"no longer quivering"

[Liberal_in_LA]

http://www.alternet.org/education/barely-literate-how-christian-fundamentalist-homeschooling-hurts-kids

I fell out of touch with my homeschooled friends as we grew older, a few years ago, I reconnected with a few ex-Quiverfull peers on a new support blog called No Longer Quivering. Poring over their stories, I was shocked to find so many tales of gross educational neglect. I don’t merely mean that they had received what I now view as an overly politicized education with huge gaps, for example, in American history, evolution or sexuality. Rather, what disturbed me were the many stories about homeschoolers who were barely literate when they graduated, or whose math and science education had never extended much past middle school. 

Take Vyckie Garrison, an ex-Quiverfull mother of seven who, in 2008, enrolled her six school-age children in public school after 18 years of teaching them at home. Garrison, who started the No Longer Quivering blog, says her near-constant pregnancies – which tended to result either in miscarriages or life-threatening deliveries – took a toll on her body and depleted her energy. She wasn’t able to devote enough time and energy to homeschooling to ensure a quality education for each child. And she says the lack of regulation in Nebraska, where the family lived, “allowed us to get away with some really shoddy homeschooling for a lot of years.”  

“I’ll admit it,” she confesses. “Because I was so overwhelmed with my life… It was a real struggle to do the basics, so it didn’t take long for my kids to fall far behind. One of my daughters could not read at 11 years old.” 

At the time, Garrison was taking parenting advice from Quiverfull leaders who deemphasized academic achievement in favor of family values. She remembers one Quiverfull leader saying, “If they can do mathematics perfectly but they have no morals, you have failed them.” 

[Warpy]

1. No morals = being kept constantly pregnant in an overpopulated world

Good for Garrison for kicking the whole business to the curb and by helping other women do the same through her strength and experience.

[XemaSab]

2. Vyckie is a selfish idiot

n/t

[SheilaT]

3. Don't you think her husband might have just

a smidgeon of responsibility also?

I'm not defending her continuing to home school when she could tell she wasn't doing right by her kids, but somehow I think the father of those kids is also at fault.

[Skittles]

4. the comment regards who was quoted in the article

[SheilaT]

5. Yeah, Vyckie, the quiverfull home schooler.

She didn't have all those kids without some sort of, shall I say input? And I'm suspecting the person responsible for those pregnancies was also around, so yeah, Vyckie is an idiot but so is her husband.

The comment reminds me of how all too often single mothers are demonized as if they somehow magically got pregnant all by themselves. Or that the women who have abortions also somehow magically got pregnant without outside help.

Let's start holding men responsible for what they cause. Without them, and I know this sounds a bit odd, women wouldn't get pregnant in the first place.

[Skittles]

6. yeah we KNOW

the comment was in response to HER comments - who knows? Her husband may think she is batshit insane.

[SheilaT]

7. Maybe, but not very likely

since she continued to home school for eighteen years. I would like to think that if he thought she was batshit insane he'd have gotten the kids into public school a good decade earlier. That it didn't happen, and she says "we believed firmly that it was our obligation, that it would be sinful to send our children to public schools, which we called ‘Satan’s indoctrination centers.’” Doesn't sound as if she was acting unilaterally to teach her kids at home.

Which does bring up the question of why isn't the husband interviewed or quoted in this article.

[Javaman]

9. maybe because Vickie was the one homeschooling here kids?

just a thought.

[SheilaT]

11. Then who in the world was the "we" referring to

in "We believed firmly it was our obligation . . . "? Surely not the kids. It does not sound like she decided by herself to homeschool, but decided with her husband. The homeschooling occurred within the context of her religious beliefs, so I also hold her church somewhat responsible, but the actual homeschooling occurred at home, within the context of her marriage, and I sincerely doubt her husband was a completely innocent bystander in all this. Notice that other people in that article talk about how their fathers carried on at length about the evils of secular schools. It is not just the mothers who are perpetrating this.

[Javaman]

12. I have a suggestion...

write to the reporter. I'm serious. You might get the answer you want. Most reporters are really gracious when asked about various articles they write.

I do it all the time.

[Javaman]

8. finally catching up on my past reading, I read this two days ago...

a very interesting article.

it seems to cover a wide spectrum of not just the crazy quiversful movement, but of people who homeschool their children.

and my take away from all of this?

it needs to be regulated. period.

[Starry Messenger]

10. Vickie Garrison posted here on DU once upon a time.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6482947&mesg_id=6483875