Barely literate? How Christian fundamentalist homeschooling hurts kids

[phands]

The article is pretty long, but interesting. Not too surprisingly, their "education" is about turning out good but ignorant little xtian robots, not educated, fully functional human beings. And of course, ignorant people are easier to control.

[FONT=&quot]My interest in homeschooling was first sparked nearly 20 years ago, when I was a socially awkward adolescent with a chaotic family life. I became close to a conservative Christian homeschooling family that seemed perfect in every way. Through my connection to this family, I was introduced to a whole world of conservative Christian homeschoolers, some of whom we would now consider “Quiverfull” families: homeschooling conservatives who eschew any form of family planning and choose instead to “trust God” with matters related to procreation.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Though I fell out of touch with my homeschooled friends as we grew older, a few years ago, I reconnected with a few ex-Quiverfull peers on a new support blog called No Longer Quivering. Poring over their stories, I was shocked to find so many tales of gross educational neglect. I don’t merely mean that they had received what I now view as an overly politicized education with huge gaps, for example, in American history, evolution or sexuality. Rather, what disturbed me were the many stories about homeschoolers who were barely literate when they graduated, or whose math and science education had never extended much past middle school.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Take Vyckie Garrison, an ex-Quiverfull mother of seven who, in 2008, enrolled her six school-age children in public school after 18 years of teaching them at home. Garrison, who started the No Longer Quivering blog, says her near-constant pregnancies – which tended to result either in miscarriages or life-threatening deliveries – took a toll on her body and depleted her energy. She wasn’t able to devote enough time and energy to homeschooling to ensure a quality education for each child. And she says the lack of regulation in Nebraska, where the family lived, “allowed us to get away with some really shoddy homeschooling for a lot of years.”[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]“I’ll admit it,” she confesses. “Because I was so overwhelmed with my life… It was a real struggle to do the basics, so it didn’t take long for my kids to fall far behind. One of my daughters could not read at 11 years old.”[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]At the time, Garrison was taking parenting advice from Quiverfull leaders who deemphasized academic achievement in favor of family values. She remembers one Quiverfull leader saying, “If they can do mathematics perfectly but they have no morals, you have failed them.”[/FONT]

Yet more true xtian nastiness.

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/08/barely-literate-christian-fundamentalist-homeschooling-hurts-kids/

 

[phands]

Here are 33 jaw-droppingly stupid multiple-choice test questions used by Christian homeschoolers

rather than start a new thread on just this, here's some examples of why fundie homeschooling is preposterous...

Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) is a fundamentalist curriculum founded in Texas in 1970. It started as a program for private Christian day schools, but it has been hugely successful among conservative home schoolers. Today, ACE claims it is used in “6,000 schools and thousands of home educators in over 140 countries.” It’s also used in government-funded voucher programs in several US states.

ACE has always taken its fundamentalism very seriously. In his 1979 book Rebirth of Our Nation ACE’s founder Donald Howard wrote, “Fundamentalism is intellectually sound. It has always prevailed in periods of great intellectual enlightenment. It is the only sound an logical solution to the existence of the universe… I am a fundamentalist. If I can be any more fundamental than fundamental, that is what I want to be.” Today, ACE views imparting these fundamental beliefs into children as its primary purpose.


Howard later wrote “We do not build Christian schools primarily to give a child the best education nor to teach him how to make a good living. Teaching him how to live and to love and serve God are our primary tasks.”

He wasn’t kidding.


I went to an ACE school for almost four years. By the time I left, I was certain that it was against God’s will for governments to provide healthcare, evolution was a conspiracy to destroy Christianity, parents were morally required to spank their children, and science could prove that homosexuality was wrong. But worst of all was the feeling uneducated; I still struggle with self-conscious fears about gaps in my learning. ACE workbooks consist of simplistic fill-in-the-blank and multiple choice questions. And these questions are often hilariously, spectacularly bad.


4th grade (9-10 years old)

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But no special women, obviously.

And this is what that shithead De Vos wants us all to pay for. There are many more questions in the full article... And this is wilful lying to kids by adults....that good old xtian hypocrisy knows no limits.

 

[ideologyhunter]

You get kids who are simply steeped in the family obsessions -- they become twice as weird as their parents in a lot of cases, especially if their parents went to public school and at least got a little of, y'now, the corruption of the outside world.

 

[steve_bank]

I was once asked by a Christian family I knew to be a judge at a regional Christian homeschooler debate tournament. I expect they thought I'd come to Jesus. Winners went on to a national tournament competing for scholarships.

It was a 4 day affair with around 50 high school aged kids. There were two formats. One was making an argument in front of several judges who wrote a critique and graded the performance. The other was a two person pro con debate.

The kids were well read, smart, and articulate. Of course theology was woven into all of it, but I was impressed.

The patriarch of the family went to a small Christian college in the 70s and started a software company that made him a lot of money. He had an extensive library across the theist and general literature/philosophy spectrum.

Do not underestimate Christians as stupid. The homeschooled daughter of the family was offered a scholarship to the University Of Washington. She opted for Billy Graham's alma mater.

There is access to extensive online education. The downside of any homeschooling is missing the diversity of thought.

 

[phands]

I try to distinguish between stupid and ignorant. These kids may or may not be stupid....but they are ignorant because they get no real education. And given where they are, and their parents' sense of morals, I would bet they don't get access to many web sites that aren't lies from xtians.

 

[steve_bank]

I try to distinguish between stupid and ignorant. These kids may or may not be stupid....but they are ignorant because they get no real education. And given where they are, and their parents' sense of morals, I would bet they don't get access to many web sites that aren't lies from xtians.

Honestly, do you think kids in public schools these days are not being indocytinated into a narrow social ideology? Another thread...