Some of you may be aware I've pulled my 9yo son out of the public school and am homeschooling him for the rest of this year. I could put up a pretty major rant about that, but I'll save it for a day when I'm bored and have nothing better to write about- or for if the situation that led to the decision isn't rectified.

Today, I want to talk about homeschooling my son, and about schooling information and textbooks that are out there. 

We picked this for our science book. (And yes, I forgot to crop the scanned edges out. Oops.)

 

 Right now, most people reading this are confused. Some of you are thinking, "Wait, Christian schools? Why would she buy that?" Some are thinking, "I'd never expose my kids to that crap. She's crazy." Some are thinking, "Oh boy, Steph found some more Christianity to mock. She is such an asshole atheist, she sure loves to make fun of other people's beliefs."

So okay, let me clarify:
#1. Yes, I'm an atheist. No, I'm not raising my child with Christian beliefs.
#2. I know you wouldn't. Mine are exposed to it every day, and I choose to arm them against it by showing them what they're up against.
#3. This book is, I hope, not representative of Christianity. It's representative of an extreme, anti-science, anti-reality subset of Christianity. A dangerous group. And yes, it is worthy of much mockery, but we didn't buy it for mockery- at least not mostly. We bought it because I thought reading a mix of false claims and truths, and learning to differentiate between the two, would be as valuable to my son as the science itself.

Now, you may have seen some of this book's content floating around the internet- if you've seen the picture of the little girl blow-drying her hair, and the text underneath describing how we don't know where electricity comes from, that's this book. So, for the purpose of reading claims and evaluating them for viability, I knew this book would be a great choice.

Today, we started with the first lesson, and I was not disappointed.

 Can you read that? In the left column, we're told that this first lesson is our opportunity to teach our kids that science is limited, and that what people believe about the origins of the earth, the moon, the solar system, and life, must be based on faith alone, not science.

The student text page, in the top right corner, explains that science can't teach us about the moon's origins, because science can deal only with what is observed by the senses, and no one was around to observe the moon's creation.

The lesson goes on to describe some of science's theories ('guesses') about the origins of the moon, and what creationists know- that the moon was made by God, just like He wrote in His book, the Bible.

We're directed to do a lesson by making 'break-away bread' (which I've only ever known before as 'monkey bread') and asking our kid to make observations with his senses- it is sticky, smells like cinnamon, is sweet, soft, gooey, etc.

Then we are to ask him what the ingredients were in the refrigerated biscuits used in the bread. (If you don't know, monkey bread is basically made by cutting packaged biscuits into quarters, dipping them in butter, sugar, and cinnamon, piling all the quarters into a bundt pan, and baking. The pieces pull apart easily and it is delicious, especially if you frost it with an icing made from milk and powdered sugar.)

Obviously, the kid is flummoxed. How would he know what goes into canned biscuits? So you go get the can and you let him read the ingredients, and he learns that if he trusts the company, trusts whoever wrote those ingredients, he can learn the origins of the biscuits by reading the can. If he has faith in the creator, then he may trust the creator's word about where biscuits come from. And he can learn about the moon in the same way, obviously- by reading the original account written by the Creator Himself.

 

This is the last page of the lesson plan, with (some of) the discussion questions. (Since this is the teacher's edition, the answers are listed in parenthesis.)

Note the excellent lessons here: no one knows any science about the origins of the moon, no one could know about the origins except someone who observed its creation, or its Creator Himself. And there were no observers, so the only way to know is to read the Bible.

Also, Evolution Theory is man's idea about how things might have begun by themselves. (It is not. The theory of evolution by natural selection is specifically a model of how life changed, from first organisms to current life forms, and specifically humans. It does not touch on the beginnings of the earth, nor does it guess how that first living organism came to be. There are other theories to cover those.)

Furthermore, teach your child that a theory is just an opinion. It is not. A hypothesis is a guess, a theory, in science, is a set of explanations for something, that have been thoroughly tested and are supported by the evidence.


So, onto our version of the lesson, and the bragging.

We read everything the pages offered. My son offered corrections frequently. He disagreed that science couldn't teach us about something unless we observed it happening. We discussed how else a person might figure out the ingredients of the canned biscuits, besides reading the package. He didn't know. I asked him if he knew anyone else who might be able to make a good guess about the biscuit ingredients, and he lit up. Justin! Justin would be able to! I asked him why, and he said because Justin is a cook, and so Justin knows about the things that go into biscuits. What if we were eating a cake, instead? Could my son tell me the ingredients? No, but Justin could probably even tell us what ingredients we used wrong, if the cake came out badly. Sometimes he might make a wrong guess, because maybe I used unusual ingredients- maybe I tried that thing where you substitute mayonnaise for eggs, or something- but he could make a good educated guess, and could further investigate to be sure he was right. So can science. Science doesn't just guess, it guesses and tests. Science says, gee, if this guess was right, then these things would all be true, let's test if these things are true, and then we can either test some more stuff, or discard this guess. And then, science only calls a guess a 'theory' after it's done a lot of that testing, and all the evidence points to the guess being true. We talked about the differences between guesses and theories- or 'theory' in common use and 'theory' in scientific use.

The most important thing here is that my son was able to evaluate claims for himself, and tell me where he saw flaws. This is the main thing I hope he will continue to get as we go through this book.