Another story developing in Germany as homeschoolers worry over a new law which specifically equates failure to send a child to school to child abuse, and makes removal of custody easier in these cases.
Alasandra has put together a wonderful Carnival of Homeschooling. Don’t forget to add your two cents to the discussion about whether or not homeschoolers are nuts. You’ll have to skim through the comments over there to find my definitive answer…no my second comment. I was just being silly the first time.
And, for those of you interested, The Heart of the Matter has developed a new “Top 100″ list for homeschool blogs. Loosely defined as blogs run by homeschoolers, I believe. You can click right here, thereby voting for me! No, I won’t start that again. But from there you can sign up if you are interested.
I’ve been somewhat surprised at the other side of the coin. There are those in the homeschooling movement that suggest that sending your children to school is the equivalent of child abuse. That one caught me off guard. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that someone would suggest the reverse.
Yeah, I’ve run into them, too. I’m all for passion in our choices, and educating others to the possibility of homeschooling. But sometimes some of that passion is a little…overzealous. We talked about that a little before:
A flawed argument for and against homeschooling
It isn’t the kind of argumentation I like. I think it backfires, anyway, because it falls right into the stereotype of homeschoolers as “whackos.”
I think it comes down to something I’ve been trying to formulate into more of a post…but it is the basic notion that anyone who disagrees with me must either not really be thinking or must be flawed themselves. There is little real respect of people holding opposing viewpoints.
By the way, I think there is some difference between an overzealous homeschooler questioning the parenting of others and the state devising laws to restrict parental rights. Of course, they are related. If Germans did not feel in some way that homeschooling were abusive, the law wouldn’t come about.
But there will always be someone out there holding to any number of opinions.