One of Germany's chief objections to allowing homeschooling is that homeschoolers would "create a parallel society." The latest victims of the war on home education are the Dudeks in the state of Hesse (home of the Hessians of Revolutionary war fame or shame, yes), and the difficulties of this family are related to their dedication to children, church, and home.
Or in German, "Kinder, Kueche, Kirche." What is, then, the parallel society that the German government is so strongly striving against? A few generations ago, we would have simply called that society "Germany," and we must come to the uncomfortable conclusion that the state is once again selbstmordsuchtig--seeking its own suicide in the destruction of the culture that gave it its existence.
Pray for the Dudeks, and send them a note if you can. Address can be found in the link.
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2 comments:
Being of German descent myself, I tend to react rather strongly against the occasional suggestion that there's something deep in German culture that fosters a soulless statism -- and the idea that's often implied that Naziism and the capitulation of the average German to the Reich was only to be expected from that country. (What mitigates against this slander is that if the English were the brain of the of the newly formed "Land of the Free," Germans were its backbone.)
But you read stuff like this, and you have to wonder if it's not based on a fairly large kernel of truth. The thing is that any alternative form of education would only create a "parallel society" if there's some implied premise that being educated by a different method logically or legitimately shuts you out from the "mainstream." There's no reason this has to be true, but if there's a deep-rooted cultural assumption that everyone "normally" follows the same centrally-controlled path unless something else comes in an "interferes", it would follow from that.
Anyway, I seem to have a different temperamental reaction to anti-homeschool stuff than most people. I don't feel a really big need to "champion" it -- I'm usually too busy being bumfuzzled about why anyone (other than people who make their living off public education) cares enough to have a negative opinion. So the German reaction is just the same thing on a larger scale -- why does it create a "parallel" society if some people educate their kids at home instead of at school, unless it's the "schoolers" who insist on giving the homeschoolers funny looks and treating them like outsiders?
Good points. My guess is that the Germans are mostly concerned with a turkish parallel society, but that said, we ought not forget that from the Hapsburgs to Bismarck, political leaders in Germany have induced those who loved freedom to emigrate--most likely including many of your ancestors. Add a massive state church and a feudal system that lasted into the 1800s, and you've got a strong reason that they love the state there, no?
And why do they bother with homeschoolers? Well, they're showing that the Prussian school system (see John Taylor Gatto's work) doesn't work, no?
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