Stones Cry Out excerpted a story last week about German police forcibly delivering homeschooled children to the local state schools.
A Nazi-era law requiring all children to attend public school, to avoid “the emergence of parallel societies based on separate philosophical convictions” that could be taught by parents at home, apparently is triggering a Nazi-like response from police.
The word comes from Netzwerk Bildungsfreiheit, or Network for Freedom in Education, which confirmed that children in a family in Bissingen, in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, have been forcibly hauled to a public school.
“On Friday 20 October 2006 at around 7:30 a.m. the children of a home educating family … were brought under duress to school by police,” the organization, which describes itself as politically and religiously neutral, confirmed.
A separate weblog in the United States noted the same tragedy.
Homeschoolblogger.com noted that the “three children were picked up by the police and escorted to school in Baden-Wurttemberg, with the ‘promise’ that it would happen again this week.”
The Network for Freedom in Education, through spokesman Joerg Grosseluemern, said the Remeike family has been “home educating their children since the start of the school year, something which is legal in practically the whole of the (European Union).”
It kind of makes you wonder about a government that’s afraid of what parents might teach their children…or that believes it is the rightful parent of the nation. Perhaps they’ve read their William Ross Wallace and know that “the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world,” and they find that discomforting. I’m also amazed that this “Nazi-era” law is still on the books in Germany; it is all für der Kinder, no doubt.
This all reminds me of how the roots of the U.S. education system go deep into the Prussian model of the early 20th century (believe me, we got more than just “kindergarten” from this influence). I had started digging into this topic for a post a long time ago and got sidetracked; it might be time to resurrect this effort. For now, at least, we can appreciate that our money is the only thing the state forcibly takes from our homes and sends to public school. Vote Tuesday!
