NGJ, Thank you for the KJV Bibles. They have been distributed to the troops. I appreciate it very much. I wrote the article below concerning homeschooling in Germany. If possible I would like Bro. Mike Pearl’s opinion and advice on the subject. I also copied the article in the press referencing my objection.
An open letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel/President Horst Kohler and the German people: 3-March-10
I was disturbed recently to learn that homeschoolers in Germany had to seek refuge in the United States because of following their conscience educating their children as they see fit was “against the law” in Germany. The government has no place dictating how a child should learn; that is the parent’s responsibility. Hearing this report, I ask myself…is it the 1930s in Germany all over again? I am currently deployed to Iraq in defense of freedom for all people. In a few days (March 7) the Iraqis will hold an election to determine if they are really interested in sharing power and living under a democracy. Why is Germany denying parents the right to educate their children as they see fit?
I am a U.S. Army Chaplain and American soldier and know that the United States liberated Germany twice in the last century because of oppressive rulers/dictators and over-reach of government into citizen’s private affairs. Has Germany not learned from its oppressive past? Police are coming to German citizens’ homes in 2010 arresting parents for simply educating their children. Possibly the parents do not endorse the current culture of the public schools. Some parents may not want their children receiving information relating to sexually graphic material and information contrary to their religious beliefs. In Afghanistan in 2005 I served alongside German troops and appreciated their service and dedication to duty. We are fighting for the rights for people to exercise freedom of speech, democracy, freedom of religion as these basic rights are denied in Afghanistan by the very government we are supporting. I ask the German people to “wake up” and not stand for this oppression.
This is no time to be passive. Truth is, many of the home-schooled children outshine the public-school-educated children. My wife is the president of a homeschooling group in Forsyth County, NC. By my observation the children in this group are very well-rounded and excel in college and society without government management. I do not believe that everyone needs to follow the same curriculum and learn in the same way. In the German system, for example, children are not encouraged to learn their alphabet until they are 5 years old. Has this been scientifically calculated? A home-schooled child learns at a pace decided by the people who know him best, Mom and Dad. America is still the last bastion of hope for the world. We continue to welcome your tired, your poor, and your home-schooled. —Chaplain Kevin, Winemiller, Iraq
In this post-Nazi era, apparently Germany still leans heavily toward a totalitarian society. We at NGJ have been in correspondence with German homeschool families. One such family has moved into our community and is in association with the German-speaking Mennonites of our area. They dropped in just last week to say hi and to access our internet. It is estimated that there are about 1,000 families secretly homeschooling in Germany. Europe is incrementally moving toward banning all forms of parental control. America is not far behind.
So I say to all our readers, even though homeschooling is legal in all 50 states, do not take it for granted. Make sure your children are above their grade level and can pass public school’s pitiful little tests. Major on two things, reading with comprehension and basic math. They will score several grades above their level if they can read well and add, subtract, divide, and multiply.
Get involved at your local level and support organizations like Home School Legal Defense. Make sure your state representatives and senators are familiar with homeschoolers. Take a group of well-mannered homeschoolers to the state capital to visit your representatives. When they are on the capital floor with an anti-homeschooling bill before them, they should have in their minds the smiling faces of a dozen homeschoolers. Just remember, the public school system is jealous of our success. Keep on keeping on.
We welcome anyone from Germany, especially those forced to wear a yellow star and those who love their children enough to homeschool them.
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I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. 3 John 4
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YAY Mr. Pearl! I cannot agree more with your reply and the initial letter. Homeschooling families in all European nations have much been on my heart. I too fear for our own country as more and more liberal agendas are passed even without the consent of the American people.
Pray pray pray folks, it is God who still gives us our leaders, good or bad to bless or chasten. May He protect us and our fellow homeschoolers and Christians everywhere.
Thank you Pearl family for always standing for what is right, even when it gives you un-deserved criticism. I am so thankful that there is a ministry that is truly unashamed of speaking the Truth both in the Word and for life. Too many "ministries" are sounding more and more like wimpy extensions of political correctness rather than life-giving water.
I may not agree with everything on here, though that is rare and small and mostly insignificant, I agree with 99.9% and I *know* that truth prevails here at NGJ. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANKYOU!!!
If I may offer my 'two cents', I have a a few statements about my take on this article. I understand how frustrating it must be for a parent who is homeschooling their child to be told what they must teach them, especially if it were the school's curriculum that the parent was trying to avoid in the first place. On the other hand, however, there are parents of lower... Quality... Who perhaps lack the abilities to teach their children certain things that may be quite important in their futures. Or they may not consider it an important subject/lesson to study. For these reasons, it is my opinion that a standardized lesson plan may be more effective.
Subjects such as Sexual Education are quite important in bringing up a healthy and functioning child, and neither promote nor condemn sexual relations, serving to inform the child, allowing them to make informed decisions. Also (and I must stress that this is MY opinion, and I am not pushing it on anyone), refusing to teach the concept of evolution is an extremely poor choice. Regardless of your beliefs, children should be brought up knowing the FACTS that are compounded again and again by scientific evidence. I am by no means saying that you shouldn't tell your child about intelligent design, or whatever you believe, but I AM saying that both sides of the argument should be presented, with the science-based side standardized, and the religious side presented by parents or members of the community, depending on the religious beliefs of the family. I have more opinions I would love to share, but I am doing my best to stay more or less unbiased, so I will stop here.
Thanks for listening.
I respectfully disagree with "Kaleb"'s contention that he "understandshow frustrating it must be...", etc. Here's why: Mr. Kaleb has missed the point of the entire article. It is not a matter of "choice" of education or "parents of lower...Quality" (a degrading statement on its own) being unable to "properly" educate their children. The German government has made it an imprisonable offense to homeschool AT ALL. As an example, an oft-quoted letter from Germany's Minister of Education to parents attempting to homeschool explicitly spells out the German State's express totalitarian agenda: "The minister of education does not share your attitudes toward so-called homeschooling...You complain about the forced school escort of primary-school children by the responsible local police officers. ... In order to avoid this in future, the education authority is in conversation with the affected family in order to look for possibilities to bring the religious convictions of the family into line with the unalterable school-attendance requirement."
This is not an option for German parents; it is the only choice. Hitler imposed this same requirement, and the German government's continuing incorporation of this Hitlerian policy should be at the least an embarrassment and a shame to the current regime.
A second item of note: Although most readers of this magazine already recognize this, Mr. Kaleb's contention that "children should be brought up knowing the FACTS that are compounded again and again by scientific evidence" does rather go against his own argument for teaching evolution. If my children are taught scientific facts, they will unerringly make the remarkable discovery that evolution is not based on facts, but on a continual denial of the overwhelming scientific evidence against evolution; a denial explainable only by the desire to deny the existence of God and the accountability of evolutionists to God for their sin. To be blunt, then: Anyone objectively studying the bare scientific evidence without any interpretation beyond raw data is inescapably drawn to the same conclusion reached by Antony Flew, (one of the world's most renowned former atheists and author of "There Is A God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind"): Science by itself demonstrates what the Bible expressly states. The Earth itself and everything in it blatantly points to God. There is not an evolutionist in the world, to include Richard Dawkins and all the rest, who can successfully scientifically rebut that creation (rather than evolution) is the only scientifically reasonable explanation for the existence of energy, matter, and this planet as it exists (to say nothing of DNA, which is simply too complex to come into being in any way explainable by evolutionary pseudo-science). I notice that Mr. Kaleb immediately argues that the "science-based side" should be "standardized". Based on that argument alone, there is no reason to teach a child the mythology of evolution...because evolution cannot (based on lack of evidence and its violation of available data, scientific principles and dependence on already-discredited theories which cannot stand in the light of discoveries made by evolutionists themselves!) stand up under objective scientific scrutiny. This is why even evolutionist scientists of the first rank are being forced to admit that they have no true evidentiary legs to stand on. For sheer entertainment value, watch Ken Hamm discuss evolution with any evolutionist, and note that the arguments proffered simply don't hold water under evolutionists' own scientific burdens of proof.
It is absolutely in the best interests of a child to teach him or her about evolution..provided it is done honestly, with straightforward admission that this religion masquerading as "science" is nothing more or less than the desperate, self-contradicting efforts by sinful men to deny responsibility for their own sin by degrading themselves to hyper-evolved chimps, fish, and rocks. Evidence presented in "The Fingerprint of God", "EvidenceThat Demands A Verdict", and even the video series "Amazing Creatures That Defy Evolution" are simply unanswerable by evolutionists, and there is a reason for that: You cannot refute truth with lies. You can only yell the lie over and over again, in hopes that enough people will believe it. Unfortunately, in this fallen world, that tactic works rather well.
I would like to add, Anthony Flew, who debated against creationists/intelligent design experts in front of thousands of people for many years and was considered one of the foremost experts in atheistic theology, had one principle which I greatly admire:
"Follow the evidence wherever it may lead"
because:
Jesus said "John 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
Wonderful article Mr. Pearl! I hope that most people don't miss the point of the article. It is not about what is taught to our children. It is about our freedom to educate our own children. The government should never be allowed to control our personal freedoms. There is no one more fit to teach a child than someone who knows and truely loves that child. There can be no one right way to teach the children of an entire nation. Circstances differ from family to family as to what a child may need to know as he grows, although there are many things all children should know. But depending on the child there will need to be differences in how that child is taught because of differences in personality and how fast they mature. There is no way he government can do a better job than the parent who truely knows their child and knows his needs. Even parents of "lesser quality" have what the government lacks to better teach their children. There are many helps for parents who need them in the huge array of curricula out there. There will always be the lazy parents who choose not to take care or do a good job raising their kids. What is needed here is not for someone to jump in and give their kids a generic education. What is needed is for someone to teach the parents how to love their children so that they could grow up in a loving secure environment. It is better to grow up less educated than others but healthy in body and soul. Any young person raised in a healthy loving environment will want to learn and can easily suplement his educationas he grows. The Lord knows that as an adult I am educating myself through my own studies to make up for lack of proper learning in all my years in public school. It simply is not the goverment's job to raise or educate our children. They should be glad that so many of us want to take our children's education into our own hands and ease the burden placed on the people and tax payers who are helping to do our job for us.
This is in response to the article and Kaleb above me. I totally agree with Michael Pearl on this and support him. To Kaleb, YOU need to get the facts brother. Go to http://www.drdino.com and read up on the truths of evolution and the dangers of teaching your children a kooky theory that is NOT scientifically based. Evolution, can not, in any form or fashion, be reproduced in a lab or elsewhere. That is science at its most basic level.
I absolutely love the Pearls' articles and books. Praise the Lord for the Pearls (and former Pearls). They are a blessing and a light unto the world. They have helped so many families, mine included. (That means that I as a (younger) child was helped by it, and it also means that my future children will be helped by it.)
Education isn't the only reason we homeschool. There are other things, like learning self-control, building character, good work ethic, even learning off of your younger siblings how to be a mom. (Like me.)
Now maybe you don't want them to cuss. Now that would be a personal preference, but public school won't let your personal preference be of any significance since THEY are the ones with your kids all day, teaching them what THEY want and giving them the values that THE STATE tells them to give YOUR kids.
Public school means you are less involved in your kids' lives.
One time me and mom were talking, and I told her that I would be satisfied with my 6mo bro's training, if he turned out better than me. She told me that 'that would be very hard, you are such a wonderful child!' Well, she has children better than she was, why can't I? Yes I know, I'm still just a teen, but still. (That was not intended to point out how much worse she was at our age, but how much better she has trained her children. ...No thanks to the state.)