by J. Anne Huss
It is just a fact in the homeschool world that Christian materials are more readily available than secular homeschooling curriculum. Sorry, it just is. Now if you wanted to use commercially available textbooks, like those written specifically for the public schools, then you should be fine, but in all honesty - you are better off leaving your kids in school if you’re not going to take advantage of the two things that make homeschool such a success. Methods and curriculum.

If you do go with a commercial public school publisher like Pearson Scott Foresman (and I don’t recommend it) you will have effectively invited some of the problems in public schools right into your home.

If you are an atheist homeschooler, you will be constantly challenged to try and keep an open mind about curriculum.

Why? (I know what you are thinking - I don’t have to do anything like that - in homeschool I can make all the decisions.)

Yes, you’re right. But if you eliminate homeschool curriculum just because it is religious, then you’re child is missing out on some great stuff.

Now I am NOT saying you need to believe the religious stuff, nor do you even have to READ the religious stuff. You just need to be willing to accept the fact that some of the Christian publishers do a great job in this area and the secular homeschooling curriculum publishers, not so much because, basically, they are non-existent.

I am not really a strictly secular homeschool nor do I (or have I ever) incorporated religious teachings into our program, but I have used a TON of Christian materials without issue. I just skip the stuff I feel is unnecessary and leave it at that.

My kids have never said a word about being “exposed” to (in some cases VERY) religious materials, they read it or not and move on. I have no objections personally to having my kids read things that encourage them to be better people and think of others in a thoughtful way but I just don’t feel it is absolutely necessary to include God in the math curriculum.

And if you can muster up this same level of tolerance, then you will definitely get A LOT more out of the homeschooling experience than by adhering to strict secular homeschooling curriculum.

Please be sure that I am not making light of anyone’s personal philosophy, I am just encouraging you to open your mind to the possibility that religion based materials can be helpful if other options are not available.

In my opinion the homeschool world could use a little more tolerance in these areas. As a middle of the road “faith” person, I think the extreme views on either side distract from what we are all trying to accomplish here, which is a better education for our kids through homeschooling.

J. Anne Huss is the editor over at http://www.the-simple-homeschool.com/ and the creator of Simple Schooling homeschool science and history curriculum. She started singlemom-homeschooling-it over 7 years ago and has never looked back. She is however, still waiting for her somewhat-of-an-unschooler-last-child to build her a robot army that will do her chores…

Article Source: Secular Homeschooling Curriculum