CHAPTER 8 
Finding and Creating Community
When the secular parenting discussion forums at ParentingBeyondBelief.com opened in February 2007, a single comment, phrased various ways, was posted over and over: “It’s so nice to talk to other secular parents out there dealing with similar issues.” The comments were often followed with stories of isolation, feelings of uncertainty—and the desire for community.
There are literally millions of families in the United States with nonreligious worldviews, but too often they feel as if they are going it alone. By contrast, religious families usually have a nearby church community offering Sunday school, parent groups, and organized family outings—all in addition to the weekly worship service.1 Secular families seldom have the same built-in access to communities where they can congregate, share ideas, and pass along values to their children. This might explain why getting married and having children are the two key factors that bring people back to church.2 The ready-made community is one area where it is safe to say that religious parents have a real advantage.
A Caveat for Community-Builders
In our rush to create and embrace community, an important caution must be sounded. A community can quickly turn into a gated enclave, an “us” that not only binds its members together but also excludes and even demonizes “them”—those who are on the outside of our defining wall.
We live in naturally concentric circles of community. The inner circle is often our immediate family, those with whom we feel the most connection. Around that circle runs the larger circle of extended family, followed by other affinities like regional, cultural, and language groups; our ethnicities, regions, and nations; our worldviews; even our species. Each of these concentric circles defines a community, linking us to those with whom we share something significant.
In addition to these concentric circles, we also have cross-cutting community memberships and identities—we may be similar to others in one way, and different in others.3 For example, a doctor may belong to a community of medical professionals, but may be different from many other members of that community in terms of her race, religious views, or other characteristics. She may also belong to an empowerment group for African American women, but differ from many members of that group in her religious views or her occupational identity.
Our connection, our compassion, and our empathy often drop as we move outward through concentric communities, or interact with those who are different from us in more of our important identities, across what has been called an “empathy gradient.” We tend to feel closest to and most protective of those who are closely related or otherwise similar to us—natural selection at work—followed by those who live nearby but are less similar. By the time we have moved outward to people living far away, or those who are unlike us in other ways, we tend to feel a reduced empathy. It’s easier to feel compassion for the neighbor child with leukemia than the child in a distant country with the same condition.
Merely spending time with people who are different than you doesn’t always lead to increased empathy and understanding. It helps a lot to have a common goal, as Muzafer Sherif found out in his famous “Robbers Cave Experiment” in 1954.4 In the experiment, two groups of boys at a summer camp were organized into competing teams. The experimenters tried to break down the animosity between the groups by having the boys spend time together, but instead of decreased animosity, they got food fights in the dining hall. What succeeded in breaking down the barriers between the groups were situations in which both groups had to work together to accomplish something that everyone wanted. It took work from both groups, for example, to pull the camp truck when it wouldn’t start.
Several more recent studies have come to similar conclusions.5 For example, recognizing our cross-cutting social identities and recognizing larger shared identities have both been shown to lead to more cooperation and fairer outcomes in social dilemma situations, where there is a limited resource that people have to allocate and share.6
As humanists, our goal should be not just building the inner circles of community, but pushing that sense of connectedness out across as many of boundaries as possible. The community of freethinkers should be just one of several communities of which we consider ourselves to be a part. It’s one of the nine “best practices” for nonreligious parenting mentioned in the Preface: Encourage the widest possible circles of empathy. As we define our immediate communities, it’s important to recognize and reinforce the communities of which we are already a part, all the way out to the widest circle of all: the community of life on Earth.
We can take a page from the atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers at the University of Illinois who went on a spring break community service trip together with members of their school’s Campus Crusade for Christ group to help with rebuilding in New Orleans. As we seek to form communities with other freethinking families, we can and should also join together with other groups to make our broader community a better place.
What Human Community Is (Really) All About
Freethought groups and freethinkers around the country are working to create viable, satisfying, multigenerational communities—and meeting with varying degrees of success. Some have forged a connection with young people and families, even starting humanist children’s programs and parent support groups. Others, however, find their membership numbers frozen year after year as the average age of their members drifts slowly upward. What makes the difference between a thriving, growing community and a stagnant one?
The answer lies in an understanding of community itself. You can’t choose your family, but membership in a community is largely voluntary. Give me what I’m looking for and I’m likely to stay. Give me something less and I’ll go elsewhere. It’s just about that simple.
Freethought communities stagnate when they fail to work hard enough at understanding what people are seeking—what human needs have spurred their search for a community in the first place. Too many freethought communities have drawn their purposes too narrowly. They are about inquiry, reason, the search for truth, and the rejection of religion. They don’t want to attend churches because they don’t want a community that’s centered on gods and theologies.
What they fail to realize is that theology is less important to most churchgoers than a number of other benefits. In many cases, they attend despite the theology.
It is telling that only 27 percent of churchgoing U.S. respondents to a 2007 Gallup poll even mentioned God when asked for the main reason they attend church.7 Most people go for personal growth, for guidance in their lives, to be encouraged, to be inspired—or for the community and fellowship of other members. These, not worship, are the primary needs fulfilled by churches.
If freethought communities wish to build their memberships well beyond the 60ish white male demographic that currently dominates the rolls (God bless ’em!), they must begin considering the real reasons people flock to church. It’s not about theology. It’s about belonging. It’s about acceptance. It’s about mutual support and encouragement. Most of all, it speaks to needs beyond the intellectual into the emotional.
This chapter will offer several specific ways in which freethought communities can speak more directly to these needs. Organizing freethinkers has been compared to herding cats, and there’s merit in the metaphor. Nonetheless, nonreligious families are clearly looking for community. This chapter is about helping freethinking families find and build the communities they seek.
Questions and Answers
Q: My partner and I are not religious, but now that we have kids, we really feel the need for a community to reinforce the values we teach at home. We’ve been talking about going back to church. Are there alternatives?
A: There are indeed, and those alternatives are increasing in number and in variety. The resources section of this chapter contains websites for organizations with local chapters or congregations, some of which might be a good fit for your family. Not all are available in all areas, and some of them offer more for children and families than others, but this should provide a place to start looking for an existing community that you can join.
Nonreligious families vary considerably in the communities they seek. Some like the congregational model, which can provide many of the positive emotional and social benefits of religion without supernatural claims and dogma. Here are three options on the “congregational” end of the spectrum:
Unitarian Universalist Fellowships
Unitarian fellowships are “creedless,” meaning they require no expression of shared dogmas, doctrines, or religious beliefs. In lieu of doctrines, the denomination is organized around Seven UU Principles (outlined in the Appendix). The majority of Unitarian Universalists identify as atheists or agnostics, and an even larger percentage (91 percent) include “humanist” as one of their self-identities.8 Unitarian Universalist congregations have a well-developed religious education program for kids, focusing on comparative religion and ethics, as well as a highly regarded sex education program. There are currently over 1,040 UU fellowships in North America, so the odds are good that you will find one or more in your area.
UU fellowships vary widely in their approach and atmosphere depending on the minister and the makeup of the congregation. Some continue to use Christian language and symbolism, while others have a more completely nontheistic flavor. If there is more than one UU in your area, compare them to see which suits your family the best. If the services are not for you, there may still be other programmatic offerings that are appealing.
In addition to visiting fellowships, many answers to common questions about Unitarian Universalism can be found at www.uufaq.com.
Ethical Societies
There are currently twenty-five Ethical Societies in the United States organized around the principles of Ethical Culture, as well as a web-based “Ethical Society Without Walls” (www.eswow.org) for those without a local Ethical Society. According to the American Ethical Union,“Ethical Culture is a humanistic religious and educational movement inspired by the ideal that the supreme aim of human life is working to create a more humane society.”9 Unlike Unitarian Universalist congregations, which have people of many different religious and nonreligious beliefs, Ethical Culture groups have a core set of beliefs. Although they are nontheistic, many people in the movement consider Ethical Culture to be their religion. Ethical Societies offer religious education programs for young children up through college students. The American Ethical Union also offers yearly youth conferences for middle school, high school, and college students. There are a lot of curriculum resources for Ethical Culture children’s programs available on its website at www.aeu.org.
Humanistic Jewish Congregations
For those who are nontheistic but remain committed to cultural or ethnic Jewish identity and tradition, there are twenty-nine congregations in North America identified with Humanistic Judaism. Humanistic Jewish congregations celebrate Jewish holidays and practice Jewish traditions in a way that is free of supernatural elements. The congregations offer programs for children, and the Society for Humanistic Judaism offers youth conferences.
To learn about their youth programs, go to www.shj.org. There are also cultural and secular Jewish groups that belong to the Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations (www.csjo.org), and some of these groups have schools or other programs for children.
For nonreligious parents interested in a less “congregational” option for a community of shared values, the freethought group model may be appealing. Such groups to date have seldom had programs for children and families, but this is changing rapidly. The Humanist Community in Palo Alto, California, for example, offers a humanist Sunday school program that was profiled in TIME,10 committed to ethics education. Similar programs are starting up at local humanist groups in Phoenix, Albuquerque, Colorado Springs, and Portland.
In addition to these regular, local opportunities to find a community and pass on values for your freethinking family, there are opportunities like Camp Quest (www.camp-quest.org). Camp Quest offers week-long summer camp programs that combine traditional summer camp activities like swimming, arts and crafts, and canoeing with educational activities focused on secular ethics, critical thinking, freethought heroes, and scientific inquiry. Kids have an opportunity to meet other kids from freethinking families, and the friendships that they form are often long-lasting. For many kids, the community they find at camp lets them know that their family isn’t alone, and the opportunity to interact with other kids their own age about these topics helps them develop their values and beliefs.
Q: My partner and I attended a local freethought group in our town when we were first together. But we stopped going once we had kids because they don’t offer any kids programs or activities, and we don’t want to have to get a babysitter to go to the meeting. What can we do to make our local freethought group more family-friendly?
A: When it comes to serving families, a lot of local atheist, freethought, and humanist groups have a “chicken and egg” problem. They don’t offer programs for children because no families with children are members of the group, and no families are members because they have no children’s programs.
Before heading out on your own, I’d recommend trying to create a children’s program at the meetings of the local group. Ask the group organizers if there are families who are members of the group or former members of the group who are still on the mailing list but no longer attend. There’s your core group! Get in touch with those families. Find out if they would be interested in coming back to the group if there were a kids’ program at the same time as the regular meeting. If you get some interest from these families, present that information to the group organizers and ask them to commit to the idea.
If the organizers don’t know of any families on the mailing list, put out a sign-up sheet at meetings for parents. Also, see if you can get an announcement on the group’s website and in the group’s newsletter asking for those interested in a children’s program to email you. Post notices on www.craigslist.com and www.meetup.com.
Once you’ve found some interested folks and secured support from the group’s leadership, it’s time to start planning the program. A common mistake people make in this phase is trying to do too much too fast. You and the other families interested in this group are probably very busy people without the time to write a whole Sunday School curriculum or plan elaborate events. There may also not be enough demand to justify that kind of program at the beginning.
It’s generally best to start a program in small, simple steps. If the interested families have mostly younger children, start with something like a storytime, some drawing and coloring, and a simple song. The purpose of these first sessions to build some momentum, let people know that there is a children’s program, and have the kids and parents get to know each other. If you have three families with kids who are interested in the program, perhaps each family can plan and lead every third session. This spreads out the work and (equally important) builds a community in which all the parents are involved.
Q: How can I get a nonreligious parenting group started in my area? There aren’t many organized secular groups where we are, and the ones that do exist don’t really work for us.
A: A number of nonreligious parenting groups have begun to form nationwide in recent years. Shortly after the release of Parenting Beyond Belief, a “Meetup” group by the same name formed in Raleigh, North Carolina. Within three months the group had over fifty members. In early 2008, the Center for Inquiry (CFI) began forming nonreligious parenting groups in cities including Austin and Portland, just as a “Perplexed Parenting Circle” for secular parents began meeting in New York City. If you are planning to start a group of your own, you are in good company and have a number of existing groups to use as models.
First, determine what purpose or purposes you are hoping that the group will serve. Are you interested in finding other secular parents to share advice and ideas? Are you looking to help your kids connect with other kids from a similar background? Are there topics like ethics that you want your kids to learn about in groups larger than the family?
Deciding on the purpose of the group and stating that purpose up front is a crucial foundation for long-term success. The purpose can certainly evolve over time, but it’s important to begin on the same page.
If you are looking for a playgroup for your kids with likeminded families, and some fellow secular parents to get to know and swap ideas with, you might be best served by creating something informal. Planning and organizing a more formal group can be burdensome and unnecessary if your goals are that simple.
The online secular parenting communities in the resources section often allow people to list their city or state and provide a way to send targeted or private messages. Find some secular parents who live in your area and have kids of similar ages and suggest going to a local museum, zoo, swimming pool, park, or other nearby attraction for families. Meet the parents and kids, and if things go well, suggest a regular every-other Saturday outing, or a weekly rotating playdate/parent get-together. No need to complicate your life by creating a website, doing promotions, and creating an organization with officers and budget in this case.
If, on the other hand, your goals are to create a group that has more formal educational outcomes—like teaching ethics, critical thinking, comparative religions, freethought history, scientific inquiry, etc.—then you may indeed want and need the group to be more formalized. You’ll probably be crafting some lesson plans and buying supplies for lessons, so you want to know how many kids are coming ahead of time. You may need to work with a more specific age group, and if you’re going through this effort, you may want to promote your group to the broader community.
This is a great goal, but it’s best to start small and build your program and activities over time. Start with meeting other interested parents and kids through outings or playdates, and get to know the other parents. Find out if they are interested in working on a “freethought Sunday school” project and how they would envision such a thing. Get a sense of how much time your fellow parents can commit to the project, and what their areas of expertise are. It’s important to spread out the work of running the program to avoid burning yourselves out and so that other families are invested in the program and don’t take your hard work for granted.
As your group grows, remember to keep in mind why you started the group in the first place. Don’t let organizing and planning the group get in the way of the real purpose—creating a community for your family. The educational activities should be fun, not something the kids dread and have to be coerced and cajoled into attending. The group should provide parents with support and ideas rather than being a burden to plan that overshadows the benefits.
Check out the Activities section for some activities that are good for larger groups of kids. Look in the Resources sections for freethought curriculum ideas.
Q: We don’t have any local groups in our area (or the local groups in our area don’t fit in our schedule or work for our family), and I just don’t have the time to start a new group. What are our options?
A: Even if you don’t have a local group in your area there are still several ways for you to find a freethinking community for your family.
There are online resources for freethinking families—Parenting Beyond Belief has a website (www.ParentingBeyondBelief.com) with a forum in which parents can talk about secular parenting issues, swap stories, get ideas, and find support.
The Ethical Society Without Walls (www.eswow.org) and the UU Church of the Larger Fellowship (http://clf.uua.org) have religious education materials that you can use with your family. (Remember that for Ethical Culture and UU groups “religious education” is worlds away from “bible study.”) The Institute for Humanist Studies has a website section on parenting (www.humaniststudies.org/parenting/) with resources of interest to humanist and freethinking parents.
There may also be groups in your local community that aren’t explicitly nontheist but share your tolerant values and are welcoming to freethinking families. Look around for groups that lead kids’ science activities or have programs for kids who are intellectually curious and/or gifted, or volunteer opportunities for families. A welcoming group focused on compassion, creativity, and critical thinking is a great place for your family no matter the religious or nonreligious preferences of most members. In fact, this kind of environment may be the best place for kids to explore a variety of worldviews in a non-indoctrinating setting.
Annual conferences, retreats, and summer camps can also expose your kids to a community of freethinkers. Although these options don’t give you a local community to meet with regularly throughout the year, they can supplement what’s available in your area. Camp Quest offers week-long summer camp programs in several locations around North America.
A few organizations offer conferences specifically aimed at youth: The American Ethical Union offers youth conferences for middle school, high school, and college-aged kids. The Secular Student Alliance (www.secularstudents.org) offers conferences aimed primarily at college students, although some high school students participate as well.
Some informal family camping opportunities and other retreats are also springing up in some areas. Check out the Lake Hypatia event hosted by the Alabama Freethought Association and the Freedom from Religion Foundation (www.ffrf.org/lakehypatia/) every year over the July 4th weekend for a fun freethought event that is combination conference and campout. It includes some whimsical events like the annual Atheists vs. Agnostics Softball Game.
Q: Is it really that important for children to know other freethinking families, or will the influence of our family be enough exposure to freethought ideas?
A: While I’m sure your kids will turn out just fine either way, a community of freethinking families can help in some very important ways.
As Bobbie Kirkhart explains in Parenting Beyond Belief, while a lot of freethinking adults may tend not to be “joiners,” kids are often looking for ways to belong. Most of your kids’ friends will be members of a church or other religious group with their families, and your child may feel like he or she is missing out. There is also the possibility that kids without the context of a community of shared values will find ways to belong, one way or another, and may end up in “communities” built around risky behaviors.
Kids learn a lot from each other, and it is important that they have people their own age who they can talk to about their worldview and their ideas. These don’t necessarily all have to be kids from freethinking families—in fact, it’s best if they can share ideas with kids from a variety of perspectives. I remember having great conversations with my friends about all sorts of questions related to religion. Even though most of my friends had Christian parents, they were trying to figure out what they thought about the world, just like I was. (Of course, sometimes their parents were not thrilled when they found out about such discussions.)
Most freethinking families seek a community with similar values not to cut their children off from other points of view but to reinforce the ethical lessons they are trying to impart at home. While there is a lot you can do to teach values like compassion and critical thinking in the home, kids inevitably compare their families to other families they know. It lends your teaching credibility if your kids know other families who share a similar worldview and discuss the same issues.
One more reason to find a freethought community beyond the family: Depending on where you live, your family’s beliefs may be controversial among the parents of your children’s schoolmates and peers. Some children from freethinking families are singled out for harassment at school, told they are untrustworthy, evil, or damned to hell. Coaches, teachers, or activity leaders have been known to punish children who don’t participate in a team prayer or religious activity that “everyone else” is doing. For kids facing prejudices or bullying because of their beliefs, it is especially important to have a network of other freethinkers in their lives. Knowing that there are others like them and their families can help kids understand that they aren’t alone and serve as a source of support as they seek to stand up for their beliefs and educate their classmates about who they are and what they think.
Q: Boy Scouting was a great community for me growing up, but they seem to have taken an intolerant turn in recent years. Can you tell me exactly what the BSA’s policy is regarding religion? Are atheists actively prohibited, or is it a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy?
A: The most accurate way to phrase the policy is that religious belief is required. If atheists were prohibited, an “unlabeled” child would be permitted. But the Boy Scouts organization requires the declaration of religious belief. From the BSA’s Declaration of Religious Principle:
The BSA maintains that no member can grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing an obligation to God. The recognition of God as the ruling and leading power in the universe and the grateful acknowledgment of His favors and blessings are necessary to the best type of citizenship and are wholesome precepts in the education of the growing members.
The Scout Oath also begins with “On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country.”
So no, it is not passive. A Boy Scout is required to actively and repeatedly affirm belief in God.
Q: But all of my son’s friends are joining Scouts, and he wants to sign up. Should I let him join?
A: This is essentially an ethical question, one you can and should discuss with your son. But since the issue often arises at the age of 8, it will ultimately be up to you as parents to decide.
The Boy Scouts of America has a national policy that bans atheists (and gays) from membership. Certain troops may not enforce the policy, but (as noted above) members must repeatedly affirm religious belief in the Scout Oath. Scouts who do not believe—and note that this includes “unlabeled” children, who have not yet decided the question of belief—must lie when speaking the Oath, unless their troop leader is willing to let them modify the Oath. We’ll call that Ethical Issue number one.
The second ethical issue: Such a policy, if enforced, demands that children take a religious stand—something directly opposed to the “best practice” of leaving children free of labels.
Third issue: Membership in an organization implies a certain level of endorsement of the group’s policies. Some feel that being a Boy Scout (or allowing your son to join) lends some support and credence to discrimination based on religious belief and sexual orientation.
This doesn’t add up to a slam dunk decision. Different parents can reasonably come to different conclusions about whether to join. If you are unsure of your decision, talk with the local troop leader who would be working with your son. Explain your concerns and see how he or she reacts. Look over the materials that your son would be using and see if the troop leader is willing to let your son say modified versions of oaths that mention God and do modified activities for merit badges that have a religious component if they make you uncomfortable. Let the troop leader know that you are committed to letting your son make his own decisions about religious ideas as he grows up, but you don’t want him to be in an environment where he is taught (implicitly or explicitly) that nonreligious people are lacking in moral values or are somehow morally inferior to religious people.
Talk with your son as well. Let him know about the policy and see what he thinks. The attractions of joining will generally outweigh an ethical argument at this age. If he still wants to join after your discussion, and you agree, let him know that he should keep thinking about it while a member. Make sure that he knows he is not required to participate in oaths or activities that he disagrees with and that he can always talk to you about any problems that arise. And if you are not comfortable letting your son join, explain why and help him seek out other activities.
Additional Resources
• Margaret Downey’s essay “Teaching Children to Stand on Principle” in Parenting Beyond Belief.
• Scouting For All (www.scoutingforall.org), an organization committed to reforming the Boy Scouts of America into a nondiscriminatory organization.
Q: My daughter is interested in Girl Scouts. Does Girl Scouting have the same discriminatory policies?
A: No, it doesn’t. Despite the presence of “God” in the Girl Scout Promise, the Girl Scouts organization (which is entirely independent of the Boy Scouts) has gone out of its way to spell out nondiscriminatory policies. The results have not been perfect—there have been local reports of discriminatory acts contrary to the organization’s principles—but that’s to be expected in a group of this size.
The attitude of Girl Scouts USA regarding religious belief is summed up in a landslide 1993 vote by which the organization adopted a measure to permit its members to substitute another word or phrase for “God” in the Girl Scout Promise. A 2003 statement titled “What We Stand For” included this outstandingly clear passage:
The Girl Scout organization does not endorse or promote any particular philosophy or religious belief. Our movement is secular and is founded on American democratic principles, one of which is freedom of religion.11
A 1991 policy letter also clarified the policy on sexual orientation:
As a private organization, Girl Scouts of the USA respects the values and beliefs of each of its members and does not intrude into personal matters. Therefore, there are no membership policies on sexual preference.”12
Q: Are there alternatives to the traditional scouting organizations?
A: Partly as a result of the discriminatory policies of BSA and other concerns with traditional Scouting (including reinforcement of gender roles, the emphasis on obedience, and other issues), several alternatives have recently developed, including:
• Earth Scouts (www.earthscouts.org): “Earth Scouts is an inclusive, coeducational scouting program … [emphasizing] sustainability, equity and nonviolence.”13
• Spiral Scouts (www.spiralscouts.org): “SpiralScouts thrives on … religious tolerance and interfaith cooperation, personal responsibility, and ecological education and conservation, in order to help our children learn to grow into … citizens of the world.”14 The Spiral Scouts grew out of a pagan religious tradition, and some of the terms they use like “circles” and “hearths” for their troops reflect that tradition, but their activities are meant to be for kids from any tradition. Their website provides more information and a way to find a circle near you.
Q: I want my kids to be part of a freethinking community, but I don’t want them labeled as atheists before they’ve had a chance to think through their ideas for themselves. How can I expose them to a freethought community without them being labeled or indoctrinated?
A: You’ve got exactly the right idea. There’s a consensus emerging among freethinkers that children need to come to their own conclusions about their religious (or nonreligious) beliefs, and concern about labeling and indoctrination is taken very seriously. Freethinkers by definition have come to their beliefs due to their own thinking, reading, and reflection, and most understand that their kids are entitled to no less. Many freethinkers had negative experiences with religious indoctrination in childhood and understand that the best way to turn a child off to an idea—any idea—is to force-feed it to her.
One of the core missions of The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (www.richarddawkinsfoundation.org) is raising awareness about the problem of labeling children based on the religious (or nonreligious) beliefs of their parents. Camp Quest also avoids labeling children and instead seeks to create a place where children can explore their developing worldviews free of the negative stereotypes and controversy that may be leveled at their families back home due to their parents’ beliefs.
Even though the vast majority of freethinkers are on the same page regarding this issue, not everyone is. Check out the children’s freethought activities that your child is involved in just as vigorously as any other activity. Talk to the activity leaders about any concerns you have.
While most freethinkers won’t try to label a child based on the parents’ beliefs, your child may be facing such labeling from others in the community. Talk with your child about this, and help her to have ready responses, such as, “Why do you think I believe that just because my parents do? Do you always believe the same thing as your parents?” Remind your child that she is free to change her mind about her beliefs as often as she wishes, and that you recognize she has her own beliefs even if sometimes other adults may forget that. When other adults label your child based on your beliefs, gently correct them: “Well, that’s what I believe, but if you want to know what my son believes, you’ll have to ask him.”
A nonreligious mom in Ohio answers questions about homeschooling for the nonreligious.
Q: Why did you decide to homeschool?
A: My daughter, Allison, was in second grade and having a hard time. She wasn’t clicking with her teacher or her school. She was also being bullied about her nontheism. Two girls cornered her in the bathroom and told her she was going to hell because she doesn’t believe in God. Many other similar incidents happened. I talked to her teacher and the principal. Since the students were doing this of their own accord, the school wouldn’t interfere. They said that if they put a stop to it, they would be violating those students’ right to free speech. Rather than face a lengthy battle, I decided to pull her out to homeschool.
Q: Aren’t all homeschoolers religious fundamentalists?
About three in four homeschoolers in the United States are evangelical Christians, but there are also a lot of nontheist homeschoolers. We’re just a bit harder to find! We are becoming more vocal, though. Our main way of connecting is through email groups [see the Resources section]. We support each other and help find secular school materials.
Q: So there are secular homeschool curricula?
A: Yes—we just have to be really careful what we buy. Most religious publishers are proud of their theism and make it clear that their materials are not secular. But some are sneaky. When I first began homeschooling, I thought I could use their books and just ignore the religious sentences, but I quickly realized their whole worldview is different from mine. Many homeschool supply companies are openly Christian but do sell some secular materials. If I see a warning that a book is by a secular publisher and may be offensive, that’s the book I buy!
Q: Where do you find secular resources?
A: If you do an Internet search of secular homeschool resources, you’ll find lots of links. Some people research and review materials and post lists. I recently ordered textbooks used in public schools. I’ve found them all secular. They’re expensive, though. You can also find slightly older editions on eBay at a large discount. I also order books from Great Britain and have been very pleased with them.
Q: What about socialization?
A: This is the most common question homeschoolers hear. Socialization can be particularly tough for nontheists. I’ve been to many gatherings where people assume I’m religious. I had a choice: Proclaim my Humanism, possibly alienating my daughter and myself from the group, or I could keep quiet and scream later. When Allison was younger, I chose to bite my tongue. We were new to homeschooling, and she needed all the playmates she could find.
Now I’m more open. Also, since Allison is older, she’s more forthright herself with her friends. Luckily, a wonderful woman in town started a secular homeschooling group. We’re the Mid Ohio Secular Homeschoolers. We finally have a place to fit in and be completely ourselves! We sometimes discuss secular materials, but mostly we get together just for support and friendship. Allison feels so free now that she can openly discuss her nontheism. The kids encourage each other to stand up for freethought. They also help each other deal with harassment about their lifestyles.
Q: What are the pros and cons of homeschooling?
A: For us, the biggest benefit of homeschooling has been the lifestyle. We are free to go where we please, and we find learning experiences everywhere. Learning doesn’t just take place in four walls of a schoolroom! We are trying to raise Allison as a citizen of the world, and we are able to do that through homeschooling. We travel as much as possible, paying lower off-season prices. We choose our own materials and style of learning. Also, my daughter is no longer bullied for being a Humanist.
The main “con” of homeschooling is that we have to actively seek out social experiences. Allison loves being around kids, and sometimes she misses being around classmates all day. Occasionally, we get on each others’ nerves since we’re together most of the time. We work it out through open communication. We feel learning to get along and talk things out is an important life skill for kids. Also, we have to deal with the stereotype of homeschoolers being religious. We like to open people’s minds and let them know all kinds of people homeschool.
Don’t let being a nontheist stop you from homeschooling. We can support each other and make our voices heard. As the number of nontheist homeschoolers grows, publishers will see the need in the market and publish more materials for us.
Deciding to homeschool can be a scary decision. I was really nervous at first, but now I’m absolutely sure it’s the right decision for our family.
—Amy Page, Mid Ohio Secular Homeschoolers, [email protected]
Activities
This Activities section includes ideas for finding communities, building communities, and exploring the idea of community.
The Belief-O-Matic™ Quiz
www.beliefnet.com > Belief-O-Matic
Age 12+
Have friends and family take the Belief-O-Matic Quiz at www.beliefnet.com. Answer twenty multiple-choice questions about your beliefs and receive a list of belief systems and your percentage of agreement with each. A fascinating exercise in community building and in demonstrating the common ground among belief systems.
Hit the Road to Find Freethought Communities
All ages
Visit local freethought groups, UU congregations, or Ethical Societies. Learn about what they have to offer and look for ways your family can get involved.
Famous Freethinkers, Humanist Heroes
All ages
Most kids grow up completely unaware of the many contributions made by the nonreligious. Just as the theistic worldviews of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi informed and energized their work and character, so nontheistic, humanistic values informed the lives and work of such towering figures as John Stuart Mill, Susan B. Anthony, Jane Addams, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, and countless others. Next time your child is choosing a famous subject for a book report or project, why not suggest a freethinker? Check out www.celebatheists.com for a list of several hundred atheists and agnostics, and pick out a few with your child about whom she is interested in learning more.
The Community Mural
All ages
Materials: butcher paper and crayons, markers, or paint
Start by brainstorming what a community is. Help kids to move beyond the physical community into the concept of shared values and traditions. Have the kids draw or paint a mural with their own vision of community. Ask that they include pictures of people doing things that help to bind a community together. Follow up by talking about ways to support each other and keep communities together.
Guru2Go
All ages
(Works best in groups of twelve or more, in relatively small age range)
1. Tell the children you are looking for four “gurus”—kids who can teach something they know in 3 to 4 minutes. (Help them brainstorm ideas: Have you been to another country? Do you know how stars form? Can you explain how trees turn sunlight into food?)
2. Have the four gurus spread out in the room. Divide the remaining kids into groups of three.
3. One from each group goes to a guru, who then teaches what he or she knows. The learners listen, ask questions, and take notes.
4. The learners come back to their groups and teach what they learned.
5. Repeat with new gurus.
Common Bonds
All ages, groups of eight or more–the more, the better
Materials: scratch pads, pens, butcher paper, markers
1. Have kids pair up.
2. Each pair talks to discover something they have in common (an interest, a preference, a talent, an experience, etc.), then writes it down.
3. Each pair then finds another pair. Kids determine something that all four members have in common and write it down.
4. Each group of four then finds another group of four and determines something all eight have in common.
5. Continue to entire group.
6. Make a mural illustrating each level of community.
All My Friends and Neighbors
All ages, groups of ten to sixty or more. Kids and adults can play this game together.
Materials: open field or floor space and enough chairs for everyone in the group minus one.
This is a game we play at Camp Quest to help everyone get to know each other.
Set up the chairs in a circle, with one chair fewer than the number of participants. The person starting the game stands in the middle and says something true about him- or herself, beginning with the phrase “All my friends and neighbors …” Example: “All my friends and neighbors like math class the best.” Everyone in the circle for whom that statement is true, and the person in the middle, runs and finds a new chair somewhere else in the circle (usually they aren’t allowed to take the chair right next to them). The new person who is left without a chair goes to the middle and says something true about himor herself, like “All my friends and neighbors know how to knit.” Repeat until you’re ready to move on.
Tips: Try to discourage merely visible attributes. You don’t learn nearly as much about each other if most of the rounds are, “All my friends and neighbors are wearing blue jeans.” Encourage people to be careful not to collide with each other or tip over their chairs when sitting down. If some of the younger participants are getting in the middle over and over, help them get to a chair, or have them swap with someone who hasn’t been in the middle yet.
“Yeah, But …”
Ages 8 and up. Groups of two to eight. If more are participating, break them into a few groups.
Materials: Topics for argument appropriate to the age group.
This is an activity used at Camp Quest to encourage kids to think on their feet and argue both sides of an issue. It’s adapted from an activity called “Chain Debate” that is used as a warmup for high school policy debate teams. It’s good for small groups of kids ages 8 and up. It can also be used as a way to air a disagreement in the group and get the issues on the table. The lesson here is that there are multiple sides to issues. Understanding the arguments of people who disagree with you can help you make better arguments for your own position—or may even change your mind. When you are working with a group, you may not agree, but you can find a way to discuss the issue and work together.
1. Sit in a circle with the group.
2. Explain that you’re going to start a topic, and each person has to respond to the argument made by the person who went directly before her. No matter what her personal beliefs are, she should argue against the point made by the person immediately before her.
3. Start a topic by stating a position and giving a reason. For example, “Kids should wear uniforms to school because then they don’t have to compete with each other over whose family can afford the coolest designer clothes.”
4. The person next to you then responds. For example, “Kids shouldn’t have to wear school uniforms because wearing their own clothes allows them to express their individuality, which they can do even with inexpensive clothes.”
5. The next person argues against the person immediately before him. It’s important to point out that this person should respond to the new reason being offered, rather than just restating what the first person said. For example,“Individuality can be expressed by kids in other ways at school, and since the school should be an environment where kids focus on learning, they should wear school uniforms so that they aren’t distracted by clothes.”
6. Go around until everyone has had at least one turn. In smaller groups you may want to go around the circle with the same issue more than once. If you have an odd number of participants in the circle, the second time around everyone will argue the opposite side as before. You can achieve this with an even number by having the organizer pass to the next person when it comes back around to his or her turn.
Tips: Selecting topics that are relevant and approachable to kids in the age group you are working with helps make this activity a success. Ideas include school uniforms, curfews, household chores, homework. Pick something that kids will know enough about that they can come up with reasons and something that clearly has two points of view that can be defended somewhat equally. For older participants, choose topics that are more complex or abstract. Have several topic choices written down when you start the activity, and if one topic isn’t working well, move on to something else.
Group Story
All ages, for groups of any size
Materials: none needed; can use paper and pencils or markers
Gather the group together and let everyone know that you’re going to be telling (or writing) stories. But there is a catch: You’re going to tell them together. Form a circle. The first person in the circle offers a single word to begin the story. Each person adds just one word to the story when it comes around. The word has to fit grammatically with what has been said before—otherwise it can be anything you want. Keep going until the story comes to a natural stopping point.
Alternative 1: Instead of going around in a circle, have someone act as the “pointer” and point to whomever they want to add the next word.
Alternative 2: Pass around a piece of paper and have each person add his or her word in writing, then at the end have someone read the whole story aloud. This way no one knows what is happening in the story until the paper reaches him or her, and no one knows the whole story until the end.
Alternative 3: Instead of adding just one word, have participants add a certain number of words or a whole sentence.
Blob Tag
All ages; best for ten or more participants
Materials: an open, space safe for running around
One person starts out “it” and tries to tag others. When someone is tagged, instead of just that person being it, that person joins hands with the person who is it. Together they try to tag more people. The “it” blob grows until everyone has been tagged.
Alternative: If playing with a large group, you can have the “it” blob break in half and form two blobs once you reach a certain number.
Team Spirit
All ages, for groups of 3 or more
Materials: big paper, markers, scrap paper, pencils, or pens
In this activity kids create a team name, team chant, and team logo. A great activity to use on the first meeting of a group that will be together for some time or will meet repeatedly. Depending on the size of the group, you may have all the kids work together to create one team identity, or you may group the kids into a few separate teams and have each group create an identity. Smaller teams can be especially good if you have a large group and wish to rotate between activities or have ready-made teams to play team games later. If you are creating several teams, have the groups number off randomly or have the adults create the groups so that people mix together with folks they don’t know as well.
1. Give each group pencils or pens and some scrap paper. Give groups 15 minutes to come up with a team name. Remind the groups that they can use whatever method they want to for coming up with a name but should agree on the method (for example: voting, consensus, or picking from the best choices out of a hat) and the team name should be something that the people in the group like being associated with.
2. Once the group has come up with a name, give it another 10 minutes to come up with a chant or a cheer for the group. Let groups know that the chant should be something to cheer on the group, not something that puts other teams down.
3. Then give the group another 15 minutes to come up with a logo for the team using the scratch paper to work out a design.
4. Once each group has a logo design, hand out markers and big sheets of paper so that each team can draw and color in its logo. The logos can hang in the common meeting room or identify places in the room for teams to gather.
5. At the end have each team present its name, chant/cheer, and logo to the other teams. If there is only one team, have members present it to the group leader.
Tips: You may wish to adjust the times for these steps depending on the total size of the group and how long the group will be using these teams. You can omit the logo portion if you just want to do names and chants and then move on with another activity.
Human Knot
All ages; best for groups of eight to fifteen. Can be used with multiple groups of that size at once.
Materials: an open floor space or field
1. Have everyone in the group stand shoulder to shoulder together in circle facing each other, tightly together.
2. Each person reaches both hands into the circle and grabs two other hands. You may not grab the hands of the people right next to you, and you can’t grab both hands with the same person.
3. The group tries to disentangle the knot into a circle without letting go of any hands so that at the end each person is standing between the two people whose hands they are holding. Note that in the final circle some people will be facing to the inside and others will be facing out.
Alternatives: To make this activity more difficult, have some or all of the members of the group not be allowed to talk during the activity.
Resources
Finding Existing Nontheistic Communities in Your Area
American Humanist Association List of Chapters
www.americanhumanist.org/chapters/
American Atheists Affiliate List
Atheist Alliance International Member Groups
www.atheistalliance.org/aai/members.php
American Ethical Union Ethical Societies
www.aeu.org/index.php?case=members
Society for Humanistic Judaism Congregations
Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations Affiliates
www.csjo.org/pages/affiliates.htm
Unitarian Universalist Congregations
www.uua.org/aboutus/findcongregation/index.php
Center for Inquiry Communities
www.centerforinquiry.net/about/communities
Secular Student Alliance Campus Affiliates
www.secularstudents.org/affiliates
The Brights Local Constituencies
www.the-brights.net/community/blc/list.html
Camp Quest
Atheists: www.atheists.meetup.com
Humanists: www.humanism.meetup.com
Brights: www.humanism.meetup.com
Parenting: www.parenting.meetup.com
The Freedom From Religion Foundation has a few local chapters as well but no online list. Go to www.ffrf.org for more information.
Alternatives to Traditional Scouting
Earth Scouts
Spiral Scouts
Curricula
American Ethical Union
Sample curriculum: http://64.118.87.15/~aeuorg/library/articles/Love_Your_Neighbor_exploration.pdf
The American Ethical Union publishes some of its religious education curricula for kids on its website. The Love Your Neighbor curriculum is its ethics and values curriculum for preschool through early elementary school. If you are starting a children’s program, you may find some of the stories and activities useful. If you are considering an Ethical Society, you may also find this curriculum interesting as an example of the children’s programs offered.
OABITAR (Objectivity, Accuracy, and Balance In Teaching About Religion)
Different Drummers curriculum: www.teachingaboutreligion.com/new_dd.htm
Different Drummers is a curriculum on the role of freethinkers in history, produced by OABITAR. Designed for use in public schools, this resource focuses on the important societal roles played by people who think differently from the mainstream. Some parts of this curriculum may be helpful if you are starting a children’s program. You may also want to suggest it to your child’s school, especially if you are looking for a way to help remedy a bias toward Christianity or conformity in the classroom.
Ethical Society Without Walls
Ethical Culture
Society for Humanistic Judaism
Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations
The Unitarian Universalist Association Tapestry of Faith curriculum
www.uua.org/religiouseducation/curricula/tapestryfaith/index.shtml
Some of the stories and lessons in this curriculum are available online. Some sections would be relevant for humanist children’s programs.
Resources for Secular Homeschoolers
Secular Homeschoolers’ Personal Web Pages
www.geocities.com/hs_hopeful/personal_pages/Secular.html
Secular Homeschool
www.atheistview.com/secular_homeschool.htm
Secular Homeschooling Magazine—a new resource
www.secular-homeschooling.com/
General homeschooling information
http://homeschooling.about.com
Lawrence Hall of Science, the public science center of the University of California, Berkeley, produces pre-K through high school science and math education materials, some of which are aimed at homeschoolers. www.lhs.berkeley.edu
Yahoo! Groups for Freethought Homeschoolers (all membership totals as of May 2008)
Secular homeschoolers group (1520 members)
www.groups.yahoo.com/group/secular_homeschoolers
Atheist homeschoolers group (729 members)
www.groups.yahoo.com/group/homeschool_atheists
UU homeschoolers group (995 members)
www.groups.yahoo.com/group/UUHomeschoolers
Freethinking HomeEducators group (270 members)
www.groups.yahoo.com/group/FreeThinking-HomeEducators
Freethinking Unschoolers group (582 members)
www.groups.yahoo.com/group/freethinking_unschoolers
Many smaller groups are available, including some on the state or city level. Enter appropriate search terms (e.g., secular homeschool Georgia) at www.groups.yahoo.com.
Miscellaneous
Pollack, Stanley, and Mary Fusoni. Moving Beyond Icebreakers (Boston: Center for Teen Empowerment, 2005). A great resource for organizing groups and meetings with kids, teenagers, and adults. Contains more than 300 exercises, but unlike many other resources, it also gives helpful guidance on why to integrate these activities, creating buy-in and overcoming resistance of group members, plus tips regarding how best to select activities that will work well with your group’s membership and purposes.
This book would be useful to those who are trying to start a new group, whether the group is aimed at kids, teens, adults, or families participating together. It would also be a helpful tool for those who are trying improve the dynamics and community feeling of an existing group. If your local freethought group consists of a monthly lecture with Q&A and then everyone disappears, this book can provide insights into how to build a more robust community in your group by making meetings more interactive. The book is produced by a nonprofit organization called Teen Empowerment (www.teenempowerment.org) and is available from its website or from your favorite online bookstore.
Unitarian Universalist FAQ: www.uufaq.com. Several exciting new resources for nonreligious parents are currently in development, including a “Secular Parenting Wiki” of activities related to critical thinking, ethics, meaning, and inquiry and a humanist Sunday school curriculum from the American Humanist Association. For continuous updates on new resources for nonreligious parents, visit the Parenting Beyond Belief homepage at www.parentingbeyondbelief.com.
Notes
1. Church and Sunday School are the terms used by the majority Christian religious communities in the United States. I will use those terms for convenience. Other religious groups use different terms that refer to similar practices. Jewish families often belong to a synagogue or temple, for example, and their children may spend Saturdays going to Hebrew School.
2. From a study conducted by W. Bradford Wilcox, reported by PBS on October 19, 2005, in its Religion and Ethics Newsweekly. The analysis is available at www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week908/analysis1.html. Table 1, which includes the relevant findings, is available at www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week908/Wilcox_Data.pdf. Both accessed May 20, 2008.
3. Roccas, S., and M. B. Brewer, (2002). Social identity complexity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 6, 88–106.
4. Sherif, Muzafer, O. J. Harvey, B. Jack White, William R. Hood, Carolyn W. Sherif (1954/1961), Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation: The Robbers Cave Experiment. Available online here: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Sherif/index.htm. Accessed April 13, 2008.
5. Gaertner, S. L., J. F. Dovidio, P. A. Anastasio, B. A. Bachman, and M. C. Rust. The common ingroup identity model: Recategorization and the reduction of intergroup bias. In W. Stroebe & M. Hewstone (Eds.), European Review of Social Psychology, 4 (1993), 1–26.
6. Witt, A. P., and N. L. Kerr.“Me versus just us versus us all”: Categorization and cooperation in nested social dilemmas. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83 (2002), 616–637.
7. Accessed May 14, 2008, from www.gallup.com/poll/27124/Just-Why-Americans-Attend-Church.aspx
8. Based on several internal and external UUA surveys, including the Casebolt survey (2001) and the FACT survey (2000). The Casebolt survey offered seven labels and allowed respondents to select as many as they felt applied to them. “Humanist was a clear choice (54 percent), but agnostic (33 percent) beat out earth-centered (31 percent). Atheist was picked by 18 percent and Buddhist by 16.5 percent. Pagan and Christian tied at 13.1 percent.” The UUA’s 1997 in-house survey asked members to choose only one label. “The top choices were humanist (46 percent), earth/nature-centered (19 percent), theist (13 percent), [and] Christian (9.5 percent).” Quotes from Dart, John,“Churchgoers from Elsewhere,” The Christian Century (December 5, 2001).
9. Accessed May 14, 2008, from www.aeu.org
10. Lee-St. John, Jeninne.“Sunday School for Atheists: An oxymoron? Nope—nonbelievers need places to teach their kids values too,” TIME Magazine (December 3, 2007), 99.
11. Accessed June 4, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_Scouts_of_the_USA
12. Accessed June 4, 2008, from www.bsa-discrimination.org/html/gsusa.html
13. Accessed June 4, 2008, from www.earthscouts.org
14. Accessed June 4, 2008, from www.spiralscouts.org