In a culture that values faith-in-leadership and subservience to authority, homeschooling as a social issue tends to ruffle feathers. The ongoing debate of “who owns these children” raises moral, ethical and spiritual questions that no one seems to have the answer to.
Homeschooling and Parental Rights
Organizations like ParentalRights.org are working to add an amendment to the US Constitution to protect the parent-child relationship. It's their belief that the relationship needs to be protected from the federal courts system. The organization's website cites several incidents where children were removed from their parent's home for seemingly trivial reasons.
They also state that the United Nation's Convention on the Rights of a Child, which has been praised for its efforts to protect children in third-world countries, can potentially be used to undermine parental rights, in favor of “what's best for the child” as defined by the government, in a loosely-written rule that would allow the government to intervene in any home for any reason, at their whim.
The fear is that conscious parenting decisions that don't match the goals of the government would be deemed “not in the child's best interest,” causing children to be removed from their homes.
In Germany, Homeschooling is Illegal; Kids are "Owned" by the Government
In 2009, the German government "kidnapped" six children because their parents were homeschooling. The German government has determined that not enrolling children in a government school is akin to endangerment, and that parents who homeschool are abusing their “parental rights” and creating a “parallel society” according to an article on the Hope of Israel website.
Hope of Israel mentions that Germany spends over 21 billion EU annually on children's homes and foster care, and criticizes this intermingling of the government and corporate worlds. They state that the incidence of removing children from their homes was up 12.4% while the rates of abuse stayed the same.
In the US, similarly, federal prisons are subcontracted to private businesses. So very large companies stand to benefit when more people are arrested. Similarly, medical insurance companies and drug companies benefit from laws like required immunizations, illegal herbal supplements and mandatory medical screenings. Finally, processed food companies benefit from “nutrition” programs that provide these products to schools and low-income families.
Schools Distribute Corporate Propaganda
In the summer of 2008, when the Corn Refiner's Association began advertising that high fructose corn syrup was “not so bad,” Homeschooling parents across several web forums, message boards and email groups collectively groaned. Little did they know that the Corn Refiner's Association was also creating educational material for children and new parents.
Tyson Foods and Campbell's foods have been criticized for their school fundraising programs. When families turn in their product labels, the school can redeem them for money. So PTA's all over the country are urging parents to turn in their labels, which, essentially, is like urging them to purchase the products.
In addition to the labels-for-education program, processed food companies also ingratiate themselves into school “nutrition programs” by giving teachers free posters, student activity books and having their products approved for school lunch menus. By funding organizations like “The School Nutrition Association,” which “provides low-cost meals to students across the country” Tyson ensures that their chicken strips are on the menu.
Homeschool Socialization
How bad is it that private companies benefit from certain laws? It's a debate that never ends. Many Americans don't read the actual laws they're voting on. Pages and pages and pages of legal text with big, unfamiliar words can be difficult to comprehend. Instead, kids are trained to listen to the interpretations of trusted officials (starting with school teachers).
On the nightly news, nonprofit organizations (funded by corporations) with a passionate and powerful perspective, combined with repetitive advertising campaigns tell citizens why it's prudent to “Vote Yes on X” while schools have removed latin and other programs that give citizens the literacy required to read those laws.
So is it so bad that homeschoolers are deliberately avoiding socialization in government schools? To socialize, according to the American Heritage Dictionary [Houghton Mifflin, 2009] means “To place under government or group ownership or control, to make fit for companionship with others; make sociable, or to convert or adapt to the needs of society.”
Some commonly used words in discussions of health and sanity are “moderation” and “balance.” Where so many families and individuals are being trained to set aside their own needs for the good of the country, to set aside their inner desire to jump around and play for the good of the class, or to set aside the needs of their bodies, for the good of the school, homeschoolers may just provide the balance that a healthy nation needs.
Resources:
Project A+ at Tyson.com
LabelsforEducation.com by Campbells
Lisa Russell - Lisa Russell is a freelance writer and mom of six daughters. She blogs about their life at lisarussell.org
