Okay, now that I have a little time, I am going to rant a little about that anti-homeschooling post I was talking about yesterday.
Since kestrel9000 has since backpedaled from his original agreement with the statement that, “home schooling does more damage than it does good, and should not be allowed to be a continued practice,” I’m going to turn from his post and, instead, look at a few of the comments made there.
Maybe there is a distinctionI’m an educator and I’ve interacted with homeschooled students who come to me for private music lessons. There is a “right” way to homeschool such as mataliandy mentions downthread and there is the fundy way. There are plenty of legitimate homeschoolers out there. I’ve seen plenty of homeschoolers who go on to be successful in college and in their adult lives. The distinction should be made between Christofascist homeschooling and people who have children who do not fit into their school system for whatever reason.
And the comment by mataliandy referenced above…
As a homeschooling parent…
I have to say the brush is awfully broad.
I agree that the dominionists and others who teach revisionist history, creation “science,” and other junk academics are harming their children.
However, in our homeschooling, we use real literature, the actual constitution, field trips to science museums, aquariums, Washington DC, and other places involving real history & science, we do actual science experiments, involve math in everyday activities, and so on. We talk A LOT about current events (heh, probably true of all kossacks), and historical precedents. We talk about peoples’ perceptions, and how the media manipulates what we think. We also go out of our way to keep the kids involved in community and sports activities, ensuring they spend time with kids of all ages and diverse socio-economic & ethnic backgrounds.
In short, though we provide a different experience from the school model, we provide a great deal of depth, and (I hope) do a good job of educating our kids.
In the mean time, we happily pay our school taxes, so other kids can get a decent education, even if their parents can’t or don’t want to do what we do.
Translation: If you agree with us, you should be allowed to homeschool, but if you don’t, then, no way.
I would like to think that the problem with that line of thinking is self-explanatory, but the blogosphere continues to chip away at my idealistic naivete on a daily basis, so I will attempt an explanation.
There is a “right” way to homeschool … and there is the fundy way.
Determining one’s fitness to homeschool based on whether or not you agree with their ideology and/or religious views is wrong for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is that you might not be the one deciding the fitness criterion in the future.
I mean, do you really want that line drawn when you want to homeschool, but the people deciding the acceptability standard are not like you?
I cannot believe there are actual participants in our democratic process that are so exclusive in how they think rights should be appropriated.
News flash: There is this little thing called Freedom of Religion that actually prohibits the government from disallowing certain parents to homeschool because they hold religious view you oppose.
*Deep breaths* …Charity suddenly remembers the downside to political blogging…
What I find funny is that what mataliandy describes is exactly what many “fundy” homeschooler do, in addition to teaching young earth creation and providential history.
So now what? How are you going to weed out the “bad” ones, huh? How will you separate out those using the “fundy method” if their kids can parrot back all of the facts you want them to know, but still believe what their parents believe? What then?
Here’s the thing, despite watching hours of “real” science videos and reading “real” science books from our secular library on evolution my kids still believe that God is creator, that He created man, and that we do not share a common ancestor with apes.
Oh yeah, and I didn’t tell them that.
I have actually tried to play Devil’s advocate and open their minds a little bit on the issue. I don’t fully know how to reconcile God and science. The Bible provides an insufficient account to know exactly what happened, so I don’t pretend to know all of the answers.
The bottom line is that they can pass all of the secular science tests that you could possibly throw at them, but they will likely still emerge from their homeschool experience believing in creation.
So how are you going to stop us from infecting our children with the fundy virus?
Here’s a word of advice; ripping them out of their home and putting them back in the public school that failed to meet their needs will only drive them further away from your world view.
The thing that really peeves me about this is that there are homeschoolers out there who refuse to recognize that all parents have a right to homeschool, not just the ones that attend the local Democracy for America meet-ups.
Okay, rant over. We now resume regularly scheduled bland, homeschool mommy blogging.
You know, what amuses me is that these are the same people who don’t want us to tell them that they can’t kill their children while in the womb, yet, they want to tell us how to educate the children we chose not to murder. And they call us the hypocrites? Wow!
I enjoyed reading your posts!
Great post.
Have you read The Language of God by Francis S. Collins ( he was homeschooled)? It’s about theistic evolution.
It was nice to read something by a respected scientist (he worked on the human genome project) that belives in God.
Hello!
I found this post while doing a google blog search for homeschooling, something I enjoy reading about. As a recent homeschooler (just graduated), I wanted to say that I really appreciate this. I wish I could be so eloquent when it comes to defending homeschooling but I get too enraged by the ridiculously unintelligent things people say.
I’ll second Alasandra’s recommendation of Dr. Francis Collins’ book “Language of God” and also suggest Dr. Owen Gingerich’s “God’s Universe”. The latter one deals more with cosmology than biology so it’s a nice complement to the LOG book.
Thank you for the kind comments.
I’ll check out the books, too, thanks.
Just what is a “Christofascist”? I mean I know that nowadays the Left seems to tag every conservative as a “fascist” but I really fail to see how the 20th-century totalitarian political movement of Benito Mussolini relates to Christianity. Then again, I often fail to understand the logic of the progressive Left to begin with.
Charity,
Thanks for a carefully-thought-out post answering a criticism that is showing up all too often these days. I fear that the small number of secular homeschoolers will endanger all of our freedoms by pushing to regulate only religious homeschoolers.
I have linked to your post on my blog:
http://marcys-musings.blogspot.com/2007/07/okay-vs-fundy-homeschooling.html
Thanks again for your thoughts!
I really appreciate this post. This kind of commentary doesn’t come up enough. If we believe in freedom, we absolutely have to believe that those who do not agree with us are aloud to be free too.
We are secular homeschoolers, and it makes me cringe when I read non-homeschoolers basically say that homeschooling is bad because it’s religious. That children are being taught things that are “bad” in their point of view.
The first question I want to ask these naysayers is this: What if the system suddenly switched, and it started teaching things that they didn’t believe to be true. Would they then be so willing to give up their right to teach their kids what they believe to be true, merely because their child would be “exposed” to what’s out there? Would they still be so adamant about their point of view that schools make sure kids are getting a good education? What if all there was available were religious schools?
Public school isn’t neutral, no matter how many people say it is. There is a distinct set of truths that are taught there. People who send their kids there basically say, “we accept these truths, whatever they are”.
Fortunately, to be honest, anti-religious mentality really doesn’t happen in the homeschooling community much except for a few really noisy anti-religious socialists. (who, of course, have the right to be noisy, and speak their minds. I’ll speak my mind right back, TYVM.) I’m on a large number of secular e-lists, and I read a lot of blogs, and the vast majority of secular homeschoolers may not *like* the religious way of teaching, but fully support the right to teach that way. And most are smart enough to recognize that if any kind of homeschooling is outlawed, that everyone’s in danger. It’s either everyone is free, or nobody is.
I get the feeling that those who think it’s OK to condemn some kinds of homeschooling and have a very narrow view of what’s an OK way to educate all kids in the country, do not have a lot of experience with the homeschooling community at large, or are speaking from an insulated place. It’s easy to say something is “right” and “wrong” when we feel like we have a lot of people who will back us up, and keep us safe.
In the homeschooling community, and in education in general, we have to recognize that neither side is “right”, and that we are all in the same boat – we want to be free to educate and live in a way that makes sense to us.
In order to keep our own freedoms, we have to uphold the freedoms of those we don’t agree with. And we have to recognize our own shortcomings. Both sides can argue until the end of eternity about why they are right, and nobody will ever win the argument. Except by force.
Understanding goes a lot farther than condemning.
I am a secular homeschooler, sorta, but I am, in so many ways, just like a homeschooler who is religious in one way or another – even what people would call “fundy”. Because we are all doing what we believe is true, what we believe will make the world a better place, and basing our perspective on logic, experience and love.
What I find amusing is that most graduates of public schools don’t seem to believe in evolution…or at least not to the degree some would like. The puny little 2-4 percent homeschooling are not responsible for the fact that the US stands just above Turkey in our belief in evolution with the rest of the industrialized world above us.
People are getting entirely too worried about what is going on inside of children’s brains. It is sort of frightening.
This needed to be said, and was a great read!! Thanks!
Treva
thinkaware.blogspot.com