Blattert, a chemical engineer, was jailed for over 11 years for strangling one of his children and beating her severely with glue sticks, a belt, and his hands – open palms and fists according to the testimony of his brave daughter. Her use of a mobile phone to capture part of the incident is likely the only reason the Blatterts have faced any legal repercussions for their actions. The Blatterts’ daughter also explained that her parents used videos from Vision Forum Ministries as part of their homeschooling programme. Shut down about a decade ago amid the founder, Doug Phillips’, admission to marital infidelity and allegations of sexual misconduct against him, Vision Forum pushed a patriarchal vision of Christianity in which fathers have absolute authority over their children, parents are expected to have as many children as “god gives them,” and homeschooling is prescribed.
At his sentencing, a completely unrepentant Scott Blattert explained why he and his wife refused plea deals by stating: “My wife heard a voice saying to fight for our children. I recognised that as the Holy spirit.”
Other than abuse and right wing extremism, I’m also worried about the social impacts of this. Schools are where we meet people different from our parents, start to learn how to navigate communities and build relationships with our peers.
While I know of parents and children who’ve had great home schooling experiences, it’s A LOT of work on the parents not only from q teaching/academic role, but from making sure kids are socialized enough to support their emotional growth.
Taking your kids to church on Sundays and the library on Wednesdays is not enough for them to build strong relationships and learn and grow into well adjusted adults.
And here I am considering home schooling because this kind of teaching is making it into public schools more and more. AP Psychology was just outlawed in Florida and Louisiana schools must display “In God we trust” in every classroom
So we’ve “homeschooled” for years for two kids. Legally we are part of a private school that has oversight into our curriculum, attendance, and testing, but we do the day to day teaching. It’s hard when you start as you have to figure out your routine and what works for your kids. After doing this for years, I can say I’d never do it differently. Although the article was on the failings due to far-right extremism, it seems you’re not leaning that way. I certainly don’t agree with the bureaucratic tendencies and busy work of traditional school, but for those that don’t have a better option, it’s better than homeschooling poorly. On the other hand, I’ve been able to assist teaching my kids algebra, early calculus, life sciences, finance, economics, physical sciences, some engineering, some technology, some famous novels, important history (ancient and more recent past), and I would not give that up for the world. Definitely find a good curriculum with multiple subjects Some years we’ve even mixed curriculums to make the best for our kids. Homeworking definitely has a US protestant Christian slant, but with COVID especially, many more options have come online. I would say if your kid(s) is/are young, there’s nothing wrong with the early years in preschool, kindergarten, and early grade school. But as our kids got into grade school, but I could see the system failing them and then not trying to pick them back up with things they didn’t understand or flat-out weren’t taught previously. Now, some 5-7 years later, they consistently test 2 grades above in their standardized testing.
It definitely is trying at times (especially the first 2-3 months) but also so rewarding and it makes schooling more relevant to them when you can discuss real world applications as you find them.
Sadly, that’s part of their plan. They are trying to destroy public education, so then they can point to it’s failings to privatize it, even though it’s failing because of them.
I was homeschooled and while I had a really good experience, I think that that is only because I was lucky enough to not have religious nutjobs for parents.
I’m scared for all the kids who will grow up physically and emotionally abused because their parents were afraid of some woke boogeyman in public schools.
Yep, these people are fucking crazy. At least it’s consistent though, I guess.
beating her severely with glue sticks
Okay, so this is at best tangential to the topic, but what? Are we talking about the little plastic tubes full of paste? How does that even work?
I’m thinking maybe glue sticks that are inserted into glue guns, that melt when heat is applied?
But with the rise of AI, what if it destroys our institutions of “knowledge” by removing the role of schools as a source of teaching not just charge them to glorified babysitter centers?
glorified babysitter centers
Or preemptive incarceration, like the Texas schools that fired their librarians and turned their school libraries into “behavior” centers.