Worried about religious teachings in texts, religious books and not

[Janeway]

Ironic, because it always seemed to me that the lower grades of Apologia science were preachier than the upper grades.  We've enjoyed anything we've used so far by Jay Wile.

 

As far as religious texts go, I have a hard time imagining any liberal protestant turning to Abeka of BJU for a religious text.  Were you considering doing that?

 

no.

[Carrie12345]

When we did the application process, I purposefully listed that we had avoided any science book that was intermingled with religion.  In our case, the university in question is strongly anti-YEC, and assumes all homeschoolers are YEC.  While they will admit YEC people in their arts faculty, they do not admit them in the science faculty. So I made a point of distancing ourselves from this image of homeschoolers they had.  All our science books were those used by Kolbe Academy. 

 

If you're not planning on taking the online classes, then you can have an entirely secular approach to science - the way science should be.

 

That is an interesting point.  One or both of my dds may wind up going into the sciences, and I haven't given any thought to what admissions might assume about our content, especially since *I know it's all from a Big Bang, evolutionary, secular foundation.  With your post in mind, I think I'll be more deliberate in my course descriptions. So, thanks!

[AimeeM]

I am very concerned about Gay bashing, homophobia, and general "my religion is the one true religion." I am actually very worried about any sort of Catholic perspective. I am unsure if I am violating a TOS by admitting that. Evolution is such a small concern compared to general bashing on anyone who is not their religion. I know I have read that BJU and Apologia claim that the only path to God is the one true path, something to the effect of having to be that religion. And I have seen that teaching at Catholic schools too, but am not familiar with Kolbe or Seton to if they would do it. 

If you use something from a religious company, it is going to have their perspective. In general, one has a faith system because they believe it is the "one true way" - if they didn't, owning it wouldn't make much sense.

Simply put, if it concerns you, use secular texts or pre-read everything before your child does.

[Haiku]

Do colleges typically ask for book lists?

Both of my friends whose kids got into good schools with merit aid provided book lists, and both reported receiving positive feedback on their transcripts/course descriptions/book lists.

[Valley Girl]

We initially used Abeka because that's what my kids' school used--and I was completely unprepared to homeschool and didn't really know what was in the curriculum. We stopped using it a year or so later as I became more familiar with the texts. I was offended by what I viewed as anti-Catholic and anti-science writing, and didn't want to expose the kids to it any further. (Plus the kids were annoyed by the religion-in-everything approach.) The co-op we go to now for science uses Apologia, but we just skip over the religious parts. I instructed DS to phrase things as "The author says...." rather than saying "It is..." It helps that we've used secular texts for biology and other subjects at home.

[Janeway]

If you use something from a religious company, it is going to have their perspective. In general, one has a faith system because they believe it is the "one true way" - if they didn't, owning it wouldn't make much sense.

Simply put, if it concerns you, use secular texts or pre-read everything before your child does.

Actually, this is not true. I know the Catholic church teaches that as does the Baptist and some others, but the Lutheran one does not. Just like I am drinking coffee this morning. I do not think it is the only path to start the day. Many religions recognize that their way is not the only way.

[dhudson]

Do you want to use curriculum from a certain religious perspective? If you would rather use secular, then use secular. If you are worried that colleges won't accept "religious" materials and want to use certain Christian based materials, then we found it not to be a problem. My ds got into selective schools, elite programs and received elite scholarships while using very Christian materials. We also gave our ds credit for Old Testament Survey, New Testament Survey, World Religions and Philosophy. We found that our ds' test scores, outside interests and achievements held a lot more weight than whether we used overtly Christian materials.

 

I think it depends more on whether you want to use Christian materials or not. I do think it's vitally important to use rigorous materials in LA and math, and make sure your child has several rigorous lab sciences and an outside class or two.