For the past several weeks, I’ve been re-entering the world of Duolingo. Since I first used the app about a decade ago, it has received a full makeover and many additional courses. It now includes math and music challenges, and I’ve been enjoying those a great deal. When you start a new course, the app… Continue reading How Harmful is Educational Neglect?
I didn’t know how to connect. I only knew what I was taught, and I was taught badly. Like a parrot in a cage, I learned the language of my captors. My parents kept me trapped inside a small world, and I only knew how to speak the way they taught me to. Dad was… Continue reading Parrot Performance
Content warning: this piece discusses child abuse and neglect. “Children, you are about to be told one more time that you are America’s most valuable natural resource. Have you seen what they do to valuable natural resources?! Have you seen a strip mine? Have you seen a clear cut in the forest? Have you seen… Continue reading Children Do Not Belong to You
One of my earliest memories is of crying with my mom. When I was about five, it occurred to me that not everyone I loved was a Christian. My mom told me that they would be going to hell, and I was gutted. I started naming family members, asking “even them?” and as I cried,… Continue reading Letter of Self-Compassion: Hell
I started blogging over a decade ago, and I’ve always written about my beliefs and how they’ve changed. In one of my early posts, “When the Heart Forces a Smile,” I talked about how my mom taught me forced smiling when I felt upsetting, intense emotions. I didn’t identify this as a form of controlling… Continue reading Non-toxic Positivity
I was homeschooled from Kindergarten through 12th grade. As someone who was homeschooled, I am limited to my own experience and perceptions. When I started high school through my community college last year, I was not even aware of what subjects I would need to study. However, my parents and other homeschool parents often told… Continue reading Homeschooling and the Dunning-Kruger Effect
I entered adulthood wholly uneducated and unprepared for life. I was homeschooled until I was 19. When I tried attending a local university while living with my parents, I had no time to study. I also had no respect for academia. In my mind, my own ignorant Christian beliefs were superior to whatever I might… Continue reading Close Clarity
In Christian homeschool speech and debate, we were told that we were learning logic and critical thinking. What we learned was a kind of feigned intellectualism, one that behaves under the pretense that the most reasonable reaction to anything is no reaction at all. Almost without fail, the winning competitors were charismatic and attractive, smooth… Continue reading Heartlessness and Hate, Part 2
Many people have asked me about speech and debate and whether it helped me with my communication and critical thinking skills. Now that a decade has passed, I can say with certainty that it did not. Years of frustration with speech and debate eventually led to some relative competitive success, but I had to sacrifice… Continue reading Heartlessness and Hate, Part 1
The one episode of reality TV that featured my family was a much smaller thing than we thought. Shared delusions are central to relationships with abusers, and the chance to soak up the spotlight was no exception for my parents. The show itself was embarrassingly bad – the production quality was abysmal, and we had… Continue reading False Fame
