UNITED STATES
Salon
Former homeschooler on the Duggar family’s horrifying fundamentalist “education”: “It’s literal rape culture”
JENNY KUTNER
Almost as soon as it was revealed last month that Josh Duggar sexually assaulted his younger sisters when he was a teenager — and that his parents, Jim Bob and Michelle, did what they could to cover it up — the Internet erupted with speculation about how the family’s intensive fundamentalist Christian homeschooling program may or may not have contributed to the abuse.
You’ve likely seen some of the lesson plans from Bill Gothard’s Advanced Training Institute, for which the Duggars have advocated persistently, and which pushes an educational curriculum apparently comprised of some of the most damaging, unbelievably misogynistic viewpoints imaginable. To much of the public, the ATI lessons on sexual assault that have circulated online are basic examples of what we mean when we talk about rape culture and victim-blaming; to children who are raised in the homeschooling program — like the 19 Duggar kids — the lessons are “the truth.”
Nicholas Ducote, a self-identified “homeschool survivor,” was one of those children once. Now 27, Ducote was raised in Louisiana and homeschooled by his mother, a fundamentalist Christian and ATI devotee. As he grew up and began to question the homeschooling movement and religion more generally, Ducote stayed in touch with a number of other ATI alumni whom he met through a homeschool speech and debate program. Together, they gave voice to their shared history of shame, anxiety and confusion perpetuated by their experiences with the program.
“When I was in church, I was the special kid, because I was being homeschooled to be a culture warrior,” Ducote told Salon. “Homeschoolers were like the exemplary, perfect Christian children who exemplified everything that most American Christians think children should do and believe — that they should be fighting for a Christian America. There were so many people who thought that no one else had experienced that.”
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.