Smrt Lernins

I’m having one of those days where I want to reach through my screen and throttle people on the homeschooling forums. The hypocrisy from the religious homeschoolers towards the secular homeschoolers invokes The Slappening.

We secular homeschoolers are to keep our mouths shut and sit on our fingers. We are never to offer any thoughts on the efficacy or rigor of a curriculum. We are never to voice our concerns about the injection of religious content into materials, especially those that appear to be touted as secular. We are never to comment on a thread labeled “CC” (Christian content) or any thread that might in any way though on any topics pertaining to religion in any way under any circumstances…including evolution, which we just made up because we hate God, anyway. We must steer away from these places, where our opinions are not wanted. We can’t put “secular” in a post title as a warning that the post contains nothing for religious homeschoolers — the very notion is offensive and invites plenty of unwanted, unneeded criticism. Any mockery from secular homeschoolers of content we find ludicrous (literal 6 day, 24-hour creation of a 5000 year old Earth, anyone?) is “mean.” We must be accepting, even praising, of their “opinions” about things. You know, I think some of those “opinions” are pretty damn ridiculous, but I don’t leap all over their “CC” posts and say that — I keep it where it belongs, in secular posts or “what do you think” posts.

Religious homeschoolers, on the other hand, can say anything they want to us. They have no qualms in invading a secular thread to criticize its content. They have no problems dropping a snarky little remarkinto a thread of secular content…but we’d be reamed if we did the same. A secular homeschooler can’t call a creationist ignorant, but a religious homeschooler is perfectly fine with calling someone who believes in actual evidence-based science ignorant, arrogant, or ungodly. Sorry, unGodly. Any mockery (though of course, “Christians” like them would never mock…they’re just “being helpful”) of our educational content is because they are studying the One True Curricula that God Adores Best and it Just So Rigorous (despite having absolutely no basis in evidence) and ur doin it wrong. We have “opinions” and they have “truth” or, God save us, capital T “Truth.”

I could post until the end of days about how to make my child’s curricula more Godly or how to encourage more modesty, chastity, or religious devotion — that’s perfectly acceptable, no matter how many people disagree with that. If I post about how to make my child’s curricula more secular or how to encourage my child to question matters of faith instead of following them blindly, to avoid bigotry and hatred towards people who are LGBT, how to be strong and independent (especially if they’re girls)…well, that post should be completely torn to shreds by the “Godly” set.

I know not all religious homeschoolers are like this — most probably aren’t. I know not all Christians are like this — most probably aren’t. The vocal minority, however, makes it difficult to avoid painting them all with the same brush. After all, if they didn’t agree with it, why wouldn’t they speak up? Why wouldn’t they say, “Let’s respect this person’s right to believe differently or even to disbelieve” or “This post was labeled ’secular content’ so I don’t think our pro-religion input is needed here” when their more aggressive, extreme brethren (sistren?) start ruffling the secs? Speak up so we know we’re not alone and that it’s not about religious vs. secular, but a small handful of hypocrites vs. the rest of us.

Hypocrisy isn’t an attractive color on anyone and no amount of “Godliness” is going to make it any more flattering.