Holocaust Impulse Still Alive in Germany

My father was an officer in the United States Navy who married my mother while on leave in New York City. I was born shortly after the war in 1948. I shouldn't have to write you.

Two times in the twentieth century young men from our nation had to go to Europe to free innocent people from the oppression of the agents of German tyranny. My father's generation and his father's generation. Our men shed their blood and my father risked his life to rid the world of the dark heart of German evil that you now, once again exhume and parade for the entire world to see.

You are persecuting the innocent Dudek family for the "crime" of bringing up their children properly. ....

The German translation is not suitable due to some fundamental faults in grammar and orthography. Since my own English is of course not perfect I should not throw stones in a glasshouse, but I am afraid if someone in the Kultusministerium in the German state Hessen is reading this, he will simply amuse himself.

We Germans do place a high values into religious or educational freedom. But our concept is completely different to American ideas. There is a wide consensus among the German society that homeschooling is not wanted because we like to see the childrens right on free information assured. The access to uncensored information is the real educational freedom. On one hand many parents are simply not able to teach their kids due to their own incapability on the other hand it is quite likely that religious extreme parents i.e. deprive their kids the basic information that they need to survive in our society and that they need to think in a free manner. In registered schools certain standards are guaranteed. Parents have the right to give their kids in private schools that meet that standard and also provide i.e. a religious program of their choice. Nevertheless the individual right of the kids on information will always be more important than the collective right of the families on self-determination in Germany.

It might sound quite offensive, but Evangelical Christian parents (that are those who usually try to homeschool kids in Germany from the Christian side) practically do not play a role in our society since they are only very few people. Practically irrelevant. It is unlikely that our laws are changed just because of this handful of Christian homeschoolers since we have to deal with much bigger groups (i.e. the 3.7% muslims in Germany) and their wish to open a parallel society. It would be idiotic to do so, since the outcome of such a policy would be for sure disastrous. Then we are not speaking about the Busekos, Konrad or whatever family anymore, then we are speaking about 500.000 trapped muslim kids that are forced to follow some islamistic cretinism in madrasas (koran-schools) because of a handful of Christian fundamentalists. Christian parents have the possibility into found religious schools that fit into our basic standarts. Then their kids are provided with the basic information the German society considers as nessecary and the beliefs of their parents at the same time. I have no problem with that.

Regards from Germany.

A.B.

AB - Thanks for the great clarification. Apparently we (Germany and the U.S. Homeschooling Movement) are looking at two completely different situations.

In Germany, the students are able to get access to all information and so homeschooling, which might keep them from having this access, is not supported. In the U.S., the students are kept from getting all the information and so the homeschooling parents are pulling their kids out of the schools as a result. Very interesting insight. Thanks.

There is a wide consensus among the German society that homeschooling is not wanted because we like to see the childrens right on free information assured.
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The assumption that Homeschoolers *keep* information from their children is a worn cliche. I actually homeschool so my daughter can *hear and know* both sides. She would NEVER get that in the government indoctrination centers.

In fact, how do you know that the government IS allowing “right to free information”???

Do you really believe that the government is telling you the truth????

Do you really believe that the government is that infallible???

The assumption that Homeschoolers *keep* information from their children is a worn cliche.

In Germany some homeschoolers definitly do due to their beliefs. Just two examples: Darwin and sexual education.

In fact, how do you know that the government IS allowing “right to free information”???

Because in our private schools i.e. it is not the gouvernment that is teaching. The gouvernment just gives a target specification what has to be learned to a certain age and the gouvernment gives the written examination tests for the high school graduations. I have my sons in a private catholic school i.e.. The gouvernment does not mix into our internal school affairs, but the school had to undergo a quality test of the gouvernment. I.e. to meet the requirements the teachers must have studied. Such things are important.

I do not believe that any gouvernment tells solely the truth or is infallible. Nevertheless I am convinced that our politicians and justice are standing in for a good cause in this case.

Darwin? His ideas are universal joke.

Sexual education? You mean the thing that has driven up the instance of venereal diseases (for example, so that most young women have contracted vaginal warts - warts that are the only known cause of cervical cancer) and abortion ?

I have spent nine years living in Germany as an adult, and I have observed that Germans are sheep - their culture is all about conforming. Nails that stick up are pounded down mercilessly. It starts in grade school and never stops.

Given all this, its hard to take what you say seriously.

The problem might be, that without sex ed. those girls would suffer even more warts and more abortions.

This is indeed true. There is a certain German obsession to conformance. The French i.e. simply burn the building of the fiscal authorities, if the taxes are too high. Such would never happen in Germany. Revolutions are impossible here because walking on the lawn is forbidden. ;)

Nevertheless this is a different issue than the homeschooling discussion. The reasons not to allow homeschooling have nothing to do with being adjusted in our society, they have to do with a different concept of individual freedom. We Germans say that the freedom of the kid to obtain all possible information is more important than the freedom of families to control the curriculum of their children.

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ANOTHER REASON TO HOMESCHOOL