Home-schooling special: Preach your children well

NewScientist.com ^ | 11 November 2006 | Amanda Gefter

[Sopater]

TO THE unsuspecting visitor, Patrick Henry College looks like a typical American liberal-arts college tucked away amidst the rolling green farmlands of Virginia. Its curriculum is far from typical, however, and anything but liberal. Witness this lecture on faith and reason in an idyllic red-brick college building reminiscent of colonial America. As the speaker takes to the podium, several students silence their cellphones. One puts down his copy of The Wall Street Journal and takes out his Bible. They bow their heads and pray to Jesus, then stand up and sing a hymn, belting out "Holy, holy, holy" with gusto. Eventually, the speaker addresses the crowd.

"Christians increasingly have an advantage in the educational enterprise," he says. "This is evident in the success of Christian home-schooled children, as compared to their government-schooled friends who have spent their time constructing their own truths." The students, all evangelical Christians, applaud loudly. Most of them were schooled at home before arriving at Patrick Henry - a college created especially for them.

These students are part of a large, well-organised movement that is empowering parents to teach their children creationist biology and other unorthodox versions of science at home, all centred on the idea that God created Earth in six days about 6000 years ago. Patrick Henry, near the town of Purcellville, about 60 kilometres north-west of Washington DC, is gearing up to groom home-schooled students for political office and typifies a movement that seems set to expand, opening up a new front in the battle between creationists and Darwinian evolutionists. New Scientist investigated how home-schooling, with its considerable legal support, is quietly transforming the landscape of science education in the US, subverting and possibly threatening the public school system that has fought hard against imposing a Christian viewpoint on science teaching.

[JenB]

I like the chart that shows the estimated h/s population. About time they came up with updated figures, I have been hearing "1.1 million" for years now and I knew it had to be twice that by now.

The first wwave of homeschoolers has graduated college and is starting to make a difference. Within a couple years we're going to see a huge new homeschool demographic; the homeschooled graduates homeschooling their own kids. I expect the curriculumn market to grow and diversify even more as people like me, who know homeschooling works because we were homeschooled, start trying out new things. I think there will be some changes no one is expecting.

[antiRepublicrat]

You have obviously been indoctrinated yourself by anti-homeschool propaganda.

Wrong. I think homeschooling is great. And I don't like the public perception that homeschoolers are whackos or Christians who don't want their kids to get a proper science education.

[antiRepublicrat]

Sorry, I wrote back a little too quickly.

[50sDad]

I am not a Six-Day-Earther, but I object to the classical Theory of Evolution being taught as if it wasproven Law. If no one was there to see it, and we have no video tape or first hand evidence, it is just a collection of ideas that partially support a conclusion. There may be a more complex theory that incorporates Biblical scholarship and hard science, but it won't be found by a lazy scientific community that has decided that there is no God, and won't even consider alternatives to what "Survival of the Fittest" has become to be viewed as. When did Science stop being about considering all possibilities?

[Tired of Taxes]

Consequently, there is virtually no government regulation of home-schooling.

Note he uses the word "virtually". I guess that means he doesn't think there are "enough" regulations. Every state (except mine) has homeschool regulations. In some, homeschooling is regulated very heavily.

Also, his description of homeschoolers doesn't fit my state where the Christian/secular ratio is reportedly 50/50.

And here's something curious: He's going on and on about how creationism isn't science. But then he throws in a note about Southern Baptists opposing homosexual activism in public schools. As if the theories pushed today in schools about homosexuality are soooo scientifically sound. LOL.

[cowdog77]

"Wrong. I think homeschooling is great. And I don't like the public perception that homeschoolers are whackos or Christians who don't want their kids to get a proper science education."
___________________________
Right....and some of us just think it's grand when our kids are 1-3 grades ahead of the public school products come "test time".

[LadyNavyVet]

I have the same objection. Darwinism used to be considered a theory. They even called it the Theory of Evolution. Now, to some, it is at least as much Holy Writ as the Bible is to me.

I'm teaching my kids that there are competing theories, but when they get to college they're only going to hear one side of the story. I tell them to keep an open mind and consider all the evidence, that understanding God, Creation and our place in the universe is the work of a lifetime, and we won't find all the answers here.

[Tired of Taxes]

Oops. I should've typed "she". I see the writer's name is "Amanda".

[Blue_Ridge_Mtn_Geek]

From a homeschooler's blog about this article:
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/SusannahCox/

Nov. 13, 2006 - Negative Press on Homeschooling from Scientists
Posted in Education
Here's a nice little article from NewScientist.com, leading off with a description (completely unbiased, of course) of Patrick Henry College as a doctrinaire breeding ground for scientific illiterates. Writes intrepid investigator Amanda Gefter (after all, she courageously invaded a den of Evangelical Christianism):

"New Scientist investigated how home-schooling, with its considerable legal support, is quietly transforming the landscape of science education in the US, subverting and possibly threatening the public school system that has fought hard against imposing a Christian viewpoint on science teaching." [Emphases mine]

As opposed to the thoroughly godless viewpoint currently imposed on Christians in the public school system, of course. It's their state-given duty to brainwash us.

I don't know about y'all, but I'm getting a bit weary of the "homeschooling as theocon conspiracy" meme. It's been running here in the local papers lately as well.

Were you aware that we homeschoolers are "well organised from the top down, led by groups with strong political ties" and mind-controlled by the likes of "the Discovery Institute, Exodus Mandate, HSLDA and Patrick Henry College"? Now, thanks to Ms. Gefter, you know the truth.

Not that she's bigoted towards Christians, or anything, or would ever try to construct a bogeyman out of homeschooled six-year-olds.

However, we might do well to question Ms. Gefter's investigatory prowess when it's apparent she doesn't even know how to Google. Here are some facts that are just a tad more accurate, and freely available online, from the National Center for Education Statistics [emphases mine]:

---

Question:
How many children are homeschooled in the United States?

Response:
In 2003, the number of homeschooled students was 1.1 million, an increase from 850,000 in 1999. The percentage of the school-age population who were homeschooled increased from 1.7 percent in 1999 to 2.2 percent in 2003. The majority of homeschooled students received all of their education at home (82 percent), but some attended school up to 25 hours per week. Twelve percent of homeschooled students were enrolled in school less than 9 hours per week, and 6 percent were enrolled between 9 and 25 hours....

...Parents give many different reasons for homeschooling their children. In 2003, the reasons most frequently reported by parents as being “applicable” were concerns about the school environment (e.g., safety, drugs, or negative peer pressure) (85 percent of parents); a desire to provide religious or moral instruction (72 percent); and dissatisfaction with academic instruction (68 percent). As their “most important” reason, parents most often cited concerns about the school environment and a desire to provide religious or moral instruction.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2005). The Condition of Education 2005 (NCES 2005-094) Indicator 3.

---

Ms. Gefter would have us believe that a mere 2.2 percent of all U.S. school-age children are a huge threat to the stranglehold secular humanism exerts over our public schools. That's not even taking into account that parents often homeschool not primarily for religious reasons, but because their local schools are dismal failures at teaching science--or even reading, writing, and arithmetic, for that matter. Either that, or the unsafe school environment would threaten the welfare of their children. (I mean, for gosh sakes, school kids in the U.S. are being taught how to duck potential shooters nowadays!)

Not all U.S. homeschoolers are Christians, and not all Christian homeschoolers are evangelical. It's safe to say a decent percentage of that oh-so-scary 2.2 percent is not even being taught creationism.

Not that there is a single thing wrong with passing on one's faith to one's children, mind you. It's not yet criminal in the U.S. to believe that God created the heavens and the earth. Frankly, I don't see why it's any of Amanda Gefter's business what our family believes or where my children choose to go to college. There's that old American principle of freedom of association, you know. It must be out of fashion in the U.K. and across Europe. Oh yes, that's right...German homeschoolers are told to put their kids in school or go to jail. That's infinitely preferable to the American way of doing things.

In the interests of full disclosure, I'm going to out myself as a PHC faculty wife. Yep, PHC is where hubby has worked since August. And I must say that it's not surprising at all that PHC students are well-received within the Beltway, especially by a purportedly conservative White House. These kids are brilliant. I guarantee you they could out-reason any ivy league student, given the PC hogwash that's taught on college campuses these days. And in fact, they have.
http://www.phc.edu/news/docs/06242006Media.asp

No wonder Ms. Gefter finds them so intimidating.

[50sDad]

My eldest daughter is at a high-speed "magnet school" and rolls her eyes when the texts contradict grace (or just leave it out, most times.) But she knows the real stories of the Pilgrims, and our Founders. I tell her "yeah, but just write down what they want to hear." (And you ought to hear her moan about how Christmas has become the "Holiday Season". I have innoculated her against the nonsense of the world, and done it well!)

[stinkerpot65]

Which is why liberals despise home-school. They want to control the morals of children.

[nothingnew]

...that understanding God, Creation and our place in the universe is the work of a lifetime, and we won't find all the answers here.

It is indeed a "work of a liftime". I believe that's why we're here, sort of a "proving ground".

As far as home schooling, I certainly would present the THEORY of evolution along with biblical teaching. I firmly believe, that with both, and His gift to us of discernment and "true" discrimination" most people will realize we did not rise out of the primordial ooze.....JMHO.

FMCDH(BITS)

[AppyPappy]

all centred on the idea that God created Earth in six days about 6000 years ago

I wonder if this is a strawman

[Aquinasfan]

Sounds like evolutionists are scared of the acedemic success of home-schoolers.

Pray for them. It's more of a spiritual problem.

[webstersII]

"From this article you would think that the entire motivation for the American home schooling movement is to teach children creationism and hide them from evolutionary biology."

The guy that wrote the article believes there is no more important issue out there today than the Creation-Evolution debate. To those people it trumps all other things in life and they think that everyone sees it that way.

[GourmetDan]

Well, I think the planet is warming, but so is the rest of the solar system.

Makes one wonder how our greenhouse-gases got to the outer planets and their moons.

[wouldntbprudent]

Good post - thanks!

[GourmetDan]

It would be a mistake to teach your kids that scientists are figuring out 'how God did it'.

I teach my kids that scientists *start* with the assumption that there is no God and there pronouncement proceed from there.

Totally unreliable as a 'reasonable' method for determining 'how God did it'.