[thenightwriterblog] The Night Writer: Unto the next generation

Tue Mar 11 00:59:59 EDT 2008

Posted by The Night Writer:
Unto the next generation
http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1204905819.shtml

     âWe are now trusting to those who are against us in position and
     principle, to fashion to their own form the minds and affections of
     our youth... This canker is eating on the vitals of our existence,
     and if not arrested at once, will be beyond remedy.â

                            -- Thomas Jefferson

   I just spent a week away from my children. Curiously enough, I spent a
   surprising amount of this time thinking and talking about home
   education.
   One afternoon I played golf with a fun couple who have two boys, aged
   4 and 2, who are nicknamed "Search" and "Destroy." The mom had learned
   from my wife the evening before that we home educate and was
   interested in what was involved. I heard the usual questions from her
   about college admissions (colleges are now, in fact, actively
   recruiting home-schooled teens) and socialization (personally, I'm
   more concerned about socialism).
   I told her that my children had always had a wide circle of friends
   their age, either cousins or kids from church or even the
   neighborhood, but also had had the experience of talking to and
   working closely with adults on a one-on-one basis. One of the results
   of this, in my opinion, is that my daughters have always been poised
   and comfortable whenever they speak with non-parental adults. They are
   respectful, but not awed or overcome with shyness or cupidity. In
   short, they act as if talking to other, older people is completely
   natural (imagine that!). Interestingly enough, the woman I was talking
   to and her husband spend a great deal of time (and earn a fair amount
   of money) trying to teach adults to regain or re-engage the child-like
   creativity and imagination they had had before years of education and
   "socialization" had beaten it out of them.
   Two days later I was in the home of my wife's cousin Kay and her
   husband, [1]Adrian. With us were, I think, 9 of their 11 kids, plus a
   few sons- and daughters-in-law (and a prospective daughter-in-law) and
   their own children. We were enthusiastically and effortlessly added to
   the dinner table where our presence scarcely created a ripple. I think
   that with this many kids and grandkids around on a regular basis, most
   of Kay's recipes start with "Take one whole cow..." One of the things
   you can't help but notice, besides the number, is how fresh-faced and
   attentive all the young folks are, even the ones that have married in.
   Kay home-educated all of her children, some of whom are currently
   pursuing college degrees.
   Normally when I'm around a family gathering of this size the rising
   clamor will eventually start to get to me, raising my blood-pressure
   and level of discomfort. This night, however, though there was a
   steady hub-bub, I had nothing but a feeling of peace, though I'd
   scarcely met any of these people before that night. Several of the
   children cycled through our table talk as the evening rolled on, with
   every age having something to contribute to the conversation.
   The next morning we met Adrian, Kay and their oldest son, David, at
   their favorite local restaurant for breakfast. One of the topics that
   came up was the recent California appellate court [2]ruling requiring
   home-schooling parents to have a teaching certificate. More compelling
   was one judge's written opinion:

     "California courts have held that ... parents do not have a
     constitutional right to homeschool their children," Justice H.
     Walter Croskey said in the 3-0 ruling issued on Feb. 28. "Parents
     have a legal duty to see to their children's schooling under the
     provisions of these laws."
     Parents can be criminally prosecuted for failing to comply, Croskey
     said.

   The ruling sent shock waves throughout the estimated 166,000
   home-educators in California as well as through the California
   legislature and even Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who said, "Every
   California child deserves a quality education, and parents should have
   the right to decide what's best for their children. Parents should not
   be penalized for acting in the best interests of their children's
   education. This outrageous ruling must be overturned by the courts,
   and, if the courts don't protect parents' rights, then, as elected
   officials, we will." Interestingly enough, Schwarzenegger's [3]signing
   of SB777 last year may be one of the things that have led many parents
   to abandon the public schools. Give the Governator credit though; he
   may not be great at logic but he definitely knows how to count votes
   and probably realizes that whatever other political beliefs a
   homeschooling family may have, telling them that they have no right to
   educate their own children trumps them all.
   Personally, I'm not shocked. California has long been the most overtly
   hostile state toward home-educators (ironically it's own school system
   struggles to place a certified teacher in every classroom, yet would
   seek to mandate it in every home-school). Similarly, Education
   Minnesota has no love lost for home-educators and my hunch is that
   they wouldn't mind if their pet DFL pupils in the Minnesota
   legislature were to bring them a similar bill as if it were a bright,
   shiny apple.
   Of course, it takes a real socialist mentality to proclaim that the
   State is the rightful owner of your children, as I've documented
   before regarding events in [4]England and [5]Germany. The Germans, in
   fact, are still embracing the 1937 law instituted by a certain
   mustachioed megalomaniac that mandates compulsory state school
   educations. Seventy years later they're still enforcing it by
   forceably taking kids from their homes to school in police cars or
   even [6]removing children from their parents' homes and hiding them in
   psychiatric hospitals for evaluation.
   Many home-school parents in California are having to consider possibly
   leaving the state. That's a drastic measure for sure, but one that has
   had to be taken by many German parents, as described by Sheila Lange
   in her blog, [7]Trying to Homeschool in Germany, which details the
   personal struggles of her own family (now living in South Africa) and
   other home-school German families.
   Of course, that's all happening very far away, in Germany or even
   California, right? Closer to home, former Nebraska state senator Peter
   Hoagland is on record as saying, "Fundamentalist parents have no right
   to indoctrinate their children in their beliefs. We are preparing
   their children for the year 2000 and life in a global one-world
   society and those children will not fit in."
   Especially not if I can help it.

References

   1. http://cagesun.nmsu.edu/~athanson/
   2. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/07/MNJDVF0F1.DTL
   3. http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0308/0308newnazism.htm
   4. http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1114398780.shtml
   5. http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1162509201.shtml
   6. http://www.netzwerk-bildungsfreiheit.de/html/pe_erlangen_en.html
   7. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/sheilalange/