Product Description
Now even more complete, with updated lists of available resource materials, this manual is your access guide to home schooling- maximizing our family life while providing a quality education for your children. If you’re considering homeschooling, this book is a must-read before you decide; and if you’ve been at it for awhile, it’s a fresh perspective, with plenty of tactics for renewing your energy and motivating your kids. With wit and wisdom gleaned from years o… More >>
The Ultimate Guide To Homeschooling: Year 2001 Edition Book & Cd
Tags: 2001, access guide, book, book cd, edition, guide, home schooling, Homeschooling, perspective, quality education, resource materials, Ultimate, ultimate guide, wit and wisdom, Year, year 2001
#1 by Doom Diva on January 30, 2010 - 1:31 pm
and when it’s bad, it’s worse!
As a Pagan, I was really turned off by all the Christian ideology and preaching found in the book, BUT because it had some good, solid information, I bought it anyway. I also was quite offended how the author states towards the end about using “Biblical Discipline” and spells out “S-P-A-N-K-I-N-G”. Ummm… excuse me, lady, but corporal punishment is O-U-T!
As a mother, I liked how the author spoke in her own words and expressed herself, and admitted her own faults. We all have them. I really tried to like the book, but I found myself glossing over so much crap and fluff, especially the repeated references to order from Bob Jones University! ROFL! ROFL! ROFL!
The Ultimate? Hardly!
Rating: 2 / 5
#2 by Anonymous on January 30, 2010 - 1:57 pm
As soon as this author revealed that she thought creationism was science, I knew I would have trouble with this book. In spite of some quite helpful information for beginning homeschoolers, I found myself feeling leary of her curriculum references. Anybody who raves about curriculum materials put out by Bob Jones University is automatically a bit suspect. I kept encountering statements such as “I have not found any positions that conflict with our (Christian) beliefs.” Was this the royal “our”? As a Christian of a different persuasion, I found such remarks out-of-place and presumptuous. If you dislike religious indoctrination you would likely find a different homeschooling book to be more helpful and certainly less annoying.
Rating: 2 / 5
#3 by Sebastiano on January 30, 2010 - 2:54 pm
This book should have been called: ‘The ultimate guide to christian homeschooling’.
I have nothing against educating your children with one perspective, or another: but please, make it clear in the title when the approach is focusing in one direction only. I am offended by the lack of consideration that the author has for any religion or belief other than the christian.
Just a few excerpts. Talking about science “I have not found any positions that conflict with our beliefs”. Whose beliefs? If the book is directed to a precise christian sect, state so on the cover page.
I found this comment in a chapter devoted to teaching history, where the author talks about the fact that christian missionaries did not get to Asia ‘in time’: “We also saw the dramatic repercussion from missed opportunities. [...] the emperor of China had asked Marco Polo to bring priests to explain Christianity to him [...]. But the missionaries were frightened away [...]. [...] Shortly after that Buddhism appeared, the emperor converted, and the religion spread throughout the continent.” What does the author mean? That the appearance and spread of Buddhism are a “dramatic repercussion”, or an unfortunate event?
I wonder how tolerant of other people her children are, if every other religion is seen as a dramatic repercussion of the absence of christian missionaries. Does she wish that ‘christian missionaries’ had given the same fate to Asian people they gave to Native Americans and pre-Colombian civilizations: exterminating them?
One last example: the author advises participating in a “Worldview Academy Leadership Camp”, “designed to equip [notice the subtle term substitution for 'indoctrinate'] teens with a Christian world view. The camp focuses on three spheres: world views, apologetics (defense of faith) and evangelism, and leadership.” It reminds me a lot of the merry get-togethers of the KKK. I dare wondering what the author, considering her approach to other religions, thinks of Jews, or Muslims.
Ultimately, I think the title of this book is misleading, and the author’s approach to the subject of homeschooling is shortsighted and ignorant (how can you consider entire civilizations “dramatic repercussions” of lack of christianity?). This book is, at best, a manual for the religious fundamentalists on how to indoctrinate their children: a crash course on how to raise intolerant children, therefore potential intolerant adults.
Sebastiano Cossia Castiglioni ([...]), New York, USA
Rating: 1 / 5
#4 by Anonymous on January 30, 2010 - 4:15 pm
I want to agree with the one other reviewer who was misled by the title. I bought the book thinking it would be a well rounded factual book as the title and cover bullets described. The constant (as in practically every paragraph) references to Jesus, Christianity, and Christian values made it impossible for me to get the information I was looking for. The last straw was this statement from the book: “I don’t know about you, but something in my heart of hearts tells me it is more than coincidental that the homeschool movement has been birthed in a generation run amuck with legalized abortion. As in the time of Moses and in the time of Christ as well, the wholesale slaughter of innocence has provoked a mighty response from God.” P-LEASE! Anyway, if this statement doesn’t bother you then by all means buy the book. As for me, I’m returning it right away!
Rating: 1 / 5
#5 by Anonymous on January 30, 2010 - 4:58 pm
We’re seriously considering homeschooling our son, and I’ve been reading every book about homeschooling that I can lay hands on. This book looked terrific — but I couldn’t get through it. There is no indication on the front or back covers that the author’s approach is infused with fundamentalist Christianity, but the book was so chock full of it that despite my best attempts to winnow out some useful nuggets of information, I ended up throwing it down in disgust.
Some examples: “It’s been my experience that families who elect to home-educate meet with varying degrees of success. But that success has little to do with teaching certificates or college degrees. Rather, it has a lot to do with Christian character.”
“Our conviction [to homeschool] must be born out of prayer, study of God’s word, and godly counsel.”
“When you are discouraged or unmotivated . . . Find a mature Christian woman who is obviously succeeding with her children and ask her advice.”
“Toddlers are in desperate need of training if they are to grow up to bow their knee to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.”
“. . . often the heartaches we face with our reluctant learners are rooted in the undealt-with sin in their lives. When I discern that sin is the root of resistence in one of our kids, I don’t sugarcoat the truth by dreaming up fun and games to entice them into cooperating. . . [my daughter] wants to please us and to please the Lord. She also knew we would follow through with discipline if she continued to disregard her schoolwork.”
I suppose if you’re already attuned that way, this book might be useful, but for the rest of us, it’s most emphatically not!
Rating: 1 / 5