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The cost of Gothard and ATI


homeschoolmomma1

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I thought the whole point of the Wisdom Booklets was that they were "unit studies" that would teach you everything?? I mean, obviously, parents who are homeschooling to give their kids and education would need more than that, but some people do it for religious indoctrination only, so I could see them just going with the WBs and not doing anything else, which is sad.

IIRC, there are 5 "units" in each booklet, which are something like: history, language arts, math, law and medicine. They are all tied together with a bible verse or series of verses. I have a friend who was taught from the wisdom booklets when he was young, so he told me a bit about how they work. I think it's supposed to take 2-3 years to go through each set of booklets, at which point you start them over again with different, more age-appropriate exercises. From reading through one of them online, it looked like a series of Sunday school worksheets put together (but a bit more rigorous). I got the impression it was much more important to learn the bible verses and "character lessons" than the factual information provided. Until they had the opportunity to pimp out Switched-on Schoolhouse, I'm pretty sure the Duggars used the ATI curriculum exclusively.

I think those are some reasons that it doesn't make sense to compare the ATI curriculum to other private or homeschool curricula. I know many people who homeschool expect that their kids will be able to take standardized tests (and do well) so that they will be able to get into good colleges or pursue higher education opportunities, and I don't get that expectation with ATI. Certainly the science education is sorely lacking, and I doubt the math portion goes beyond basic geometry (if that far). I'd be surprised if they had to do research or analytical papers, learn foreign languages or any of the other things that most states require kids to have been exposed to by the time they graduate high school.

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Yikes, can you imagine how much this would cost? And those are just the start-up bills, not the ongoing stuff. When Duggar was buying used underwear for his kids, he was giving some stranger thousands just to be a card-carrying patriarch. I can't imagine how normal fundie families, like that lady who stores her daughters on Costco shelving instead of giving them beds, can afford this.

Link or background knowledge on this lady? That can't be comfortable at all....

Also, what does ATI teach outside of homeschooling curriculum? I just had a friend on facebook who attends Mt Vernon Nazarene for nursing put a status update about working on her ATI stuff, and I have no idea what she could be doing.

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Link or background knowledge on this lady? That can't be comfortable at all....

Also, what does ATI teach outside of homeschooling curriculum? I just had a friend on facebook who attends Mt Vernon Nazarene for nursing put a status update about working on her ATI stuff, and I have no idea what she could be doing.

inashoe.com/2010/09/4-moms-open-house-linky-bedrooms-part-2/

The shelves are just as wide as the bunks on a navy ship! And strips of memory foam make great mattresses. They just LOVE the beds...stacked 4 high they each have a perfectly adequate amount of personal space, really :roll:

As far as your friend, I'm not sure what she'd be working on unless she is attending a Journey to the Heart or some other kind of conference. I'm sure there are all kinds of requirements and applications before you're allowed to attend.

Oh, and apparently the Duggars are not the only ones who believe that a pack-n-play is the perfect answer to toddler beds:

Parker's little bed is next to the mirror. We kicked the crib habit long ago. He'll sleep in this travel bed until it's too small or he is big enough to pull himself up, and then we'll break out the pack-n-play.

The "travel bed" is more like what I would consider a pram. It may even have wheels on it. I can understand doing what you need to do with limited space, but to be so proud and happy that your kids are living that way...the mind kind of boggles :shock:

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Larger families will not need to pay more than a total of $630. (so each kid doesn't even get thier own book? share?)

I'm not sure about ATI but some home education companies have a maximum amount that they will take from one family and will eat the cost of materials over that.

My kids would be over the $630 total for ATI if we used it. I spend $100-$150 each year. I don't know how ATI families can afford it!

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Guest Anonymous

The TRUE cost of ATI's curricula is not in the money shelled out for the materials, conferences and other junk they peddle. Even if it proves to be cheaper than real middle school, high school or college the users are paying for it in other ways. What costs is the inadequacy of the "education" (used in the loosest sense of the word) derived from their materials. Basically unless you spend additional money on REAL schooling, the only place you can use ATI's schooling is-TA DA!-another ATI institution.

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Jesus! They were stacked like sailors in WWII. You can't even sit up on those beds. Thank God I don't live on a fundie farm.

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Link or background knowledge on this lady? That can't be comfortable at all....

Also, what does ATI teach outside of homeschooling curriculum? I just had a friend on facebook who attends Mt Vernon Nazarene for nursing put a status update about working on her ATI stuff, and I have no idea what she could be doing.

ATI is also the initials of a testing program for RN's. Not related to fundies.

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Guest Anonymous

inashoe.com/2010/09/4-moms-open-house-linky-bedrooms-part-2/

The shelves are just as wide as the bunks on a navy ship! And strips of memory foam make great mattresses. They just LOVE the beds...stacked 4 high they each have a perfectly adequate amount of personal space, really :roll:

It's disturbing how many people LOVE the "beds" :( :?

I've never even had to share a bedroom..

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inashoe.com/2010/09/4-moms-open-house-linky-bedrooms-part-2/

The shelves are just as wide as the bunks on a navy ship! And strips of memory foam make great mattresses. They just LOVE the beds...stacked 4 high they each have a perfectly adequate amount of personal space, really :roll:

As far as your friend, I'm not sure what she'd be working on unless she is attending a Journey to the Heart or some other kind of conference. I'm sure there are all kinds of requirements and applications before you're allowed to attend.

Oh, and apparently the Duggars are not the only ones who believe that a pack-n-play is the perfect answer to toddler beds:

The "travel bed" is more like what I would consider a pram. It may even have wheels on it. I can understand doing what you need to do with limited space, but to be so proud and happy that your kids are living that way...the mind kind of boggles :shock:

Holy cow! I can feel the claustrophobia kicking in just looking at those photos. Sadly, this reminds me of the bunking arrangements I used to see in military housing. I've encountered lots of military folks(mostly mormon but some QF) with big families and some of them are in small houses with children stashed in every conceivable space. I once had to do a home visit for work where one of the children made her bed in the floor of a closet every night, and they kept a baby in the bottom compartment of a china hutch.

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How do families like the Bates (the Duggars buddy family) afford that and everything else. If you are rich and/or have a reality show then I guess it's no bother to shell out that much money. However, what about those poor patriarchs that must work meager jobs for low wages?

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The sight of those beds really angers me for some reason. Maybe it's because they demonstrate so well the contradiction of qf/militant fecundity/etc. On one hand these people resist the "institutionalization" of public school, the way public school churns out children like factory parts; but then they turn around and have so many children they can only manage them by treating them like soldiers or cogs in a machine. They become the very thing they claim to resist.

Similarly with education--they claim that homeschooling is based on the tutorial model, the Cadillac of educational models, so much better than one teacher trying to educate/manage a large group of students. But then they turn around and have so many kids, there's no way in hell they can educate each of them with a tutorial model. Unless of course they practice enforced child labor. I'll pass on that Cadillac, thank you very much!

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Good homeschooling is an amazing experience for both the parents and the children. But it's hard to see how a parent could be doing it well in these situations, with no money, no space, a crappy teacher:child ratio, and substandard curriculum like that of ATI.

When we homeschooled, we used a charter school in Washington state called Columbia Virtual Academy. In exchange for checking in weekly via email with a teacher and having my kids tested once a year (which is required here anyway), we were given an expense account of $1200 per child that could be spent on lessons, museum admissions, curriculum, and educational toys throughout the year. They are very lenient; I have a friend who unschools and is on the program, but you cannot use the money or official school time on religious materials. A lot of fundies I knew were against it but we were able to buy so much stuff! Lego Robotix kits and Rosetta Stone language programs, etc, are super expensive.

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