Evangelical group World Vision joins 34 Brazilian left-wing groups to declare that homeschooling “poses risks” to children and adolescents
By Julio Severo
With the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19)
and children unable to attend school in Brazil, many parents are opting for
homeschooling. In reaction, Brazilian left-wingers prepared a manifesto on May 14, 2020 against homeschooling.
The manifesto, entitled “In addition to being unconstitutional, homeschooling poses
risks to children and adolescents, say 35 organizations in a technical note,”
was signed by 35 Brazilian left-wing organizations, including World Vision.
The Brazilian branch of World Vision,
which was founded by evangelicals, should fulfill an evangelical mission, and
not ally with left-wing groups that constantly attack evangelicals and their
values.
What are the complaints from the 35 left-wing
groups, including World Vision, against homeschooling?
The manifest complains that “there is no
legal support for the practice of homeschooling in Brazil” and that homeschooling
“presents other serious risks for the protection of children and adolescents,”
adding that “the risks are based on high rates of violence and sexual abuse and
child labor occur within the family environment.”
The manifest explains:
According to data from the Ministry of
Health, 68% of cases of sexual violence against children and adolescents occur
in the home. And most victims of sexual violence are children and adolescents
(0 to 17 years old) and female.
With data from the 2019 Brazilian Public
Security Yearbook, the technical note shows that every hour, four girls up to
13 years old are raped. And that 66% of male children raped in Brazil are
between zero and 15 years old.
The manifesto then blames all this sexual
violence in the family environment, without explaining exactly what that
environment is. The 35 left-wing groups see the family environment as a
“serious risk” environment.
While the normal homeschooling environment
is composed of conservative married parents (meaning they are not divorced or
remarried because most homeschoolers are practicing Christians), the “family
environment” vaguely described by the manifesto does not always have this
conservative profile.
If the manifesto were honest, especially
with the presence of a large evangelical group that has an international operation,
it would praise homeschooling and denounce relationships outside of marriage.
But the manifesto does the opposite: it uses the obvious higher violence of relationships
outside of marriage, so defended by the left, but prone to abuse, as evidence
that homeschooling would be bad.
Traditionally, the left defends
relationships outside of marriage, with all its dangers and violence.
And the left traditionally attacks the
traditional family, because a conservative married father and mother who
educate their children threaten the hegemonic ideological indoctrination of the
left in schools. For this reason, the left fights to take children out from
families and place them directly under the left-wing indoctrination of schools.
A child is much more likely to become a lefty by attending school than by
studying in a conservative home.
The left finds easier to monitor and
inspect children at school than in homes. One of these inspections includes the
issue of physical discipline of children. According to the Spanking Law, passed
by socialists in 2014, Brazilian parents are prohibited from physically
disciplining their children for disobedience. According to this socialist law,
such a discipline constitutes “violence.” So, when a socialist manifesto
mentions “child abuse,” that abuse includes what without socialism is not
abuse, but a natural right of parents.
The manifesto concludes:
Regulating the practice of homeschooling can
aggravate cases of exploitation, abuse and violence against children and
adolescents. “It is to prioritize the agenda of a minority — in many cases
fundamentalist — to the detriment of the right of the majority. It is,
therefore, extremely irresponsible from the point of view of not only education
but also the protection of children and adolescents.”
The language of the manifesto, shamefully
supported by World Vision, reveals the center of its concern by saying that the
legalization of homeschooling prioritizes the agenda of a “fundamentalist”
minority. This term is often used not to describe unhealthy family
environments, but Christian families following biblical and conservative
principles. In no way does homeschooling harm most people, as the document
points out, because homeschooling is never imposed on anyone. But, of course,
it brings huge losses to the left.
The manifesto considers the conservative
home to be an unsafe environment — for socialist indoctrination, of course —
and the school environment to be safe — for socialist indoctrination, of
course.
As a homeschooling advocate in Brazil for
over 20 years (I am the translator of the book They Way Home, by Mary Pride),
the only risk I see is the hijacking of the homeschooling banner. In the administration
of Jair Bolsonaro, many occult adherents hold important positions, including in
the area of education. These occultists were appointed by Olavo de Carvalho,
Bolsonaro’s guru. Carvalho
is a member of the Traditionalist School, whose most prominent member was
Julius Evola, guru of the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
Although Bolsonaro
has been elected mainly by evangelicals, he chose to fill his administration
with adherents of Carvalho, who use conservatism, including homeschooling, to
promote his occult “traditionalist” agenda.
However, the manifesto attacks all homeschooling
supporters in Brazil, whether they do it for Christian reasons or for esoteric
and “traditionalist” reasons.
Among the 35 groups that signed the
socialist document are:
* Geledés Instituto da Mulher Negra, a
black supremacist organization that advocates abortion and homosexuality.
* Agenda 2030 Working Group in Brazil, a
radically socialist group.
* Paulo Freire Institute, a radically
socialist group.
* MST (Landless Rural Workers Movement), a
radically socialist group.
* And World Vision.
How does a huge evangelical group like
World Vision sign a document that attacks the conservative home as an unsafe
environment — for socialist indoctrination — and the school environment as safe
— for socialist indoctrination?
Thousands of evangelicals in the U.S. and
other countries send donations to World Vision to feed children, not to feed
left-wing anti-family fanaticism.
The natural family environment is the
greatest protection for the child. To place the school, especially the public
school, as a greater protection than the family is something that only
socialists do, and something that World Vision is doing by joining 35 radical
left-wing groups.
It is time for Christians who send their donations
to World Vision to ask questions of this organization that should be at the
service of the Gospel and the welfare of children, not the welfare of
socialism.
Portuguese version of this article: Entidade
evangélica Visão Mundial se une a 34 organizações esquerdistas para declarar
que a educação escolar em casa “traz riscos” para crianças e adolescentes
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