WND EXCLUSIVE

AUTHORS CONDEMN 'TOTALITARIANS' THAT ATTACK HOMESCHOOLERS

'We should have left that in the last century'

Paul Bremmer

In Germany, parents can lose custody of their children or be thrown in jail for homeschooling.

But at least Germany allows an exception: A child may be homeschooled if continued school attendance would create undue hardship for the child. There are eight countries in addition to Germany that severely limit homeschooling, and 28 nations have banned it altogether, with no exceptions.

“I was in Berlin, Germany, a few years ago for the first Global Home Education Conference, and it was a tragedy of immense proportions to see what was happening there,” said international journalist and educator Alex Newman. “You had so many families that had been just assaulted by the government for their decision to homeschool.”

Newman, the author of “Crimes of the Educators,” said it was especially troubling to see the many Christian parents who had been fined, imprisoned or stripped of the custody of their children simply because they did not want them to be indoctrinated in anti-Christian values such as humanism and Marxism in public schools.

At least one German Christian couple even endured a SWAT team storming their house and forcibly removing their four homeschooled children.

“So that should not be happening; that’s tyrannical, that’s evil, that’s totalitarian, and we should have left that in the last century,” Newman opined. “We had enough of that kind of nonsense in the 20th century that we don’t need to be bringing it over to this one.”

However, there is a flip side of this coin: Interest in homeschooling is exploding.

Newman said that at the Global Home Education Conference he attended a few years ago, there were attendees from 24 countries and every continent except Antarctica. In the U.S., the number of homeschooled children grew by 677,000 from 2003 to 2012, representing a 62 percent increase. The number of 5-to-17-year-olds who are homeschooled is now greater than 3 percent of the total population in that age range.

American parents do not face the same terrifying barriers to homeschooling, but there are obstacles nonetheless. For one thing, some parents feel they cannot teach their children as well as professional schoolteachers can.

“I think one of the biggest barriers to people homeschooling is just nervousness about it,” Newman said. “They feel like they’re not qualified. They hear from the education establishment that you need teaching credentials and you need to have gone to one of these education colleges to know how to educate children, and that’s simply not true.”

Newman argues parents can do a much better job of teaching their children than public schools can because public schools are not educating children; rather, they are indoctrinating them. Newman accuses schools of stripping away any traditional or Christian values a child may hold and replacing them with Marxism, humanism and other secular values.

Patrice Lewis, a WND columnist and homeschooling parent, says parents must realize homeschooling is not just about academics.

“Don’t forget that morals, values, and a solid emotional and spiritual grounding are just as important in a well-rounded adult,” Lewis said. “In the end, a lot of people forget the academics they learned in school, but they never forget the truths and values they grow up with. If a child brings critical but intangible qualities such as honesty, hard work, thrift, integrity, a work ethic, faith and morals into adulthood – things they will seldom learn in a public school environment – in the long run those qualities will serve them far better than AP classes and valueless socialization’ skills.”

Not all parents have expertise in every subject matter, but Newman insists they don’t need to be subject-matter experts to homeschool their kids.

“You don’t need to be an expert and oftentimes the teachers aren’t experts,” he said. “They went to education college and they learned a bunch of baloney oil rather than, say, an advanced degree in chemistry to teach chemistry.”

Lewis urges parents to realize they may not know everything but they know something, and they can always draw on someone else’s knowledge to cover their weak spots.

“Never forget, a child doesn’t have to have just one teacher,” said Lewis, author of “The Simplicity Primer.” “Nothing prevents both parents from bringing their separate strengths into education, or tapping into a knowledgeable neighbor, friend or other mentor. There are homeschooling organizations all over the country which offer classes in subjects in which parents may feel unqualified.

“You’ll make some mistakes along the way – everyone does – but in the grand scheme of things children do better learning one-on-one or in small dedicated groups rather than in one-size-fits-all chaotic settings.”

Newman recommends parents take advantage of the myriad online curricula and other tools available today. The curricula tell parents what they need to teach their kids and what books they should use. For those who don’t want to use the Internet, Newman suggests buying older textbooks – ones untainted by political correctness – to teach their children.

Lewis cautions parents not to get overwhelmed by the number of choices they have.

“You’ll eventually settle into what works for you, so don’t rush out and purchase expensive prepackaged curricula until you’re certain it’s what you need or want,” she said. “Instead, try visiting homeschooling bookstores (which offer a wide selection of second-hand books on every subject) and choose a few that represent the subjects you’re currently studying. You can always add more later.

“Feel free to cater to a child’s current interest in lieu of what you ‘must’ teach them at this age or grade. Homeschooling is a fluid, flexible, adaptable process and isn’t meant to be rigid or formidable.”

Another major obstacle to homeschooling is time. These days many children have two working parents, which makes it difficult for the parents to find time to teach their children. But it’s far from impossible, according to Newman.

“I think parents will have to make some sacrifices if they want to do homeschooling,” he declared. “It might require flexible schedules, it might require one parent working part-time at odd hours, it might require involvement from the grandparents or from friends or from fellow homeschoolers, but there are ways to do it.”

Newman said he knows a single mother who homeschools her daughter with help from her parents, friends, church members and others in her community.

“I understand that a lot of people want to find an excuse, and I understand that it’s hard for a lot of people. But once you know what’s going on in the government schools, and everybody needs to find out about this, there really is no more excuse,” Newman said. “If a single mom can do it, you can do it, too, and you need to find a way.”

Parents may complain that they can’t spare six or seven hours each day to teach their kids, as public schools do, but Newman says they really don’t need that much time.

“A child doesn’t need that much formal education,” he said. “I mean, a homeschooled student with maybe an hour or two, maybe three depending on the student, per day of instruction from their parents and of reading from books will be doing much, much better than a child in a government school.”

For parents who don’t want to homeschool, Newman suggests finding a good private school or a good Christian school. Whatever they choose to do, he hopes they understand God entrusted them with their children and it’s a huge responsibility that can’t be taken lightly. In fact, he believes the question of homeschooling poses a core question to American society.

“Who is in charge of the children?” Newman asked. “Is it the parents or is it the government? And that’s a very fundamental question and however society, if you will, decides to answer that question is going to have dramatic implications for all of us. And so we need to very carefully consider this.”

There are two forces at work, Newman warned: One wants to expand homeschool freedom and the other wants to crush it. It’s up to Americans to ensure they don’t lose the right to control their own kids’ education.

Newman cautioned: “We don’t need to be alarmist about it, but we do need to make sure that we guard our liberty, that we guard our educational freedom, because if not, we could end up in a situation like Germany and that’s simply not acceptable.”

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/05/authors-condemn-totalitarians-that-attack-homeschoolers/#eLKj2iLdqrQi6A66.99