought a nuclear bomb went off so they lived in the bomb shelter for 20 years, and he finally emerged...not pretty. He made his way in the new world, btw, but his parents were psychologically damaged for life.) So what do you do about it? How do you protect them into adulthood so that they will always and forever only think and know what you've approved?

 

Homeschool leaders (self-appointed) are standing by to talk about keeping sons and daughters at home, under their fathers' thumb, until they marry approved persons and establish new homes identical to the ones from which they emerge. No college for either. No jobs for girls. No dating. No friendships with people outside the church and homeschool group, even as young adults.

 

This is happening right now in the American Christian homeschool community. Anyone who doesn't know it is being deliberately ignorant at this point, head in the sand, because these are not hidden agendas.

 

An entire paradigm exists within some homeschooling circles with the goal of teaching the children what to believe by hiding all the rest of the world away. If their children reject their parents' opinions it will be by rebellion, pain, and heartache, because they will have to reject their parents and leave their homes to even find out what other ideas or other kinds of people might exist.

 

Yes, it's possible to keep them from thinking anything else. It's possible to mentally and emotionally imprison children through homeschooling. I think it's time for the rest of us to be real about that. Especially for those like myself who are Christians. We need to quit pretending we don't see it.

 

[Lang Syne Boardie]

But, Orthodox6, it's the Protestant Christian homeschooling groups that run the conventions and drive the curriculum right now. They also are the ones trying to be the "face" of homeschooling politically in this country, and now also around the world as this thread is discussing.

 

I'm a Christian, but I join you in being the wrong kind of Christian. The people I describe are not my ilk, either, and I don't participate in those groups or agendas. But I have to see them, because they are trying to change policy and reputation and their success, if it comes, will affect the homeschoolers who have carefully had nothing to do with their lifestyle or paradigm.

[Lang Syne Boardie]

Which is what regentrude and Mrs. Mungo were discussing upthread. Since HSLDA represents the exclusive, particularly Protestant Christian homeschooling movement that welcome Vision Forum, ATI, and other patriarchy-affirming organizations, they are not going to be a positive argument in the eyes of German officials who might be taking another look at homeschooling due to the attention the Romeikes are getting right now.

[Orthodox6]

Best that I can do as an individual is to vote with my feet and my wallet. There are organizations which I will not join, and curricula suppliers from whom I refuse to purchase materials. . . . And, of course, I can continue "indoctrinating" my children in the widely-educated manner I already have described! :001_smile:

[FaithManor]

Which is what regentrude and Mrs. Mungo were discussing upthread. Since HSLDA represents the exclusive, particularly Protestant Christian homeschooling movement that welcome Vision Forum, ATI, and other patriarchy-affirming organizations, they are not going to be a positive argument in the eyes of German officials who might be taking another look at homeschooling due to the attention the Romeikes are getting right now.

 

Exactly this!

 

I think that it's very likely the German government became quite appalled when they researched HSLDA.

 

Their name is a misnomer. They do not represent homeschooling in America, they represent a certain minority subset with protestantism that subscribes to dominionist theology. That is not a stance that is going to help homeschooling gain respectability in the eyes of the German culture.

 

Faith

[elizabeth]

I googled the phrase Romeike homeschooling brief and DOJ . If this case were worthy of an appeal or had any merit whatsoever legally there would have been a mention on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, The Justia website, the American Trial Lawyers website something somewhere...NOTHING. For 7 pages at least nothing but HLSDA, blogs by homeschooling mothers who believe anything the HLSDA puts forth and far religious right websites. Not one news source refers to it, not one legal website nothing. Because it means nothing as it was a Potemkin Village a hideous ruse and play for the hearts and minds of homeschoolers to make them fear that their right to homeschool was in jeopardy based on this nonsense case of asylum seeking that had no basis in Federal law on Immigration nor any purpose except to instill fear in homeschoolers. And by golly it worked.

[Corraleno]

...a hideous ruse and play for the hearts and minds of homeschoolers to make them fear that their right to homeschool was in jeopardy based on this nonsense case of asylum seeking that had no basis in Federal law on Immigration nor any purpose except to instill fear in homeschoolers. And by golly it worked.

 

Exactly.

 

From HSDLA's website:

The behavior of German and French authorities foreshadows what American parents can expect if the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is ever ratified by the Senate. Go to ParentalRights.org for more info about the efforts to prevent its adoption and to protect parent’s rights by a constitutional amendment.

Quick, send them money to defend your rights, or the government will steal your children and throw you in jail! :willy_nilly:

 

Jackie

[8circles]

 

 

Exactly this!

 

I think that it's very likely the German government became quite appalled when they researched HSLDA.

 

Their name is a misnomer. They do not represent homeschooling in America, they represent a certain minority subset with protestantism that subscribes to dominionist theology. That is not a stance that is going to help homeschooling gain respectability in the eyes of the German culture.

 

Faith

yes - and I appreciate being specific about which group is involved here.

[Free]

I think you have hit on the basic difference.

We believe in freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom

of expression, and freedom to pursue happiness...

 

I never understood this before... the way freedom is engrained in us...

 

And I have learnt that this is not necessarily true. There are many Americans who believe in only certain kinds of freedoms and only for certain kinds of people.

[Alessandra]

It's late and I am not up to writing a post that would begin to add anything to the wonderful quality of so many of the posts here. But I want to thank Regentrude and others who took the time to write such insightful posts -- I probably clicked 'Like' 40 or 50 times. And, Tibbie, thank you for your post #230 about the rights of children.

[LibraryLover]

:cheers2:

[Kathryn]

It's late and I am not up to writing a post that would begin to add anything to the wonderful quality of so many of the posts here. But I want to thank Regentrude and others who took the time to write such insightful posts -- I probably clicked 'Like' 40 or 50 times. And, Tibbie, thank you for your post #230 about the rights of children.

 

Me too!

[Mom2Es]

(I actually have the link to an interview he gave but it is pretty lengthy and all in German, let me know if you are interested in it). He said initially they did not pull out the children for religious reasons but because they were bullied and he himself did not see their religion being the reason for " the persecution". In his opinion it was simply the decision not to send their children to school that caused the following events.

 

I'd like to see it, if you have it.

 

So, I looked up the Wunderlich family. Very strange story. Apparently, they decided to move BACK to Germany and now they're in hot water all over again and can't leave (or so says HSLDA).

[Joan in GE]

 

I'd like to see it, if you have it.

 

So, I looked up the Wunderlich family. Very strange story. Apparently, they decided to move BACK to Germany and now they're in hot water all over again and can't leave (or so says HSLDA).

 

I'd really like to write a long and explanatory post but don't have the day that it would need to write it....

 

Suffice it to say that the Wunderlich's ended up back in Germany because the father couldn't get work. So all this discussion about moving to surrounding countries is useful only for jobs which are easily marketable in those countries. Yes, if you're an engineer, computer tech person, or have other highly desired skills, you can up and go, providing there aren't other problems such as losing your house, etc. Some people are not independently wealthy.

 

Joan

[SarahW]

 

I'd really like to write a long and explanatory post but don't have the day that it would need to write it....

 

Suffice it to say that the Wunderlich's ended up back in Germany because the father couldn't get work. So all this discussion about moving to surrounding countries is useful only for jobs which are easily marketable in those countries. Yes, if you're an engineer, computer tech person, or have other highly desired skills, you can up and go, providing there aren't other problems such as losing your house, etc. Some people are not independently wealthy.

 

Joan

 

 

 

IDK, if you are fluent in German there are jobs in Ireland and Scotland that require pretty much no other skills.

 

Did he know French? If he couldn't build his fluency fast enough that could've been a good part of his problem. The French are still laboring under the impression that Lingua Franca means exactly that.... :001_rolleyes:

[Joan in GE]

 

 

IDK, if you are fluent in German there are jobs in Ireland and Scotland that require pretty much no other skills.

 

 

 

I don't mean this facetiously - maybe they didn't get the word about Ireland and Scotland....maybe they needed to be close to parents or property that they weren't able to sell or dozens of other reasons.

 

And there are people who can't afford to go to court or go to higher courts and don't have HSLDA support to help them....People are completely divided about involvement by HSLDA here which has caused various factions and so there is no one place to go to for information and collaboration in Europe.

 

Joan

[Laura Corin]

 

 

IDK, if you are fluent in German there are jobs in Ireland and Scotland that require pretty much no other skills.

 

 

 

What jobs in Scotland?

 

Laura

[SarahW]

What jobs in Scotland?

 

Laura

 

IBM was hiring European language speakers. There's a bunch of other companies that do as well. It's been a couple years since I've been on those job boards, but they're not that hard to find.

 

The pay isn't that great, but if you feel you have a moral obligation to your children, then you make the sacrifices to make it work.

[Seasider]

Thank you thank you thank you for the many facts, links, and weighty opinions contained in this thread!

 

I am growing weary of being fb and email bombed - with highly emotional posts - about this situation. I have wanted to frame a response but lacked enough unbiased details. The conversation here gives one much to consider with lots of facts to back up key statements. I appreciate it!

 

You all are better than google, I tell ya....

[Laura Corin]

IBM was hiring European language speakers. There's a bunch of other companies that do as well. It's been a couple years since I've been on those job boards, but they're not that hard to find.

 

 

The employment situation is tough now. Whilst I don't recommend people changing countries and living on benefits, that might well be what the family would have faced here. But as you say, if you need to protect your family, then perhaps that's what you need to do.

 

FWIW, husband (highly qualified finance professional; Chinese speaker) has been out of work for two years. I retrained and it took me seven months to get a job doing admin.

 

Laura

[SarahW]

The employment situation is tough now. Whilst I don't recommend people changing countries and living on benefits, that might well be what the family would have faced here. But as you say, if you need to protect your family, then perhaps that's what you need to do.

 

FWIW, husband (highly qualified finance professional; Chinese speaker) has been out of work for two years. I retrained and it took me seven months to get a job doing admin.

 

Laura

 

 

I know it's tough, we did it a few years ago, when things were really tough. And these multi-million dollar international companies that want to hire people for slave wages and then treat them like they're dirt doesn't help.

 

But I think that family could have done a lot better if they didn't move to France. Maybe they did know French or know people there, I don't know. I just know that German speakers have job opportunities in the UK and Ireland. Not great ones, but it is an income in a country that allows them to do what they want to do.

[Joan in GE]

yeah, it probably also depends on how many people they have to support and any financial obligations that they have besides the daily living expenses.....Then I've heard that the cultural shock can be too much for some as well...

[Joan in GE]

I can't wrap my brain around homeschooling being a basic human right that is alienable for all, but medical treatment is not! Of course, I am moderate enough to believe that no one's religious belief gets to extend to the point of medical neglect, endangerment, and death of innocent children because I think the child's right to live trumps the parent's right to believe.

 

Faith

 

 

 

Civil liberties and government-sponsored public services are radically different from each other. Homeschooling doesn't cost the government anything, while social healthcare does.

 

 

:iagree: There had been something bothering me about the first post but I hadn't been able to see clearly like you. Now it's obvious that 1st poster is comparing apples and oranges.

 

Joan

[Joan in GE]

Been thinking about the asylum thing....and still can't really speak about that.

 

But I do know that when people really want to torture someone to get information (out of someone 'sensitive') - they'll torture the children of the person holding information. While a parent might be able to hold up to torture of themselves, they have much more trouble seeing their children suffer.

The more I read about this case, the odder it becomes and the more I think there is much that isn't known which makes it rather hard to really discuss the merits of it.

 

I think it is very hard for people in the US to know everything that is happening in Germany.... the limited information that filters through the news giants of America is not generally meant to truly inform the general public.

 

Around that time there was a big upset due to a publication of the German Federal Health Education Ministry (or some such body)

 

called "Love, Body, and Playing Doctor" / "Körper, Liebe, Doktorspiele" which eventually got removed due to texts which could be misread or even encourage people that shouldn't be encouraged....

 

I've read articles about it in English but I'm not sure how accurately they were translated....Perhaps some German speakers could find the original text in German and see?

 

This article just tells that it got pulled but doesn't go into the detail that you'll see if you search the booklet's name in English...and I can't read German well enough to search in German.....

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/koerper-liebe-doktorspiele-von-der-leyen-stoppt-umstrittene-aufklaerungsbroschuere-a-497527.html

 

Joan

[Joan in GE]

In societies where the state has more rights to make decisions about children than parents do, and most citizens believe that is morally right, there must also be other issues with civil liberties, and a paternalistic state.

 

 

Yes, like Sweden

[regentrude]

Around that time there was a big upset due to a publication of the German Federal Health Education Ministry (or some such body)

called "Love, Body, and Playing Doctor" / "Körper, Liebe, Doktorspiele" which eventually got removed due to texts which could be misread or even encourage people that shouldn't be encouraged....

I've read articles about it in English but I'm not sure how accurately they were translated....Perhaps some German speakers could find the original text in German and see?

This article just tells that it got pulled but doesn't go into the detail that you'll see if you search the booklet's name in English...and I can't read German well enough to search in German.....

http://www.spiegel.d...e-a-497527.html

 

I do not have the time or interest to read two fourty page brochures about early childhood sexuality in detail. I just skimmed.

The full text of the pdfs is not longer available on the website of the department of health, but on several private pages.

 

The intent is obviously to explain the development of sexuality in young children and had nothing to do with pedophilia.

The purpose was to give parents information about healthy development and expression of sexuality in their children and to help them understand what is normal, how to set boundaries, how to deal with privacy, etc.

Of course people with wrong notions can misconstrue the information about children's sexuality and abuse it for their purposes - but IMO that does not warrant a repression of this information.

 

Since you are citing Der Spiegel:

here is another article

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/koerper-liebe-doktorspiele-experten-haben-an-umstrittener-broschuere-nichts-auszusetzen-a-498393.html

that explains how and from which corner of society the controversy arose and that it is misleading.

 

 

I am not sure what the content of the brochures has to do with the debate about homeschooling.

[regentrude]

I have not seen this at all, but the name itself is quite enough to make me cringe.

 

Why does that make you cringe?

Little children have a sexuality and are curious about their bodies- not actually news.

Cringing does not make the fact go away.

 

The attitude in Germany about these issues is simply not quite as uptight than it is in the US; it is actually considered OK to inform parents about the topic.

[Joan in GE]

Why does that make you cringe?

Little children have a sexuality and are curious about their bodies- not actually news.

Cringing does not make the fact go away.

 

The attitude in Germany about these issues is simply not quite as uptight than it is in the US; it is actually considered OK to inform parents about the topic.

 

I don't know regentrude....were you able to find a copy of the booklet and read it - I'm really curious about the German version? This was what was said about it in English but I don't know if it is true. If it is true - do you really think all of those things are good?

 

http://www.eutimes.net/2009/06/germany-and-eu-to-legalize-pedophilia-and-with-it-child-pornography-as-well/

 

Joan

[regentrude]

I don't know regentrude....were you able to find a copy of the booklet and read it - I'm really curious about the German version? This was what was said about it in English but I don't know if it is true. If it is true - do you really think all of those things are good?

http://www.eutimes.n...graphy-as-well/

 

 

Germany most definitely does not "legalize pedophilia and child pornography - this claim is a load of bull.

So, based on this sensationalist headline, I would expect them to have taken something from context and twisted - but as I said, I am not willing to waste my time wading through eighty pages on early childhood sexuality in order to find what they can have possibly taken from context and misconstrued.

 

The booklets are available online, anybody with too much time on their hands may feel free to dissect.

Just google the original title; there are two brochures, one fro ages 1-3, the other for ages 4-6. Neither concerns me at the present, since I have teenagers.

[Joan in GE]

 

The intent is obviously to explain the development of sexuality in young children and had nothing to do with pedophilia.

 

I am not sure what the content of the brochures has to do with the debate about homeschooling.

 

 

Sorry, I was writing my previous post while you were writing and missed this one in my previous answer..

 

Well the article I quoted wasn't just mentioning the possibility of inadvertently encouraging pedophilia but the father/daughter relationship which I have never heard of as 'normal' father-daughter interaction....If you just skimmed, maybe you missed that part?

 

BUT it must have been pretty bad for them to actually pull it. If there was nothing to the claims, then they wouldn't have taken it out of circulation - right?

 

I brought it up because in researching the German situation and why parents don't want their children in sex-ed classes, it comes out that even in fourth grade (maybe it is not in all states - I don't know if health/sexuality is a nationalized curriculum item) they are showing what some people consider to be pornography in their efforts to help children understand sex and how babies are made.

 

It reminds me of the Swiss materials that are coming out....and the petitions against them...

 

http://www.volksschul-sexualisierung-nein.ch/

 

http://www.zukunft-ch.ch/__/frontend/handler/document.php?id=169&type=42

 

Joan

[Joan in GE]

 

Germany most definitely does not "legalize pedophilia and child pornography - this claim is a load of bull.

So, based on this sensationalist headline, I would expect them to have taken something from context and twisted - but as I said, I am not willing to waste my time wading through eighty pages on early childhood sexuality in order to find what they can have possibly taken from context and misconstrued.

 

The booklets are available online, anybody with too much time on their hands may feel free to dissect.

Just google the original title; there are two brochures, one fro ages 1-3, the other for ages 4-6. Neither concerns me at the present, since I have teenagers.

 

 

Sorry - I was again posting while you were :-)

 

Hopefully someone who reads German well will have time to read the document. :-)

 

I have to go to bed now....

Good night,

Joan

[regentrude]

BUT it must have been pretty bad for them to actually pull it. If there was nothing to the claims, then they wouldn't have taken it out of circulation - right?

Not necessarily. There's a lot more to politics than factual correctness. I don't know to what extent the (conservative) new minister for families had pushed. The organizations doing research on sexuality and sex ed stand behind the publication and consider the critique as unwarranted.

 

I brought it up because in researching the German situation and why parents don't want their children in sex-ed classes, it comes out that even in fourth grade (maybe it is not in all states - I don't know if health/sexuality is a nationalized curriculum item) they are showing what some people consider to be pornography in their efforts to help children understand sex and how babies are made.

 

Education is not a federal, but a state matter - there is no national curriculum on anything in Germany, since the Laender decide educational matters.

I have no first or second hand knowledge about anything being shown in elementary classrooms that I or any of my German friends with children would consider pornography.

I am, however, rather pleased with the German results of sex ed in public schools when I compare statistics for teen pregnancies and STDs in Germany with those in the US - whatever they do in Germany gives better results. Since both issues impose a big burden on society, there is a public interest to address them and not just hope for them to be addressed in the families. Quite apparently, many families in the US do not seem to be capable to educate their children in this respect.

[Nscribe]

The following article in Time answers many questions presented in this thread and explains under what circumstances and for what reasons the family left Germany...trying to find info, but this one seemed to address several points. Regentrude, anything particular about the state the family hails from in Germany?

 

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1968099-2,00.html

[Nscribe]

Also if you are interested in reading the US Gov's brief:

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/146930237/Romeike-v-Holder----DOJ-Merits-Brief-_6th-Cir_

[Joan in GE]

eighty pages on early childhood sexuality

one from ages 1-3, the other for ages 4-6.

 

 

That's a lot of pages about sexuality for 1-6 year olds!

 

 

I am, however, rather pleased with the German results of sex ed in public schools

 

 

Whatever they are doing seems to be turning people away from having children at all....I've read that the German birthrate is the lowest in the world, despite spending billions of Euroson trying to attract people into parenting....

 

"Many Germans do not consider having a child an enriching experience, the study showed. Not even half of the childless women between 18 and 50-years-old thought that having a child within the next three years would improve their lives. " from this page

 

They should be happier about the people who want to have larger families and are interested in educating their children (as they say that the ones having lots of children are not concerned about education)...

 

Also if you are interested in reading the US Gov's brief:

http://www.docstoc.c...-Brief-_6th-Cir_

 

 

Very good research!

 

Fascinating to read that truant children are sometimes allowed to do homeschooling and I think it explains at least one case I know.

 

Joan

[regentrude]

This is an interview with a HSLDA rep about the Romeike case. I am not sure how reliable his statements are, but he says homeschooling was banned from Germany by the Nazis.

 

This alone disqualifies the person as somebody who does not know what he is talking about.

Mandatory schooling dates back several centuries in many of the German states (Laender), and is in the Weimar constitution from 1919.

 

Invoking the Nazis in a discussion as an argument? Give me a break.

[rdj2027]

Not quite, the actual prohibition of homeschooling is rooted in the 1919 constitution of the Weimar Republic. The 1938 "Reichsschulpflichtgesetz" the HSDL refers to only regulated the "Schulpflicht" which was established in 1919. The "Reichsschulpflichtgesetz" was changed in 1941 and cancelled in 1949 when the "Grundgesetz" (German Basic Law) came into being.

[Joan in GE]

This is an interview with a HSLDA rep about the Romeike case. I am not sure how reliable his statements are, but he says homeschooling was banned from Germany by the Nazis.

 

ETA - see below