homeschool – Page 29 – Homeschoolers Anonymous

On Crushes

September 16, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team3 Comments

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Libby Anne’s blog Love Joy Feminism. It was originally published on Patheos on September 14, 2014.

Growing up on the conservative Christian homeschooling culture of courtship and purity rings made a lot of things about boy-girl interactions different. Everything was ramped up, accelerated somehow. Our mothers jumped straight from simple attractions on our part to the possibility of marriage. We did too.

I still remember my first crush. I was seven. He was nine. I was homeschooled, but he wasn’t. My mother and his mother knew each other from church. Finally, I got up the courage to ask him what he wanted to be when he grew up, to see if our life visions were compatible. He said he wanted to be a basketball player. I knew that almost certainly wouldn’t happen, and that even if it did, the longterm prospects were slim. This declaration on his part made him seem unwise, and thus definitely an unsuitable partner. How would I be able to submit to his headship when his life ambition was basketball player? I still thought he was cute and all, but my crush was for all intents and purposes over, because I knew there was nothing there for us.

We were told we shouldn’t date until we were ready for marriage. Well, they told us we shouldn’t date at all, that we should court, but that those relationships should not begin before each party was ready to marry. In other words, guy-girl relationships were intrinsically tied to marriage. Guy-girl relationships that weren’t marriage-oriented were wrong and would have all sorts of consequences.

In this context, it’s not surprising that we children would immediately jump to thoughts of marriage upon even the slightest crush.

Were there prospects? Could we possibly end up married, someday? If no, attraction must be crushed. If yes? Well, one can dream, right? I mean, I might be 14 and he might be 16, and we may not be ready for marriage and I might be too afraid of the opposite sex to talk to him anyway, but the most important pressing question is whether maybe, someday, we might be compatible and in a position to marry, right?

There was one young man whom I had always found gangly and awkward and unattractive, but when I headed off to college I learned that he was headed off to university to study engineering. Hmm, I thought. That’s good prospects. Maybe I should reconsider how I felt about him? If I played my cards right, perhaps there might be something there. After all, we had the same beliefs and background. Like me, he was from a large homeschooling family, even more conservative than mine if anything.

Reading that now, I’m struck by how mercenary it was. But that was my reality.

I don’t think it’s helpful to ramp the pressure up to 100 and insert the marriage question into the slightest childhood crush. Most people will have multiple relationships before they meet the person they marry, and that’s actually a good thing, because it’s how we learn and grow. I was taught growing up that we give away “pieces of our heart” every time we have a relationship. The ideal, I was taught, was for my very first relationship to lead to marriage. But the truth is that we learn and grow through our relationships. My husband wouldn’t be the person he is today if he hadn’t dated the two women he dated before me—and I like the person he is today. Far from depriving me of pieces of his heart, those two relationships improved him.

But perhaps what I find most unhealthy about this whole pieces-of-your-heart/your-first-relationship-should-lead-to-marriage ideal is what it means for young men and women who begin a relationship and find it turning south, only to feel that leaving the relationship is not an option. I know women today who found themselves in abusive relationships—yes, good evangelical homeschooled girls who followed the rules and courted good evangelical homeschooled boys—only to feel trapped. Leaving was out of the question—leaving meant not simply relationship failure but comprehensive life failure, and things lost that could never be retrieved.

I know what I’m going to tell my children: It’s okay. It doesn’t have to mean more than you want it to mean. Enjoy the moment. Focus on building healthy and fulfilling relationships rather than trying to force things toward marriage.

Oh, and also? Sometimes a crush is just a crush. And that’s okay.

HSLDA Gave This Man Their Prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award Just 4 Years Ago

August 31, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team15 Comments

By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator

Every year the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) puts on the National Leader’s Conference, where the biggest names and leaders in homeschooling come together to network and hear educational and inspirational talks from both HSLDA’s staff as well as outside speakers invited by HSLDA. During the conference, HSLDA gives an annual award: the Lifetime Achievement Award. According to HSLDA, this honor is bestowed upon “a leader who has demonstrated valuable leadership to the homeschool community, inspired and motivated others to effective action, overcome hardships and obstacles to succeed, demonstrated a servant’s heart while exhibiting the qualities listed above, and maintained a clear witness concerning Jesus Christ and the Gospel.”

The Lifetime Achievement Award was dubbed “the Gregg Harris Award,” named after homeschool leader Gregg Harris. It was first bestowed upon its namesake in 2007. In 2008 it was given to Brian Ray “in recognition of his pioneering work in the field of homeschool research.” In 2009, HSLDA awarded it to James Dobson. According to Focus on the Family President Jim Daly, “HSLDA presented Dr. Dobson with its Lifetime Achievement Award during its annual National Leaders Conference here in Colorado Springs.”

Which brings us to 2010, a mere 4 years ago.

Who did HSLDA bestow the “Gregg Harris” Lifetime Achievement Award on at the 2010 National Leader’s Conference?

HSLDA does not have the answer to this question on their website. However, the event page for the conference is still available. You can view it here. First, some background: HSLDA’s 2010 National Leader’s Conference was held September 22-25, 2010, at the Westin North Shore in Chicago (Wheeling, Illinois to be precise). Invited to speak at the conference attended by state and national homeschool leaders were Dr. Henry Morris (from the Institute for Creation Research) and Erwin Lutzer (from Moody Church and Worldview Weekend). HSLDA’s Michael Farris gave the plenary session.

But there was one particularly significant speaker I have yet to mention. On the afternoon of the last day, the conference attendees are divided into two groups: ladies and men. The ladies attended a “Ladies Tea,” and the men attended a “Men’s Huddle.” And who did HSLDA invite to led the “Men’s Huddles” at their conference for homeschool leaders? Bill Gothard, of course:

HSLDA invited Bill Gothard just 4 years ago to teach state and national homeschool leaders at the 2010 National Leader’s Conference.

But that is not all.

Gothard was not simply invited to speak. He was also chosen by HSLDA to receive their Lifetime Achievement Award at that same conference. According to Kiri Kincell, a conference attendee, “During [Saturday] evening, the Greg Harris [sic] award (named after it’s first recipient) was awarded to Bill Gothard for his huge contributions to the early homeschooling movement.”

Just a reminder: this was in 2010, just 4 years ago.

This fact has not gone unnoticed. An anonymous commentator on a blog criticizing Michael Farris’s recent “Line in the Sand” article pointed to the 2010 conference:

As a former board member of a state home schooling organization, I clearly remember HSLDA, during their national conference for home schooling leaders that was held just 4 years ago in Chicago giving a lifetime home schooling achievement award to none other than Bill Gothard. HSLDA gives this award annually to those that they judge to have made significant contributions to the home schooling movement. This award has gone to men like Greg Harris and the now deceased and former HSLDA attorney, Chris Klicka. HSLDA even had Gothard conduct a Sat afternoon session at their conference that was geared toward fathers and sons…just 4 years ago!

You can read the full comment here.

Let’s put this into perspective:

HSLDA’s Michael Farris just released a blistering white paper condemning Bill Gothard and Doug Phillips. In that paper, Farris declares that Gothard’s teachings “usurp the role of God,” “threaten the freedom and integrity of the homeschooling movement,” are “dangerous,” and have “harmed” “families, children, women, and even fathers.” He also admits that he and the HSLDA board have believed this for years, which is why HSLDA “did not directly promote their teachings.”

So. Let’s get this straight: HSLDA believes that Bill Gothard as a teacher is anti-biblical, freedom-threatening, dangerous, and harmful — and has believed this for years — and despite all that, invited Bill Gothard to be the teacher of state and national homeschool leaders just 4 years ago?

And then gave Bill Gothard the highest honor they could?

And then had the gall to publicly lie to all of our faces and say they “did not directly promote their teachings”?

I mean,

Either Farris and HSLDA have suddenly contracted temporary amnesia or there’s a troubling lack of both sincerity and transparency to this “line in the sand.”

An Open Letter to Thomas Umstattd Jr. and Co.: By Xoxana Sea

August 29, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team11 Comments

“In the early days our party line was ‘Homeschooling is perfect. No regulation needed.’ This line of argumentation was good and helpful during our infancy. We needed to sweep internal problems under the rug so we could focus on external threats.”

~ Thomas Umstattd Jr.

Guys, I have been handling all this pretty well up to this point… but this Thomas Umstattd Jr. article has me just… enraged. I can’t take it. To actually admit that the movement was more important than reporting abuse…I mean, I knew it, but to have the huevos to actually say it is unspeakable. It’s not appalling. It’s worse than that. Words, they fail me. I want to write this as an open letter, but I don’t even know how to get it to them.

I want them to look me in the eye, and tell me face-to-face that their movement was more important than my life.

To act like “sure there were problems but we had to get the movement all good, now that we’re solid we can totally fix those” glosses over a couple of tiny details. That was twenty years ago–the time to fix those problems has long passed. The children are grown. There’s no going back.

That was my childhood. I will never get another one.

Now to hear it was all just a charade to shore up a movement…that nobody really believed in patriarchy, they just let a few wackos spout that to their kids because Homeschooling needed to be established! …I would compare it to a slap in the face, but see, a slap in the face was one of the nicest things that ever happened to me as a child.

I never knew anything but patriarchy. I stayed up at night crying and begging god for forgiveness and to please not kill me for the sin of causing men to stumble. In kindergarten.

There is permanent scarring in my brain from living in constant fear. There is permanent scarring in my abdomen. I will never be ok. I will never have a prom. I will never have a first kiss. I will never get to be a child. To learn that it was all just a political operation has stripped what was left of the hellish nightmare I lived in to fake walls, like a movie set, pushed down to reveal that everyone knew but me. I was only something they used.

All the pain and tears and terror and guilt and depression and harm and hate and other agony?

Just a little thing they used to get their political way.

I was a little child. An innocent little child. I could have been happy. There was no reason I shouldn’t have been. There never was any angry god demanding submission. There was never any devil trying to possess me.

These tools were given to narcissistic people with the capacity for evil in order to get them drunk with power; once they were hooked they were told the only way to maintain their power was to support the movement. They would protest anything, make all the calls, show up to state capitols in droves just to keep their precious fix.

At least crack dealers don’t require child abuse as payment.

I don’t know how to express the rage I’m feeling right now. I was used. My nightmare was all just a game to them. And now the patriarchs go on the radio and laugh about it. Because it’s funny. Because me, little four-year-old me, huddled under a blanket in the dark, terrified and hurt and bleeding and sore and begging god to forgive me for things other people had done, is funny to them.

I’m out of words.

Beall Phillips, Wife of Doug Phillips, Accuses HSLDA’s Michael Farris of “Gross Error,” “Bully Pulpit”

August 28, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team28 Comments

Beall Phillips, wife of disgraced homeschool leader Doug Phillips. Photo source: Facebook.

By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator

In a curious turn of events, Beall Phillips — wife of disgraced homeschool leader Doug Phillips, who was accused of sexual assaulting his family’s nanny — has come out swinging against HSLDA’s Michael Farris. Yesterday Farris released his white paper “A Line in the Sand,” where he criticized both Doug Phillips and Bill Gothard, saying, “The philosophies of Gothard and Phillips damage people in multiple ways.” The white paper got the attention of both WORLD Magazine and Shawn Mathis at the Examiner.

Earlier today, however, Beall Phillips left both a public comment on HSLDA’s Facebook page as well as a public status on her own Facebook page accusing Farris of nothing less than lies and misrepresentation. (This is not the first time Beall has gone to bat for her husband. In April of this year she appeared on a local television show with her husband, declaring that, “I think God wanted to draw us together and do something much bigger than us or our family’s story.”) Beall argued there were “gross errors” in Farris’s accusations, such as:

(1) Doug Phillips never taught “that women in general should be subject to men in general,” Beall says, pointing to the fact that, “For about the last 6 years, you and I have sat around the same table for board meetings. Yes, you and I (a woman) were on the same board.”

(2) Despite Michael Farris claiming that patriarchy teaches “Women should not vote,” Beall says, “I have voted as my conscience dictated since I was 18. So do my sons and so will my daughters.”

Here is the full text of Beall’s statement (which, note, is apparently “part one” of a series of statements):

Well, Mike, your article about Doug was, at the very least, in bad taste, and your representation of what Doug and I believe and what we have taught through Vision Forum was rife with gross error.

I have known you for 23 years. I have seen you in many circumstances, some admirable, some not admirable. For about the last 6 years, you and I have sat around the same table for board meetings. Yes, you and I (a woman) were on the same board. You came to Doug’s dad’s funeral in April 2013 with some kind words. Somehow I missed the letter of compassion and concern for my family this year. You have my email address and phone number.

I know, it’s so much faster and easier and cleaner to publish an article and put it on the Internet for how many thousands of people?

How much courage does it take to kick a man who is out of business, out of ministry, and publicly humiliated?

Your caricature of our views would be humorous if it were not so grossly offensive.

Let me help you with a couple of things. I have voted as my conscience dictated since I was 18. So do my sons and so will my daughters. I’m glad for Vickie that she is not under Dennis Rodman’s authority. And I am glad that I am not under your authority. I would choose my husband again any day.

Maybe we can discuss all the other concoctions in your article over coffee sometime. My daughters might want to join us to speak for themselves. If you will sit and listen to them.

Until then, please take my family off your membership list immediately. I do not think you are qualified to represent my children or me in any capacity.

Doug has chosen not to respond, but I will not sit idly by while you use your bully pulpit to malign and misrepresent my husband, my company (yes, I, a woman, was an employee of Vision Forum) my family, and myself.

Please note, this is part one of my response as well.

(You can view a PDF of the statement archived on HA here.)

This conflict — bordering on drama – ironically goes to show the utmost importance of what people like Libby Anne and myself have been saying: Michael Farris does not understand patriarchy and that actually matters. It matters a whole hell of lot.

When someone like Farris constructs straw men of people like Doug Phillips, that helps no one. It obfuscates the real issues and alienates through misrepresentation the people that need to see the damage that their ideas have on people. It also raises the suspicion that Farris is not actually interested in dismantling patriarchy and is more interested in throwing under the bus people who are already down or those against which he already has vendettas.

Straw men do not help homeschool kids or alumni — and they do not help Farris, either, especially when someone like Beall Phillips calls his bluff. In fact, it makes our job of helping homeschool kids and alumni that much harder.

CHEC’s Kevin Swanson and Steve Vaughan on the “Little Whiners” and “Benedict Arnolds” of Homeschooling

August 28, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team34 Comments

By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator

Yesterday we were “blessed” with the Generations Radio episode “Homeschool Educational Neglect: Media Rages Against Homeschooling.” In that episode, Kevin Swanson (former CHEC Executive Director and current Director of CHEC’s Generations With Vision program) and Steve Vaughan (CHEC Board Member) responded to Daniel James Devine’s “Homeschool debate” article published by WORLD Magazine on August 25, 2014. Here is Swanson’s own description of the episode:

We are seeing more negative reports on homeschooling than ever before. Anecdotal evidence is fun, but does it reflect the real story? Kevin Swanson interacts with a World Magazine article that covers homeschool graduate malcontents, and discusses a biblical perspective of educational neglect. Should the state prosecute educational neglect in the case that a father fails to follow through on Deuteronomy 6:7?

Sound like fun?

Well, in case it does not, I saved you the teeth-grinding and transcribed the entire episode here.

Swanson and Vaughan go after WORLD rather mercilessly, accusing them of “cutting down” and creating a “firing squad” against fellow Christians. Furthermore, they insinuate that WORLD is too daft to know how to use a concordance and may have socialists on its staff. This is all curious considering that Swanson had no problem using WORLD to advertise his “Apostate” book just a few months ago. It’s also curious because Swanson and Vaughan neglect the fact that WORLD’s own Editor-in-Chief is the Distinguished Chair of Journalism and Public Policy at Patrick Henry College, the same college at which Michael Farris is Chancellor. They further neglect the fact that WORLD is probably the most go-to news source for conservative Christian homeschoolers. So whatever “bias” WORLD Magazine has, it clearly isn’t against Farris, HSLDA, or homeschooling. That Swanson and Vaughan would immediately jump to that conclusion is indicative of their own paranoia, not anything about WORLD turning an ideological leaf on homeschooling.

If you want to read the entire transcript of the episode, you can do so here. Below are the “highlights” from it. (Be forewarned you might need to steel your mind and stomach for abuse denialism and apologisms and homophobia galore.)

My final comment before I turn you over to the minds of Swanson and Vaughan is this:

Yesterday Michael Farris and HSLDA declared to the world that they are “drawing a line in the sand.” But time and time again they say this and yet it seems like nothing but word games, it isn’t true, it minimizes or refuses to acknowledge the atrocious and previous lack of lines, or it isn’t enough. And sometimes, like today, when I am so disturbed, heartsick, and saddened by Kevin Swanson’s hatred, cruelty, and antichrist-like behavior towards homeschool alumni, and I see that HSLDA’s “line in the sand” means nothing when it comes to standing up to someone like Swanson — and then — then I see Swanson promoting his book “Upgrade,” a book that HSLDA’s very own president J. Michael Smith said “should be in the hands of every homeschool family in America” —

Then I want to say: You really have built your lines on sand, HSLDA, haven’t you?

I think Libby Anne said it best:

Real leaders speak out against dangerous teachings or leaders when speaking out is still difficult rather than letting others do the heavy lifting and waiting to speak out until speaking out is easy.

And on that note, here are some highlights from Kevin Swanson and Steve Vaughan’s “Homeschool Educational Neglect”:

WORLD Magazine just found “the 25 people” upset and created a “circular firing squad”:

Kevin: They [WORLD] found the 25 people upset with home education…

Steve: …yeah…

Kevin: …that started the little IHateHomeschool.com and then they gave them a nice little publicity piece. And HSLDA, you know, did their faithful thing, they wandered up to the microphone and tried to fight for homeschooling and its reputation but…

Steve: Yeah they got a paragraph in the middle of the article. (laugh)

Kevin: They did. But, but you know what? And I realize that makes news. I realize that the 25 people upset in America make news. But they’re not interviewing the 3.2 million kids who have been homeschooled. That didn’t show up in the magazine. And I don’t see that showing up much in the magazine [WORLD] these days. But you know, here’s the problem with Christian organizations. They turn into circular firing squads.

Steve: Yeah. (laughter)

Steve: You know how that works? Everyone just stands in a big circle. Aim, fire, shoot. And everybody falls.

WORLD Magazine covering abuse and neglect is just “cutting each other down”:

Kevin: What is with WORLD Magazine, guys? I mean, come on. Aren’t we supposed to be one big family? Isn’t there supposed to be a little bit of symbiosis happening in the Kingdom of God? We are overwhelmed, we are outnumbered. The, the other side is gonna kill us when it comes to homeschool freedoms, the freedom to speak against homosexuality. The left is on the rise, baby! Barack Obama is President of the United States, the most pro-infanticide president ever to serve and what are we doing? Cutting each other down? I don’t think so! Try not to do that!

To be real abuse, abuse must be verified by 2 or 3 witnesses; it is the result of the sexual revolution:

Kevin: Let me say from the outset that sexual abuse, physical abuse — that’s verifiable, 2 or 3 witnesses, etc., etc., k? — a court or trial works through the issue and sure enough, someone was sexually abused? — that’s really, really bad.

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: That should not happen.

Steve: Anywhere. (laughter)

Kevin: Anywhere. Thank you! And I think it’s due to the fact that we had this sexual revolution that unleashed itself in the 1950’s and 1960’s. And America and many other nations around the world have become a sexual cesspool in which homosexuality, incest, sexual abuse, all sorts of things are happening.

Spiritual abuse, emotional abuse, and educational neglect are laughing matters to to Kevin Swanson and Steve Vaughan:

Kevin Swanson: When you talk about things like spiritual abuse, emotional abuse, educational neglect — we’re talking about things that are very, very slippery. Very, very hard to get your hands around. Okay? (laughter) And it’s fun for people to use those terms because, you know, you can just bring accusations against anybody and everybody as you use the slippery terms that are very, very hard to define.

Steve: So yeah, how would you define spiritual abuse?

Kevin: Yeah! Or emotional abuse! What IS that? What exactly is that?

Steve: “Well she spoke harshly to me and used the Bible to let me know I was wrong, so I was spiritually and emotionally abused.”

Kevin: Right, right! Someone came up to a rapist and said, “It’s wrong to rape!” (pretending to be rapist:) “Oh you’re abusing me! You’re abusing me! That’s not very grace-filled! You know, what in the world are you doing? Accusing me of sin? That’s terrible! Oh I’m so abused! I’m so abused!”

Steve: Yeah! “You need to honor your father and mother!” “Oh my!”

(laughter)

Kevin: “I’ve been so abused…” (laughter)

When kids are educationally neglected, it’s really just their own fault for being lazy:

Kevin: when someone says, I could have had a better education than that provided by my mother or by my father, that’s really, really, really hard to prove. How, how, how do you know that? Maybe it was a character problem on YOUR part. Maybe you didn’t obey your parents! Maybe you didn’t study your books like you were told to! And to think that you could have had a better education if you had done it this way versus that way is extremely hard to prove.

Steve: Right!

(laughter)

Kevin: Extremely hard to prove!

Steve: Because you can’t go back and do it that way!

Kevin: You can’t! (laughter) You can’t… and even if you could have, you would have dragged your same old person, with your same old character flaws, with your same old slothfulness issue, into the public school or private school setting or other setting ‚ and you could have done worse…

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: …than you did with your parents — trying to do whatever they could have done with you, even with all of your character issues that you’re dealing with. It’s fun to blame your parents for your OWN lack of character!

Making fun of a homeschool alumna who was regularly beaten and neglected by her parents:

Steve: Here’s the case with the WORLD Magazine article and this gal who wrote this. 31 years old. One of the things she was complaining about was that she still counts on her fingers and has to double-check the tip on her restaurant table.

Kevin: That’s 40% of public school graduates, by the way.

Steve: 31 years old now! She’s 31 years old and she set up a website and started an organization apparently counting on her fingers! And so, you know, give me a break!

Kevin: Yeah.

Steve: If you can do THIS, you can COUNT.

Kevin: And if your parents failed in 18 years, or 12 years, of education, she’s had an additional 13 years!

Steve: Right!

Kevin: So, so…

Steve: GROW UP!

(laughter) (more laughter)

Steve: READ SOME BOOKS!

(laughter)

Steve: THERE ARE BOOKS OUT THERE ON MATH! YOU CAN LEARN HOW TO NOT COUNT ON YOUR FINGERS!

(laughter)…

Kevin: So this little whiner, talking about her bad experience with home education, um, you know she’s had 13 years to learn how to count.

Steve: Right!

Kevin: And to learn how to add. And still hasn’t happened. Sounds to me like there’s something wrong. With HER.

On WORLD Magazine not knowing what a concordance is:

I think WORLD Magazine should think biblically about these things. What does the Bible say about educational neglect? Again, look it up in the concordance! See, people aren’t used to that. Let me explain to you what a concordance is. A concordance is typically found in the back of a Bible. You can find them online. It’s called BibleHub.com. Go there. And… and you look up the word. “Educational neglect.” Look it up in the Bible. You say it’s not there? Yeah. Yeah, exactly! Why? Because it’s not an issue.

On what educational neglect REALLY is and WORLD Magazine maybe having socialist employees:

Educational neglect is the failure to teach God’s Word as you sit in the house, as you walk by the way, as you rise, as you lie down. Okay? So, so, so those are the categories in which we should be thinking, friends. And, now, here’s the next question: How do we prosecute that through the civil magistrate? That’s the next question that comes to the mind of the socialists — whether they work for TIME Magazine or whether or not they working for WORLD Magazine. I don’t know if socialists work there or not.

On educational neglect being a joke:

We’re back on the Generations Radio broadcast talking about homeschool educational neglect. Educational neglect: “when my fa—, when my parents did not get me into Harvard.” (using fake whining voice) “Why didn’t my parents get me into Harvard? What’s wrong with them?” And you know, the point is, the point is, the goal is not to get you into Harvard. The goal is to get you into Heaven.

Basic reading and math ought not be of primary importance to Christian homeschool families:

Kevin: I’m talking about Christian homeschool families. Their values are primarily first and foremost not to get their kid into Harvard or get them a good job.

Steve: Right.

Kevin: That’s not primary. It’s not being sure that the kid can read Plato before he’s 12 years of age…

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: …and get really messed up with the wrong worldview. (laughter) That’s not the goal. See, homeschoolers bring in other values: like relationship building, character building, work, worship. These are important. So it’s not that you can count when you are 31 years of age.

On homeschool alumni being “homeschool whiners” and “traitors”:

These homeschool whiners, let’s get back to what they’re really all about. They’re jettisoning a biblical world and life view. They’re looking for more socialism. They want more governmental controls of education. They want more socialist services sticking their noses into homeschoolers around America. This is their agenda. From what I’ve read. And, and they’re traitors. Traitors to the cause. The cause of what? The cause of freedom! The cause of anybody who wants to fight for freedom against the rising tide of totalitarianism and socialism in America! I am seeing a lot of these guys. They’re bitter…

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: …against the values represented by home education and their parents. And it’s probably due to broken relationships in the home. So they walk away from the home, all embittered against their parents and whatever stinkin’ issues their parents ever stood for. And whatever friends their parents ever hung out with. And they’re just angry, bitter people who are, have it in for home education.

On how to logic:

Steve: They’re [homeschool alumni] blaming the whole homeschooling movement. They’re taking… they’re… they’re actually committing the fallacies of… it’s, it’s a genetic fallacy. It’s a fallacy of generalization, that you take the small bit and you say that must be true of the whole. So, so since Judas was one of Jesus’s disciples and he betrayed Jesus, then ALL of the disciples must—

Kevin: —must be a bunch of nutcases—

Steve: Yeah. And so. So yeah.

On the “PatrickHenryGayBlogspot.com” or “whatever that is”:

Kevin: These ex-homeschoolers to which WORLD Magazine is giving credence are pro-homosexual. They’re right there behind the emerging gay movement in Christian colleges. They’re encouraging the PatrickHenryGayBlogspot.com or whatever it is. Uh, don’t go there. I said it wrong on purpose. They’re encouraging the homosexuals showing up at the conservative Christian colleges as well and giving them as much credence as possible. Why? Because they are apostates. They’re embracing everything the Bible doesn’t. They’re embracing socialism, totalitarianism, homosexuality. If it’s ugly, if it’s wicked, if it’s totalitarian, they love it!

Homeschool alumni are “Benedict Arnolds”:

Kevin: These traitors are nothing new in the history of the world, my friends. Um, and they’re making it hard on the rest of us. But that’s what the Benedict Arnolds have always done.

Transcript of Kevin Swanson and Steve Vaughan’s “Homeschool Educational Neglect”

August 28, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team15 Comments

HA note: The following is a transcript of the Generations Radio episode “Homeschool Educational Neglect: Media Rages Against Homeschooling,” broadcast on August 27, 2014. It features Kevin Swanson (former CHEC Executive Director and current Director of CHEC’s Generations With Vision program) and Steve Vaughan (CHEC Board Member). The program is a response to Daniel James Devine’s “Homeschool debate” article published by WORLD Magazine on August 25, 2014. This transcript was created by HA Community Coordinator R.L. Stollar.

See the context of and “highlights” from the episode here. Content warning for transcript: abuse denialism and apologism and homophobic remarks.

*****

(introduction, not transcribed)

Kevin: Today we’re going to take a look again at homeschooling. Why? Because homeschoolers, generally speaking, like to restore and reintegrate the family — as a family in the 21st century. And homeschoolers tend to like freedom. They’re the ones fighting for freedom. You want to find anybody interested in decreasing the influence of government in our lives in an era where 60% of the GNI is consumed by governments at all levels up from 9% in 1900? You want to find people interested in backing government off from education, backing government off from family-owned economies, backing government off from all areas of life? Homeschoolers at the forefront of fighting tooth and nail for any semblance of freedom left in the 21st century. I’m thankful for home educators. It’s hard to find anybody else fighting the good fight for freedom in the 21st century.

There are a few. There are some. Here and there. But not very many.

Hey you want to look at the Tea Party and you want to find the people who are fighting at the forefront for freedom? Tends to be homeschoolers. Not always. But I tell you what, you want to find pro-lifers out there? Tend to be homeschoolers.

People out there on the front lines of the battle fighting for the right to life — generally speaking, you’re going to find homeschoolers. K? Homeschoolers at the forefront of a battle for restoring family, faith, and freedom in the 21st century. and I’m thankful for them.

Steve: Amen.

Allright, so there’s my little spiel. Now, now, WORLD Magazine. Now I’ve been getting WORLD Magazine since the 1980’s. I used to think that WORLD Magazine was interested in home educators and home educators were some of their primary market. They were the ones buying the magazines.

Steve: Yeah, we did that.

Kevin: Then they got a lot, a lot, a lot of spread to public schools. A lot, a lot, a lot of spread to private Christian schools. And homeschool has kinda taken the back seat, I think. That’s my impression, Steve. Maybe I’m wrong. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong. But the recent piece published in WORLD Magazine on home education was not particularly positive.

Steve: Yeah it was particularly negative. (laughter)

Kevin: You think it was negative? It was more negative than positive.

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: I think so too. You know they found the 25 people upset with home education…

Steve: …yeah…

Steve: Yeah they got a paragraph in the middle of the article. (laugh)

Kevin: They did. But, but you know what? And I realize that makes news. I realize that the 25 people upset in America make news. But they’re not interviewing the 3.2 million kids who have been homeschooled. That didn’t show up in the magazine. And I don’t see that showing up much in the magazine these days. But you know, here’s the problem with Christian organizations. They turn into circular firing squads.

Steve: Yeah. (laughter)

Steve: You know how that works? Everyone just stands in a big circle. Aim, fire, shoot. And everybody falls. What happened? We turn into circular firing squad way too much. And I think it was a couple months ago they kinda had a negative piece on Mike Farris.

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: And they apologized afterwards, thankfully. But what is with WORLD Magazine, guys? I mean, come on. Aren’t we supposed to be one big family? Isn’t there supposed to be a little bit of symbiosis happening in the Kingdom of God? We are overwhelmed, we are outnumbered. The, the other side is gonna kill us when it comes to homeschool freedoms, the freedom to speak against homosexuality. The left is on the rise, baby! Barack Obama is President of the United States, the most pro-infanticide president ever to serve and what are we doing? Cutting each other down? I don’t think so! Try not to do that!

Now we talk a little about homeschooling negligence and homeschooling abuse. Now granted there are abuse cases out there. We know that.

Steve: Oh yeah.

Kevin: And sexual abuse, physical abuse, in the homeschool is as bad as it is anywhere else. And there’s a lot of it out there. Here’s an article from a South Dakota newspaper referring to child sexual abuse there. The estimate is 8% of kids in South Dakota are sexually abused. That’s bad. That’s really bad. That’s really, really, really bad. If we’re close to 1 in 10 kids in South Dakota are sexually abused, that’s really, really bad.

Steve: Now that’s overall, all the families of South Dakota?

Kevin: That’s right, that’s right. And WORLD Magazine, to their credit, did report that 7% of kids complain to some sort of unwanted touching in public schools.

Steve: Right. And that’s nationwide?

Kevin: That’s nationwide. So a lot of the sexual abuse is coming in public schools. But let’s not negate that issue. And HSLDA apparently has said 1.2% of HSLDA members complain of some kind of abuse. Or something like that.

Steve: Yeah, yeah but I think that’s the state complaining of homeschooling abuse…

Kevin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steve: …which could be a messy house. It might be that they didn’t have the right to… [cut off]

Kevin: It’s not just sexual abuse. It could be a messy house. It could be a lot of things. Ok, so it’s very possible there’s way, way, way less abuse happening in homeschools than in the rest of the population.

Steve: Yeah but it makes the news when it happens.

Kevin: Yeah. It does. It does. And of course what we’re talking is the minus 3 standard deviations. And it’s ok to refer to some of the abuse cases happening. That’s newsworthy. But we’ve got to keep these things in perspective.

Steve: Right.

Kevin: And by the way the report did not include references to individuals who have been sexually abused in homeschools. As far as I could tell, that was not part of the story. So first of all, let me say from the outset that sexual abuse, physical abuse — that’s verifiable, 2 or 3 witnesses, etc., etc., k? — a court or trial works through the issue and sure enough, someone was sexually abused? — that’s really, really bad.

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: That should not happen.

Steve: Anywhere. (laughter)

Steve: Yes.

Kevin: Which is a very very sad thing, a very very bad thing. And may God bring repentance to the nation.

Ok. But when you talk about things like spiritual abuse, emotional abuse, educational neglect — we’re talking about things that are very, very slippery. Very, very hard to get your hands around. Okay? (laughter) And it’s fun for people to use those terms because, you know, you can just bring accusations against anybody and everybody as you use the slippery terms that are very, very hard to define.

Steve: So yeah, how would you define spiritual abuse?

Kevin: Yeah! Or emotional abuse! What IS that? What exactly is that?

Steve: “Well she spoke harshly to me and used the Bible to let me know I was wrong, so I was spiritually and emotionally abused.”

Steve: Yeah! “You need to honor your father and mother!” “Oh my!”

(laughter)

Kevin: “I’ve been so abused…” (laughter) “…because this Christian is telling me that I’ve sinned against God and I need to repent.” Ok, so if that’s spiritual abuse… (laughter) …I don’t think the Apostle Paul would agree with you. Put it that way.

But when someone says, I could have had a better education than that provided by my mother or by my father, that’s really, really, really hard to prove. How, how, how do you know that? Maybe it was a character problem on YOUR part. Maybe you didn’t obey your parents! Maybe you didn’t study your books like you were told to! And to think that you could have had a better education if you had done it this way versus that way is extremely hard to prove.

Steve: Right!

(laughter)

Kevin: Extremely hard to prove!

Steve: Because you can’t go back and do it that way!

Steve: Yeah.

Steve: Oh yeah!

Kevin: It’s fun to do! And I’m sure there are a lot of kids out there who are doing just that! They’re running across the country. Yeah! Their parents pointed out their sin, pointed out Christ. But they still rebelled and they were scoffers and they refused to take the correction their parents gave them. They violated every single principle in the Book of Proverbs. They made a point not to follow through on anything in the Book of Proverbs! Nothing! And at the end of their educational experience at home, they didn’t succeed. They didn’t make it into Harvard.

(laughter)

Steve: Right! But here’s the case with the WORLD Magazine article and this gal who wrote this. 31 years old. One of the things she was complaining about was that she still counts on her fingers and has to double-check the tip on her restaurant table.

Kevin: That’s 40% of public school graduates, by the way.

Steve: 31 years old now! She’s 31 years old and she set up a website and started an organization apparently counting on her fingers! And so, you know, give me a break!

Kevin: Yeah.

Steve: If you can do THIS, you can COUNT.

Kevin: And if your parents failed in 18 years, or 12 years, of education, she’s had an additional 13 years!

Steve: Right!

Kevin: So, so…

Steve: GROW UP!

(laughter) (more laughter)

Steve: READ SOME BOOKS!

(laughter)

Steve: THERE ARE BOOKS OUT THERE ON MATH! YOU CAN LEARN HOW TO NOT COUNT ON YOUR FINGERS!

(laughter)

Kevin: I ran into a family, Steve, a couple of years ago, and these guys had made it through Littleton public schools for 12 years. Okay? They had taken the special needs track as well. Okay, for 12 years, both of them, they got married at 20, 22 years of age and they couldn’t read. Okay? Littleton public schools had spent 100, no, no, excuse me, $347,000 on the education of these kids. They couldn’t read. So they went to church and there were some elderly church people who, you know, took them in and taught them how to read. They were concerned because they went down to the library to get some Dr. Seuss books and he said they couldn’t read the big 27 point font stuff.

Steve: Wow.

Kevin: And they got concerned because they were having kids. Pregnant with the first. So, so they went to some folks in the church and the church folks helped them. They taught them how to read. And so they thought to themselves: Okay, let me get this straight. The Littleton public schools spent $347,000 and they couldn’t teach us how to read. (laughter) They couldn’t pull it off!

Steve: I know there are stats out there about how many seniors can’t even read their diplomas.

Kevin: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s really high. Functional literacy really, really, really high. In fact, college graduates? It’s about 40%.

Steve: Yeah. Isn’t that crazy?

Kevin: College graduates! So this little whiner, talking about her bad experience with home education, um, you know she’s had 13 years to learn how to count.

Steve: Right!

Kevin: And to learn how to add. And still hasn’t happened. Sounds to me like there’s something wrong. With HER.

Steve: Yeah! Or she’s whining without any reason.

Kevin: Yeah! So anyways this couple decided, you know, if the public schools spent $347,000 and couldn’t teach us how to read, why would we send our kids to these schools? That was their logic. And I’ve met this family again — well, it’s been about 10 years — and their kids are doing very well. Very, very well.

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: They’ve got 8 kids. They live in Nebraska. They’re doing very, very well… So anyways, so why are we sending our kids to public schools? And, and ok, there are sort of the minus 3 standard deviations everywhere. Thankfully homeschoolers are averaging somewhere around the 80th percentile for reading and literature and such. So, if they’re at the 80th percentile, my guess is that there’s got to be something like 93% above the functional literacy level. Or 99% above the functional literacy level! Therefore, people like WORLD Magazine are going to have to look HARD and LONG for the 1%!

Steve: Yeah, that’s right.

Kevin: The minus 3 standard deviations on the standard curve! And they found them! Evidently they found them, they interviewed them!

Steve: Yeah! Yeah, and if you take a look at just the overall standardized tests, homeschoolers score consistently in the 60 to 80% percentile average, for public schools 50%. So, so we’re above that, too.

Kevin: The other, psssh, illustration given by the WORLD Magazine article was a young lady whose parents were divorced. And, and here’s one thing that almost every educator understands: that if the family situation is dysfunctional, the marriage is breaking down, there’s divorce in the family — the kids generally are not going to do well in school.

Steve: Right. No matter where they go.

Kevin: No matter where they go! Oh yeah! The reason you’ve got such problems in public schools is not the teachers, generally speaking. It’s the home life. And just taking a kid who is raised in a dysfunctional home — single mom, etc., etc. — putting them in the public schools is not going to fix the problem necessarily. In fact, it generally doesn’t fix the problem. Why? Because they come from dysfunctional home backgrounds. There’s a reason why inner-city schools typically are producing the very worst results. Well, that’s because the family situation for these kids attending these inner-city schools are dysfunctional. And you can’t fix the problem by fixing the schools! And you can’t fix the problem by fixing the education! I’m sorry, you’ve got to fix the family relationships. You have to fix the family. And that should be a no-brainer.

Moreover, I think WORLD Magazine should think biblically about these things. What does the Bible say about educational neglect? Again, look it up in the concordance! See, people aren’t used to that. Let me explain to you what a concordance is. A concordance is typically found in the back of a Bible. You can find them online. It’s called BibleHub.com. Go there. And… and you look up the word. “Educational neglect.” Look it up in the Bible. You say it’s not there? Yeah. Yeah, exactly! Why? Because it’s not an issue. What’s the issue?

Steve: Family.

(laughter)

Kevin: The issue is discipleship neglect.

Steve: Right.

Kevin: The issue is, biblically speaking — if we were thinking biblically — not, not with the psychobabble of the world gives us — but if we’re thinking biblically, educational neglect is the failure to teach God’s Word as you sit in the house, as you walk by the way, as you rise, as you lie down. Okay? So, so, so those are the categories in which we should be thinking, friends.

And, now, here’s the next question: How do we prosecute that through the civil magistrate? That’s the next question that comes to the mind of the socialists — whether they work for TIME Magazine or whether or not they working for WORLD Magazine. I don’t know if socialists work there or not. But, but the question in the minds of a socialist that are in the Christian population and the non-Christian population is: If there is an educational neglect — where a parent refuses to teach their children God’s Word as you sit in the house, as you walk by the way, as you rise, as you lie down — the question in their minds is, should the State prosecute it? My answer is: No.

Steve: No!

Kevin: Thank you! I’m glad that you have a biblical worldview, too!

Steve: Oh yeah!

(laughter)

Kevin: Oh it’s incredible, Steve’s got a biblical worldview, I’ve got a biblical worldview!

(laughter)

Steve: Yeah!

Kevin: Yeah! The State doesn’t prosecute it! So, who prosecutes it? Um, well — where there are church relationships! Where there is somebody who cares! Here’s one thing I’m learning, Steve: the State can’t fix these problems. They can’t fix the family. They can’t fix educational neglect.

Steve: They’re not designed to!

Kevin: They can’t! And it doesn’t matter how many compulsory [unintelligible] laws they pass down, it doesn’t matter how many… uh, their minions they hire… to enter into every single home and double-check and double-check and double-check. It doesn’t matter! It doesn’t fix the inner-city family! It has NEVER fixed the inner-city family! It has never fixed the educational problem in the inner-cities where there is all kinds of dysfunctionality in the families. Friends, the government can’t fix it! Period! Get. That. Down. Straight!

Those of you working for WORLD Magazine and Time Magazine and anywhere else where there’s people trying to be the do-gooders and trying to fix society’s problems: how you fix society’s problems, it doesn’t happen by government. It happens by people who care. Yeah. People who care. People in the church, people in the community, who come side by side and help those families to homeschool and disciple their kids. That’s how it gets fixed.

(commercial break, not transcribed)

Kevin: We’re back on the Generations Radio broadcast talking about homeschool educational neglect. Educational neglect: “when my fa—, when my parents did not get me into Harvard.” (using fake whining voice) “Why didn’t my parents get me into Harvard? What’s wrong with them?” And you know, the point is, the point is, the goal is not to get you into Harvard. The goal is to get you into Heaven.

Steve: Amen!

(laughter)

Kevin: Mike Smith gives that talk. Heaven, not Harvard!

Steve: Right.

Kevin: Um, the goal is to teach as you sit in the house, as you walk by the way, as you rise, as you lie down. And teach what? The Word of God. The goal is biblical discipleship in the Word of God because the Word of God is the core in the education program of a child. And I understand there are secularists who may listen to the program and don’t believe that. I understand. That’s a different worldview, a humanist worldview. I don’t. I have a biblical worldview.

Steve: Yeah! And so, really, when they talk about spiritual abuse, spiritual abuse REALLY is not following Deuteronomy 6.

Kevin: Yeah, it’s not teaching the Word of God as you sit in the house.

Steve: Right! And that’s what’s really going on. They’re thinking that when you DO do that, that’s spiritual abuse.

Kevin: And, and, and the problem is Huffington Post would not agree with you.

Steve: Yeah, that’s right!

(laughter)

Kevin: Or Patheos.com. Or Apostate.com or wherever. Um, here’s the other thing I think we ought to draw into this: Homeschooling families are not like public school families. They have different values. Generally speaking. Now, some share values, but I’m talking about Christian homeschool families. Their values are primarily first and foremost not to get their kid into Harvard or get them a good job.

Steve: Right.

Kevin: That’s not primary. It’s not being sure that the kid can read Plato before he’s 12 years of age…

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: …of other things that have been happening. But homeschool families are focused on other priorities. And that’s a shocker to the world out there.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah, there’s a — do you remember the dad and the daughter who, like, split the city and went out into the wilderness and lived in a tent for a while?

Kevin: Yeah, right, right, right.

Steve: And she ended up, you know, they were so afraid that she was horribly abused and didn’t know anything. And she scored way high.

Kevin: She scored as a 12th grader, a high school graduate, at 12 years of age. And they’d been woods-schooling for 4 years. I remember that story. Um, but again, the goal is not to be sure that your child is hitting the 97th percentile in math or reading.

Steve: Yeah!

Kevin: That’s not the goal. That’s not the goal.

Steve: Jesus said something about that. “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and yet lose your soul?”

Kevin: Yeah. Well, what socialists are doing — and I’ve seen this more and more, Steve, and I’m concerned about WORLD Magazine and I hope that they don’t go this direction — but what the socialists are doing is they’re looking for the minus 3 sigma cases and using it as the PR case against home education…

Steve: Right.

Kevin: …in America. I’ve seen this a hundred times if I’ve seen it once. I… And… And, you know, that’s what they do. That’s what they do. Never mind the fact that homeschoolers are registering, averaging, at the 87th percentile, and Dr. Ray’s study looked at other teaching— other testing services beyond Bob Jones. I think he was looking at a broader slice of the population than the Rudner study in the 1990’s. So I think Dr. Ray nailed it with the Ray study that came out about 3, 4 years ago. And the overall core average was running somewhere around 87 percent. And remember the Rudner study of the 1990’s was running somewhere around the 83rd percentile point.

So, so, you know, the bad guys are gonna come after us one way or another. I’m just hoping the good guys would understand a biblical perspective on issues like this and fight for freedom. A little faith! A little courage to get out there and shove this back in the faces of the socialists and the homeschool whiners that — by the way, these homeschool whiners, let’s get back to what they’re really all about. They’re jettisoning a biblical world and life view. They’re looking for more socialism. They want more governmental controls of education. They want more socialist services sticking their noses into homeschoolers around America. This is their agenda. From what I’ve read. And, and they’re traitors. Traitors to the cause. The cause of what? The cause of freedom! The cause of anybody who wants to fight for freedom against the rising tide of totalitarianism and socialism in America! I am seeing a lot of these guys. They’re bitter…

Steve: Yeah.

Steve: Right. And what they need to do is put the blame where the blame actually is supposed to be. They’re blaming the whole homeschooling movement. They’re taking… they’re… they’re actually committing the fallacies of… it’s, it’s a genetic fallacy. It’s a fallacy of generalization, that you take the small bit and you say that must be true of the whole. So, so since Judas was one of Jesus’s disciples and he betrayed Jesus, then ALL of the disciples must—

Kevin: —must be a bunch of nutcases—

Steve: Yeah. And so. So yeah.

Kevin: And yeah. That happens when you go irrational when, when your relationships bust up and you begin to hate everything about whatever your parents were associated with because those relationships went sour. Moreover, these ex-homeschoolers to which WORLD Magazine is giving credence are pro-homosexual. They’re right there behind the emerging gay movement in Christian colleges. They’re encouraging the PatrickHenryGayBlogspot.com or whatever it is. Uh, don’t go there. I said it wrong on purpose. They’re encouraging the homosexuals showing up at the conservative Christian colleges as well and giving them as much credence as possible. Why? Because they are apostates. They’re embracing everything the Bible doesn’t. They’re embracing socialism, totalitarianism, homosexuality. If it’s ugly, if it’s wicked, if it’s totalitarian, they love it! Why? Because they’re turning away from the values they were raised with.

And guess what? This has happened since Day One. Think about Demus. Think about Alexander the Coppersmith. Think about Judas. I mean, these people have existed since the beginning of the Christian Church. And these traitors are nothing new in the history of the world, my friends. Um, and they’re making it hard on the rest of us. But that’s what the Benedict Arnolds have always done.

Steve: And that’s nothing new either.

Kevin: Yeah, exactly. So, now, now, let’s get back to home education. Are there problems with home education? Yes. Yes. There are problems. And, and, and we need to be the first to confess the weaknesses. Where there are weaknesses, confess them. And, and their slothfulness is an issue. Now again, is it any different, public schools versus private schools versus homeschools? I doubt it. Slothfulness with young men? Yeah. It’s a huge problem.

Steve: Yeah.

Kevin: Huge problem. Lack of discipleship for young men because they’re stuck, tied to their mothers’ apron strings until they’re 18 years of age? Yeah, that’s dysfunction. I’ve seen that. Yeah, I’ve seen single moms out there who may have these co-dependent relationships with kids and they won’t do any schooling at all with them. It’s just this weird little co-dependency. They won’t let them go to the public schools, won’t let them go to private schools, and they won’t even homeschool them because they’re just sitting there in the house in this sort of weird, co-dependent relationship. It’s all self-centered. Self-centered, self-centered. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you see, you see issues — sin issues — in people’s lives everywhere.

Steve: Right.

Kevin: And as you see those things, I think the church, the local church, needs to address them.

Steve: Yeah! See, really, this is a, not only a family problem, but it’s also a church discipline issue as well. And that’s a whole different show.

Kevin: It is, yeah.

Steve: But it is. I mean, you know, there’s a book Jay Adams wrote that I just really liked about church discipline. And it’s not, you know, most people think of church discipline as a way to kick people out of church. But really, church discipline is a right that everybody has in the church. A well-disciplined church is gonna turn out well-disciplined families, which will have an effect on the community at large.

Kevin: Well, Steve, to close off the program, my hope is that homeschool leaders get a little chutzpah to ‘em and fight the good fight, engage the battle of ideas, come back to a distinctively biblical world and life view and be more self-consistent to it. Stop being so wishy-washy and… And those leaders who are discouraged, I think they’ve been beaten up by an increasingly hostile media to homeschooling. And, and we can expect that.

Hey, you know, homeschooling is making an impact. Of course the enemy’s upset. Of course the media, the academy, the political world is going to note and they’re gonna come after us and they’re gonna do their best to discourage us. But, man alive, get a little faith! You know, dig in for the long haul! Be self-consistent to your world and life view and encourage the next generation of homeschoolers — who, hopefully, should be more self-consistent — and, and, and more committed to the vision of home education than the previous generation.

That’s why I wrote my book “Upgrade: The 10 Secrets to the Best Education For Your Child.” And hopefully this will give vision to tens of thousands of people listening to the program, especially to our kids and grandkids who need a vision for educating their kids — a distinctively biblical vision because education is a point at which we have seen massive apostasy from the Christian faith. This is the catalyst to apostasy. So if you want to see a restoration of the good things of life, it’s gotta happen in the education of the next generation.

The bad guys understand it. Now it’s time for the good guys to figure it out. And that’s why I wrote my book “Upgrade: The 10 Secrets to the Best Education For Your Child.” Also, “Keep the Faith: Volume One” deals with the historical Christian perspective of education based on 2,000 years of the greatest Christians who have ever written anything on Christian education. You need to get these books. Get these resources. And empower the next generation to be even more faithful than we were.

The vision for home education, for family-based education? You’ll find it in my book “Upgrade: The 10 Secrets to the Best Education For Your Child” and our website, KevinSwanson.com.

(end transcript)

The Day We Fall Silent is The Day We Don’t Care Anymore: Nikki’s Story, Part Two

August 26, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team7 Comments

HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Nikki” is a pseudonym specifically chosen by the author.

< Part One

Part Two

I was raised in a fundamentalist homeschooling family.

To say my parents were patriarchal is an understatement. My father once sent me this article from Rushdooney’s Chalcedon Foundation to explain why I couldn’t choose my own husband. For those who don’t care to click through, the article’s thesis is summarized by this quote: “As strange as it may sound, in the peculiar relationship of the father and daughter, God, as it were, takes a back seat. God has created a hierarchy such that the daughter is directly answerable to her father, and her father then answers to God.”

Needless to say, I was grateful to get out.

I chose PHC because it was 1000 miles away from my parents. I was young and naïve—homeschooling in the hands of controlling, fundamentalist parents has that effect. I had no idea at the time that I could have applied to other schools. PHC also seemed safe. I had attended PHC’s constitutional law camp a few years before (I know, I know, homeschool nerd). The campus was small and not intimidating. And being around other, conservative Christians meant I would be able to trust everyone around me—or so I thought. PHC just seemed right.

It’s been almost eight years since I first stepped foot on that campus as a new student. Now I’m hated by the administration and have been told by Dean Corbitt that I’m not fit to speak to freshmen.

But in August 2006, I wanted nothing more than to be at PHC and to belong.

The first few weeks were a lot like summer camp. We were the class of 2010, the redemption class, the first students to arrive post-Schism. (Yes, we really did name the faculty’s dramatic departure the year before after the famous church split in the 11th century. Homeschool nerds.) Everything seemed hopeful. It was a new beginning for everyone. Of course, that didn’t last long.

At the time, PHC was cursed by something called an ASE or an “all student e-mail.” Sometimes, ASE wars would erupt, and our inboxes would be flooded with the (rarely witty) back and forth between our fellow students. One such war started shortly after the beginning of the semester. An older male student emailed this link to the entire school, thinking it a marvelous joke. For those who don’t want to watch the video, one of the punch lines is that over-education in women leads to “ugliness, premature aging, and beard growth.”

Unfortunately, sexist banter and jokes are common at PHC. A year or two ago they were still sending out “girl-friend applications” to incoming freshmen, a form that compared getting a girl friend to signing up for extracurricular activities. “Make me a sandwich” and barefoot and pregnant jokes are ubiquitous. Not that sexism is extinct in the rest of American society—far from it. But sexist jokes at PHC have an especially cruel edge because as much as people claim it is all in fun, in PHC’s culture women are expected to marry and stay home with their children, men are expected to be providers, women are expected to be submissive and to obey their husbands, and men are expected to be the leaders in the home.

The majority position at PHC is that a woman can have a career only if it does not interfere with or limit her primary purpose, which is to be a wife and mother.

Complementarianism, the idea that men and women have distinct roles and that women must submit to their husbands, is taught in PHC theology classes as fact. Until recently, Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology served as the primary textbook in that class—for those who don’t know Grudem, he co-founded the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and devotes much of his academic work to combating Christian feminism. It is also not a coincidence that the past two Faith and Reason lectures (school-wide, mandatory lectures held each semester to highlight the work of a Christian thinker) were anti-feminist screeds damning both birth control and domestic violence laws.

Sexist jokes are damaging in any environment—at PHC they are a maddening reminder that some people think it’s funny to mock women’s ambitions, abilities, and experiences in a place where many women had to fight their families to even come to college and where even more must fight for the freedom to choose their own husbands (or wives, let’s not forget there are queer students at PHC).

But let’s return to that ASE. At the time, I was rooming with two of the more liberal women on campus—by which I mean we were all moderate Republicans. The video and the universally positive reaction it elicited enraged us. One roommate and I decided to fire back—with our own ASE.

It was really quite tame, in hindsight. We were impertinent freshmen who told older students they weren’t nearly as funny as they thought they were. Shots were fired both ways. There was no cursing, no name-calling, and probably way too much Christianese. But we had dared to stand up to older students in front of the entire school.

It doesn’t take much to mark you as one of them at PHC. And by “them,” I mean the vague and nebulous group of “bad kids” we were warned not to join. RAs told us about them. “Stay away from those seniors,” “That person is a bad influence,” “That group will ruin your reputation,” you get the idea. Few ever explained to me what these people had done to earn the red letter sewn onto their clothes. When there wasn’t an older student taking you under their wing to steer you away, there were still feelings and whisperings. You got to a certain point where you just knew, based on how the good kids behaved and the subtle changes in conversation, who was in and who was out.

It would be years before I realized that most of those “bad” upperclassmen were just as boring as I was my senior year, kids just trying to keep their heads down, finish their assignments, and get out. But young, impressionable, freshman me wanted none of that—I wanted to be good. I wanted to be one of the well-liked RAs who seemed so on top of everything. I didn’t think that fighting back about that video would be the first tick mark on my record.

A week later two, older male students stuck a pig’s head on a stake, pounded the stake into the ground outside our first-floor dorm window, and attached a note to it: “Thus to all feminazis.”

They were never caught. No one even looked for them. There was no investigation. The administration never interviewed me or either of my roommates. At a school where Student Life seeks to know everything about everyone’s business, this incident was simply unimportant, and the entire thing was shrugged off. It would be years before one of the perpetrators came forward to tell me what he’d done—not to apologize, but to reminisce about an “awesome joke,” one of the great “unsolved pranks of PHC.”

It wasn’t funny to us.

I was so ashamed. I never even told my parents. I was afraid of what they would do to me, since I was obviously advocating for “feminist” (and therefore evil) things while away at school. I never sought help from the administration, believing instinctively that they would take the perpetrators’ side. I never even told my professors, even though I would form close relationships with many of them. I buried the incident so deeply, I had to go back to old gchat records to verify it happened—there comes a point where it just sounds too outrageous to have ever happened to me. And there it was. September 25, 2006.

I know it’s hard to comprehend, but we were so naïve, so sheltered, so ignorant about the world, we didn’t even realize the gravity of what had happened to us. I didn’t understand that I had the right to express my opinion and not fear reprisal for it. It seemed to be just another example of “boys will be boys,” a comeuppance for my temerity.

Whatever it was, I mark this incident as the first time I realized everything at PHC was not as it appeared.

To be continued.

The Day We Fall Silent is The Day We Don’t Care Anymore: Nikki’s Story, Part One

August 25, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team2 Comments

HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Nikki” is a pseudonym specifically chosen by the author.

Part One

It’s hard to capture Patrick Henry College in a blog post.

You could fill a book describing the campus culture. Its students are mature yet naïve, well-read yet inexperienced, good-intentioned yet self-absorbed. To understand PHC, you have to grasp the cognitive dissonance of a student body that steadfastly believes it will change the world but fears standing up to the administration, that touts academic freedom yet mocks dissent, and that champions liberty but despises human rights.

It’s hard to know where to start. Readers will need a foundational understanding before I can even launch into my own story. So I’ll begin with something that underlies all the experiences I’m about to share with you: the perpetual friction between those who steadfastly (sometimes blindly) believe in the institution and those who don’t.

Many PHC students have a strange response to criticisms of the school, even when current or former students are the source of the criticism. It’s strange because humans are, as a rule, petty and selfish beings. They like to get their own way, even if they have to hurt others to get it. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that individuals at PHC, like every other institution, have at times been petty, selfish, and desperate to get their own way.

It should surprise PHC students least of all, since PHC’s classes are saturated with the doctrine of original sin—the idea that all humans, even babies, are innately sinful.

A student body that reads Montesquieu, Locke, and the (much revered) “Founding Fathers” also understands that while power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. After all, “[i]f men were angels, no government would be necessary”—a quip by James Madison that I saw again and again in the student papers I edited during my time as a student.

PHC students love this principle so fiercely that many are Tea Party advocates.

They believe that you shouldn’t give anyone, least of all the government, too much power over your life. PHC actively supports these political beliefs, teaching its students that government power is innately dangerous, if not evil. Since almost all PHC students analyze politics through this lens, it’s understandable that Michelle Bachmann is revered by many (if not most) of the students. In fact, not that long ago, the current student body president posted a picture of herself with Bachmann. The caption read: “Today we had the honor of welcoming Congresswoman Michele Bachmann onto the campus of Patrick Henry College! She’s long been a hero of mine, and it was such a blessing to meet her!”

Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia’s recent attorney general, is another hero among PHC students. He spoke at graduation a few years back, and students campaigned for him in the Virginia governor’s race last year—some at the explicit request of current Associate Professor of Government Michael Haynes. (In case you were wondering, yes, Bachmann and Cuccinelli are typical of the guests who speak at the school, and no, Democrats don’t speak at Patrick Henry College. You would be hard pressed to find a single person, whether among the students or in the administration, who voted for Obama in the last election.)

Most of us probably don’t want to be held accountable for the candidates we supported during college—I certainly don’t. And professors have been steering their students to support their pet issues since . . . always. Rather, I mention the political bent of the student body to point out a strange fact:

To the majority of PHC students, individuals in power are inherently dangerous—unless they are PHC administrators, PHC professors, church leaders, or parents.

Somehow, critiques of PHC by current and former students have proven impervious to both the doctrine of original sin and the obviously cherished belief that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Instead, their response is “Chancellor Michael Farris couldn’t have done that,” “President Graham Walker wouldn’t be so heartless,” “Dean Sandy Corbitt is such a nice person”

. . . you get the idea.

To the majority (but not all) of PHC students, criticisms are the result of bitter, disillusioned, unsafe people who are bent on destroying a wonderful, godly institution, one of the last citadels of Christian academia. It’s a doe-eyed naiveté that has been a large part of the student body ever since I joined the PHC community in 2006—and yes, I was doe-eyed and naïve too. Once students become alumni things often change. Some grow out of it completely. Some partly grow out of it, recognizing that some parts of the PHC experience are harmful while failing to see the school’s larger, institutional problems. And some never grow out of it at all.

So when you read about PHC, know several things.

First, people’s impression of the school often changes dramatically. It’s called growing up.

Second, there is a chasm between the majority of current students and many alumni, a chasm I doubt we’ll ever bridge.

The “bitter” alumni are condemned by many current students as angry people acting on irrational hatred for the hard-working, god-fearing administration and faculty, an interpretation of reality that is actively promoted by Student Life under Dean Corbitt’s leadership. The “bitter” alumni, in turn, are frustrated by their detractors’ naïve belief that the administration and faculty are innocent. We don’t want to tell current students that they are too young and inexperienced to see what’s happening—because we hated being told that when we were students, and no one is wholly blind. But at the same time . . . when you have compiled eight years of incidents (in your own personal experience alone) where the administration misbehaved, it’s hard to take freshmen or sophomores seriously when they assure you that “such things never happen at PHC anymore.”

Mhmmmm. Right, kid. I used to think that too.

This is why writing about PHC is hard. There is constant friction between those who trust in the institution and those who don’t, leading to multiple interpretations of the same events. You’ve witnessed that over the past several weeks, as current students provided glowing reports of the school while alumni shared a different tale. Then there is a whole new culture to explain—after all, where else would your RA tell you that you have a “heart problem” because you wore jeans 10 minutes before dress code expired? And then there are so many possible topics, from the students’ arrogant belief that PHC provides a better education than the Ivy Leagues, to the school’s systematic adherence to traditional gender roles. So many daily indignities occur and the students are fed so much misinformation, it’s hard to know where to start.

So after sifting through a lot of topic possibilities, I decided to explain how I joined the “bitter” alumni.

Part Two >

Israel Wayne on the (Patriarchal) Father’s Role

August 24, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team8 Comments

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Libby Anne’s blog Love Joy Feminism. It was originally published on Patheos on August 4, 2014.

Israel Wayne is supposed to be a voice of reason in the Christian homeschooling community. A homeschool graduate himself, and now a homeschool father, he travels the convention circuit and has written blog posts criticizing various patriarchal homeschool leaders. It’s a pity he’s unaware that he is himself one of those patriarchal homeschool leaders.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock lately, you’ve heard the smash pop hit, “Rude” by the group Magic!. It speaks about a young man, seeking permission to marry a traditional man’s daughter.

He is turned down by the young lady’s father, but rather than being rebuffed, he retorts with the line, “I’m gonna marry her anyway!”

This is obviously a disturbing thought for any man who has spent a couple of decades nurturing what he considers to be one of his most valuable relationships on the planet. How might a father respond to such a scenario?

Hi Israel! Guess what? I was one of those daughters!

My now-husband Sean asked my father permission to marry me, and was denied that permission. We got married anyway, and we’ve never—ever—regretted that. Believe it or not, I was actually in the best position to decided who I should marry, because I know my strengths, weaknesses, interests, and desires better than anyone else—including my father. I also knew Sean a whole lot better than my father did, or cared to, which meant I was also a better judge of his character, and I knew what I was getting into.

Had my father spent a couple of decades nurturing his relationship with me? Sure! But I had also spent a couple of decades growing, maturing, and transitioning to life as an independent individual. I was—and am—more than my father’s relationship with me. And it’s a good thing too, because my father let my decision to marry against his wishes ruin our relationship, when he didn’t have to. He’s the one who chose to let our relationship die. If he had wanted to keep that “valuable” relationship he could have, but chose not to.

This really isn’t all that complicated. It is completely reasonable for a young couple to choose to marry without parental permission. If that decision destroys a father’s relationship with his daughter, that is generally his doing, not hers.

As I read Wayne’s post, I became curious about the music video he was referring to. So I looked it up. Allow me to share it with you!

I don’t know about you, but I really appreciated this music video. The woman was clearly an adult, as I was when my father denied his permission. Furthermore, while the young man tried three times to get the young woman’s father’s permission, the father made absolutely no attempt to get to know him. It’s very clear that the father was judging based on outward appearances and prejudices rather than any actual specific concerns for his daughter’s happiness or safety.

Indeed, his daughter appeared just as sure and happy in her choice as is her fiancé.

But of course, Wayne has more to say:

I think the popularity of Magic’s hit, “Rude” emphasizes the shift that has occurred culturally in America over the past 60 years, where fathers are no longer considered to be important entities in family life. They are regularly portrayed on television and movies as weak, bumbling idiots, who are constantly rescued from their folly by their wives and children.

I don’t actually think this is the case. I mean yes, it is true that fathers are too often portrayed as “bumbling idiots” when it comes to things like childcare. This is a problem, and is a feminist issue—men are just as capable of being nurturing and devoted to their children as are women, and it is a disservice to so many fathers to suggest otherwise. And you know what else? Diaper changing isn’t done with ladybits. But I’m not so sure that this is what we see reflected in this music video. This father isn’t portrayed as a “bumbling idiot” but rather as a judgmental control freak who doesn’t want to let his adult daughter make her own life decisions. And the reason this portrayal hits home is that it happens. I’ve been there. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

There has always been a tension that has existed between fathers and prospective young men hoping to whisk away their daughters. I believe it was G.K. Chesterton who said that fathers in every generation feel that they taking a priceless vase and handing it to an ape when they give their daughters in marriage. There certainly are scenarios of over-bearing fathers who act in a domineering and abuse manner, but sometimes proper protection can be seen as over-protection.

You know something? I am not happy with being compared to a “priceless vase” to be put on a trophy shelf or handed over to a new owner. Can Wayne not see that this completely robs women of their autonomy?

How exactly can Wayne call out patriarchy in the homeschooling movement and then so clearly endorse it?

He apparently thinks that fathers should exercise some sort of veto power over their adult daughters’ marriage decisions—but this is the very problem we anti-patriarchy bloggers have been talking about!

And another thing—Wayne apparently thinks it’s easy to tell between “over-bearing fathers who act in a domineering and abusive manner” and “proper protection.” What is the distinction, exactly? Where is the line? My father certainly never saw himself as “over-bearing,” “domineering,” or “abusive.” From his perspective, he was simply trying to protect his daughter. Wayne throws in this bit about over-bearing and domineering fathers to try to assert that he is against “that kind of thing”—even as he advocates for it.

I’m not saying that fathers shouldn’t express any concerns they may have about their daughters’ prospective marriage partners. They absolutely should, especially if there are abusive relationship patterns or warning signs. But that doesn’t tend to be what Wayne or others like him are talking about. My own father refused to give his permission in large part because Sean was not “100% pro-life,” for example (yes, my father had a checklist). What Wayne and men like my father are concerned about is not healthy relationship patterns or abuse but rather ideological purity.

Even in cases where there are actual concerns about abuse, all a father (or mother) can do is express their concerns and then be there for their child. Adult women do not in fact need their parents’ permission to marry. Shutting the door in your daughter’s fiancé’s face is more likely to drive your daughter away than it is to make her leave her fiancé.

Wayne also includes (and appears to endorse) this homemade video. In it, the father threatens prospective suiters with assault and proclaims that he’s not afraid to go to jail for it. I had to stop before finishing it.

Look, daughters aren’t property to be bought and sold.

If you’re worried about your daughter’s safety, whatever happened with equipping them to protect themselves rather than trying to “protect” them by controlling their life choices? Because I’ll tell you this right now: controlling their life choices is not going to end well.

Actually, let me amend that—that’s not going to end well for you. Your daughter will probably make it through, with some therapy, and have a wonderful life with her chosen partner. You’re the one who will be left alone in the cold, written out of your daughter’s life—just like the father in the music video.

P.S. A number of people have that the young man in the music video comes across as too possessive, and as having little interest in what the young woman in question wants. I understand those critiques. However, it’s worth noting that the father appears to reject the young man based not on these concerns but on prejudice, and that in reacting as he does the father himself is too possessive of his daughter and shows little interest in what she wants. The result is that, regardless of the quality of her suitor, he drives his daughter away. I also do appreciate that in the music video the young woman appears to have her own agency and be just as into the relationship as the young man, for what it’s worth.

Critics may find the following interpretations interesting. Both are sung by women; the first is a lesbian interpretation and the second is sung from the perspective of the young woman rather than the suitor.

We Wrote Headlines Like We Were Upworthy. You Won’t Believe What Happened Next.

August 21, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team6 Comments

By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator

Homeschoolers Anonymous has been accused at various points of using “Slate-esque” titles to grab people’s attention. Honestly, I prefer to select titles that are direct quotations from the individual stories submitted to us. But yes, sometimes when writing about a news item or the latest drama or development in the homeschool world, I will use a hyperbolic title. Sometimes that makes the difference between a story getting a few hundred views or going viral.

But.

But I will promise you that we will do our best to avoid “Upworthy-esque” titles. Because I cannot stand them. I also feel that, when combined with the serious disturbing content we usually feature, using exploitive titles not only can be disrespectful… it also just doesn’t work. To demonstrate why — and hopefully give you something to laugh about after the last few weeks’ worth of intense and dissenting narratives about students experiences at Patrick Henry College (and we’ll get back to that series next Monday, by the way) — I wrote a few (sometimes imaginary) headlines as if they were made by Upworthy.

You might never see the world the same way again.

*****

These Kids Aren’t Lovin’ It, So They’re Speaking Up About It.

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This Homeschooled Kid Was Never Taught To Read. You Have To See The Results To Believe Them!

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If Homeschool Families Knew These Historical Tidbits About HSLDA, Would They Still Be Members?

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Here Are 10 Books About Courtship That Missed The Mark. And Here Are 10 Amazing GIFS That Explain Why They’re Totally Not Worth Sharing.

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Here Are Some Insults Too Many Gay People Have Heard. Which Homeschool Leaders Said Them Might Not Surprise You.

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Let’s Talk About Patriarcy In Homeschooling And Why It’s More Common Than Michael Farris Might Think.

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It Was Her Homeschool Prom. She Was Wearing Something That Made Her Happy. Then It Got Worse From There.

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We Photoshopped Kevin Swanson’s Head Onto A Shirtless Brian Ray’s Body And The Final Product Will Shock You.

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This Book By Josh Harris Was Written When He Was Just A Teenager, But The Unrealistic Purity Standards Behind It Are 100% Still With Us.

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10 Perfect Emojis For The Next Time A Homeschool Leader Uses A Racial Slur.

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Are These From BDSM Porn Or Christian Music? The Answers Might Rock Your World.

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She Used To Socialize With Her Own Peer Group. Then She Was Forced To Stop. The Reason Why Could Change Your Life.

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These Little Red Dots On The Map Show All The Cities Where Homeschooled Kids Have Been Abused. Wow, That’s A Lot Of Little Red Dots.

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Bill Gothard Didn’t Double Check To See If The “Umbrella Of Protection” Was Actually Mentioned In The Bible — But Maybe He Should’ve

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What’s Going On With The Old Schoolhouse Is Kinda Weird. Like, Horror Movie Weird.

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An HSLDA Attorney Called a Child Abuser A “Hero.” Watch What Happens Next.

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And finally, just for fun, here’s if we wrote titles like Matt Walsh:

CHILD ABUSE-LOVING RELIGIOUS FASCISTS HAVE ONCE AGAIN DEMONSTRATED THEIR “FAMILY VALUES”

…yeah, we’re glad we don’t write titles like Matt Walsh, either.