Enjoy this time with your friends and family. We will be enjoying ours over a cup of Christmas tea.

Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.

Luke 2:10-11

Every year, Christmas seems to be thrust into the center of the culture wars as businesses determine how to promote their goods to us and we decide just how upset we are at being wished a Happy Holiday.  My concerns began with an email alert I received from the American Family Association regarding the lack of the word “Christmas” in Costco’s holiday, er, Christmas, marketing campaign.

TAKE ACTION

Send your email to Costco.

Let Costco know that you will exercise “your privilege” of shopping only at stores that recognize Christmas. Remind Costco that their competitors are vying for your business too, and you will shop accordingly.

So far as I can remember, I’ve never set foot inside a Costco, so my scathing emails and promises to “shop accordingly” would mean very little. Of course, they don’t need to know that, but that is what started my musing. That and being told to boycott. That sort of strikes at my rebellious nature and really isn’t the best way to get me to do much of anything…especially when it comes in the form of an email newsletter I can only assume I signed up for at some point.

Anyway, that led to the Naughty and Nice lists put out by The American Family Association and The Liberty Counsel.  And I just noticed this, but what am I to do with Barnes and Nobles? They made the AFA’s “Naughty List” and the Liberty Counsel’s “Nice List.”

I’m a rather conservative Christian. Perhaps a bit too conservative even for the AFA and The Liberty Counsel for as I look down the Nice List, I’m not impressed by well-meaning companies paying honor to my Lord and Savior.  Instead I see a list of companies who would very much like to replace any Christian meaning there may be in the season with the Almighty Dollar. The name of my Lord and Savior is slapped on sales, bath soaps, cookbooks, linens and toys, all to be delivered in time for Christmas in hopes of clinching a sale. I wonder sometimes what exactly Christ would say if he were to walk through the “naughty” Bloomingdale’s or the “nice” Macy’s.

How dare you remove my name from your holiday flyer!

Er, Christmas flyer.  That seems stranger yet. And a bit out of character. But as a Christian, I’m supposed to “take on the mind of Christ.” To be His light to a fallen world. And it really seems there are ways to do that which are much more effective than engaging in what comes across to me as a publicity stunt to garner attention to a cause outside of the mission of the Church.

No man will live or die, be saved or condemned based on the welcome phrases used at a place of business.  If I had my druthers, I would much prefer to have the name of Christ connected with missions to aid the poor, the widows and the orphans than to have it connected to boycott after boycott of issues which are little more than expressions of cultural dissatisfaction and do nothing to help those who are truly in need.

I had anticipated missing a day or maybe even two while traveling to Kansas, but not an entire week of posting.  But alas, ’tis the season for rushing about and thinking of other things.

Especially when most of your time is absorbed in tremendously huge projects taking up most of your thoughts anyway.

At any rate, we are back safely now.  And if you wish, you can read a snippet of our coming home adventures over at my other blog.  It involves credit card frustrations and knock knock jokes.  How better to spend a four hour drive?

What began as a truancy report on a homeschooling family ended up with a fourteen year old girl taken into custody and placed in a children’s home.  Not in Germany, but in Wichita, Kansas.

Bambi Baker-Hazen contends her daughter has been abused in the state’s child welfare system since authorities took the girl in a case that began with a mistaken truancy report.  wibw.com

Now I’m still thinking there is a lot between “what began as” and the mother’s arrest on Friday after she refused to testify as to the whereabouts of her daughter who ran away from the children’s home in October.  The first story I found was rather sketchy, but thankfully Tammy of Just Enough and Nothing More was still up when I posted it to Twitter and found another article with a bit more information.

The Kansas City Star had a key piece of information I was curious about:

Ashton ended up at the children’s home after a middle school that mistakenly had her on its rolls reported her as truant, even though her mother’s home was properly registered as a home school. Baker-Hazen has since enrolled her other three children in public schools.  KansasCity.com

And that really does appear to be where the case began.  The Star uses the case to highlight accusations that Sedgwick County is the “child removal capital of America,” which may be entirely accurate.  But what social workers found besides a properly registered homeschool is interesting and quite relevant.

Their problems escalated while the mother was out of town seeking substance abuse treatment and mental care services, claiming in her testimony that she was unaware of the state’s involvement.

Ashton was placed with Baker, her biological father, but police picked her up and put her in the children’s home when Ashton ran away from her father to go back to her mother.  USA Today

I don’t know what the time frame is, but it appears that officials went to check on a truancy report and found a fourteen year old girl home alone while her mother was in another town seeking treatment.  I commend the mother for seeking help, but depending on how long Ashton was alone, I can see why some level of involvement was considered warranted.  And if Ashton is used to this kind of freedom, it is understandable why she might have run from both her father and the children’s home:

But in court Friday, Henderson [the judge in the case] noted that the girl was out at 3 a.m. and had admitted to drinking alcohol.  USA Today

Curious where the other three children were and why the case only involves Ashton.  But they are all enrolled in public school, now.  The mom also claims she is protecting her child by not disclosing her whereabouts.

Baker-Hazen told Sedgwick County Juvenile Court Judge Tim Henderson that when she tried to return Ashton to the home, the girl threatened to jump out of the car. She said Ashton had lost a lot of weight and had burns on her arms allegedly inflicted by other children at the home.  USAToday

Without documentation, that allegation won’t get very far.  With documentation, it might get Ashton into another child care facility while the Wichita Children’s Home is investigated.  Either way, I cannot imagine what I would do in that situation.

Did the state act too quickly?

It is perhaps a little too easy to side with the famliy or the state in these kinds of cases with only the small amount of information which is released to and reported by the press.  But Sedgwick County does seem to have some issues.

Her allegations aren’t unusual in Sedgwick County. While the state agency says it complies with all federal rules, the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform claims that the department is evading requirements that reasonable efforts be made to keep children out of foster care and that it is underreporting cases to a central federal database. Critics contend officials in Sedgwick County are overreacting to some high-profile child abuse cases, such as a 2006 one involving two Wichita children allegedly starved, beaten and tortured by their father and stepmother.  Kansas City Star, emphasis mine

We had a similar case here in Nebraska while I worked with the foster system.  A child was found starved to death after multiple reports to CPS and no action.  The “reform” consisted of following every single call, anonymous or otherwise, with a home visit.  And our small agency was suddenly flooded with referrals for emergency placements because the modus operandi suddenly seemed to be to remove children, then investigate.

Advocacy groups and angry parents have pointed to comments from the head of the state agency, Don Jordan, who indicated in March that his case workers felt pressured by the Sedgwick County district attorney’s office to include false information in court documents to ensure children are removed from homes. Jordan has since retracted that statement and the district attorney’s office denies the allegation, but a complaint from local family advocacy group Citizens for Change Inc. led to an audit of the state agency by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  Ibid., emphasis mine

That is a truly frightening state of affairs. This may not be the case to highlight those concerns, but it is certainly a discussion that appears very needed in Sedgwick County and the state of Kansas.

homeschool homeschooling Ashton Baker CPS Sedgwick County

Reading through the comments on my post, The politics of home education, I was struck by how many of these themes come up again and again in discussion.  What does it mean to be a part of the homeschool “movement?” How do we define (and hence control) it?  How do we respond when the “movement” goes a direction we don’t like?  What unintended baggage are we piling on ourselves when we adopt the label “homeschooler?”

When we decided to begin homeschooling, I did not immediately define myself as a homeschooler, nor was I aware of being a part of any particular movement, or series of organized activities working toward an objective.  Homeschooling was the organized activity (more on some days than others) and the objective rested solely on our vision for our family.

I did, however, pretty quickly identify with the homeschool community, a body of persons of common and particularly professional interests scattered through a larger society.  I found a great deal of information and support from fellow homeschoolers in my physical community, on forums and on blogs.  The people I connected with most were those who shared quite a bit in common outside homeschooling, but there was still a certain sense of camaraderie with homeschoolers with very different views from my own.

To be a member of a movement, we have to be able to agree on a direction.  Some things are easy.  When a legislator introduces a bill calling for increased oversight through testing, home visits or additional paperwork, most of us seem to be able to set aside our differences long enough to pool resources and act as a pretty organized body to defeat the pending legislation.  But then is that even a movement?  To defend what we already have?

Or is that what communities do?  In Customer.Community, authors Drew Banks and Kim Daus discuss community thus:

In the nonvirtual realm, the definition of community is much broader.  We say that a neighborhood has a strong community if its members work toward the betterment of the neighborhood, even if they never talk with one another.  We say that a store or restaurant has a community feeling if there is an amicable or social atmosphere where people interact freely, even if they don’t know each other.  We notice a strong minority collective presence and assume that the “likeness” of a minority status forms a community, even though many of its members will never interact or have any type of relationship with on another. (p. 18-19)

And I’d like to add to that the fact that you can have a strong and vibrant community even when the members of that community disagree.  Community is not about uniformity or homogeneity, but a certain level of commitment to the betterment of the community even if we disagree on exactly how to achieve those goals.  A strong community should also be able to survive (and even thrive on) various and sometimes competing movements within that community, so long as a certain level of respect can be maintained and we resist the tendency to marginalize those with whom we disagree.

It should also mean that we don’t feel the need to disown the entire community when members within it do something with which we disagree.  I felt no need to disown my community when a neighboring town decided to evict a now famous tenant, although I do miss seeing him in his field when I drive through on my way to Lincoln.  I have no desire to renounce my citizenship because my country has elected a president with whom I disagree significantly.  I can still in good conscious identify with a homeschooling community and the members of that community, even if we share very different parenting philosophies, political views, or religious beliefs because their actions do not define who I am, or what it means for me to be a homeschooler.

homeschool homeschooling home education

According to the Tages Anzeiger, one of the most widely read newspapers in Switzerland, homeschooling is about to become severely restricted in the Canton of Zurich.

Private Education: Parents threaten with disobedience

December 4, 2008

Beginning next summer at the latest, parents will only be allowed to educated their children at home when they have a teacher’s certificate.  Eight families are resisting–with all means.  Tages Anzeiger

The article goes on to say that this new regulation will affect fifty families, but apparently only these eight families have chosen to fight.  The Education Director has thus far rejected all offers of compromise.  If they continue and do not win their cases, the families face fines of up to 5000 Francs (about $4,100) and a possible citation for disobedience of official orders.

The family alone is not sufficient for children

Of course, child psychologists and education experts weigh in with their thoughts…I think perhaps the same forumla for home education articles here exists in Switzerland.  From the obligatory expert, Professor Georg Stöckli of the Education Institute of the University of Zürich:

Children from early on have an urge to separate themselves from their parents.  One should not hinder them in this . . . The family alone is not enough to satisfy the social needs of the children.  Ibid.

This of course assumes that the homeschooling family acts as a prison to the child, an oft cited and as of yet unsubstantiated concern of homeschool critcs.

Appeals are currently being made, but success is considered unlikely.

“The text of the law does not allow for any wiggle room for interpretation,” said Martin Wendelspiess, head of the Office of Elementary Education.  He rejects the accusation that he refused discussion:  Extensive correspondence with parents was made.  But exceptions and compromises are not allowed for in the law.  “Therefore it makes no sense to discuss variations which are not possible under the law.”  Ibid.

About home education in Switzerland

Home education laws vary from Canton to Canton in Switerland, with a nice summary available at cruxmove.com. According to the Code Civile Suisse of December 10, 1907, the responsibility of ensuring a child receives an education is put on the parents who are to assure the physical, intellectual and moral well-being of the the child.  Interpretation of this varies at the local level with two cantons outlawing homeschooling altogether.  Various restrictions are in place in other Cantons, with some quite lenient.

Some History

Prior to this regulation, home education was freely permitted with local authorities checking the progress of homeschools once or twice per year.  An attempt was made in 2002 to drastically change the Education Law of Zurich with the following provisions:

§ 67. Private schools should teach the same world view as taught in public schools.
§ 68. If private schooling exceeds one year, the teacher should have a teachers education.
§ 69. The education board will evaluate if the private schooling is meeting the teaching goals.

It was considered too far-reaching, however, and many public educators opposed it as well.  The law failed, but apparently the desire to require home educating parents to receive a teaching certificate remained and recently passed as part of the Canton’s new education law.

Hat Tip: Homeschool Association of Switzrland

homeschool homeschooling home education homeschooling in Switzerland

More mental stimulation while I recuperate:  Over 100 free online art courses.  If you check any of them out, let me know.  Art is probably my weakest subject.  Let Renae of Life Nurturing Education know as well, because she is pondering a course but desires a bit of partner accountability.

Also, if you happen to have a good book suggestion for a five year old boy and a three year old girl to do a lapbbok on that would be great.  I want to do something special with them while their sister is away since I rarely do lessons focused on them and I know they’ll be missing sister.

Now I’m going back to sleep.  I was hopeful yesterday, but woke up feeling worse again this morning.

Being sick gives me too much time to think which has left my brain overflowing with things to write about.  But I’m not up for getting them from in there to out here.  So until I’ve recovered, I thought I’d leave you with something to do which is almost as mentally stimulating as a good conversation: The Eyeballing Game.  Can anyone tell me why my scores got successively worse?

Practice isn’t all it is cracked up to be.  I think it is telling me to trust my instincts and not try to think so much.  Or maybe my concentration right now is only thirty seconds.

Sleep, however, I think may be all it is cracked up to be.  And I’m going to go get some now that I’m not desperately trying to keep from falling asleep by challenging my spatial reasoning until the kids go to bed.

I just finished reading an interesting entry over at Home Education Magazine that I’m still trying to process.  It touches on a lot of things I have been thinking on recently, and contains some themes I shall likely come back to.

With the 2008 elections, there has been a rearranging of the political landscape in this country, and a shift of power is in the offing, as suggested in the article by Kathleen Parker. The challenge for us as homeschooling families and advocates has always been how to keep homeschooling from being aligned with a specific ideology, and understanding why that is important, and what effect it will have on our ability to continue to protect, defend, and expand our homeschooling freedoms, and those of our children and grandchildren.

And I agree with that to an extent.  But there is a serious problem with this view as well:  Education is inherently political.  So-called fundamentalists may be seeking to “raise up a generation,” “take back America,” or “reclaim the culture,” and view homeschooling as part of the salvation of America.  But the modern homeschool movement also finds its beginnings with equally zealous adherents to a particular worldview with goals of social transformation and it wasn’t Christian.  And the public schools?  I may disagree with the goals of Paulo Freire, but he, too, recognized the political significance of education.

Since education is by nature social, historical and political, there is no way we can talk about some universal, unchanging role for the teacher…It is my basic conviction that a teacher must be fully cognizant of the political nature of his/her practice and assume responsibility for this rather than denying it.  Quoted in Advocacy Research in Education, p. 30-31

In fact, many of those for whom HEM expresses the most concern are responding directly to the politics of education present in the public schools when they choose to homeschool, going so far as to call on fellow Christians to “Rescue [our] children from Caesar.”

And while I empathize with her concern for Esquire’s view of homeschooling, I think she gives far too much power to HSLDA, and ignores Esquire’s obviously biased and rather emotionally charged language which is rarely the result of serious contemplation.

Salted throughout the vast bureaucracy are dozens of little homeschooled land mines, the products of a dozen cheapjack diploma mills selling patent-medicine history to the spiritually gullible. Esquire (emphasis mine)

The fact is, many on the left and right cannot fathom that any intelligent person could, on their own, come to any conclusion about what is best for the world and for America that disagrees with their own view.  The right blames our failures on the public school system and the media, claiming continually that America has been led astray through indoctrination.  The left views us the same way, but it is our supposed patriarchic family structure, our churches and our homeschooling that they focus on, hence the focus on liberating our children through public education.  Very few truly respect differing opinions, honest debate, and varying worldviews.  If you don’t agree with me, it is because you have been indoctrinated by x,y,z.

The picture of homeschooled minions is just one addition to the rather tired meme begun by Thomas Frank in his “What’s the Matter with Kansas.”  Too many people out there just disagree with the noble and obviously superior liberal ideology, so something must be wrong with us.  Must be the homeschoolers.

And unfortunately, I think Helen may be a little guilty of this as well.  However, she doesn’t blame homeschoolers, but HSLDA.

Homeschooling families were turned into pawns in a political chess game; how often did we hear chest-thumping claims from HSLDA about how many homeschoolers they could call into action?

But are these families really “pawns in a political chess game?”  The vast majority of Christian homeschooling families I talk to who forward me the HSLDA e-lerts and repost them to their blogs are far from pawns in the political process.  They are intelligent, passionate and engaged.  They know what they believe and why they believe it.  They have strong convictions, and by and large those convictions line up with HSLDA’s overall agenda.

I do not think the discussion is adequately furthered by viewing the thousands of families thus organized as “indoctrinated” or as “pawns” in a “game.”

As much as I respect HEM and Helen, and as often as I have disagreed with HSLDA, I am always suspicious of anyone’s claim that their rights are somehow endangered by the free expression of the rights of others.  The solution is not to be found in silencing those homeschoolers with whom we disagree, in distancing ourselves and “the homeschool movement” from particular factions within it, nor in positioning every point of disagreement as somehow endangering our freedoms to homeschool.

Somewhere in the debate, we have to realize that how people view us has more to do with them than it does with us.  We need to accept the fact that we are a poorly understood social phenomenon.  That our numbers are now large enough that we are going to gain national attention regardless of what we say or how we say it.  That people tend to deal with new and unfamiliar information by categorizing and hence stereotyping.

Or to be more direct, does this picture have more to say about blacks or the whites who furthered the stereotypes?

homeschool homeschooling home education HSLDA

December 1, Venus, Jupiter and the crescent moon converged for a one time display of cosmic dissatisfaction as the evening sky appeared to be frowning down upon us. The light here is obscuring the frown a bit, but it was pretty clear while I was taking the picture.

Things looked a little different down under where the scene was inverted and Australia got an evening smiley face.  Europe got a more Picasso-esque effect as the moon was shoved between the “eyes.”

So why do you think the heavens would be frowning down upon us here in the United States?  Is News.com.au, an Australian news source, right when it says,

And perhaps it should tell Americans being frowned upon to have a long, hard look at themselves…?

Feel free to share your thoughts or your captions.  Did you get to see the event?  (And a bit more information for those more scientifically inclined.)

astronomy Jupiter Venus cosmic frown