2+2=4

Several days ago, I participated in an online homeschooling event. This event was hosted by a website and included speakers on a variety of homeschooling topics via streaming audio. There was a chatroom for listeners to be able to chat to each other and type questions for the host and speaker. I am not going to mention the name of the website because quite honestly, I do not feel the need to give them any publicity. Read on and you will see why.

The host was a Christian homeschooling site. I still decided to attend because I had been told that most of the information would be good for a secular homeschooler as well. For some of the speakers, that was true while for others, the talk of religion was mildly annoying. For a few, the religious indoctrination of the talk was just too much for any academic homeschooler to bear.

One of the last speakers of the event talked about reasons people homeschool and what motivates them to keep going. He said homeschooling is a conviction for a few and a preference for others. To be honest, I should have stopped listening about two minutes into his talk. His manner of speaking was already bordering on religious fanatic – you know the type, the ones that make others think that all homeschooling families are right-wing, religious, nutjobs. Yup, that was this guy.

I decided to approach the session from an academic standpoint. I wanted to learn the reasoning behind thinking that religious instruction must be included in homeschooling. An academic mind like me could remove her personal beliefs and discover this reasoning without being offended, right? Well one would think, but you know it gets a little difficult when non-religious homeschoolers are constantly being degraded during the discussion. Let’s just hit a few of the gems this speaker bestowed upon the listeners……

Speaker: Anyone can teach 2+2=4, only Christian homeschoolers can explain why.

He was referring to evolution and chaos theory when he said this. He said if you teach evolution, the world is chaos and has no order. Therefore, if you teach evolution you don’t understand that the world is an orderly place. Instead you see the world as a chaotic environment without patterns. This results in no way to teach the orderly patterns of mathematics. A Christian homeschooler understands that 2+2=4 because God made it that way.

Heathen Mom Response: What the hell? I’m sorry, but what does simple addition have to do with religion? My three year old understands the equation 2+2=4 because of the example, “if you have two apples and I give you two more, how many will you have?” She happily counts up to four and is very proud to find the correct answer. She didn’t need the explanation that God made it that way. She would probably look at me like I was insane if I said that.

Speaker: secular, humanist, atheist worldview

He used this phrase a lot, like too much. He used it to describe public school education and anyone who doesn’t homeschool from a religious view. He used it as a degrading phrase.

Heathen Mom Response: Please find a thesaurus before your next speaking engagement. You sound like a man with limited vocabulary when you have to use the same words over and over. Those words are not negative – so a little less attitude and disgust when you say them are in order.

Speaker: If you aren’t using a religious view you might as well send your children to public school. It would be easier for you.

This was in response to a comment that I made in the chatroom. I pointed out that many people homeschool for academic and not religious reasons.

Heathen Mom Response: There are many more academic opportunities that are available to my children as homeschoolers. I choose to homeschool to allow my children to reach their potential. My goal for homeschooling is to help my children be at a level that allows them to be successful in college and encourages them to be lifelong learners.

Speaker: Academic success should not be the goal of homeschooling. Creating servants for God should be.

He talked a lot about what the purpose of homeschooling should be. He felt the only reason to homeschool was for religious reasons and nothing should be taught that goes against religious viewpoints. He felt that learning without God resulted in just useless facts and the only true learning was biblically based.

Heathen Mom Response: I pointed out that some students who were only taught from a biblical point of view can have a harder time in some college courses. Refusing to expose children to academic subjects can place them behind their peers. A good example is the theory of evolution. I have seen college students who were only taught ways to disprove evolution, biblically of course, become upset that they don’t have a true understanding of what the theory of evolution really is.

The speaker talked about the number of religious students who lose their faith as a result of attending a “secular, humanist, atheist worldview liberal college”. I wonder what percentage of those students who abandon their religious upbringing were ones who were only allowed to learn things from a biblical point of view? My hypothesis is that percentage is high. I understand that attending college exposes you to a lot of new material and viewpoints. That is actually one of my favorite things about college. I would assume that if you were always taught things from a biblical point of view, attending a non-religious college would be a bit of culture shock. I can see how that could lead to questioning faith and even possibly leaving the religious beliefs behind. It could seem like you were lied to by not being allowed to learn other viewpoints.

Speaker: You are leading your children to hell if you don’t use a religious view for homeschooling.

Heathen Mom Response: I am going to be honest; this is the point of the speech that just completely pissed me off.

It is closed-minded thinking like this that resulted in me naming my blog Heathen Homeschoolers. It amazes me that so many religious homeschoolers feel the need to condemn all of those who choose to use a secular point of view. The fact that ‘secular’ is often used as a “dirty” word infuriates me.

Despite what many religious homeschool proponents will have you believe, the number of families using a secular approach is growing. A Heathen Homeschooler uses a secular/academic approach to homeschooling. I would love to see the number of Heathens grow dramatically over the next few years. It is time for the religious nutjobs who think they are the face of homeschooling to understand that they do not represent all homeschoolers.

I am Heathen Mom. I am proud to homeschool my children using a secular approach. We focus on academic instruction and feel that religious instruction has no place in academic studies. We feel that if a family chooses to incorporate religious instruction it should be in addition to academic studies.

My family is not unique.

There are Heathens everywhere.