...and apparently the fundie.

(For me, this topic holds particular interest (and even in that sentence, I'm showing more curiosity than the Maxwells\Duggars ever have) because I live and breathe information.  I love to read and I love to learn; without these things - and the means\ability to create something from said information - I would probably lose my mind.)

Curiosity.  It defines the lives of quite a lot of us here at FJ, I believe, which explains why a recurring topic on the forum is the issue of the complete lack of curiosity shown by various fundie broods.

The answer is, of course, on the one hand partly the effects of SODRT, and on the other hand, the effect of indoctrination.  Their sorry excuse for education doesn't teach critical thinking in any area, and we know from various incidences that curiosity is not reward or encouraged (Jim Bob and the moss question, anyway?  the Maxwells and the caves?).  No critical thinking does mean that there is a limit to what the 'children' of these families can do with the knowledge they have, so I am not blaming them for being stunted.  No, we know that their lack of skills is due to their parents, in most cases.

Having said that, my purpose here isn't to apportion blame.  My purpose is to wonder....how on earth do they do it?!  I mean, in general we aren't talking about completely sheltered kids here: both the Maxwell and Duggar families travel extensively around the country.

Let me illustrate things:  I'm finishing up my second book on Elizabeth I because my curiosity was piqued after I read an offhand comment mentioning her in another book on a completely different subject (ancient Greece, most likely).  I've just discovered an interest in a certain branch of chemistry that I didn't know I had through watching NCIS, of all things.

You can probably guess my point.  If I can come up with something that draws my attention from a TV programme, how can these families go to all kinds of different places - JAPAN, FOR GOODNESS' SAKE!  CHINA!  ISRAEL! - and not betray even the slightest hint of curiosity?  The Duggars visited the supposed birthplace of their religion, and all it drew from the four eldest Duggar children were smiles.  Smiles.  I'm hardly a hardcore religious type, myself, but to see the site for myself would merit more than a smile!

How on earth do they do it?  We know that a lot of the families use blanket training and corporal punishment as deterrents for when their 'blessings' do something they deem unacceptable - could this be the way things start?  Anybody who knows anything about babies knows that curiosity and the drive to explore their environment starts at the point in time when they ARE babies.  Blanket training - teaching babies to sit on a small blanket and not stir - stifles that completely natural urge, and I am beginning to suspect that stifling this urge is the first real step in stifling any and all intellectual curiosity.

If that's step one, what is step two?

A poor education, I think, is step two.  SODRT, as mentioned, doesn't stress critical thinking in any way.  It also doesn't teach much in the way of history; literature; social studies; religious education (duh - we can't have people asking questions now, can we?!); chemistry; biology, human and otherwise; physics; drama; languages and so on and so forth.  After all, if I hadn't known about Elizabeth I, I would never have been pushed into reading about her - that mention of her would have meant nothing to me without the basic knowledge of provided by my history classes at school.

These two steps - stifling natural curiosity right from the very start of life, and then not teaching children the subjects or tools they would need to develop curiosity later in life - have made all the children in the prominent fundie families we follow quite ignorant about the world around them.  It is a real shame, because (and I realise that this is just my personal opinion) when it comes to discoveries and new information and learning, it is a wonderful time to be alive!

Thinking that, it makes me so sad to see all these kids (adult and otherwise) with absolutely no clue as to the wonders they are missing out on.  To see a child's natural curiosity in action is, to me, a wonderful thing; to see the enormous amount of wasted potential in the Duggar and Maxwell families (to name just two) is terrible!

Jim Bob is on record as saying that one of his kids could be the person who discovers a cure for cancer.  And you know what the sad thing is?  The sad thing is that maybe, if they had had access to a proper education, and had their curiosity indulged and nurtured, that might have been true.