Homeschooling
Littlejen22
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Anyone not religious and still homeschool
Littlejen22
member
I do not imagine every homseschooling although it is obviously a possibility in my mind if needed. My 1/2 day Kindergartener took a homeschool art class because it worked with out schedule and the few parents I met all had religion as a major reason they homeschool, even if they did not fully admit it but they were all super religion and had their kids involved in very religious homeschool groups. One of the Moms had originally said they were religious but it was not her reason for homeschooling but by the end of the year she made comments to me that made me think that was not really true and that spreading her religious beliefs was important to her. I think my biggest fear if I ever homeschooled is that I would have no like-minded people for my kids to be with, I have some skeptical religious beliefs and zero interest to share my beliefs with anyone beyond my family or people that I know very well and we are raising our children to be very open-minded and follow their hearts. I have no issue with others being religious, my BFF is pretty religious, but I would not fit in a group where that is the basis of their homeschooling.
Jen - Mom to two December 12 babies
Nathaniel 12/12/06 and Addison 12/12/08
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Re: Anyone not religious and still homeschool
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I'll be homeschooling next year, and religion is near the bottom of my list of "reasons" for doing so.
A lot of the homeschoolers I've met are religious and I think that perhaps because there is such a focus on fellowship and community in churches they quickly and easily form support groups and co-ops with each other. But, there are also a lot of people around who are not religious and homeschool. It's a growing demographic.
It just depends on your "tribe" and probably a lot on where you live. I'm in a SUPER liberal town, and their aren't a lot of religious people here. But there is a big homeschool community. You might find more like minded people if you homeschool through a public school or charter.
I was homeschooled (never set foot in public or private school), and I plan on homeschooling my children. Neither my mother nor myself made the choice to homeschool based on religion (she was pagan, and I am the same), but rather because neither of us agree with the public school method of educating children.
She believed that children learned better when allowed to study at their own pace. Having experienced that for myself, I agree with her and want to give the same gift to my children.
My husband was raised Catholic, and is vehemently anti-religion. I was raised agnostic and am interested in casually attending UU church.
Religion is not a part of our decision to unschool.
My best friends growing up were not religious and they homeschooled. There are a lot of "non christian" homeschooling curriculums. She happened to like this one, I think it was Core-Curriculum of America. I know that she started with Konos and did Sing, Spell, Read, & Write (we borrowed that one from her).
Good luck on your homeschooling adventure!
DH and I are not religious in the slightest. We plan on homeschooling.
It is difficult to find people who are overly religious, a lot of homeschooling groups require faith statements before signing. Actually from what I heard its rare to find one that doesn't. But they are out there.
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I think this is a factor of where you live.
We are Reform Jews, but that has little to do with our decision to homeschool. Certainly we are bringing up our children Jewish, but we would do that even if they attended traditional school.
We live near San Francisco, and have many many many non-religious homeschooler friends. My guess is that unschoolers as a class tend to not be as religious, that has been our experience anyway
That being said, I have conservative Mormon and Catholic friends, and it really has little to do with our relationship or with our kids' relationships. We do share a common goal of bringing our kids up as good, kind, respectful people with good character, but I think that's relatively universal?
There are definitely some groups that have a feel that isn't right, so you move on and find a new one. For example, we did not fit in with the free range kids group at all, I am just not free range when it comes to my kids