Discussion of experiences related to homeschooling and science education

profound thoughts, Doug.

What a joy to know we are not alone here! Thanks, all!

My wife (mostly) and I homeschooled our 5 kids mostly through high school to be good little creationists and anti-evolutionists. In the middle of that I had a paradigm shift when I read Francis Collin’s book in Jan. 2010 and, in one weekend, had to admit had been wrong about evolution for over 34 years, even as one educated to the PhD level in a biological science with emphasis in molecular genetics.

So, we had to undue all that while still having the last 3 in high school or lower grades.

We subsequently had two graduate from Grove City College (GCC), including one who majored in Biology and defended Francis Collin’s view there, graduating last year. BTW, GCC actually had a noble-minded view there in allowing students to adopt their own view and my son said the science professors appeared to accept evolution, for the most part. I thought that was pretty good for a conservative Christian college.

It’s great to see high school science resources described under that topic elsewhere here on the forum.

Key for me, in terms of Biblical hermeneutics and making sense of it all, has been Professor Denis O. Lamoureux’s (DDS, Phd, Phd) “Science and Religion” course that he’s taught over 60 times. The WHOLE course is FREE to view online at CHRTC 350 Science and Religion Online Course Fall and Winter Just select “Class Audio-slides” in the upper left to view the multimedia. NOTE: Currently, it plays on Android, PC and Mac but doesn’t play on iPhone without a Flash player app like the Photon Flash player app. But, I used that app to go through the entire course on my iPhone. I understand from Denis that the updates being made this summer will allow it to play on ALL devices. You can search his name here on the BioLogos site for many of his articles. I’m also hoping he’ll group the fairly short modules into longer-playing sections that play automatically through so mobile device users, like me, don’t have to go back to the course page so often to start another module, especially since there are hundreds of them.

Our last child (15 year old) just started that course adapted as homeschooling Bible class that we’ll continue through the summer in a pass-fail manner.

I love the plans BioLogos has for homeshooling resources!

@EvoCreatn & www.TheGospelAndEvolution.com

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Sorry it has taken me so long to get back here. We had flu and family and all kinds of crazy going on:)

CC is usually in the YEC of things. Maybe some communities are less committed to that, but I haven’t come across any that aren’t pretty avidly YEC.

That being said, I can give an example of one way I have handled this, fwiw.

This year, my son is studying biology, and we are using the Miller Levine textbook… Which I love:-). We had an opportunity to do a lab group with a friend whose father was a high school bio teacher in his younger years. I was VERY excited because I wasn’t especially looking forward to doing labs and because I assumed that he would be more standard science-oriented than AiG science-oriented, lol. This was a poor assumption on my part, which I found out when they sent out the welcome email that included his testimony and views on origins.

So, I got in touch with my friend. I told her that we aren’t YEC and that we were using a different text for the year. I asked her how much YEC “material” he was planning on using. She didn’t think he would be doing much of that because it was a bi-monthly lab, not a full class. I assured her that, since I knew that most (really all) of the other families are YEC, my guy wouldn’t be proselytizing to the contrary, lol. However, I made it clear that I didn’t expect anyone to try and convert him either.

I would not have joined the group had it been an actual class. Since it was lab only, I figured there couldn’t be too much YEC love going on… There is only so much one can cover in 2 hours, twice a month.

It has worked out ok. I don’t necessarily regret it, but I don’t know that I would do it again either. We hit a wall around the evolution module (they were using apologia). I had let them know at the beginning of the year that we would be skipping that class. But, I did get a note from the instructor anyway trying to change my mind because “it is so important that our young people understand this.” It was a long note in the Ken Ham vein. I knew where he was going because my son had mentioned that he had called Ken “a hero of our age” during class. I did check and my son held his tongue and did not laugh. I was proud of him;-)

I did write back explaining where we stood and thanking him for the generosity of spirit he showed in his willingness to teach young people. He tried one more time and I left it at that.

It is important that my kids are respectful of the relationships they have with other people even if they disagree, so we had lots of talks on how to handle things if someone comes at him with YEC arguments. Especially how to deflect because, even though he is bright, he is not at an age where he can fully flesh out arguments for EC. We will continue working out how to present EC respectfully but firmly if necessary.

If you share your position with the instructor and they agree to “do no harm” lol, and you are comfortable quietly supporting your view and can supplement content-wise, then you can take advantage of whatever classes might be a fit. If you think you may have to spend all of your time undoing what they do, you may want to exempt yourself from the science piece of CC. I doubt they would turn you away unless they felt threatened by your position… They are always looking to keep their numbers up.

Good luck. I am going to go read the other responses now, so I apologize if this is redundant to someone else’s post;-)

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Same here. I felt like I had to have an educated stance if I was going to be the primary science teacher for my kids. Especially since the “all or nothing” rhetoric coming from the YEC side was so prevalent in our homeschooling community.emphasized text

Lisa,

Thank you so much for this insight into the Challenge program! It’s very helpful to me—though most of it served to raise my concern about the content.

I had seen It Couldn’t Just Happen and Defeating Darwinism in the CC online catalog for Challenge. ICJH seems particularly concerning. I’m going to try to find it at a bookstore and browse through it a bit, but based on a quick review on Amazon it strikes me as thorough propaganda. If anyone else has familiarity with this book, I’d love to hear what you think. A few days ago the Challenge A director for our group this year invited parents to watch “a game of Jeopardy using various questions addressing issues related to origins.” I asked if I could see the list of questions and answers, since I was looking into the program for next year, and she indicated that we would get a copy of the catechism questions with the Challenge A guide and that they are mostly from It Couldn’t Just Happen. So I assume those are the same ones you gave a link to, and I was not impressed.

Defeating Darwinism is a title I’ve been aware of for years, but I don’t know much about the book. My general sense is that it attempts to give a philosophical buttress to Intelligent Design thinking. Again, I’d love to hear from people who have read it.

I’ve already described my concern about the Apologia science series.

I think before long I’m going to have to have some potentially contentious conversations with the campus director and the Challenge A teacher. The woman teaching Challenge A next year was our son’s Foundations tutor this year, and we are friends with the family. The father is a science teacher in a public middle school, so I would think he is not vehemently YEC, but perhaps I shouldn’t assume that. Come to think of it, I believe he did also interview at a private school that quite possibly demands YEC fidelity among the faculty. I don’t mind being in the midst of some challenging conversations (though it’s not my preference), but I really don’t want my son getting caught in the middle of it. And, especially if my wife and I are still not in accord in the coming years, I think that’s a real concern.

Lisa, can you talk about how you have handled CC content that you disagree with? Were you a tutor during the cycle when the faulty definition for the Theory of Evolution came up? If so, how did you address that?

I hope I’m proved wrong, but the more I dig into this, the greater sense I get that I’m the only parent in our campus that has these concerns about CC’s science content.

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cartophile,
As much as I don’t really like It Couldn’t Just Happen and Defeating Darwinism, I think it will still be a moderately good fit for my family because of all the other subjects that are covered well but I think a lot depends on the Challenge tutors. The tutors in our group seem to enjoy a good discussion that includes opposing viewpoints and are comfortable with the class having a range of views. Having said that, I also want to make sure my kids don’t get trampled in class for having an opposing view. I think our tutors do a good job though of teaching debate/discussion skills and how to be civil in a disagreement.

I read It Couldn’t Just Happen a while ago and if I recall correctly, it’s not distinctly YEC, but definitely anti-evolution. Defeating Darwinism is more about ID and “defeating” materialism/naturalism but in doing so it perpetuates the false dichotomy between evolution and Christianity. I also dislike the catechism questions CC developed and I think I will make modifications to a few of them when my child memorizes them. The quizlet link may not be up to date (they make changes to the guides some years), but it’s probably roughly what they were using for the game you saw in class.

In terms of high school sciences, we probably wouldn’t use Apologia at home, but I think it’s easy enough to use something else because mainly what they do in class is the labs and then their assignment is to write the lab report. Because the sequence for science is probably inadequate for some of my kids, I may have them start Bio in 8th grade and then when their CC class does Bio labs in 10th grade, we might do AP Bio at home.

So the cycle that covered origins in Foundations, I was tutoring a class of 1st graders :slight_smile: However, for the sake of the moms in the room, I did mention that the definition was lacking and gave a clearer definition and explained that the memory work is actually defining “abiogenesis” rather than evolution. I talked to our director who encouraged me to submit a form to CC to explain the error and suggest a correction. She also let me know that if I wanted to make a change to the memory work for my own kids, they could still test for Memory Master if I just let her know how they were memorized it so she could proof them. I appreciate the flexibility but I don’t know that all directors/campuses would handle it that way.

I just finished browsing page by page through the Anatomy & Physiology text from Apologia that we have at home. I noted that nowhere does the book provide any academic credentials for either of the two listed authors, though one is described as an M.D. Also, there is no list of reviewers for the text.

Do these omissions cause any concern for those who use Apologia textbooks?

I have found that in people’s fervor to market the materials they agree with, credentials are often ignored or over stated. One book used in several homeschool elementary programs, Dry Bones and Other Fossils is billed as written by a “professional paleontologist.” Technically this is true, since the author has been paid for being a “paleontologist” by IRC and AIG. However, his actual PhD is in education, not paleontology, and his other degrees are in Biology and Chemistry. That doesn’t stop him from putting Dr. Gary Parker on his books about fossils. I was looking at a different YEC book for kids on geology, (I can’t find the title right now) with a Dr. So and So on the cover, and I looked him up and found out he was a dentist and had no credentials at all in the field he was writing.

Was it the Exploring Creation Anatomy and Physiology textbook? Jeannie Fullbright is a homeschooling mom of four and former sportscaster. Brooke Ryan is a pediatrician.

Yeah. Not that homeschooling women can’t be bright and capable or that writing an intro level textbook requires a PhD. (I actually think the best textbooks are usually written by experienced educators, not subject experts in the given field.) But you would think having it reviewed for content by someone with relevant expertise would be standard procedure.

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I think this is a huge problem with textbooks written for/by the homeschooling community in general. Many of us like “living books” that are written by one author, but if you’re going to write a book on your own, make sure you are an expert in that area and have excellent editors who are also experts.

We’ve used Jeannie Fulbright’s elementary science books in the past. I recall using the first edition of Astronomy and seeing an entire page where she incorrectly defined and used the term “maria” to mean one side of the moon rather than the dark plains that are visible from earth. I don’t even have a background in science, but had read the kids a few other astronomy books and immediately noticed that error. These kinds of mistakes would never make it into a textbook written by an expert, a committee or edited by one of those. (BTW they corrected this error in a later printing).

CC has a short chemistry unit (called Discovering Atomos) that they use in 8th grade (Chall B) which was written by one of their employees with a BA and MA in English. Granted it’s only at the middle school level, but is that really the right person to write such material? I found an error where a word was defined correctly but then the author misunderstood what the definition meant and used it incorrectly. It would literally be as simple as having the document edited by someone with a BA in Chemistry and this would be prevented. Of course, it costs money to hire experts to edit for you, and I think many of these companies are small and if no one pushes back, they don’t feel the need for that level of editing. I emailed them and explained the error and hopefully they will fix it in a future edition.

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Of our seven kids, three were homeschooled… the last three. Various curricula was used, and my wife was/is the teacher, not me, so I don’t know all of it. But some of it included, alpha-omega, and “Switched-on schoolhouse”, which is a computer program allowing the student to work independantly, and organize a very flexible schedule. It has a built in planner for any type of school year, and various standards for passing and continuing to the next lesson can be set by the teacher/parent. Most of the homeschooling curricula does have science and social and english subjects and perspectives that differ from the common public school curricula, primarily because that is the precise reason why many families are homeschoolers, to reduce the public influence and to provide and emphasize the value of the alternatives.

One of the interesting aspects of healthy homeschoolers is their associations and local support groups. Ours meets monthly, with a potluck, gym night, and parent meeting. While most homeschoolers are YEC, there are no restrictions or overt judgements about OEE. However, our group is a christian group, clearly indicating that our christian faith is fundamental to the purposes and atmosphere of the group, just as one would find in a Christian dayschool.

Yes, that’s the one. Thanks for the information on the authors.

This week I received my copy of the recently published Earth Science: God’s World, Our Home by Novare Science and Math. I’m really excited about reading it with my son. Additionally, I found the author’s story about how the book came to be quite interesting and inspiring. The time and diligence that were put into planning, writing, reviewing, and editing the text seems to contrast sharply with the observations made here about the Apologia text.

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@Homeschool_Forum I realize that this original post is almost a year old, but I don’t know how to find one more recent that applies (I’m new to this forum). I have done Classical Conversations with my 2 kids for the past 6 years and have tutored and directed in both Foundations and Challenge A. That said, I am realizing every year we are in this how much YEC CC really is and I am now at a crossroads of what to do! My son is in Challenge 1 this year and we are suffering through Apologia Physical Science which is so full of political agenda, YEC opinion, and misinformation that I am considering leaving the program altogether next year. Does anyone have any suggestions about how to address the use of Apologia Science; documents or something that I can use to rebut the misinformation? I feel like all year I have had to do extra “homework” to refute what this book says. I love everything else about CC and my community would love to see me direct Challenge II, but that would require using Apologia Biology and I’m not sure I’m up to the task of “providing an alternative viewpoint” each week for the class I would tutor. I do not want to reinvent the wheel, and already I am worn out this year from keeping up with the Physical Science book at home with my son and offering my alternate viewpoint to counteract the book “It Couldn’t Just Happen” that we use in Challenge A (my daughter’s class that I tutor). Has anyone had a similar experience with CC, and if you have left the program, what did you go to? Thanks for any thoughts or encouragement you can offer–I am very discouraged at this point!

@Sharon_King

The homeschool forum is not super busy, so we keep the threads open and it is perfectly fine to revive them! If in reading past posts you come across someone who used CC whose opinion you’d especially like to hear, you can tag them in your post by using the @ sign and starting to type their user name and clicking on it when it appears. That way they get an e-mail notification to come check out the thread. You can also quote other posts by highlighting text and then clicking on the “quote selected” option. This sends a notification to the person you quote. You can edit any post to add tags by clicking on the pencil icon by the reply button.

i have never used CC so I can’t speak to the particulars of the program. Two options for high school biology that I am personally considering using are the Catholic program offered by Kolbe Academy or using online classes offered by Wilson Hill Academy. Both use the Miller and Levine Biology text which is a standard high school textbook.

Is there a way you can keep connected to the community aspect of CC by participating in some of the classes and opt out for science?

@cartophile can you weigh in?

I’m in a similar situation and love my CC group! It would be great to find some resources that we could use that are at the right level for 7-10th graders that gives another view on the material they are encountering in It Couldn’t Just Happen, Defeating Darwinism and the various Apologia books. It seems like I will need to go through each of those books and make a list of discussion points and/or resources that need to be brought up.

@Sharon_King I’m also sending you a PM, check your inbox :slight_smile:

Hi Sharon,

I’m glad you found this forum and related your experiences—frustrating though they are. I don’t know if you’ve had time to read through this entire thread, as it is quite lengthy now. I started it last Spring (before there was a separate section of the forum for homeschool-related topics) mainly due to my frustration with CC’s science components and the underlying anti-evolution ideology that I had picked up on over the years. I haven’t contributed to this discussion in a while, simply because it’s hard for me to find the time, but this year things have only become more difficult. My son is in Challenge A, and I’ve been similarly dismayed by the content and tone of It Couldn’t Just Happen. I’m trying to counter its message as best I can, but I have the added complexity/burden of not being in accord with my wife on this issue, and the sense I get is that no other parents in our group express any concerns about the book or CC’s overall approach to science.

I actually proposed that we back off from CC for second semester (not only because of the science issue; money, time, and stress are pertinent concerns I expressed too), but that didn’t go over well and for now we are continuing with the program. The community really has been wonderful for my wife and son, and it would be a major loss if we did step away from it. Unfortunately, I’m coming to believe that anti-evolution ideology is so entrenched in CC that I don’t hold out much hope for change.

I have more to say, and I’ll try to come back to this soon. I’m sorry I don’t have more encouraging words. Maybe just commiserating is helpful.

You are not alone in this, and though I’m not so hopeful about CC in the short-term, I am confident that the message that BioLogos is so nobly proclaiming will continue to gain adherents among devout and serious-minded Christians. And perhaps by the time my grandchildren (Lord willing) are in school, the homeschooling world will be a more welcoming place for those who believe good science and faithful Christianity belong together.

I don’t know how the private messaging system works, but feel free to contact me that way if you prefer at any time.

Kind Regards,
Bruce

If you click on anyone’s avatar, you will see a blue “message” option. Or if you know the user name you want to write to, you can click on your own avatar in the upper right, click on the envelope and then on the blue “new message” button.

@cartophile
@lstrite

Thank you to all who responded about my concerns with CC. It really is SO encouraging to hear from others struggling with the same thing. I am still undecided with regards to next year, although it is looking more and more like we may be pulling out after Challenge A and Challenge 1. The Apologia science is just so full of objectionable material that we are feeling that we cannot support the program without appearing to condone this curriculum choice. The whole curriculum is based around knowing God and learning to recognize and share truth, yet we are not presented with truth and really only shown one opinion. We speak of fallacies, yet the Apologia book is full of them. Even tutoring Challenge 2 and tailoring the material just seems like an uphill battle that tutoring won’t allow time (and I don’t have the energy) for. I am exploring all other options: private school, online public school, other classical homeschool. I really want the accountability and community of a program, but without the fundamentalist bias. Please make suggestions if you know of any full curriculum that would fit the bill–I will check out the Alpha Omega products and maybe Sonlight; we used Horizons Math in the past with good luck. I don’t want to have to piecemeal our own program together–my personality will keep me always second-guessing myself! Again, so thankful for the support of this forum!

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I would consider Alpha Omega pretty fundamentalist. I doubt you would be happy with their science.

Sonlight uses Apologia for high school.

Wilson Hill Academy (online classical course provider) uses Miller and Levine for Biology and Campbell for AP Bio and Novare for Chemistry.

Kolbe Academy is a Catholic classical homeschool curriculum and online class provider that uses Miller and Levine for Bio and Prentice Hall for Intro to Physics/Chemistry. I have friends who have been very happy with it.

PA Homeschoolers has AP level science courses online that I have heard are highly recommended.

So thankful that I found this thread. We are in the same boat as many of you. We have done CC for 3 years and my daughter will be in Challenge A next year. I really debated whether to just hold her back one more year since she’ll be a very young 12, but she is excited about it and didn’t want to dampen her enthusiasm as she tends toward anxiety and being over-cautious.

I am really struggling though with knowing she as to read “It Couldn’t Just Happen.” The one thing that is giving me some comfort is that our Challenge A tutor has quietly expressed to me her misgivings about the tone of that book as well. Early in the year when the Challenge class did a small presentation to the whole community one of the students explained their science study as “creationism vs. evolution.” Our tutor quickly back-pedaled that and said, “AND about appreciating the beauty and complexity of creation.” I could tell she was trying to downplay the “vs.” idea. So at least I know she will be sympathetic.

My main concern is that my very sensitive and people-pleasing daughter is going to struggle with the tone of the book…being told that this is the only right way to think on this issue and then to hear at home that this isn’t true. I also know that many of the other students in her class some from much more fundamentalist backgrounds and are going to be all for it. The peer pressure could be difficult for her sensitive soul.

Anyhow…just glad to know we aren’t alone in loving MOST of CC and our community, but struggling to reconcile this aspect. I feel like many of you that this will probably end up being our last year as I just don’t know that we can continue to to delve deeper into the upper levels and have to fight this ideology for all her middle/high school years. It makes me sad and frustrated. I am grateful for a place to talk about it with others who are there too. Thanks!

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Hi Molly,
Yes, I agree! If it was just the “God of the gaps” issue, that is easy to address. The difficulty is really the mocking tone toward scientists and Christians that see evidence for more than micro-evolution and explaining to our kids why a Christian author would have such a rude dismissive attitude (and the fact that we’re then implicitly encouraging that attitude in the Challenge kids).

The book is also kind of old and scientifically out of date (originally written in 80s and republished in 2011 with no mention of what’s transpired since then…human genome project etc). I am hoping to put together a study guide of some sort to use alongside it. It would be so helpful if they would read The Fallacy Detective first, because It Couldn’t Just Happen would be perfect material for applying those principles! PM me if you’re interested in whatever I put together or have any ideas and I’ll keep you in the loop.

If you wanted to add in another book to go along with Chall A that would show the range of views Christians hold and also demonstrates a more charitable attitude, you might try the Haarsma’s Origins: Christian Perspectives on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design. I’m planning on reading that with my son.

Glad to have you connect with us here!