 Hi you guys my name is Brittany and welcome back to my YouTube channel. You guys in today's video I'm going to explain why I have chosen to use secular curricular and resources in my home school even though we are a family of faith. So if any of you guys are new here to my channel again my name is Brittany. I am a homeschooling mom to three girls ages 11, 5 and 3 and I'm wrapping up my third year of homeschool. So you guys as always I will be very open and vulnerable in today's video and sharing with you guys my experience with using Christian versus secular curriculum and why I have ultimately chosen to use more secular resources in my homeschool. So you guys the number one reason why I have chosen to use secular curricular in my homeschool is because I was relying on my Christian curriculum to do all of the work for me. I was really skipping out on that special Bible and morning time with all of my kiddos and really making an excuse with saying okay well our language arts curriculum we're going to be written a Bible story and going over a Bible verse okay that's going to be enough for today let's keep moving forward or okay you guys in science we're going to be talking about animals got me all the animals all right we're good we covered Bible today and you guys I really was allowing my Christian curriculum to become a crutch for me not to do the hard work. As I am using more secular curriculum in my homeschool I really feel like we have had the opportunity to dive in deeper in our specific faith in our specific doctrine and what we believe. I feel like Christianity as a whole is a pretty broad spectrum there's so many different religions that fall under the category of Christianity however their doctrines and what they actually believe is a little bit different from another and I really feel like now that I have carved out that special time outside of our curriculum for us to learn about our Bible our doctrine and what we believe I really feel like my kiddos will gain a better understanding of what we actually believe in our household and honestly I'm really really proud of myself for carving out that special time this year it was a little bit uncomfortable at first however now that I have made it a part of our routine I really set our Bible time precedent above all of our you know curriculum I make sure if we start Bible a little bit late that's okay our school day is just going to end a little bit late but we are going to carve out this special time in our homeschool because it is important to me another reason why I have chosen to use more secular curriculum in my homeschool is that I have found that by using more secular curriculum secular curriculum overall is way more diverse and inclusive than Christian curriculum I feel like a lot of Christian curriculum especially in the science and history there are a lot of biases where it always goes back to Christianity and sometimes the way that it does it it puts Christianity on a pedestal above all other beliefs in all of the other cultures and I was finding I really wasn't liking that especially in my science curriculum you guys I actually did life and space science with my daughter these past couple of years my oldest daughter and we actually used a Christian curriculum and I skipped over a lot of the parts where they was talking about evolution because of the way that the Christian curriculum presented evolution I really didn't like it I wanted to present evolution to my daughter in a way where she's able to understand someone else's belief and their perspective on things and then I wanted her to present with her Christianity not Christianity creationism and explain to her that side of things I didn't want to put any type of bias or beliefs in between those things I just wanted to present the information to her and I didn't find that that my Christian curriculum did it for her especially when it came to science this year you guys we actually studied space and I still taught my daughter about the big bang theory and I actually used my decay encyclopedia to do it and I really just wanted to present with her I guess that information and just give her a different perspective in a different way that someone else may think or believe outside of herself and that was really really important for me to present those pieces of information without creating any biases in a lot of Christian curriculum especially in the science it does it now as far as history curriculum I personally haven't tried any I guess Christian curriculum as far as history I have tried beautiful feet however honestly feel like beautiful feet is falls more on the neutral category they do have a highlight section where you can read Bible verses but overall it is just basically a literature based history curriculum but I will say overall in history I don't think I would want to use Christian based curriculum especially as we are entering in studying like world cultures and world history for my oldest daughter I definitely want her to gain a true understanding and knowledge of other people's beliefs and cultures outside of her own and I do not want her to feel as if that her beliefs are superior to others and I feel like a lot of Christian curriculum especially when it comes to like their world cultures it definitely presents Christianity as being above others and that's just my perspective and the resources that I have seen and sampled um I definitely will say Christian curriculum definitely lacks the capability of allowing the kiddos to test their critical thinking skills and allow them to test their personal faith I do not want to put my kiddos in a bubble in our home school and never exposed to them to different ideals and different ways of thinking and different beliefs and then have them leave my home school and then all of a sudden their bubble gets popped and they realize that it's so many different cultures and beliefs and religions out here that my mom never exposed me to and then they begin to question all of the things that I talked or told them and taught them about our specific faith and our specific doctrine I want to go ahead and expose them to that in our home school especially as my daughter gets older I definitely want to test her faith and I want her to leave our home school knowing God for herself and knowing other ways of thinking as well hopefully that makes sense I just don't I just don't want to keep her in a little Christian bubble here in my home school I definitely just want to open up her eyes to other beliefs especially for my oldest as she's getting older now I do know a lot of people are leery of teaching their young kiddos about different cultures and religions and I do understand that however now that my oldest is older we will be using a secular curriculum in teaching her a world history and I'm really really excited about that you guys one thing I will say as I've been using more secular curriculum I have noticed that the secular curriculum that I have used has been more solid and more rigorous compared to the Christian curriculums that I have personally been exposed to now you guys I definitely know like BJU, Becca those are all very very strong and solid programs and a lot of people go to them because they are tried and true I have actually have personal experience using rod and staff publications and I definitely will say even though rod and staff is a Mennonite curriculum their English is really really strong I also my sister also has had experience with my niece with Christian light education when they homeschooled last year they use Christian light and they absolutely loved it it was very solid program for them and my niece's transition back into public school was seamless because they use that curriculum so I'm saying that all to say I'm not saying that all Christian curriculum is I guess inferior to secular but my experience with a Christian curriculum that I have used I found that the secular resources has been more solid and more academically sound than the resources that I have used and that's just my personal opinion now there's no perfect curriculum out there every single piece of curriculum that I have had to use in my homeschool I have had to tweak it in some way or another but I just found overall I just love the perspective of using secular curriculum especially when it comes to like my core and then separating out our Bible time it really has been overall working for me in my homeschool now I definitely will let you guys know this I am not saying you will never ever ever see me use a Christian curriculum in my homeschool I will continue to pick out resources that are going to suit each of my kiddos and their needs and whatever resource that will be easy for me to use and for us to reach our overall goals that we have each year however if I can find a secular resource that can do the same thing I honestly feel as if I will continue to choose those secular resources over the Christian resources just based off of all of these things that I'm explaining to you guys today I really feel as if as like the homeschooling community has become wider and bigger especially after the global pandemic the homeschooling community has become way more diverse I feel like the need for more diverse curriculum is needed now more than ever I feel like a lot of bigger publications now are being challenged in their curricular now more than ever to create a more diverse curriculum I feel like a lot of companies have been lenient on using diverse illustrations without actually using diverse content and I'm finding that diverse content in my secular resources and having that diverse content those different perspectives those different mirrors those different lenses is so important to me here in my homeschool so you guys I know this video was like really really short and sweet as I was really explaining all the reasons why I have chosen to use secular curriculums in my homeschool even though you may see people doing different things in different styles in their homeschool I feel like at the end of the day we all have the same goal we want our kiddos to be equipped and be prepared for the world ahead of them um so you guys thank you so much for just coming to my video and sharing with you guys this little corner and this little piece of my homeschool and how I really feel like I have changed and hopefully um I will continue to evolve and make these tweaks in my homeschool as I see necessary so you guys thank you so much for watching I love I would love to chat with you guys in my comment section down below christian versus secular what do you guys use what do you prefer and as always I look forward to seeing everybody in my next one bye you guys in today's video I will be talking about you guys in today's video I will be talking about you guys in today's video um you will not okay crap