Thread by @samanthapfield

I watched the #ExposeChristianSchools tag yesterday and felt a lot of resonance ... but now I'd like to #ExposeChristianHomeschooling.

Standard disclaimer: #notallhomeschoolers, and I know a lot of people who homeschool well and I have a lot of respect for them. I do not want to ban homeschooling in the US.

#ExposeChristianHomeschooling

HOWEVER. There are patterns and cultural habits that are fairly endemic among homeschoolers, especially Christian homeschoolers-- but I've often seen secular homeschoolers/unschoolers/etc participate in these problems, often unknowingly.

#ExposeChristianHomeschooling

First, some background. I wrote a piece on HSLDA and how they are, fundamentally and essentially, a far-right fundamentalist Christian lobbying organization. Their goals are dominionist and theocratic. theestablishment.co/meet-hslda-the…

#ExposeChristianHomeschooling

I'm also a homeschool "graduate" myself. I use scare quotes because I actually didn't attain more than an 8th grade education. I did not complete any secondary-lvl STEM courses, and did not have any guided instruction in literature or composition.

#ExposeChristianHomeschooling

When it came time for me to "graduate," we cobbled together a transcript that was mostly based on exaggerations or lies, and I got a diploma from a Florida "umbrella" school.

No one checked on me and my education. Not once.

#ExposeChristianHomeschooling

I have spent nearly every day since I was 17 crawling my way out of that hole. I'm 31, and will be graduating *this spring* with an actual accredited degree that's worth more than the pulp it's printed on.

#ExposeChristianHomeschooling

My pastor's son couldn't read until he was a teenager. No girl I knew received any higher level math or science. We were all left to our own devices, to "self-teach" (ie: read the textbooks, if we had any, and take/grade our own exams).

#ExposeChristianHomeschooling

Since I've been involved with homeschool survivors, I've learned that my experience isn't even remotely unusual. Most of us did not receive a decent high school education. Knowing algebra, geometry, history, post-20th-cent. literature, etc is RARE

#ExposeChristianHomeschooling

And that's not even the worst part of my experience.

EVERYONE I knew was horrifically beaten. My pastor's family used a child-sized cricket bat to beat their children. I was whipped, nearly every day or multiple times a day, with a belt or switch.

#ExposeChristianHomeschooling

Beating and whipping children up into their teen years was not just commonplace, it was actively encouraged by the culture. Books like "No Greater Joy" have been implicated in several deaths and child torture cases, and they were ubiquitous.

#ExposeChristianHomeschooling

It never occurred to me that the rampant and horrific abuse that I and every child I knew suffered was wrong because I was never, not once, exposed to people who did not believe in the same approach to "parenting" and "discipline."

#ExposeChristianHomeschooling

And on top of all of that, not only was I beaten basically every day until I was 16, everyone used "textbooks" from Bob Jones, Abeka, or ACE, that explicitly taught white supremacy + misogyny as part of its "Christian worldview."

#ExposeChristianHomeschooling

I'm currently going through Abeka's WorldHistoryandCultures a chapter at a time, ripping it apart page by page. I'm finding, on average, a blatant *lie* on every single page. #ExposeChristianHomeschooling
samanthapfield.com/reviews/world-…

Those lies buttress an ideological system of Christian dominionism, manifest destiny, exceptionalism, and theocratic visions of governance. There's way too much to unpack on twitter, so please read the review above and check out @RLStollar's thread:

https://twitter.com/RLStollar/status/1003370362879373312

I grew up believing British colonialism was God's will, chattel slavery was a net good because at least the slaves were Christianized, and MLK and Mandela were horrible, wicked, destructive men. I never heard about "Jim Crow" until my mid-twenties.

#ExposeChristianHomeschooling

I was taught that pagans accidentally discovered math. principles by God's mercy, and only True Christians can unlock the secrets of the universe- that the scientific method is basically useless. This makes independent, critical thinking impossible. #ExposeChristianHomeschooling

I was taught that labor unions were evil, corrupt, greedy, and selfish. That they exploited America's working class and exist for no other purpose. I was taught that capitalism is the only "biblical" form of economics.

#ExposeChristianHomeschooling

It is NOT A COINCIDENCE that many of the domestic terrorists we saw last year were white homeschoolers, and were taught using the same curricula I used, or went to the colleges that write it.

#ExposeChristianHomeschooling