After you decide to homeschool, the next consideration is what kind of homeschooler you will be so you can choose your curriculum and plan your style of teaching. Are you a religious homeschooler who desires to infuse all of your teaching with the principles of your faith? Or are you a secular homeschooler who prefers not to teach matters of religion or at least keep them separate from your academic pursuits? Your answers to those questions will influence what kind of curriculum you consider and ultimately buy.
Do you want a faith-neutral program or a faith-positive one? Do you prefer secular materials only for certain school subjects?The beauty of homeschooling is that you can mix and match. Some families hold a personal faith but prefer a curriculum that doesn’t address those tenets in the day-to-day homeschool lessons. Others are strictly secular in the own perspective on life and, of course, want a program to mirror that conviction.
Being a Secular Homeschooler
If you’ve ever felt out of place at overly spiritual co-ops or at churchy homeschool groups, we invite you to consider BookShark’s 4-day faith-neutral curriculum. It’s literature-based and covers everything your children need. Our All Subjects Packages include Reading, History, Science, Language Arts, and Math (plus areas like geography, vocabulary, etc.). All the materials come in one big box, and you won’t have to worry about editing out religious content on the fly. Add in whatever faith-based materials you prefer—or not! We leave the choice up to you.
Below is an index of all our articles and blog posts about secular homeschooling: reasons, definitions, tips, and even a personal story from a secular homeschooling mom.
There are as many reasons to homeschool as there are benefits in doing so. It’s not uncommon for a family to choose to homeschool for one primary reason, but as the years go on, they discover so many more reasons to homeschool—reasons they never even contemplated until they started on the journey. With more experience, a homeschool parent begins to see the rich education that homeschooling provides goes well beyond any single motivation—whether religious or secular.
There’s no doubt that there are very defined preferences among homeschoolers about whether or not to use secular and faith-neutral curriculum. I’ve heard these very pointed questions when it comes to evaluating curriculum:
Does that science book espouse creationism or evolution?
Does your history curriculum align with the Bible?
I choose our curriculum carefully. All year, I pour over catalogs and curriculum sites. I read reviews and constantly keep in check what we are using and whether or not it’s the best for each particular child. Whether or not a curricula contains Bible verses or spiritual references is not something I concern myself with on this job of choosing learning tools, and this is not to say that I am not a Christian (because I am). But I have several reasons for choosing secular curriculum.
There is a ton of great curriculum out there—both secular and religious-based.
Every year that I homeschool, it seems there’s more and more to choose from. I love choices though, and I consider being able to choose from a wide array of curricula and not being held to it by a school board as one of the very biggest perks to homeschooling. That said, I feel that I would be excluding a huge range of wonderful programs out there if I were to only look at religious-based curricula.
I’ve made a choice to homeschool my children which opens up a huge amount of freedom for me to choose what best fits my children and their very individual learning styles. Why would I close myself in by choosing only religious-based books?
Religious-based curriculum tends to leave out facts I want my kids to know about.
When it comes to certain subjects, there’s very little I shield my kids from. We watch the news together. We talk about current events. We carefully discuss politics and the issues at hand. One of our biggest jobs as parents is to prepare our kids for the big world out there, and I want to discuss this tough stuff while they are still at home with me.
I have found that some religion-based curriculum leaves out information about other religions or certain historical events, and this is not something I want for my kids. Discussing a wide array of religions is something that is very important in our family. We’ve had some amazing discussions around these topics, and I feel that if anything, the knowledge of other spiritual choices, makes my own faith stronger and it also gives myself and my children a better understanding of others and what they believe.
Subjects like grammar and spelling are not for instilling faith.
Can I just say that sometimes I think we just go overboard? We can be so afraid of the outside world infiltrating our homes and our children that we even try to incorporate our beliefs in our spelling books. I have a hard enough time getting my kids to enjoy grammar without trying to tie a Bible lesson into it. For subjects like this, I choose what’s best for my children, because I know that good grammar isn’t going to teach my child how to be a decent human being; it’s just going to teach her where to capitalize.
The bottom line for us is that we have choices. Secular curriculum has its place among those choices, so don’t automatically rule it out even if you are passing your faith to your children.
About the Author
Alicia Hutchinson is the homeschooling mom to four. She and her children love reading and history and exploring outside. They are just settling into their new home in the Minneapolis area, where they just relocated from North Carolina.
You can read more about Alicia and their homeschooling adventures, current projects, and thoughts on motherhood at her blog Investing Love.!
Purchasing a secular kindergarten program when I started teaching my first child, I thought I had a full grasp of the definition of secular homeschool curriculum. That was 19 years ago. I’ve since learned that the meanings of secular homeschooling and secular curriculum are not as straightforward as I may have thought.
Here are some considerations to help you dissect what is a secular homeschooler and what is secular curriculum.
Realize that Words Can Have Different Meanings
Not all curriculum providers embrace the same definition to the word secular, and the difference often comes out of the personal views of the author or publisher. It’s not that anyone is trying to be deceptive. It’s just that the same words can mean slightly different things.
By way of a silly example, someone from Chicago may balk at what a Southerner calls pizza—some flimsy, thin crust concoction that is nothing like the doughy slab that is more common farther north. Is this a conspiracy aimed to deceive? No. This is a difference in interpretation, experience, and vocabulary.
What Does Secular Mean?
That’s why you need to dig around and find out exactly what kind of pizza (or curriculum) you are getting to avoid disappointments! When shopping for homeschool materials, scour through the company’s About page, FAQ, and the Scope and Sequence to understand both the methodology and worldview of a program. When in doubt, contact the publisher outright and ask!
Don’t Confuse the Curriculum with the Education
Maybe you see a phrase like BookShark uses—faith-neutral curriculum. Don’t confuse that label with a faith-neutral educationbecause there is a difference. You may select a faith-neutral curriculum and be a secular homeschooler. Or you may choose a faith-neutral curriculum and be a Muslim or Christian homeschooler. It’s like a game of mix and match when it comes to labels!
One common thread all homeschool families can agree on regardless of their views is the right to educate our children in our belief system. You are the ultimate teacher of your views whether they are faith-based or non-religious. A curriculum can help you do that, but ultimately the job is yours. The day to day teaching, tutoring, and modeling your beliefs is the true education. Faith-neutral curriculum gives you the freedom to make deliberate choices. So a family that chooses a faith-neutral curriculum may actually have a faith-steeped education—or not. One isn’t necessarily connected to the other.
A few decades ago, the line between secular and religious homeschoolers seemed clearer. Either you were a secular family who did not believe in religion and adhered to evolution or you were a religious (usually Christian) family that believed in creation. However, this simple dichotomy is no longer the case in the homeschool world.
Today, secular homeschool families may be identified as religious or not religious.
What is the Definition of Secular Homeschooling?
For example, a family may choose to take a secular or neutral approach to education while still adhering to a personal system of faith. They are secular homeschoolers but they may be Muslims, Hindus, Christian, or Jewish. Their faith is something separate from their home education.
Secular homeschoolers who are not religious take many forms:
families who purposely choose to not teach religion
families who are not especially devout and prefer to let the child make his own choice as he grows
families of mixed faith who want to honor two different cultural backgrounds
families who want to teach their children that there is no one right religion but to respect all religions
familes who are atheist
families that espouse paganism
All of these families may consider themselves secular homeschoolers, but their beliefs are vastly contrasting!
Other homeschoolers may choose a secular or faith-neutral homeschool program while being very committed to their religious beliefs. They may buy a secular program but not consider themselves secular homeschoolers because they weave their beliefs into the tapestry of the education they provide their children.
For example, if they are Christian, they want to teach their children the Bible and want to be ensured that their curriculum is neutral of any anti-faith bias or government influence.
Also, there are plenty of religious homeschoolers who have less popular (or less orthodox) beliefs and would prefer to teach their own way of thinking when it comes to matters of the age of the earth, the origins of mankind, etc. They choose to use secular homeschool curriculum because they it’s easier to teach their views using resources from their worship center or from their own research. These homeschoolers may buy a secular curriculum, but they wouldn’t be appropriately labeled secular homeschoolers.
Surprise! This post didn’t succinctly define secular homeschooling or a secular homeschool. And that’s the entire point. These labels are general guides, and if you truly want to know what they mean, you’ll have to dig a bit further by asking probing questions—either from a curriculum provider or from a homeschool parent.
It’s hard to categorize all secular homeschool families with a single description because they hold different beliefs and motivations to educate at home. Homeschooling is constantly changing, and with it the meaning of secular curriculum and secular homeschooling also changes. What’s not hard is savoring the many choices of curriculum, cherishing the moments of learning together, and making lifetime memories regardless of our personal beliefs. We all believe in this—our kids are best served by being educated at home by their parents.
About the Author
Tina Robertson celebrated the graduation of Mr. Senior in 2013 and Mr. Awesome in 2015. Because of her love for new homeschoolers, she mentors moms through her unique program called New Bee Homeschoolers. She loves all homeschoolers, though, as she shares her free 7 Step Curriculum Planner, unit studies, lapbooks and homeschooling how tos. She can’t sing, dance, or craft, but she counts organizing as a hobby. She is still in the homeschool trenches blogging at Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus.
In all honesty, I never thought I would homeschool my kids. I started because my oldest missed the cut off date for kindergarten and would have to wait a full year before starting school. She was beyond ready, so I knew I needed to do something. After a lot of research and many discussions, our family plunged head first into homeschooling.
We began our journey as unschoolers. The kids were young, and it worked well to have learning revolve around their interests. Then we moved. The new record keeping and evaluation requirements of that state made it difficult for me to continue homeschooling without a focused plan. I realized I was going to need curriculum.
Choosing Homeschool Curriculum
As you know, venturing into the world of homeschool curriculum can be overwhelming. I had no idea where to start. So I did what most of us do. I starting using what my friends recommended which happened to be well-known, faith-based curriculum.
At first, I welcomed the idea of using books that supported our beliefs. Unfortunately, I found that I don’t need (or want) the level of religion found within many Christian textbooks used for core subjects. In my opinion, they dedicate too many pages to watered down religion—pages that could be better used for more subject material.
For example, my kids don’t need multiple paragraphs in each chapter of a science book reiterating the point that God’s creation is perfect and beautiful. I want our science curriculum to focus on science. So now I look for faith-neutral or secular materials.
A Solution for My Curriculum Struggle
Because of the curriculum struggle I faced, I made the decision years ago to forgo standard homeschooling textbooks for most of our core subjects (like science and history) and instead create my own lesson plans. As a substitute for pre-made curriculum, my kids watch relevant videos, read living books, play educational games, and complete a ton of hands-on activities.
Compiling everything on my own is definitely time consuming, but works well for our family. Other homeschool families in my situation use a quality curriculum that isn’t faith-based such as Bookshark’s literature based, secular materials. The convenience of a full boxed curriculum or a curriculum plan for a key subject takes the burden off an already busy mom and allows her to enjoy the homeschool experience without spending hours of planning and researching.
About the Author
Megan Zechman is a veteran homeschool mom of two girls. Over at Education Possible, she shares creative, hands-on learning activities for middle school.
