Boycott The Old Schoolhouse and Homeschoolblogger
28 02 2006BOYCOTT: Michael Mike Debi Pearl, The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, HomeschoolBlogger.com, HomeschoolBlogger, HomesteadBlogger, Homesteadblogger.com, TOS, HSB,
IN THE NEWS: Another Child Dies
Want to support this boycott? Download a button for your site here, or find more here
More graphics here.. Link back to this post.
UPDATE: READ AMAZON READER REVIEWS
Click here To train up a child
Click here No Greater Joy
HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE PLEADING WITH AMAZON TO STOP SELLING THESE BOOKS.
Sign The Petition asking Amazon to stop selling the Pearl’s materials.
Other large booksellers have already stopped stocking the Pearl’s materials.
Why boycott these sites?
HomeschoolBlogger is supported by The Old SchoolHouse Magazine. The Old Schoolhouse magazine in turn provides ad space for and publishes articles that support or are contributed by Michael and Debbie Pearl, who are proponents of abusive discipline practices. The editor of TOS magazine, Gena Suarez, refuses to apologize for her statements to the press in regards to the child’s death - instead, she chose to support the proponents of child abuse, The Pearls, whom the mother of the dead child turned to for “discipline” advice. Hopefully a boycott will raise awareness among all parents that these child abuse materials are available, and perhaps spur Christians to rebuke one of their own into stopping this madness.
HSB is now deleting blogs of those clients who support components of the boycott.
The Pearls market heavily to homeschoolers, hitting all major homeschooling conventions and curriculum sales, and advertising heavily in homeschooling publications.
LEAVE HOMESCHOOLBLOGGER - accepting their free service is the same as accepting child abuse
BLOG ALTERNATIVE SITES:
Homeschooljournal Christian friendly (very), admins more than willing to help ex HSB’s relocate. You can contact the admins from their blogsite here.
These three have full user control and are easy to use.
Blogger
Wordpress
Xanga
BOYCOTT SITES THAT SUPPORT THE PEARLS BY ALLOWING LINKS TO THE ABOVE SITES OR SELL THEIR PRODUCTS
Some info on the Pearls here. (Anti Pearl Content)
Click Here to view the Pearl’s Website
An excerpt from the above site:
Dear Pearls,
I am a pastorÂ?s wife and have a question for you. Is it right to spank a 7-month-old for crying when put down for bed?
CharityIf the child has been mistrained, or if you have failed to provide a good prelude to sleep, and the child rises up to fight and resist, you should evaluate your whole procedure so as to improve your pre-sleep ritual for tomorrow night. But for the moment, you must constrain the child to obey authority and remain lying down. You may have to prove the power of your word by enforcing it with one or two stinging licks (applied with a small flexible switch) to the childÂ?s leg that says to the child, Â?There is no reward for getting up; Mama means business; she is not going to give over to my demands; the path to greatest pleasure is to go to sleep; there is no alternative; my parents always get their way; what can I say? Good night.Â?
Christian bloggers who post at HSB can’t simply ignore the fact that the company that provides them free webspace is also supporting child abuse. Supporting HSB is supporting child abuse. Take a stand and leave HSB. DELETE YOUR BLOG TODAY: PM “Amy Beth” with your name, user name, and your email. Be sure to tell her WHY you are deleting your account. HSB is a SCAM - they do not allow users to delete their own accounts, artificially promoting themselves as “the voice of over 6000 bloggers”.
And what did the editor, Gena Suarez, of The Old Schoolhouse magazine (And owner of HomeschoolBlogger) have to say to reporters about the child killing above?
You can search homeschoolblogger for Gena’s response. It’s a wonderful example of how a Christian spins a child’s death.
How the UK responded to a tour by The Old Schoolhouse magazine. How about we north Americans grow some balls and join them?
Positive Parenting An excellent alternative discipline site, but a wonderful homeschooling mom who thinks like I do, and has put it down in words.
Here is an eloquent post about whether or not corporal punishment is actually biblical.
Message board owners should stop allowing blog listings and discussions of The Old Schoolhouse, the Pearls, and any abusive discipline practice. Now. Today. Stop allowing the sale of Pearl’s materials on your swap boards.
BEATING CHILDREN IS NOT EFFECTIVE DISCIPLINE. Stop calling it discipline, correction, and spanking. Hitting a child is beating a child.
Guess what? The Homeschool Legal Defense Association advocates spanking too. However, they recommend you do it in hiding. Secure the windows, don’t let the neighbors hear ‘em scream!
Companies who sell the Pearls’ books and/or advertise for TOS and HSBlogger:
Amazon.com (US), Amazon.ca (CA), Barnes & Noble - stopped selling To Train Up a Child, but still carries No Greater Joy, Chapters.Indigo (CA), Christian Home Education (UK), Memoria Press (US), Heritage Resources (CA), Teach Magazine (US), Homeschool Digest (US), HomesteadBlogger.com
Sites that allow the sale of used materials:
Ebay.com , Ebay.CA , Ebay.UK
Message Boards that allow the swap of used Pearl’s materials. (amazingly enough, Vegsource won’t allow discussion of the Pearls, as the owners are anti-spanking - but there are current materials for sale there!)
Vegsource, The Well Trained Mind
I’d have listed all the Christian boards that allow positive discussion of the Pearl’s methods, but you can figure it’s just about every single one.
EMAIL THESE COMPANIES, WEBSITES, AND MESSAGE BOARDS!
Hundreds of bloggers have now joined the boycott. JOIN TODAY.
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Feel free to copy and distribute this post.
WEAR YOUR SUPPORT!
Tags:
homeschool, homeschooling, unschool, unschooling, michael pearl, debi pearl, boycott homeschoolblogger.com, boycott homeschoolblogger, boycott HSB, homeschoolblogger, homesteadblogger, no greater joy, to train up a child, child abuse, spanking, The Old Schoolhouse, boycott The Old School House, boycott TOS
Linked to your boycott post from mine. Blogger is still acting up, but at least I could post.
Q for you? How do I make the boycott post a sticky?
Sticky post: edit your date into the future. It’s at the bottom of your posting screen, a little arrow in the bottom left hand corner.
I tried to comment on your post (very nice, btw) but apparently my blog is more up than your blog - it goes all wacky when I tried to comment.
And now, I have to leave until late tonight - driving a vanload of teens to a trackmeet 75 miles away. Hello headphones. I’ll check my email periodically on my wireless - comment if something really good happens so I’ll see it via email.
We wouldn’t allow people to run sites that tell you how to molest a child or how to starve it to get it to “act” the way you wanted it to. Why in hell should we allow sites to advocate child abuse?
Butch, I’m about to throw the laptop into the fire! Blogger’s still giving me lots of problems any time I try to do anything. I’ve got it where (I think) it will allow posts and I’m not going to do a single thing more to it until I’m sure blogger has its head out of its ass.
You are back up now! I find that interesting that Gena changed her comments. They are still ignorant no matter what she says though.
Anyone associated with the Pearl’s should not try to represent homeschoolers.
I hope she regrets her “friendship” with that hateful couple.
Hey, all, my dear Sister is getting hit by some absolute moron. Care to come over and give him hell??
http://whereesleshallwego.blogspot.com
Butch,
I just thought I would let you know that TOS also supports Homesteadblogger.com. Keep up the good work.
Count me in.
The Happy Homseschooler
Thank you butch. I had my doubts about the pearls when I read one of their books received as a gift. I didn’t agree with much of it and forgot about it. I will join the boycot.
robin
Butch,
Count me in too.
Annette
This Well-Trained Moron is also in, as are most Well-Trained Morons. Be careful how you swing that tar brush.
Disgusting! Those poor children.. I’ve left my comments at Amazon and you can also count me in! So very sad…
I pray this boycott works!
As long as TWTM site allows the sale of the Pearls’ literature on their site, they’re part of this. There isn’t a middle ground.
I would suggest any offended WTM’er contact their precious SWB and ask her to stop allowing the sale and discussion of the Pearls and their materials on her website. The idea of child abuse doesn’t really fit with all that logical thinking anyway, right?
Don’t forget, SWB’s name is plastered across the front of TOS magazine in their ads.
I won’t be buying any of her products as long as she is associated with TOS.
Now why doesn’t it surprise me that SWB aligns herself with child abuse supporters?
The Peals make Ezzo look like a newborn lamb, which is hard to do! I will do my part to help our children. All children. Use your prayers, voice and wallet.
I’m surprised that your librarian agreed to take part in censorship.
Butch,
I emailed you about something so funny.. I’m sure you read it.. In fact, I think I will blog about it on myspace…
glad to “see” you back.. missed you!!
If you are interested, my myspace is http://www.myspace.com/gothicgyrl
(if you can link it.. I’ll add a link to yours..)
~~Toni
Here is what I said about you:
“I am adding this here. She isn’t really a “hero” per se, but a lady I do respect and admire for her tenacious wit, her sassy mouth and her cancer survival. Oh, she’s also a homeschool mom who just happens to have a bite worse than her bark. She’s a bitchy woman(hopefully she takes that as I mean it) with common sense and a brain ‘ta boot. She’s one hell of a woman.”
I’ll change it if you want me to.
~~ToniCW
Censorship:
Our library mission statement: To provide media for the public good without fee.
This was discretion on the part of the library. Our library doesn’t stock child abuse manuals; there is no need in the “public good” for such a thing, and it exploits children. We don’t stock kiddy porn either. Your library does? If not, I guess they’re guilty of censorship too, yes?
First ammendment rights are limited in their scope, as per the Supreme court. Documents known to cause harm to parties can be censored at will.
Books exist that outline how to murder, maim, commit felony, and cause civil unrest. Just because they exist doesn’t make them literature fit for a public library.
Just FYI: An interesting gentleman from the UK has designed a couple of buttons in support of the boycott. I’ve linked them up on my blog. He says they are free to use.
May I make a suggestion?
I subscribe to the Old Homeschool House. I am getting ready to pull my subscription.. I suggest any of us who has one, do the same and pass it on. I don’t consider it money wasted (i’ve still got almost a full year).. not for this..
~~Toni
What did you say/write to your librarian that persuaded her to pull the book?
I went in, found the books on the shelf, went up to the librarian (I’ve known her for 20 years), pointed out some choice passages, and she frowned, a lot, and then said “we don’t need these on the shelf, do we” (not as a question, but as a statement). They will be reviewed at the next library meeting. They won’t be returning to the shelf.
About 10 years ago, my entire town, including the library, was destroyed in a flood. Afterwards, we received about 20,000 books as donations. Cataloging them and putting them into the computer with barcodes was work enough; we did not have the resources to go through and check each and every book (all books generally go through a review process at biweekly library meetings). These two (actually four) slipped through…
Oh, did I mention? I’ve been on the library board for 15 years. Hey, I’d give up my position, but nobody else wants to do it. It’s a small town underfunded library, not part of the larger interlibrary system (open to libraries with 100K + books only). We can pretty much run it the way we want - including filters on the computers.
You are on the library board?!?!
Oh … MY … GODS!!! As a librarian in a very tiny, underfunded, small town library may I say that I am so in love with you at this moment?
I love my library board. Very supportive, very conscientious and yes… nobody else wants their jobs either, but that’s okay. They’re pretty much the only ones I’d want to see doing that job anyway. They’re awesome!
I’ve done as suggested. I’ve emailed FPEA, Old Homeschool House, I’ve even written reviews on every Pearl book written. I’ve posted links on every website I am allowed to and I’ve spoken to people I know.
I’m doing my part. Including losing money on the magazine that I asked them to cancel immediately.
But it’s worth it.
~~~ToniCW
Perhaps five years ago someone was giving away a copy of “To Train Up a Child” at a homeschool support group meeting. I took it as I was always curious about the Amish way of life and I did wonder, “how do they raise their kids to get them so well behaved?”.
I was horrified to see the spanking recommendations in the book and just couldn’t believe it. I was raised in a spanking home and was spanked as a child. I am anti-spanking.
Frankly I didn’t think anyone cared about this book and am surprised it is being boycotted (and why now?).
I have some other reasons to not be happy with Homeschool Blogger/The Old Schoolhouse Magazine but I won’t get into that here.
I wanted to also throw in that if anyone is curious about the Amish way of life as I was, I learned a lot by reading a few books. First I read a very pro-Amish book “Rosanna of the Amish” by an Amish wife/mother who lived about 100 years ago or maybe 75. There were certain things NOT mentioned in the book that had red flags being raised in my mind. I decided to read more.
When I finally got to “True Stories of X-Amish: Banned-Shunned-Excommunicated” my suspicions were not only confirmed but things were different and worse than I ever imagined.
One sad thing I learned was that there is a lack of affection and love expressions from parents to children. (Who would have thought it?) I learned that children as young as 5 or 7 are using heavy equipment meant for adults and there are injuries and even death as a result. I could go on and on.
Also I read in the X-Amish book that non-elders are not allowed to own or read a Bible. They can only be told through the church elders what the Bible says. According to some of the people in the book who are X-Amish when they finally did read the Bible it was different than they thought and so they left the Amish to live what they felt was a Biblical life. Anyway it is all very interesting to me.
Just blogged about boycotts and about this specific issue. FYI.
http://thethinkingmother.blogspot.com/2006/03/my-thoughts-on-boycotts-in-general.html
Butch,
I just wanted to let you know that there is a great Christian site that doesn’t allow any positive discussion of spanking and advocates all kinds of creative, gentle, loving forms of raising children. Check out http://www.gentlechristianmothers.com
Thank you for this helpful information, esp. the gentle xn mothering link. I’m a fairly new mother just starting to find online groups and blogs, and I didn’t know about the link between homeschoolblogger.com and the Pearls. I will be much more suspicious of what I read on there. As a developmental psychologist and a Christian who was raised with will-breaking spanking parents, I reject all forms of corporal punishment.
I want to recommend an excellent book by Alice Miller that exposes the roots of this violence towards children: _For Your Own Good: Hidden cruelty in child-rearing and the roots of violence_
I wasn’t recently talking to a social worker whom I told that I don’t believe in spanking a child as it might be construed as child abuse.
She then informed me that spanking a child is Not abuse. Spanking with BRUISES is abuse. There’s a difference.
I still don’t spank my children, but if the Pearls only adheres to spanking as a means of “punctuation mark” then it’s supported by CPS.
It’s a fine line, but is that all they do? Preach about spanking a child?
I am not really familiar with them, and I do detest parents who spank their children just because they need children wanted attention.
Spanking in itself is not abuse, according to CPS, but beating is.
Oh my god. I had not heard about any of this until I clicked someone’s button out of curiosity and was brought here. What a horrific thing. I’m glad you’re spreading word about how to boycott.
I’ve written about this in my own blog, and I’ve been looking for a bookseller that does not carry those books. I can’t find any. Barnes and Noble, Borders, Albiris, Abe books, they all have books by the Pearls listed.
If you or any of your readers know of an online bookseller that has stopped selling these books, please email me so that I can add that information to my post in my own blog. I write a books blog, and I’d like to be able to suggest WHERE readers can buy books instead of Amazon. Thanks! dewpie@gmail.com
Thanks for the info about powells.com not selling the books.
You and your readers may be interested in this talk thread at librarything, about this situation.
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=12385#137042
I feel that many of the people disagreeing have good points, but I also feel their points are made in misunderstanding. When did boycotting become censorship?
I am totally against the tactics suggested by the Pearls. But I also disagree with boycotting Amazon. You say that other large bookstores have already stopped selling these books. That’s not true. Barnes and Nobles is selling one of them. Borders is selling both.
Just to clarify, I really don’t think Doc said anything about boycotting Amazon. I said in my blog that I wouldn’t be using Amazon anymore for advertising in my blog. Doc in no way suggested or influenced me to make that personal decision.
Sad. Just sad that someone would advocate for the Pearl’s pattern of teaching parents to abuse.
It has been brought to our attention that a Mr John Angelico who is Maintenance of the Ministry of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria, is selling literature on his website that advocates hitting children under the age of a year old with tree branches. It also advocates hitting older children with paddles and plumbing pipe. Please see article below. One presumes you would not sell such literature unless you were of the opinion that it was acceptable to hit children in this manner, especially as this is clearly child abuse. We will rigorously campaign until it is removed from his site.
Regards
Kate Gibbons
Australian Homeschooled children open to abuse.
BEATING YOUR CHILD WITH A ROD
A swift swat with a light, flexible instrument will sting without bruising or causing internal damage. Many people are using a section of ¼ inch plumber’s supply line as a spanking instrument. It will fit in your purse or hang around you neck. You can buy them for under $1.00 at Home Depot or any hardware store.
“To Train Up a Child,” was written in 1994 by Tennessee pastor Michael Pearl with his wife, Debi, who claim to have raised five “whineless” children.
While the Pearls are well known in fundamentalist Christian circles, they were largely unknown to the secular world until March 2006, when their discipline methods were tied to the death of a North Carolina boy and the alleged abuse of two of his siblings. As reported by Mandy Locke of the Raleigh News & Observer, the children’s adoptive mother, Lynn Paddock, 45, a devotee of the Pearls’ teachings, is currently behind bars. She is charged with first-degree murder in the death of 4-year-old Sean, who suffocated when wrapped tightly in blankets, reportedly to keep him from hopping out of bed. She is also charged with felony child abuse in connection with welts found on two of Sean’s other five siblings. Nowhere in the Pearls’ book do they advocate restraining with blankets; however, Sean’s siblings had apparently been struck with a particular type of “rod” recommended by the Pearls: a length of quarter-inch plumbing supply line.
“Select your instrument according to the child’s size,” writes Pearl. “For the under one year old, a little, ten to twelve-inch long, willowy branch (stripped of any knots that might break the skin) about one-eighth inch diameter is sufficient. Sometimes alternatives have to be sought. A one-foot ruler, or its equivalent in a paddle, is a sufficient alternative. For the larger child, a belt or larger tree branch is effective.” Additional advice from their Web site: Switching with a length of quarter-inch plumbing supply line is a “real attention-getter.”
John Angelico is an Australian Christian Homeschooler from Victoria, who openly sells books and articles by Pearl on his website under “Family Life”. Kingsley Educational Pty.
John Angelico also posts on a blog called “Culture Watch” run by Bill Muehlenberg, a Fundamentalist Preacher originally from America but now residing in Australia. This is a quote by Bill Muehlenburg,
“Moreover, there is wisdom in using an object, e.g., a wooden dowel. First, it disassociates the punishment from the parent. Otherwise the hand of the parent might become an object of fear, instead of love and affection. In the same way animal trainers recommend using an object instead of the hand.
USING A ROD OR ANY OTHER INSTRUMENT TO HIT YOUR CHILD, IS ABUSE.
Saying no to “timeouts,” some fundamentalist Christians “train up” their children by carefully hitting them with switches, PVC pipes and other “chastening instruments.”
[…] has resulted in quite a stir among homeschooling blogs. In fact, this is the case which spawned the boycott against Homeschoolblogger. He died at the hands of his adoptive mother who had tied him to the bed with several thick […]