Smrt Lernins

I think there’s sometimes a misconception that because one self-identifies as a “secular homeschooler,” that means one is not religious or does not believe in God. While that’s certainly true for some secular homeschoolers, I know I’m not alone in believing that there is some greater power out there. The big difference between me and a religious homeschooler is that I don’t feel the need to interject my spiritual beliefs into my educational curricula.

I don’t, for example, think God has a place in a science class, because a belief in God is just that, a belief. It’s not a scientific theory. There is no evidence backing up the existence of God. I don’t think this means God doesn’t exist. I just think it means that God’s existence, being unquantifiable, doesn’t belong in a science text along with chemistry, geology, physics, and biology. Likewise, I don’t want God to make an appearance in a math book. I don’t want history filtered through the perspective of religious (any religion) bias. I don’t want every literature example to be Biblical or derived from some other religious or religiously-inspired source. I don’t want handwriting workbooks that ask my son to copy Bible verses to perfect his cursive. God is in my heart and I believe God is part of everything…and that’s enough for me and my child. I can appreciate the awesome subtlety of God; I don’t need the pervasive blatancy of religion in my homeschool curricula.

Though I believe in God and consider myself at least a somewhat spiritual person, I am also, at my very core Secularist. I want my government and my education free from the constant, pressing influence of religion. Religious dogma interferes with education. It discourages the pursuit of evidence-based knowledge. Educating children only through religion, or making religion a major part of everything they learn, hobbles them. It limits their ability to think abstractly and creatively. It closes their minds to other perspectives. Because they have been discouraged from basing their knowledge on fact, they are disadvantaged when it comes to making judicious decisions based on facts they are presented. They have been told what to believe, but not how to come to beliefs through evidence or experience.

I want my children to believe in God. I really do. I think that belief in some sort of divine presence or greater universal force provides a lot of comfort and joy in life. I think spiritual mysteries are worth exploring. I think religious/spiritual rituals and ceremonies have a lot of value, both for individuals and for cultures. I just don’t feel the need to dictate these things to my children, to inundate their every subject with my beliefs until they can’t separate education from religion. I will talk to them about God when it’s relevant, not at every turn, at every waking moment. I won’t insidiously slip bits of religious doctrine into subjects that don’t call for a religious perspective.

In the end, secular homeschooling is about keeping the educational focus on education, not religious doctrine or spiritual ephemera. You can be a believer and homeschool secularly. You can even believe devoutly and homeschool secularly. If what you believe is right and good, and you model your devotion in your life through word and deed, your child will come around to it, even if you don’t teach her Jesus Math, Church-Tinted History, and Creation Science That Actually Lacks Any Real Science. Didn’t God give us brains so that we could use them?

I leave you with this taken-slightly-out-of-greater-context quote from Errett Bishiop (1967), which also addresses last week’s post about Christian mathematics curricula : “Mathematics belongs to man, not to God [...] If God has mathematics of his own that needs to be done, let him do it himself.”

Posted a bit late, due to a cranky Babypie who wouldn’t stay asleep to let me finish this post!