Home-schooling and brainwashing
Don’t get me wrong; I’m an enthusiastic supporter of home education if done properly. However, the current home-schooling movement has been hijacked by Christian fundamentalists who wish to brainwash their children with intolerance and bigotry. It’s one thing to take your child out of school to allow them to learn on their own, but it’s another to take your child from one form of brainwashing to another. A lot of parents see their home-schooled children as ‘property’ to protect from the ‘evil influences’ of the ‘world’, not free agents who are capable of learning on their own. This sort of home-schooling is just as inimical to youth rights as standard public schooling is. It’s the same ‘fill the child with bullshit’ mentality, even though it’s just a different type of bullshit. I’ve seen some of these fundamentalist Christian home-schooling curricula and programmes, especially since my younger sister in fifth grade is home-schooled and is being taught a lot of this stuff. The worldview espoused is obviously fundamentalist-Christian, one of the Bible courses outright insults atheists, and they are taught that Christianity is the only acceptable religion. Hyper-patriotism is taught by some programmes as well. Whatever happened to allowing people to discover religion for themselves? Some of the lessons are patronising. There is a strong support for Noah Webster, who was one of the first people to completely ravage the English language. He was a disagreeable preacher who created a censored dictionary that contained nothing that wasn’t Christian, and he took part in chopping up British words arbitrarily, obscuring their etymology or taking away their mostly French-derived beauty. Students are spoonfed conservative politics and are taught to obey anyone who has imposed their authority upon them unless they are not Christians. I have no problems with Christianity or home-schooling, by the way. I simply have a problem with brainwashing.
That is scary. If these kids don’t end up just as closed-minded as their parents, they’ll go totally other end of the spectrum and be anti-religion, anti-God, and such since they were so repelled by having it shoved down their throats their whole lives. Both results yield people unable to find or reject religion on their own, because some stronger more ingrained force will then have taken over. It’s sad.
Luckily, I’ve known some Christian home-schoolers who were doing anything but trying to force doctrine down their kids’ throats. Very intelligent, willing to learn, open-minded kids.:)
Comment by SciVille — 22 August, 2005 @ 10:16 pm
I know. I only had four years of Christian indoctrination (sans home-schooling) and I completely rebelled against it, coming to my current beliefs. Fortunately, I have learnt to separate fundamentalism from Christianity in general, so I don’t have a problem with Christians per se, just fundamentalists. Anyway, I can tell by what my sister is being fed that she’ll end up as closed-minded as my parents. I can feel it already. I was open-minded from an early age, and she was more hesitant. Of course, she hasn’t hit that rebellion stage yet when she might suddenly get tired of having that shit stuffed down her throat. Right now, she’s happy with it though…yuck.
Anyway, I’m glad you’ve met some good Christian home-schoolers. All the ones I know are pretty indoctrinated though except for one family, and their mom put them back into public school!
Comment by Jess Caralize — 22 August, 2005 @ 10:29 pm
“There is a strong support for Noah Webster, who was one of the first people to completely ravage the English language. He was a disagreeable preacher who created a censored dictionary that contained nothing that wasn’t Christian, and he took part in chopping up British words arbitrarily, obscuring their etymology or taking away their mostly French-derived beauty. ”
That is hilarious!
Of course you have to keep in mind that he was one of the first people to attempt a standardiz/sation of the English language, not too bad of an achievement.
My parents are Christian. I’m being homeschooled.
Of course my parents aren’t fundies and the reason I’m being homeschooled is so I can legally attend college without having high school in the way, but….
Your poor sister. I take it you’ve been taking advantage of every opportunity to brainwash her in your open-minded, think-for-yourself way? (And if not, get cracking!)
Although Mean Girls was for the large part stupid, the opening images of “the typical homeschooler” cracked me up.
Comment by Gwen — 6 September, 2005 @ 12:25 am
Yeah, I had a friend who was home-schooled in this manner. Amusingly enough, I remember him once telling me all about Noah Webster! Maybe he used the same program you got that from, LOL.
Comment by Anduwaithe — 9 September, 2005 @ 4:42 am
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Comment by testanchor851 — 9 November, 2005 @ 12:08 am
Hasn’t it occurred to you that people have different ideas about what constitutes ” intolerance and bigotry?”
And that some people would “intolerance and bigotry” toward conservative Christians in your views?
Comment by John McAdams — 26 December, 2005 @ 10:27 pm
Hasn’t it occurred to you that people have different ideas about what constitutes ” intolerance and bigotry?”
And that some people would “intolerance and bigotry” toward conservative Christians in your views?
Comment by John McAdams — 26 December, 2005 @ 10:27 pm
Good points. It almost makes me cringe a bit to say “we’re homeschoolers” these days, because you get lumped with those folks. Children are not property, they are individuals with rights…
Ren
learninginfreedom.com
Comment by Ren Allen — 11 January, 2006 @ 1:09 am
…I get my own domain and start writing entries there, and people still come around here. All right, to the conservative Christian who has commented here, I don’t have ANY BIGOTRY towards you. I just think that some people preach intolerance.
Comment by Jess Caralize — 13 January, 2006 @ 9:16 am
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