Neubronner Trial & Media attention

The following notes describe the recent -- and second -- trial of Dagmar and Tilman Neubronner -- homeschoolers -- in Germany. Although they lost their case this time, they are pleased to see the media attention to the issue. Most of the media attention is also quite positive as regards the issue of homeschooling. Germany is still the only country in Europe that does not admit homeschooling as a legal option. The plan is to appeal to the Constitutional Court and to the European Court. They can be reached at info@genius-verlag.de. They were not reimbursed for their legal costs, so their legal activity is deepening their debt load. They welcome support, media attention to the issue and financial assistance. Below you will see a long list of links that bring up German articles on this issue.

 

Radio:

 

http://www.radiobremen.de/nachrichten/regional/00005777.php

 

TV:

 

ZDF- Europa heute – 3.2.09 – 16:00

http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/content/684256?inPopup=true

 

buten un binnen/, inhaltsgleich mit tagesthemen 3.2.09 – 19:30 / 22:15

http://www.radiobremen.de/tv/buten-un-binnen/

 

 

Presse:

 

Die Welt

http://www.welt.de/vermischtes/article3141974/Gericht-lehnt-Hausunterricht-fuer-Kinder-ab.html

http://www.welt.de/welt_print/article773744/Die_Kriminalisierung_der_Eltern_ist_ein_Skandal.html

 

Focus:

http://www.focus.de/schule/schule/recht/gerichtsurteil-hausunterricht-verboten_aid_367088.html

 

 

http://www.focus.de/panorama/vermischtes/oberverwaltungsgericht-bremer-eltern-scheitern-mit-klage-gegen-schulpflicht_aid_367479.html

 

Zeit:

http://www.zeit.de/online/2009/06/interview-schulverweigerer

 

Badische Zeitung

http://www.badische-zeitung.de/nachrichten/panorama/pauken-daheim-verboten--11135175.html

 

Frankfurter Rundschau:

http://www.fr-online.de/in_und_ausland/wissen_und_bildung/aktuell/?em_cnt=1669856&em_loc=1739

 

Der Spiegel
URL:
http://www.spiegel.de/schulspiegel/wissen/0,1518,605217,00.html
FORUM: Schulpflicht unverzichtbar?
http://forum.spiegel.de/showthread.php?t=6201&goto=newpost

 

Frankfurter Rundschau

URL: http://www.fr-online.de/in_und_ausland/wissen_und_bildung/aktuell/?em_cnt=1669856&em_loc=1739

 

Andere:

http://www.ad-hoc-news.de/schulverweigerer-duerfen-ihre-kinder-nicht-zu-hause--/de/Politik/20022916

 

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jZsvsURkFcfWukfEdLGmFbqHhVzQ

 

http://www.die-newsblogger.de/bremen-schulverweigerer-durfen-ihre-kinder-nicht-zu-hause-unterrichten-713515

 

http://www.neue-oz.de/information/noz_print/nordwest/21618817.html

 

 

http://www.badische-zeitung.de/nachrichten/panorama/pauken-daheim-verboten--11135175.html

 

http://www.net-tribune.de/article/030209-61.php

 

 

 

 

 

 




Child Labor 1912

The Child that Toileth Not. The Story of a Government Investigation that was Suppressed With one hundred and twenty-one illustrations by Thomas Robinson Dawley, Jr. Former Special Agent, Bureau of Labor, Department of Commerce and Labor, Washington D.C. New York: Gracia Publishers, 1913 (Second Edition).

A review that is somewhat belated, being 95 years after publication:

This book was uncovered recently in a old building in Birmingham, Alabama, one of many subject to severe moisture damage and possibly the object of a mouse's interest since a quarter-sized chunk has been eaten out of the spine. The book is hardly in condition to be sold, although the lowest price I could find for it was $150.00.

Why is the book so interesting - because it supposedly involves a suppressed government investigation? This is hardly the only reason. President Roosevelt signed a joint resolution by Congress to research the condition of working women and children employed in the United States, and the Commission of Labor sought researchers who would carry out this task. Our author, Thomas Robinson Dawley, fascinated by the issue, took the challenge to travel throughout the South, including parts of Tennessee, South and North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi to see how people lived and to see what in particular was the effect of cotton mill employment on the lives of the white rural poor.

I really enjoy the wonderful detail provided in this book and the way in which it captures, not only in its 121 photographs but in words, the realities of daily life for rural people. Traveling by horse, under not always so comfortable conditions, facing difficult stream crossings, cold winter days, not always abundant food, Dawley managed to collect enough detail to give a living picture of life in the rural South. Staying in people's houses he had to a chance to see what people ate or didn't eat, what the children did or didn't do, how the houses were built, what clothes were worn, what health conditions were like, what work was done, how people paid for goods, what means of exchange were used.

Here is an example:

"I stopped for dinner with the postmaster at the mouth of Mine Fork. He lived in a roughly-built, but comfortable board house papered with old newspapers. He was a kindly man who kept a little store at the cross-roads. He owned forty acres of land, with a good barn, and necessary outhouses. His wife served us a dinner of salt pork in abundance, potatoes and "sour cabbage," with the usual corn-bread and biscuits." (p. 203)

On to the point of the book. Dawley argues shockingly for the view that children and women were by no means universally exploited, that, in fact, the local cotton mills in rural communities throughout the South provided white rural families with opportunities for self-development that were not associated with the hard-scrabble farming conditions where people grew corn on rocky hillsides, made moonshine and participated in murderous family feuds. Young children wanted to work and to contribute to the welfare of their families, Dawley demonstrates. A thirteen-year old worker could contribute substantially to the well-being of his family. Mill owners did not by any means typically force children to work beyond their capacity. Large families of women and children could improve their lives substantially this way. The welfare -- schools and health care -- sometimes associated with the local mills had a lot to do with the need to improve the conditions of people so they in turn could perform the tasks required of them. Among other things, the cotton mills successfully employed the group known then as "the feeble-minded," a group that a decade or two later were being institutionalized for their lack of productivity.


The following statement is made in the conclusion of the book, a statement implying misrepresentation of labor conditions in the South:

"While thousands of dollars were squandered by the Federal bureau of Labor, in its investigation of woman and child labor, to prove that the manufacturers are rascals; that they lie with respect to the ages of the children employed; that they hide them away when investigators are sent to report upon them and that they can get the same labor from adults; and finally that they compel them to work when they should be in school, and underfeed and underpay their employees generally--not a word of the revelations showing the misrepresentations of the agitators, reformers and other interests of the kind was allowed to go before the public in the reports." (481)

According to Dawley, the Child Labor Committees "condemn the business interests of the country, the men who make the wheels of industry go round and set the pace for real progress,..." (483), an example of which he finds in a Lanette, Alabama cotton mill manufacturer who had built a school costing $20,000.

Dawley explains that his research was repudiated and discredited, that he was removed from his position in the Bureau of Labor. In his last line of the book he explains his reason for writing up his research, namely, "because I had become convinced of the great wrong being done a class of very poor people, our own people, by the persistent agitation and misrepresentations of conditions effecting their welfare, and the ultimate aim to inhibit their further progress through the open doors of the industries that lead them to better things, even though in some instances their children are obliged to work." (490)


Reading this book led me to various thoughts about the child labor law, in particular, the thought that it throws the baby out with the bath water. The problem is with abuse in working conditions, not with employment as such. From the time children are quite young -- my experience suggests -- they can and want to work. Such work could materially contribute to their learning and to the well-being of their families, to their integration into the community, to their level of general skill. Today, child labor legislation and custom and culture have brought us to such a pass that children are not permitted to work when they want to, are then imprisoned in schools in order to "learn," which they clearly are not doing, while being frequently blamed for their lack of productivity.  How many times have I heard people complain about the horrors of the teen years...years whose horrors sometimes don't seem to let up until the children are actually employed. While parents are vastly over-worked, why shouldn't children be permitted to contribute to the well being of their families, thereby helping everyone to acquire a measure of autonomy, each according to his or her needs and ability? It's a question worth asking.

Miles College Library Shreds Books to Clear the 4th Floor of the Building

The library of Miles College, a Historically Black College dating back to 1905,  put its law book collection in the dumpster today. I don't know what other lawbooks are available to the students at Miles College law school, but the 4th floor collection had to be cleared. Pleasant-tempered immigrant laborers with no knowledge of the language in which the books were written were hired to shuttle moving dumpster carts out to the larger dumpster in back of the library. Meanwhile, art books, music books, history books, language books and textbooks reflecting the history of Miles College were prepared for shredding by having the back covers ripped off. I found books of folk songs with illustrations, gilt lettering, and intact hardback covers prepared for mincing in this way. The employee available to discuss the issue said it had nothing to do with her. They were told to clear the 4th floor immediately.

The Orphan Perspective: A Critique of Education and Society

The Orphan Perspective: A Critique of Society and Education   How many classic children’s stories tell the story of an abandoned, orphaned or outcast child! There is Peter Pan, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, Jane Eyre, Mary in The Secret Garden, Sara in The Little Princess, Anne of Greene Gables, Heidi, Louisa May Alcott’s Rose or Fanny, or Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, to name only a few. Orphans are prevalent in folktales and fairy tales, in popular literature (Harry Potter), cartoons (Little Orphan Annie) and movies (Star Wars).  Why do orphans dominate children’s literature to such an extent? Recent ... (read more)

Homeschooling in Europe - November 30, 2007 Update

Regarding homeschooling in Europe, the HSLDA and the WorldNet Daily are the most familiar and prominent conduits of information on the subject. However, the HSLDA website is by no means kept up-to-date, and much of the writing is very confusing and hard to follow. So if you go to the website and look up "homeschooling in Poland," you may find some information that is 4 years old and you may still not understand the issues. There are websites that provide information about international homeschooling, but there too, information is not up-to-date. In Germany you can go to Netzwerk Bildungsfreiheit, and that has pretty good information, although ... (read more)

Homeschooling vs. the European Union

Wednesday, November 28, 2007 Europeans who want to homeschool look to America as a place where it is legal to homeschool, and a place where homeschooling thrives. Certainly, some horror stories have come out of Europe (Germany, Belgium, Holland) about bans, crackdowns and prohibitions on homeschooling. A German federal court recently upheld the view that homeschooling constitutes child endangerment, leaving it possible for the state to deny custody to the parents of German homeschooling children, whether they are in Germany or not. I suggested in my last blog that some homeschooling families have decided to make an issue of homeschooling, ... (read more)

Homeschoolers Worldwide - for Ron Paul?

Wednesday, November 21, 2007 Homeschoolers Worldwide - for Ron Paul? Homeschooling and the right of individual families to raise their children according to their own lights is presupposed in the constitutional right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, a right whose champion is Ron Paul. The following notes suggest that homeschooling is on the rise. These notes are intended also to point to the interconnectedness of the homeschool movement worldwide as well as to the importance of supporting Ron Paul, so he can in turn support the homeschool movement. Worldwide, homeschoolers should ... (read more)

HSLDA endorses Mike Huckabee: why not Ron Paul?

Friday, September 21, 2007 (http://www.homeschoolersforpaul.blogspot.com) HSLDA endorses Huckabee: why not Ron Paul? Since Mike Huckabee was recently endorsed by the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) there has been some discussion about why it didn’t endorse Ron Paul. Why would HSLDA endorse Mike Huckabee? The question is: if you wanted to safeguard your right to homeschool, who would you vote for – Mike Huckabee or Ron Paul? The following is a summary of some explanations for this endorsement as suggested by members of a Homeschoolers for Ron Paul meetup group, together with some thoughts of my own, and ... (read more)

"Homeschool, Sweet Homeschool: A Resource List for Progressive Learning"

Education has long been regarded as potentially liberating. The opportunity to learn to read can be linked to changes that shake the foundation of coercive power structures, as well as open up worlds of possibility for individuals. Because mandatory schooling is associated with opportunities for mobility and privilege, with social and economic progress, it is possible to look at the institution as a country's pledge to its citizens to enable such opportunity. In 19th-century America, public education appeared as an alternative to the brutality of child labor and, as such, as a benefit to children. Compulsory schooling is supposed to lead to literacy, ... (read more)

Sourcelist - informal education

The following notes are reading suggestions and links on the subjects of informal education and homeschooling. First is a page copied from the website of a group called Freedomofeducation.net. More follows below.   Home | Articles, Essays & Commentary | Books | Quotations | Links | Search The Philosophy of Liberty | Freedom & Liberty Links | The Education Establishment | Higher Education | Non-Institutional, Family-Based Education Private K-12 ... (read more)