I am a Christian. I want my kids to grow up knowing God and having a passion for Him. I want them to be willing to do whatever he asks of them. That said, I am a bit torn in my textbook choices for my teen. I don't want her totally sheltered from the way the world at large views life, but I still want her to have a Biblical worldview. Do you use Christian texts or secular ones? What influenced your choice? How do you address the texts that embrace things that you don't necessarily believe in? I don't want my kids first introduction to different worldviews to be when they are at college and the professor makes out Christians to be idiots. Would you mind sharing your thoughts?
I pretty much only use secular books. I focus on weeding out the facts from the conclusions and discuss possibilities. It may help that I don't have a die hard position on origins other than God did it. I've heard all too many stories of kids going off to college and loosing their faith due to the first real exposure to evolution. I also have a child that may end up choosing a science field as a profession so I am diligent in exposure to secular materials. I want questions to come up now and not when he is a young adult. I haven't done a focused study on evolution yet, but allow most evolutionary content in books and DVDs. I'll probably do a full fledged study of evolution in middle school.
I'm Christian and use secular texts. The biggest factor was that, even as a Christian, the "texts that embrace things that you don't necessarily believe in," were mostly Christian texts. I find most Christian homeschooling materials are for a very specific subset of Christians that I don't fit into. I'm not a wacky or fringe Christian, just good old stodgy Anglican, but we're not creationist, sola scriptura, literal and many of the other things most Christian materials tend to assume. So using them would actually interfere with what I believe in and want to pass on to my kids. Crazy as it might seem to some secular texts are much more friendly to my brand of Christianity.
I use both as long as I'm able to adapt them to my own beliefs, because even in Christian texts, you'll find differing views.
My husband has requested a Christian world view for History and Science. I was using Rod and Staff language because it's a fantastic language program, not because it was full of Christian values. Math and language I don't need Bible verses on each page or anything like that!
Yesterday, I happened to be reviewing the BJU textbook for Algebra 2. Personally, I found it very irritating for the material to be interrupted with bland Christian comments. For example, "The next examples show the division of one polynomial by another polynomial. By following an example carefully, you can see how to solve problems you will face. The same idea is true in many areas of life. Our most reliable examples for life are given to us in the Bible. Read I Corinthians 10:11 and John 13:15. These show us the importance of examples in our lives." So, what exactly is the point of quoting Bible verses when explaining polynomials? None! It's almost a token gesture so parents will think it's a "Christian" textbook. In reality, it stops the flow of learning. For Bible study, we'll study appropriate books meant for Bible study - thank you. Don't interrupt a math lesson with Bible references that don't in any way help. I'm not against Christian curricula, because some are good, but what matters most is how well the material explains the subject. Some Christian books do a good job, and some secular books do a good job.
That's absolutely bizarre! I remember seeing a frying pan that would imprint the picture of Jesus on pancakes. I'm having the same feeling of weird disconnect here. :lol:
The book is littered with them: "Now that you remember the basics of solving simple linear equations, you will study linear equations that are slightly more difficult. You should never be satisfied with what you know but should want to continually build on your knowledge. This applies to your spiritual life as well. You should not be satisfied with the milk of the Word but should strive to understand and apply the meat of the Word to your life as you grow in Christ (I Cor 3:1-4)." And here's another: "In the last two sections you studied zeros of polynomials and how to factor higher order polynomials. These ideas can help you graph a polynomial function. Graphs are very important in mathematics because they provide pictures of equations. Similarly, the Bible gives a picture in Ephesians 5:21-33. Marriage is a gift from God (Prov. 18:22, 19:14); see also I Cor. 7:1-7). But it is also a picture of the relationship Christ has with His church (II Cor. 11:2; Eph. 5:21-33). In this picture, Christ is the husband, and all true believers are the bride-to-be. The wedding has not happened yet, but Christians are still "betrothed" or promised to our Heavenly Bridegroom. We eagerly look forward to the day when we will be married to the Son of God (Rev. 19:7-9; 22:20). Marriage helps us understand the relationship between Christians and the Savior by providing a picture." Honestly, such passages are a big distraction. Would we test our children on these Bible verses? If not, why ever are they there? Plus, I don't want to have to read a math textbook in advance to be sure I agree with the theology! I simply won't buy the book.
Wow, Steve. Just. Wow. And people wonder why kids get "burnt out" on gratuitous Christianity. We use a mix. Math is MUS, which is Christian friendly, I'd say, but not at all theological. Seems there might have been a story problem about church once?...but it also had a story problem with Merry and Pippin. I have used Christian and secular for science and history, too. We started out kids off very, very young evaluating books and TV shows and the information we gleaned. They were able to spot the untruths early and I am, therefore, comfortable using a secular text for even hot-button issues because we test it against the scriptures and thus learn even more about what we believe.
I use primarily christian texts right now, but my boys are still young and I want to be sure they are firmly grounded in our faith before I begin to introduce secular, conflicting views. We will do a study on evolution, along with other secular concepts when it's appropriate because in order to defend your own faith/beliefs/views/opinions you must IMO understand the opposing faith/beliefs/views/opinions. Also I'm with others who dont need a math book full of bible verses, for one it distracts the child from the math problems and the concept at hand, and IMO it almost makes a mockery (forgive me the word I want is escaping me) of scripture. If I'm going to teach Bible then I'm going to TEACH Bible and give it the respect and time it deserves, devoting our full attention to the Bible, tossing a verse in amidst math problems doesn't give the scripture it's due respect. Now I do enjoy seeing word problems that include religion on occasion, but if they aren't there it's not an issue. We make them up ourselves.
Aside from it just being creepy to have Jesus on my toast, my bigger problem with this product is that the gentleman also sells toasters that burn in the image of peace signs and marijuana leaves.
I use Christian materials. I feel like we need to be like a sponge; so saturated with the Word, there's not enough room to fill up on the "junk" of the world. JMO. Having said that, I gotta say, BJU is really bad about making Scripture fit in so awkwardly with their lessons. In our history book, the most random verses show up in the lesson. In the chapter about the U.S. states and their borders is this verse: Psalms 74:17 " Thou has set all the borders of the earth." Really, God decided how California was shaped? We won't be using BJU again. But I do feel I need to use Christian materials for our school. That is, after all, why we homeschool.
Maybe it is weird, but I don't have a big problem with BJU's method. Yes, it is awkward to have a Bible verse in the middle of your math lesson, but it is easily skipped over. I use some R&S and CLE and they have Biblical references in non-Biblical subjects. Some are quite unusual like having the answer to a question be the word "ye." Sometimes the answer requires my son to look something up in his Bible. It isn't a big deal. I have him skip some things that are more obscure. I mean I don't think it is really important to learn the word "ye." Sometimes it leads to a little discussion of what others believe and why we believe what we believe. But I do have a deal breaker with science though. Science isn't just Bible texts added in. Science is presented as facts with a specific interpretation that often mocks or degrades other perspectives. However I find that my biggest issue with Christian science materials is that they don't seem to present all the facts that are normally found in a standard textbook. I think that is one of the most "dangerous" elements because a child will likely discover them at a later age and may feel deceived. On a side note I grew up with the fear put into me of evil evolutionary teachings. And when my preschool aged son became enraptured with dinosaurs my family wanted to pass that fear on to my son by making sure he was reading the right book. I refuse to go there. So my son was watching dinosaur DVDs and surfing dinosaur websites that talked of millions/billions of years and evolution. We don't believe in evolution in our household, but I believe in early exposure to different ideas. We are learning about Hinduism right now. We will be living amongst Buddhists soon too. We will be living amongst poisonous centipedes, numerous snakes, and mosquitoes soon too, but I don't want to think about that too much yet. I'm happy with the little centipede I saw today in our backyard.
Mostly, I prefer CLE and R&S for the bulk of my materials. It is a Christian school, after all. I've used Lifepacs, Abeka, and some (not much) BJU, and some ACE. But I have and do use secular materials when I think they are better suited to the student's needs in style and content. Saxon Math, Easy Grammar and Daily Grams, Sequential Spelling, and public school state history books are four that come immediately to mind. I also use tons of designed-for-public-school supplemental workbooks for reading comprehension/thinking skills, math, geography, history, science, and just about everything else. I find ACE particularly off-putting for just the thing Steve mentioned: just sticking Bible/character stuff in any old where, even math. It's not like there's even as much connection to the material as Steve cited for BJU's math -- just memorize these verses and be ready to spit them back out on the test. OTOH, I really like how CLE weaves scripture and character training in with their reading curriculum for grades 1-8. Each story is paired with a verse with which it shares a theme, and part of the lesson explains on an age-appropriate level how the student can apply that verse to his/her own life. Totally appropriate and integrated. I probably should mention that heretofore, I have used much Abeka for science, but lately I'm preferring R&S. While it does refer to God, how God provided homes for the animals he created, how He provided instinct for much of their behavior, and so on, it doesn't (as far as I've gotten into it) even talk about Creation, other than to say that God created. No mention of creation vs evolution, no mention of millions of years, and if it even comes close, they tend to say "Scientists say..." and leave it at that. So presumably one could use whatever supplementary materials one wished - to teach the controversy, to teach a particular position, whatever. I haven't been through all of the science levels yet, so we'll see when we get there.
Oh I forgot to mention that I avoid history texts/books by Christian publishers too. It also goes beyond the addition of a Bible text here and there and goes into interpretation of events of history through the lens of what the writers believe to be God's favorite country.
