BERLIN DECLARATION

Posted on 2012-11-23 by Barbara

This Berlin Declaration will be good to use in your oral submissions or when writing to the MPs. I have written to the HSLDA for a copy of the original with all the signatories attached. I will be taking 15 copies of the signed Berlin Declaration to present at my Oral submission on 28 November at 4:05pm.

http://www.ghec2012.org/Declaration.pdf

BERLIN DECLARATION
We signatories of this declaration presented on November 3, 2012 at the first Global Home Education Conference in Berlin, Germany hereby,

Remind all nations that numerous international treaties and declarations recognize the essential, irreplaceable and fundamental role of parents and the family in the education and upbringing of children as a natural right that must be respected and protected by all governments,

Affirm home education as a practice where parents and children undertake the activity of education themselves to pursue learning that meets the needs of the family and children,

Note that in Article 26 part 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 stating that “parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children” elevates and indicates the preeminence of the right of parents and the family in relation to the State,

Further note that the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights states in Article 13.3 that the “States Parties to the present covenant undertake to have respect for the liberty of parents […] to choose for their children schools, other than those established by public authorities, which conform to such minimum educational standards as may be laid down or approved by the State and to ensure that religious or moral education of their children is in conformity with their own convictions”,

Further note that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides in Article 18, paragraph 4 that “the States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to have respect for the liberty of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions” and that this convention designates these rights as non-derogable in Article 4 paragraph 2,

Further note that Art. 5 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child demands that state parties ”respect the responsibilities, rights and duties of parents … to provide, in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the child, appropriate direction and guidance in the exercise by the child of the rights recognized in the present Convention” including the right to education,

Further note that the Doha Declaration issued on 30 November 2004 by the Doha International Conference for the Family, welcomed by the UN General Assembly (A/RES/59/111) emphasized that “Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children and the liberty to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions” and called to “Strengthen the functioning of the family by involving mothers and fathers in the education of their children” and to “Reaffirm that parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children” (Call to Action, nn. 16-18),

Further note that the United Nations Special Rapporteur in Education recognized that home education should be a legitimate educational option specifically in a March 2007 report on an official observation mission to Germany,

Further note that the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of 1950 provides in Article 2 of Protocol 1 that “in the exercise of any functions which it

assumes in relation to education and teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions”,

Further note that Article 14.3 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union guarantees that “the right of parents to ensure the education and teaching of their children in conformity with their religious, philosophical and pedagogical convictions shall be respected, in accordance with the national laws governing the exercise of such freedom and right”,

Further note that the European Parliament in its resolution of23 October 2012 on an Agenda for Change: the future of EU development policy (P7_TA(2012)0386, n. 15) “Emphasizes the importance of solidarity between generations; in this respect, invites the [European] Commission to adopt family mainstreaming as a universal guiding principle for achieving the EU development goals” and that home education should be viewed as an important part of the family mainstreaming in the educational policies,

Further note that Art. 27.1 of the CIS Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms states: “In the exercise of any functions which the Contracting Parties assume in relation to education and to teaching, they shall respect the right of parents to ensure for their children such education and teaching as corresponds with their own convictions and national traditions”,

Further note that credible and scientific research indicate that home education is an effective means of educating children to become literate and productive citizens and members of civil society and that there is no evidence at all of harm to children or an increased risk of harm on the basis of home education,
Wherefore we now,

1. Condemn the policies of those nations that prohibit the practice of home education and permit the persecution of home educating families through excessive or coercive fines, threats to parental custody and application of criminal sanctions;

2. Urge all members of the international community to take concrete steps to affirm in their law, policy, and civil and criminal procedures that parents have a natural and fundamental right to direct the education and upbringing of their children which includes the right to choose the type of education their child shall receive including home education;

3. Encourage states to consider the growing body of research about home education and take steps to review laws, policies and procedures to make it possible for all parents to participate in this activity;

4. Urge the assistance of human rights bodies, governments, NGOs, elected and appointed government officials and individual citizens to seek greater respect for the fundamental right of parents to choose the kind of education their children receive including home education;
5. Request the global home education community take active steps to communicate this resolution to their governments and to take all steps necessary to recognize the right of families to home education as a non-derogable and fundamental human right regardless of the motivation or methodology of those who chose it;

6. Commit to support freedom, diversity and pluralism in education through formal and informal coordination with the goal of making home education a legitimate educational option in every nation and the right of every family and child.

Presented this day, the Third of November, 2012 in the City of Berlin at the First Global Home Education Conference.

List of Organizational Signatories
GHEC2012 Organizing Board
List of individual Signatories

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Related Links:

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From the Smiths:

https://hef.org.nz/2011/craig-smith-26-january-1951-to-30-september-2011/

Updated 5 October 2012: One year on (Craig Smith’s Health) page 7 click here

*****

Needing help for your home schooling journey:

https://hef.org.nz/2011/needing-help-for-your-home-schooling-journey-2/

And

Here are a couple of links to get you started home schooling:

https://hef.org.nz/getting-started-2/

and

https://hef.org.nz/exemptions/

This link is motivational:
https://hef.org.nz/2012/home-schooling-what-is-it-all-about/

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Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill

Make a submission: Reject compulsory Early Education for 3 year olds

Media Release 12 – Early Childhood Education Brings Social Drawbacks, Uncertain Benefits

Posted on 2012-11-22 by Barbara

November 22, 2012

Palmerston North, NZ – Under the new Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill, which is now being considered by a select committee, beneficiaries will be compelled to send their preschool children to early childhood education (ECE) for at least 15 hours per week. While Minister for Social Development Paula Bennett claims that this will ensure that disadvantaged children get the best possible start on life, the Home Education Foundation (HEF) of New Zealand cites research linking ECE with a whole spectrum of sociopolitical problems.

According to research by Canadian developmental psychologist Dr Gordon Neufeld, co-author of the book Hold On to Your Children: Why Parents Matter, children need at least six years to bond with their parents in a nurturing, play-rich environment before being sent to school. Parents who send their children to out-of-home care before the child has fully bonded with the parents will force their child to satisfy emotional needs by bonding with peers or caregivers. These bonds are soon broken when the peers or caregivers move out of the child’s life, resulting in insecure children suffering from what Dr Neufeld calls “attachment hunger”.

Anti-social behaviour is strongly associated with ECE attendance. In one of the most rigorous studies available, the US National Institute of Child Health and Human Development found a strong link between long hours of non-maternal care and behavioural problems such as aggression, demanding behaviour, cruelty, fighting, and so on, even in children coming from usually privileged backgrounds.

In a Canadian study published this year, researchers from the University of Montreal and the Sainte-Justine Hospital Research Centre said that children who attend daycare are more likely to become obese between the ages of 4 and 10.

Head researcher Dr Marie-Claude Geoffrey stated, “We found that children whose primary care arrangement between 1.5 and 4 years was in daycare-center or with an extended family member were around 50 per cent more likely to be overweight or obese between the ages of 4-10 years compared to those cared for at home by their parents.”

But what about all the research showing that preschool can be beneficial? New Zealand’s Dr Sarah-Eve Farquar, author of the 2008 paper “Assessing the evidence on early childhood education/childcare” says, “In September 2002 the government released a 10 year plan for ECE and the New Zealand Council for Educational Research Competent Children, Competent Learners study was drawn on to justify the values underpinning the plan and ECE policy. But the study had limited findings relating to ECE effects and quite major methodological problems.”

By contrast, says Dr Farquar, “The best evidence points to parents/family having a far greater impact than the childcare/ECE experience on children’s developmental outcomes.”

Problems with the Competent Children, Competent Learners study include the superficiality of the research conducted on the children, plus the fact that the overwhelming majority of the children studied came from well-to-do Pakeha families. “Due to the very small number of A’oga Amata in the study and the absence of other Pacific Island language nests and Kohanga Reo no conclusions should be drawn about these service types or about ECE effects on Maori and Pacific children,” says Dr Farquar.

She goes on to cite a number of New Zealand and international studies, including a more rigorous study conducted in Christchurch in 1994. While this study did find very small detectable increases in ability and achievement scores among ECE attendees, the researches stated that “the relatively small effect sizes found and the uncertainties of the evidence suggest it would be unwise to aggressively promote the view that early education of the type provided to this cohort makes an important contribution to subsequent academic achievement. At best any benefits found in this study are small and it is possible that even these benefits may be due to uncontrolled factors rather than the benefits of early education.

After citing other reputable international studies, Dr Farquar concluded, “The best evidence does not show that good quality ECE is better necessarily than care within the family or has a greater impact on children’s achievement and other outcomes…It may be that if unbiased information on potential risks and the size of benefits is given to parents in a timely manner, then parents can make more informed choices and manage risks to better advantage their child’s development.”

More information on the bill can be found at www.hef.org.nz.

About the Home Education Foundation

The Home Education Foundation has been informing parents for 27 years about the fantastic opportunity to de-institutionalise our sons and daughters and to embrace the spiritual, intellectual and academic freedom that is ours for the taking. Through conferences, journals, newsletters and all kinds of personal communications, we explain the vision of handcrafting each child into a unique individual, complete with virtuous character, a hunger for service to others, academic acumen and a strong work ethic. For more information, please visit www.hef.org.nz or more specifically hef.org.nz/2012/make-a-submission-reject-compulsory-early-education-for-3-year-olds/

This was reported here:

Scoop: Early Childhood Education Brings Uncertain Benefits

Voxy: Early childhood education ‘brings social drawbacks’

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Related Links:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the Smiths:

https://hef.org.nz/2011/craig-smith-26-january-1951-to-30-september-2011/

Updated 5 October 2012: One year on (Craig Smith’s Health) page 7 click here

*****

Needing help for your home schooling journey:

https://hef.org.nz/2011/needing-help-for-your-home-schooling-journey-2/

And

Here are a couple of links to get you started home schooling:

https://hef.org.nz/getting-started-2/

and

https://hef.org.nz/exemptions/

This link is motivational:
https://hef.org.nz/2012/home-schooling-what-is-it-all-about/

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Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill

Make a submission: Reject compulsory Early Education for 3 year olds

Submissions published for the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill

Posted on 2012-11-20 by Barbara

The 578 submissions for the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill are here so far: View all evidence (including submissions)

“Evidence put forward to select committees as part of their consideration of individual items of business, including submissions from the public. Only evidence that has been released by a committee will be available here.”

So not all the submissions have been put up on this page. I already know of one confidential submission sent the Select Committee and there may be others. The Social Security Committee may have chosen not to put up other submissions. Submissions were posted to this page 7 Nov and 14 Nov. My submission, the Home Education Foundation and Family Integrity submissions have not been posted up there yet. And I have heard of others whose submissions have not been posted there yet as well.

Are you presenting an oral submssion then go here: Presenting an oral submission to the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill

Did you miss sending in a submission by 1 November?

Did you miss being able to present an oral submission?

If so, there is still a lot you can be doing.

1. We (also those who put in submissions and spoke to them with oral submissions) can still be lobbying all the members on the Social Services Select Committee. They have to make their report by 20 March 2013.

Against the Bill at the 1st reading:

Jacinda Ardern ,Jan Logie ,Rajen Prasad and Su’a William Sio

Those who voted for the Bill at the 1st reading

Simon Bridges, Melissa Lee, Asenati Lole-Taylor , Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga, Tim Macindoe, Alfred Ngaro , and Mike
Sabin

a. The most effective thing we can be doing now is visiting these MPs. We need to be putting a face to this Bill for them. When they are writing up their reports we need them to think of those they have seen presenting oral submissions and those who have visited them over the next few weeks and possibly months

Don’t be afraid to take your children with you when visiting the MPs – this is very educational for them

Please try to visit them this year or early next year. Even though we know that they have to present their report by 20 March and they expect to take the full time, they may present it early.

Check out these pages for information on what to say when you visit the MPs personally or speak more to the submission you have put in

https://hef.org.nz/2012/make-a-submission-reject-compulsory-early-education-for-3-year-olds/

https://hef.org.nz/beneficiaries/submissions

View all evidence (including submissions)

New Zealand Law Society Submission

Family Integrity’s submission

Home Education Foundation’s submission

There are some good tips on this page: https://hef.org.nz/beneficiaries/making-an-oral-submission-to-the-select-committee

b. We can phone the MPs on the Select Committee

c. We can email or send letters (no stamp required) to the MPs on the Select Committee

2. We can lobby all the MPs particulary next year

3. We can be praying for wisdom for the MPs to be making wise decisions

Please feel free to repost, forward or pass on this email

Please do so with the whole post. Thankyou

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Related Links:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the Smiths:

https://hef.org.nz/2011/craig-smith-26-january-1951-to-30-september-2011/

Updated 5 October 2012: One year on (Craig Smith’s Health) page 7 click here

*****

Needing help for your home schooling journey:

https://hef.org.nz/2011/needing-help-for-your-home-schooling-journey-2/

And

Here are a couple of links to get you started home schooling:

https://hef.org.nz/getting-started-2/

and

https://hef.org.nz/exemptions/

This link is motivational:
https://hef.org.nz/2012/home-schooling-what-is-it-all-about/

*******************************

Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill

Make a submission: Reject compulsory Early Education for 3 year olds

ECE (Preschool) is no good for 4, 5 and possibly 6 year olds expert says

Posted on 2012-11-16 by Barbara

Developmental psychologist and bestselling author Dr. Gordon Neufeld has thoughts about early childhood education that may come as an unwelcome surprise to parents of preschoolers and education policy-makers.

Neufeld is against four-year-old kindergarten. He’s also against five year-old kindergarten. And possibly even six-year-old kindergarten. Unless, of course, kindergarten is all about play and not at all about results.

Neufeld is co-author of the 2004 book Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Matter, which argued that parents who relinquish the parental role too soon prompt children to turn to peers for their attachment needs, sometimes with disastrous results.

“It takes six years of ideal conditions where a child gives his heart to his parents,” says the Vancouver-based Neufeld.

Neufeld knows he’s slogging into a political mire. Ontario is implementing all-day four-year kindergarten. Last October Charles Pascal, Premier Dalton McGuinty’s special adviser on early learning, acknowledged that implementation might have challenges, but things would work out “if people keep a focus on what’s best for kids and families.”

On the other hand, critics have pointed out that in Finland, one of the countries whose students are among the highest-ranking performers in international comparisons, students don’t start formal education until they’re seven.

In Canada, Neufeld finds it worrisome that even though children are going to school younger and being educated more intensively, children are less curious in Grade 12 than they were in kindergarten.

“Society is increasing expectations. Parents need to be the buffer,” says Neufeld, who has addressed the parliaments of European nations on early education and is scheduled to go to Brussels next fall to talk to the European Parliament.

What’s the answer? Play, says Neufeld. And extended families.

Preschoolers have fundamentally different brain wiring and need to be free of consequences and “attachment hunger,” says Neufeld. Germany, where the word “kindergarten” was coined more than 150 years ago, mandated play-based preschool education about a decade ago.

Play helps children build problemsolving networks. At four, five, even six, children are not ready to learn by working because the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain where a child is capable of mixed feelings, is still under construction. “It only gets wired at between five and seven years of age,” says Neufeld.

Developmentally, preschoolers have to be secure in the love and attention of their families, says Neufeld. Too often, children are pushed into performing. “You can get incredible things out of them if you detach them from marks and rewards.”

What is play? Neufeld defines it as “not work.” Play is expressive and it’s not “for real.” There are no consequences to messing up, and the child is playing for the joy of the activity, not because of an outcome. It’s like playing marbles, Neufeld says. You can play for fun and take your marbles home when you’re done, or you can play for keeps, where the winner takes all. Only playing for fun is really playing.
Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/work+play/6109961/story.html#ixzz2CKzVJgCZ

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From the Smiths:

https://hef.org.nz/2011/craig-smith-26-january-1951-to-30-september-2011/

Updated 5 October 2012: One year on (Craig Smith’s Health) page 7 click here

*****

Needing help for your home schooling journey:

https://hef.org.nz/2011/needing-help-for-your-home-schooling-journey-2/

And

Here are a couple of links to get you started home schooling:

https://hef.org.nz/getting-started-2/

and

https://hef.org.nz/exemptions/

This link is motivational:
https://hef.org.nz/2012/home-schooling-what-is-it-all-about/

*******************************

Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill

Make a submission: Reject compulsory Early Education for 3 year old

Home schoolers win dole respite