Alumni Activism

Statement by HARO’s Executive Director on ProPublica/Slate’s “Homeschooling Regulation” Article

HA Editorial Team

August 27, 2015 Statement by R.L. Stollar, Executive Director of Homeschool Alumni Reaching Out:

I am extraordinarily grateful to Jessica Huseman for the opportunity to be interviewed for her impressively researched ProPublica article, “Small Group Goes to Great Lengths to Block Homeschooling Regulation” (also republished by Slate as “The Frightening Power of the Home-Schooling Lobby”). As someone who was homeschooled from kindergarten through high school graduation and has spent the last two and a half years working to bring abuse and neglect within homeschooling to light, I appreciate Jessica, ProPublica, and Slate’s willingness to highlight these important matters.

I do, however, grieve the statements made by HSLDA and its founder, Michael Farris, in the article. Jessica writes, “When I spoke to Farris, he dismissed both organizations [HARO and the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, (CRHE)] outright, calling them ‘a group of bitter young people’ who are ‘fighting against homeschooling … to work out their own issues with their parents.'” It saddens me that Farris has not only resorted to personal insults, but insults he knows well are entirely false, simply to dismiss and ignore the growing numbers of voices from the movement he helped build. Several board members of HARO had personal relationships with Farris due to the homeschool speech and debate league he created through HSLDA. My father was even president of the league while Farris was on the league’s board.

My experience with homeschooling was positive and my relationship with my parents is better than it’s ever been. My parents (as well as many other homeschooling parents) support the work HARO does. And it is because of my positive homeschooling experience that I do the work I do — because I hope that every single future homeschooled child will have a positive experience like I did. Farris should be ashamed to knowingly spread falsehoods, and HSLDA and its other attorneys should demand more honesty from him.

Furthermore, HARO has attempted on several occasions to reach out to HSLDA only have doors slammed in our faces. It is HSLDA, not HARO, that refuses to help move the homeschooling movement forward in more healing, productive ways. It is HSLDA attorneys, not HARO board members, who engage in mockery. Thus when Farris says that HARO “will ‘say the opposite, no matter what we say,'” he is willfully misleading. He knows full well that HARO has offered to set aside our differences and partner with HSLDA; it is HSLDA that opposes HARO, no matter what we say.

A final important point of clarification regarding Jessica’s article: HARO advocates neither for nor against increased legislative oversight of homeschooling. On several occasions, Jessica’s article makes it sound as if part of HARO’s work involves promoting more homeschool regulations. This is untrue. That is the work of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education (CRHE), not the work of HARO. While both organizations were created by homeschool alumni, CRHE and HARO are distinct and separate. They share only one board member in common (me). CRHE advocates greater legislative oversight; HARO advocates for the wellbeing of homeschool students and improves homeschooling communities through awareness, peer support, and resource development.

HARO’s advocacy involves three strategies:

  1. Launching awareness and education campaigns within homeschooling communities on recognizing and addressing child abuse, mental illness, self-injury, and LGBT* students’ needs
  2. Building peer-support networks between homeschool students and homeschool graduates
  3. By developing resources for therapy, life coaching, education assistance, and financial support.

True to our organization’s vision of “Renewing and transforming homeschooling from within,” we promote changes from within homeschooling rather than changes from without (such as regulation). You can read more about HARO’s vision and mission here. HARO’s FAQs page also makes this clear: “HARO does not advocate for or against public policy. HARO advocates for awareness and education, peer support, and resource development from within homeschooling.”

Why I Am a Radical Activist for All Things Evil: R.L. Stollar’s Story

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CC image courtesy of Flickr, Ryan Hyde.

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from R.L. Stollar’s personal blog. It was originally published on January 12, 2014.

I’ve never thought of myself as a radical activist. I’ve never fought for something that I thought was “evil.” What I value most in life are compassion, love, and respect. Compassion for the abused, love for my neighbor, and respect for marginalized voices. I fight for these things, so I guess in that sense I am an activist.

But somehow, over the years, I have found myself maligned by old friends, distant acquaintances, and complete strangers. I am now anathema in many circles; I am one of the dreaded homeschool “apostates.”

Why?

Because my pursuit of compassion, love, and respect led me to cross the picket lines of the culture wars. 

I followed my conscience straight to enemy encampments — to individuals in poverty, women, LGBT* individuals, and abused homeschooled kids and alumni. For that, I am a radical activist.

The funny (and sad) thing is watching people explain why I became who I am today. It’s because my parents weren’t godly enough, because I didn’t read the right apologetics books, because I wasn’t spanked hard enough and often enough, because I went to college, because maybe I read too much Karl Marx or hung out with too many feminists or had premarital sex with one too many atheists while doing coke lines in a temple erected to Baphomet.

It’s funny and sad because, no, that’s not what happened. That’s not even close to the real story.

Let me explain.

*****

“Focus world attention on the plight of so many men and women who have been brutally silenced.”  

~ Gary Bauer

*****

I was 13 or 14 when I first realized how messed up the world was.

I blame Christian homeschool debate.

It was the first year I did debate. The topic was changing laws on U.S. businesses relocating overseas. I got swept away into a world of conservative Christian adoration for free trade and capitalism. Enamored with the Cato Institute, I earnestly sought out arguments in favor of granting China Most Favored Nation status.

In doing so, I discovered the Tiananmen Square massacre. I read about child labor. I heard testimonies of religious persecution. I began to doubt the goodness of humanity.

Then I came across Gary Bauer.

Observation one: I am a human rights activist today because of Gary Bauer.

I know, I know. 29-year-old me is also wondering how in the world I became interested in human rights on account of the former president of the Family Research Council, an organization now classified as a hate group by the Southern Law Poverty Center. But it’s the truth.

In a conservative Christian culture obsessed with capitalism, Bauer seemed like a lone voice in the wilderness.

I started questioning the universal goodness of capitalism because of Bauer. I learned about the horrors of the arms industry and weapons export trade because of Bauer. And I started looking more earnestly into human rights abuses because of him, too. Bauer seemed to be one of the only leaders in the Religious Right calling out his peers — and the Republican party — for not taking international human rights more seriously. As a kid, it seemed to me like the guy was a true maverick, knowing no loyalty to party lines to the point of picketing Chinese President Jiang Zemin alongside Richard Gere.

Reading Gary Bauer is what ultimately led me to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Which led me to realize the United States has played a role in a plethora of human rights abuses, imperialism, and genocide, too. Which made me doubt the “U.S. as God’s chosen nation” narrative. And so on and so forth.

Gary Bauer inspired that. Not a leftist, not a socialist, and not an atheist.

*****

“We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.”

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

*****

A few years later, I picked up a used copy of The Cost of Discipleship at the recommendation of a Christian friend. It was like my head had been underwater my whole life and suddenly I was breathing air for the first time. Here was a gospel that was not afraid to get its hands dirty. Here was a gospel willing to leave the white Republican suburbs of my youth and do more than summer Mexico mission trips.

I was raised thinking faith was the end all of religion, that “works” were what the oft-mocked Catholics were about whereas we noble Protestants, we had the Ultimate Truth. The Ultimate Truth was faith. Well, I lived my entire life in evangelical circles and I saw the emptiness of faith without works. Yet here was Bonhoeffer, boldly breaking down those inherited assumptions. Without discipleship, he said, grace was cheap.

In other words, Christians actually do need to care.

Observation two: I became a radical because of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

I say that, and even I don’t really know what that means. What does it mean to be a radical? Apparently today all you need to do to be considered a radical is call out people for racism and queerphobia. I personally consider that basic common courtesy. But no, calling people out for furthering oppression is the new radical. If so, then I guess I am a radical and no, I am not ashamed of that.

I prefer to think of radicals as people living extraordinary lives, risking body and mind to change the world. I don’t think of speaking out as extraordinary. But I also know that not speaking out is ordinary. And I learned from Bonhoeffer that to not speak is a form of speech. To not act is a form of action. 

So I refuse to be ordinary. I will speak out and I will act.

*****

“The denunciation of injustice implies the rejection of the use of Christianity to legitimize the established order.” 

~Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation

*****

During my junior year at college, I was trying to figure out the topic of my senior thesis the following year. I knew I wanted to write about sociopolitical activism and reconcile that activism with the idea of having a personal relationship with God. So, as I have written about previously, I took the patron saint of my alma mater, Soren Kierkegaard, and compared his ideas of inwardness with the ideas of outwardness I found in the patron saint of my Christian activist youth, Bonhoeffer.

But before I settled on Bonhoeffer to contrast with Kierkegaard, a friend of mine — one of the most brilliant people I know — suggested someone I had never heard of before: Gustavo Gutiérrez. A Dominican priest, Gustavo Gutiérrez was the father of something else I had never heard of before: “liberation theology.”

I was immediately intrigued.

I picked up a copy of Gutiérrez’s Theology of Liberation, and I found one of the clearest articulations of the ideas Bonhoeffer had so profoundly — yet so abstractly — articulated. Gutiérrez made me realize that to be in the world can and must mean something. It means not only must I live a life of discipleship, but that discipleship requires more than simply “feeding the poor.” It means moving beyond platitudes and soup kitchens and coming face to face with an entire system of injustice.

To be a Christian cannot mean neutrality towards injustice.

Observation three: I learned the importance of prophetic critique from Gustavo Gutiérrez.

Ironically, Gutiérrez changed my way of thinking on every matter other than economics. Which is ironic because he’s been panned for decades by the Catholic Church for being “too Marxist.”

But it wasn’t the Marxism that hooked me. (I already doubted capitalism because of Gary Bauer). Rather, I was hooked by the call to shake the foundations of power structures. To wrest my faith from ruling orders and principalities and reclaim its revolutionary tone. Faith means a revolution of the soul, yes. But that revolution happens in a radically contextual moment: here, now, in this body, in this place, with this action, with these neighbors. Which means revolution of the soul must manifest itself beyond the soul.

Gutiérrez taught me that this revolution begins on the margins. To love your neighbor means more than calling your T-Mobile Fave 5. To love your neighbor means seeking out the margins, standing in solidarity with the marginalized.

“Marginalization” isn’t newspeak. It is the language of loving your neighbor. When you find the margins, you find God asking you, “Do you love me? Then feed my sheep. This sheep. Right now. This person. Right here.”

*****

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

*****

So there you have it.

I care about the rights of women, poor people, people of color, LGBT* people, and abuse victims because of Christians. I believe in human rights because of Gary Bauer. I believe in the radical power of actually living what you believe because of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And I believe in reclaiming my faith from the hands of dehumanizing world power structures because of Gustavo Gutiérrez.

Sex, drugs, and Nietzsche — and all the other windmills at which American Christianity tilts —  don’t factor into my story.

Granted, I am not the same person I was when I was 13 or 14. Today, Gary Bauer makes me alternate between wanting to cry and wanting to rage. I have changed, I have left many foolish things behind; I am always becoming, evolving, changing. I believe life is process and I am learning to embrace process.

But one thing has not changed: my passion for human rights, fighting for justice, and seeking the shadows and the margins. That passion has only grown. But what once made me the “cool” Christian now makes me the cautionary tale, because I now refuse to draw lines in my advocacy. Because I see compassion, love, and respect extending to each and every human being.

So yes, I am a radical activist.

But I learned to be one from giants of the Christian faith.

The Benjamin Buttons of Homeschooling

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CC image courtesy of Flickr, Brian Cook.

By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator

Homeschool kids and alumni live in a strange time paradox.

As infants, we were “vipers in diapers.” Even though we couldn’t speak or walk, we were spanked because somehow we had the cognitive ability and will to rail against God, just like any other adult. Yet even though we had the power to determine our eternal destiny, we were nothing but property of our parents, void of any rights (other than the right to eternally damn ourselves, of course).

As children, we were raised under the banner of exceptionalism. We were always ready to defend our parents’ educational choices, always ready to proclaim the benefits of homeschooling, and always paraded around in little suits and dresses as if we were mini-senators and presidents-in-training. Those of us who participated in homeschool speech and debate had one Bible verse drilled into our heads over and over: 1 Timothy 4:12. “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.”

We took this message to heart. We wrote it in our diaries; we typed it on our Xangas; we opened every speech and debate conference with it.

We lived our lives in such a way that our youth seemed meaningless. We took to State Capitols; we rallied for pro-life bills right alongside our parents and other adult peers; we have even testified on legislative floors. As long as we walked the paths our parents desired for us, our youth had no meaning. We were treated as adults, as fully human beings who understand the biblical worldview and had the power to proclaim it to all the nations.

But then we actually grew up. We become real adults. And we began to think for ourselves. We began to speak for ourselves. We began to disagree with those who raised us.

Then we, now actually adults, began to be treated as children.

Suddenly time reversed and we were told, “Wait until you’re older. Then you’ll agree with us again.”

So we waited. We became older. We still had disagreements. Then we were told, “Wait until you have children. Then you’ll agree with us again.”

So some of us waited. Some of us had children. We still had disagreements. Then those some of us were told, “Wait until your children reach school age. Then you’ll agree with us again.”

Some some of us waited. Some of us put our children in public school or private school or even homeschool. We still had disagreements. Then those some of us were once again told, “Wait until your children become teenagers. Then you’ll agree with us again.”

We are stuck in a perpetual state of childhood. Whereas we had to spend our actual childhood acting like adults and being paraded around as mature, we now spend our actual adulthood being rejected as immature children who are simply bitter at our parents.

It’s a lose-lose for us homeschool alumni.

We’re like Benjamin Buttons, starting our lives as mini-adults only to grow down into large children.

Statement Concerning Our Rachel Dolezal Coverage

HA Editorial Team

On June 16 and 17, we published two articles highlighting the alleged history of abuse and control within Rachel Dolezal’s family. Since Rachel was a homeschool alumna raised in a conservative Christian home similar to many individuals in HA’s regular audience, we intended these articles to draw attention to elements of the Dolezal story that the mainstream media had missed — in particular, that Rachel’s parents, Larry and Ruthanne Dolezal, should not be paraded around as innocent whistleblowers.

When we published these articles, we did not see that doing so acted as apologies and/or excuses for Rachel’s behavior. Our decision to publish them has thus resulted in excusing and diminishing her behavior as well as detracting from the fact that Rachel has deeply hurt many members of the black community. We apologize for this and we are grateful to the people who have contacted us to point out this blind spot.

As HA Community Coordinator, I take full responsibility for these failures. I am sorry for the pain I have caused to those affected by Rachel’s actions.

As we were in the wrong, we are retracting the articles. However, we do not want to erase or hide our mistake, so we have saved the article I wrote and its comments as a PDF here: Here’s What Joshua Dolezal Wrote About His and Rachel Dolezal’s Christian Fundamentalist Upbringing. HA no longer has permission to publish the other article or host its PDF version.

 

Ryan Stollar

HA Community Coordinator

HARO Executive Director

 

Co-signed by the HARO Board:

Nicholas Ducote

Lauren Dueck

Shaney Lee

Andrew Roblyer

Those No Good, Very Bad Homeschool Graduates

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HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Libby Anne’s blog Love Joy Feminism. It was originally published on Patheos on June 6, 2015.

Last weekend was the Illinois Christian Home Educators (ICHE) conference in Naperville. This afternoon homeschooling father and speaker Voddie Baucham, of Vision Forum fame, will be delivering the following keynote address:

TEACHING YOUR CHILDREN WITH YOUR GRANDCHILDREN IN MIND

I am surprised at how many homeschool kids aren’t sure whether or not they are going to educate their own children at home. I’m more surprised that some are sure they won’t. Usually, further examination reveals a complete lack of any theological/philosophical reflection on the topic. Their parents simply did what was best for them at the moment; not what was best, period.

Hi! I’m one of those terrible horrible very bad no good homeschool graduates who has decided not to homeschool their own children!

I was homeschooled from kindergarten through high school, but my firstborn just finished public kindergarten last week. The horror! She has an awesome teacher and made two years of progress in reading in just one school year. She’s ahead in just about every other subject as well. Socially, she’s thriving. She’s a social butterfly and exudes confidence. Her teacher told me recently that she has such a high level of self-confidence that she isn’t peer dependent at all. But who am I to think I have a better grasp of what is best for my child than Voddie Baucham? The nerve!

I guess I as a parent am more interested in looking for the educational method that works best for my child and my family than I am in adhering rigidly and dogmatically to a single educational method regardless of whether it fits me or my child. And I guess, according to Baucham, that makes me a bad person—and a failure as a homeschool graduate. Why? Here’s why:

In this session, we will examine key theological and philosophical motivations for home education, and how to pass these on to our children. Do your children know why you homeschool? Do you? Do they have a ‘big picture’ perspective on the impact home education can have on our culture for the sake of the Kingdom? Do they understand what government education has done to the culture at large (or that it has been intentional)? Are they thinking about ways their marriage, educational and career choices will impact the education and discipleship of their children? We will also look at the way our approach to educating our children figures into the scenario, and the kinds of things we need to encourage our children to invest in now so they can invest in their children in the future.

Okay, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the vast vast majority of homeschool graduates from Christian homes who now have their children in public school got all this. I know I did! I fully believed that public schools were horrible and that homeschooling was absolutely essential. I fully intended to homeschool my children. I did not believe there was any other viable option.

The issue here is not a failure on the part of Baucham and others to teach homeschool kids like me the importance of homeschooling our own children. We got that, and then some. The issue here is that we grew up to disagree. The irony here is that we were told that public school kids were sardines who followed the crowds and that we were to be independent thinkers. But when we grew up to be just that—to form our own opinions about public schools and about homeschooling separate from those of our parents—we became a problem.

Apparently being an “independent thinker” and “charting your own path” means “thinking just like your parents” and “replicating their path.” Apparently as soon as I actually headed out to build my own life and make my own choices I became a problem. For all that we were told how mature we were, the moment we made our own decisions independent from our parents we were treated as children who didn’t know any better.

And that is perhaps the biggest irony of the Christian homeschooling movement. As children we were told we were mature independent thinkers, but the moment we actually became that we were treated as children. No, there is a greater irony even than that. We were told as children that we were not peer-dependent when in fact we were, and the moment we worked up the self confidence to break that dependency we were treated as though we had just become peer dependent.

The hardest thing about putting my daughter in public school was dealing with my mother’s response to this decision. There were tears. There was pain. It hurt. I reminded her that my grandparents had disagreed with her decision to homeschool, but that she did what she believed was best for her children anyway, and not out of spite or as an act of rejection. I told her I was doing the same thing. She told me it wasn’t the same, because Jesus. Fortunately, she seems to have accepted my decision and doesn’t push it, except to make a pointed hint now and then. (“We can’t come up that day, Sally has school.” “You could just take her out and homeschool her, you know.” “How about we come up the next day? Does that work for you too?”)

And so, when I read yesterday about Voddie’s keynote, I just felt frustrated. Again. Has Voddie thought about asking homeschooled students and homeschool graduates who don’t plan to homeschool why they don’t plan to homeschool? I sincerely doubt it, and do you know why? My mother never asked me why I had decided to send my daughter to public school. It’s like she couldn’t consider that maybe, just maybe, I had done my research and thought through this decision carefully. What mattered was that my decision was wrong, because it wasn’t hers. The same appears to be true for Voddie, for all of his talk of preparing a strong capable generation of young adults to reform this country morally and politically.

I spent my childhood being treated like an adult. It seems I’ll spend my adulthood being treated like a child.

Welcome to the world of a homeschool alumna.

Introducing: The HA Editorial Team!

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By Nicholas Ducote, HARO Community Director

As HA begins its third year, we will be introducing some new staff members to accommodate the outpouring of submissions, breaking news, investigative reports, and monthly series. Simply put, Ryan and I cannot keep up! Fear not, this is a good problem! But we ask that you bear with us as we transition with our new editorial team and introduce some changes to the blog’s user interface. Our blog will remain a volunteer effort, which necessitates a team to keep up with demands of social media, editing, blogging, and community coordinating.

The HA blog has brought us together – people isolated and seemingly alone in their experiences, suddenly introduced to our shared and diverse memories, experiences, pain, and joy. Editing stories and communicating with bloggers naturally connects HA with an ever-growing network of people.

Our editorial team will be dedicated to a common goal with specific areas of expertise. Ryan and I will continue to be active with the community and blog, but most of you will interact with our editorial staff on a daily basis. You will see some new names authoring posts and commenting on WordPress. I cannot speak more highly for these people and I constantly learn things from them. You can read more about them below in their respective bios.

To clarify some of the organizational distinctions, Ryan and I (Nicholas Ducote) will continue to oversee the Homeschoolers Anonymous blog. Ryan and Nick are also board members of Homeschool Alumni Reaching Out, with Lauren Dueck, Andrew Roblyer, and Shaney Lee. The HA Editorial team will refer any organizational questions, media requests, and official inquiries to Ryan, Nick, and the HARO board.

The editorial team will use the email: HA.EdTeam@gmail.com


Homeschoolers Anonymous Editorial Team

Social Media: Michele Hop-Ganev and Bonnie Mulholland

Editors and Community Coordinators: Darcy Anne, Wende Webb Benner, Giselle Palmer, Eleanor Skelton

See our Staff page to read their bios.

Mary Menges’ Winning Essays for 2015 HARO STEM Scholarship for Women

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CC image courtesy of Flickr, Ruby W. Image links to source.
CC image courtesy of Flickr, Ruby W. Image links to source.

By Nicholas Ducote, HARO Community Director 

Congratulations again to our 2015 HARO STEM Scholarship for Women winner, Mary Menges of Monmouth University!

The generosity of a couple in our alum community enabled this scholarship opportunity.  Thank you again to the committee – Dr. Janelle Briggs, Emily Walton, and Lana Martin – that read through the applications and made the final decision. Through the process, we were introduced to a number of women with strong and vibrant visions for their future in STEM. We hope to make scholarships like this a regular occurrence, but ultimately we are supported by your contributions.

If you would be interested in funding a scholarship, or contributing to our scholarship fund, please email: HomeschoolersAnonymous@gmail.com or see our donate page.

We wanted to share Mary’s compelling story, experiences, and vision for her future in software engineering with our community. Her essays are included below:

1. Where did your interest in your discipline/field originate?

 I have had an interest in health for as long as I can remember. My favorite part of high school biology was learning about the human body, and I have always felt that health is tremendously important in every person’s life. I became determined to pursue a career that would make a positive impact on the health of others; however, it was not until I began college that I discovered my talent for software engineering.

While taking an introductory programming course, I fell in love with the way that software engineering combined logic with creativity. I kept wanting to learn more about software, and I eventually discovered that I could apply software engineering in a field related to health. Whether through designing healthcare information systems or through modeling the human body, there are many ways in which I can combine my talent for computers with my passion for health.

I fell in love with software engineering because it lets me use my talents, and I decided to pursue a degree in software engineering in order to do the most I can to improve health. I have put a lot of thought into my decision to become a software engineer, but it is the love and passion that I have for what I am doing that will keep me motivated and drive me to continue learning as much as I can.

 2. How did homeschooling impact your study of science, technology, math, and/or engineering?

Although I did not take many courses in these subjects as a homeschool student, my homeschooling has had an impact on my study of science, technology, engineering, and math in many ways. First of all, homeschooling gave me the opportunity to truly grasp basic material such as mathematical concepts. This strong foundation has helped me to grasp higher-level concepts in many difficult classes.

In addition to giving me the opportunity to slowly master important concepts, homeschooling taught me how to be an independent learner. Throughout high school, I was able to study relatively independently. Whether I was using DVDs, books, or special software programs to learn my high school material, I learned to manage my assignments and generally went to my parents for help only when I needed a paper graded or it was time to take a quiz or a test.

Although at first glance my homeschool curriculum would not seem very STEM intensive, homeschooling taught me how to learn. It is clear that homeschooling gave me a strong foundation on which to build the rest of my education and my life.

 3. Describe your experience being a female in your field, from when you first showed interest until now.

Female students have been a minority in every computer science or software engineering class I have ever taken, but I have found that the amount of support for female students in STEM fields outweighs many of the difficulties. There may not be many women in my classes, but they are some of the smartest, most beautiful people I know, and many friendships have been made as we stuck together through these difficult courses.

There are also many organizations which offer support for women in these fields. When I attended community college, I was a member of the Women in Engineering, Science, and Technology (WEST) club. That club did more for me than I can say. From the friendships formed to the wonderful professors who mentored me and showed me opportunities I never knew existed, the support this experience offered me has made a huge impact on my life.

I am very proud to be a female software engineering student, and I hope that in the future I will be able to encourage more women to enter STEM fields and give them the kind of support which I have received.

Thoughts on Our Second Year Anniversary

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Screen Shot 2015-03-13 at 4.09.31 PM

By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator

On March 2013, 2 years ago to this month, Nicholas Ducote and I launched Homeschoolers Anonymous. With nothing but hopes and dreams and a handful of stories from homeschool alumni, we began a project that has — 2 years later — exceeded our most fantastical expectations. Our press release, amateurish at best, declared that we were “joining together to bring awareness to, and healing from, different forms of abuse in extreme homeschooling subcultures.” Little did we know just how significant of an undertaking it would become.

We started that day with about 20 stories in our queue — stories from close friends that we’ve known since our days competing and coaching in NCFCA, the homeschool speech and debate league. Our site now features over 1,000 stories, covering topics as diverse as purity culture, child sexual abuse, corporal punishment, courtship and betrothal, Ken Ham and young earth creationism, Oak Brook School of Law and Patrick Henry College, and so much more. We’ve broken news stories about the fall of Doug Phillips, the resignation of Bill Gothard, how HSLDA enabled and funded child abuse in the German Twelve Tribes, the cover-up of child abuse among the Old Schoolhouse Magazine and the Great Homeschool Conventions, and the resignation of Patrick Henry College president’s Graham Walker. These stories and others have been featured in mainstream media ranging from the Guardian to the Daily Beast to WORLD Magazine to Christianity Today to the Christian Science Monitor.

Our official non-profit organization Homeschool Alumni Reaching Out recently conducted a large-scale, national survey of homeschool alumni, which has been cited in various media. We created a free child abuse awareness curriculum for homeschooling communities (and have several more curriculums on other topics in development). And we will soon be announcing the recipient of our first-ever scholarship for female homeschool alumni studying in STEM fields.

Despite the naysayers, who 2 years ago said we would run out of “horror stories” to share, we are continuing to run strong. We have a slew of stories we still need to publish (in fact, we are so overwhelmed with stories that we are months behind) and we don’t see us running dry of stories anytime soon. Haters have hated from the beginning, but we — and the amazing community we have found through this project — continually prove them wrong, day after day. We are honored and humbled to have so many loving, caring people supporting our work and bravely contributing their own voices.

Since beginning Homeschoolers Anonymous in 2013, even I myself have learned so much from my friends, peers, and allies. I look back to my first contribution to the site, “Homeschool Confidential”, and I cringe when I read that I wrote, “What you might not know about conservative, Christian homeschoolers is that we are actually a smart bunch. Unlike the completely ridiculous cultural stereotype, many of us received more than adequate socialization.” Through the ever-growing Homeschoolers Anonymous community, I have realized that socialization is not a joking matter and I am sorry that I ever thought it was. There are many, many alumni who did indeed grow up without adequate socialization. They were isolated significantly, sometimes entirely, and that isolation had extremely painful impacts on their well-being — impacts that they still feel to this day.

This project has been a sharp learning curve even for me as someone homeschooled K-12. I have had educate myself about all sorts of issues, and I am grateful for my fellow alumni who have given pointed criticism that I needed to hear it. When I announced our LGBT* homeschool series, for example, I originally called it “Homeschoolers Are Gay.” But Kate Kane from Queer PHC pointed out to me that “gay” doesn’t included everyone who is LGBT* and thus can be erasing. I am thankful to be held accountable by my peers like this. That caused us to re-name the series “Homeschoolers Are Out.” It broke my heart that I had made people feel erased, but I apologized and changed course accordingly.

We’re all learning and we’re going to make mistakes. And one part of leaving fundamentalism, leaving the Generation Joshua we were so carefully trained to become, is being ok with not being perfect and getting knocked off a pedestal. It’s ok to say, “I made a mistake, I hurt you, and I am sorry for that. I will do better.” We can all do better and this amazing project we’re doing together, Homeschoolers Anonymous, is a perfect example of how we can learn from one another, learn the freedom to find our voices, and also learn the freedom to listen to others who have long been silenced.

In the 2 years since we launched Homeschoolers Anonymous, and the 1 year since we formed Homeschool Alumni Reaching Out, there have been some deeply discouraging moments. We are constantly belittled by homeschooling parents, infantilized and called “children.” We are referred to as bitter, as engaging in the “spirit of Ham” by exposing parental abuse. We have endured homophobic slurs, threats of physical abuse, mockery by HSLDA employees. We have earnestly sought to partner on several occasions with HSLDA to make homeschooling better — and have been ignored entirely. We have had hopes to present vital information about child abuse and mental illness at homeschool conventions — only to be rejected on several occasions.

We have even been called “a bigger threat to homeschooling than any teacher’s union” and “the greatest threat to homeschooling freedoms” by fellow homeschoolers.

This can be so discouraging. Sometimes we wonder if we’re actually making any difference and if there is any point in continuing. But then we hear from alumni that they thought they were the only ones, they thought they were “crazy,” and that we gave them hope to carry on. One letter in particular continues to make me tear-up every time I read it:

“I came across the HA blog through the article on The Daily Beast. Journeying as far as possible from my upbringing – involving fundamentalist homeschooling, a church cult, and an abusive home – has been a long and oftentimes lonely road. I have never found a venue that allows former homeschooled kids to share their stories like this.  So. There are certain moments in life, remarkable for their rarity, when you feel something pivoting, when a door opens and you can see a little light crinkling in. This is one such moment. I am not alone. I am not alone and I am not crazy. Now I want to start writing my story too. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

That makes all the difference in the world to me, and that is what inspires us to continue the work we’re doing, no matter how hard it is. We are not alone. We are not crazy. And we’re not just bitter, angry kids. We are human beings, many adults with our own children now, and we are doing our best to make the lives of future homeschool kids better. That’s all we want to do. And we do it because we care.

We care about our siblings still in homeschooling and we care about the future generations.

We want homeschooling to be a safe, nurturing environment for every single child.

And we’ll keep fighting until that happens.

CHEA Rejects HARO Exhibitor Application Over “Philosophical Difference”

HA Editorial Team14 Comments

CHEA

By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator

Christian Home Educators Association of California (CHEA), California’s statewide Christian homeschool organization, rejected Homeschool Alumni Reaching Out‘s (HARO) application to exhibit at their July 2015 convention in Pasadena, CA, keynoted by Israel Wayne and Norm Wakefield. HARO had applied to exhibit its free child abuse awareness curriculum as well as provide physical copies of that curriculum free of charge to convention attendees. Gerald McKoy, President of CHEA, cited “duplicative” efforts in the area of child abuse awareness and prevention as well as “a significant philosophical difference between” HARO and CHEA.

The text of CHEA’s rejection letter from McKoy follows:

Thank you for your request to exhibit at our convention. Like you, CHEA is very concerned about all forms of child abuse, and we appreciate your concern in this area.

However, we will not be able to accommodate your request to exhibit your curriculum at our convention. This is for two main reasons: 1) we feel this is duplicative of our current efforts in this area, and 2) we feel there is a significant philosophical difference between your organization and ours.

CHEA is concerned for all victims of child abuse of any kind, whether in a homeschooling family or not. Unfortunately, this is a problem in our culture as a whole, which we believe is a direct result of sin in our world—”all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”—not specific to the homeschooling community. Many studies have been conducted regarding the presence of abuse in our society, and we are grieved that this is a problem that is present in the homeschooling community as well.

CHEA maintains a webpage within the Leadership portion of its website to assist member leaders in this area. We are working to improve and update that area, and we are also in the process of publishing materials for all of our members regarding the problem of child abuse and the signs to be aware of in recognizing it.

We also recognize a significant philosophical difference between CHEA and Homeschool Alumni Reaching Out and its affiliated website Homeschoolers Anonymous.

Again, CHEA remains adamantly opposed to any form of child abuse in families that homeschool and those who do not. CHEA will continue its efforts to educate its members and member organizations in recognizing signs of abuse and the proper response to such signs. We wish you the best in your efforts to protect children.

For the Board of Directors,

Gerald McKoy

President

CHEA

While I encouraged to hear the organization aims to make better efforts to educate members about child abuse, I am saddened that McKoy and the other Board Directors of CHEA chose to provide a nebulous “philosophical difference” as reason to reject HARO’s application. No member of CHEA’s board made an effort to contact HARO to discuss what this difference is; thus, HARO is unaware of the content of that objection. Furthermore, my father personally served CHEA for several years as their convention organizer, so I am not unfamiliar with the organization. I fondly remember spending summer weekends at CHEA conventions, helping my father set up and tear down the events. I would have been happy to discuss any potential disagreements.

Finally, it is important to point out that “duplicative efforts” in the area of child abuse awareness and prevention should be more than welcomed in the homeschooling world. This topic has been sorely neglected for decades and we need as many efforts to rectify this silence as possible. It is not a topic that should be relegated to Leadership-only sections on websites. It should be broadcast loudly for all homeschool parents and communities to hear. We must do this work together, as leaders, parents, and — most often neglected — as alumni who understand a different side to homeschooling.

This is the second convention that has rejected HARO’s request to exhibit, following the Great Homeschool Conventions’ retraction last year.

I hope and pray that others will be more receptive in the future.

Full image of CHEA’s letter follows:

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I Am The Story

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CC image courtesy of Flickr, Refracted Moments. Image links to source.
CC image courtesy of Flickr, Refracted Moments. Image links to source.

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Darcy’s blog Darcy’s Heart-Stirrings. It was originally published on February 5, 2015.

A blank page.

Kind of like my life before others drew on it.

31 years old and I am only beginning to write my own story on my own pages in a book that is no longer blank but filled with the scrawls of everyone else I allowed to scratch with pen and ink.

This was my story, written for me, but not written by me.

I was told god would write my story. I was told that others could write it better than I, could write the words god wanted but that I was too naive and immature and untrustworthy to write myself. They were the scribes, I was the submissive blank pages, god was the dictator. But there is no dictator and the ones that placed themselves as scribes could not control the unruly characters and the story line, and had no idea where the ending was or what would happen in the middle pages. They didn’t know the first thing about the character I am. They made a mess of the blank pages that were my soul and life and I let them. 

But no longer.

I am left now holding the pen in my own hand, after wrenching it out of the hands of previous scribes. I hover above a page no longer blank, full of crossed-out words that can never quite be made good enough or erased, their indents and marks evident and plenty. A story that looks out of control, about a character I don’t recognize. Yet here I am, turning that page to find the next one blank and the possibilities endless. And it is both frightening and exhilarating.

Because now I am the dictator and I am the scribe and I am the story.

What will be written from now on will be written by my own hand, in the language of my own soul, and my character is born again.

I cannot change what was written both by my consent and without it, and perhaps I don’t want to, since who I am is the product of what has been written, and who can go back and predict an unwritten future?

But I control what gets written from now until the day I die, pages covered in agony and joy and raw life. I wish I knew I always had this control.

I wish I knew, half a life ago, that I alone was the author of my story. 

I am determined now to make it a good one.