Posted on 03/06/2010 4:00:10 PM PST by metmom
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Home-school mom Susan Mule wishes she hadn't taken a friend's advice and tried a textbook from a popular Christian publisher for her 10-year-old's biology lessons.
Mule's precocious daughter Elizabeth excels at science and has been studying tarantulas since she was 5. But she watched Elizabeth's excitement turn to confusion when they reached the evolution section of the book from Apologia Educational Ministries, which disputed Charles Darwin's theory.
"I thought she was going to have a coronary," Mule said of her daughter, who is now 16 and taking college courses in Houston. "She's like, 'This is not true!"'
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I used Apologia, far superior to Abeka or BJU.
Hit piece on homeschooling; give it a pass.
“Susan Mule” doesn’t sound like much of a homeschooling mom to me — the ones I know are very discriminating in the purchase of curriculum to begin with, and teach their children to interact with the information, not just accept it. FAKE STORY!!!!!
Theory of evolution is giant leap of faith. There is no basis in fact to Darwinian evolution. If the supporters of evolution cannot prove something, they make it up. If parents of home schoolers don’t like the text books they use, there is a simple solution: send their kids to public schools so they can learn the crap they teach.
There is no credibility in the news media. It is all marxist propaganda.
I used Apologia for a while. It is organized completely differently. I found myself rewriting the text constantly to organize the info. It was very “conversational”, which I guess may be better for parents who don’t enjoy teaching the subject.
I thought the kids had more retention problems with the Apologia. Also, I liked that the BJU began with a review of matter and cellular processes, while the Apologia didn’t get to that until chapters into the text.
A third thing I preferred the BJU for was the fact that they had the Latin and Greek roots for every new word. (For ex. auto+troph = self + food). I’m big on latin roots because I feel it helps them retain the material, and also for vocabulary further on. Apologia did that only minimally, and I found myself on the internet the nights before class doublechecking the meanings of roots like mastigophora. (whip- containing)
I agree that some popular homeschool texts go too far to integrate Christianity and academics. Yes, we do study religion and incorporate it into our daily routine, but I do not agree that everyone has the same doctrine/beliefs. This is why I search out secular texts as much as possible.
There are many homeschoolers who do not want any religion in their curriculum and for whatever reason still choose the textbooks that are incorporating religion. They should be purchasing curricula knowing what they have ~ not wearing blinders.
Apologia is a good program. It does not teach lies to children. What it is, is an integrated curriculum. If you are not Christian, or if you adhere to Darwinsism, and you use this program, then by all means supplement. As a teacher, I have no qualms supplementing where I see a need for it. There is nothing written that says, “You shall only teach what is in the book.” Teachers in schools supplement all the time. Homeschoolers do it too. What that means to me is that while I may like the program on the whole, I need to find material on Darwinism somewhere else in order to expose my children to the theory. I am not necessarily going to purchase a completely different curriculum because it does not adequately address Darwin.
Real Science for Kids (http://arn.org/realscience/realscience.html) and Pandia Real Science(http://www.pandiapress.com/real_science.htm) are good science curricula without reference to evolution or any other faith.
Real Science for Kids (http://arn.org/realscience/realscience.html) and Pandia Real Science(http://www.pandiapress.com/real_science.htm) are good science curricula without reference to evolution or any other faith.
Like most homeschoolers my kids are several years ahead of the public school kids. What really annoys me is the condescension that is put out by the media about homeschoolers being ignorant about evolution. Fact is that we teach both to our kids so that they can see the flaws and not be swayed because of a lack of understanding.
There are a new group of homeschoolers that choose it so they don’t have to get up in the morning or deal with the judgemental criticism of the teachers and administrators every day. (Who wants to be told there children are dumb every day) I wouldn’t chalk it up as a fake story.....they are out there and some have no idea what to do now that they leaped out of the system.
I wonder why anyone would complain what parents decide to teach their kids in a home schooling environment? (...and I’m not a creationist)
What a biased sack of garbage. Our textbooks teach evolution and we use a Christian publisher. We also have lots of mainstream science text that the kids explore. They know the TOE very well, warts and all.
No one is supplying secular curriculum because there isn’t much demand for it.
If you calling metmom willfully stupid, you need to realize that what she said was tongue in cheek from the perspective of the article.
Metmom’s post was tongue in cheek from the point of view of the article. She does not believe in evolution.
My post does look insulting to metmom... replace “you” with “you evolutionists.”
The gist of the article as I understand it, is that the mother took the word of a friend about the curriculum and didn’t check it out beforehand and then was shocked because it didn’t teach what she liked.
The article also implies criticism of Christian textbook publishers because there’s not a lot of options out there for someone who doesn’t want to teach creation, as if that’s the fault of the Christian textbook publishers. None of which makes sense.
Christian textbook publishers are not responsible for the market or what others publish or make available.
The people in the article whining about the choices they have have very little to complain about. Those who they are leveling criticism about are the very ones on the front lines decades ago who took all the flack and fought all the battles so that these people could homeschool with such freedom and ease. It was the Christians who blazed the trail for homeschooling and getting it legalized.
Their complaints about ostracized and isolated because of not having the kind of textbook options they prefer are not going to garner much sympathy from those who failed having their kids taken from them for educational neglect and facing jail terms for trying to homeschool.
Thanks for the ping!
No problem. I just thought you misunderstood her post. :)
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