I&#x27;ve Been To Over 20 Homeschool Conferences. The Things I&#x27;ve Witnessed At Them Shocked Me.

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It is at the school I went to, the school my kids went to, and the schools that my wife teaches at.

Stumblinbear

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I went to school in Kansas. This was all taught, even there

helenslunch

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That's because "woke" doesn't have a concrete definition.

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It's just "what Trump tells me to hate", there i defined it.

Igloojoe

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Fox news tells them as well. Either way, people too stupid to have a thought originate from themselves.

Honytawk

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I equate it to "progressive"

Which conservatives don't like because that means they are against progress.

theneverfox

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Yes it does. It means you don't trust politicians or the system, you reexamine your beliefs and look at it critically.

If you don't think there's a fascist threat in our country right now, there's people who are literally burning "woke" books and firing elected "woke" prosecutors. They're using the word "woke" fairly correctly without understanding what it means, ironically enough, because "non-woke" is whatever lies the party spreads and "woke" is anything that contradicts that

this_is_router

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if defining words is that easy for you, can you tell me: "what is a woman?"

some words are more subjective then others and for many feelings and emotions are more important then objective facts to define anything.

Tar_alcaran

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Right, so give a vague definition then. Give a conditional definiton. Say "woke is when black people are treated like humans and stuff, you know, like when they say marital rape is bad". They won't though, because while that is exactly what it means, they also know they can't say it out loud.

"Woke" is the thing that opposes their horrible and reprehensible ideas, and they know it. Hell, when DeSantis' lawyer had to define it in court he went with "the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them." It's weird though, why haven't conservatives just grasped on to this definition? Because "woke" is a dogwhistle for "someone who isn't a trash human like me".

If you want to define "woman", I can do way better than a vague definition though. Of course, the question itself is in bad faith, but I don't give a shit. In terms of gender: "A woman is anyone who wants to call themselves a woman and wants to be called a woman by others."

Just as an aside, I'm of the opinion gender is a stupid concept anyway and we should get rid of it entirely.

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There are words that are notoriously difficult to define in such a way that every edge case is covered. For those words we use criteria. Listing off essential attributes and marking the entire list as provisionally sufficient. The Greeks figured this out 25 centuries ago, just a fyi. I know it is hard for conservatives to keep up with modern ideas but 2 and a half millennium should be enough time.

Honytawk

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A women is one of the sexes, usually identified by their genitals. It is biological.

Not to conflate with feminine, which is one of the genders at the end of the gender spectrum. Which is sociological.

It isn't so hard once you listen to the science and understand the difference between Biology and Sociology.

Xatolos

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Permanently Deleted

this_is_router

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I never said i can. I wanted to show how difficult it is to define something like that.

Xatolos

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What is "life" is even more fun to try to describe.

gkd

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You left out the best part.

“What do you mean, ‘woke’?” I ask. She opens her mouth. Half-words and phrases stumble and tumble around. A few talking points from news sources fall out. Finally, she sighs. “I don’t know. Just tell me again what you write.”

jordanlund

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I used to sell books, oh, 30 years ago or so now.

The home schoolers were the scariest bunch of people you'll encounter.

Had one guy ask where the weather control books were, and I was like "You mean seeding clouds to make it rain? I think we have..."

"No! I mean the government weather control programs!"

Had another lady convinced her electricity was going to give her cancer because it came from a nuclear power plant and was radioactive.

kersploosh

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We are homeschooling one of our kids because his particular needs were not being met by the local school. Meeting other homeschool families is always nerve-wracking for me. I never know if they're going to be a normal family adapting to an unusual situation, or tinfoil-hat nuts using homeschool as an excuse to hide their children from the outside world.

billwashere

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The non tinfoil hat group should develop a secret sign, like a manager telling a runner on first to steal, so you do not have to suffer fools.

Like ear tug, ear tug, nose scratch, and then adjust your belt. I want credit if you use this one 😂

SzethFriendOfNimi

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Something like “Hey… where can I buy books that align with common core?”

The reaction for that one should do it

billwashere

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This is brilliant!!!!

cashews_best_nut

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I don't get it?

BlindFrog

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Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe common core refers to the core standards of knowledge & skills that the government requires in public education.

flames5123

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Yes, but mostly people relate it to math because it teaches kids to solve problems, not just find the right answer. One thing common core math teaches is how to count in groups of 5. You have to show your work in elementary school to get full credit and even if you get the right answer, you could get 0 points because you didn’t solve the problem as required. Conservatives hate this because it makes them use their brain.

SzethFriendOfNimi

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One of those things I hear people rail against as being big government indoctrination and/or something something Obama.

54% of American adults read below a 6th grade comprehension level

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The sign is silence when the weirdos get going with the face of "I am letting you talk because I am concerned if I don't you might attack me in the parking lot but rest assured I am thinking about something else"

CosmicTurtle

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You know the tin foil hat people are going to pick up on this and think it's all a conspiracy.

ZagamTheVile

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This us us exactly.

grue

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“No! I mean the government weather control programs!”

"Check the science fiction section."

refurbishedrefurbisher

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Careful. You might help create another religion.

NOT_RICK

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It’s astounding how little people know about how the world works even without home schooling factored in.

jordanlund

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And they vote!

LemmysMum

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AlexWIWA

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The weather control books are in Red Alert 2.

pachrist

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It's not homeschooling, it's unschooling.

My parents were both teachers at private or Christian schools while I grew up, and every year, there'd always be a new couple of kids who's parents couldn't quite hack it anymore, so they'd send them to school. But couldn't bear to send their kids to those secular, godless, evolution teaching, sex driven, minority filled public schools, so they'd send them to my school instead.

Those kids were always some of the dumbest, most ignorant people on the planet. Some figure it out, but most don't. They just double down. They were usually barely literate, couldn't do math, and had no social skills. It's how you end up with a 19 year old freshman who can't read Dr. Seuss.

I know teachers aren't paid much, but if you have the audacity to say that you can do a better job than 4 or 5 professionals at teaching your kid every subject, you should have to take a test to be certified, and your kid needs testing too. Some states require it, most don't, and it shows.

xapr

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I know teachers aren’t paid much, but if you have the audacity to say that you can do a better job than 4 or 5 professionals at teaching your kid every subject, you should have to take a test to be certified, and your kid needs testing too. Some states require it, most don’t, and it shows.

Jesus, this makes so much sense that it's scary to think it's not universal. Sure, you can teach your kids. Just get certified to do so first. It doesn't even have to be the same certification as professional teachers, but just a bare minimum, pass the GED level of education. To not have this kind of requirement really seems like society failing those kids.

CleoTheWizard

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I don’t feel like a GED is even close to a good standard. Setting the GED as the bar is like setting the bar low enough to be in the hell they’re teaching kids about. But I guess it’s at least something.

Like we are comparing a GED here to people who have masters degrees and sometimes relevant training or degrees in what they teach. It’s like saying “hey if you want to perform an at home DIY surgery on your family, that’s fine, but please play this game of Operation first.”

xapr

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I totally hear you. I meant GED as in the parent would be able to pass the GED exams now, not that they passed it 20 years ago. I think it would at least be something that could act as a minimum requirement that they can at least understand the material.

RaoulDook

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You clearly haven't seen how bad some of our schools in America are. The war on education has been quite successful.

elbarto777

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What were you doing in that school?!!!

LemmysMum

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Playing 'Bob the builder' with troglodyte kids in the hopes of mitigating some of the damage their wilfully ignorant parents inflicted upon the world.

Can we fix it!?...eh, maybe.

Son_of_dad

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When I hear a woman say "I'm not a feminist" my first thought is "WHY THE HELL NOT??"

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For the same reason they oppose public health, public school, trans rights, diversity, equity, and inclusion. They literally don't know what they are.

jmp242

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I know at least 2 Republicans that when you actually talk about individual policy preferences it comes across as moderate democrat. One of them was a virulent PRO masker because of their job.

I think people just don't pay attention to actual policies, it's all just the soundbites and controversy.

this_is_router

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because the word feminism has different meanings for different people. for some it means equality and a way to get there. for others it means men are bad and women should get priority treatment. communication is hard when there is no objective meaning for any of the words we are using.

matjoeman

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But that second meaning is a bogeyman. No one says "I am a feminist" and means that.

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No one? There are 8 billion people screaming out whatever random ideas occurs to them for hours a day across the planet. You can't make that statement about anything anymore.

Also there is also just plain misinformation campaigns. People creating strawman arguments pretending to be on the other side.

PraiseTheSoup

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They absolutely do. I've met a few of them.

stillwater

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Then they're not really feminists. Just like the people who say they're Christian but then say helping the poor is socialist garbage.

JesusLikesYourButt

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I get where you're coming from, but I vehemently disagree. That's just the no true Scotsman fallacy.

stillwater

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The No True Scotsman fallacy isn't about people who claim to be something arbitrarily. Its about gatekeeping to preserve some kind of integrity or quality for the sake of an argument.

If I say "I'm a communist" but then espouse only fascist beliefs and display an ignorance of primary tenets of communism, am I really a communist just because I say I am?

JesusLikesYourButt

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Again, I get where you're coming from.

The reality of the situation is that a movement is full of factions. People aren't a monolith and they think differently and feel differently. Jk Rowling considers herself a feminist, and she is an iteration of what a feminist can look like sadly.

Think of religious sects, they all fall under the same umbrella of Christianity or Judaism or what have you, but have radically different beliefs and feelings.

They get involved in protests and push their agendas just like any other group of people.

Or tankies! They fucking suuuuuuck and they are communist! I like communism by the way, but tankies can eat and then shit out some Lego blocks.

fkn

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Take a look at the difference between 2nd, 3rd and 4th wave feminism... The consider post feminism arguments.

What most people consider feminism is typically called 2nd wave feminism.

AA5B

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But people do say “I’m NOT a feminist”, meaning not that

billiam0202

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But the right has been convinced they do. Just like how they think CRT means "teaching white kindergartners that they should feel bad for being white and are inferior to Black kindergartners."

Aceticon

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Because a lot of modern (so-called 3rd wave) "feminists" are just greedy people demanding things that will advantage them but doing so behind the cover of the group so that it doesn't look like all the other greedy bastards - it's rightwing thinking disguised as "for the group", which is why they worry way more about "the glass ceiling" (which disadvantages high middle class people who aren't in an "old boys network", which includes almost all women from thst social strata) rathar than, say, the very low salaries for women who are blue collar workers.

The previous waves of Feminism were of the "we want to be treated like everybody else" (or as I like to think of it: "get out of my way and let me be all that I can be").

People react very differently to the "gimme shit" crowd than they do the "stop hindering me" one, and sadly the former are a lot louder (as usual for people driven by greed) and have come to dominate the image of Feminism in Anglo-Saxon countries.

Honytawk

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With "a lot" you mean the handful of loud obnoxious people who only do that to get attention?

Because that isn't even close to the majority.

There still are differences in treatment between the sexes, even if you yourself don't notice them.

For example, just look up what the Bechdel test is and the difference between the reverse Bechdel test. There is still a huge difference how women get treated compared to men in media.

But the other way around also happens. Mothers still get more custody over kids than the Father. Which is ALSO something Feminists fight to fix.

Aceticon

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For starters, I'm keenly aware of the disgustingly discrimination against women, especially in the old days - for example, in my home country of Portugal back in the 60s women weren't allowed to leave the country without authorization from their husbands, very much a "we own you" disgusting level of discrimination - but also in modern days the cultural, legal and economic factors that transform childbirth into a massive torpedo to women's careers and the main reason in modern days for the clear chasm in income that appears at around the mid-30s between highly educated men and women.

Further, I'm involved in a leftwing party in my country and the "gimme shit" discourse imported from Anglo-Saxon countries is sadly quite common amongst self-identified "Feminists" (mind you, that's far from the only self-defined group demanding to be given things not given to others - "greed is good" seems to have been interiorised by a whole generation that grew up in the last 4 decades and who think personal upside maximization disguised as "compensation for a group of people identified by things they were born with were otherwise completelly different people than me were discriminated against" is being "Leftwing" because they're not directly demanding it for themselves), though it's not the dominant one.

Having lived in that country for over a decade and having also been involved in Politics there, I've also seen a lot of that amongst the upper middle classes in Britain around the ages of 30 and below, were it comes from the various flavour of liberals (who are invariably neoliberals, as Britain currently has no real leftwing beyond the Green Party) who again think they're Leftwing so long as their "gimme" is voice as "give us".

Meanwhile I've met older Feminists and they're a whole different breed, not to mention women that fought for a better life for all, their whole lives, without ever holding the "Feminist" flag (my country has quite the Leftwing tradition and that was as much women as men).

Sadly it's got to a point were somebody loudly claiming to be Feminist is almost invariably a "gimme shit" person that's probably doing more to damage the broader cause of Equality that the much larger mass of Women out there fighting for equal treatment: as I said, what I believe is genuine Feminism is the "get out of the way and let me be all that I can be" kind - capable people who are discriminated against for being women rather than social players who are not against the system being gamed, they just want it to be gamed in their favour.

Mind you, the subversion of the Fight for Equality into competing groups defined by characteristics people were born with (the very same kind of way of reducing people to categories and then generalizing that anchors far right thinking) dominated by people driven by personal upside maximization is not at all specific of the fight for Equality for Women but a far broader phenomenon of subversion of the Modern Left through Divide et Impera techniques.

meco03211

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Perhaps their understanding of feminism has come from the violently extreme "kill all men" types of feminists or the opposing "get back in the kitchen" type of conservative shitbags making up all sorts of scary and mean things about them.

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Their understanding of feminism comes from right wing media.

LemmysMum

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That's what they said.

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Or possibly from extreme left wing media

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I think it's more likely to be from things that actually exist

ntzm

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Those first type of feminists do not exist, it's a strawman

MossyFeathers

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They absolutely do. They are by no means the majority, but extremes exist in any movement. There are "feminists" who think it's all about sticking it to the man (literally) or proving feminine superiority. It's like Christians who don't read the Bible and think it's all about damning the gross icky people to hell. That doesn't mean they're common (they aren't), but I've seen a few crazies on Tumblr and Twitter.

Edit: J.K.Rowling is one of them (kinda).

meco03211

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Thank you. I hate that some people just cannot accept that extremists exist on "their team". I had another post downvoted to hell when I made a similar claim and provided plenty of tweets (or whatever the fuck they're called nowadays) and other evidence. It was met with the same "that's not real" or worse "it's just satire".

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who don’t read the Bible and think it’s all about damning the gross icky people to hell

Not all but that is a pretty decent description of most of the NT. The OT god(s) would kill you because you annoyed them but they wouldn't send you to hell.

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And you’re someone who has read the New Testament?

I’ve read maybe 10% and have yet to encounter a single line about damning the gross icky people to hell.

ChunkMcHorkle

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deleted by creator

MossyFeathers

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I don't consider myself a Christian anymore, but based on what I was taught as a kid, I'd personally take anything that wasn't explicitly stated to be spoken by God or Jesus with a grain of salt, especially when it comes to books that weren't written by Jesus' disciples (excluding Saul/Paul, who never actually met Jesus).

As a kid, I was taught to read the Bible and use my brain (god gave you one, use it) to figure out what it was trying to say, not blindly follow it without question. The reason for that is because I was taught that the Bible is inspired by God, not written by him (unless explicitly stated that the passage came directly from God or Jesus' mouth). As such, you have humans attempting to understand God's (and later Jesus') commands, which means they aren't always going to be 100% correct and/or there may be historical context that is missing when you take it literally and at face value.

You're supposed to not just read, but also think about the Bible and decide what parts make sense when taken in context with what is said to be explicitly said by God (it's part of the reason why some Bibles mark anything said by God/Jesus in red).

For an example, the passage you've quoted could be interpreted as a warning about pagans larping as Christians to take advantage of christian kindness and distort the word of God into something else (similar to the merchants in the temple, or like what is happening in Christianity now). You could also read it as an almost complete reversal to what Jesus taught in the early NT.

Which one of these makes more sense?

A) Jesus comes to earth, teaches people about kindness and goodness, hang out with prostitutes and untouchables, dies on the cross for everyone's sins, becomes a zombie, and declares that the laws of the Old testament had been fulfilled through him so all could be saved. Then a few years later, he changes his mind and inspires Jude to write a letter about how the gays should be cast out and are going to hell.

B) Jude was writing the letter as a warning to keep your guard up around non-christians in case they might persuade you to distort the teachings of Jesus and/or hijack Christianity to turn it into a money-making scheme. It wouldn't be the first time it happened (the merchants in the temple immediately springs to mind again).

Or C) Jude didn't really know what he was talking about and the book/letter is included because it's referenced in other places of the Bible and theologians would rather err on the side of caution and allow a non-canon book to be included in the Bible than delete something that might be important (iirc the Bible states that you're not supposed to remove, change or add to anything said in scripture, so from a Christian perspective, I'd imagine if you're not sure about something then it's probably better to include something than exclude it).

Imo, B) seems the most likely. If you believe the Christian God is real, then A) is absurd, and C) seems unlikely due to Jude's proximity to James. It seems like if C) were true, then there would be records of Jude being refuted or rebuked.

Mac

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No, they do. I have met a couple of them.

aniki

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They are a rounding error. Insignificant.

homura1650

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They are a loud rounding error that gets amplified by the current media landscape.

Mouselemming

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TERFs are dangerous, not just to trans people but to real feminism.

Mac

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I don't recall making a claim that they were any significant portion. The statement that they don't exist is factually incorrect.

Sharkwellington

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“I do have one question, though ― do you teach feminism? I mean, I believe in equality, but I am not a feminist, and I don’t want to teach it to my daughter.”

I take the approach I used in Missouri.

“What do you mean?” I ask her.

“Well, do you teach that women are better than men?”

“No, I teach all genders are equal and should be treated as such.”

She buys three kits.

Jesus wept.

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This is the problem with the kind of disinformation the right wing media pushes. If you describe something in as objective truthful a way as possible, suddenly none of this shit is controversial.

I've seen people totally on board with a description of public health turn around and just rail against how Obama care is Communist.

So much of this just depends entirely on ignorance. Kinda why these people are homeschooling in the first place.

shalafi

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Our babysitter was bemoaning her lack of insurance and my ex told her about the Affordable Care Act. She was thrilled!

"At least it ain't that fuckin' Obamacare!"

Ex said the babysitter was stunned when it was explained.

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Ignorance is fine if your approach is to ask questions instead of assuming

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I don’t see any problem whatsoever with this story?

Hobo

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What do you mean?

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How much clearer could my words be?

BlindFrog

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I think the comment that "Jesus wept" was meant as tears of joy that the first speaker accepted the kits, not meant as tears of sorrow.

ASeriesOfPoorChoices

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No, it's a cry of exasperation at the ignorance/stupidity of the kit buyer.

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But what in this story indicates ignorance or stupidity on the part of the buyer?

ASeriesOfPoorChoices

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Much like you, she doesn't know what feminism is.

https://www.calverthomeschool.com/

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And you’re seriously going to pretend you’ve never encountered feminism as female supremacy? Not even once?

ASeriesOfPoorChoices

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You mean "have I encountered other people who also do not know what feminism is"? Yes, I have encountered more than one person who doesn't know what feminism is, and makes up their own definitions to support their personal cause which has nothing to do with feminism.

🤦

dragonfly

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I homeschooled my kid k-12. When I started, I had no idea how many religious hs-ers there were. I used a secular curriculum, and never even thought about teaching anything regarding religion one way or another. Once I started looking around at all the creationist curricula out there--yikes.

Anyhoo, long story short, my son went on to a college degree (he actually started college classes online at 15--one of the perks of hs-ing for us), and he's an atheist. Secular homeschoolers do exist!

ETA some links--these are a few secular homeschool curricula. There's a lot more out there, but this is the majority of what I used through the years:

https://www.oakmeadow.com/

https://www.keystoneschoolonline.com/

https://www.thinkwell.com/ (Primarily math--the professor that does most of the math instruction is wonderful.)

quickhatch

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Secular homeschool graduate here. Parents homeschooled my brother and I because the public school system was drastically underfunded and we were in quite an education desert. I always hate articles like this, as folks tend to paint broad strokes about homeschoolers... But there's a reason we never had other homeschooled friends growing up; there were a lot of crazy ones, especially in Michigan, as there is virtually no regulation.

RubberElectrons

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Not having kids, but maybe some links to help others out?

dragonfly

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Okay, I added a few links to my comment!

RubberElectrons

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Thanks!

BlueEther

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We are heading down the HS route for our two girls as the oldest has issues that meant that she couldn't attend school half of last term. My wife has taken her to a couple of meetups and already she come across the Christian and the anti-vax members - even here in far flung New Zealand

Etterra

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I've come to the conclusion that religious faith is a kind of mental illness that was made socially acceptable to keep primitive people from constantly killing each other, sticking instead to only occasionally killing each other within a vague set of guidelines.

Those of us free of it don't need an insane corkscrew of Escheresque logic and imaginary higher authorities using threats commanding us to not be monsters.

elbarto777

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I recently came to a different conclusion. It's not religious faith. It's just faith. And it's not a mental illness. It's human nature - for a significant segment of the human population.

Those people who are religious fanatics, political fanatics (e.g. Trumpists, Chavez sympathizers), pseudoscience fanatics (e.g. flat earthers, anti-vaxx, homeopathy), celebrity fanatics (Andrew Tate followers), etc, they have to share the same common traits. They're impressionable people, they need to be patt of a group, and they can't fathom the idea of switching groups.

It's just that religion-based control came first.

Or maybe those who were very religious in the past got to survive and thus the genetic traits responsible for fanaticism spread like fire?

Regardless, it's appalling.

KepBen

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Chavez sympathizers

I'm sorry, whom???

vaultdweller013

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Like Hugo Chavez? Are there any people who care enough about him who arent Venezuelan?

Like Tito, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky, Che Guevara are all infinitely more valid than fucking Chavez.

KepBen

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Hell Hoxha and Posadas have bigger followings than Chavez

elbarto777

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Hugo Chavez followers. They're as bad if not worse than Trump or Putin followers.

KepBen

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I've been an internet socialist for a long time and I have no idea why you think Venezuelans, specifically, are a big problem on the internet.

Maybe the people you hate aren't really a cult of personality, but it makes you feel better to think about them that way?

Illuminostro

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"Tucker tole me "

banneryear1868

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People in the past weren't us in different clothes and religion was basically fulfilling political and cultural functions as well. Like today was have mass media and entertainment, at one point religion was basically entertainment as well. People loved having some preacher come to town and do his show, it was what people talked about. Now we have TV shows and movies etc, and a lot of our media has shocking moral implications just as we'd judge religion in the past for. Not all that different. That leads in to civil/civic religion which is practiced by many today and provides a framework for things like a national identity. When you stand for an anthem you're performing a civil religious ritual, visiting historical/cultural sites is a sort of pilgrimage.

The form that religion evolved through in history was also defined by the conditions of the society and a lot of times compromises with neighboring powers. Viewing religion as a dumb thing for stupid people is intuitively tempting, but it's ahistorical in that it says more about our views today (including religous/civil religious views) than it does about what people were like in the past.

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I mean you might be kinda right?

So there are people who think with or without internal monologue, common knowledge

Some people think that the internal monologue may have first developed as an internal dialogue, between the actor, the person and their body, and the "speaker" who they would have not been able to recognize as their own voice, and instead interpreted as a separate being relaying them direction, commands, and interpretation.

The dissociation between the individual and their internal monologue, and the resulting association of that monologue with a directing and counseling presence, could have been taken as the voice of a higher power guiding them, and by extension, others they got to follow them as the "speaker" of this divinity in their head.

If this sounds a bit crazy to you consider how many evangelicals rant and rave about their personal speaking term relationship with God.

So basically, deific religion might derive from people who have an internal monologue but who don't identify with the speaker of that internal monologue.

Not really a mental disorder so much as a mode of thought that is prone to lead people into believing firmly that they are personally in contact with a separate being who personally directs their behavior and actions and values.

modegrau

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Deus Causa Sui

merthyr1831

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American homeschooling seems to be particularly vulnerable to fascist/religious indoctrination. In most countries where homeschooling is common there's usually a social contract that's enforced to at least regulate the kind of education kids get outside of traditional schooling.

CyberDine

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Social contract? Sounds a lot like socialism to me! /s

ChickenLadyLovesLife

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My brother and sister-in-law a few years ago tried homeschooling their kids to avoid having to drop $20K a year (each) in tuition to their preferred private school ($20K a year for K-6!) The "homeschooling" situation was actually four days a week in a school with teachers and everything, and one day a week supervising the kids at home doing lesson plans prepared by the school. This alleged homeschooling situation was in place so the school could legally hire uncredited teachers, allowing them to be cheaper - by paying teachers near minimum wage instead of a still-shitty starting salary in the $40Ks. Fucked up in so many ways, but at least this school wasn't religion-based.

DarkGamer

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In America, right wing supporters are often the dullest tools in the shed. They're sure they're right, but they don't understand how anything works, historical context, how to discern truth from bullshit, or what words mean.

"I Love the Poorly Educated" -Donald J. Trump

febra

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Americans' obsession with Jesus and the Bible is so weird.

skuzz

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Just a really weird loud subsect. They're so loud now because they finally realize they're the minority and they don't like it. So they throw tantrums like children because their lifestyle is a commitment to low education and blind faith in a corrupt version of reality and a misinterpretation of their own faith.

Sadly, the Internet (troll farms, social media, etc.) has enabled easy access to loudness, to make it seem like they speak for everyone, when they don't.

There are plenty of Americans that are Christian and not apeshit. There are also plenty of Americans that are neither Christian, nor apeshit. These two groups just don't go around screaming about it all day because they're normal, sane, properly educated people.

Zannsolo

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My step sister is going to homeschool her kids, which will be great for her youngest since she named him Jedidiah. Shockingly someone who named their kid that stopped coming to family gettogerthers after my sister's kid came out trans.

She was sad she didn't get invited to my wifes baby shower, even if my niece wasn't planning on going I still wouldn't invite her because you can't just choose to cut out part of the family because you're a bigot and expect everyone else to still want you around.

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My father was uninvited from the yearly family reunion due to him not joining the anti-transgender circle jerk that formed there.

Ironically though I still get emails asking me to come, for the record I am my father's transgender daughter.

I feel like they either missed a key detail or they're just not very bright. I'm pretty sure it's a little column a little column B.

If it wasn't a 2-hour drive, I would crash it for the free food and just not say anything to anybody.

But I think I could get a bucket from the colonel to myself for just a little bit under what I pay in gas money. Plus that side of my family is so old that all they're going to bring is fast food anyway. Everyone who was good at cooking is either dead or is too arthritic to do so. A shame, I am a southerner who appreciates the truth of The Stereotype of the home cooked meal.

The only two reasons why I'm not going to go ahead with that plan of just getting a bucket for myself, is that I would probably get a better meal and support a smaller business by getting my eight piece from Church's Chicken. Well that and it's going to be a tight month, my car and my switch need to be repaired at the same time. And I only pray Nintendo leaves my fucking Pokemon data intact because it's not like I could back that up somehow. I mean theoretically it might have been possible if the damn thing would have turned on.

Please pray for the safe return of my shiny Dialga, I gave a good Zacian for it.

thawed_caveman

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Maybe i'm already half asleep, but i love this comment that starts out on topic then drifts into a unrelated rant written in the most entertaining way.

jadedwench

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ADHD Storytelling

DarthBueller

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Oh my dear little baby fetus Jesus in the morning, just covered in bacon and smoked Gouda cheese and stapled to a tiny little 3” cross, that made me laugh my ass off and blush at the same time.

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For extra fun. Read it in the Skyrim Female Argonian voice

LucyLastic

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I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that they invite you because they think they can "straighten you out", the garbage they believe is that all kids are straight and cis and it's down to brainwashing by the deep state Jewish space lasers that anyone would think otherwise.

For your own sake, best to stay away.

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Honestly, I think you're overthinking it. I legitimately believe that they actually forgot I was transgender due to how not often they see me.

LucyLastic

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Well, that's a ... win?

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Transphobic relatives are a lot like war and timeshares. - "The only winning move is not to play."

It does come in handy when you have that one annoying Uncle who acts like he's your best buddy, when in reality he's an annoying asshole who doesn't even give a shit about your company, he just wants to feel young by being "A bro" around the young'uns....

Second my Uncle Wes found out I was trans, he finally shut the fuck up and just quietly keeps his distance. It has.... actually made him easier to tolerate. Now his son, my cousin, on the other hand... Not so much.

I have nothing against Christians, one of my best friends is a devout Catholic, sharp as a whip too, got his doctorate in Mathematics and is a huge nerd when it comes to numbers, but... I have about as much patience for Young Earth Creationists and Biblical Literalists as they do for me.

I nearly slapped that child one Thanksgiving when I casually mentioned the existence of dinosaurs while everyone was talking about Jurassic World (Had recently come out), but see, I made the mistake of talking about dinosaurs like they were real animals that once existed instead of Hollywood monsters made up by Liberal Media.... So he starts chanting "THE BIG BANG IS A FAERIE TALE! NOT A THEORY!" (despite the fact that a Priest was the one who came up with the Big Bang...), over and over until I "apologize to Jesus" for my "blasphemy"

I don't, I just let him keep doing that while I just dig into some Mashed Potatoes, eventually his mom, my Aunt has to coax him into just shutting the fuck up. The dinner table was quiet after that and I spent the rest of the day locked in my room.

I honestly hate that kid (He's just becoming a teenager now, my mom had kids way before my aunt did), but it's clear his Dad messed him up... At this point his Mom understands the problem, has more or less given up on religion altogether (Which tbh, kinda sucks, I hate it when extremists ruin belief systems for everybody else.. I'm not a Christian, but fuck, the idea of a Loving God is a wonderful coping mechanism with how terrible the reality of the world is) and is quietly doing the "Grin and bear it for the kid till he's 18" thing.

Still good for my Aunt I guess, she used to be a fanatic like the rest of them, my hobby used to be casually trolling her by mentioning which characters in "Current Popular Thing" were gay, just to watch her freak out.... But.. after seeing the damage her husband's "Let's just go ALL IN on the worst interpretation of Jesus possible!" has done to her kid, she's chilled out quite a bit. Typically I see her without her husband and kid these days, she plans weekends where she comes down to get away from him, which she usually spends getting drunk on red wine, watching movies, and being good company.

I do hope the kid's rude awakening when he goes into the real world isn't too terrible, I'd like to see him snap out of it and realize what a monster his father is, but I'd hate to see him jump to the opposite extreme and become a "Reddit Atheist" ya know?

(Note: This aunt and uncle are on my mom's side, the reunion people are on my dad's side, which is why my Uncle remembers, but my dad's side apparently doesn't)

LucyLastic

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There are times I'm glad to come from a small family, the drama is similar but there's just less of it.

And yeah, people do come around. I didn't talk to my mum at all for 12 years, and it was a very slow restart, whereas now she refers to my enby partner as an essential part of the family, and loves when we come to visit.

There's other relatives I cut out and don't intend on reconnecting with, but at least it wasn't all of them.

foyrkopp

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My father was uninvited from the yearly family reunion due to him not joining the anti-transgender circle jerk that formed there.

Ironically though I still get emails asking me to come, for the record I am my father's transgender daughter.

I might be misreading your situation, but just from this limited context, your father seems to have his priorities straight. Feel free to tell him that a random internet stranger thinks good of him.

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No you understand the situation perfectly.

RickMoreanus

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Jedidiah? Like 2 D's JeDidiah??

SpaceNoodle

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It's a name.

Bizarroland

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“Not all women are good,” he explains.

“Not all men are good,” I respond.

That's an amazingly pithy pair of lines

CoggyMcFee

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Sounds like something from an unpublished Frog and Toad book

greenfish

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I was homeschooled. I 'graduated' without a valid diploma and had to get a GED. I don't speak to my parents and my child is currently enjoying his day at public preschool. All my church friends who were raised similarly also are in similar situations. That's about all I'll say about it.

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I was homeschooled up until 12. I went to college at 15. That's about all I'll say about it.

ForgotAboutDre

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Was college homeschooled as well?

hansl

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The U in PragerU is for College. /s

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No, two years of community college and transferred to a state university as a junior at 17

CurlyMoustache

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Yeah, I know. It is hard to keep a lie going

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Technically it's a junior college program because I still had some high school requirements until I was 16 and took the high school proficiency exam. After passing that I did not have to attend any classes in the program.

At 17 I transferred to a state university as a junior because I accumulated enough credits in the community college.

SuddenlyBlowGreen

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The name of the homeschool teacher? Albert Einstein.

That's about all I'll say about it.

GardeningSadhu

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thank you for saying it! good homeschool experiences tend to be under rated. Not all homeschool kids have religious nutbags or unschooling types for parents.

yaaaaayPancakes

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Of course not all homeschooling is bad. But these days it does seem that homeschooling tends to skew towards the ultra-conservative MAGA Jesus crowd.

cricket98

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source: salon.com articles and reddit/lemmy

tinkeringidiot

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Yes, but also no. Home school gets some seriously unfair treatment in the media, but living it every day myself I can confirm there are quite a few home schooling parents that absolutely earn that criticism.

One of the hardest parts of home schooling my own kids is finding other home schoolers to meet up with that aren’t frigging nuts.

jj4211

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Eh, even if the parents are educating, the social development of such folks as I have seen is horribly stunted, and stunted during some key formative years. Doesn't help when the parents are telling the kids they are so smart that no school could hope to teach them right.

Even if you acquire knowledge, life can suck if you can't deal with people.

tinkeringidiot

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As a home school parent, socialization is really the hardest and most expensive part. We use an online, self-paced version of the state curriculum (provided by the state, so yes it fully “counts”) so that part is pretty easy. But keeping them involved in communities outside the home, with other kids and adults, is a constant effort. They can finish a whole week of curriculum work for all their core subjects in 8 hours or so (hence the online self-paced school), but all the extra curriculars and meetups that keep them socially active consume most of the rest of the week (and many of them are pretty expensive).

Home schooling is not for the faint of heart, and it’s certainly not the easy button some people treat it as.

GardeningSadhu

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Opinions are like assholes my friend, everyone's got one but we don't need to share them just for the hell of it... you do you, but this was a dumb thing to say so i'm going to file it with all the rest of the dumb shit people say. have a nice day

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Tuition paid using the money you stole from the public education system.

How many poorer kids do you think that money would have helped get into college that didn't go so you could at 15?

cricket98

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how did they steal money from the public education system for being homeschooled?

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Every student not in public education is money not in public education, literally every state that permits home schooling sees to that via those god forsaken voucher programs.

Mobiuthuselah

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I'm not in favor of the voucher programs, but you're diluting the opposition to them by claiming some incredibly misinformed bullshit. Just seems funny that we're talking about education systems, and yours seems to have failed you.

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The voucher program hands parents the money the schools would have gotten for having their child enrolled and lets them spend it on a private school with an agenda or a homeschooling program with an agenda instead.

Literally it exists entirely to take money that should have gone to the public school system and letting all the rich and white families siphon it off to totally not segregated private school classrooms and totally not creationist and quiverfull homeschool programs.

If ya don't believe me just look at the rate of adoption of these kinds of programs and enrollment of rich and white kids in these kinds of programs pre and post Brown V Board.

These systems were concocted by segregationists for segregationists to maintain educational segregation and inequality.

Mobiuthuselah

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This feels like you're a bit defensive about your understanding of the subject. Somehow you've been led to believe that this affects every kid not in public school. That's demonstrably false.

impiri

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We homeschool in North Carolina and get exactly zero dollars for it. You're correct in general about the terrible effect that vouchers have on public schooling but incorrect about it being applied to homeschooling. I don't know if it's different in other states.

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I didn't receive any money for it

cricket98

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dumb take

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It's literally what they're doing, if you think it's dumb take it up with the dumb politicians who have it out for education that's legally required to not teach kids the world's 6000 years old.

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I would have spent the same money going to college anyway? I just did it earlier, this post makes no sense

FlyingSquid

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We had to pull my daughter out of her middle school and put her in an online school for reasons I don't wish to go into, but thankfully the online school is run by the county school corporation and she has a curriculum built by accredited teachers who are also there to talk to the kids by phone, videoconference or in person during school hours. And they are so receptive too. Suddenly I feel like educators care about my child.

But homeschooling? I would never even think of it. I don't know the first thing about pedagogy and neither does my wife. We did a less formal version of online schooling that was hastily put together during COVID while she was still in elementary school and it relied on me doing a lot of the teaching and I sucked at it. There's a big difference between being able to do fourth grade math and being able to teach a fourth grader how to do fourth grade math. A lot of those kids are getting so underserved by having parents, even well-meaning parents, who are not educators try to give their education.

And that doesn't even go into the "my son is learning to be a Christian as a homeschooler" bullshit.

There are definitely kids who would be better served by an alternative to regular public or private school, even school they can do from home. But educators need to be behind it, not parents. Not unless those parents have degrees in education.

50gp

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exactly, parents trying to homeschool a dozen different subjects is always the worst option

JohnDClay

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That's what co-ops are for. We had one day a week where various parents would teach on their specialty, like theatre, biology, writing, music, etc.

EngineerGaming

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I was homeschooled (and very grateful for it), and mom was NOT my teacher. She would organize a lot of things like extracurriculars (mostly for socialization), but the studying I did by myself. She'd tell me where to read and do exercises in the books, and that's it. And the testing in the end of the quarter would be done by a teacher in the school I was assigned to.

pigup

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Dumbass Christian Karens

BonesOfTheMoon

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I have often read sovereign citizen groups on Facebook, and they all "homeschool", which means the big kids babysit the little ones all day long, and sometimes CPS gets involved and removes the kids and terminates their parental rights because they realize the kids aren't getting educated and are having the shit best out of them routinely. I think homeschooling can be very dangerous for a child.

ours

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I'm not very for homeschooling and it has its place, the problem is that it lacks regulation.

There should be an official education program and tests to make sure kids are learning essential things instead of just babysitting siblings or exclusively learning religious or survivalist stuff.

BonesOfTheMoon

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Yes agreed. But a lot of it is right wing psychos who are just not educating them.

Fades

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Because a parent working, without any accreditation or training since they were a fucking literal child, totally sounds like a preferable route. Give me a fucking break, it's an assault on standardized education.

To make it worse, the kid will have a large drop in socialization opportunities and isolated relatively speaking. You just do not get that kind of social utopia ever again in your entire fucking life... the life experiences the child misses out on is significant. You can't schedule enough playdates to make up for that.

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I'm a product of homeschooling, and cannot begin to tell you how detrimental it was to my adult life and being able to function in society.

100% of my socialization growing up came from church. While I have siblings who grew up to be very successful, they all stayed in the church.

It's a cult. It's child abuse. You are robbing your child of critical life experience and social development. It also makes it so that anyone escaping from growing up in that will have an extremely difficult time rebuilding their life outside of religion.

Kittenstix

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While I agree that being homeschooled in a religious community hindered me in a ton of ways I think the one benefit for me was not having to mask my adhd, my mental health now is better for it, but that's a small victory in a sea of failure.

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Well I didn't have to mask, but I also didn't get my ADHD, bipolar or anxiety recognized/diagnosed until well into my adult life, lmao.

Kittenstix

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I also didn't get treated for my adhd until the last few years, in fact the main reason I was pulled into homeschooling is because my mother didn't want me medicated, she's still a fucking moron.

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I've yet to get medicated. Last time I tried I had the wrong diagnosis and ended up in grippy socks, and I'm currently living by myself, so starting new meds is kinda frightening tbh.

I did drink/smoke way too much as a coping mechanism, because yakno meds that help someone be able to function like a normal person are EVIL, but letting ur kid go undiagnosed and untreated is so fucking healthy for their long-term mental health.

My parents also managed to fuck up my math track to put me a year behind, and when I found their error and tried to catch up, they didn't support at all.

Homeschool parents are [very often] imbeciles.

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My bipolar, anxiety and ADHD all went unnoticed/undiagnosed, so I didn't have to mask either! 🙃

mars

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I worked at a homeschool public charter school for a few years. A good chunk of the parents were only in it because they wanted to use Christian curriculum and other conservative garbage to teach their children.

The school even had me go to a professional development event that ended up being a Christian leadership conference held at a church. One of my coworkers walked out once she realized it was religious and she was forced to use her PTO for the remaining days of the conference. I should have done the same.

Treczoks

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Thank goodness homeschooling is illegal in this country. The best effect is that crazy nutjob parents are not able to install their delusions on their kids as much as they can in the US.

driving_crooner

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Homeschooling is also illegal in Brazil, and you can bet the mf of Bolsonaro and his government tried to make it legal. The Supreme Court strike them down, with the argument that socializing was a fundamental part of education and a kid's right and the law passed by the government couldn't guarantee that the kids would have it.

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What does the small indigenous rural population do?

driving_crooner

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Small indigenous rural schools, I guess?

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guess