As a homeschooling mom myself, I really enjoyed listening to this episode. Thank you for having this conversation! Ms. McNeil’s comment that many homeschooling groups are almost entirely White for a reason really struck me. My kids and I participated in one of these classical communities for 7 years. There were definitely some memory work pieces that I always found troubling: Ronald Reagan “strengthened the conservative movement”, “Muslim terrorists” destroyed the World Trade Center, “Lincoln’s war between the states”, to name a few. I found that I needed have conversations with my kids at a very young age about the inappropriate language the curriculum used to tell our history. And I tried to supplement the history curriculum with books that told a more complete history of the US as it relates to BIPOC. It wasn’t until 2020 that I began to see how truly toxic that environment was.
I’m glad we are no longer part of that group, but I do miss the community aspect.
As a homeschooling mom myself, I really enjoyed listening to this episode. Thank you for having this conversation! Ms. McNeil’s comment that many homeschooling groups are almost entirely White for a reason really struck me. My kids and I participated in one of these classical communities for 7 years. There were definitely some memory work pieces that I always found troubling: Ronald Reagan “strengthened the conservative movement”, “Muslim terrorists” destroyed the World Trade Center, “Lincoln’s war between the states”, to name a few. I found that I needed have conversations with my kids at a very young age about the inappropriate language the curriculum used to tell our history. And I tried to supplement the history curriculum with books that told a more complete history of the US as it relates to BIPOC. It wasn’t until 2020 that I began to see how truly toxic that environment was.
I’m glad we are no longer part of that group, but I do miss the community aspect.