If you follow me at all, you know that I am studying Quiverfull and that general brand of nutcase. In the course of gathering resources, I got myself on the email list for Vision Forum, a group formed by one of the most-high weirdos himself, Doug Phillips. Today, I received an email promoting a new branch of their homeschool products: CollegePlus! (The exclamation point is theirs.) as a low-cost option for further education in the homeschool community. On the surface, this may be a good thing. One testimonial claimed to have received her bachelor's before the age of 18 and paid only a total of $6000 for it. I'm here to tell you that that is a STEAL! $6000 wouldn't pay for a semester for me here--no joke. Thank you Goddess for student loans! Anyway, as I manuevered around the information on the site, it dawned on me what the creeping discomfort I was feeling was coming from...
One of the major reasons that Quiverfull families homeschool is to remove secular influence from their kids' lives as much as possible and keep them in the home as long as possible (generally until they get married)--especially the girls. Very rarely do you see anything in Quiverfull literature promoting college education for their girls, or even their boys for that matter. The Duggars actually talked about this briefly on an episode. Jim Bob and the girls said that they wanted to be midwives (for which there is apparently a Christian school) or missionaries. Neither of which requires a secular college education. Even among the Duggar boys there wasn't really one who wanted to do anything involving college. Now, I'm not saying that every single person should go to college. There are a lot of people who don't want to and have perfectly wonderful jobs. That is not the issue.
Quiverfull girls are sheltered beyond anything I have ever seen. They are considered not just a daughter but their father's daughter until the day they get married and then they become not just a wife but their husband's wife. Then, usually as quickly as possible, they become not just a mother, but their children's mother. Homeschooling is the norm, and most don't appear to go to any university--religious or otherwise. By giving these parents a college homeschool option, they may be allowing the girls to have a further education, but what sort of education? Most of the homeschool curriculums are character-based, rather than actual subjects, though those do get taught incidentally. I haven't gotten all the info yet, but the college courses seem to be similar--an escape from the "secular immorality" of regular college. So, even though they appear to be getting the higher education many believe is necessary, I am not sure it is what one would call comprehensive. And what exactly are they going to do with it? Unless they break away from their family's beliefs, which many do not, they will have a BA from CollegePlus!, but it amounts to an "MRS degree".
More on this when I get the special info packet...
No comments:
Post a Comment