Home Schooling?

[apatura_iris]

Welll.... some families are expert at debilitating it too,

Yeah, of course; I thought that was implied, but I wasn't clear.  My family was pretty messed up, but the bullying in school was worse.

and chances are they don't realize they're doing it. Without knowing anything else, I'd say it's better for a given kid to have options (home and school, and chuch or other youth groups as well, just to expose them to a variety of people) rather than putting all their eggs in one basket.

It's important to let a child have at least partial say in if and how they are homeschooled.

As for my saying I would have come out with worse social skills, that's just opinion and extrapolation based on the few home schooling families I know (in Indiana, actually). I haven't read any studies on the issue.

You know yourself best and you may well be right, it's just that I've heard a lot of people say "if I'd been homeschooled, I'd be so much worse."  It's just a huge generaization to make and probably isn't absolutely true in every case.

It's true, that homeschooling families can be pretty weird.  You've got the religious freaks, the insane hippies, and the intellectuals all jumbled up together.  But is school so much better in terms of the caliber of person there?

[apatura_iris]

I'm sorry if I've missed the details, but how old are your kids, have they been in school, and who would be in charge of homeschooling them?

I have a son, eight and a daughter, six, so I'm a total rookie at this stuff and we have a LOOOOONG way to go. I would be the one "in charge" of home schooling.
I'm not as worried about my daughter as I am my son. She seems to be less affected by her symptoms and usually acts much more mature than her age would indicate, but she is tiny, which makes her incredible speech, vocabulary seem very out-of-place. Her emotional maturity is that of a much younger child, however.

This week we attended my son's yearly case conference and they are suggesting a new special class next year, limited to fifteen students, with all age kids attending and an adult for each kid. I don't know if it will help, but I will try anything to keep him from being picked on. At least the way it is going, right now, is not working well and I think it is a couple of other kids who have a large hand in the day-to-day problems. The one-on-one classroom has not been done here, before, except for severely handicapped kids, so it's a "new" thing for everyone. I'm planning on giving that a try. Supposedly, many things will open up for us, with the new school they are building, but you know as well as I do, that a school is an empty building and the only difference between them is the people who make them work.

My "fear" is based on my own fear of failure, mostly. I have lots of faith in them, but my son does have a slight self esteem issue which may have to be addressed separately in the coming years. Hopefully getting him away from two bullies in his present classroom will solve the problems, but we'll see.


Tkanks, again, for your help. The point made about not putting all our eggs in one basket has been our plan from the beginning.

Screw the system and homeschool them!

[Pyraxis]

It's important to let a child have at least partial say in if and how they are homeschooled.

Definitely. No argument there. Depending on how old the child is, and assuming the parents were ready to homeschool, I'd even suggest to let the child have full say.

I've heard a lot of people say "if I'd been homeschooled, I'd be so much worse."  It's just a huge generaization to make and probably isn't absolutely true in every case.

I wanted to be fair; I likely would have a lot more knowledge. There would also have been a decent chance that I would have been a published author and/or had a gallery show sooner. But I still think school was worth it for the social skills. Even at school, it was too easy to disappear, and I ended up making a conscious decision at one point that I needed to go out and "learn the world" so that when the time came to support myself as an adult, there was a lot less catching up to do. If I'd stayed isolated all the way through, I would have crashed and burned the moment I no longer had someone paying the rent.

It's true, that homeschooling families can be pretty weird.  You've got the religious freaks, the insane hippies, and the intellectuals all jumbled up together.  But is school so much better in terms of the caliber of person there?

Not really. But if you're homeschooling mainly to avoid bullying, what happens to the kid once they graduate? Bullying doesn't stop in the adult world, it just gets more sophisticated. Surely the real solution is to teach your kid how to resist bullying, not to let them run away until they're too old to make mistakes without serious consequences.

[DirtDawg]

The best form of education for an autie child would be the old fashion school with the teacher giving the children precise instructions, but minus the bullies, of course.

Disagree. If one's abilities don't match what's being taught, then the more rigid the teaching and instructions, the less pleasant the learning.

This is the reason my kids have come so far in such a short time. When they happen to be curious about something and I'm there to feed the curiousity and help them search for the answers, they learn by leaps and bounds and retain the whole experience. My instruction and guidance is well matched to their needs and abilities and they absorb it like thirsty little mental sponges. It is the most important benefit of homeschooling, in my view.

Oddly (or maybe not, I don't know), it is often the break from routines that opens them up to even greater curiousity about subjects that interest them, already.

[DirtDawg]

Screw the system and homeschool them!

My language was a bit rougher, but I have said the same thing within the last few months.

[DirtDawg]

Sometimes, I forget how good we have it, in this country. This is amazing stuff.

Authorities Ask German Homeschooling Family to Give up Custody of Other 5 Children


By Gudrun Schultz

Busekros family Germany, February 26, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The parents of a 15-year-old school girl taken from her home by authorities in a battle over home schooling have been asked to give up custody of their other five children, as part of a resolution to the situation offered by German officials.

The latest development in the ongoing battle between the Busekros family and the German authorities was reported by the Home Schooling Legal Defense Fund, a U.S.-based organization that has been tracking an accelerating crackdown against home schooling families in Germany.

Melissa Busekros was removed from her family home on Feb.1 by social workers accompanied by 15 police officers, under a court order to use force if necessary. The girl was placed in a psychiatric ward for evaluation and determined to be “school phobic,” according to authorities. Without her parents’ knowledge or consent she was then placed in an undisclosed foster home.

The girl’s parents began tutoring her in math and Latin at home, after she had trouble keeping up in class. When the school found out, Melissa was expelled and her parents then began home schooling her full time. The Youth Welfare office took the parents to court and received permission to conduct a psychiatric evaluation of the girl, and two days later returned to take her into custody and place her in the child psychiatric unit.

Hubert Busekros, the girl’s father, told HLSDA he and his lawyer were offered a resolution to the situation that required the Busekros’ to give up custody of their five other children. Mr. Busekros said the authorities are considering performing psychiatric evaluations of the other children, he fears with the intent of discrediting the couple as parents and permanently breaking up the family.

Home schooling is illegal in Germany under a law dating back to Adolf Hitler. Home schooling families have faced increasing persecution in recent years, with police in several cases physically transporting children to school. An appeal to the European Court of Human Rights failed last year when the court ruled Germany’s enforcement of the law did not violate the rights of parents to educate their own children, saying the interests of the state in educating children took precedence over the views of the parents.

Melissa has now been moved to a third foster home in the country, and is undergoing fresh psychiatric testing after saying the majority of the first psychiatric report was inaccurate and she was misquoted.

HSLDA is asking supporters to contact the German Embassy with this message:
“Over 40 innocent homeschool families have been prosecuted, fined, and in some instances, had their children removed to state custody. This is an outrage. Many homeschool families are fleeing Germany to nearby European countries where homeschooling is legal. The most incredible violation of human rights is the Busekros family, whose child was put into a psychiatric ward and then removed to an undisclosed location, all for the crime of homeschooling. Germany will not long be known as a free nation if it suppresses the right to choose homeschooling.”

[Litigious]

Nice. Especially the origin of the home schooling ban. 

[Callaway]

That is scary, especially in the country that spawned Hitler.

Some of them highly value conformity, probably because almost all of the non-conformists were exterminated more than fifty years ago.

[DirtDawg]

I've personally never been interested in German history that did not involve mortars, air combat, or beach landings, but didn't we go over and show them what to do about that kind of stuff twice already? Why do they still operate under a constitution with the possibility of legislation similar to Hitler's time? Is it environmental or something?

[Litigious]

Most northern Europeans are pretty conformistic, if I may say so. We've never had a Hitler in Sweden but a lot of despotic Kings. Many old people in Sweden still believe and obey anything the authorities tell them.

[apatura_iris]

Homeschooler's anti-war blog gets 30,000+ hits a day:

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/03/are_you_there_george_its_me_ava.html

http://www.peacetakescourage.com/page-home.htm

[El]

That homeschooling thing in Germany is ridiculous/appaling.

[Litigious]

The parents of those children should drag Germany to the Court of Human Rights in Haag or the Court of the European Union in Strasbourg.

[apatura_iris]

I find it shocking too.  The right to school your children outside of an institution should be a basic human right.

[Litigious]

I don't even know if we have that right in Sweden. We have private schools, alright, but I'm not sure about home schooling.