Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Romeike Family Studying (AP Photo)
Political asylum, normally reserved for immigrants fleeing torture, imprisonment or threats of deaths, has been awarded to a German family wanting to home-school their children. Near the end of January, Uwe and Hannelore Romeike, along with their five children, were granted asylum by Memphis U.S. immigration judge Lawrence Burman following their departure from Germany in 2008. Devout Christians, the Romeikes wanted to educate their children themselves, something that is forbidden in Germany. Parents are allowed to send their kids to private or religious schools in the country, but home-schooling is only granted for children with serious health problems.
Uwe Romeike said his children were having a difficult time learning in German schools, where he said bad behavior is permitted and “character-building” is lacking. Romeike told Spiegel that German textbooks are “more about vampires and witches than about God." However, he disputed the commonly held notion that home-schoolers are “fundamentalist religious nuts who don’t want their children to get to know what is going on in the world, who want to protect them from everything.” He told The New York Times: “I want my children to learn the truth and to learn about what’s going on in the world so that they can deal with it.”
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Judge Grants Asylum to German Home Schoolers (by Campbell Robertson, New York Times)
Evangelical Christians Celebrate Victory over 'Embarrassed' Germany (by Christoph Titz and Carola Padtberg, Der Spiegel)
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