Saw the billboard and my wife is on Indymoms

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Permalink Reply by Eric Enochs on January 25, 2010 at 3:51pm

Welcome to Indydads Joe, hope you enjoy your time here. Please post as often as you like.

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Permalink Reply by William on January 25, 2010 at 6:08pm

Welcome Joe!

Just out of curiosity, what do you mean by "from a science and evidence based stance"?

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Permalink Reply by Joe on January 25, 2010 at 9:01pm

Well, it means we teach the kids to apply critical thinking and seek evidence before just believing stuff, even stuff we tell them. If something we teach them doesn't seem logical, they are welcome to question (as long as it's not out of pure belligerence).

It also means we don't teach them from a faith based standpoint. A large portion of homeschoolers shun science as evil, causing many people to assume we are faith based simply because we homeschool. Hence the distinction. Believe it or not, many people have it in their heads that if you homeschool, you must be an extreme fundamentalist Christian.

When one employs the scientific method and critical thinking, one can't teach from the opposite perspective, which the religious homeschoolers named "faith based". They are polar opposites. Faith is believing without evidence. To most fundamentalists, that is extended to believing without seeing or questioning. In fact, you are strongly discouraged from questioning the Bible and asking for evidence falls under the whole testing God issue. If your faith isn't strong enough that God provides you the answers, you aren't praying hard enough. If you question why something doesn't make sense you are told the Lord works in mysterious ways or told you are blinded from truth due to lack of faith. Science and critical thinking require questioning and observing before forming a solid belief in what is true. The flip side is that we don't tell them to just automatically believe scientists either. Question everything until you are satisfied you have the truth and even then admit that you may be wrong if further evidence is presented later.

All that said, I don't discourage my kids from inquiring about religion, either. In fact, I encourage them to read the Bible to draw their own conclusions. We have 7 of them (various versions including a childrens Bible and the Jehovah's Witness New World Translation) in the home along with some study guides. I also have 2 English translations of the Qu'ran (Koran), but I'm the only one in the home that has read that.

The more common term for our type of homeschooling is "secular". However, I'm not keen on categorizing my kids based on my wife's or my methods, so I just spell out the stance. Besides, we don't exclude religion and "secular" can leave the impression we do. It's just a matter of accurate description, really.


William said:

Welcome Joe!

Just out of curiosity, what do you mean by "from a science and evidence based stance"?

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Permalink Reply by William on January 25, 2010 at 11:24pm

Thanks for the explanation. That's kind of what I thought you meant, but wasn't sure. Those are some great skills you are teaching! It will serve them well as they grow!

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