Homeschooling without God (Atlantic article)

[Haiku]

I saw this article on FB and read it. It was a really terrible article. It wasn't about secular homeschoolers and their struggles to find secular groups and curricula. It was about one mom homeschooling one teenager (and apparently not for very long) and focused on how this one kid is anti-religious. It portrayed secular homeschooling as anti-religious homeschooling and gave the impression that anti-religion is the focus of secular homeschoolers rather than recognizing secular homeschooling as simply non-religious homeschooling. The article was not very cohesive and chose to quote probably THE most right-wing, fundie religious "homeschooling" organization out there.

 

I usually like articles in The Atlantic, but this was awful.

[Lady Florida.]

I saw this article on FB and read it. It was a really terrible article. It wasn't about secular homeschoolers and their struggles to find secular groups and curricula. It was about one mom homeschooling one teenager (and apparently not for very long) and focused on how this one kid is anti-religious. It portrayed secular homeschooling as anti-religious homeschooling and gave the impression that anti-religion is the focus of secular homeschoolers rather than recognizing secular homeschooling as simply non-religious homeschooling. The article was not very cohesive and chose to quote probably THE most right-wing, fundie religious "homeschooling" organization out there.

 

I usually like articles in The Atlantic, but this was awful.

 

As an anti-religious homeschooler it's nice to see that there are others out there like myself. As the mom said (you do know she's reading and responding to this thread right?) there were many issues. Also, as often happens with an article that features real people, there were misquotes and misrepresentations as well as not getting the whole story into the final article.

 

As an anti-religious homeschooler, I thought it was quite refreshing to hear from an anti-religious homeschooled kid. It's not like we're often allowed to express ourselves as 1. homeschoolers and 2. people who think religion is a load of bunk. 

 

I spend my homeschool life tip-toeing around/being careful of/responding to the religious and frankly, it gets tedious. And hey, why not profile that sort of kid ? He's just as much a secular homeschooler as a Christian kid whose parents believe in keeping religion and education separate. 

 

I agree the article wasn't super well written. How the journo missed the joke about South Park I do not know. 

 

Yes, and how many religious homeschooers were careful enough to tip-toe around homeschoolers like us? I won't say none because there are some, but it's heavily skewed against us. We have to keep our mouths shut and tip-toe. They get to tell a six year old he's gong to hell because his parents let him watch Harry Potter.

[Slojo]

Not a great article for people in the know, but the plus side is, it will help convince my mom I'm not the only secular homeschooler in the world.

 

Yeah, I didn't think the article was particularly forward thinking in its presentation of homeschooling (but I'm sure I've now read every article that was ever written about homeschooling by now. The general public - this is probably their first or second article - so I guess it served its purpose to expose folks.

 

I'm surprised to hear that someone is struggling to find secular materials. We use almost all secular materials and I'm a Christian. 

Me too, but I guess it depends on what people think of as materials. I am pretty comfortable going with "non-curriculum" materials -- books, kits, and figuring out how to incorporate them into a "curriculum." So maybe that's why there was less struggle. 

 

So if word gets out to them that some of us are actually secular, that would be a good thing.

 

It's not difficult to homeschool without God. I do all the other stuff without God, why would homeschool be different ?

 

It has in the past been difficult to homeschool without God in my homeschool community; thankfully, as it gets larger it gets more diverse and there are a lot more secular families to hang out with and share resources with.

This makes sense to me. There is nothing inherently religious about not signing your kid up to go to school. I guess from this perspective, it's nice to have homeschooling "demystified." 

 

Secular materials are easy to find. But something like well organized secular high school science set up so I didn't have hours of prep, schedule creation, and hoop jumping does not exist. Apologia would never work here and I would give my left arm for something like that.

Yes, I'm a bit "scurred" about HS science because there don't seem to be as many prepared options that are secular.

 

We're secular homeschoolers and we've had difficulty finding secular curricula that works for us. 

For example - we use Christian math, because it's what works best for us. I started off with a much more firm mindset that we were only going to use secular materials. I don't have that mindset any longer - I just want to use what works. I also have no desire to keep religion from my children - my beliefs don't have to be theirs. 

 

The only subject that I stand firm on is science. 

May I ask a question - what is "Christian math?" Is it just that the word problems have Christian references? Or do you really have to derive an answer for how Jesus divided five loaves and two fishes and came out with quotient larger than either of dividend or the divisor (just kidding)? Actually, I don't understand why one needs a "Christian math" curriculum -- the "Christian" part, not the "math" part. Is there really something else other than the use of biblical references in the word problems that I'm not getting. I ask this as a Christian (but I guess not the type of Christian most homeschool stuff is being marketed to)

[Haiku]

As the mom said (you do know she's reading and responding to this thread right?) there were many issues.

No, I didn't know that. But my comments were not about her or her son. They were about the quality of the article, which I believe was poor. In fact, I feel it is such a poorly written article that I'm surprised The Atlantic published it.

 

I have no problem with people being anti-religious. But I don't feel that this article really addressed what it purported to address and instead focused on something different.

[Guest]

I thinkt hat was mentioned in the article, but yes, so true. And many of us who are religious are not the "right kind" of religious for much of the material published. Looking at you, Apologia and Notgrass and Sonlight! (which I still use, sigh, but drives me crazy)

And some of us are the 'right' kind of religious and still use zero religious homeschooling materials, and homeschool for primarily academic and general worldview reasons, not religion. That's probably why I hang around here as much as I do :lol:

[Bluegoat]

It seems to me there is a bit of a difference in saying - there are secular materials for this topic, but we use a religious one because it's methodology or presentation seems to work best for us.

 

I am not sure I would say that is really about lack of secular options.  It's just one of those instances where nothing happens to fit your exact needs, so you have to compromise.  Different products will have different approaches, and it would seem odd for every religious publisher of, say, math texts to have some kind of equivalent non-religious version.

 

Anyway, following this discussion has lead me to think secular may not actually be a good word to use in this context.  It is too removed from the meaning of the word and it makes it a little odd.  Maybe - "not tied to a particular institutional religion" would be better.

[Roadrunner]

I find it difficult to find secular science materials targeting homeschoolers. I need reasonably priced teacher materials with solutions and lesson plans not intended for the classroom. So much out there that's secular is intended for schools and often expensive with ton of components that are hard to fit together. CPO science is a good example.

I also wish we had more secular options for logic curriculum as well as secular version of Wilson Hill academy for lit classes that don't assume religious worldview. But those are not musts, just pointing out that options are definately more numerous for Christian homeschoolers.

[Bluegoat]

It's been really the past 10 to maybe 15 years that the homeschool curricula for homeschoolers have really exploded, I'd say. Before that, everyone was pretty much using a DIY approach. I think during that time, there was originally a tendency for non-religious homeschoolers to tend more to unschooling - that was very much the case here and I know it was similar in other places. 

 

I think that is less true now - more people are looking for something similar to a laid out, non-religious curriculum.  So, I suspect there will be more options coming out.  What may be tricky is figuring out what that demographic wants - why are they not satisfied with public school offerings?  I wonder how much diversity there is from that perspective within that group?  Anyway - if there are enough people looking, I am sure the stuff will become available.

 

Science does seem to be a real problem.  That being said, I am not sure I think most of the popular religious programs are even that great, totally apart from their religious perspective. It may be a more universal problem with high school and middle school level science at home.