German raid on home-schooling family draws condemnation

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http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/german-raid-on-homeschooling-family-draws-condemnation/

Quote:

Frankfurt, Germany, Sep 4, 2013 / 04:08 am (CNA).- German officials’ seizure of four home-schooled children last week prompted strong objections from American home-schooling advocates who say the country’s ban on the educational practice violates human rights.

“The right to home-school is a human right,” Mike Farris, founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association, said Aug. 30. “Germany has grossly violated these rights of this family.”

On the morning of Aug. 29, the association reports, 20 social workers, armed police officers and special agents took four children from the home of Dirk and Petra Wunderlich, who were educating their children in violation of the national ban on home schooling.

The children range in age from seven to 14. The family lives near Darmstadt, 25 miles southwest of Frankfurt.

“I looked through a window and saw many people, police, and special agents, all armed,” Dirk Wunderlich told the home-school society. “They told me they wanted to come in to speak with me.”

He said three police officers brought a battering ram and were prepared to smash his door. When he let them in, the officers shoved him in a chair and told him they had an order to take the children.

His 14-year-old daughter Machsejah was forcibly taken from the home, he said.

“When I went outside, our neighbor was crying as she watched. I turned around to see my daughter being escorted as if she were a criminal by two big policemen.”

The girl’s mother tried to give her a kiss and a hug goodbye but an agent “roughly elbowed her out of the way,” he said.

Petra Wunderlich said she was “shattered” by the removal of the children.

“We need help. We are fighting, but we need help,” she said.

Mike Donnelly, the home-school society’s Director for International Affairs, questioned why Germany’s leadership allows these “brutal acts.”

“Why is it so important to you to force people into your state schools? The echo of this act rings from a darker time in German history. When will leaders stand up and make changes so that brutality to children like the Wunderlichs no longer happens because of home-schooling?” he asked......

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Type: Discussion • Score: 2 • Views: 1,485 • Replies: 18

@gungasnake,

1. Pointing out that the German police were armed is sensationalism. French police are routinely armed, Spanish police, Italian police, need I go on?

2. "The right to home schooling is a human right" No it isn't. It is the responsibility of parents to ensure that their children receive a decent education, as judged by national standards of that country. If the parents cannot show that this is being provided, the state ensures that the CHILDREN'S human right to a decent education is respected.
Unqualified parents may or may not be able to teach their children properly. The state cannot sit by and end up with a family of teenage kids who are unable to read and write, but can just about fashion clay or paint a tree.

3. A state education is not just about cramming knowledge into brains. Most western countries make some attempt to develop a fully "rounded" young adult by the end of their schooling. This is partly achieved by children mixing and socialising with other children from other families.
Activities such as debating, public speaking and team sports help develop a child both physically and mentally, and is much better achieved in a school environment.

4. What the hell has this German issue got to do with the American home schooling busybodies?

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@Lordyaswas,

Quote:

The state cannot sit by and end up with a family of teenage kids who are unable to read and write, but can just about fashion clay or paint a tree.

In that case, our public schools should be shut down immediately and altogether.

http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/image_content_width/hash/0d/5b/1372380344_5786_image.jpg?itok=lw4jOi1I

1 Reply

@gungasnake,

We're talking Germany here, not inner city USA or UK.
I've met many students from Germany in my time, and can vouch that the vast majority of them are extremely well educated.

Even Walter seems to write to a higher standard of English than a fair portion of UK teens.

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That Gunga Dim is an awkward twit . . . he can't help but advertise his racism.

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@gungasnake,

Was it a conscience decision on your behalf to abandon balanced and reasoned thinking or did it just happen?.

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@Lordyaswas,

Quote:

We're talking Germany here, not inner city USA or UK.

I've mentioned this before... the US public school system is entirely based on the Prussian model. It's hard to picture any sort of a problem which we have which German public schools wouldn't have, at least to some extent.

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Quote:

the US public school system is entirely based on the Prussian model

That's bullsh*t--but we expect no less from Gunga Dim.

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Twenty social workers, police and a battering ram to take four kids out of their home?

I think there's more to this story than what we're hearing.

I'm surprised at all the countries that make homeschooling illegal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling_international_status_and_statistics

What is their problem with homeschooling?

1 Reply

more:

http://www.bizpacreview.com/2013/08/31/world-outrage-germans-remove-homeschooled-kids-in-shocking-raid-82500

Quote:

As one young family of German immigrants faces possible deportation after first being granted asylum in the United States to home-school their children, another family in their home country was the subject of a terrifying raid by German officers and the forcible removal of their children for the same reason.

In the early morning hours of Aug. 29, a team of 20 social workers, special agents and police officers armed with a battering ram forced its way into the German home of Dirk and Petra Wunderlich. Their crime? They refused to send their children to government-run schools, according to the Home School Legal Defense Fund.

The four Wunderlich children, aged 7 to 14, were forcibly removed from their home near Darmstadt, Germany, for continuing to home-school them in defiance of German law. The Home School Legal Defense Fund reported:

Quote:
The children were taken to unknown locations. Officials ominously promised the parents that they would not be seeing their children “anytime soon.”

Mr. Wunderlich described the moment police arrived at his home, according to the Home School Legal Defense Fund:

Quote:
I looked through a window and saw many people, police, and special agents, all armed.

They told me they wanted to come in to speak with me.

I tried to ask questions, but within seconds, three police officers brought a battering ram and were about to break the door in, so I opened it.

The police shoved me into a chair and wouldn’t let me even make a phone call at first.

It was chaotic as they told me they had an order to take the children. At my slightest movement the agents would grab me, as if I were a terrorist.
‘You would never expect anything like this to happen in our calm, peaceful village. It was like a scene out of a science fiction movie.

Our neighbors and children have been traumatized by this invasion.

They weren’t being nice at all. When my wife tried to give my daughter a kiss and a hug goodbye, one of the special agents roughly elbowed her out of the way and said — “It’s too late for that.”

The Home School Legal Defense Fund began calling for worldwide action, and the international media has responded. The Wunderlichs’ plight has garnered outrage as well as media support from such outlets as the Canadian Free Press, Great Britain’s The Mail Online as well as the American media.

Meanwhile, in the case of the Romeike family, the German immigrants living in Tennessee, a group of 27 members of Congress sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder requesting he reconsider the deportation order. The White House has chosen to not get involved.

1 Reply

@boomerang,

According to German newspapers there is nothing else to the story. The parents are deeply religoius and do not want their children to go to a German school, This has been going on for a long time,
The kids have even been tested for the knowledge in school subjects and they know just as much or even more than the children in their age group.

It is not the first time kids have been removed from their parents with the help of police. It can happen to very decent parents.
In Sweden it has happend to some decents parents/single parents where the kids were sent to a family where the man was a peodophile.
The reasons why they were taken away were so absurd.....

2 Replies

@saab,

Thanks saab.

It sounds like homeschooling is a pretty serious crime in Germany. What is the punishment for such a crime? Having your children taken away is certainly a huge punishment but is their jail involved? Are they fined? If they promise to send their kids to school do they get their kids back?

What happens to families in situations like this?

From my American perspective this just seems so weird.

1 Reply

@boomerang,

As there are very few - a handfull(?) - families who want to home-school their children I really do not know as far as I could find out by reading they are fined.
It sounds like they will get their children back if they promise to send them to a school.
I really do not know the deep reason for no home-schooling, but I guess that the danger that thsese children are not taught well enough. Hardly any parent is really good in every subject. I could not teach math,others cannot teach languages or music or sports.
All that will be a disadvantage for thee kids.
Also they have no contact with other children which is bad for their social behavior. We haveto learn to be with people different from us.

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@saab,

"It is not the first time kids have been removed from their parents with the help of police. It can happen to very decent parents.
In Sweden it has happend to some decents parents/single parents where the kids were sent to a family where the man was a peodophile."

Again, this is implying that Germany is like Sweden, a totally different kettle of fish, and a totally different decade/century.
Sweden went out of control and the nanny state ruled during the latter part of the 20th century.
Germany played no part in this at all, and to my knowledge has never behaved this way in recent times, maybe apart from one or two unusual cases that someone may dredge up to try to prove their point.

The German state don't go willy nilly into people's homes to remove their children, unless all other avenues have been exhausted. I can't be arsed to research this, but someone like Walter will no doubt come along and enlighten us as to how the state bent over backwards to settle this peacefully, before resorting to such action.

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@Lordyaswas,

I fully agree with you. They simply violated the law. My dad, a Lutheran pastor, taught religion in the public school system. These folks were told many times to put their kids in school and the parents refused. Also, they are not a part of a mainstream denomination of Christianity. Do they know anything about American schools and the lack of children subisidies? 'Anti-social' clearly describes these folks. They seem like a German version of the American Duggar family...

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@Lordyaswas,

As an American naturalized citizen and former German resident, I agree with you. This is not a mainstream Christian family. This is a splinter group and very anti-social. They were warned several times. Taking kids away is not typical. Thanks Lordyaswas. My dad also taught Protestantism in the public schoools, so this is NOT bc they were white/Christian.... Americans need to lean a little about how the world works...
I AM SO SICK OF THESE HIPPIE DIPPIE FOLKS..

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@gungasnake,

gungasnake wrote:

Quote:
The Wunderlichs’ plight has garnered outrage as well as media support from such outlets as the Canadian Free Press

if they're supported by the Canadian Free Press, you can be reasonably sure that extreme right-wing racism is a factor somewhere

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@gungasnake,

gungasnake wrote:

Quote:
We're talking Germany here, not inner city USA or UK.

I've mentioned this before... the US public school system is entirely based on the Prussian model.

and you continue to be incorrect

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

I think gunga is referring to Horace Mann, "the father of the American public education system", who did base his ideas on the Prussian education model.

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German raid on home-schooling family draws condemnation

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