Thread: Weekly Poll: How does politics play into your homeschooling?

It has started. The political ads on every other commercial. Here I am...trying to enjoy my Geek/Gleek crossover of Chewbacca and Finchel/Klaine and I'm being assaulted by the constant barrage of images of Republican hopefuls. And I don't even live in Iowa!!! (I'm sorry huskers, but I thought you peeps were going to keep those ads in-state for a few more weeks...sigh!!)

I'll admit I'm a bit apolitical myself, but my kids have constant questions about the upcoming primaries thanks to all these promotional pieces. So, I'm trying to address their questions as they come in, but I haven't done any kind of formal homeschooling unit on the American political process (mostly because I fear it would be laced with my own cynicism...might ruin the educational curve??)

I'd love to know if you all are a bit more pro-active than myself, or also take the "I'll-address-it-when-it-comes-up-like-I-do-with-questions-about-sex" approach to politics. Let's find out......

Th Huz and I TALK about politics all the time. We are active in any way though, except by voting. But, like religion, it's one of our favorite things to talk about and anyone around at the moment usually gets drawn into the fold, including kids. It's actually JUST like religion, because we say "this is what I believe, this is what your father believes (and why), and you should know other people think otherwise. You get to decide what you think later, and you can change your mind."

I went with other. We are not big on politics here. We don't focus on modern government regularly. When politics/governments come up in our other studies, we cover them. My dh & I talk about politics sometimes, but not that much. We don't watch regular TV anymore, it's all either Netflix or PBS, so we haven't been bombarded with the recent political ads. However, this next year, Dea will be doing her high school U.S. Government course. I'm having her do it this next year, because it will be the only of her high school years that actually has an election. It just makes more sense to me to cover it during an election, when they can witness so much of the process first hand. They get some basics of Government during our U.S. History studies, but don't cover it in-depth until high school.

I think that homeschooling is an innately political act and a form of protest. So to me it is all political. Right now we live in a politically charged atmosphere--more so than I can recall in my lifetime, equal perhaps to the labor movement of the last Depression or perhaps the Civil Rights/anti-War movement of the 50s and 60s. I don't think that anyone at this point can passively avoid politics, because there are so many of our civil rights that are up in the air in America. And neither party is representing the people, but instead chooses to be led by the nose, via corporate lobbyists.

Indefinite Military Detention of American Citizens, SOPA, the Supreme Court Ruling that Money is Speech and Corporations are people have completely upended the notion of one-person, One-vote. Hiding the names of corporate and private donors to campaigns limits the ability of the people to contextualize candidates and campaigns, the Patriot Act as a stand alone document that glorifies what could become the keystone of an Authoritarian, Plutocratic Oligarchy, the erosion of the wall of separation between church and state these last 20 years, and the loss of women's rights to reproductive self determination, hiding dangerous chemical recipes under the guise of proprietary ingredients when in fact it is just a ruse to hide toxic waste that is being injected into our soil and groundwater [via fracking] in order to avoid legal liability for property damage and personal injury, the loss of personal property rights to NAFTA, and entire wars fought for oil under the guise of terrorism.

We live in a screwed up time in history. The bad hair era of the U.S.

I saw this somewhere else on the net and I think it's a good idea: Create a wall of separation between corporation and state.
Constitutional Amendment. There are certain Supreme Court Justices that need to be fired for failing to maintain proper distance between certain wackadoo political movements too. Protecting their free speech is one thing. But furthering their wacked out tax-rebel-schemes, and their unholy alliance with big corporations that are robbing us six ways til sunday is way way over the top.

So yea, all that stuff gets worked into the curriculum where appropriate and the kids listen to the news with me, listen to me and the hubby talk about these things and read about historically similar circumstances in American and in global history as well.

For me, teaching politics is like teaching religion. I try to touch on all different perspectives, but I don't really get into it. DH loves to talk politics, though, so sometimes he delves into that realm. I'm happy to let him teach it. It's the one topic he *does* enjoy going over with the kids.

I voted other because my guys are a little young for deep discussions of politics. We will probably cover it as it comes up in our curriculum and will answer questions as they are asked but neither dh or I are particularly interested in politics. I think they are all a bunch of power hungry liars regardless of which party they belong to and it's like trying to pick between two evils.

I went with other. Politics pays the bills around here. Dh's sport is politics. Well, and baseball. But mostly politics. The man can name all the senators and governors off the top of his head. He knows what congressional district you live in. No joke. Many of our friends, and the kids' friends' parents, all work for the government, so it comes up all the time. There were a lot of "so and so's mommy/daddy won't be able to work if the government shuts down" conversations this year. Our church is pretty political. We talk politics and watch Stewart in front of the kids sometimes. It's in the air here.

But... I don't know. I've become less political as I've gotten older. I still do want to work in DC voting rights into our US history curriculum this year, but we're going so slow, so my intention to cover it with the Constitution hasn't even happened yet. And we haven't done much with it to integrate politics into homeschooling. Also, we're definitely of the mind that, while some things are things we want to teach overtly to the kids, most of it is up to them to decide what to think. Trying against the indoctrination.

Well. We did study "government" last year. As in houses of parliament, elections blah blah boring. I suppose I will have to do that some time with ds.

Otherwise, as in not an official part of 'school', they just get indoctrinated by me.

"Tell me again honey, what will you never do ?"
"I will never vote Liberal."
"Good child, a smiley face stamp for you!"

Um. They read Youngzine for balance. Although that is pretty left-neutral so...no balance. And, you know, radio and stuff and me talking to them...

And they are really hoping I don't make them follow the Presidential election like I did last time.
"Mum, is this relevant to us ?"

Every time I vote they get the 'be grateful to the suffragettes and be glad you can vote in safety' speech and that's getting old for them too, but it's engraved on their brains by now.

I guess they are allowed to choose when they grow up, but if they go Young Liberal ( that would be like young Tea Party ) it will kill me.

I chose avoid because we basically hate politics. Blah! Some people love to talk about it and that's totally cool for them, but I can't stand it. It's just not of interest to me. In fact, on Monday somebody half my age gave me a hard time because I said that I feel that politics is a "to each, their own" matter.

Yeesh! Excuuuse me for believing that people should think for themselves, and that there is nothing wrong with *not* having an interest in politics!

If we are still homeschooling when my son is older, I will certainly teach him about government. But it can wait for now.

For us, it's not (at this point) a formal part of curriculum, but comes up in conversation on a regular basis.