A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste

[Burris]

There's always something snark-worthy going on at The Legacy of Home blog, where 'Mrs. White' shares her thoughts on how to achieve domestic perfection.

Her blog falls squarely into what I would categorize as the “Sanctimonious Christian Mommy†genre – right down to her choice of handle.

On May 25, 2011, Mrs. White reviewed a science curriculum called “Considering God's Creation†for her blog (thelegacyofhome.blogspot.com/2011/05/considering-gods-creation-review.html). She ended up giving this series high marks because it permits her to “teach†science to her son even while continuing to indulge in her own hatred of the subject.

She begins her review with this charming comment:

I don't particularly like Science. I don't like messy experiments and I don't like thinking about cells, molecules or any other terms that are foreign to my daily life.

Yes, that's right: Mrs. White doesn't like science because thinking about it is icky and gross, and what has it ever done for her daily life? Nothing; that's what!

And that's why she likes this curriculum:

The Student Notebook is full of tear-out pages for the student to complete. You'll find easy instructions, things for them to color, label and tape. It is mostly about creating a notebook!

Talk about damning something with faint praise.

The Teacher's Manual has a variety of suggestions. I can share the Bible section, the review, the introduction, the vocabulary words and can ignore the "digging deeper" part if I want.

A few years ago, my brother bought me a set of DVDs called 'Planet Earth.' My husband and I watched them together and we really enjoyed them. A few months after we went through the videos, we visited the Calgary Zoo and got to see some of the animals we had learned about from the series.

It is during these times, more than any other, that hubby and I most keenly feel the sting our apparent inability to produce children: We would love for them to explore new things about the incredible, complex world which God has made.

I suspect a lot of homeschoolers, including the secular ones, probably feel a similar way about exposing their children to the wonders of science.

Mrs. White is an exception:

I tore out 2 pages from the solar system. [son] (13) had to color in the planets according to a color code. Then he cut them out, glued each one, then attached string. Finally, he taped them all in their respective spots onto another piece of paper. When he was finished, we were able to hold the paper upside down and he could see all the moving planets!

While he worked, I was able to leisurely rest and read from the Teacher's Manual. We talked about the sun, the moon, the stars and I sang "The Planet Song," which I learned when I was a child.

There you have it. That's how Mrs. White explored the solar system with her 13-year-old son.

Of all the things we snark on here at FJ, this this is one of the more tragic: A front-row seat to the real-time destruction of a child's curiosity and imagination – and that, merely because his incurious, anti-intellectual mother is theologically hostile towards science.

There were Bible references which I looked up and read to him. Now that is my kind of lesson!!

A lot of people here would disagree with me in my belief the Bible is one of the most fantastic and beautiful pieces of literature ever to emerge from the collective effort of human-kind. And I probably would introduce a few Bible quotes into a science lesson, not to contradict modern discoveries such as evolution, but merely to demonstrate how our ancestors were moved to look at their world: Our understanding of the world has increased since Bible times, but that should in no way diminish our awe.

Last summer, my husband I were moved by a sight: It was dark, and there were stars – some alone and others gathered into great belts across the sky. There was a body of water ahead of us, dark and still. A mist hovered over the face of the water, and I quoted Genesis: “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.â€

It's a tragedy – a genuine cause for sadness – when parents strip their children of that wonder for any reason. It's even worse, however, when parents do such a terrible thing in the name of the God they say created everything.

[bbfreethinker]

Wait, her son is 13! That planet activity sounds like something a preschooler might do.

[QueenNocturne]

Wait, her son is 13! That planet activity sounds like something a preschooler might do.

Exactly!!! That sounds like a fun project for a young child who is just starting to learn about the solar system.

When I was 13, in the ebil public school system, I studied a helluva lot more in astronomy than what her son is doing.

[GenerationCedarchip]

That sounds just plain awful. I hadn't seen that post, but whenever I wander into that blog, I tend to find it incredibly cringeworthy. Sometimes it's the sanctimonious ignorance and sometimes it's the guilt trip she tries to lay on readers. My favorite in recent memory: Wives shouldn't nag their husbands because husbands have their own agendas and we need to learn to go along with them. After all, women who get to marry princes and powerful generals get to be part of something big and Mrs. White imagines they would never dream of nagging. I swear I'm not making this up!

[Burris]

That sounds just plain awful. I hadn't seen that post, but whenever I wander into that blog, I tend to find it incredibly cringeworthy. Sometimes it's the sanctimonious ignorance and sometimes it's the guilt trip she tries to lay on readers. My favorite in recent memory: Wives shouldn't nag their husbands because husbands have their own agendas and we need to learn to go along with them. After all, women who get to marry princes and powerful generals get to be part of something big and Mrs. White imagines they would never dream of nagging. I swear I'm not making this up!

Yeah: I saw that a laughed - especially at the part where she claims most men don't nag.

Her invoking Grace Kelly was especially funny.

[duplessis3]

Why does a 13 yr old need her to read aloud to him? This is all so discouraging.

[AmyP]

Oh she is craaaazy!!! I love the one where she waxes on about how she is so happy at home, so content, and never likes to leave the house. She goes on to ask if she even needs a drivers license, and carries that thought process along by challenging the idea that any woman needs a drivers license!! Several astute readers pointed out that they, in fact, like to leave the house. Other readers correctly mentioned that a woman who can't even drive herself or her child to the doctor is actually a burden on those around her. Nuts nuts nuts. I actually think she makes up most of the stuff she writes. I have thought for a long time that she lives out a fantasy life in her blog, that is pretty different from her real life.

[browngrl]

Her blog is a gold mine of wackiness. Here is a quote from her homeschooling adventures (from June 28 2010).

"We did not keep track of credits earned in each subject. In my school, there was no such thing as 4 credits of English, 4 credits of Math, etc. We simply never bothered. Frankly, I never imagined my girls were going to college in the first place. My plan was for them to finish their education with me, and hopefully, marry and become homemakers like their Mother."

[AmyP]

Her blog is a gold mine of wackiness. Here is a quote from her homeschooling adventures (from June 28 2010).

"We did not keep track of credits earned in each subject. In my school, there was no such thing as 4 credits of English, 4 credits of Math, etc. We simply never bothered. Frankly, I never imagined my girls were going to college in the first place. My plan was for them to finish their education with me, and hopefully, marry and become homemakers like their Mother."

I haven't read there in a while, but I didn't get the impression that her daughters felt the same way.

[Kitty]

Why does a 13 yr old need her to read aloud to him? This is all so discouraging.

I really hope she mis-typed and meant to say he was 3.

[BoomerLynn]

Those pesky cells and molecules! They don't apply to daily life at all......unless of course you go to the doctor and need bloodwork or other testing done, or the correct medications prescribed for a particular illness, and of course proper treatment if you happen to be diagnosed with some type of disease (not to mention proper diagnosis of said disease!). She comes across to me as just too damn lazy to actually teach her kids.

[Creaky Mom]

Oh, thought this thread title was in reference to the sorry plight of Bathroom Baby.

[devilsadvocate]

It makes me sad how many people out there are ignorant about science. I see it as a big problem among people in general, not just fundies. Scientific literacy is important nowadays to understand a lot of political and social issues. In daily life, understanding biology makes you a more intelligent patient if you ever have a health problem, understanding chemistry makes you a better cook, etc.

A few years ago, my brother bought me a set of DVDs called 'Planet Earth.' My husband and I watched them together and we really enjoyed them. A few months after we went through the videos, we visited the Calgary Zoo and got to see some of the animals we had learned about from the series.

It is during these times, more than any other, that hubby and I most keenly feel the sting our apparent inability to produce children: We would love for them to explore new things about the incredible, complex world which God has made.

I don't know what your situation is, but I hope that if you're not able to have biological children that things work out so that you are able to adopt or do something like get involved in an organization like Big Brothers / Big Sisters with a kid who would love to learn about these things. I definitely am thankful to the adults in my life who taught me to enjoy science and to be curious about the world. An interest in science has helped in many ways through life. I feel there are not enough adults out there who know or enjoy science as it is, so that's why I would love to see someone like you helping the upcoming generation learn to love it even if it turns out that it's not a biological child.

[NurseNell]

What's with Mrs. White and Mr. White? I don't think I've seen any other bloggers who don't use their first name. It seems very odd.

[mnb357]

Molecules foreign to her? If she's a homemaker worth her salt, (that'd be NaCl, btw, not that she cares,) she uses chemistry every day! At least, she does if she cleans her house, cooks, or does laundry. Idiot woman. And her comment about figuring her daughter wouldn't go to college? Seriously? She's the type of person who needs a nice, sophisticated woman to blow an exasperated sigh of cigarette smoke laced with Boodles gin in her face when she utters such horseshit. Gin and Eve cigarettes smell better than her crap coming from her mouth.

[FemaleScientist]

I think I just died a bit inside. No no no... any schooling, whether it's science, grammar, history, art... all of it is important. I feel so bad for that kid (and her daughters!).

There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a natural curiosity for the world. NOTHING. Whether you see it as a world a higher being created or not. Just because YOU hate science doesn't mean that you should deprive that of your children if they enjoy it. What are you going to do about math? HORRIBLE teacher. Knowledge is a damn virtue.

[Extricated]

No. Just no.

Some of our kids are also using a Christian curriculum to learn those same sciences over the next 2 years. While it is Christian curriculum it does present other ideas with "We believe abc because _______, while other people believe xyz because _______." It also doesn't cover it all in "only 384 pages" because that would leave so much out! Squinting at the sample pages on the curriculum website I can't think that any child would find it interesting. My kids activities are more advanced than what her 13 year old put together, including writing about how the progression of scientific knowledge on each subject came about, building scale models, making observations, and doing experiments. We also take them to exhibits and presentations to learn from scientists, zoologists, etc. so that they can ask questions and get further knowledge from them. Our kids are 5, 7, and 8 years old, not teens. I do read their science text to them but only to keep them from fighting over whose turn it is to have it first. I can't imagine using what we're using now for a teenager unless they had significant delays. That poor boy! Science is so important to understanding the world around you.

I was raised fundy and my parents had no plans on any of us girls going to college but our mother still kept track of our highschool credits. It's an easy way to make sure that proper amounts of each subject are being covered and to show relatives that were unhappy with them keeping us home.

I'm all for laid back homeschooling but this woman's methods give all of us homeschoolers a bad name. Her kids are going to have a lot of work ahead of them as adults.

[Lillybee]

I feel so sorry for those kids.The picture of that 13 year old boy shows that he appears to be very unhappy.

Science is not my strenght as I am a squishy liberal arts person, but my children learned to respect science and I have a hydro-geologist, a chemist and an almost RN.

[margiebargie]

Some of our kids are also using a Christian curriculum to learn those same sciences over the next 2 years. While it is Christian curriculum it does present other ideas with "We believe abc because _______, while other people believe xyz because _______."

Er...science really isn't about what you believe. It's about what you can demonstrate. I believe I am the greatest genius in the world today, but nobody believes me because I haven't been able to demonstrate it....yet.

I do agree that Mrs. White is doing her 13yo son a disservice. For some reason, I keep thinking of that Adam Sandler movie where the mom told her son, "They're all gonna laugh at you.". And it kept echoing in his mind throughout the movie.

[FuManchu]

That's all rather depressing. For a 13-year-old to be given a colouring-in exercise because his mother, by her own admission, can't be bothered with the details of a subject is precisely why schools were invented.

Her children look pretty normal in their pictures, though - perhaps because her obsession doesn't extend to silly clothing?

[Shirley MacLaine]

Whoa. Bleak.

[Doomed Harlottt]

Holy shit. The kid looks like he's ready to start shaving -- and she has him doing crafts and singing the Planet Song as his science lesson????

[apple1]

...science really isn't about what you believe. It's about what you can demonstrate...

THAT.

That said, there ARE probably way too many textbooks with too much of "what someone believes" and too little teaching about what can be demonstrated, how it can be demonstrated, how to figure out how to demonstrate things... you get the drift.

And the too little of what can be demonstrated often has huge impact on people's everyday lives.

Example (and I don't want to fight about the exceptions to the general rule for which it still is the better choice): The many-years pushing of HRT on women as good for one's heart, then "suddenly", that is not only debunked but it is demonstrated to be generally harmful.

Oh, and the ability to see through the whole demonstration thing might just be a big part of what many Christians call the gift of "discernment".

Signed: Clinical laboratory scientist.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Here's a Daily Show clip she's like:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-o ... -it-up-to-

[Sola]

A science lesson for a 13 year old is colouring? COLOURING?

When my son was 13 a science lesson at his school involved him blowing things up. It was 'neat', apparently.