So I have come up with some tips for being a good member of inclusive homeschool groups.
- Keep post on the topic of homeschooling.
- If the moderator ask you to take a topic off list please do so without getting insulted and huffy. The moderator probably has a very good reason for making the request.
- Remember that religion, politics and sex are hot button issues for most people, please be sensitive to the fact that others on the list may not share your views if you feel the need to post on any of the three.
- Keep in mind that inclusive groups include people of many different beliefs and backgrounds, please try to be sensitive to their beliefs.
10 comments:
This comes up about once a year one of the larger e-lists I'm on. In general, the Christians who are on it *want* to be inclusive and are usually OK with a reminder -- though everyone has learned to use "OT" liberally in subject lines as well.
Actually, I am writing because I will be hosting a carnival of homeschooling, and I am hoping to get some planning and organization posts in the carnival. Can I encourage you to submit one?
Here is a description I put on my blog.
I had an issue on one of the email lists I moderate when a poster, caught up in the Golden Compass paranoia, went on about the 'christian' objections being a serious issue because after all, would we all really want our children turning into atheists. Now, I'm married to a very nice atheist and we have atheists on our list so I had to put my foot down on that. Poor creature took it badly and left the list in a huff.
Guess she missed the 'secualar and inclusive' part in the description of my list.
Guess she did Dawn. You know some of the nicest people I know are atheist and some of the most mean spirited people I know are Christians.
You hardly ever find an atheist telling people not to read a book because a Christian wrote it. In fact most of the atheist I know have actually read the Bible, unlike the majority of Christians.
The key word here is INCLUSIVE!!! It makes me so sad to see, time and time again, in group after group, a fight and ultimately a crumbling of a group along religious lines. The Christians and then the Everyone-els-ers.
My hope - and dare I say it - prayer - is that Anyone of faith (any faith) can be respectful toward those of a different (or lack thereof) faith. After all, isn't that what INCLUSIVE means?
That's what inclusive means to me homestead mama, and I hope the current members of the group will embrace the true meaning of inclusive.
Unfortunately we started noticing a shift in the groups character when some new members from a very exclusive group joined our group. They had no intention of truly respecting the inclusive nature of our group. Luckily once they realized they could not impose their beliefs on the group they choose to leave and go back to their exclusive group; where I hope they will be very happy.
Great post! And, even in exclusive groups it would be nice to see respect for differing beliefs. I happen to belong to a great inclusive group made up of families of many beliefs and lifestyles, including Catholic (me), Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Wiccan, Atheist, etc...and we all get along fine and keep our focus on homeschooling. People come in from time to time, and are often surprised that we really do mean INCLUSIVE. But another thing that has occurred around here, which is sad, is sometimes groups are calling themselves inclusive, but actually have an "anti-Christian" feel to them...IOW, you can be anything BUT Christian. sigh. Why is it so hard for people to just be nice to each other? Anyway, glad I found your blog, I am really enjoying it...
Glad you are enjoying my blog cactus mouse.
I imagine my inclusive group will get back to normal now that the troublemakers are gone. The majority of our group are Christians of various denominations with a few 'others' thrown in, and we had all been getting along great. Then an exclusive Christian group in our area lost it's leadership and the members flocked to my group en mass (I think that was the problem). They never really embraced the idea of a totally inclusive group and they tended to stick together and carry on as if they were still in their exclusive Christian group.
And when they were asked to obey our rules they choose to see it as an insult. Our rules are simple post should be on the topic of homeschooling. If you need to post something off topic, you put OT in the subject line and provide people with a way to contact you off list.
For example if you wanted to make a prayer request you would put OT-Prayer request for __________ and then in the post provide a way (email/phone #) for the people who wanted to respond to contact you. They choose to see this 'rule' as banning prayer and attacking their religious beliefs. But this was the same rule we applied to all off topic subjects be it Ad's, prayer request, sales pitches, etc. And no one had a problem with it for 3 years until this 'one group' decided to join ours.
As a moderator I also don't advertise my religious beliefs. I attempt to keep everything neutral so no one will feel excluded. So they decided that I was a devil worshipping heathen (which was one of the nicer things the Fundamentalist Christian lady that attempted to stir up all the trouble said about me).
The saddest part to me was they attempted to cause a schism in the group. Their first attempt was to drive the 'others' away by making them feel unwelcome. When the moderators put their foot down and forced them to abide by the rules they then attempt to paint our group as Anti-Christian devil worshippers, and encouraged all the 'good Christians' to leave the group.
I can't help but think that Jesus/God would be very sad by their behavior.
On the other hand, in some supposedly "inclusive" groups, there can be a real problem with anti-religion (and specifically anti-Christian) bias.
Once, I naively posted an invitation for families in our group to join us at the National Day of Prayer, which is a non-sectarian event with speakers from many different faiths. It was a totally non-judgmental post, just along the lines of "hey, we're going & if you'd be interested in meeting us there, we'd love to see you." Well, apparently that rubbed somebody the wrong way and I got read the riot act for it.
As a Catholic, I sometimes feel caught between a rock & a hard place. I can't in good conscience sign the statement of faith of the local "Christian" group since it's worded to reflect Protestant beliefs. Yet I feel like I have to walk on eggshells with the local "inclusive" group because there are members who will get offended by even the most innocent mention of religion.
Excellent points. It would be nice if we could all accept each other, warts and all. We are all homeschoolers, after all. If nothing else, we share the common bond of wanting to teach our own.
The National Day of Prayer would have been a perfectly alright post in our group. It would have fell under the topic of community events. We would have just asked you to provide those who were interested with a way to contact you or the event organizer directly for more information.
And the majority of our members would have probably taken part. Those of our members who don't share the majority's Christian beliefs have been very good about accepting and tolerating their beliefs. Which made the attempted hostile take over by the Fundamentalist Christians even more sad. The 'others' were behaving in a far more Christian manner then the so called Christians.
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