Stop! This Curriculum Is Against My Beliefs, What Now?
Has this ever happened to you?
After weeks, sometimes months of researching you finally find the best curriculum for your family. You are so thrilled! All your hard work and effort has paid off. Your children love it! You love it!
Everything is awesome…until it isn’t.
Maybe you are reading aloud to the children, or maybe they are doing independent studies, and “uh oh, this doesn’t look right. This information isn’t what I believe in.”
Now what?
Disclosure: I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this post.
Let’s be honest!
I’m not here to start a war about which beliefs are correct AND which ones are not.
Please note this not about religion or religious beliefs.
>>>>It is about what to do when the curriculum does not agree with what you and your family does.
This might be morals, religion or maybe even subjects your child is not ready for, or images you feel are too graphic in nature.
If this hasn’t happened yet to you, good job! But it might happen in the future and it is good to have an idea of how you want to handle it.
What are you going to do with this precious curriculum?
You can boil it down to 3 basic choices:
- Get rid of it and find a replacement
- Skip the offensive parts
- Read it anyway, research what you believe and discuss why you feel that way
Age Matters:
One thing we need to address is the age of your children and how extensive the offensive belief is taught in the curriculum.
If your children are younger you may not want to bombard them or expose them to things that are contrary to what you want them to learn.
For example, when my son was going to enter kindergarten the local public school sent me a list of things my child (then 4 years old) needed to know before he entered the school system.
This was not academic based, rather it was moral based. I was told to instruct my 4-year-old in all the meanings of profanity so he knew not to repeat it. He was also to have a basic understanding of what sexual intercourse was, so he wouldn’t receive mixed understanding from other students.
For the record, I did not explain any of these things to my son. He was 4 years old! Maybe I was wrong but I believed this was beyond his understanding, and he did not need to know these things at this time. I also did not send him to school, but that’s another story.
My point is, there are subjects and ideas that we may not feel our children need to know right now, or understand at this time. It might be in the chosen curriculum. You know your children best, follow your gut. If they don’t need to know, they don’t need to know. Set it on the back burner, or bring it up at a better age.
Decisions You Need To Make:
If it is throughout the whole textbook/program then finding a replacement just might be your best bet.
When searching for curriculum we need to consider not only what is required for them to learn by law or whatever is governing your homeschool, but what you want them to learn at that time.
For example: They are required to learn “Health” at each level. So when choosing curriculum sometimes I would think I found a great resource-it aligned with what was required, only to find out it taught or had photo’s of things my children at a that age were not ready for.
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Yes they needed to know body parts, however they did not need naked photos of each. So I chose to either make my own, or something different. They learned the same basic ideas, without the graphic content that they were not ready for.
When choosing curriculum be sure to ask:
- Does this align with my homeschool goals?
- Does it match our morals, belief, religion etc?
- Are my children ready to be exposed to (insert)?
If the answer is no, we need to adjust.
In doing some research, I personally have found curriculum reviews to be a great help.
Warning: Be objective and realistic when reading them. Some people just like to complain, and if a product is popular we need to realize it will not please everyone at the same time. Do not ignore what people are saying, but take it with a grain of salt.
A great place to find curriculum reviews are:
*Have a place you prefer? Leave it in the comment below!
However perhaps the author is starting the textbook off with how this belief relates to the rest of the topic, then continues on with facts/figures etc. The belief might be referenced throughout the text but only a line here or there.
You may decide to keep using the curriculum, and either skip or replace those chapters with something more suitable. A simple trip to the library or your own bookshelf and you may find complimentary information that you can substitute.
If your child is older you may decide a different approach.
Research:
Now that my children are older, I prefer to let the child read the material over. Then I get them to ask thought-provoking questions.
Here is an example:
(for example purposes only)
For Science we use a curriculum in which the author believes that the earth was created in 6 literal days, the 7th being rest. We do not believe that.
However because the children are older now, I let them read the reasoning behind the authors thinking. Then I asked them thought-provoking questions to get them to think, dig deeper and research.
I wanted them to not only believe something, but to really think and discover why they believe something. Find out the facts, base it on their own conclusions. Then they wrote a paragraph in their science books about what they discovered and learned.
For us, this was a great way to let them decide for themselves what they believe and allowed them to have a solid foundation for believing what they do. It also allowed me to see if they had any doubts and if they were capable to use reasoning and research.
This worked out great for us, and we continued to use the curriculum with great success!
This might not work for you, but find out what does, and go with that.
What to do if your curriculum conflicts with your beliefs.
Finding curriculum for your family is sometimes difficult and time-consuming.
When you discover your curriculum isn’t all what you thought it would be, you have 3 basic choices:
- Get rid of it, and replace it
- Skip the offensive parts
- Read it anyway, research what you believe and discuss why you feel that way
In the end you need to do what is right for your children, your family and your homeschool.
I hope this article has helped you in making the right decision. If you have any tips or other suggestions I’d love to hear from you, please leave a comment below.
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Hi, I’m Jen. I help working moms juggle their career and homeschool their kids by providing support, systems and tools. You are warmly invited to Join the Online Community Here!
