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I've Been To Over 20 Homeschool Conferences. The Things I've Witnessed At Them Shocked Me.
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this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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I grew up homeschooled for my entire K-12 experience through the 2000s and 2010s and went to my fair share of homeschool conventions throughout it. (They're really popular and they always have separate events for the kids.)
There's no governing body for any of these curriculum. My science education would always change depending on the book. At one point, I was told that all the animals in the world were vegetarian before Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil then turned carnivorous. Another series of videos I received spent a literal hour and a half "dunking" on evolution before actually giving a much more valid argument for its existence. (I actually am trying to find a way to convert the crappy flash swf files into video so I can share the insanity if anyone knows how to do that. FFmpeg hath failed me.)
Math was less volatile but had its quirks. I had one curriculum (Life of Fred) that quite literally was made with crappy clipart and not really even written by a person who was qualified to make kids content. It was just purposely obtuse and my mother took me off of it once I wasn't making any progress on it. I made it through two of those books for what it's worth.
Economics and "stewardship" was also high-key Republican trickle down economics and one time they actually blamed social programs for causing the Great Depression.
But, all that said, I got a super advanced education that put me well ahead of most other kids my age and I'm only listing the worst aspects of Christian homeschool curricula. Generally, homeschooling (Christian or secular) is almost entirely dependent on the parent actually giving a crap about their kid's unique needs and strengths. At the very least, if you're going to homeschool (no, I don't mean charter school) your kid for an extended period, make sure that you're involved with activities with other kids and that you really look through what your kid is reading.
I had a similar experience -- science curriculum was weird because while it was generally solid on the basics of physics and biology, the fundie taboo against evolution and/or acknowledging the age of the universe meant some topics had to be talked around, ignored, or handwaved away. Our curriculum of choice didn't go as far as "the Devil buried dinosaur bones to trick scientists into atheism," but I've heard stories.
Where things got more insidious, IMO, is in the softer subjects like history. Most of the available curricula are written from an explicitly right-wing perspective, and offer a perspective on world history that is often virulently jingoistic and bigoted. Our American History curriculum was from a popular publisher affiliated with a southern religious school that banned interracial dating until 2000, and only dropped the ban under legal pressure -- as you might imagine, it was explicit in its support of the Lost Cause mythology of the Confederacy, among other distortions.
Worse still, though, is the way that homeschooling can give cover to abuse and neglect. Like you I got a pretty good education in spite of all the above, but I know people from that community who experienced abuse at the hands of their parents and had no way to escape because their access to the outside works was carefully managed and controlled. There's a reason why one of my closest friends from those days is now deeply involved with an advocacy group campaigning for tighter regulation and oversight of homeschooling families -- she has some horror stories to tell.
On the video bit. I'd try recording them with OBS as a window or screen capture. It isn't conversation but should suffice.