I have only recently (2 years ago) started to get an interest and to get informed on US culture, lifestyle, politics and sociaty in general.
Now today I have probably had one of the worst cultureshocks ever when I watched the documentary "Jesus Camp". I was aware that, especialy the south of the united states, through it`s calvenist culture, is pritty backwards.
But the "homeschooling" part quite at the beginning of the documentary blew my mind!

A quick explainnation, In germany we have "Schulpflicht" - wich translates to compulsery school duty. This law bounds each parent or guardian to send their child\children to school between the age of 7 to 15.
The curriculum wich is taught at german schools is given by the ministry of science and education. That minestry is bound by law only to take scientific facts and democratic social values into it`s curriculum. Wich means that every school (including religous schools) is forbidden from teaching non science or indoctrinating students with undemocratic ideas. If a school does continue for example to teach creation it looses all goverment benefits (students free public transportation to school, funds to pay teachers, funds to keep school standerds modern) and the school is now longer alowed to teach from morning to fornoon, wich is regular school time, and has to open only during the afternoon, when regular schools are closed.
Parents who are found to keep their students from going to school or homeschool them can end up with a 100 000 to 150 000 euro fine or 2 to 5 years in jail.
If a school is found to teach a intolerant and\or undemocratic set of values, and then refuses to seize teaching those, the school is forced to close by the goverment (police).
Why do we have these laws? These laws first came to be during the enlightenment under the humanistic king of Prussia, Fredrick the great, the goal of these laws was to assure that every child within Prussia (later germany) can have acces to the same education, and that the futur public will be educated.

The status today:
We have a term commonly used in german politics wich is "Parallelgesellschaft" translating into parallelsociaty. By definition it means, that a social, religious or ideologicaly motivated group, wich rejects the pluralistic sociaty the german republic represents, found schools, comunities and isolated cultural refuge to practise their way of life, ignoring the monopoly the rest of sociaty has on law and generaly rejecting the rest of sociaty.
Currently a political debate in germany is how to prevent and outlaw, muslim fundermentalists to form such parallel sociaties.
The reason why we take this so seriously, has like a lot of things, to do with our history. The reason why nazi-germany had so many willing fanatic troops at hand and a unquestioning young population, was because, eaven before they came to power they formed organisations such as the hj and bdm to indoctrinate the german youth parallel to the regular german sociaty and to slowly create a mass of unquestioning citizens. The same was done in the GDR through the FDJ.
Todayyouth partyorganisation still exist but are bound by laws to not use indoctrinary undemocratic methods.
Young people who are just about to the way in wich they perceive the sociaty in wich they live are especialy vulnerable to indoctrination.

In 2003 we had a scandel, when a evangelical christian family was found to homeschool it`s children and taught them creation, the parents were fined with 130 000 euros and their children had to reenter regular public school.
When catholic schools refused to teach sex-education, their schools were almoust closed, untill they accepted.

I believe I can say with certainty that it is generaly perceived amongst the german public that education must have a high standerd and represent scientific fact aswell as the pluralistic nature the republic represents.
I know that exemptions are made in special cases when children are found to ill to take the trip to school. I know that in Austria, homeschooling is allowed, but the parents or guardian get their curriculum materials from the austrian ministry of science and education and once a month the individual has to take a test, wich it must pass to continue his or her curriculum and to prove to the ministry that the individual wasn`t taught things not included in the curriculum.

Why is "homeschooling" legal in the United states?
Dont you see the potential danger of indoctrination lurcking in that practice?
How can one expect to get a job when he or she is tought nonsence from such a young stage?
Is the notorious bible belt a "parallel-sociaty"?
No offence wtf is wrong with you?
Can you justify this practise?

I doubt the people who home school for religious reasons give a crap about indoctrination, that's the whole point they do it. As for why it's legal - there's technically nothing wrong with it, although there should be better regulations. I have no idea how many people get home schooled here in the UK, but the only person I knew who did was home schooled because he was a mischievous little bugger.

(October 10, 2012 at 6:47 pm)Tobie Wrote: I doubt the people who home school for religious reasons give a crap about indoctrination, that's the whole point they do it. As for why it's legal - there's technically nothing wrong with it, although there should be better regulations. I have no idea how many people get home schooled here in the UK, but the only person I knew who did was home schooled because he was a mischievous little bugger.

Well I hope, that at least you have the same regulations concerning the curriculum as Austria has?

Being a fellow European with 'skolplikt/oppivelvollisuus' and one of the best education systems on the planet, I have also wondered why. I don't think homeschooling should be illegal, I can think of a lot of kids who would benefit from having the opportunity to study in a familiar environment with a 'teacher' that can focus only on the needs of that pupil. But there should be most definitely be a nationwide curriculum that everyone has to follow.

I was homeschooled all the way through from kindergarten to high school. I made a thread about it recently: http://atheistforums.org/thread-14619.html

Quote:Why is "homeschooling" legal in the United states?

Not sure. Probably because religious fundamentalism runs deep and the main reason many parents homeschool is to ensure their kids don't fall for evolution.

Quote:Dont you see the potential danger of indoctrination lurcking in that practice?

Yes.

Quote:How can one expect to get a job when he or she is tought nonsence from such a young stage?

It's not thought of as nonsense by 46 percent of americans unfortunately.

Quote:Is the notorious bible belt a "parallel-sociaty"?

It's hard to described. There's not like there's a barrier that separates american into crazy and not-crazy.

(October 10, 2012 at 7:04 pm)teaearlgreyhot Wrote: I was homeschooled all the way through from kindergarten to high school. I made a thread about it recently: http://atheistforums.org/thread-14619.html

thanks fo info

Quote:

Quote:Why is "homeschooling" legal in the United states?

Not sure. Probably because religious fundamentalism runs deep and the main reason many parents homeschool is ensure their kids don't fall for evolution.

more of an argument to incriminate it.

Quote:

Quote:Dont you see the potential danger of indoctrination lurcking in that practice?

Quote:Yes.

so why do you still have it?

Quote:It's not thought of as nonsense by 46 percent of americans unfortunately.

I frist thought this was a joke.
you have no idea how this just upset me.
I think the last time I lost so much faith in humanity was when I visited a exebition in Ausschwitz one year ago.

Quote:It's hard to described. There's not like there's a barrier that separates american into crazy and not-crazy.

I was suprised to find that there is a actualy very small definition of the term on wikipedia. The term doesn`t only include imigrants, but also include political movements aswell as religious movements.

definition:

Quote:Parallel society (German: Parallelgesellschaft) refers to the self-organization of an ethnic or religious minority, often immigrant groups, with the intent of a reduced or minimal spatial, social and cultural contact with the majority society into which they immigrate.[1]
The term has been introduced by the German sociologist Wilhelm Heitmeyer into the debate about migration and integration in the early 1990s. It rose to prominence in the European public discourse following the murder of Dutch director and critic of Islam Theo van Gogh. In 2004, it was elected by the Association for the German Language second as Word of the year.

so it`s clear, not crazy or not-crazy. it simply means, a comunity wich rejects the sociaty inwich it exists and attempts to create it`s own sociaty within that sociaty.

(October 10, 2012 at 7:12 pm)The_Germans_are_coming Wrote: ...

so it`s clear, not crazy or not-crazy. it simply means, a comunity wich rejects the sociaty inwich it exists and attempts to create it`s own sociaty within that sociaty.

Well, most fundamentalist, including the homeschoolers, don't reject society outright. They're not living on farms without electricity and riding horses like the Amish. You can't really tell them apart from more liberal americans until you talk to them about religion. They dress the same, eat the same, watch many of the same shows on TV, use the internet etc. They act and think mostly like the stereotypical modern american, it's just that they're very vocal about the things that threaten their particular set beliefs and moral values the most: evolution, cosmology, astronomy, geology, abortion, homosexuality, sexual freedom, etc. But they're not separatist about it. You just won't find many of them going to a natural history museum or tipping hookers.

what now realy upsets me is that so many americans realy reject evolution. I had absolutly no idea that it were so many, I always thought that the bible belt - religious christian fanatecism - etc. were more or less a minority in your country, wich wouldn`t have such a impact on sociaty.

I checked it up on a outdated poll, but still think it might say something about the current situation.

http://collegepolitico.hubpages.com/hub/...-Evolution

is this only a recent trend? do these groups have influence on the american public education?

Now that I think of it, it is no wonder that your nation will be outruned by China and Europe in the number of scientific papers released anualy, within the next 20 years. As I read recently in an article.

Quote:I had absolutly no idea that it were so many

We have lots of idiots over here.


Almost all of them vote republican.

(October 10, 2012 at 7:48 pm)The_Germans_are_coming Wrote: do these groups have influence on the american public education?

They used to. I think that education is one of the few areas where they have lost their grip, thanls to our friendly neighborhood Flying Spaghetti Monster.