The Domenic Johansson case crops up again

I was interested to see that on several home education lists in this country, attention is once again being drawn to the case of Domenic Johansson in Sweden. As some readers may recollect, this boy was being home educated by his parents in Sweden, who then attempted to leave the country to travel to India with their son. Since then, almost four years ago, the child has been in foster care.

What fascinates me about this business is the way that the story constantly changes and mutates, until you simply do not know what to believe. For example, when first we heard about it in 2009, it was a simple matter of the Swedish authorities not approving of home education and seizing the boy so that he could be sent to school in Sweden. However, the latest twist is that this does not appear to be what happened at all; at least according to his mother. See;

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2138545/Norway-kid-row-replay-Sweden.html


This is the first time that I have read an interview with the mother. All the other information about the case comes from either the father or from various American Christians. You will note that the mother does not seem to think that home education has anything to do with the authorities taking her son. She believes it was because he appeared to be neglected or that she and her husband were too poor to look after him.

There is mention of the famous earthquake in this article, according to which, ‘her husband was forced to return to his native country as his family had lost everything in the calamity’.  I have heard half a dozen versions of this story too, including two different ones from the husband himself.  In one version, he lost all his money and possessions not in the earthquake but by being robbed when he was in a taxi on the way to the airport to return to Sweden. In another, told to an American pastor, he tried unsuccessfully to get to the earthquake zone as he hoped to help there. The mother’s family claim that he was running a travel agency and lost the business as a result of the earthquake. I exchanged emails with Christer Johansson a few years ago, asking what had actually happened. He told me that he could not remember!

I would advise home educating parents in this country to be a little cautious about being drawn into this saga; at least until they have a definitive version of events. There is probably more to this case than meets the eye.

Home education in Sweden

When I criticised the film on Youtube advertising the so-called Walk to Freedom, I was accused of nit-picking for objecting to the use of Hitler’s image to promote this dubious cause. The difficulties with this campaign though run a good deal deeper than just trying to confuse the issue by showing film of a German dictator!


We are told in the film several times that ‘many’ families have fled Sweden because of the new law. Jonas Himmelstrand, President of ROHUS, tells me that the number is actually ‘more than a dozen’. This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, ‘many’. There is a question mark over how many of these families have ’fled’ and how many have simply decided to move to the largely Swedish speaking  Aland islands in the Gulf of Bothnia. A community of Swedish home educators has grown up there and it is within easy reach by ferry of Stockholm. This is not exactly ’fleeing the country’!

The film also falls into that fatal error of championing the rights of parents, as opposed to those of children. The European Convention of Human Rights is cited in support of this notion. This really is deceitful, suggesting that that the rights of these parents are being trampled over in defiance of the convention. This matter was comprehensively dealt with at the Court of Human Rights in 2006. In September that year, the European Court held that:

Schools represent society, and it is in the children’s interest to become part of that society. The parents’ right to education does not go as far as to deprive their children of that experience.

The court went on to state that schools were part of society and that parents’ rights did not allow them to remove them from society by taking them out of school. I do not wish to debate whether the European Court was right to hold this view, merely that they have done so and that no Swedish home educator has any chance of getting anywhere with this line of argument, based upon the Convention of Human Rights.

I do not wish to say any more about this film, other than that it is a misleading piece of propaganda. The Swedish law is intended to ensure that any child taught at home is educated to at least as high a standard as he would be, were he to be attending school. This is a tricky proposition for many parents and explains why some have been unable to gain the necessary permission. Those who have not been given permission are often the type of parent who does not believe in teaching or formal education and it is these who are likely to fall foul of the new regulations. People like Jenny Lantz, who wants her children to learn by themselves and is opposed to imposing a plan of education on her three children. This clashes with the Swedish law, that requires the education provided to be as adequate as that in schools and also that it be supervised.

In short, Sweden is tightening up on particular types of home education because they feel that some home educators are not properly equipping their children for a place in society. They feel that some of these children are being shortchanged educationally. Some families have been given permission to home educate, but these are ones who are working hard to ensure that their children are learning at least as much as they would do in school.

Using Hitler’s image to promote home education

I viewed recently on Youtube a short film made by home educators. I mentally counted the seconds until mention was made of Hitler. He duly made an appearance after a mere twenty seven seconds. Here is the film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDDD2ob8iKE

The ancient piece of nonsense is trotted out here,  that Hitler banned home education and that Sweden has introduced a law based upon the Nazi one prohibiting home education.  I have remarked before that there is something horribly tacky about using Hitler and the Holocaust to promote some hobby or favourite cause. Perhaps a look at the facts might show us why this business about Hitler banning home education is not true.

 In 1938 the Nazis passed a law about education, the Gesetz über die Schulpflicht im Deutschen Reich. This made school compulsory, but just like the 1944 Education Act in this country, it contained an exemption clause for those who wished to have their children educated at home; (1) Zum Besuch der Volksschule sind alle Kinder verpflichtet, soweit nicht für ihre Erziehung und Unterweisung in anderer Weise ausreichend gesorgt ist. Roughly translated, this means that children had to attend school unless their education and training was otherwise provided out of school.

I hope that this will bring to an end the idea that ‘Hitler banned home education’. There was very little home education in Germany, for  historical reasons.  It was not banned under Hitler and claims that it was are just a trick by home educators to associate laws regulating home education with the Nazis. Just to recap, Hitler did not ban home education in Germany and no law was ever passed by the Nazis to do so; anybody who says that this is the case is deliberately setting out to mislead those who know nothing of German history.

The Johansson case - a correction

A few days ago I was wondering about the reasons for Dominic Johansson being taken into care. I picked up on this comment by somebody close to the family;

''Christer was once involved in an alternative on-line news mag that expressed politically incorrect ideas and as near as anyone can tell, this was the reason his home schooling plans were opposed.'

I speculated in a post that this on-line magazine might have had something to do with the physical punishment of children, but am now happy to make it clear that it was nothing of the sort. It is in fact called Vaken which means 'awake' or 'wake up' and I don't think one could really call it 'politically incorrect' at all. Raving mad and anti-Semitic, yes; but not politically incorrect! After all, they replace the word 'Jew' most of the time with 'Zionist', thus conforming to the most up-to-date and acceptable left wing version of anti-Semitism. It is full of the most outlandish conspiracy theories about the Jews taking over the world, the freemasons, 9/11, all the usual nonsense in fact. I am not over keen on anti-Semitism, but I really cannot see anything on this site to justify taking a man's child from him. Which still leaves the central mystery of this whole affair unchanged; why was Dominic Johansson taken by social workers?

It is intriguing to see the rather ambiguous statements by Jonas Himmelstrand, the president of the Swedish National Association for Home Education, (ROHUS). He said of this case;

'Homeschooling was not the only issue regarding taking Dominic Johansson in custody by the social services. But having read the court verdict with all the issues, there stills seems to be no reason for this severe action. The young boy has most likely been much more hurt by the custody action than the conditions in his family. One cannot avoid the thought that the prejudices and lack of knowledge about homeschooling, could have been the pivotal reason for the custody action.'

Home schooling was 'not the only issue'. We have heard that the child had some tooth decay, but this was only discovered after he had been taken into care. He had not had the usual vaccinations, but while this is a little unusual it would not be grounds for taking somebody's child. The Vaken website is barking mad, but I can't see this being a reason. Notice that Himmelstrand says, ' prejudices and lack of knowledge about homeschooling, could have been the pivotal reason'. Once again, it is hinted that the home education was not the only or even the main reason. On the Friends of Dominic Johansson site, there is this curious statement;

'By December 2009, the Johansson family had been terrorized by the Social Board of Gotland for more than sixteen months; had their home swarmed and searched by armed Swedish police'

Now why on earth did the police raid the Johanssons' home? What were they looking for? This could hardly have been in connection with home education; there must have been something else going on. There are tantalising hints about this business scattered all over the place. One thing which I have noticed is that the people who are writing about the case a long way from Sweden always seem to think that it is only about home education. Those actually in Sweden, particularly those who have dealings with the family, are saying that home education was not the only reason for the actions of the social workers. Irritatingly though, they never tell us what those other reasons were.

Incidentally, people have contacted Google in an attempt to have this blog taken down. This is not the first time that this has been done; in fact it is the fifth. The first person to try this stunt was our own Mike Fortune-Wood of Home Education UK last year. This is usually done by telling a lot of lies and accusing me of all sorts of bizarre things.. Google are used to this now and they never take any action. Judging by what has been said, I gather that the latest effort was by somebody connected with the Johansson case.

Dominic Johansson

I have been following this case closely since last year and I must say that there seems to be more to it than meets the eye. The story as it is being reported in home educating circles is that Christer and Annie Johansson, who live in Sweden, wished to home educate their seven year old son. They were harassed by the authorities and tried to leave the country so that they could home educate their son in peace somewhere else. As the plane taking them from Sweden was on the runway, it was halted and the police took the boy away and social workers then placed him in foster care, where he still remains a year later. And all because his loving parents wanted to home educate him!

Now one of the things which aroused my suspicions was the slick way that this story is being presented by some home educators. We read that 'armed police stormed the plane'. This conjures up images of a SWAT team armed with sub-machine guns bursting in through the windows and grabbing the child. In fact all uniformed police officers are armed in Sweden. They did not 'storm' the plane, simply boarded it with social workers and asked the Johanssons to come back to the terminal. There are a lot of little embellishments to the story of this sort. Another curious thing is that in Western Europe, the fact that the Johanssons are devout Christians and that this was the motivation both for their home educating and also for leaving Sweden, is played down. Sometimes it is not mentioned at all. In the USA though, this is the main line that is being taken on the case. So what is the background?

Christer Johansson is a Swedish man who lived for a while in India. While there, he met and married a woman called Annie who belonged to a very religious Christian family. She became pregnant and the couple went to live in Sweden, where their son Dominic was born on September 9th 2001. Both parents suffer from severe depression. When the boy was two, Christer was very depressed. So depressed in fact that he became addicted to anti-depressants and was recommended for electro-convulsive therapy, which he declined. His wife has also had mental health problems for which she has been hospitalised. Neither parent wished their son to see health workers, possibly for religious reasons, although this is not certain. Both parents also apparently suffer from heart problems;

" Annie has been in bed with a heart condition that was exacerbated by the abduction of their son. (Tonight Christer emailed me that he had fallen into a state of semiconsciousness with an irregular heart rhythm.)"

It is agreed by all sides that the Johanssons did not follow the correct legal procedure for those wishing to home educate in Sweden, which involves submitting a home school plan. Instead, they reached an informal arrangement with the principle of the local school when their son turned seven in the autumn of 2008. At this age, Swedish children start school.

Now things get a little strange. In the summer of 2009, Christer and Annie Johansson disposed of all their belongings. They announced that they intended to go and live in India so that they could minister to the poor; this was in connection with their Christian faith. Two things strike one at once. Firstly, if an individual wishes to sell all that he has, give the money to the poor and then follow Jesus and tend to destitute children in an Indian orphanage, that is a very praiseworthy and good thing to do. I have nothing but admiration for such people. When you have a seven year old son, matters are a little different. Secondly, a person with a history of severe depression who disposes of all his belongings in this way sets alarm bells ringing in professional ears. This sort of behaviour is sometimes a prelude to suicide. When two people with a history of mental health problems and severe depression do this, there can be an awful suspicion that they are on the verge of taking their own lives.

So what actually happened on June 26th last year? Two people, both with histories of mental health problems got rid of all their belongings. They told everybody that they were going to live in poverty in India, tending for children in an orphanage. Their physical health was also poor; both had heart problems. They intended to take their seven year old son with them, a child who had been raised in rather odd circumstances. I don't think we even need to think about home education here. Given this background, I would also be very worried about the child's future welfare. The concern of the social workers in Sweden was not that this child was being home educated. It was that a Swedish child was being taken abroad to an uncertain future in the company of two strange and possibly disturbed people. They acted to protect his welfare, but not because he was being home educated. If a similar case occurred in this country, I for one hope that social workers would behave in exactly the same way to protect the interests of a vulnerable child.

As I said yesterday, this case is a bit of a red herring as far as home education is concerned. I think that the Swedish authorities would have behaved in precisely the same way had the child been a pupil at a school. The real question here is one of protecting the rights of a child when those rights conflict with the desire of his parents to live an unconventional lifestyle. It seems to me that social workers were faced with a very tricky problem and made what seemed to them to be a good decision in the interests of the child. We have to ask ourselves one final question. Is Dominic Johansson better off now living a in a comfortable home in a prosperous European country than he would have been had he spent the last year living in poverty in an Indian orphanage?

The Swedish model

It was, to say the least of it, unfortunate that Michael Gove should have chosen to announce his 'free schools' initiative and trumpet the wonders of the scheme as it works in Sweden, only a few days before the Swedes began moves to abolish home education in their country. It goes without saying that many home educating parents in this country smelt a rat and saw the introduction of free schools as the beginning of the end for British home education. There are no coincidences in Home Education Land and it wasn't long before conspiracy theorists were seeing a sinister pattern. Here's how the theory works out.

The Swedes have free schools which seem to do very well. They also grudgingly allow home education. Then they introduce a law which simultaneously outlaws home education for philosophical or religious reasons and also imposes a state approved curriculum in all schools. Could this be the shape of things to come in this country?

One can see why some home educators might be getting a little twitchy about this sequences of events. Here's the Education Secretary in this country shooting his mouth off about how wonderful Sweden's educational system is and then a few days later their parliament approves a law which effectively bans home education. As if this was not enough, the case of Dominic Johansson also came back into public awareness at pretty much the same time. I am a little dubious about this case. The more we learn about it, the more it seems that the Swedish authorities were acting in the best interest of the child. I think that the Johansson case is really a bit of a red herring; nothing to do with home education in fact.

So what is it about the whole free schools thing that some home educating parents find a little alarming? It seems that the suspicion is that some home educating parents, probably the more structured, organised and middle class ones, will take the opportunity to set up such schools. After a while, more home educated children might be enrolled in free schools and the number actually learning at home could dwindle. This could be a chance for a new government to start trying to discourage the practice and perhaps imposing new restrictions. And then, as we have seen in Sweden, there is nothing to stop a government imposing a very detailed and prescriptive curriculum on the free schools, something a bit like the National Curriculum. In Sweden from now on, every child will be compelled to learn precisely what the government dictates. This will be the case whether they are at a state school or one of the soc-called free schools.

I have to say, I don't see this scenario as being very likely. To begin with, the number of parents who will be setting up schools here is likely to be very tiny indeed. I doubt that many of those who have expressed interest in this scheme will get past even the first stage of the process. Any new schools which are set up are far more likely to be run by charities or churches than they are by groups of parents. Besides, I can't see the government being willing to fund a places like Summerhill. If they do give out taxpayers' money, it will only be to schools which are providing teaching and will have measurable outcomes. I think that might just rule out most autonomous educators right from the start. Secondly, I have never felt that anybody in either this administration or the last is actually opposed to home education. True, there is an uneasiness about some aspects of it and a feeling that new regulations are needed, but I honestly don't think anybody wants to ban it. This is in stark contrast to Sweden, where the practice has always been discouraged and home educators have been viewed as being dangerous cranks.

Personally, I can't see that the free school thing is going to make any difference at all to home education in this country. I suppose that one or two groups of home educators might get it together to start schools, but I find even that pretty unlikely. I certainly don't think that home education is going to be squeezed out of existence by all these new schools and that after a time some new government will begin acting like Sweden.