From:

http://educatinggermany.7doves.com/2008/06/19/dudek-2

Dudek’s go to Jail

Its been splashed all over the papers in Germany, Mr and Mrs Dudek are going to jail for 3 months each, to be served consecutively so that their 7 children (the youngest is 1 year old) are not without care.They are being called hard and fast truants.

I simply do not understand!

Surely there are real truants that the State could go after? If they could keep track of them!

How can a free society incarcerate parents who are exercising their rights to love and care for their own children by educating them at home as the children have been since their birth?

Where will it all end?

How can a country suppress free thinkers (homeschoolers) and then revel in the innovations that other ‘free thinkers’ in science and technology, design and automation bring?

No doubt this family will need a lot of physical, financial, and emotional support and encouragement over the next 6 months. What will this separation do to the family dynamics? What has the State really done?

Lets face it, its hard enough for one at-home parent to survive until the end of the day (when the other usually comes home) with 1 or 2 children, let alone live this way for 3 months a piece.

Please do put pen to paper and do either of 2 things:

1 Write to the Dudeks in support

Familie Dudek
Freiderichstr No. 6
37293 Archfeld
Germany

2 Write to the officials in protest

[State Education Ministry]
Hessisches Kultusministerium
Mrs. Karin Wolff
Luisenplatz 10
65185 Wiesbaden
ministerin@hkm.hessen.de

[State Prosecutor]
Herwig Mueller
Staatsanwaltschaft
Frankfurter Str. 7
34117 Kassel
herwig.mueller@sta-kassel.justiz.hessen.de

[Education Authority Director]
LSAD Arno Meißner
Staatliches Schulamt für den Landkreis Hersfeld-Rotenburg
und den Werra-Meißner-Kreis
Rathausstraße 8
36179 Bebra

Tel: 06622/914-131
Fax: 06622/914-119
Arno.Meissner@hrwm.ssa.hessen.de

And to the German Ambassador in New Zealand:

Ambassador Jörg Zimmermann

Here

OR

Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany
90-92 Hobson St
Thorndon
6011 Wellington
Tel.: +64 4 473 6063
Fax: +64 4 473 6069
German.Embassy@iconz.co.nz

Would be great if a number of us wrote to the Embassy here in New Zealand as well. Mention some positive things about your home educating experience and plead for the Dudek family and other home educating families in Germany.

More from 7doves

Anyone wanting to follow the situation with homeschoolers in Germany can bookmark http://educatinggermany.7doves.com

If at all possible I would still ask people to write to the authorities in this particular area about this particular case, as my experience writing to our rather removed German Embassy in New Zealand is that it has little clout (cc it by all means to them though).

‘Winning’ the right for parents to educate their children at home needs to happen on a State by State, case by case basis.

For those who read German the new German Homeschoolers Webring may be interesting http://7doves.com/_ringmaker.php

__._,_.___