Should It Be Legal To Homeschool Your Child That The Holocaust Never Happened?

[ParkCungHee]

3. What no one has the right to do is make you believe in an idea, or how to think about an idea by use of force. Do you see how it works now?

Right, thats a god given right because its impossible to make someone think something. You can still deport them, send them into internal exhile, imprison them, burn their books, crash their websites, break up their demonstrations, and ban their insignia.

1. I never said you didn't have the right to say or believe you think all Nazis should be kill.

Where did I say they should be killed. Fortunately any tyranny I propose against the Nazis is far fairer and more lenient then anything they did. They don't need to be exterminated, merely rendered harmless.

 

[CCA]

Yes.
In a capitalistic society, there need to be those who have to end up working in Burger King.

Hey.

Your knee-jerk reaction insults fast-food workers like me.....

I think it should be illegal to teach that the holocaust never happened to homeschooled kids.

 

[woody60707]

Right, thats a god given right because its impossible to make someone think something. You can still deport them, send them into internal exhile, imprison them, burn their books, crash their websites, break up their demonstrations, and ban their insignia.

I don't believe in any gods. It's an right endowed by man him self. At least in the US it is.

I also said how to think. If government only allows some schools of thought, what limits and controls how people form ideas, you also control those same ideas being formed.

 

[woody60707]

Hey.

Your knee-jerk reaction insults fast-food workers like me.....

I think it should be illegal to teach that the holocaust never happened to homeschooled kids.

What else do you think the government should tell parents what to teach there kids. I'm sure 9/11 wackos tell there kids the government did 9/11 and lied about. What about parents that teach there kids that the government lied about WMD's in Iraq?

 

[JohnRM]

I am going to have to say, 'No'. There is a specific criteria that home-schooling has to follow. Tests still have to be passed and the educators cannot choose to design their own test that would create an illusion of a history wherein the holocaust never happened. If the parent wants to teach the history as commonly accepted by the rational modern human being, have the child pass the test, and then tell him that it was full of crap, then so be it.

 

[useless]

whats the point of denying something that blatently happened?

 

[ParkCungHee]

I am going to have to say, 'No'. There is a specific criteria that home-schooling has to follow. Tests still have to be passed and the educators cannot choose to design their own test that would create an illusion of a history wherein the holocaust never happened. If the parent wants to teach the history as commonly accepted by the rational modern human being, have the child pass the test, and then tell him that it was full of crap, then so be it.

You realise on a test of General Historical Knowledge, a question about the holocaust could maybe cost a student 2% on a test.

 

[IglooDame]

Of course it is. No one here is saying that teaching Holocaust denial is a good thing - we're just saying that having the government crack down on unpopular and even obviously wrong beliefs is worse than having a few people teach those beliefs. If they are so obviously wrong, they will probably be convinced of that later in life - drastically increasing governmental power of families and religion would not be as easily solved and would be much more harmful than simply letting things be.

This about sums it up for me. Anyway, why are we restricting it to homeschoolers? I'd imagine that some parents are clever enough to convince their child that the US public school system has been coopted by the Jewish-run Illuminati or whatever and so still instill Holocaust-denial into them even if they have a History teacher trying to beat the facts into them on a daily basis.

 

[Pontiuth Pilate]

I'd imagine that some parents are clever enough to convince their child that the US public school system has been coopted by the Jewish-run Illuminati or whatever and so still instill Holocaust-denial into them even if they have a History teacher trying to beat the facts into them on a daily basis.

Right, so doesn't that mean that homeschooling becomes suspicious automatically?

I mean, schools teach the truth (or at least - what we've discovered about the truth so far).

So if you're taking your kid out of the system, and it's not for an academic or social reason (he's special needs / feels uncomfortable / gets picked on) but for an ideological reason, then you're basically taking him out because you want to teach him Creationism instead of science, or Holocaust denial instead of history. Otherwise the public schools aka a real education would be sufficient, neh?

On that basis, shouldn't homeschooling be pretty severely overseen?

To put it bluntly, if you're taking your kid out to teach him an academic curriculum that directly contradicts the actual school curriculum, why should that kid be awarded any kind of graduation diploma that a good college would more-than-sneer at?

Just to take a sample of people posting in this thread, I know at least two are young, homeschooled kids iirc... and whaddaya know, both of them think evolution is crap. What a coincidence.

Actually, I have yet to meet someone who was homeschooled through HS and didn't turn into a Young Earth Creationist, so there you go. I have a feeling that an enormous percentage of these kids are basically victims who were taken out of the real schools by their crazy parents who didn't want their kids "indoctrinated" by the ebil "secular humanists."

 

[GinandTonic]

I am going to have to say, 'No'. There is a specific criteria that home-schooling has to follow. Tests still have to be passed and the educators cannot choose to design their own test that would create an illusion of a history wherein the holocaust never happened. If the parent wants to teach the history as commonly accepted by the rational modern human being, have the child pass the test, and then tell him that it was full of crap, then so be it.

Agreed.

National curriculum / standardised testing / similar as applicable. If parents (or any educator) cannot teach that which is required to be taught to the demanded standard they are prohibited from teaching.

 

[downtown]

Right, so doesn't that mean that homeschooling becomes suspicious automatically?

I mean, schools teach the truth (or at least - what we've discovered about the truth so far).

Well, just to play devil's advocate, but that isn't always true. Ciriculum is basically still a local district call, outside of limited state oversight. What you're going to learn about the Civil War is still different from Vermont to South Carolina, for example.

The only subject where there ought to be (or even could be) variance is really in History. Its possible for a hayseed district to actually get the facts wrong.

So if you're taking your kid out of the system, and it's not for an academic or social reason (he's special needs / feels uncomfortable / gets picked on) but for an ideological reason, then you're basically taking him out because you want to teach him Creationism instead of science, or Holocaust denial instead of history. Otherwise the public schools aka a real education would be sufficient, neh?

I'm not actually sure that parents have to provide the reason...or if they did, they can just say, "We're not happy with Public Schooling". A few actually say that they are worried about the lack of religion in schools and whatnot...but they dont have to. My mom's school has a lot of these kids. The lucky ones go to community, or bible colleges

To put it bluntly, if you're taking your kid out to teach him an academic curriculum that directly contradicts the actual school curriculum, why should that kid be awarded any kind of graduation diploma that a good college would more-than-sneer at?

They might not be, it varies by state (there are almost no national laws regarding Education). In Ohio, Either a student must pass a state achivement test, or the home district has to personally oversee that student's development before he can be "certified" as a high school graduate. The facts of life are though, that a kid can still pass all of those tests without believing in the Holocaust.

It would be illegeal to homeschool your kid to not know how to read, or do Algerbra.

 

[Fugitive Sisyphus]

Yikes! 27 yes vs. 31 no.

I think when someone asks any question that starts with "should it be legal", the default answer should be "yes" not "no."

Should it be legal to teach your children that Santa Claus exists?
Should it be legal to teach your children that Stalin's purges never happened?
Should it be legal to teach your children that Columbus discovered America?
Should it be legal to lie to your children or teach them anything that goes against mainstream accepted beliefs?

While you might not like the legality of these things, the alternative is far worse.

 

[IglooDame]

Right, so doesn't that mean that homeschooling becomes suspicious automatically?

Sure, in the same way that taking the Fifth does, or not allowing the police to search your car without a warrant.

I mean, schools teach the truth (or at least - what we've discovered about the truth so far).

So if you're taking your kid out of the system, and it's not for an academic or social reason (he's special needs / feels uncomfortable / gets picked on) but for an ideological reason, then you're basically taking him out because you want to teach him Creationism instead of science, or Holocaust denial instead of history. Otherwise the public schools aka a real education would be sufficient, neh?

I think you have a higher opinion of the public school system than I do.

On that basis, shouldn't homeschooling be pretty severely overseen?

I think the results should be overseen, via occasional standards-based tests, same as public or private schools.

To put it bluntly, if you're taking your kid out to teach him an academic curriculum that directly contradicts the actual school curriculum, why should that kid be awarded any kind of graduation diploma that a good college would more-than-sneer at?

Just to take a sample of people posting in this thread, I know at least two are young, homeschooled kids iirc... and whaddaya know, both of them think evolution is crap. What a coincidence.

Actually, I have yet to meet someone who was homeschooled through HS and didn't turn into a Young Earth Creationist, so there you go. I have a feeling that an enormous percentage of these kids are basically victims who were taken out of the real schools by their crazy parents who didn't want their kids "indoctrinated" by the ebil "secular humanists."

I personally am unconvinced by your feeling, and am not prepared to recommend laws based on it. That aside, I know more than a few Young Earth Creationists that are contributing more than adequately to society and haven't formed any anti-UN secession movements in backwoods Montana, so perhaps I'm just failing to see the point of painting them all with that particular brush.

I think when someone asks any question that starts with "should it be legal", the default answer should be "yes" not "no."

 

[Bast]

Simple question.

This goes to the heart of the homeschooling debate in the other thread, basically the question is - do parents have a right to grievously miseducate their children? i.e. teach them Young Earth Creationism, or that pi is actually 3, etc?

Simple answer. It's hate speech and thus should be illegal.

 

[Bast]

So if you're taking your kid out of the system, and it's not for an academic or social reason (he's special needs / feels uncomfortable / gets picked on) but for an ideological reason, then you're basically taking him out because you want to teach him Creationism instead of science, or Holocaust denial instead of history.

Teaching a kid only 'creationism' hurts only the kid, no one else. Teaching them holocaust denial will hurt other people because the kid will grow up hating jews or at least thinking that they're all LIARS if not worse.

Off topic: Pontiuth, just out of curiousity, didn't you once say you're a Jew? Why would you use this example just to make your own point or just because you have an axe to grind?

 

[Eukaryote]

Yes.
In a capitalistic society, there need to be those who have to end up working in Burger King.

So true, but seriosuly, I say no.

 

[JohnRM]

You realise on a test of General Historical Knowledge, a question about the holocaust could maybe cost a student 2% on a test.

Then two percent is the loss that they must sustain in order to believe otherwise. All that I am saying is that they shouldn't be able to modify the test so that the student gains points for answering to the affect that the holocaust did not happen.

 

[mdwh]

The problem is, how do we distinguish between homeschooling, and a parent telling their child at anytime? It seems somewhat unenforceable, as well as draconian, to control what parents can tell their children. So based on the way the question was worded, I had to vote Yes.

Alternatively, it could be that homeschoolers are investigated for what they are teaching, and that holocaust-denial shouldn't be part of that, but there'd be nothing stopping them from teaching the child that "outside school hours" so to speak.

Are there any restrictions or investigations on what parents teach children, anywhere in the world? My understanding is that there isn't, but this seems odd to me - it's a legal requirement to send children to schools, and schools have a legal requirement to teach certain subjects. In the UK at least, parents have been sent to prison for their children not attending school. But it seems bizarre if that all you have to do is say "I'm homeschooling", and then they don't have to go to school at all. Is there any requirement at all to show what is being taught to them?

Also, the less draconian way, rather than saying that parents can't teach it, is to say that teaching about the holocaust must be a part of education.

 

[mdwh]

Teaching a kid only 'creationism' hurts only the kid, no one else. Teaching them holocaust denial will hurt other people because the kid will grow up hating jews or at least thinking that they're all LIARS if not worse.

I don't disagree, but note that teaching creationism has indirect effects also, as he will start disbelieving science, think scientists are liars, and start telling other people about this. This in turn puts more pressure against science, and in favour of teaching Bible stories in schools as science.

 

[Bast]

I don't disagree, but note that teaching creationism has indirect effects also, as he will start disbelieving science, think scientists are liars, and start telling other people about this. This in turn puts more pressure against science, and in favour of teaching Bible stories in schools as science.

I'll be concerned if there are hate crimes against scientists but there aren't.