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Post by nikita on Sept 4, 2010 19:18:12 GMT -5
True story: When my son was six he played all the time with the little eight year old girl next door. One day my son was singing 'Go Tell it on the Mountain' that he heard all the time on a tape we had and my son liked that song. The little girl next door heard my son sing 'Jesus Christ is born!', gasped, told my son he said a bad word and ran home to her mother to tattle, whereupon my son came home to ask me why it was a bad word. See, her dad used 'Jesus Christ' as an expletive whenever he was frustrated and upset and that's the only time she ever heard it. Her mom came over and apologized to me and said she probably needed to take her kids to church every once in a while so these misunderstandings wouldn't happen. Totally cracked me up at the time. That poor woman.
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Post by arietty on Sept 4, 2010 19:43:54 GMT -5
When I first got married I didn't know a thing about cooking or running a house.. NOTHING. And I taught myself how to cook and bake bread from books bought in a thrift store. I taught myself how to do crosstitch (during my abortive Christian-Women-Do-Crafts phase) from books from the library. I learned about baby raising and child care from watching other moms and from the La Leche League book I bought second hand when pregnant with my first. And a zillion other things I either learned by doing because they were common sense or I sourced books about them.
All of which is to say that it is utter nonsense that a girl has to stay home for years focusing on how to run a house as though this work is a doctorate in medicine. It is EASY, it is common sense combined with minuscule brain application. I realize that making it out to be "the most important job in the world" etc.. makes people feel better if that is what they do with their days (and I am one of those people myself, still have pre-schoolers) but important doesn't mean you have to spend your whole childhood and adolescence training for how to do it. It's just a big crock to make out like the home arts are the equivalent of college learning.
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Post by ladygrace on Sept 4, 2010 21:34:07 GMT -5
Greetings, Lady Grace! Your post reminded me a bit of what RC Sproul, Jr wrote in his Multigenerational Faithfulness book which I vented my splenic material about on my blog some time ago: undermuchgrace.blogspot.com/2009/02/rc-sproul-jrs-take-on-multigenerational.htmlRC 2.0 writes in "When You Rise Up": From Pages 110 - 112: The mother made a confession to me. She told me, “You know, my nine-year-old daughter doesn’t know how to read.” Now here is a good test to see how much baggage you are carrying around. Does that make you uncomfortable? Are you thinking, “Mercy, what would the school superintendent say if he knew?” My response was a cautious, “Really?” But my friend went on to explain, “She doesn’t know how to read, but every morning she gets up and gets ready for the day. Then takes care of her three youngest siblings. She takes them to the potty, she cleans and dresses them, makes their breakfasts, brushes their teeth, clears their dishes, and makes their beds.” Now I saw her rightly, as an overachiever. If she didn’t know how to read, but did know all the Looney Tunes characters, that would be a problem. But here is a young girl being trained to be a keeper at home. Do I want her to read? Of course I do, as does her mother. I want her to read to equip her to learn the Three Gs. [From earlier in the book, he notes the "Three Gs": Who is God? What has God done? What does God require?] But this little girl was learning what God requires, to be a help in the family business, with a focus on tending the garden.
I’m not suggesting that the goal is to have ignorant daughters. I am, however, arguing that we are to train them to be keepers at home. These two are not equivalent. Though we aren’t given many details we know that both Priscilla and Aquila had a part in the education of Apollos. I’m impressed with Priscilla, as I am with my own wife. She is rather theologically astute... My point is that that brilliance isn’t what validates her as a person. It’s a good thing, a glorious thing, and an appropriate thing. But it’s like the general principle we’ve already covered. Would I rather be married to a godly woman who was comparatively ignorant, or a wicked person who was terribly bright? Who would make a better wife and mother, someone who doesn’t know infra- from supralapsarianism, but does know which side is up on a diaper, or a woman about to defend her dissertation on the eschatology of John Gill at Cambridge but one who thinks children are unpleasant? It’s no contest, is it? Naturally we want everything. We want all the virtues to the highest degree. But virtues come in different shades and colors in different circumstances.
Thank you! The patriarch of one of the Royalty families is my mom's cousin. My mom's experience was quite different than we all see with the Golden Brood. Her young life was filled with horrific abuse. Her mom eventually divorced the loser, married someone else who treated everyone well, and, when he died, turned around and remarried the bastard, using the money she and her deceased-husband inherited from the deceased-husband's deceased-mom that was supposed to go to help "the kids" (my mom and her siblings, both blood and step) to give the abusive fucker a comfy life. There is a lot of anger over this right now. Delia would spin in her grave if she knew. My parents made the conscious decision to have the kids they could afford. So my dad got the snip after my brother was born. We both went to school, and by the time I was that girl's age, I was performing in school at a sixth grade level (while in third grade), and knew how to cook, clean, even sew dresses from scratch. It was fun! I also wasn't forced to do it all, so I wanted to learn it all. *GASP!!* A girl who could also read at the age of nine! But of course an illiterate wife has an even smaller chance of getting help if she can't read a phone book to look up women's shelters.
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Post by macktivist on Sept 4, 2010 22:05:44 GMT -5
I can't believe that guy is saying it's okay for women to be illiterate! As a woman with an English degree and who is a voracious reader, I would really like to tell him where he can shove those ideas. ;D
Back in the days of slavery, it was illegal to teach slaves how to read because they might realize that they were just as smart as white people. The white owners were afraid this would cause the slaves to rebel. Maybe it's the same logic, if women are kept dumb, they'll be less likely to threaten QF men's "headship".
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Post by cindy on Sept 4, 2010 23:26:31 GMT -5
I had been in my Gothard/CGM cult for about six months, and I ended up sitting by an elder's wife at a ladies retreat. I was considering going to graduate school at the time, and I explained to her how stressful almost any decision was for me because I expected perfection of myself. The small ones were bad enough, but the big ones have big consequences, and I would always panic. She explained to me that being married and sticking to the housework actually provided a great deal of freedom from that kind of stress (for there were actually few decisions to make under my husband's covering). By the end of my experience there, I decided that to be "free" on their terms, I would need a lobotomy!
Like the would be freedom of the Dugger girls and my would be freedom that supposedly would find me if I acted like a proper QF/patriarchy woman, I suppose that this poor young illiterate girl was seen as free as well, "doing what God required of her." (For heaven sakes, one of God's names is LOGOS -- the Word! Presuming that the girl didn't have a learning problem or a medical problem, I think it's pretty important to, in this day and age, give that ability to know about God through words.)
How ARE ya gonna keep them down on the farm if they can call a Domestic Abuse Hotline because you've expanded their freedom through the ability to read?
Not everything I do and argue always makes sense, and our hearts have their own reason that reason knows not, as Pascal said. But this makes no sense to me. Up until the day I decided that I'd need a lobotomy, I tried my darndest to make it make sense.
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Post by cindy on Sept 4, 2010 23:31:02 GMT -5
I can't believe that guy is saying it's okay for women to be illiterate! As a woman with an English degree and who is a voracious reader, I would really like to tell him where he can shove those ideas. ;D Back in the days of slavery, it was illegal to teach slaves how to read because they might realize that they were just as smart as white people. The white owners were afraid this would cause the slaves to rebel. Maybe it's the same logic, if women are kept dumb, they'll be less likely to threaten QF men's "headship". Sproul and his buddy Doug Phillips LOVE Robert L. Dabney. -- Dabney who said that it was a sin to teach a black man to read.... They were free, too, under the benevolent care of their white masters. Yeah, right.
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Post by MoonlitNight on Sept 5, 2010 0:06:08 GMT -5
I haven't watched the show, not having television, but the impression I get from the article is that the Duggar girls *are* refreshingly free of some damaging ideas and behaviours that they would have gotten from mainstream American culture. Mr. Richards does not have to be crazy to notice this or be pleased by it. Western culture is not that healthy or supportive place for teen girls, or teens in general. A few examples of the pressures and constraints on them: Peer pressure from friends has been replaced by familiar pressure with dire consequences for rebelling. So they may not have to be 36-24-36 with DD-boobs to think of themselves as beautiful. The beauty standards placed on them are much harsher. To be beautiful, they must be meek and hold their tongues if their thoughts might be the opposite of the men in their lives, and then they must work on changing their thoughts. Also being overweight is seen as a sign of gluttony for young, unmarried women. So you're wrong about there being no physical expectations regarding beauty. I know one girl from a QF family who routinely starves herself striving to be thin so that se won't be considered a glutton. They must be submissive, allow men in their lives the final say. They have as much choice as red shirt or blue shirt, and there was quite a few years when they didn't even have that much choice. They do not get to choose their own friends. Their hobbies are chosen for them. The expectations on them are so rigid that if they were to rebel, they'd be turned out so as not to corrupt the others. Do you think these girls would be allowed to wear pants, or cut and dye their hair, or even go to the mall with friends of their own choosing? Do you realize their husbands will be chosen for them? Ladygrace, I'm sorry that I accidentally mimicked a fundamentalist infiltrator. I'm not actually anything of the kind -- I don't think I've attended more than 5 religious services in my 31 years. You might want to read reply #25 at the top of page 2 to see how I already figured out that I botched that post you replied to here. I've been reading the various story series at NLQ for about a year or so now, so I do have some idea how very constrained these girls are. The reason that I wrote that first post at all was that my understanding (based on the stories from NLQ) of how these girls are likely raised and treated really didn't jive with my personal experience of how young people tend to learn how to talk like equals to people who are older/more experienced/more educated (see reply #30). Maybe the entire set of misunderstandings is because what that TV producer's idea of an intelligent young lady and my idea of one may not match too well. I don't know anything about the man or the show he produces -- maybe I shouldn't have been treating his information as unbiased, just because he wasn't obviously slanting in one direction or another to my eyes. Also sex crimes happen in QF families. I don't know where you get the idea that they don't. The rate of reported sex crimes is much lower than it should be precisely because women are told repeatedly that they are owned. As property, they have no rights, and if they aren't even informed that certain things are crimes, what is there to report? I would actually be very surprised if the real rate of sex crimes in QF and fundamentalist household was NOT significantly higher than in the surrounding society, for exactly the reasons you give. (This does not, however, mean the rate in general Western society is zero. The rate I've heard a few places is 1 in 3 or 4.) I'd expect this to hold true for any kind of patriarchal authoritarian group, be it Christian, Muslim, other religions, or even completely secular. I'm pretty sure a good friend of mine who was abused for years by multiple males in her family would agree with you too. I'm also pretty sure that entitlement/sense of ownership is why there is a lot of sex crime in general -- there's just a lot of guys who have more modern and/or secular ideas about many topics, but who have less modern ideas about women being people with the right to say no at any point, including after the dinner, or the kissing, etc. One of said feminist crusaders is one partly because her husband, who looked like a catch at first glance, turned out to be a passive-aggressive bully who either couldn't tell or didn't care when he was having less than consensual sex with his wife. Thankfully, she divorced him, and he let her go gracefully.
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Post by ladygrace on Sept 5, 2010 2:27:27 GMT -5
I'll apologize too. I've been around several forums that, while not focused on this topic, sometimes get the errant post, and invariably several people will start proclaiming love for these families because they're all full of people who love and respect each other and everyone's clean and living well with no debt, etc., a mistaken belief based on the Duggars. I've gotten into it with many people who just won't believe that the girls in these families, Duggars included, are all trading one form of peer pressure for another form, and the form they get comes with much higher stakes.
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jeb
Junior Member
Posts: 97
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Post by jeb on Sept 5, 2010 11:12:37 GMT -5
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Post by nikita on Sept 5, 2010 11:28:02 GMT -5
I knew it! You know, paranoia is much more fun from the outside looking in. Sad-scary-fun, anyway. I don't understand the last two sentences though: "The fact that religious leaders promote these doctrinally dumbed-down bibles that inflate self-esteem but do little to teach the Will of God is evidence that Big Brother isn't content controlling your mind. He wants your entire soul – mind, will and emotion. If Big Brother is starting to sound like somebody else, Murray makes no apologies."Starting to sound like whom? In this particular political climate I'm almost tempted to think he meant the president, since they seem to think all evil flows from him somehow. And the fact that that even occurred to me makes me very sad. But seriously, who is the 'somebody else'?
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Post by usotsuki on Sept 5, 2010 11:41:21 GMT -5
With a dash of Riplingerism to boot. Yeesh.
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Post by nikita on Sept 5, 2010 11:45:32 GMT -5
Looking at the other books on that website is very illuminating. The chapter headings in the book for Christian Manhood (a book written for boys) and Beautiful Girlhood is very telling: the boys get more meaty stuff and the girls get fluffy pablum about being cheerful and obedient. Figures. Although if I were a young boy I'd be concerned about a chapter called ' What is the Meaning of Circumcision?' Do they circumcise the home birthed boys? If not, that chapter might give me the heebies. There's another chapter called 'A Guide to T.V. Viewing-From Psalms 101:3-8a' which seems to be a stretch to me. But I digress... Everything is completely focused on works and appearances. They actually have a book called ' The Importance of Outward Appearance'. Have they actually read the bible? I guess I'm feeling particularly frustrated today with the state of the gospel in the hands of these people. It is just such a betrayal of what the 'good news' actually is, and so many people are being hurt by it. It makes me angry.
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Post by jemand on Sept 5, 2010 12:03:17 GMT -5
Looking at the other books on that website is very illuminating. The chapter headings in the book for Christian Manhood (a book written for boys) and Beautiful Girlhood is very telling: the boys get more meaty stuff and the girls get fluffy pablum about being cheerful and obedient. Figures. Although if I were a young boy I'd be concerned about a chapter called ' What is the Meaning of Circumcision?' Do they circumcise the home birthed boys? If not, that chapter might give me the heebies. There's another chapter called 'A Guide to T.V. Viewing-From Psalms 101:3-8a' which seems to be a stretch to me. But I digress... Everything is completely focused on works and appearances. They actually have a book called ' The Importance of Outward Appearance'. Have they actually read the bible? I guess I'm feeling particularly frustrated today with the state of the gospel in the hands of these people. It is just such a betrayal of what the 'good news' actually is, and so many people are being hurt by it. It makes me angry. Actually, if they DO perform home circumcisions after home births, THAT would give me the super heebie jeebies.
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Post by jquantz on Sept 5, 2010 12:50:57 GMT -5
I knew it! You know, paranoia is much more fun from the outside looking in. Sad-scary-fun, anyway. I don't understand the last two sentences though: "The fact that religious leaders promote these doctrinally dumbed-down bibles that inflate self-esteem but do little to teach the Will of God is evidence that Big Brother isn't content controlling your mind. He wants your entire soul – mind, will and emotion. If Big Brother is starting to sound like somebody else, Murray makes no apologies."Starting to sound like whom? In this particular political climate I'm almost tempted to think he meant the president, since they seem to think all evil flows from him somehow. And the fact that that even occurred to me makes me very sad. But seriously, who is the 'somebody else'? Oh, IDK, could it be, perhaps, SATAN? ? ;D (I am being facetious here, and using a pop culture reference, from the tv show Saturday Night Live and their hilarious "Church Lady" episodes.) Because, who else besides God would want your entire soul - mind, will and emotion? That's my take on it, anyway. www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnCZxLvYXI8&feature=relatedThis is my first post on these boards, and I will introduce myself on the introduction thread for those that wish to know my story. I am not and never have been QF, or fundy, or Evangelical. I was raised in Catholicism and lived my adult life (until recently) as a member of the Catholic Church, which I have since left, and am now Atheist. Yep, going back to college at age 50 three years ago taught me those pesky critical thinking skills which have laid waste to my belief in a God. I do, however, feel a kinship with the women here who have escaped an abusive marriage, and reading the posts have helped me process and come to terms with myself and the religion-based "truths" I utilized that kept me in my own abusive marriage to a passive-aggressive narcissist for far too long.
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Post by asteli on Sept 5, 2010 19:00:28 GMT -5
Well, they do have a faint point about schools. They were originally started to create an educated (to a certain level) working class used to obeying orders & not defying authority (hmm...that sounds kind of familiar). John Holt was a former teacher who has written some great books about the problems with schools.
On the other hand for all the problems with schools, they're much better than the "education" the majority of QF homeschooled kids get. And despite their problems, I put my middle son in kindergarten this year & my oldest has decided he might want to go to school next year.
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Post by nikita on Sept 5, 2010 19:34:09 GMT -5
Well, they do have a faint point about schools. They were originally started to create an educated (to a certain level) working class used to obeying orders & not defying authority (hmm...that sounds kind of familiar). John Holt was a former teacher who has written some great books about the problems with schools. On the other hand for all the problems with schools, they're much better than the "education" the majority of QF homeschooled kids get. And despite their problems, I put my middle son in kindergarten this year & my oldest has decided he might want to go to school next year. This is true, and high schools also have traditionally served to keep older teens out of the work force in periods when employment was at a premium. But those are long ago days now. Now, the education is critical and as a society we really are failing dismally. I love John Holt. When I was in high school I read his How Chidren Learn and used it to actually learn new material that I didn't immediately grasp. I use his method to this day. It is astonishing how well it works when you stop trying to understand and let the information just come in. Seriously, it's how I managed my freshman physiological psychology course back in the ancient old days. Anyway, I think that the author of this book, although waxing nostalgic about the good old nineteenth century educational system, is drenched in new fashioned twenty-first century paranoid thinking with this book. That's not to say that the level of disorganization and mediocrity with which some schools are run, along with their terrible graduation rates, does not make you wonder who is being served here. Or that home schooling is not the best answer for some families who do it well. But his conspiracy theories? Sheesh.
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Post by knittedinthewomb on Sept 5, 2010 19:35:12 GMT -5
Bronwyn, I don't think the Duggar girls are as safe as you think they are from some of the same "worldly" messages buffeting young women outside evangelical Christianity. For instance: - Instead of beauty magazines, there are publications like Above Rubies constantly holding up an ideal that is "beautiful" - let's face it, most of the highly-praised and popular evangelical Christian girls are stick-thin, too, especially the ones dressed "modestly" Good point! Even the "modesty suit" swim suits send a subtle message about how a woman should look in that one style is described as creating a "slimming" appearance.
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Post by Sierra on Sept 5, 2010 19:46:29 GMT -5
Good point! Even the "modesty suit" swim suits send a subtle message about how a woman should look in that one style is described as creating a "slimming" appearance. Welcome, and thanks. I think another point to note with regard to the swimsuits and modesty in general is the tendency of people (not even just fundamentalists) to consider "fleshier" bodies more inherently sexual. Women with larger busts are keenly aware of this. The early 20th century use of girdles to rein in perilous hips attests to the fact that other curves (which may not be synonymous with weight but seem to require some amount of it to exist) are also considered sexual. A thinner girl is likely to appear more "modest" simply because she is more easily concealed by the same clothes worn by heavier/curvier women.
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Post by cindy on Sept 5, 2010 19:48:48 GMT -5
Well, they do have a faint point about schools. They were originally started to create an educated (to a certain level) working class used to obeying orders & not defying authority (hmm...that sounds kind of familiar). John Holt was a former teacher who has written some great books about the problems with schools. Asteli, John Holt is a fascinating example as an object of example in this discussion. He was a secular advocate for homeschooling, publishing the first magazine about homeschooling in the '70s. He started advocating for reform of public schools, I think, as far back as the late '50s. The problem for noting his efforts and work among the QF crowd concerns his motivation for interest in homeschooling. He was not concerned about keeping his children from "contamination" with sin and worldliness. He was concerned about education alone. He didn't have any other agenda, save that he wanted to see kids get the most out of learning. The problem with the whole QF paradigm is not homeschooling but the motivations and fears that QF parents have. Homeschooling is just one of many means of reaching the desired end of feeling safe, secure an effective as people and as Christians. The John Holts in homeschooling are looked down upon by the QF Movement as utilitarian secularists that have corrupted their territory (or threatened it) with concerns about academics alone. Most Christian homeschoolers today have no idea who Holt was and all the precious landmark work he did to establish homeschooling so that it would be available to them years later. If I'm not mistaken, I believe it was John Holt who first coined the term, "unschooling," though others like Raymond Moore (7th Day Adventist) also used and advanced the term. The major players today who came of age in the '80s count themselves as the pioneers in homeschooling, yet if it were not for Moore and for Holt and their work that was cooperative and supportive of one another, these guys today would not be where they are. Others say that Rushdoony was solely responsible for the important advances in homeschooling, because in QF, Rushdoony is more PC than Moore and definitely more acceptable than Holt. QFers are interested in supporting their distorted histories and view of the world as they'd like it to be. They're in it for the cause, and it just happens that homeschooling is a great option for those who have the resources and abilities to offer it to their kids. And it has become a sacrament and a holy religious rite toward the end of being neo-tribal and elitist. RC Sproul, Jr. has called Christians who aspire to excellence in academics "movement homeschoolers" who have missed the point of homeschooling to them -- to create better Christians in terms of character and relationships (and whatever other goals they have). Gothard teaches that academics are secondary to character. Not that character and such is not important, or that keeping your children safe from drugs, sex, and rock and roll is not important to people, but academics should be equally important. You can teach your kids character, religion, and discipline and still send them to other types of schools. It isn't a holy right, it is a way of educating kids. People forget, generally the people who fawn on about Rushdoony, that Rush supported private Christian schools as well as homeschooling as another viable option. He stressed that as Christians, we should be able to demonstrate to the world that Christian alternatives could prepare BETTER and more excellent students than the government schools. For him, it was just as much about academics as it was a parent's right to raise their children in environments that were not hostile to their religious beliefs. Homeschooling and Christian schools were supposed to provide a viable Christian alternative by which a parent could accomplish both ends. But today, particularly under the influence of people like Gothard and guys like Sproul, Jr, academics are seen as a necessary evil. After all, it is supposed to be about primary education for children. It's called home SCHOOLING, not home character training or home religion. All that to say and reiterate that homeschooling has taken on a whole new meaning and purpose, moving away from a viable option for providing an excellent education to one's children into a religious rite, a proof of holiness, a way to indoctrinate -- a way for control freaks who feel stressed that they are powerless in other areas of their lives or pasts to feel better by dominating other people. It is not enough for them that they can choose the option to homeschool but they must convert the whole world.
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Post by ladygrace on Sept 6, 2010 10:07:13 GMT -5
While that article is stupid, it's hard to doubt that the government tries controlling education, going as far as to withhold funds from poor schools that teach about birth control in attempt to lower the teen pregnancy rate, and in at least one state, attempts have ben made at making teaching sex ed a criminal act punishable by jail, fines, and going on the sex offender registry. Who do you think sets the minimum requirements, decides which novels can be used in English classes, etc.? School boards have some input, but the final say is the government. But schools aren't tying, IN GENERAL, to keep people dumb. It's a double-edged sword. Teach to the brightest students in class, and everyone else falls behind. Teach to the dumbest, and the bright students lose potential. As much a I dislike Bush, I do think No Child Left Behind had the right idea, but was a bad idea in how it's been carried out. These programs aren't designed to intentionally keep students dumb (except the ban on comprehensive sex ed). A bit of hypocrisy is that the writer of that article and followers of the same mindset homeschool so that THEY can withhold certain information. Myself? We're going to homeschool, or homeschool-co-op, so that we can give our daughter more of the information schools don't give, accurate history, and at her pace, whether that's 2 grades in a year, or one grade taking 2 years. I can't stand how the nutcases make all homeschoolers look bad.
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Post by cherylannhannah on Sept 6, 2010 15:55:05 GMT -5
RC Sproul, Jr. has called Christians who aspire to excellence in academics "movement homeschoolers" who have missed the point of homeschooling to them -- to create better Christians in terms of character and relationships (and whatever other goals they have). Gothard teaches that academics are secondary to character. Not that character and such is not important, or that keeping your children safe from drugs, sex, and rock and roll is not important to people, but academics should be equally important. You can teach your kids character, religion, and discipline and still send them to other types of schools. It isn't a holy right, it is a way of educating kids. Homeschoolers of the Sproul/Gothard ilk (and I was one of them though I didn't read any of their stuff) think that the enemy is "out there" in the world and that by sheltering and forcefeeding kids Christian culture they will defeat it. What they fail to realize is that the world is in the heart unless there is a work of regeneration done by God. Ask me how I know.
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Post by amyrose on Sept 7, 2010 10:57:16 GMT -5
W Who do you think sets the minimum requirements, decides which novels can be used in English classes, etc.? School boards have some input, but the final say is the government. . Having taught English for 16 years, I have to tell you that you are incorrect. In my state the standards set by the government only specify that we teach certain genres, certain literary concepts (i.e. allegory, symbols, motifs), and that the high school curriculum include authors from the state. The standards do not specify any specific work of literature at all. Schools with input from teachers, parent committees sometimes, and school boards are free to choose their own novels, plays and shorter selections. It is not at all atypical for a new teacher to come into a school and request that a new novel he or she has enjoyed teaching be purchased and added to his or her class. At one large public high school I did a college practicum in, the department had a large collection of novels, plays etc...for each grade level which individual teachers could choose from for their own sections of the course. Having spent time at various national conferences with other English teachers, this is basically the way things are done in most states in regard to choosing novels. Literature anthologies (the large textbooks which include shorter works) may be chosen in a more uniform way, but teachers use those in varying degrees ranging from--in my experience--barely to not at all. Most rely on novels, plays and other materials outside of the anthology.
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Post by tapati on Sept 7, 2010 11:00:36 GMT -5
Tapati - what is it? I don't have flash because it screws up with my computer so I want to know if this is something I should download flash to see or not. Thanks. Anne Murray singing Put Your Hand In The Hand. Sorry I didn't get back here and see this right away.
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Post by humbletigger on Sept 7, 2010 20:21:37 GMT -5
Don't you think this might be because you can't educate for excellence with a dozen kids, all at different developmental stages?
When I started home schooling, education was paramount and freedom was the means to that end. The support group talk was about hands-on real life experiential learning, unit studies, learning styles, delight-directed learning and letting the student's ability/development set the time line. Even the Christians took all this stuff seriously at the beginning.
Some of us never lost this goal for home schooling, family learning. But more and more fundamentalist extremism became a widening influence. The QF teachings accelerated the nonsense.
Because let's be honest, you can't do delight directed learning with twelve different students without a lot of money and at least a part-time housekeeper. If you are going to be out in the world looking for experiential learning opportunities, you will have to eat out- and for twelve students that is a lot of money. With twelve students at all age levels, including nursing and toddlers, few of them are going to get the kind of attention they need for a mom to discern their learning styles. Few of them will themselves have time or opportunity to discover what they might be interested in pursuing as a talent or an interest.
The leaders could tell they were not keeping up with the original intentions, so they simply changed the rules. Character is more important. The older girls become the housekeeper, and that's the experiential learning they will get- who cares what they are interested in or talented for! God wills it. The boys get political indoctrination and religious dogma, because all that requires is a Bible and a radio set on religious channels. College falls prey to the sour grapes syndrome. No one is prepared for it educationally and who could afford it anyway? So the leaders teach it is unnecessary at best, and will destroy your childrens' faith at worst.
As a home school mom myself, I am angry that I let myself be shoved out and silenced. My kids have had a great education, and I am still a huge supporter of home education as I embraced it and practiced it.
But I wish I had stood up and publicly debated these stupid trends that have hurt so many children and mothers. Instead I just went my own way. *shrugs*
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Post by roddma on Sept 7, 2010 23:46:10 GMT -5
I haven't watched the show, not having television, but the impression I get from the article is that the Duggar girls *are* refreshingly free of some damaging ideas and behaviours that they would have gotten from mainstream American culture. Mr. Richards does not have to be crazy to notice this or be pleased by it. Western culture is not that healthy or supportive place for teen girls, or teens in general. A few examples of the pressures and constraints on them: - beauty magazines creating intense pressure to look right and buy lots of product - fashion industry sending clear silent messages that certain body types aren't acceptable - teenage boys -- typically hormone-driven and awkward, but some are also clueless, entitled, or just plain cruel. Often they reinforce most of the rest of this list. - far too much emphasis on celebrities who don't actually do much beyond look pretty, party, and have stupendous amounts of money, giving people a seriously distorted view of the value of work and money and their relationship to eac hother. - very mixed messages about sex and what the kind and quantity you have say about you - rape and sexual harassment - a part of your life that you want to spend on equal parts fun and doing something cool and real is regulated by others such that you can't get enough of either. The Duggar girls have skipped all that stuff, and instead have certain things that are good for you: - real and valuable work to do for people who appreciate their contributions - a clear framework of values and expectations, which gives the world structure and solidity - a large loving family to belong to and be supported by I think that list is a key to why people join cults and related movements in the first place. I'm not saying cults are good for you...just that they do offer something real and good in the package, and those real and good things are a big part of why people join or stay. The question is, what damaging "Biblical" ideas or behaviours have been substituted for the damaging mainstream ones? The Duggar girls may be free to be themselves in some ways that many modern American girls aren't, but I'm sure they've paid for it in freedoms that those modern girls take for granted. Cults offer nothing good. In the Duggar's world Wisdom booklets replace beauty magazines with distorted views of the world and intense pressure to think a certain way. Only one kind of s*x is right. Too much emphasis on one religious leader who think he has the answers to life's troubles. Bill Gothard makes enormous amounts of money selling ATI material. He is almost 'God' to the Duggars. It is a form of idolatry when you blindly follow one man. Only certain careers are allowed. Using how the mainstream is no way justifies the legalistic Fundie teachings. These girls aren't free at all.
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