Month: October 2013

Results of HA Basic Survey, Part Four: Parental Education as a Factor in Educational Quality, Abuse, and Current Religious Beliefs

HA Editorial Team2 Comments

Screen Shot 2013-09-28 at 9.19.55 PM

Results of HA Basic Survey, Part Four: Parental Education as a Factor in Educational Quality, Abuse, and Current Religious Beliefs

In every one of the following categories — educational quality, abuse, and current religious beliefs — parental education seemed to correlate to a decrease or increase. As parental education increased, the following consistently occurred: the quality of education improved, abuse decreased, and homeschool experiences were less likely to have influenced respondents’ current religious beliefs. Also, as parental education increased, those who experienced a fundamentalist Christian environment decreased.

Parental Education and Educational Quality

Averaging the scores for all aspects, respondents gave their educational experience a score of 3.06, slightly above the median score category of “So-so.”

When the primary teacher had no high school diploma or GED, respondents’ scores for their educational experience averaged at 2.21.

When the primary teacher had a high school diploma or GED, respondents’ scores for their educational experience averaged at 2.74.

When the primary teacher had some college education but no degree, respondents’ scores for their educational experience averaged at 2.76.

When the primary teacher had an associates or undergraduate degree, respondents’ scores for their educational experience averaged at 3.23.

When the primary teacher had a graduate degree or higher, respondents’ scores for their educational experience averaged at 3.47.

There is a significant decrease in expressed educational quality from respondents whose primary teachers had a graduate degree to those who primary teachers had no degree or diploma whatsoever — a decrease of 1.26 points. Not only that, but perceived educational quality consistently decreased as parental education decreased.

Notable areas in which educational quality dropped significantly are: (1) socialization, dropping from 3.63 (graduate degree or higher) to 2.62 (high school diploma or GED) and ending at 1.78 (no high school diploma or GED); (2) college prep, dropping from 3.51 (graduate degree or higher) to 3.0 (high school diploma or GED) and ending at 2.11 (no high school diploma or GED); and (3) intangibles in general, dropping from 3.66 (graduate degree or higher) to 2.63 (high school diploma or GED) and ending at 1.67 (no high school diploma or GED)

Parental Education and Abuse

The majority of respondents (60.92%) experienced one or more forms of abuse in their homes or homeschooling environments. 

2013 Homeschoolers Anonymous Basic Survey.
2013 Homeschoolers Anonymous Basic Survey.

When the primary teacher had no high school diploma or GED, the percentage of respondents who experienced abuse was 88.89%.

When the primary teacher had a high school diploma or GED, the percentage of respondents who experienced abuse was 75.53%.

When the primary teacher had some college education but no degree, the percentage of respondents who experienced abuse was 70.37%.

When the primary teacher had an associates or undergraduate degree, the percentage of respondents who experienced abuse was 56.12%.

When the primary teacher had a graduate degree or higher, the percentage of respondents who experienced abuse was 41.46%.

This is a remarkable drop in experiences of abuse from respondents whose primary teachers had graduate degrees or higher to respondents whose primary teachers had no degree or diploma. This is a decrease of 47.43% in experiences of abuse.

Notable areas in which abuse increased significantly as parental education decreased are: (1) physical abuse, increasing from 17.07% (graduate degree or higher) to 35.29% (high school diploma or GED) and ending at 77.78% (no high school diploma or GED); (2) verbal abuse, increasing from 21.95% (graduate degree or higher) to 61.76% (high school diploma or GED) and ending at 88.89% (no high school diploma or GED); and (3) emotional abuse, increasing from 34.15% (graduate degree or higher) to 58.82% (high school diploma or GED) and ending at 88.89% (no high school diploma or GED)

Parental Education and Current Religious Beliefs

The majority of respondents (78.84%) said their homeschool experience was fundamentalist Christian. 

The overwhelming majority of respondents (92.53%) believe that their homeschool experience influenced what they believe today about religion.

When the primary teacher had no high school diploma or GED, the percentage of respondents who said their homeschool experience was fundamentalist Christian was 100%. Also, the percentage of respondents who believe that their homeschool experience influenced what they believe today about religion was 100%.

When the primary teacher had a high school diploma or GED, the percentage of respondents who said their homeschool experience was fundamentalist Christian was 85.29%. Also, the percentage of respondents who believe that their homeschool experience influenced what they believe today about religion was 97.06%.

When the primary teacher had some college education but no degree, the percentage of respondents who said their homeschool experience was fundamentalist Christian was 81.48%. Also, the percentage of respondents who believe that their homeschool experience influenced what they believe today about religion was 94.44%.

When the primary teacher had an associates or undergraduate degree, the percentage of respondents who said their homeschool experience was fundamentalist Christian was 77.44%. Also, the percentage of respondents who believe that their homeschool experience influenced what they believe today about religion was 92.16%.

When the primary teacher had a graduate degree or higher, the percentage of respondents who said their homeschool experience was fundamentalist Christian was 68.3%. Also, the percentage of respondents who believe that their homeschool experience influenced what they believe today about religion was 85.37%.

The strongest sense of correlation between parental education and current religious beliefs concerned those respondents that have turned their backs on Christianity in favor of agnosticism, atheism, or another religion.

Keep in mind here that the primary teachers of the overwhelming majority of respondents were their mothers. Mothers were the primary teachers of 80.91% (195) of the graduates. 

2013 Homeschoolers Anonymous Basic Survey.
2013 Homeschoolers Anonymous Basic Survey.

When the primary teacher had no high school diploma or GED, the percentage of respondents who turned their backs on Christianity was 88.88%.

When the primary teacher had a high school diploma or GED, the percentage of respondents who turned their backs on Christianity was 44.13%.

When the primary teacher had some college education but no degree, the percentage of respondents who turned their backs on Christianity was 42.59%.

When the primary teacher had an associates or undergraduate degree, the percentage of respondents who turned their backs on Christianity was 33.33%.

When the primary teacher had a graduate degree or higher, the percentage of respondents who turned their backs on Christianity was 14.64%.

(The category descriptions in the pictures above get cut off, so see Part Two for a reminder of what each category is.)

A correlation seems to exist, therefore, between how educated primary teachers — interestingly, mothers for 80.91% of respondents — are and whether respondents retained their Christian beliefs.

*****

< Part Three: Economics as a Factor | Part Five: Fundamentalism as a Factor >

2013 HA Basic Survey: Main Page

The Survivor

HA Editorial TeamLeave a comment

strong

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Faith Beauchemin’s blog Roses and Revolutionaries. It was originally published on September 21, 2013.

It’s no secret that my life has been a little weird.

I’ve been trying to deal with my bizarre past in the last few months.  The process still feels like probing a wound, and I’m trying to figure out right now if I can afford the therapy I know I need.

Some weeks are fine.  This past week was most definitely not.  Homeschoolers Anonymous was running a series on child discipline, which was good and necessary and appropriately headed by trigger warnings.  I read the stories, I couldn’t stop reading them, and they brought back some of the most traumatic memories of my childhood.  Memories I had repressed.  An onslaught of things I hadn’t really thought about in years.

I would be physically shaking by the end of each story, and yet I had to read more, to try and process the fact that yes, I had been abused as a child.

Just when you think you have a handle on your life, and then it spins completely out of control and you’re dumped into a jungle of memories and problems without a clue where to begin looking for a way out.  That’s one of the reasons I’m looking for a therapist, because hopefully she’ll at least have a compass.

I tried to go out last night with my friends.  I said I was out of money so I couldn’t drink at the bars, which was true, but I turned down a free shot too, because the truth is, as badly as I wanted to block out this past week, I didn’t trust myself to.  I was already being super weird and swinging like a pendulum between talking about myself too much and being weirdly quiet.

If I got drunk, I’m pretty sure I would have started babbling about what was actually bothering me, and “Hey guess what I just realized I was physically, emotionally, and psychologically abused as a child by loving, well-meaning parents” isn’t exactly acceptable party talk.

So I went home early, leaving without saying good-bye, walking alone several blocks to my truck and driving home stone-cold sober.  I got home, tried to start writing about the memories I’d been rehashing this week, and was so upset I just curled up in a blanket and stared at the wall until I fell asleep.

That scared me, when I woke up this morning.  Is my grip on a normal life really that fragile?  I got up and started my day, but when I was flat on my back during my yoga routine, I remembered the thought that has gotten me through other difficult situations:

You are you.

I’m still me.  I am the same person I have always been.  Yes I’ve grown and learned and developed as a person through things I’ve done and things I’ve experienced and things that have been done to me.  But I’m still me.  That used to be a horrifying thought, back when I hated myself and believed that my natural self uninfluenced by God was purely evil.  But I’ve learned to love myself and so now that thought’s a comfort.

I am strong and I am a survivor.

If I could handle everything that has happened to me, I sure as hell can handle dealing with what those memories mean to me now. 

My will, my personality, my spirit was never fully broken.  I’m the same person who faced down near-daily spankings and dealt with it partly by creating imaginary adventures about escaping dungeons and forced servitude and unreasonable authority figures.  I’m the same person who was unbearably weird and unbelievably unsocialized and managed to purposefully, intentionally, painfully catch up on most of that missed socialization (though I’ll be the first to admit I’m still pretty weird).  By now I have done and lived through enough that I look back at points in my life and can say, “Yeah, I did that.  Yeah, I survived that.”

Whatever happens, I will always be me.

Hopefully I’ll continue to strive upward and continue to turn into improved versions of me.  One of the ways I can do that is by dealing with shit from the past, with help of course.  But there’s that core, that consciousness, that continuous self, and somehow that knowledge gives me the courage to move forward.

I Was Beaten, But That’s Not My Primary Issue With Homeschooling: Rebecca Irene Gorman’s Story

HA Editorial Team3 Comments
Rebecca Irene Gorman. Photo used with permission.
Rebecca Irene Gorman. Photo used with permission.

I have a past.

Those I tell about my past find it tragic, unbelievable, and hard to understand.

I want them to understand my past so that they’ll know that I am an intelligent, social, motivated, hardworking woman, not the misanthrope slacker I may appear to be to the casual observer. I want them to know that I’m making positive life choices and tackling challenging issues everyday, even if they are not immediately visible to the outside world, due to the cruel grip of past violence, reaching through time.

Japan progresses into the future with the complex issues of radioactive waste ever-present. Development and renewal in Haiti includes rebuilding after the earthquake.  The America we build today for our children and grandchildren is built upon an America that experienced 9/11 and the Patriot Act. We may forgive the past, but it always continues to exist in the way it molds the present.

My preparations for sleep include putting a band-aid on my nose, threading floss through an oral appliance and braces, rinsing with hydrogen peroxide and oral wound care, turning on a white noise machine and a HEPA air purifier on high, propping myself up on pillows in hot-washed cases, tightly binding a strap around my chin, and attaching an air-blowing tube to my face.

If I’m lucky, I’ll wake up before noon, without sleep inertia, and untraumatized by any lingering nightmares – an encouraging start to my day.

My evenings and mornings – my evenings and mornings now – could have been like your evenings and mornings. But someone made a choice for me, more than twenty years ago, that this instead would be my life today.

Today, I can stand in line at the grocery store. I’m no longer sitting on the ground, in an ankle length dress, while I wait for the sales clerk to ring up my purchases. Today, as long as I remember to take my morning and afternoon medication, I can clumsily attempt a game of volleyball or tennis without needing to sit down between serves.** I can stand long enough to conduct my business professionally. If I were to join a tour through a museum or town, I would probably seek out a chair only once or twice. But this isn’t the way I lived for twenty years.

I make a note on my calendar on days I don’t have nausea, night sweats, dizziness, or hot flashes.

I know that if I go out for a Friday night of teetotaler fun, I’ll still be recovering on Monday.

Sometimes I skip a meal because I don’t have easy access to food that won’t make my symptoms worse.

I embrace the joys of being twenty-nine. The friends I can spend an evening with, or email or Skype. Beautiful afternoons in parks. The companionship of two quirky felines. The occasional party and obscenely long recovery period.

But when I meet a stranger at an event, and he inevitably asks me ‘What do you do?’, the answer resonates in my mind: ‘Not as much as you.’

Not out of lack of ambition. Not because I was born with a disability. Not because I was in an accident. Only because the individuals that the state gave complete control of my fate decided that my pain and the limitation of my life and potential wasn’t worth preventing or treating. My captors, in designer apparel, would corral me into their luxury vehicle, to be paraded before their high net-worth clients, boosting their social equity and enlarging their income. I must perform as a trained animal, smiling through my pain, submitting to verbal abuse when I sat before I fainted, suppressing my personality and self-identity and playing my role perfectly.

I lived in a dirty, dust-bunny-colonized room, with antique furniture, floral curtains, mold plated windows, and spiders between my sheets. If I read, I could mentally block out the sound of yelling, until its source burst into the space – and my face. I learned that the appropriate response was to immediately cower and obey: the longer I delayed, the more ensuing punishments would accumulate.

More than once a week, I was allowed the exercise of a supervised quarter mile walk. More than once a week, I was allowed an hour or two of supervised co-existence with children my own age in a structured educational context. The phone and television were off limits, but I was provided with instructional material in mathematics and grammar with which I could, and did, provide myself with an education.

The age of majority didn’t apply to me. I would live with my masters indefinitely, servicing  their home and work and satisfying their needs for intimacy and emotional support.

Today, when I look a little awkward at that party, or move a little strangely when we do business, it’s because I’m still assimilating into your culture.

And assimilate I must. I do not have a native culture to return to or celebrate.

Is my story tragic, unbelievable, and hard to understand? That’s because you didn’t come from my world. I’m glad for that.

** This was true only briefly. A year after gaining my mobility, I lost it again to wrongly developed hips. Until I go under the knife and complete the ensuing recovery, volleyball and tennis, as well as moderate walks, are off the menu for me.

Results of HA Basic Survey, Part Three: Economics as a Factor in Educational Quality, Abuse, and Current Religious Beliefs

HA Editorial Team10 Comments

Screen Shot 2013-09-28 at 9.19.55 PM

Results of HA Basic Survey, Part Three: Economics as a Factor in Educational Quality, Abuse, and Current Religious Beliefs

Economics and Educational Quality

Averaging the scores for all aspects, respondents gave their educational experience a score of 3.06, barely above the median score category of “So-so.”

For the lower class, the average score was 2.71, below “So-so.”

For the middle class, the average score was 3.10, above “So-so” and slightly above the average for all class scores.

For the upper class, the average score was 3.37, well above “So-so.”

Certain aspects of homeschool experiences were significantly different between economic classes. For example, Math was ranked by those in the lower class at 2.83; this significantly increased in the middle class to 3.39, and to 3.89 in the upper class. Similarly, Science was ranked by those in the lower class at 2.48; this significantly increased in the middle class to 2.81, and to 3.39 in the upper class.

Certain aspects of homeschool experiences did not change much regardless of economics. Sex education, for example, stayed within a narrow range between “Inadequate” and “So-so.” The lower class ranked it at 2.02, the middle class at 2.23, and the upper class at 2.5. The same occurred with political diversity: lower class ranked it at 2.05, middle class at 2.36, and upper class at 2.61.

In general, every single aspect of respondents’ experiences seemed to improved as wealth increased.

The only exception to this, interestingly, is socialization.

The lower class ranked socialization at 2.76; this increased to 3.14 in the middle class. But then it decreased to 3.11 in the upper class.

The most telling way in which economics related to educational quality is in the scores for the category Academic Experiences (As A Whole). The lower class rated their homeschool experiences in totality at 2.98, the middle class at 3.44, and the upper class at 3.96. That is an increase in nearly an entire point between the lower class and the upper class, raising the quality of the academic experience from “So-So” to “Adequate.”

Economics and Abuse

In contrast to educational quality, abuse did not seem to necessarily correlate to a decrease or increase in wealth for respondents.

The average for all economic classes for those that experienced abuse in their home or homeschooling environment was 60.92%.

The average for the lower class for those that experienced abuse in their home or homeschooling environment was 73.81%. The average for the middle class for those that experienced abuse in their home or homeschooling environment was 57.49%.The average for the upper class for those that experienced abuse in their home or homeschooling environment was 60.71%.

There was a substantial decrease in abuse (of 16.32%) moving from the lower class to the middle class. That decrease did not continue, however, moving from the middle class to the upper class. Rather, abuse increased (by 3.22%) from the middle class to the upper class. Thus there did not seem to be a direct correlation between wealth and the frequency of abuse in general.

Some specific forms of abuse, however, did seem to correlate with wealth. For example, economic abuse decreased as wealth increased: from the lower class (40.48%) to the middle class (23.95%) to the upper class (17.86%).

Medical abuse also decreased as wealth increased, and in fact was non-existent in the upper class: from the lower class (30.95%) to the middle class (10.78%) to the upper class (0%).

Educational abuse also decreased as wealth increased: from the lower class (40.48%) to the middle class (20.96%) to the upper class (14.29%).

Emotional and verbal abuse were the main categories in which abuse did not consistently decrease as wealth increased. Each decreased from the lower class to the middle class, but then increased from the middle class to the upper class: Emotional abuse went from 66.67% (lower) down to 48.5% (middle) and then up to 53.57%. Verbal abuse went from 59.52% (lower) down to 41.92% (middle) and then up to 42.86% (upper).

Thus while specific forms of abuse did correlate to a decrease or increase in wealth, this fact was not consistent enough to generalize a direct correlation. In fact, several forms of abuse increased in frequency from the middle class to the upper class.

That said, what can be generalized is that abuse was consistently the highest in families in the lower class or below the poverty line.

Filtered by lower class. 2013 Homeschoolers Anonymous Basic Survey.
Filtered by lower class. 2013 Homeschoolers Anonymous Basic Survey.

Economics and Current Religious Beliefs

78.84% of respondents said their homeschool experience involved fundamentalist Christianity.

This number was highest in the lower class, at 88.1%, dropping to 77.77% in the middle class.

This number was then lowest in the upper class, at 71.42%. So while the overwhelming majority of respondents grew up in fundamentalist Christian environments regardless of economic class, those environments were slightly less fundamentalist as wealth increased.

The most interesting trends, as far as a correlation between economics and current religious beliefs are concerned, is the percentage of respondents who grew up in fundamentalist Christian environments and then left Christianity for agnosticism, atheism, or another religion (cited were Paganism and Satanism).

In the upper class, only 24.99% believed their fundamentalist Christian homeschool experience influenced them towards agnosticism, atheism, or another religion. This increased to 35.08% in the middle class.

In the lower class, 45.24% believed their fundamentalist Christian homeschool experience influenced them towards agnosticism, atheism, or another religion. 

Filtered by lower class. 2013 Homeschoolers Anonymous Basic Survey.
Filtered by lower class. 2013 Homeschoolers Anonymous Basic Survey.

That is approximately 20% more than those in the upper class (and 10% more than those in the middle class) influenced towards agnosticism, atheism, or another religion.

These findings seem to suggest that, as wealth decreases, fundamentalist Christianity in homeschooling experiences increases — but only slightly so. However, as wealth decreases, the number of respondents — with fundamentalist Christian environments — turning their backs on Christianity significantly increases.

*****

< Part Two: Summary of Findings | Part Four: Parental Education as a Factor >

2013 HA Basic Survey: Main Page

What Do a Sheikh and a Homeschool Leader Have in Common?

HA Editorial Team3 Comments

Screen Shot 2013-09-30 at 6.44.30 PM

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Julie Anne Smith’s blog Spiritual Sounding Board. It was originally published on September 29, 2013.

Just how close is the homeschool fundamentalist version of Patriarchy to the Islamic version?

I think it’s pretty darn close.  Check this out.

Remember this from Christian Homeschool Leader and Pastor Kevin Swanson?

Kevin Swanson – Little Tiny Fetuses Embedded in the Womb

“I’m beginning to get some evidence from certain doctors and certain scientists that have done research on women’s wombs after they’ve gone through the surgery, and they’ve compared the wombs of women who were on the birth control pill to those who were not on the birth control pill. And they have found that with women who are on the birth control pill, there are these little tiny fetuses, these little babies, that are embedded into the womb. They’re just like dead babies. They’re on the inside of the womb. And these wombs of women who have been on the birth control pill effectively have become graveyards for lots and lots of little babies.”

Doesn’t it kind of sound like this?

driving

Driving affects ovaries and pelvis, Saudi sheikh warns women

Saudi women seeking to challenge a de facto ban on driving should realize that this could affect their ovaries and pelvises, Sheikh Saleh bin Saad al-Luhaydan, a judicial and psychological consultant to the Gulf Psychological Association, told Saudi news website sabq.org.

Driving “could have a reverse physiological impact. Physiological science and functional medicine studied this side [and found] that it automatically affects ovaries and rolls up the pelvis. This is why we find for women who continuously drive cars their children are born with clinical disorders of varying degrees,” Sheikh al-Luhaydan said.

Of course Twitter is having fun with this:

twitter

If I do not respond quickly to comments between the hours of 8AM and 12PM, it is because I am out driving, rolling up my pelvis.  Please pray.

How Not To Homeschool Your Children: Judith’s Story, Part Two

HA Editorial Team4 Comments

learning

HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Judith” is a pseudonym.

< Part One

I didn’t know why I couldn’t focus.

I didn’t have answers, just tears and shame and frustration that I couldn’t seem to make myself get things done. I was convinced that I had no self-control and that if only I could try harder, care more, something… maybe it would stop. (But probably not, so who cares.)

I would go to bed at night and math problems jumbled up with random digits would float around in my head; grey-ish white numbers on an endless black background… and I would want to scream and pound my pillow because I could never seem to get away from it.

My brain was numb.

I became continually tired and listless. “Privileges” were taken away—I didn’t care anymore if I never saw my few, kind-of sort-of friends that I tried to cultivate in my pitiful excuse for a social life. I didn’t care if they took away desserts. I didn’t care if I had to stay home from some outings. It seemed sort of embarrassing when I was threatened to be made to take my schoolwork with me when we would go over to someone’s house for dinner, but trying to get it all done in time was stressful and made me feel sick and mentally exhausted, so I resigned myself to the shame because I didn’t see any way around it.

I did get raving mad on the inside when my music lessons were threatened—the one thing that I actually enjoyed and people said I was good at—but nothing registered on the outside.

I cried myself to sleep several nights out of a week, but I couldn’t explain my feelings, and I was constantly questioning myself and swinging between giving up and guilting myself into more tiresome, useless effort.

Finally, eventually, I had scraped by until I had gotten through Algebra 2, barely getting a passing grade, despite the fact that I easily passed tests for concepts I had never studied when placing for college classes. My parents “graduated” me at 17, and I was told to either get a job or go to college.

Since I had no work history and no degree or training, I picked college—and the program that looked the easiest, didn’t take four years, and had minimal math requirements, anything that would just get me a job so that I could earn money and move out and not be around my mom any more.

I didn’t know how to function in society because I had basically been closeted away in a little pocket of Christian subculture until that point.

Interacting with other people was scary, awkward, and frequently embarrassing. I was still depressed and didn’t know how to express my needs to anyone; I didn’t know what exactly my needs were. I felt angry sometimes, but didn’t know whether it was justified or what exactly sparked it.

I got good grades, I tutored other students even, but I didn’t believe it when my professors told me I was good at what I did. After all, I was just opting for the easiest way out. Miraculously, I made it without a major public meltdown. Unless you count the time I cried unashamedly in the cafeteria because a creepy guy had asked me out and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back on that particular day. Or the time when I started yelling at my sister to stop telling me about how global warming was going to flood India, because I didn’t care. I had too many things of my own to worry about and was just barely keeping it together as it was.

Today, three years after having graduated with my measly little degree, I am not even working in that field.

I haven’t touched anything academic until very recently, because my love of learning was completely stripped away. I did what I had to do to survive, and spent my spare time watching the “stupid” movies and television shows that I never saw, hiding from society because I was too emotionally exhausted to deal with people. An avid bookworm in my childhood, I stopped reading anything except for brief stints where I would read the first chapter and then never picked the book up again.

I have read on the internet a lot—cathartic bits that helped me integrate my thoughts and feelings and put words to my hurts and angries. Things that helped me decide what was wrong and what was right about what happened. Things that have helped me learn not to beat myself up or be scared to do something new.

I still have a relationship with my family, albeit a “safe” sort of one—I see them once or twice a month as my schedule allows, but I keep my dreams and goals and personal life to myself. My parents presumably have no idea that I consider my homeschool career to have been hellish. They have not asked my thoughts on the subject, and I am loathe to bring it up unnecessarily. But if it did come up, I would want to ask: why?

Why did they make me waste those years of my life like that?

From their perspective, I suppose they do not think they “made” me do it—but why, why did they handle things the way they did? How bad did it need to get for them to decide to try something different than threats and punishments? Why did they not try a different curriculum? Why did they not make more effort to work more closely with me, instead of relegating me to work in the loneliest corner of the house on my own? Why didn’t they get me a tutor?

If public school wasn’t ever actually evil like I assumed they thought it was, why didn’t they send me there for someone else to hassle with? Why was the busywork involved in “preparing for college” so important that they let “preparing for life” slip to the wayside?

I still love homeschooling as a concept. I think it is a great alternative to public school and I currently plan to be involved in homeschooling in the future.

But I also consider my home school experience to be a valid example of how not to do it. 

Results of HA Basic Survey, Part Two: Summary of Findings

HA Editorial Team10 Comments

Screen Shot 2013-09-28 at 9.19.55 PM

Results of HA Basic Survey, Part Two: Summary of Findings

Summary of Educational Findings

Survey respondents were asked to rate the following aspects of their homeschool experience: Math, Science, History, Language Arts, Studying Religions Other Than Your Family’s, Studying Political Beliefs Other Than Your Family’s, Sex Education, Socialization, Life Skills Relevant To All Genders, Job Training/Preparation For The Work Place, College Preparation, Academic Experience (As A Whole), and Intangible Experience (Everything Other Than Academics). Respondents were asked to rate these aspects on a scale from 1 to 5, 1 being “Horrible” and 5 being “Excellent.”

Averaging the scores for all aspects, respondents gave their experience a score of 3.06, barely above the median score category of “So-so.”

2013 Homeschoolers Anonymous Basic Survey.
2013 Homeschoolers Anonymous Basic Survey.

Respondents consistently and overwhelmingly consider language arts their strong suit. The average score for language arts was 4.22, which makes it the only average score above 4, or “Adequate.”  No score’s average reached past 4.5, putting it in the “Excellent” category.

Respondents consistently and overwhelmingly consider the quality of all other aspects of their home school experience (other than language arts) to be less than “excellent” and also less than “adequate,” averaging around “so-so.” Sex education, world religions, and comparative political science are the weakest points.

There was a tie for the aspect that received the most amount of “Horrible” votes between “Studying Political Beliefs Other Than Your Family’s” and “Sex Education.” 106 of the 242 respondents gave each of these categories a 1.

The aspect that received the most amount of “Excellent” votes was “Language Arts,” with 136 respondents (56.43%) giving it a 5. Coming in second to “Language Arts” was “History,” with 80 respondents (33.47%) giving it a 5.

Among core subjects (math, science, history, and language arts), math had the lowest score, with 2.82. Only 28.22% (68) of respondents considered their math education to be “Adequate,” and only 8.3% (20) considered it “Excellent.”

Summary of Abuse Findings

The majority of respondents (60.92%) experienced one or more forms of abuse in their homes or homeschooling environments. 

2013 Homeschoolers Anonymous Basic Survey.
2013 Homeschoolers Anonymous Basic Survey.

Emotional abuse was the most common (52.10%), followed by verbal abuse (44.96%); sexual abuse was the least common (5.46%).

Identification abuse was not common (8.82%, or 21 individuals out of 242), though that number ought to be concerning regardless. It means approximately 1 out of every 10 respondents experienced an environment in which their parent(s) did not provide or withheld/destroyed their identification documents (driver’s license, Social Security card, etc.). Similarly, more than 1 out of every 10 respondents (13.03%) were prevented while growing up from seeking medical care or denied medical care by their parent(s).

Approximately 1 out of every 4 respondents experienced the following forms of abuse in their home or homeschooling environment: economic abuse, educational abuse, and physical abuse.

Summary of Findings on the Relationship Between Christian Homeschooling and Current Religious Beliefs

The overwhelming majority of respondents believe that their homeschool experience influenced what they believe today about religion.

2013 Homeschoolers Anonymous Basic Survey.
2013 Homeschoolers Anonymous Basic Survey.

*****

(Since the above categories are difficult to read, here is a text version:)

Answer Choices
Responses
My homeschooling experience had no influence on what I believe today about religion.
7.47%
18
My homeschooling experience was fundamentalist Christian, and strengthened my religious beliefs in fundamentalist Christianity.
5.81%
14
My homeschooling experience was fundamentalist Christian, and influenced me towards non-fundamentalist Christianity.
37.34%
90
My homeschooling experience was *not* fundamentalist Christian, and influenced me towards fundamentalist Christianity.
0.41%
1
My homeschooling experience was *not* fundamentalist Christian, and strengthened my religious beliefs in non-fundamentalist Christianity.
12.86%
31
My homeschooling experience was *not* fundamentalist Christian, and influenced me to leave Christianity for another religion.
0%
0
My homeschooling experience was *not* fundamentalist Christian, and influenced me to leave religion altogether.
0.41%
1
My homeschooling experience was fundamentalist Christian, and influenced me towards agnosticism.
19.09%
46
My homeschooling experience was fundamentalist Christian, and influenced me towards atheism.
14.94%
36
My homeschooling experience was fundamentalist Christian, and influenced me towards a religion other than Christianity:
1.66%
4

*****

Only 7.47% (18) said their homeschool experience did not influence their current religious beliefs. This means homeschool experiences influenced the current religious beliefs of 92.53% (224) of respondents.

78.84% of respondents had fundamentalist Christian homeschool experiences; 13.68% had non-fundamentalist Christian homeschool experiences.

The plurality (37.34%) of respondents had fundamentalist Christian homeschool experiences, and these experiences influenced them away from fundamentalism towards non-fundamentalist Christianity.

The second most common category (19.09%) was graduates whose fundamentalist Christian homeschool experiences influenced them towards agnosticism.

The highest retention value was within the non-fundamentalist Christian category: 33 respondents had non-fundamentalist Christian homeschool experiences, and among these 33 respondents 31 of them felt that experience strengthened their religious beliefs in non-fundamentalist Christianity.

Only 5.81% (14) of the respondents said they had a fundamentalist Christian homeschool experience that strengthened their own beliefs in fundamentalism.

*****

< Part One: Demographic Considerations | Part Three: Economics as a Factor >

2013 HA Basic Survey: Main Page