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I started with math because that is the subject I am most worried about remembering well enough to teach should my help be necessary. I'm pretty sure all the rest I can read it over and figure it out. And it's an important subject, one I want her to do really well in. So I made materials for math my first priority.
One thing has really started to bug me though. And darn it, I just know there's no way I can say this without people thinking, "You don't love Jesus!" or "You're a Heathen!" or whatever. I grant I am not as religious as many people are, but I've got plenty going on internally in a "relationship" with God, aside from the official church part which I don't participate in.
Now, I'm totally in favor of people who want to use religious instruction, being able to do so. I'm conservative enough politically to feel that people should have the right to do what they like for the most part, barring serious harm to others, and the government should get out of everybody's face about... well, about everything.
However, it has made me very grouchy that in the overwhelmingly religious homeschooling world, getting ordinary academic curriculum -- secular, in other words -- is a real pain in the butt!
There appear to be a few obvious conditions in the world of home-school-friendly educational materials right now.
1) There are so many options your head spins. You can spend endless hours on the internet looking for ideas, people, suggestions, used materials, new materials, comparisons, etc.
2) Most those of real quality are expensive, ranging from $350 per primary subject (5, we have in Oklahoma), to several thousand dollars for an online course per year. That doesn't even count the many 'auxilliary' topics that should be covered.
3) Most the materials are religious. And I don't mean that in addition to the basic educational subjects, they also have religion studies (like say, a Catholic school would do). I mean, in the words of one memorable publisher:
Our materials are pervasively Biblical; from Spanish to math, we have approached each subject from a thoroughly Biblical perspective[.]
Pervasively biblical. Now there's a phrase. Although I don't attend church, I pray regularly and I talk with my child about spiritual subjects and I live what I think is a relatively good, moral life. But that doesn't mean I think school should be church. Maybe it's that I attended public school in California and had my own 'indoctrination', in the opposite direction?
I just don't see why Math and Spanish need religion in the presentation. I can talk to Jesus about something all night, but I don't usually call on him for math. (Well, aside from a few memorable Algebra tests as a kid. ;-))I n my world, spirituality is inside me, and other things are outside me. You might say it's a "render unto Caesar" kind of thing.
If I don't find it necessary to make every accounting ledger or management report at work into a religious doctrine, why would I make school that way?
Anyway, the thing is, it made me cranky, because I would find some curriculum material that looked interesting and possibly worth buying, such as the full set for the Lifepac Math Grade 7 for example. But then I see that the four other topics they offer are seriously religious. I think, "Well this math book didn't actually mention it, but how do I know, if their whole company apparently exists to make religious edu, that this book's academic quality has not suffered in order to enable it to fill the religious bill as a priority?"
I don't. So I go and buy the Singapore Math New Elementary Mathematics 1 Grade 7 Complete Set instead. (Textbook, student workbook, teacher manual, solutions manual.) Because there were others, but that's the only thing I find that doesn't seem to be part of a religious media.
The thing is, it's not that I don't want my kid to know about God. It's that I don't want someone else indoctrinating her about it in the middle of differential equations. Is that so much to ask?!
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