SD on 23/7/2010 at 11:00
Quote Posted by fett
In short, Vivan is tragically misinformed (I only read your first post), and embarrassingly ignorant of the spectrum of people who homeschool, the wide variety of reasons why they do it, and the statistics of home schoolers who not only graduate college with honors and go on to successful careers.
Quote Posted by Associated Press
"The majority of home-schoolers self-identify as evangelical Christians," said Ian Slatter, a spokesman for the Home School Legal Defense Association. "Most home-schoolers will definitely have a sort of creationist component to their home-school program."
The textbook publishers defend their books as well-rounded lessons on evolution and its shortcomings. One of the books doesn't attempt to mask disdain for Darwin and evolutionary science.
"Those who do not believe that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God will find many points in this book puzzling," says the introduction to "Biology: Third Edition" from Bob Jones University Press. "This book was not written for them."
The textbook delivers a religious ultimatum to young readers and parents, warning in its "History of Life" chapter that a "Christian worldview ... is the only correct view of reality; anyone who rejects it will not only fail to reach heaven but also fail to see the world as it truly is."
Evidently it's not only Vivian who is "tragically misinformed" - such confusion clearly befuddles homeschooling advocacy groups too!
No doubt there are a multitude of reasons why people homsechool their children in the United States, but it's pretty apparent that the major one is to indoctrinate children with creationist nonsense.
Brian The Dog on 23/7/2010 at 11:17
Quote: The textbook delivers a religious ultimatum to young readers and parents, warning in its "History of Life" chapter that a "Christian worldview ... is the only correct view of reality; anyone who rejects it will not only fail to reach heaven but also fail to see the world as it truly is."
I definitely find this strange - the "History of Life" view shown here is actually a minority-view in Christianity, and so saying "it is the only correct view" does smack of arrogance - not only are they saying "We are right", but also "We are right and anyone who disagrees with us will go to hell, including other Christians". Erm, my theology is a bit rusty, but I thought Christians think that you go to heaven through what you think about Jesus/God/stuff? :confused:
Enchantermon on 23/7/2010 at 16:34
I see the point the statement was attempting to make, but it makes it horribly and should never have been written, especially not in that manner.
We used mostly Alpha Omega's Lifepac books and later their Switched-On Schoolhouse software. Math was done with Saxon. Early reading was done through Hooked On Phonics and some awesome thing with a paper gnome mural-ish thing (it was sweet). Literature was done through Alpha Omega in the last few years and through something else (can't remember the name) earlier.
Only the Alpha Omega stuff was written by Christians. Even then God was only mentioned when appropriate, which wasn't often.
Quote Posted by DDL
Effective science teaching, I would wager, would need access to a lab, or at least lab-like facilities. Sure you can teach someone about various redox reactions or similar, but without the materials, you can't
show them..and personally I found the demonstrations to be a critical part of my education.
My mom bought this neat science kit which included a microscope, about thirty or so different chemicals, a bunch of tools (goggles, slides, pipettes, etc.) and lots of labs for us to do. That stuff was pretty fun. She also bought this gigantic blue box full of experiments with soybeans.
My sister and I also watched a ton of Beakman's World and Bill Nye the Science Guy, both of which are awesome. Alpha Omega also made some video cassettes with science experiments on them that we would watch. Had either my sister or I expressed a special interest in stuff like chemistry, I'm sure she would have found more stuff for us as well.
Matthew on 23/7/2010 at 16:38
I suppose technically one could say that I was homeschooled in reading for a couple of years before starting in the education system itself. Certainly, my mother (a teacher) taught me to read a heck of a lot better than the teachers tried to do later on.
Chimpy Chompy on 23/7/2010 at 16:39
Quote Posted by Enchantermon
We used mostly Alpha Omega's Lifepac books .
I had a quick look at their site
"LIFEPAC is a full-color, consumable worktext homeschool curriculum with Bible-based content for grades K-12."
"Scripture passages are integrated throughout worktexts to help students connect daily learning to biblical truth."
"LIFEPAC Science is an exciting, Christian-based curriculum for grades 1-12. Students focus on the development of observational skills as they study the physical universe God created."
That doesn't sound promising.
Enchantermon on 23/7/2010 at 16:59
Hmm. That's funny, I don't recall any Scripture at all outside of the Bible curriculum and possibly History when talking about the founding of the US. And I remember very little mention of God in the Science books, while I believe evolution and creation were both given their fair share of screen time.
Also, to be fair, there's secular homeschool curriculum out there as well.
Chimpy Chompy on 23/7/2010 at 17:40
Creation shouldn't get any screentime in a science book.
[edit]I'm all for more education on the different ways of looking at existence and how they differ etc. So people know what religion, science and philosophy are about. But nothing god-based should be presented as credible science.
CCCToad on 23/7/2010 at 17:58
A sensible approach.
I don't really view religious creation theories as viable science, simply because they can not really be tested by scientific means. In addition, interpretations over the same teaching can very widely. Evolution is the best example: while the Catholic church openly accepts the possibility that Genesis is a figurative work and is in fact referring to life evolving over time (the new things created in each "day") other people will blow their tops if you hint that anything other than the literal translation is the truth.
On the other hand, wouldn't some kind of intro to theology or religion class where the basic beliefs of each religion are presented also be acceptable? It seems to me that the baseline assumption being made by most people here is that high schoolers are all so stupid that they won't question anything that is taught to them, and will automatically assume every belief the teacher has. Its as illogical to assume that as it is to assume that every homeschooled kid will turn out to be a religious zealot.
Enchantermon on 23/7/2010 at 18:06
While the actual act of the creation of the earth is not a science itself, it still warrants a little discussion if only to present an alternate theory. Besides, in a Christian worldview, creation means the creation of everything, science itself included.
But that's also only a small part of the curriculum. The rest focused on other sciences: astronomy, biology, zoology, chemistry, botany, etc.
Stitch on 23/7/2010 at 18:16
Quote Posted by Enchantermon
While the actual act of the creation of the earth is not a science itself, it still warrants a little discussion if only to present an alternate theory.
Not in any science class. "God created everything" isn't a theory, alternate or otherwise.
