German family granted political asylum in U.S. over home schooling | Hacker News Reader

German family granted political asylum in U.S. over home schooling

economist.com

26 pointsilamont40 comments

I am a big proponent of smaller government and less governmental control, and I'm glad that we as Americans can choose whether or not we want to home school our children. With that being said, it's a lot of responsibility for a parent to take on themselves.

I was home schooled, as were most of my siblings, and I think that it really depends on the parents. Some parents actually teach their kids, spend the time with them, offer some sort of direction, and I think it can really give those kids a great start to life and a positive outlook towards learning.

My parents, on the other hand, didn't really put the effort necessary into teaching us, and as a result I didn't learn to read until I was almost 12, and than only because my mother finally put me into public school. Reading, writing, basic math, history, geography, you name it, I was missing it from my education. My poor 5th and 6th grade teachers had a heck of a time trying to catch me up to the other students. That doesn't do a whole lot for a kid's confidence, when he can see that he is obviously and severely behind academically compared to his peers. I just thought I was stupid. My mom thought I had dyslexia or something. Turns out I just needed someone to sit down with me and actually teach me.

There's also a lot of social development that takes place at school, and most of the time you can tell when a kid is home schooled by the way they interact with people. Or maybe it's just me, coming from that background, I can usually tell when I'm talking to a home schooler, they often have a certain social awkwardness about them. I know I was the same way until I met my wife and she straightened me out. I often had a hard time appropriately regulating the volume of my voice ("do you realize how loudly you're talking?), or knowing when certain things were inappropriate to say under specific social circumstances. And I totally fail at Trivial Pursuit (we didn't watch a lot of TV growing up either.)

Having said all that, I finished my college degree early, graduated with honors, and am a successful software engineer and wannabe entrepreneur. I have a strong hunger to learn, a well developed sense of curiosity, and I have a knack for teaching myself new skills. I don't know if I am who I am because I was home schooled (although you could probably make a pretty good case for it due to my unstructured upbringing), and given my success in life I don't mean to sound unappreciative. It just would have been nice to be able to read a little earlier in life, that's all. And I'm still not very good at math.

Why did your parents decide to home school you, and what made your mother decide to put you back into the public school system? Did your siblings go back at the same time, if at all? Did they have the same challenges relating to basic skills?

My mom had a fear of the government putting ideas into her kids heads. When I was 11 some of my older siblings decided that they wanted to go to public school, so one by one we all eventually started following suit. I think my mother just figured she'd let us do what we wanted. My next younger brother (not an electrical engineer) had many of the same problems that I had, although he was two years younger and so wasn't quite as far behind his peers. My older siblings taught themselves to read and write (somehow, I should ask them how they managed that), but I found myself incapable of figuring it out on my own.

I always hear this (that public school is better for social development) but there's some evidence to the contrary; i.e. children who go to daycare have more behavioral problems, etc. The idea is that kids learn the proper way to behave from adults. If they're spending too much time with other kids who also have no idea how to behave, they never learn to.

I wonder if cause and effect is reversed. The parents of kids who are homeschooled are more likely to be socially defective to begin with, and the reason for the maladjustment is genetic. To add anecdotal evidence, both my SO and I are socially awkward, found school a living hell, and will probably homeschool. The kids will never be socially adjusted due to genetics, irrespective of whatever "socialization" they go through.

You're probably on to something there, as both my parents are pretty weird (dad's a band geek and mom's a theater geek). I'd be interested to see a study of how a child's social and behavioral integration relates to that of their parents.

My hunch is you need both adults and peers to learn social mores: adults as role models, and peers as test subjects.

Did your parents make sure that you had other kids your age to play with? I used to go to a park where homeschoolers would get together. I don't think they were too socially deprived. But I have to wonder how they'll handle all of the public school kids when they get to college.

Some of it also depends on the kid. I know of a family that "unschooled" two brothers. One was some sort of a prodigy who won the Nobel Prize when he was six (slight exaggeration, but you get the point). The other was still illiterate at 8, when they put him in public school.

the odd negative experience does not justify the massive wasteful expenditures of the horribly corrupt DoE.

I couldn't agree more, bring it back home to state and local government at least, that way if I don't like the way my state is screwing things up I can move. As it is there's no way to leave behind the No Child Left Behind act without leaving the country.

The stereotype of the awkward homeschooler is not really accurate anymore. It's like saying all gay men wear tie-dye and talk with a lisp. Some people just tend to stand out more -- while the majority of people blend in with society.

Homeschooling does tend to focus on your strengths rather than making you average at everything. Subjects that take more discipline like reading or math are sometimes weaker. But by not forcing people to learn you don't squash their love of learning altogether. Most of my siblings were lousy at math early on-- now I'm a programmer and my brother is finishing his PhD in biology. We eventually learned math because we WANTED it. Maintaining a passion for learning is for more important than the particulars of what you are actually learning.

Here is the problem with public school – it seems that it is an anti-intellectual place. I was bullied quite a lot in school (I was skinny, academically inclined and have extremely bad eye sight).

It seems that bullies single out people who do well academically to bully. In a lot of public schools, it seems that the focus is more on sport (and other activities) than education. In some public schools, teachers are lazy – due to the lack of performance evaluation and strong unions.

I marked one of my own record exams because the teacher was too lazy to mark it himself. He was angry at me because I insisted to have the subject in higher grade (he pushed everyone to take standard grade so that he doesn’t have to compose two tests).

Certainly, a private school would be better. But parents should have the choice on how their children are schooled (whether in private school, home school or religious school). It seems that every group wants children to be schooled in their public schools to teach them their ideology. This is BS.

The government should be forced to give vouchers to people who send their children to private school (instead of forcing to pay twice for education if they don’t want the mediocre government education).

American culture has no place for the jock-nerd. You are either an all-American jock or a nerd (pencil-necked, or mobidly-obese).

I’m not American, but these things seem universal – sport jocks (rugby, football, etc…), ineffectual unionized teachers and anti-intellectualism. It seems public education systems are everywhere uninspiring at best.

Private schools aren't a panacea either. I went to a private (Christian) school through 10th grade and my public school experience in my Junior and Senior years was like a breath of fresh air.

Granted private schools vary widely, but I felt I had more educational opportunities at the public school with the availability of advanced Math, Science, and English classes.

EDIT: I also wanted to say that bullying happens in ALL schools public or private.

Maybe. The advantage of private schools is more choice. The problem (at least here) is that public school teachers are unmotivated and discipline (of both teachers and students) is often lacking.

It seems that public schools cater for the lower 40% of the population.

My problem is not bullying per se, but the atmosphere around it. A school should not be sport centric (as many schools are).

There are also some really good private schools, for example The Internation Computer High School of Bucharest. Here's a list of the medals taken by some of pupils: http://www.ichb.ro/legend-of-informatics.html

Links to books that have shaped my thinking on this issue:

http://learninfreedom.org/school_state.html

I'm homeschooling four children. I try to cooperate with my friendly local public schools not only in meeting Minnesota's regulatory requirements, but also in offering to provide American Mathematics Competition

http://www.unl.edu/amc/index.shtml

and other math coaching opportunities to public school students throughout my community, some gratis and some on a nonprofit, cost-recovery basis. My community volunteer work consists mostly in being president of a statewide nonprofit organization dedicated to improving education of gifted learners in our state, most of the members of which are parents of children enrolled in public (that is, state-run) schools.

What got me interested in homeschooling was FLEXIBILITY. My oldest son would not have had the opportunity to take formal classes in C programming at middle school age in any public school I am aware of in Minnesota. He did make use of a state-run accelerated math program,

http://mathcep.umn.edu/umtymp/

but he got ready for that through a distance learning program that I found for him as a homeschooling parent.

http://epgy.stanford.edu/courses/math/

He developed a deep interest in literary writing, which is now leading to a start-up project he is coding for, through acquaintance with another family in our homeschooling support group, who have a daughter who is very advanced in writing.

It's best to leave the educational system as flexible as possible, to meet as many learner needs as possible. One size doesn't fit all, and parents ought to be able to shop for as many different models of primary and secondary education as they are able to shop for of automobiles or computers or foodstuffs.

Why did they go to the US? As EU citizens they could have moved to a country that does allow home schooling quite easily. I'm in the UK and home schooling is legal here. I guess that the immigration judge didn't understand that as Germans the Romeikes have freedom of movement in the EU and so could easily have avoided persecution.

It seems the Judge has an agenda of his own.

There are relatively few people the US - and other countries - grant political asylum who could only relocate to the country in question.

This is a good thing; otherwise each country can simply say, "Denied, as some other country will take you."

I find myself having a really hard time taking a side on this issue. If a government, for example, mandated the teaching in school that it's people were genetically superior to all others (say in North Korea), I would say parents were well within their rights to withdraw their students from school. If, however, parents wanted to withdraw their students from school so they could 'teach' them that evolution isn't real, or to keep them from having to go to a school that was too racially diverse (say, in the South right after Brown vs. Board of Education), I would say that the parents are doing their own children harm and their children should have to go to school. I suppose I come down on the side that a government should have a right to impose educational standards, but like any government power it should be monitored closely because it is very easy to abuse.

Who in the government is imposing these so called "standards".

Who in the government decides for what things citizens can be deprived of their personal freedom (i.e. arrested)? Who in the government decides when it is legally permissible to confiscate citizens' property (i.e. taxation, eminent domain)? Who in the government decides when it is permissible to force its citizens to force its citizens to attempt to kill other people (i.e. impose a draft)?

Are you in favor of expanding the governments ability and proclivity to do the things you list, or do you think it better if the ability of governments to do those things were further curtailed?

(Your answer, of course, will depend on the government you are living under, and the extent to which they can or cannot do those things currently.)

Do you seriously believe, for one instant, that a government organization will make decisions that lessen the power and influence of that government in society? Government officials will tend towards decisions that give the government more reasons to increase the scope of government, and towards shaping of children's beliefs and world views to conform to the main stream of thought of government employees.

I know that you say that government power should be "monitored closely" as a solution to this possibility. But who watches the watchers?

In general, I am deeply troubled by the European Human Rights commission protecting the rights of "society" in this case, rather than the rights of individuals. I personally believe that the rights and dignity of individual human beings is one of the greatest advances in human history, and that chipping away at those rights and returning more power to "society" is a grave error.

I am always in support of less government - why in the world should a government be in control of the education of children? Society doesn't progress by circumscribing all of it's member entities, it progresses when those boundaries are pushed by people that do things different.

I was home schooled most of my life, and I'm self educated; school was a failure for me because there was too much "authority" instead of "discovery" while learning.

This is not a "black and white" issue with one true answer. You have to see this in the historic context.

One of the reasons why the first German democracy (1918-1933) failed (and gave rise to Hitler) is because the German society was very much compartmentalized and split into "subcultures" at the time. In fact, large parts of the military chose to continue as "para-military" units after the end of WWI. These violent groups that saw themselves as above the law played a significant part in Hitler's ascent to power.

When the current Germany was designed after WWII, many safeguards were built into the system to ensure that there would be no more "parallel" societies. Two obvious examples are 1) the universal draft (flow all parts of society through the military to prevent the military from isolating itself) and 2) no home schooling (the public schools serve to promote democracy and western values; the public school system is designed to be the "melting pot" that integrates immigrants and fringe groups).

How would you feel about this case if the home schooling did not involve Christians (Note: I'm not religious myself.), but radical Moslems? What if it were about Nazis indoctrinating their kids with hate? What if it were about a sect that raises their kids to prepare for a collective suicide?

The German (mainstream) belief is that the government has to step in in these cases. It has to protect the kids from their own parents.

The family that was granted asylum may very well be fine parents and teachers (I don't know them), but for obvious reasons you can't have an effective law that says "you may only homeschool kids for Christian reasons, but other choices are not ok".

So, the German society, under consideration of its history, chooses to err on the safe side: no homeschooling. Period.

Of course, the particular circumstances may very much differ for other societies, so that other societies may reasonably come up with different rules (e.g., the US). But that does not invalidate the reasoning behind the German laws.

The ultimate question is who is responsible for educating their children? Historically it's never been the state. Government run education went hand in hand with the industrial revolution-- it's designed to create a reliable (and pliable) workforce. By this point the public education complex is just one more oppressive power structure motivated primarily by self-preservation.

Historically, education was something for the elite because there was no need to educate the poor who would spend their lives performing unskilled labor; when it comes to education there is not a lot of historical precedent to fall back upon. In the US the concept of an educated citizenry was a core principle of the founders -- when you divest power to the masses you want them to be relatively smart about what they do with it. Public education predates the industrial revolution and while industrialists may have wanted a better-educated workforce that was not why public education was established. If a "pliable" workforce was desired then simple apprenticeship after basic literacy would have worked fine. Mass education gives a country more engineers, but is not required for simple factory work. It is in the interest of the state and it's citizens to seek the former and not just settle for the latter.

One argument is that in order to maintain a free state, quite ironically, you need state indoctrination of the civic ideals of liberty. That is, in order to keep people from voting for despotic leaders you need to convince them that liberty is good. Public compulsory education seems like the best way to do that.

Of course, that's failed (in my opinion). I think compulsory, public education teaches kids both implicitly and explicitly to do what their told by teachers and the state.

So yes, I support the right of people to homeschool their children. There's the inherent danger that they'll teach their kids values you disagree with, but I fear that less then the gov't forcing all kids to learn the same values. The probability that those values will perfectly match mine (or anyone else's, for that matter) are pretty slim.

Is this family part of a big movement that's actually a threat to the German way of life? I doubt it. It seems like a big overreaction to a minor threat.

That doesn’t really sound like a convincing argument. Didn’t Hitler use state organs (such as public schools and public broadcast) to further his agenda?

> How would you feel about this case if the home schooling did not involve Christians (Note: I'm not religious myself.), but radical Moslems?

You are talking about hypothetical radical groups as a “scare tactic”. Most Muslims who go to religious schools end up as pretty responsible adults. I doubt that trying to send devoted Muslims to public school (and then trying to force them to not wear headscarves – such as in France) will help anything.

> What if it were about Nazis indoctrinating their kids with hate?

Again, this is extremely rare (if non-existent). Also, is it the state’s prerogative to teach children moral values and political values, or is it the parent’s duty?

Don’t you think that public schools will reflect the ruling party’s ideology? (This happens in many countries). So in effect, would you rather let the ruling party teach your kids moral and political values than the parent? (Take a look at the content of history books in many countries to see this).

> why in the world should a government be in control of the education of children

To maintain a minimum education level. In poorer countries no obligatory prime education will result poor families abondoning education of their kids completely and forcing them for child labour.

As Americans who live in Argentina and who also homeschool, we've had no end to the social pressure to not do so. This as we are actually attending school, but only half-day, and homeschooling the other half. I've learned a lot about the ways in which individuals who live in societies with a significant amount of thought control find it personally offensive when you tell them your reasons for homeschool.

It pushes at taboos in terms of acceptable channels for dissemination of information; it feels uncontrollable; it causes fear related to one's own children, if any; and the list goes on.

I guess it's fair enough. Homeschooling worked for my older son. If he had been forced to go to school he'd probably be an under educated cog at 18, instead of holding a Bachelor's and having the freedom to travel.

It's interesting that home schooling is the example most often used to explain the "Overton Window" political theory:

http://web.archive.org/web/20061020144127/http://www.swordsc... http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=7504

I hope you do take the time to read up on the background of such stories before commenting on them.

The reason they wanted to homeschool their children is because they are religious fundamentalists and consider the mostly laizist school curriculum "anti-Christian".

This isn't about some poor oppressed fellows who weren't granted the right to educate their own children. This is about two religious nutcases enforcing their religious beliefs and refusing to let their children receive unfiltered knowledge from a public school system.

If Germany had fundamentalist Christian private schools, they would've been fine with sending their kids there.

I hope they realize the huge responsibility they took upon themselves.

Home schooling kids is a full-time job, specially if you have more than one. I cannot imagine they being able to give adequate attention and educational resources to five kids.

Since many of the respondents in this discussion have been raised this way, I would ask what is the reason for such extraordinary effort.

So how do we expect 1 part-time teacher to give adequate attention to 30 kids?

I guess the fact the 30 are learning the same thing helps a little.

Is this lack of teacher attention the reason?

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