This blog is run by a woman who was raised in the quiverfull movement, but I have found many of her posts to be pertinent to my own experiences in a very strict, conservative Mormon household.

http://lovejoyfeminism.blogspot.com/2011/09/just-what-is-indoctrination-anyway.html

She says that she often runs into parents who say it's impossible to raise a child without indoctrinating them...that's what teaching is all about.

What do you think?

Some of the most interesting concepts when it comes to moral education I have read are from Thomas F Green of Syracuse University. Tough to find much of his stuff on-line but if you have access to a college library you can find it.

Here's an example http://www.jstor.org/pss/1085289

http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/PES-Yearbook/93_docs/TGreen.HTM

It's not light reading but he has some illuminating ideas.

Thanks for that, JW. You're right, *not* light reading, but I bookmarked them to read through thoroughly!

Potty training a child, teaching them the rules of the house and society and what personally traits they pick up from the people they are surrounded by are one thing. I didn't make my children be vegetarian just because I happened to be one, my children had a choice. My son started eating meat when he was 10, b/c the neighbor boys offered him hot dogs. I took them to church and when I left I still allowed them to participate until they were ready to give it up.

Educating children and letting them know what their options are is a far cry from the indoctrination that teaches them what they will choose after they know the options.

Indoctrination is all about manipulating the victim into coming to a predetermined conclusion and having the victim think that's what they decided to do.

Think about it, how many members think that they chose to be temple married, they chose to attend church every Sunday without fail, they chose to go on mission they want to clean the church. Do they really have a choice? What happen when someone doesn’t conform to the group think, they are put under extreme pressure to conform to the pre determined results.

You’re not waiting until marriage to have sex????
You’re not going on a Mission?
You’re not holding a calling?
You’re not going to every meeting or activity for your gender and age group?

In real society all these choices would be personal choices and the conclusion would be calculated by the personal preferences of each person, and not condemned or respected based on what someone else wants for that person.

No, I’m not ready to get married and I’m not waiting until I’m 30 to have sex.
No, I’m not going on a Mission, I want to go to college and put my education first and put all my financial resources into that cause.
No, I’m not holding a calling, I have other things to do with my time, like study, read have a job and a social life that doesn’t revolve around the Church.
No, I’m not going to every meeting or activity that the Church offers, no do I feel obligated to do so.

Very well said and I totally agree.

I got that a lot about my choice to not go in a mission. I just fizzled out of church instead. I would have been shamed out of ever finding a wife anyway, because all the girls are indoctrinated to only marry RMs.

I don't think it's an either or concept. Whether indoctrination is present varies from situation to situation. While she's correct that her parents did not overtly teach her not to question their beliefs or their motives, there is an expectation not to. By only giving her one side, their side, they essentially indoctrinated her. I doubt they gave equal time to any other religion aside from their own. Her followup sentence stating that they taught her to question everything and everyone could mean different things to different people.

In my experience, my parents taught me to question other religious groups and other organizations that didn't fit the correct mold. They never intended for that criticism to apply to the Mormon church, only to its adversaries. Just because a parent doesn't overtly instruct their child to behave or think a certain way, does not mean that they will not adopt that view. What they do, how they act, who they associate with and what groups they belong to greatly influence how a child will think and behave. It's unavoidable. Whether it's indoctrination--in the pejorative sense--or not is a matter of interpretation. In my opinion, if coercion is involved, it is indoctrination.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/16/2011 11:11PM by Strykary.

I see the issue in a developmental frame:

When we young children we provide them with a high degree of structure and fewer and simpler models and expect them to more or less accept them. As children get older we provide them with more complex information and models and present them in a way that respects children's increased ability to make choices. When children become teens we get further and further out of the role of *managing* information and thinking and (hopefully) they hire us as consultants. As adults we may become friends.

In indoctrination, the goal is to keep adults in a child-like state in which they accept limited information and models. Indoctrination is generally instills information using some kind of coercion, whether it is physical, psychological, social, or emotional or some combination of those. A sign of indoctrination is that great fear and anxiety arise when the received information and model are questioned and challenged.

That's a great way to explain it, robertb.

Since posting this the other day, I've found myself thinking about it a lot, especially since I often have a tough time explaining why my parent's stance is so difficult to deal with, and how my own tactic when it comes to raising my children is very different.

+1

Testimony gloves and testimony whispering are good examples

Indoctrination is teaching people beliefs and ideas, but without teaching them logic and analysis. True education is learning how to think and problem solve. Indoctrination is teaching you what to think, and handing you prefabricated solutions to problems and then telling you in what situations to apply them.

Educated people become independent and self-actualized. Indoctrinated people are dependent and infantalized.

Three hours of church on Sunday, Monday is Family Home Evening, Tuesday is primary and young men/young women, Wednesday is Homemaking, Thursday (?) there could be a basketball game, or choir practice, or Home Teaching, Friday is for going to the Temple, Saturday is a special day, it's the day we get ready for Sunday. In addition, there is visiting teaching, seminary, all kinds of auxilary meetings. And you're expected to be to all of these things. Expected. And if you don't go, you're not temple worthy.

They love to dangle that stupid temple carrot. It must really make money for them.

A good church wouldn't make attendance mandatory. A good church would offer meetings and activities worth attending.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2011 09:35PM by wine country girl.

wine country girl Wrote:

>
> They love to dangle that stupid temple carrot. It
> must really make money for them.

Yes. Tithing money. I still shake my head that they will excommunicate you and *still* suggest you pay tithing. Says something about priorities.


> A good church wouldn't make attendance mandatory.
> A good church would offer meetings and activities
> worth attending.

I couldn't agree more. I actually *enjoy* it when I attend our local Methodist church, the little that I attend.