Smrt Lernins

I love it when I can start my Secular Thursday off with a story about dinosaurs. Scientists have discovered multiple 243 million year old Asilisaurus skeletons*, enough to assemble a complete skeleton. If you want to get technical, this Labrador-sized creature (which lived during the middle Triassic period) is a silesaur, another member of the clade dinosauriform, so more like a cousin to the guys we call dinosaurs. Still, dinosaurs and silesaurs existed simultaneously, springing from a common ancestor, so if silesaurs existed earlier than originally thought (by about 10 million years, by scientist’s estimations), their dinosaur cousins likely did, as well.

Now, “clade” is a fun word. It refers to a branch on the tree of life and includes the ancestor and all of its descendants. Cladistics is one way of studying/classifying the diversification of life of Earth through looking at evolutionary relation. The diagram demonstrating cladistics is called a cladogram, and it’s pretty nifty-keen in that it can show the origins and derivations of pretty much everything, or at least everything related, neatly laid out so that you can see what came likely from where (or who) based on shared derived characteristics.

Cladograms don’t indicate how much time has passed, just the relation between species, which makes it a useful tool in demonstrating evolutionary concepts to children. Explaining evolution to (especially younger) children can be tricky, in my experience, because children’s understanding of time is fairly limited. Trying to conceptualize time relations between species and understand tiny changes over millions of years is confusing to a kid who still think of his years in halves. Cladograms just show the probable order of speciation, like a family tree, which kids don’t seem to have a problem understanding.

If you want to look at something really cool (though now out of date, because science…always updating and changing as we develop better tools and find more clues!), you should take a look at this dinosaur cladogram completed in 2001. The way this tool can be useful for your kids isn’t because it has an up-to-date degree of accuracy (too many discoveries sticking other creatures in between the ones list), but because it does provide an interesting visual way to track how creatures change over time. The simple dino silhouettes will probably much a lot more sense that a text-only “family tree” of evolution, plus, what kid doesn’t love dinosaurs (probably some kids, but mine aren’t among them)?

If you’d like to read more about the Asilisaurus, you might enjoy one of the articles from Discover magazine or Wired. I’m sure you want to read more about this herbivorous lap dog of the Triassic period!

Nice looking guy, isn’t he?

*Sterling J. Nesbitt, Christian A. Sidor, Randall B. Irmis, Kenneth D. Angielczyk, Roger M. H. Smith & Linda A. Tsuji. “Ecologically distinct dinosaurian sister group shows early diversification of Ornithodira” Nature 464, 95-98 (4 March 2010) | doi:10.1038/nature08718; Received 16 September 2009; Accepted 1 December 2009

Mention homeschooling in the wrong company and you’re bound to get an earfull about all the potential damage your irresponsible choice is doing to your children, particularly their “socialization” and their ability to ever, ever get into a college that isn’t named after a guy called Bob. Some will share cautionary tales of a homeschooler that their cousin once knew who wasn’t able to do 8th grade math upon graduation or who wept copiously when spoken to by strange children on the playground. Some will be rude enough to make negative statements about homeschooling in front of your homeschooled children.

I will ignore the stunning fact that no one even asked these people, who are clearly ignorant about what homeschooling actually entails, for their input, advice, or predictions for the (clearly hopeless) future of our children, and instead ponder what it is, exactly, about homeschooling that makes it so offensive. I’ve come up with a few possible reasons why someone might feel threatened by homeschooling:

1. Assumptions about religious motivation — Some homeschool detractors seem to think all homeschoolers are doing it for (extreme and/or fundamentalist) religious reasons and assume that our choice to homeschool means that we don’t want to teach our children about evolution, sex education, or extra-Biblical literature. With this assumption often comes comments on our family’s size and dynamics, since we’re probably also Quiverfullers who beat our kids with flexible PVC pipes. People with these assumptions view homeschoolers as religious nuts who are afraid that the government is trying to brainwash children into believing in global warming and pre-marital dating. They may or may not have opinions on secular homeschooling, or even know it exists, so (if you don’t have the time or energy to explain that many religiously-motivated homeschoolers also have a very rigorous, classical curriculum that may include those supposedly verboten subjects) you may be able to quickly quiet the naysayer by explaining that your homeschooling curricula is secular.

2. Assumptions about parenting (ie. “Special Snowflake Syndrome”) — Some homeschool detractors believe that non-religious parents who choose to homeschool do so because they believe their children are too “special” (imagine a snide tone on that word) to follow the rules/policies of the public school classroom. With this assumption comes comments about how we think our children can never do any wrong, how we blame every problem on an allergy or other condition, or that “every homeschooler thinks her kid is gifted.” People with these assumptions view homeschoolers as having babied, out of control children who think everything must always be tailored to suit their “special” whims and can’t handle even simple tasks without parental help or oversight. There isn’t any real way to clear up this misconception in a stranger, especially if your kids are flipping out in a particularly slow checkout line, but someone who spends any length of time around you and your children will probably start reassessing these assumptions’ validity.

3. Assumptions about socialization — Some homeschool detractors are concerned that homeschooled children are not offered enough (or the “right”) opportunities for socialization and will therefor be unable to adequately function in an environment outside of their own family. With this assumption comes a tendency to blame any shyness or social awkwardness on the homeschooling, rather than the personality of the child, and to make dire proclamations about the child’s potential for handling college or the “real world.” People with these assumptions view homeschoolers as insular and isolated. This concern is easily addresses by explaining the many social (and legal) support networks, co-ops, and resources available to homeschooling families to ensure myriad opportunities for socialization.

4. Assumptions about rigors of homeschool curricula — Some homeschool detractors believe that not being held to the identical grade standards of the public schools results in homeschooling parents providing an inadequate amount of instruction and setting low standards for their children. With this assumption comes commentary on that one homeschooling family their aunt knew whose kids could barely read in the 10th grade and were never, ever able to get into college due to their poor education. You know, that family. People with these assumptions often have a misconception that secular homeschooling is synonymous with unschooling, that homeschooling parents don’t make the choice to homeschool in order give their children a more rigorous education, and that homeschooling is somehow the “easy road” (the “wow, I wish I didn’t have to get the kids up for school every morning! It must be nice to be able to sleep in every day” comments). You’ve got two options here: the catty response (“Oh, your son is only just starting long division? We did that two years ago and have moved on to algebra.”) or the civil response (“I’m glad that being allowed to set our own standards means we can set them as high as we’d like.”) I’d recommend thinking the former, but speaking the latter.

5. Assumption that by choosing to homeschool your child(ren), you are actually making commentary on their educational choices for their child(ren) — Most controversies boil down to “if you do it differently than I do, you’re saying my way is bad, so I must defensively point out that your way is bad.” Some homeschool detractors seem quite certain that your choice to homeschool your own children means you think anyone who doesn’t homeschool their children is doing it “wrong.” With this assumption comes comments about all of the above assumptions, because they’ll blame their defensiveness on anything but what it actually is, the fear of someone doing something differently from how they’re doing it. People with this assumption don’t care what studies or data show about the efficacy of homeschooling, how delightfully well-behaved and well-adjusted your children are, or how well your children perform academically — they know homeschooling is wrong, because they aren’t doing it, and the choices they make are always “right.” Don’t even try to reason with people making this assumption; just tell them you’re glad that public/private/military school is working out so well for them and move on with your day.

The second in our Secular Thursday series of secular homeschooling mom archetypes, The Organized Mom, has been guest authored by my own favorite Organized Mom, Patchfire of A Little Rebellion:

When Smrt Mama was preparing for this, her first year of homeschooling, I probably overshared my own preparations. Needing to balance the needs of two students and a toddler too, I was even more organized than ever before. I think it was the color-coded schedules that finally did her in. The result was being used loosely as a model for the Organized Mom archetype. Now Smrt Mama’s asked me to pontificate for a bit on the strengths and weakness of Organized Mom.

Here’s a quick refresher on the Organized Mom archetype, pulled from Smrt Mama’s original post on the topic:

* The Organized Mom – She is better at this than you will ever be. If you’re comparing yourself to other homeschoolers, just go ahead and quit before you get around to comparing yourself to her. You might even consider flinging yourself on your sword. She has her days scheduled to the color-coded minute and her children obey them perfectly. She researched her curricula extensively and is most likely following a Classical model. She’s already finished planning her curriculum for next year. Her children are enrolled in enrichment programs and are now very enriched and can Appreciate (with a capital A) art and music. Her motto: “It’s never too early to start looking at colleges.”

Her strengths are many. Organizing, knowledge, vision, and confidence stand out amongst them. There are weakness there, too – overscheduling, trying to do too many books and too many curricula, and above all, the possibility of arrogance. Organized Mom doesn’t know how not to be organized, though, so the key is mitigating the weaknesses.

Strengths: The obvious is first: organization. Organized Mom has a system for computer files, pieces of paper, and everything in between. Often blessed with a good memory (or a good back-up system!), Organized Mom has a place for many things, even if it’s not immediately obvious. She extends this organization onto her time, with an almost eerie ability to coordinate errands, enrichment activities, exercise, and other time demands in order to maximize efficiency. The color-coded schedule? Merely a written diagram of what’s inside her brain.
Weakness: Kids need time to play freely. They need downtime, and some spontaneity, too.
Solution: Be sure that the color-coded schedule allows that time for free play and downtime. The kids will come to look forward to it, and will also know no screen time is allowed during it. Also, don’t extend the color-coded schedules too far. Scheduling the schoolwork: good. Scheduling your Saturday down to fifteen-minute intervals? Bad. Sometimes a block of time would be better served by a checklist than a schedule, and other times, the schedule kept 95% of the time should enable Organized Mom to break the schedule entirely.

Weakness: Armed with her knowledge of curriculum, Organized Mom wants to use the best resources. All of them.
Weakness: In an attempt to play to her personal subject strengths as well as shore up her personal weaknesses, Organized Mom can easily unbalance her children’s curriculum. Afraid of shortchanging them, their enrichment activities may end up concentrated in just one or two areas.
Strength: Organized Mom knows about lots of good resources, and can change course for various children, or offer suggestions for other homeschoolers.
Strength:Organized Mom knows where her homeschool is going. She may have a formal vision statement written, or a list detailing what a high school graduate should know. She’s looking into the future, and planning with the end in mind.
Solution: Use that vision statement! Organized Mom sometimes needs to step back and look at the big picture when she’s caught up in the minutiae. Often, simply picture where a certain program or curriculum fits (or doesn’t!) in the overall plan will help her make a good decision. Organized Mom is also a perfect choice for running (or at least attending religiously) a homeschool moms’ night out or curriculum sharing night. With her knowledge of various curricula, she may know just the program for Suzy Neighbor’s advanced ten year old, or Kelly NextTownOver’s budding reader. She’s also unafraid to change programs for the needs of her different students. One child may thrive with one approach, and the next another. Luckily, she knows the ins and outs of many, and can meet her children’s needs accordingly.

Strength/Weakness: Organized Mom is confident. She has a plan and a vision, and knows what to use to achieve it. If she were inclined to make comparisons with other homeschoolers in the beginning, she’s stopped after just a year or two, or maybe less. Even when there are doubters, she just tunes them out. Think Rachel Berry on Glee singing “Don’t Rain on My Parade.” There can be a fine line between confidence and arrogance, however, and one of her biggest strengths (confidence) can all too easily become a big weakness (arrogance).
Solution:The phrases “in my opinion” and “in my experience” can help mitigate the occasions when she steps close to the line. Organized Mom must still be careful to gauge people’s reactions, whether online or in person. If she’s not skilled in reading people, even more caution may be required. She shouldn’t let fear of alienation through arrogance keep her from sharing what she knows and has learned, however, which makes this strength/weakness duo by far the most difficult to navigate.

Organized Mom is the quintessential Girl Scout, living up to the motto of “Be prepared.” If her children don’t win college scholarships and go on to rule or change the world, she’ll have just one thing to say. In the immortal words of Han Solo, “It’s not my fault!”

[Note from Smrt Mama: Do you identify (even partially? somewhat humorously?) with any of the remaining homechooling archetypes? Would you like to guest author a future Secular Thursday blog post at Smrt Lernins? Email Smrt Mama with your ideas for the Secular Homeschool Archetypes series!]

Remember the homeschooling mom archetypes? Today’s Secular Thursday post is the first in a series about how to play to your archetype’s strengths and plan for your archetype’s weaknesses*. Of course, few homeschoolers really fit into one category — we’re mostly a sampling of two or three (I’m Earnest Mom, with a side of Idealist Mom and a little sprinkling of Allergic Mom) — but knowing how to work around our tendencies to keep from getting hung up will only benefit us.

I’ll start with the archetype nearest and dearest to my heart butt ( because it’s possible I once got drunk after a hard day of homeschooling and had her motto tattooed there)…The Earnest Mom. A little about Earnest Mom:

The Earnest Mom — She really, really wants to be good at this. She’s absolutely certain that homeschooling was the right decision for her children. She’s equally certain that she could screw up at any moment and doom her children to a lifetime of social awkwardness and community college. She relies on the experience and expertise of other homeschoolers, especially The Organized Mom, to guide her curriculum choices. At one moment convinced the work load is much too heavy, and the next, adding logic and Bavarian folk dancing, she’s desperate to get it Right™ so that her child can be successful and well-rounded. Her motto: “Does this sound rigorous enough to you?”

I think this archetype’s weaknesses are fairly apparent. Yes, Earnest Mom is a little needy. She’s also insecure and at times quite demanding (“What’s your opinion on this?” “How do you think I’m doing on this?” “Please pause your busy day so you can address my curriculum insecurities!”) She never feels quite confident about her children’s work loads or her curricula choices, which means she does a lot of rearranging of the schedule and tends to go through multiple curricula options in a year for any given subject. This can be frustrating for the children and expensive for her. She needs a lot of feedback from those she views as “expert homeschoolers” (especially Organized Mom).

Weaknesses she has in spades, but what are Earnest Mom’s strengths? For starters, Earnest Mom isn’t usually going to be the one assuming she’s doing it right and everyone else is wrong. She’s open-minded about curricula and is willing to experiment and even completely toss something if a better option goes along. This means she’s eager to engage in discussions on curricula with other homeschoolers and take their opinions into account. She wants to do it Right™, so she won’t keep doing something that doesn’t work, just because that’s the way she’s always done it. She values a community and will usually willingly participate in an open exchange of ideas and materials.

How can Earnest Mom make the most of her strengths and turn those weaknesses into something useful? Here are some suggestions on combining strengths and weaknesses into helpful tools for Earnest Mom’s homeschooling toolbox:

• Weakness: Earnest Mom is insecure about the rigors of her curricula.  Strength: Earnest Mom values input from experienced homeschoolers.  Helpful Tool: Find a tolerant homeschooling mentor, especially one with similarly-aged and/or similarly-skilled children, who can model how s/he uses certain curricula to its utmost advantage. Feedback from someone who has been there and done that will bolster Earnest Mom’s confidence in her choices.
• Weakness: Earnest Mom replaces curricula frequently, which can become very expensive.  Strength: Earnest Mom enjoys a feeling of community with fellow homeschoolers. Helpful Tool: Look for a like-minded (or like-minded enough) group of homeschoolers for a regular curricula “open house” and meet n’ greet. Earnest Mom’s wide assortment of discarded curricula can be helpful for other homeschoolers, engendering goodwill, which helps Earnest Mom feel validated.
• Weakness: Earnest Mom feels uncertain about balance and rigor in her children’s schedule. Strength: Earnest Mom actively seeks out input, especially advice from Organized Mom, whose children’s schedules she perceives as perfectly (or nearly perfectly) balanced and rigorous. Helpful Tool:  Organized Mom’s color-coded daily schedules clearly demonstrates how her school days are balanced, allowing Earnest Mom to easily take note of the amount of academic, rest, play, etc. time in an average day. Earnest Mom can take a page from Organized Mom’s book, and develop her own color-coded schedule — a week-at-a-glance version, so that she can easily see any gaps that need to be filled. Earnest Mom will get to feel like an Organized Mom and develop more confidence in her ability to adequately meet all her children’s educational needs.
• Weakness: Earnest Mom is very self-effacing, as a coping mechanism for her insecurity. Strength: Earnest Mom has no problem confessing how incompetent she feels and years of self-effacement have made her at least remotely funny about it. Helpful Tool: Start a homeschooling blog, sharing all the ins and outs of your struggles with homeschooling. Earnest Mom’s ability to point out her own massive failures will make readers forgive her when she questions decisions made by others. Positive comments will make her feel better about herself. Negative comments will make her spend hours of introspection trying to discover areas where she could either be a better homeschooler or be funnier about not being a better homeschooler.

Hopefully, this advice will help the Earnest Moms out there. Do you like it? Is it okay advice? Was it useful? Someone please tell me I’m not failing as a homeschooler blogger! (That’s a joke right there, see?)

Tune in for our next installment, Homeschooler Archetypes: The Organized Mom.

*Lest you think I’m putting myself out there as some homeschooling expert (oh heavens, no!), I’ve been talking to other homeschooling moms who would self-identify as these categories and getting input from them on how they augment the stuff they’re best at and work around the stuff that isn’t their cup of tea. If you ever see something vaguely smart in this blog, remember that it probably came from somewhere else, as all you’ll get from here is SMRT. As I continue this series, expect to see some guest bloggers who have much better advice to give than I could ever fabricate!

Dear Crazy Internet Christians,

It’s time I had a little come to Jesus meeting with y’all, alright? And yes, I’m aware of the irony there.

Now, you intelligent and compassionate Christians, who treat others with respect and who actually try to live life as modeled by Christ, can just sit right back down. This isn’t about you or even about Christianity (or at least, its foundations). I know that the crazies aren’t the only representatives of Christianity, or even comprise the largest percentage of Christianity, but they are, unfortunately, the loudest. You reasonable people have my love and appreciation for making this world a kinder place, though most of us differently-believers and non-believers wish your voices were a little easier to hear over the fray. God bless you for trying.

I’m talking to y’all over there, the other Christians, the ones who use your religion as a weapon of hate and denigration against others, who expect everyone in this world to treat your beliefs as true and absolute while you dismiss all of theirs as falsehoods and heathenry, who balk at any implication that an alternative set of beliefs might ever be acceptable to discuss (or God forbid, to actually believe), who wander around like rabid dogs in a hot summer street, looking for a chance to become righteously offended and bite anyone who commits the grievous crime of not thinking how you think.

If this is your version of Christianity, well, I feel awfully happy that I’m not a Christian (and even if I were, I’d be happy that someone like you probably wouldn’t consider me the right kind of Christian). You are not convincing me to become a Christian. You’re not convincing me to think highly of Christians or Christianity. You’re certainly not convincing me to think carefully about what I say, out of fear of offending you punkin dunkin liddle baby feelings.

Have you ever wondered why some people seem to hate Christians so much? A little hint — it has nothing to do with being afraid that your religious beliefs are right, being jealous of you, being lead astray by the devil, or any of the other nonsense your more extreme Christian groups keep claiming. Here’s a great example of the behavior that triggers that sort of response from others: Getting worked up over someone asking for recommendations of “books about Christian mythology for non-Christians”, dressing them down for daring to (accurately) use the term “Christian mythology” to refer to “the body of traditional narratives [everything] associated with Christianity,” accusing them of “insulting [your] intelligence” by asking for secular resources in a manner you find unacceptable, and really, when it all comes down to it, making an ass of yourself because someone is addressing a question to non-Christians on a board where you seem to think that everyone should feel obligated to ascribe to your narrow and unreasonably rigid view of Christianity, all while making plenty of blatantly insulting and ignorant comments about adherents to other faiths and their beliefs in the exact same thread and plenty of others.

That’s why people hate you. You’re narrow-minded. You’re petty. You’re completely self-absorbed. You see insult where none is meant just for the pleasure of feeling wronged. You’re judgmental. You’re hypocritical. You’re passive aggressive when you aren’t being openly aggressive. You cast the first stone into your neighbor’s eye. You’re just plain mean.

In short, you give Christianity a very bad name and you look like pure fools in the process. The best thing you could do to win people to Christ would be to just shut up, because y’all aren’t doing him any favors right now.

Sincerely,
Smrt Mama McLernins

P.S. The heathens called and they’d like their holidays back.

If you haven’t already guessed it, I might as well put it out there: I’m liberal (particularly definitions 1-5). I’m not just liberal, either. I’m a Liberal — a great big fat pro-choice, equal-marriage-rights-touting, social-services-loving, Universal-Healthcare-wanting, happily-tax-paying, tree-hugging, Obama-swooning, Olbermann-watching, if-real-life-were-like-West Wing-I’d-be-in-hog-heaven Liberal, complete with bumper stickers*. I’m That Liberal.

As you might imagine, liberal homeschoolers aren’t exactly in the majority in the Deep South. In fact, I’m pretty certain liberal homeschoolers aren’t in the majority anywhere, and certainly not liberal secular homeschoolers of the non-unschooling variety (which seems to be where many of my liberal homeschooling sisters gravitate). If you’re looking for the group that is probably the least represented among homeschoolers, the secular, rigorous, classical, liberal homeschoolers might very well be it. We’re certainly in the serious minority on the Well Trained Mind forums, the Mothering.com forums, and even in our local secular co-ops — I was surprised by the number of conservatives and/or “Libertarians.” Really turned my expectations of “hippie liberal homeschoolers” on their head. Turns out that the liberal hippie is being fast replaced by the Libertarian “nonconformist.” Hear that rattling? That’s my eyeroll.

When you’re the minority among a minority, you spend a lot of time dispelling assumptions about your motivations. No, I’m not homeschooling my child to protect him from evolution, sex ed that isn’t abstinence-only, or contact with “unsavory elements” like uppity women and Ho-Mo-sekshulls. If anything, I’m homeschooling in order to teach more evolution, better and more expansive sex ed, and provide plenty of contact with the unsavory elements that the conservatives seem to fear so much. I am thrilled that my children are getting plenty of exposure to women who don’t subsume their power to men. No, I’m not an opponent of “government” schools (the Libertarian term for public schools, intended to create a scary mental picture of overbearing politicos lurking in the corners of the classroom to brainwash your children). I think public education has done fantastic things for this country by providing a baseline of education for every child. I don’t think it’s a flawless system, but I don’t believe it’s evil, brainwashing, dangerous, or anything like that. I just don’t think it’s set up to meet individual needs that well.

Of course, I’m to the political and social left of the majority of religious homeschoolers. That’s a left I’m comfortable inhabiting. But being so far to the left of many other secular homeschoolers can make for a lot of awkwardness, like the time one boy in my writing class (an otherwise delightful child) starting making comments about how Obama was “messing up” this or that, resulting in a snappish response from me of, “That’s ‘President Obama,’ and let’s leave politics for the adults who know what they’re talking about, rather than in my class.”

It’s not that I expected a perfect meeting of the minds. I’ve spent my entire life in the South; I’m used to being the most liberal person in the room. I just thought there would be more homeschoolers out there like me. I didn’t think I’d continue to be the most liberal person in a room full of secular homeschoolers…but unless Patchfire is there, I still am. I’ve found my “tribe” for birth, breastfeeding, and parenting philosophies, but the handful of politically/socially like-minded homeschoolers are barely enough to make an extended family, let alone a tribe.

*I had more, but someone at the secular homeschool co-op also stole my “Breastfeeding for the survival of the human race” car magnet. Not pointing fingers, but almost all of the other liberal hippie moms in that co-op already had the exact same magnet.

It seems to have become quite trendy among religious homeschool co-ops and resources to require parents to sign a “statement of faith” before enrolling their children in the program. These “statements of faith” may be as simple as swearing you are Christian and as complex as to make sure you match, theologically and philosophically, with the ideals of the co-op’s founding individual or organization on every single level. If you do not sign, you do not join. Insisting on a signed “statement of faith” may be within these groups’ right, but I don’t think it is right, morally. I also don’t think it’s particularly Christian.

What’s in a “statement of faith?” Ead’s Home Ministry would be happy to walk you through creating one for your religious co-op, because nothing says “love thy neighbor” like something specifically designed to “[e]xclude families that do not share the faith [you] have,” right? Among the many families you can exclude through your carefully worded “statements of faith” are those who practice “Non-Christian faiths and the cults” ( “cults” usually meaning “Mormons and/or any sect/denomination we don’t like”), believe in any form of “liberal theology” (like the notion that the Bible isn’t absolutely literal, accurate, and perfectly translated — not matter what version you’re using), or who don’t believe in the “truth about hell” (“truth” being a word I’ve noticed gets thrown around a lot in groups of this nature).

The words that springs to mind when I see such required “statements of faith” aren’t “devout” or “Godly.” They’re “defensive” and “insecure.” Surely, one who is secure in the rightness of one’s faith wouldn’t feel threatened by the inclusion of someone who didn’t think exactly alike. Surely, allowing a secularly homeschooled child to participate in a math or art class with your children won’t shake your children’s religious foundation or be an affront to your God. What’s the real intent of a “statement of faith” anyway? Is it really to help protect those of different faiths from being “uncomfortable” or feeling out of place, as the above website claims?

Do religious homeschool co-ops really believe they are in danger of being inundated by secular homeschoolers, with the intent of converting (or unconverting) their children and bringing down their organizations? The teachings of some fundamentalist churches are awfully paranoid, so perhaps they are ascribing an agenda to secular homeschoolers and our children. Concepts like “tolerance” and “inclusivity” are presented as subtle ploys to undermine belief. Personally, I’ve never met a secular homeschooler who wanted to waste their money and their child’s educational time on a creationist science class or Titus 2-style daddy/husband worship Bible study program, period, let alone one who desired to waste that time and money simply to undermine the program. We might like to enroll in classes on art, music, math, or a variety of other subjects. If we find the subject matter or the co-op itself to be so offensive, counter to our beliefs, or beyond our comfort level, we just don’t sign our kids up for it.

I know a few secular homeschoolering families who participate in religious co-ops in order to have access to classes and opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise get. Their goal isn’t to disrupt class or try to dispute any religious messages. They don’t teach their children to argue with the teachers or try to convince the other children in the class that their beliefs are wrong. The expect their children to be respectful of the co-op’s teachers, rules, and beliefs, just like you would respect the rules and beliefs of someone in whose home you were a guest. Most of them use the differences in beliefs as an after-class teaching tool, to show that people who believe different things can still come together in certain areas. Isn’t that a message we want to teach children, rather than the message of excluding and reviling anyone not exactly like us?

In many areas, especially smaller towns and rural regions, religious co-ops are the only game in town. Thankfully, not all religious homeschool co-ops and resources require these exclusive “statements of faith.” Some have them listed on their website or in their paperwork, which is helpful in making the theological and philosophical foundation of the organization obvious, but don’t require that parents or children sign them. Some require only that their administrators and/or teachers sign. Plenty seem to still actually believe that their goal should be educating children and providing services to the community. That seems to mesh a whole lot more with what I’ve read about Jesus than “keep your kids away from mine, you sinner” — then again, secular homeschooler here, so I supposed my understanding of the Bible is automatically suspect.

Incidentally, I’ve yet to come across a secular homeschool co-op that required anyone sign a “statement of non-faith.” In fact, our co-op is “an all-inclusive group” that “welcomes diversity” and doesn’t “discriminate on the basis of race, religion, nationality, political views, or teaching style.” Is that really so very threatening?

Sometimes I feel like the kid in “The Rocking Horse Winner,” rocking away because there must be more money. Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy curricula, and through curricula comes happiness. So say we all.

I know there are a billion “homeschooling for free or next to free” websites out there, who will tell me I’m doing it wrong if I’m dishing out more than $5 for history, but between the gas and energy that would be required to go back and forth to the public library, which doesn’t have the vast majority of what Captain Science needs anyway, thus requiring heavy supplementing, I assure you, buying the exact curricula comes out cheaper in the wash.

I will confess to you that I’m about to make a major curriculum purchase, the Michael Clay Thompson Grammar Town set. We’re looking at the Level 2 Basic Homeschool package, because it has all the teacher manuals, which include the student books, for the level, which is for gifted 4th or on-level 5th graders. If only I had the money, I’d buy the complete package, which has separate student books, but I can’t dish out an extra $65 on top of the $105 I’ll be spending tonight. From what I’ve heard about the curriculum, it will be worth the money, especially for a language-mastering, Life of Fred-loving boy like Captain Science*.

Patchfire and I long to order the entire MCT series, so that we can see exactly where it goes. Unlike some curricula, which are available at the Scary Jesus Book Store (which I’m not sure I’ll be patronizing any longer, due to the owner’s attitude towards his customers), MCT can’t be bought locally, so we don’t have the luxury of flipping through it at our leisure. Between us, we’ll own Grammar Island and Grammar Town, but that doesn’t help us project forward to Grammar Voyage and the levels beyond. Will we continue to love it? Only time will tell, but I sure wish I already knew. I could develop a language arts plan from no until the end of time.

If I had an unfettered curricula budget, I would buy:

• Michael Clay Thompson language arts series
• Life of Fred College Prep Set
• The Medieval and Early Modern World seven volume set.
• The Definitive Visual Guides to Art, the Universe, and War
• Bevington’s Complete Works of Shakespeare, 6th ed. (mine is several editions out of date)
• Surely quite a few other things, but let’s focus on the brain candy above, shall we?

Unfortunately, I don’t have a limitless budget for curricula, so I have to buy only what I need, thus limiting my ability to plan ahead. As a secular homeschooler, my options for comprehensive, secular materials that challenge my gifted child, yet are engaging enough to make him want to learn are few are far between. Life of Fred is one of the few that meet nearly all of those goals (falling short only by not being entirely secular, though close enough for our purposes). MCT looks like it might fit into that narrow set of parameters. The DK books are glorious, though they require I develop all my own lesson plans for history (not a horrible torture, luckily). I also don’t have the money to keep replacing curricula that don’t work. It’s a hard knock life sometimes, being a secular classical educator.

What’s on your dream list of curricula?

*Captain Science declared tonight, “I don’t want to be called ‘Captain Science’ on the computer. I want to be known as ‘Shadow King.’” My answer: “Uh…yeah. You know, not so much.”

Homeschooling is traditionally thought of as being something primarily done by the religious in nature. People tend to make a lot of assumptions about your beliefs when they hear you homeschool. The number of secular homeschoolers is growing, however, and we’re slowly integrating ourselves into the culture of homeschooling.

I’ve talked before about how I often feel, as a secular classical homeschooler, like the odd mama out. While I have ways in which to cross the divide between the secular classical homeshooler and the secular unschooler (we have a lot of social things in common, generally), crossing the divide between the secular homeschooler and the religious homeschooler (especially the more fundamentalist homeschooler) is often more difficult. The philosophical differences between us are often so vast.

Despite the claims by some religious homeschoolers that they’re terribly persecuted, it’s the secular homeschoolers I see being attacked with regularity on homeschool forums. If a secular homeschooler comments on a “CC” thread, we get the royal pile-on and “how dare you!” and “didn’t you know this thread wasn’t for people like YOU?”  Conversely, religious homeschoolers don’t seem to have a problem making comments from a religious perspective on a thread with a clearly secular bent, but heaven help you if you point that out. I admit, it’s made me a bit bitter towards religious homeschoolers as a whole (the “as a whole” part is what’s important here).  I’m sometimes hesitant to comment on religious homeschool blogs, because I feel my perspective is likely to be unwelcome, purely because I’m a secular homeschooler.

Still, some people are able to bridge the gap. I have a few regular commenters on this blog who are of significantly more devout faith than I. Some of them even use Bible-based (or even *gasp* young earth creationist!) curricula. Two of my favorite fellow bloggers, Daisy from The Quiet Life and The Mama from Concordia Classical Academy are what I would consider to be the model religious homeschoolers — and their religious beliefs and curricula choices are often quite different from mine. I decided that my Secular Thursday post should be about the things that Daisy and The Mama do differently from many other religious homeschoolers I encounter online that make them such a fun e-people to e-know*.

If you, as a religious homeschooler, are wondering how you could become a goodwill ambassador between the religious homeschoolers and the secular homeschoolers, here are a few tips for you, based on the wonderful model of the gentle, generous, and humorous The Mama and Daisy :

• Stop recommending religious curricula, especially with the suggestion that I could “tweak it to be more secular,” because no, I usually can’t. All the tweaking in the world isn’t removing Biblical references from Abeka math or making a Biblically-centered history text suitable for secular curricula. A little religious reference in Life of Fred doesn’t bother me, but surely you can how going through a text with a Sharpie or telling the kids “just ignore that part” isn’t appealing. I’ve read enough posts on the Well Trained Mind forums to know that many religious homeschoolers would object to being given a science book and told  “but you could probably tweak it to make it less secular” or having it suggested that they “just ignore the evolution parts.”
• Stop recommending certain materials “for girls” or “for boys.” I’d actually prefer you stop asking for recommendations of materials, but if you insist on gender-segregating everything in your own children’s lives, at least do me the courtesy of not suggesting I do the same. “I’d recommend that book for a boy” or “Do you really think that’s a good program for a girl?” aren’t going to go over very well with most secular homeschoolers. The sex of the protagonist in a book doesn’t have to match the sex of my children for them to appreciate the story. Do you, as an adult, only read books with protagonists of your same sex? Also, stop making curricula/text suggestions based on the inaccurate assumption that all boys are “hands on” or “math/science dominant” and all girls are “good desk workers” or “language dominant.” That may be the reality that you have nurtured into your children, but it’s not one I have nurtured into mine.
• Stop trying to “save” me. No, seriously. You’re assuming that secular homeschoolers don’t believe in God (and that they definitely can’t be Christians), and need you to intervene on their behalf. Personally, I’m happy with the state of my soul and feel pretty right with God as I understand him. I don’t want to be preached at, prayed at, proselytized to, or have it suggested that I’m paving a short road to hell for myself and my children.
• Stop suggesting my children are a bad influence on yours. I’m growing tired of seeing comments about how you don’t like your child playing with the [Not My Religion] children [next door, at the co-op, etc.] or how you have major concerns about your child spending the night at [Child Not of My Religion]’s house because they could be lead morally astray. They’re children. Children. And frankly, my experience has been that children brought up in a very religious home (and their very religious parents) are a lot more likely to share their beliefs without solicitation than less/non-religious children and their parents. For all that I jokingly call my brother-in-law a “devout atheist,” I’ve never heard his daughter strike up a random conversation with another child about atheism. Conversely, I’ve had children start conversations with me (as an adult!) about whether or not I believe in Jesus. Secular homeschoolers aren’t trying to recruit your children (or you) into our secular army of secularists. Can you say the same of your fellow religious homeschoolers?
• Stop being taking everything so personally. If I got my panties in a twist every time someone made a nasty comment about us “evolutionists” or “immodest women” on the WTM forums, I’d have awfully twisty panties and spend most of my day in tears (from hurt feelings and an awfully uncomfortable bottom). You have to have a sense of humor about this stuff. Sure, I laugh at the comical (to me) notion of peaceful fruit-eating Tyrannosaurus Rexes hanging out with Noah on the ark, but  you surely laugh at the equally comical (to you) notion of people and apes having evolved from a common ancestor (or “people coming from monkeys,” as I keep seeing it inaccurately described). We can both poke fun at perceived absurdities in broader systems of belief.  Unless you mean an individual insult to me, as a person, every time you make a snarky comment about evolution, don’t take any snarky comment I make about creationism as an individual insult to you. I can crack about a movement or philosophy while still finding you to be a lovely, reasonable, and intelligent individual.

You don’t have to hide who you are or what you believe (read back through the comments and you’ll see that these ladies don’t blow smoke up my patootie or pretend to be anything other than who they are), but if you try applying these simple ideas, you’ll find that we secular homeschoolers react much more warmly when you participate into our threads or comment on our blogs. We might even find areas upon which we can have a meeting of the minds, or at least share a laugh over the absurd width of the gulf between our beliefs in those areas where we’ll likely never agree.

*You can add “e-” to any word to simultaneously indicate “something on the internet” and make it funnier.

I finally did it. I told Captain Science, flat out, that there is no such thing as a literal Santa Claus who goes house-to-house on Christmas Eve, delivering toys.

Now, considering Captain Science is nine, some people might say that this talk was long overdue. Others might call me cruel for telling him, rather than letting him figure it out on his own. Of course, still others would go off on a tirade about how terrible it is to “lie” to children about Santa to begin with, and accuse me of scarring him for life, so I guess I’m not too hung up on the opinions of those “others” in this situation.

Last year, Captain Science had indicated to Nana that he no longer believed in Santa, but some time between last Christmas and this Christmas, that believe returned to a strangely fervent degree. When Captain Science asked for several expensive gifts this Christmas, I reminded him that we don’t have an endless amount of money — no degree of hinting or trying to gently imply that we, not Santa, were the ones footing the Christmas bill would sway him from the insistence that “we don’t have to pay for it. Santa will bring it.” His explanations for Santa became more and more elaborate. At one point, he told Nana that he had been praying to Santa for snow.

Praying. To Santa.

In a strange way, that makes sense. Santa is the central figure of a secular Christmas, just like Jesus is the central figure of a religious Christmas. Christians pray to (and about) Jesus. I suppose the logical leap for a nine-year-old would be prayers to Santa, the secular “deity” of the holiday season.

The final straw for me, though, wasn’t the money issue or the disturbing Santa worship, but the Santa-as-retort issue. Captain Science has a problem with little white lies. He fibs about small things that don’t require fibs for everyone to be happy with each other, like “Did you change your underpants?” Because of this, we do have a tendency to question him when we suspect his answers aren’t quite synchronized with reality. Lately, however, any questioning of the truthfulness (vs. truthiness) of his statements has been met by, “Well, why don’t you just write to Santa and ask him?” Santa was fast becoming a cover-up for dishonesty, because as long as we were all playing along about Santa, Captain Science was going to use Santa’s mythical ability to know when he’d been bad or good as a way of deflecting questions of his veracity.

Yesterday, I’d had enough, and I had to drop the S-bomb. “Captain Science,” I said gently, “I think you know that Santa isn’t real.” I immediately felt horrible and his eyes welled up with tears, because even though I think the obsession with Santa’s reality was probably a way of convincing himself to keep believing in something he knew deep down wasn’t true, hearing it out loud was another matter. I explained that a literal Santa wasn’t the one who brought his presents, but that Santa represented the magical spirit of Christmas. I also told him he was about to be inducted into the special Secret Grown Up Club, because it was now his job to help spread that magic to his brother and sister, so that they could keep believing.

That seemed to be the kicker right there. Helping foster the magic of Santa for the Tank and Babypie was a fitting substitute for the literal Santa for whom Captain Science’s logical brain kept having to reach for wilder and wilder explanations. He’s still getting presents “from Santa” under the tree and now he’s greatly enjoying being in cahoots about the whole Christmas thing. He did want to know where we kept all those Santa presents, but I told him that was a secret I wasn’t revealing. He liked that.

I’m sad that this part of his childhood came to an end and a little regretful that I had to be the one to make it happen, but his joy in Christmas doesn’t seem at all diminished. I think it was the right call.