I met Richard Guenther, the head of the German homeschooling organization Schulunterricht zu Hause, at a conference last year and was able to place an interview with him in Homeschooling Today
this spring. We still correspond from time to time.
The report Jon linked to is detailed, but it still doesn’t fully explain the situation these parents have faced. German law provides no shield against double jeopardy, so families who received favorable rulings in lower courts have been hit with the same charges and tried again in different venues. Even if that legal trick were proscribed, it probably would make no difference; the courts have routinely ignored freedoms promised in the German Grundgesetz, as indicated by the frankly chilling pronouncements from officials in the present case. And the day to day horrors are more than a battle over parental authority; reported practices such as teacher-led sex games for grade schoolers, and school staff complicity with schoolyard beatings (even when hospitalization is required) of children who don’t “fit in” yet, are absolutely hair-raising.
It all suggests that before we agree to official socialization programs, we take a good hard look at what “socialization” means to some officials.
