Thanks to Dawn, Brian and Sunnie for your additional insights on all of this.

The one additional comment I’d make is (gasp! ;-P didn’t expect this!)to agree with Dawn about something.

As a Christian, I’ve rarely taught using Christian curriculum. Why? It’s so cheesy, for the most part, and full of worse propaganda than wartime newsreels! I’m actually trying to teach my child to think for herself here. That means presenting her with truth and lies and helping her develop discernment. She has a very confident, articulate friend who goes to school, who is competitively able to argue what she’s been taught in school. Dig any deeper than the populist spiel though, and she’s on shaky ground.

Why does this friend believe what she believes? Because she’s told it’s what she should believe. Why does my daughter believe what she believes - even though she’s as yet less skilled at arguing it confidently? Because she’s looked at the subject from a number of angles and reached a conclusion that makes sense to her. The latter is by far the best outcome, according to our family’s philosophy of home education.

And that’s what I’ve loved about this discussion - these are real people’s opinions, expressed by articulate, thoughtful people - what does one do with that? Does it sway existing beliefs? If so, in what way?

The other thing I love - respect and admire, too - is that a place of mutual regard is being worked towards. That, too, is a great life lesson for my daughter, and I thank all participants (esp. Brian and Dawn) for that, too.

There are as many ‘definitions’ of ‘homeschool’ as there are for ‘Christian’, and even ‘Baptist’. I read a post the other day where someone said that unschoolers aren’t ‘homeschoolers’, and that was news to me. WhadoIknow?

The Bible talks about folks getting stuck on words and names in the first three chapters of 1 Corinthians, and Paul basically says “While you’re arguing about whose team you’re on, are you getting anything done?”

It isn’t my job to change people, that’s God’s job, and He really hates it when folks sit down at His desk, KWIM? I can present what I believe is the truth, but the convincing and conversion takes place in the heart where I can’t reach. I have found that when I let that idea go, I am free to talk to so many people about so many things, and yet without compromising my own beliefs.

On the issue of naming blogs etc… I think it is helpful when the title/subtitle or front page info gives a good reflection of the blog’s purpose and tone, but you can only do so much. What issues are important to one home educator, for instance- evolution/creationism, is not as important to another as finding info on Charlotte Mason or unschooling, so they’ll come to your blog looking to see if you are going to provide help for them and their interests or beliefs. It shouldn’t take them an hour to find out what service your webpage is going to provide, but they can’t expect all possible nuances to be emblazoned on the cover either.

I’m beginning to better understand Dawn’s frustrations with having a difficult time finding secular resources. I didn’t realize that the creationist viewpoint is perceived as being so dominant in the homeschooling world, at least by those who hold the evolutionary perspective.

And I’m beginning to warm up to her idea of possibly identifying ourselves as Christian or creationist; not in a big, blaring headline, but perhaps a subhead or sidebar. I hadn’t considered that not doing so could cause an issue with homeschoolers who don’t ascribe to creationism.

We do have a category named “Christian Worldview”, but apparently this is not specific enough for some who consider themselves Christians, but are evolutionists rather than creationists.

There are likely other conservative Christian homeschoolers who don’t realize the concerns and frustrations of non-creationist Christian and secular homeschoolers, so Dawn’s idea of a dialogue certainly has merit.

As a creationist, I would of course love for all evolutionists to ’see the light’ and realize creation is true, but I’m sure the evolutionists would like to see just the opposite

So we would probably have to agree to disagree on that issue and rather concentrate more on how we can help each other with the primary task of educating our children the way we feel is best. After all, that’s why we’re homeschooling in the first place, isn’t it?

I actually did a couple of times. But I kept coming back to thinking about this and finally blogged about it. I really do have an issue with the general look of this blog as opposed to the specific audience it serves. I’m not going to rehash that though. I have my view, Brian has his on that.

The disadvantage Brian is at, and maybe you, is that you haven’t had the experience secular homeschoolers often had (though I can imagine comparable ones). There’s nothing more frustrating then finding a promising site that looks like something you can reccomend to others and then finding out they have a long post on dominionism or don’t sell one blessed science book that doesn’t involve creationism. I think, in fact, that my first thought when I found this blog was, whoo hoo! This looks like it might be a new secular resource I can forward to people I know. And then I realized it wasn’t what I thought. And I knew there would be others who had the same disapointment. Maybe it was that promise of a resource that really set me off.

There was also the Christian Worldview point and that is a really important one. I understand that there are denominations of Christians who are inerrant literalists but there are a great deal of us that aren’t and it simply isn’t right or honest that views that reflect only a small part of the Christian family are touted as “Christian”. I face the same challenge with curriculum and am in the absurd position of knowing most Christian curriculum is completely unsuitable for my family precisely because of MY particular Christian worldview. And I really need to speak out about that because the default assumption is becoming that because I’m a Christian homechooling her kids I believe in creation or ID or am an evangelical or am waiting for rapture.

That discussion about the co-opting of the label Christian isn’t even going on in Christian homeschooling circles and it’s about time it did.

I don’t regret the post though. The language and tone was a little strong for me, I’m generally the middle-ground type person but frankly, this time getting a littel snarky worked well. It sparked some good posts and interesting points.

The aspect of this discussion that has puzzled me from the start, is why Dawn even felt it necessary to comment on the contents of someone else’s blog. It’s Brian’s blog. Mostly it’s not particularly relevant to me (aimed at educating kids much younger than mine), but I’ve stayed subscribed for the occasional gems such as this discussion. If you read something and don’t like it, why not just move on? Why stop to spit?

Personally, I love the mix of ideas that is to be found in home education circles, but I retain my right to think my own thoughts, and expect others to do the same. Similarly, I respect the right of others to think as they choose, but I also expect that they will afford me the same respect.

My disappointment with the above post was that it was so far “off topic”. Thank you Brian for apologising for your vitriol.

In Dawn’s post, I was reminded of the lion-tamer story. You’ve doubtless heard it. Why does a lion tamer use a chair? Because the four leg posts give the lion four points to focus on, and he’s less able to focus on the tamer as being the prey. Now, I don’t know how accurate that story is, but it seems to me that’s what happened here.

While we certainly appreciate all those who visit our blog and read our material, it’s not as if this is a marriage between the writer and reader, to use a metaphor.

If the reader of any blog eventually sees something he or she disagrees with, and it becomes distressing, they can simply move on to something more to their liking. We try our best to provide useful information and be transparent about our beliefs, but we obviously can’t be all things to all homeschoolers.

A lot depends on the attitude of the reader. One may regularly visit a blog that holds an opposing viewpoint, specifically so they can make comments to counter the views they believe are incorrect.

Others only like to visit blogs that hold the same views they do, and they don’t enjoy the debate between opposing sides of an issue.

Some readers don’t mind browsing and reading blogs from any viewpoint. They may enjoy the idea of not knowing beforehand what they find, kind of like a walk through the woods.

Others may not want to read or even see anything that doesn’t dovetail perfectly with their philosophies or ideas. And most of us probably fall somewhere between these two extremes.

Obviously, there are exceptions, such as pornography, where we would definitely want to know what the content was ahead of time before we even opened up the site on our screen.

Personally, I would not be offended if I found a link to a homeschool blog, and after arriving and reading some posts, discovered that it had an evolutionary viewpoint. If I didn’t agree with what was being said, I could comment as such if I felt I had a valid argument, or I could simply leave. But that’s just me.

So in my opinion, unless there is something about the content that violates standards of common decency, or is otherwise malicious, there should not necessarily be a need to identify one’s view by a headline, URL, or other identifier, though it has its place.

On a side note, we really hadn’t intended to spend anywhere near this much time on the question of origins, even though it is an important topic. So we can understand if someone thinks that we’re hitting it heavier than they may have originally expected.

The exchange that took place between Dawn and I came along and appeared to be a good opportunity to address not only the origins question and give readers an insight into the arguments commonly used on both side of the issue, but also as a case study of sorts for debating opposing viewpoints.

We feel that it’s important for all homeschoolers, regardless of their beliefs and viewpoints, to be able to intelligently discuss an issue and logically present their arguments, whether it be on a blog, a forum, a formal debate, or just in everyday life.