Duggars invited to be keynote speakers

[foreign fundie]

We have moved a lot and my kids have been to school in different countries. If possible we go for local schools as it helps with language and intergration. Once our only option was an international school, which turned out to be pretty fundie. After a while we changed to homeschooling. Even though we are Christians ourselves, the intensity of religious education and the Bible bootcamps were more than we bargained for. Hard to pinpoint, but it creeped me out.

Now we moved and the kids are back in local school. 

[DuggarWatch]

Ugh, as if I wasn't surrounded by ignorant hicks enough as it is, these people have to come to my beautiful province and sully it with their outdated and abusive ideals on homeschooling. I feel so dirty.

This is what the AHEA posted on its website:

"October 29, 2015:

"AHEA is aware of recent media stories and comments on the Duggar family.

"AHEA values the feedback from those within the Alberta home education community and from others also.

"We are currently reviewing our speaker arrangements for the 2016 convention and we expect to make a decision early next week."

If you want to send an email, the president posted his personal email address at the bottom of this page: http://www.aheaonline.com/index.php/component/content/article/137-convention-2016/509-keynote-speakers-2016-affirmation

 

[treehugger]

Singsingsing, I love your avatar  It is nice having a PM who is easy on the eyes.  

 

To the topic at hand, I am disgusted that AHEA is even considering the Duggars.  Disgusted, but not surprised.  I've lived in rural Alberta for 4 years now - and occasionally I feel a little trapped in some sort of Conservative hell-hole.  

[Lyle Lanley]

The Maxwells used to do speaking engagements throughout Canada. I'm not surprised that a group would get the Duggars to speak at a conference.

[MrsYoungie]

The Duggars have never been to Canada.  I'd love them to come and see our health care in action.  Even in our most conservative areas, like Alberta, nobody wants to risk losing our universal medicare.

[Cleopatra7]

The Maxwells used to do speaking engagements throughout Canada. I'm not surprised that a group would get the Duggars to speak at a conference.

As messed up as the Maxwell family dynamics are, there has not been incest or molestation, to our knowledge at least. The Duggars have not only admitted covering up incest and molestation, but aggressively sought to deny others civil rights by using their supposedly "godliness" as a weapon. They have not and were never role models and should not be treated as such by a conference supposedly dedicated to home "education."

[Kittikatz]

I have to confess to living in relative proximity to this impending clusterf#ck. I'm also a home school survivor who experienced molestation by a family member when I was five years old, so importing this level of crazy really vexed me. I wound up sending an email to the people planning this event explaining my dismay as at their choice of speakers and pointing out that the Duggars were failures as educators and parents (based on their use of a cult based curriculum, the fact that few of their adult children had obtained educational credentials or appeared able to be self sufficient). I provided links, and explained how the Duggars had handled the molestation in their family and provided copies of the redacted police reports so they could see source materials for themselves. I also cc'd the editors of all the major news papers, the CBC and the Minister of Education. I don't know that it will do any good, but worth a shot. 

If the Duggars do show up, part of me hopes they open their big gobs in their usual fashion and someone brings them up for hate speech (Canada doesn't have full freedom of speech http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/canadas-law-on-hate-speech-is-the-embodiment-of-compromise/article22520419/, ) but that would probably just give these bigoted idiots a new platform to whinge about persecution of Christians... Sigh

[Bad Wolf]

@ kittikatz.  Well said.

[nst]

my dearest friend in the world homeschooled her kids - which was a joke because she actually worked outside the house all day - so now they go to regular school 

 

HAD & BSDD Day  

 

[Lyle Lanley]

As messed up as the Maxwell family dynamics are, there has not been incest or molestation, to our knowledge at least. The Duggars have not only admitted covering up incest and molestation, but aggressively sought to deny others civil rights by using their supposedly "godliness" as a weapon. They have not and were never role models and should not be treated as such by a conference supposedly dedicated to home "education."

Which is fair. However people are acting like this is the first time Canada has allowed fundamentalists in or people that speak out against so-called Canadian values. People are let in all the time for speaking engagements who are questionable at best and no one bemoans it. The only difference here is the Duggars are fully in the public spotlight as D-list stars. 

I get the hand wringing, but it should extend to all the fundamentalists that go north to preach their values. Not just the Duggars. 

[CreationMuseumSeasonPass]

Pickles just posted on Facebook about the AHEA canceling the Duggars at their Alberta conference.

[Kittikatz]

Hurrah!! 

The Duggars have been removed from theconference!

Happy dancing all around the Katz house 

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ishmaeldaro/michelle-and-jim-bob-duggar-alberta-homeschooling-convention#.st15ExBdR

[Bad Wolf]

  

[3BluBs]

Per Pickles via duggars.tumblr, they've been uninvited and will no longer be attending.

[Flyinthesoup]

Happy dancing here, too!  Breathing a sigh of great relief!!!!!!  

[doggie]

persecution everyone hates us cause we are christian. nope only because you are assholes.

[foreign fundie]

Still it is a little sad that people get invited and uninvited based on public interest and opinion rather than based on their merit or lack thereof.

[doggie]

The duggers get invited because of fame not merit. They draw bigger crowds. But now they are becoming has beens and their Christianity shell has dents.

[singsingsing]

 Front page of CBC news. Coincidence? Hmmmm.... he took one look at that hair and said, "Not in my country."

[notfundy]

I am so very glad about this; there's a little discussion about it in the Duggar general thread as well and I just wanted to post here that I am so pleased that the wider public is beginning to realize that there is nothing to see here - nothing to emulate - nothing to listen to.  NOTHING.  They have NOTHING to offer.

And I hope that the specials, the potential new courtships, weddings, spawn, etc. will do NOTHING to bring their "brand" back into favor.  It's dangerous, especially to women and children.  

[tralala]

So happy to hear that its been cancelled. It seems the organization has listened to its own members about the decision to cancel. There's plenty of people who are christian homeschoolers who can see the toxicity from a mile a way and want no more to do with it. I appreciate that

[JoyfullyUnavailable]

Well done AHEA! I'm especially pleased that there will a speaker scheduled about preventing child abuse. It would be counterintuitive to have such speaker AND the Duggar's.  

I'm going to lie, I was contiplating making the trek to Red Deer, which is only a 1.5 hour drive from my city, to see the Duggar trainwreck and in hopes of a Q&A session. However, the other part of me would never want to attend any event that supports the Duggar's or what they stand for, I'm also not into being preached. I'm actually relieved now that I do not need to make this decision to go or not.

[Kittikatz]

I was pleasantly surprised to receive a response to my letter from the AHEA. It was a very polite mass mail out type thing thanking for feedback and confirming their decision, so there must have been a lot of upset people who wrote in. Impressed that this group is handling this in such a classy way. Good job AHEA!

[LadyBlue]

I'm really happy to hear this news! I'm sure all my fellow secular homeschoolers here are breathing a huge sigh of relief.

For the person who was asking what reasons there are to homeschool, besides religion, in our case it's because my eldest has extreme anxiety and has had from a very young age (he was diagnosed when he was 5). He was utterly terrified and I just couldn't make myself force him to go.

My next son went to kindergarten for a few months, but it wasn't really working for us. We're trying to get him assessed at the moment (which means he's enrolled in school online) because he's having a lot of issues.The next one went to kindergarten for the full year, but was really miserable and it was a huge fight. Since I was already homeschooling the other 2, I didn't see any point in fighting with him to go back. My youngest is only 3, so we'll see what happens with him.

[notfundy]

I'm really happy to hear this news! I'm sure all my fellow secular homeschoolers here are breathing a huge sigh of relief.

For the person who was asking what reasons there are to homeschool, besides religion, in our case it's because my eldest has extreme anxiety and has had from a very young age (he was diagnosed when he was 5). He was utterly terrified and I just couldn't make myself force him to go.

My next son went to kindergarten for a few months, but it wasn't really working for us. We're trying to get him assessed at the moment (which means he's enrolled in school online) because he's having a lot of issues.The next one went to kindergarten for the full year, but was really miserable and it was a huge fight. Since I was already homeschooling the other 2, I didn't see any point in fighting with him to go back. My youngest is only 3, so we'll see what happens with him.

Totally understandable, and I just wanted to say I admire you a whole lot.  Mine are grown now, but there are times I wish I would have home-schooled them.  They're fine, but the older one especially was a sort of "square-peg-in-a-round-hole" type (or is it the other way around) and I think he would have been better served outside of the school system.....