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// other aspects of homeschooling were just a fig leaf over a whole lot of religious indoctrination. While this may technically fit the definition of "indoctri

// other aspects of homeschooling were just a fig leaf over a whole lot of religious indoctrination. While this may technically fit the definition of "indoctrination", that's a pretty loaded way to describe what parents teach their own children. // they thought the public schools were too secular and were teaching "sinful" sciences like evolution. Really? In 2021, the hot-button issue among religious parents was evolution?

vel0city 3y ago
I personally know multiple people who homeschooled their kids to avoid discussing evolution. There's even been debate at state board of education levels about how evolution is taught in public schools. There's absolutely a lot of people who want to teach their kids humans and dinos existed at the same time.
- lolinder 3y ago
  I think their point wasn't that religious parents wouldn't be concerned about evolution too, but that in 2021 they would have expected LGBT issues to be at the forefront of the religious right's fears surrounding public schools. For the parental fears to center on evolution either suggests either that the parents were censoring their larger concerns for OP, or it's an anachronism that brings the chronology into question.
petsfed 3y ago
I mean, you pick the subject, there's a hot-button issue. Could be evolution in the science side of things, the legacy of slavery or colonization in the history side of things. Math is generally pretty safe, although I do see a steady stream of "I'm so glad I'm homeschooling my kids, I can't believe what $currentEducationalBogeyman is trying to pass off as education" when presented with some way to understand math that I had to teach myself, in college, to do the math faster in my head. Composition is pretty safe, but as its frequently combined with literature (that is, the study of rhetoric in other people's writing) which also has a lot of self-censorship. It's also unsteady ground, as the Bible should be study as literature as well as religious tome, but that can lead to kids thinking about the humans who wrote the bible and what rhetorical outcome they were reaching towards. Physical education is safe so long as it limits itself to exercise, but health topics like human sexuality are obviously going to raise some hackles. I think it really depends on the parent what is the absolute bogeyman of public schooling, but evolution has posed the most consistent existential threat to the stereotypical fundamentalist who is looking to avoid "sinful" public schools.
- TacticalCoder 3y ago
  > Could be evolution in the science side of things... I don't think that the theory of evolution was the issue in 2021... Here's an example that happened in France: parents disgusted by a performance where an adult male performer was pretending, in front of kids, to eat vegetables in a garden, naked, in front of kids "because ecological art" (or whatever that performance was called) [1] I'm sure I'm the evil, close minded, one, who refuses to see the "art" and the "ecology" in that performance and who sees instead the perversion of kids. But while I'm the evil one who is seeing perversion, there were people involved in showing an adult male, on all fours, balls and dick out, ass spread, because he had an important message to pass (certainly). Do that to my kid, and my kid is getting homeschooled the next day. I don't have a problem with anyone but I do have a problem with proselytism. [1] the art performance (call it what you want) is now forbidden to be shown to kids (so there's still some sanity out there)... Video of the performance kids saw (the one inside the tweet): https://actu.fr/auvergne-rhone-alpes/lyon_69123/artistes-nus-devant-des-enfants-la-mairie-de-lyon-reagit-une-video-sortie-du-contexte_59725818.html https://actu.fr/auvergne-rhone-alpes/lyon_69123/artistes-nus... Note that I don't know and don't care if the person who revealed that is an ultra-fundamentalist christian, a neo-nazi, or an alien from outer space... You are not showing that to my kid without repercussion.
  - petsfed 3y ago
    That's pretty hard to argue with, although (according to google translate, my french is a bit rusty), the performance was already banned from kids. Children weren't supposed to be there. So maybe that's less a question of "look at the filth they're showing our kids!" and more "why weren't the docents doing their jobs?".
- humanrebar 3y ago
  > It's also unsteady ground, as the Bible should be study as literature as well as religious tome, but that can lead to kids thinking about the humans who wrote the bible and what rhetorical outcome they were reaching towards. This is where public schooling is hypocritical. There are various forms of education about race, gender, etc., but almost no mandatory education on religion? I'm not saying indoctrination, but education. Shouldn't everyone have a basic understanding of the history and tenets of Buddhism? Atheism? Hinduism? And so on? I think so. Even if the prism of importance is postmodern and focuses on respect fo others' self-identification, religion is clearly a major aspect in self-identification or we wouldn't treat the subject as controversial.
rhcom2 3y ago
[flagged]
PsylentKnight 3y ago
> While this may technically fit the definition of "indoctrination", that's a pretty loaded way to describe what parents teach their own children. I'm a former homeschooler that had to watch countless Ken Ham and Kent Hovind videos. These videos were filled with strawmen and faulty logic. I distinctly remember one of them tearing into Lamarckism, a theory discredited in the 1930's, as if it were something that people actually believe in today. Indoctrination is exactly how I'd describe it.
- ndriscoll 3y ago
  Unless you wanted to be a research biologist, does the precise mechanism driving evolution really matter? And the ideas did turn out to have some merit with epigenetics, right? Sure it's largely wrong, but it's a strange sort of indoctrination to care about. Sort of like how we tell children the story about electrons being balls that orbit the nucleus. Wrong, but only important for physicists and chemists.
  - waffleiron 3y ago
    The thing about creationism is that it also inherently tells you science is wrong, not to be believed and that scientists and the government willingly lie to you. That doesn’t set you up to get far and do well in the world as it is.
    - ndriscoll 3y ago
      Scientists and the government do willingly lie though? And a proper science education will have you go through the math and do experiments yourself so you don't need to believe it (well, you need to believe you are not being tricked by a Cartesian demon). If you're not doing that, then yeah all you have to go on is credibility of the people doing science, and several fields have replication crises, so it makes sense to not blindly believe them.
    - arkey 3y ago
      It does not. At least not in such absolute terms. Some science is wrong, but not science in itself. And mate, you don't need to go into religion or anything to find out that governments willingly lie to you. Also scientists, plenty of times, willingly or not. > That doesn’t set you up to get far and do well in the world as it is. There are loads of highly successful and relevant Christian people in every area, including science, right now and throughout history.
SpicyLemonZest 3y ago
Creationism never went away, it just became less politically salient. Public belief in evolution has been basically static for decades.
- bko 3y ago
  Why does it matter? I'm not a creationist but the insistence that you take this tiny aspect of a science (origin of life) and make everyone field loyalty to that idea is just weird. It's probably important if you're doing scientific research but not for basic education. You can scoff at creationists about how they don't believe in fossils, but what can the everyday man tell you about fossils? Is it integral to their life? Do they make important decisions based on the existence of fossils? Its basically a bumper sticker belief to 95% of people anyway All this to say who cares? People choose to believe what they want to believe. And for historical reasons there's this belief common that may or may not align with current scientific thought. Let's not make this a hill to die on if it drives parents away.
swalling 3y ago
Not only is it a hot button issue, but the US still has a large number of creationist "museums" you can tour with your kids https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationist_museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationist_museum
aidenn0 3y ago
> Really? In 2021, the hot-button issue among religious parents was evolution? In my area it certainly was. Vaccines were probably hotter at that time, but they tend to not be a major part of the curriculum, and transgender issues in public schools was just getting on parents radar here when COVID interrupted things.

vel0city 3y ago

I personally know multiple people who homeschooled their kids to avoid discussing evolution. There's even been debate at state board of education levels about how evolution is taught in public schools. There's absolutely a lot of people who want to teach their kids humans and dinos existed at the same time.

lolinder 3y ago
I think their point wasn't that religious parents wouldn't be concerned about evolution too, but that in 2021 they would have expected LGBT issues to be at the forefront of the religious right's fears surrounding public schools. For the parental fears to center on evolution either suggests either that the parents were censoring their larger concerns for OP, or it's an anachronism that brings the chronology into question.

petsfed 3y ago

I mean, you pick the subject, there's a hot-button issue. Could be evolution in the science side of things, the legacy of slavery or colonization in the history side of things. Math is generally pretty safe, although I do see a steady stream of "I'm so glad I'm homeschooling my kids, I can't believe what $currentEducationalBogeyman is trying to pass off as education" when presented with some way to understand math that I had to teach myself, in college, to do the math faster in my head. Composition is pretty safe, but as its frequently combined with literature (that is, the study of rhetoric in other people's writing) which also has a lot of self-censorship. It's also unsteady ground, as the Bible should be study as literature as well as religious tome, but that can lead to kids thinking about the humans who wrote the bible and what rhetorical outcome they were reaching towards. Physical education is safe so long as it limits itself to exercise, but health topics like human sexuality are obviously going to raise some hackles. I think it really depends on the parent what is the absolute bogeyman of public schooling, but evolution has posed the most consistent existential threat to the stereotypical fundamentalist who is looking to avoid "sinful" public schools.

TacticalCoder 3y ago
> Could be evolution in the science side of things... I don't think that the theory of evolution was the issue in 2021... Here's an example that happened in France: parents disgusted by a performance where an adult male performer was pretending, in front of kids, to eat vegetables in a garden, naked, in front of kids "because ecological art" (or whatever that performance was called) [1] I'm sure I'm the evil, close minded, one, who refuses to see the "art" and the "ecology" in that performance and who sees instead the perversion of kids. But while I'm the evil one who is seeing perversion, there were people involved in showing an adult male, on all fours, balls and dick out, ass spread, because he had an important message to pass (certainly). Do that to my kid, and my kid is getting homeschooled the next day. I don't have a problem with anyone but I do have a problem with proselytism. [1] the art performance (call it what you want) is now forbidden to be shown to kids (so there's still some sanity out there)... Video of the performance kids saw (the one inside the tweet): https://actu.fr/auvergne-rhone-alpes/lyon_69123/artistes-nus-devant-des-enfants-la-mairie-de-lyon-reagit-une-video-sortie-du-contexte_59725818.html https://actu.fr/auvergne-rhone-alpes/lyon_69123/artistes-nus... Note that I don't know and don't care if the person who revealed that is an ultra-fundamentalist christian, a neo-nazi, or an alien from outer space... You are not showing that to my kid without repercussion.
- petsfed 3y ago
  That's pretty hard to argue with, although (according to google translate, my french is a bit rusty), the performance was already banned from kids. Children weren't supposed to be there. So maybe that's less a question of "look at the filth they're showing our kids!" and more "why weren't the docents doing their jobs?".
humanrebar 3y ago
> It's also unsteady ground, as the Bible should be study as literature as well as religious tome, but that can lead to kids thinking about the humans who wrote the bible and what rhetorical outcome they were reaching towards. This is where public schooling is hypocritical. There are various forms of education about race, gender, etc., but almost no mandatory education on religion? I'm not saying indoctrination, but education. Shouldn't everyone have a basic understanding of the history and tenets of Buddhism? Atheism? Hinduism? And so on? I think so. Even if the prism of importance is postmodern and focuses on respect fo others' self-identification, religion is clearly a major aspect in self-identification or we wouldn't treat the subject as controversial.

rhcom2 3y ago

[flagged]

PsylentKnight 3y ago

> While this may technically fit the definition of "indoctrination", that's a pretty loaded way to describe what parents teach their own children. I'm a former homeschooler that had to watch countless Ken Ham and Kent Hovind videos. These videos were filled with strawmen and faulty logic. I distinctly remember one of them tearing into Lamarckism, a theory discredited in the 1930's, as if it were something that people actually believe in today. Indoctrination is exactly how I'd describe it.

ndriscoll 3y ago
Unless you wanted to be a research biologist, does the precise mechanism driving evolution really matter? And the ideas did turn out to have some merit with epigenetics, right? Sure it's largely wrong, but it's a strange sort of indoctrination to care about. Sort of like how we tell children the story about electrons being balls that orbit the nucleus. Wrong, but only important for physicists and chemists.
- waffleiron 3y ago
  The thing about creationism is that it also inherently tells you science is wrong, not to be believed and that scientists and the government willingly lie to you. That doesn’t set you up to get far and do well in the world as it is.
  - ndriscoll 3y ago
    Scientists and the government do willingly lie though? And a proper science education will have you go through the math and do experiments yourself so you don't need to believe it (well, you need to believe you are not being tricked by a Cartesian demon). If you're not doing that, then yeah all you have to go on is credibility of the people doing science, and several fields have replication crises, so it makes sense to not blindly believe them.
  - arkey 3y ago
    It does not. At least not in such absolute terms. Some science is wrong, but not science in itself. And mate, you don't need to go into religion or anything to find out that governments willingly lie to you. Also scientists, plenty of times, willingly or not. > That doesn’t set you up to get far and do well in the world as it is. There are loads of highly successful and relevant Christian people in every area, including science, right now and throughout history.

SpicyLemonZest 3y ago

Creationism never went away, it just became less politically salient. Public belief in evolution has been basically static for decades.

bko 3y ago
Why does it matter? I'm not a creationist but the insistence that you take this tiny aspect of a science (origin of life) and make everyone field loyalty to that idea is just weird. It's probably important if you're doing scientific research but not for basic education. You can scoff at creationists about how they don't believe in fossils, but what can the everyday man tell you about fossils? Is it integral to their life? Do they make important decisions based on the existence of fossils? Its basically a bumper sticker belief to 95% of people anyway All this to say who cares? People choose to believe what they want to believe. And for historical reasons there's this belief common that may or may not align with current scientific thought. Let's not make this a hill to die on if it drives parents away.

swalling 3y ago

Not only is it a hot button issue, but the US still has a large number of creationist "museums" you can tour with your kids https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationist_museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationist_museum

aidenn0 3y ago

> Really? In 2021, the hot-button issue among religious parents was evolution? In my area it certainly was. Vaccines were probably hotter at that time, but they tend to not be a major part of the curriculum, and transgender issues in public schools was just getting on parents radar here when COVID interrupted things.