A while back, the R. family’s dramatic exit from their home in Germany made blogging news here in the US, as well. I talked a little about the case here and here. They were presumed to have fled to Austria, where homeschooling is technically legal, but children must submit to yearly evaluations by the state and are forced into public schools if they do not meet state standards. I’ve been wondering about this family since the story circulated, and finally have an update.
The family is staying at a Christian resort in Austria which has helped homeschooling families fleeing Germany in the past. The article describes an idyllic life:
Joyful girls in flowered dresses taking walks with their parents. An outing in the RV to Bad Ischl to go shopping. A laughing band of children on the way to the farm to pick up milk…a family out of a picture book, but the idyl is deceptive.
The rest is nothing new. The family bases its life on scripture, “The family namely believes in the bible and nothing else.” It is easy to cast them into the fringe of “right wing radical Christian fundamentalists,” and thus have no sympathy with the court’s ruling. After all, the children were “imprisoned” in their own home, allowed only contact with other children through their church and under their parents’ watchful eye. They aren’t “like us.” The article ends questioning whether the children are protected or imprisoned in their family’s “in tact world.” Because we all know that children suffer immensely under such delusions that there is such a thing.
The state’s primary concern in the case was the social development of the children and Article 29 in the Convention on the Rights of the Child referring to a child’s right to develop his or her own personality. But the social workers could not find anything wrong with the children. They were happy, well-adjusted children who did not in anyway seem to be suffering under their parents’ “rule.”
Since the children themselves are obviously not unhappy with the situation, the school administration now has the problem of finding a solution which does more to benefit the daughters than to harm them…
Basically, since that didn’t work, we need to find another reason to take the children.
Interestingly, as “fundamentalist” as this family appears to be, and as easy as it may be to push them into the fringe, an earlier judge in the case did not buy their religious objections. He maintained that the root of their objection was the inferiority of the German school system. He also did not like their method of instruction. When asked to show their formal curriculum, the wagon loads of books the family had read together did not count. The discussions of physics around stew boiling over didn’t count. And the judge seemed to object to the family’s assertion that formal lesson plans are “one of the biggest catastrophes of public education.”
The German state is opposed to homeschooling primarily due to socialization issues. They are concerned with the development of “parallel societies.” It doesn’t matter if these groups pose no threat to anyone. They have to look and think and act like the rest of society.
Related Tags: homeschooling, homeschooling in Germany, Haus Unterricht, unschooling, Familie R.
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Praying for that family!
America is much closer then we think…If I have to listen to my kids sad or crying voices one more time, knowing the judge (who has not allowed me to speak at all) has forced them into public school desipte mountains of evidence they don’t do well there…
Sorry for my rant, it’s been a tough day. I talked to my kids briefly (less then 15 minutes for all of them) and their dad was in the background upset that my 6-year-old wasn’t going fast enough on her homework (we were doing it together and talking about the concepts, and like typical homeschoolers, getting off onto other phonics rules and how they do or don’t apply) or my 9-year-old who “messed up” three math problems (out of a sheet of 100) and had to get off the phone so she could “Fix it and do it right this time”.
I’m sorry, but THAT IS NOT LEARNING!!!!!!! It isn’t even loving, and yet because it’s “society’s norm” it’s considered to be in their “best” interest.
Okay, yep, my emotions are getting the better of me today. I know God is bigger then anything the courts or judges can decide, but to see my precious children struggling…not with the academics, but with their desire to learn being squashed, and their joy being stolen, it’s hard to trust God when your children are struggling.
I’m grateful this family is someplace safe, secure, but most importantly, TOGETHER and LOVED. My prayers for all the families in Germany who are willing to sacrifice for what is right, even if it costs them their earthly freedom.
You can rant over here anytime you want, Jodi. I actually think of you when I’m reading these updates that I receive about homeschooling in Germany. If I had the time, I could start another blog just translating all the stuff that keeps coming in. I hope things change for the better. It will give me more hope for what is going on over here, since we are only 20 years or so behind Europe. Even the rest of Europe doesn’t have it all that great, really. At least in my opinion. Of course, we have some pretty strict states, too.
All I have to do here is sign a couple of papers, turn in a calendar and provide a scope and sequence. The DOE has been nothing but helpful, and understanding the first year when I did some things wrong and ultimately turned in my paperwork late.
They didn’t even seem to mind when my paperwork was turned in enclosed in an envelope covered in things that were obviously meant to criticize the public school system. My husband and I had been brainstorming silly names for our homeschool, like “The George Bush Institute for the Standardization of Intellectual Output” and I had taken notes on the envelope. I didn’t notice it was THAT envelope until I turned it in.
Oops. But I couldn’t very well tear it back out of the lady’s hand, could I?