Wednesday 2 February 2011

Christian education at home

And while we are on the subject of the education of girls at home, this case from America is very interesting;


http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/culture/education/6130-court-to-rule-in-religion-home-school-battle

6 comments:

  1. This case isn't really about education - the court is accepting that the girl was well educated. It also appears that the girl was doing a full curriculum - probably one of the Christian publishers lke ACE or A Beka, since the article mentions online learning - rather than the special girls-only twaddle with no academics. The issue here appears to be that the girl's mother has religious views with which her father strongly disagrees, and he therefore wants the girl's education directed by someone other than the mother - he can't keep the girl from going to church, but he can keep the mother from sending her to a religious school and he's trying to set a prescedent to stop her form home educating for the same reason.

    Interestingly, at least some of the Vision Forum types do not appear to support the mother, since according to them, the mother should "submit" to her ex husband.

    http://www.ladiesagainstfeminism.com/hot-button-issues/new-hampshire-homeschooling-case-an-issue-of-submission/

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  2. It may be interesting, but has very little to do with the education of grils or home ed at all; it's sadly just another battle after marital breakdown.

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  3. I think that it is relevant to home edcuation because the Home School Defence League are involved in the case. their interest in the matter is explained here;

    http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/culture/education/6132-third-wave-of-persecution-coming-warns-homeschool-leader

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  4. The HSLDA is not an advocacy group for homeschoolers in any general sense. They are an advocacy group for the American religious right, and are intervening in this case because it touches on a member and a fellow believer.

    The 'socialisation' issue here is a bit of a red herring. The father's custodial rights allow him joint decision-making, which would presumably allow him to intervene if his chid were sent to a religious school he disapproved of. He's trying to extend that right to home education. This case is encouraging the judge to make silly statements about socialisation that someone may quote later in a more damaging context, but it is hardly the Waterloo of home education, which is very widespread in the US. It's about a religious dispute in a divorced couple.

    The HSLDA intervenes on all sorts of stuff, much of it completely irrelevant to home ed (they're against gay rights, legal abortion, rights for religious minorities in schools, teaching about Islam in school curricula, etc.) They also run a programme called Generation Joshua which trains home educated teens as advocates for the US political right.

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  5. Yes, I am not a great fan of the HSLDA and I am aware that they tend to use cases like this as stalking horses for their own agenda.

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  6. "Daddy's going to hell" Top parenting there... Grim stuff.

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