Day 15: Then why home school? Secular Thursday

First, I will admit that I'm using my blogging obligations to procrastinate from the cleaning obligations around the house. Hopefully I will only allow myself a temporary distraction. :)




Around the web and around real life, I've found that it is hard for people to conceptualize a reason for homeschooling that is not for religious practices. The school is going to teach what I'm going to teach, right? So why not take advantage of the system that my taxes are paying for? You’re wasting your money and time better spent on your own pursuits. You can work and go on lunch dates with your best friend and be free to watch torrid romantic comedies during the day. Why on earth would you want to do exactly what the public schools are doing? If not for religious reasons, what else could there be?



I'm even going to go a step further and peer into the future and see the dimension where my son goes through the entire public school system and comes out of it okay. At least, no worse than the average student in the United States. Why would I want to home school?



Secular homeschoolers have a harder time proving why their reasoning is acceptable -even a few of those in the community have a hard time justifying their reasonings and, myself included, will latch on to other issues such as bullying, special needs such as learning disabilities or illness, and even curriculum as the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back to justify the reasoning of not being part of the herd. Being a secular homeschooler puts you open to scrutiny because faith, even for the faithless, is infallible. You cannot argue belief in a God anymore than you can argue the belief in love. Mr Franklin said it best, "...in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." So why would someone, who could as easily as they could home school, go and fight for the qualities they wish the school system to have? Sure, they could, but even if we did, concessions would be made and averages would be instilled and even if there was an improvement, the glaring mediocrity in that new public school system would tarnish even the most humble of educational requirements we have for our children.



So, I home school because I feel it is best. I see it as the best and I have faith that it will do the best. I don't need to align myself with a reason, a cause or a condition to persuade beyond the purpose of what I feel. If I must, I will liken it to a calling to God -that I believe that I can provide a better education for my son. Let the demonic public education cronies strike me down if this is false because I will not make my son a martyr to prove he deserves better.

Day 7: Believe those who are seeking truth. Doubt those who find it. Secular Thursday Dish

The title is from a quote, that I just found, from Andre Gide. A quick wiki on him, he was a philosopher who believed in one finding themselves and I believe his little quote, "Believe those who are seeking truth. Doubt those who find it," is a really good representation of what our take is on our religion, what we believe to be right and the preach that we practice.


The hubs and I are the atheist/agnostic type. He's a little more of the first and I'm a little more of the latter. I was raised catholic and some of those roots are just too hard to let go -a true testament to the effectiveness on catholic doctrines of faith. However, to say that I am a true Christian, a true believer is not being true to myself. I don't believe in joining an all-inclusive club where only the 'right ones' are let in. Oddly enough, this goes along with saying, I'm not a true atheist or a true agnostic. Some may say I'm a fair weathered atheist, and it's only when stuff gets tough, that I cast off my faithless beliefs in favor of the saving hand from an omnipotent being. The real truth is that I'm still trying to figure it out and I'm never going to find that truth so I will be happily ever after searching for that truth. I love it when quotes come along and put words exactly to how you feel.

So, this is how we wish to teach Logan. We want him to have religious tolerance just as much as social tolerance. We want him to be awed filled and show him that educating yourself about different viewpoints, different aspects of life, culture, religion and everything else out there may change his point of view, but he shouldn't be afraid to seek out an alternative because of the chance of losing his beliefs. Reject complacency in the status quo but don't be (and here's the kicker word) lazy and reject the entire status quo. This is what we hope to teach him in this little venture of home school -hopefully he finds it as interesting as science.

I'm sure my explanation has left more questions...but the ultimate thing we believe is that faith, spirituality, religion are a personal choice to be respected, acknowledged, and tolerated. It makes our own quest to seek the truth that much more believable.


Loganism for the day: "I know why the road slopes down! It's so the water can run into the pots and be soaked up." me: "Did you learn about that in school yesterday?" Logan: "No, my brain figured it out because I'm smart." Indeed!