JM: Something that I didn’t realize was that the laws were relaxed in the 1980s. Did you look for other types of data too? Who is she supposed to tell? I never thought about the fact that if your only world is this insular homeschool community, if you are being abused who do you have to tell?ĪH: You did interviews and talked in-depth with homeschool students and alumni to research the book.

Lauren is being physically abused in the book. As a teacher, I have to report if a kid tells me anything. I remember thinking How would you do that? How would you complete certain things like that as homeschooler? That was affirmed for me in my research.Įven though it seems so obvious to me now, I had never thought about what a homeschooler would do if they were in an abusive situation. What would happen when they had a hunger to learn more and their parents couldn’t teach them? I remember doing science labs and chemistry labs that were super complicated, and we needed a chemistry lab. I thought that one of the challenges of being homeschooled, for some children, would be when they had outpaced whatever curriculum they were given. JM: I think something that I intuitively knew or sensed ended up being affirmed by my research. That was my introduction and that’s where my curiosity began.ĪH: What were your perceptions before you started your research and how did those perceptions change? What was the most surprising thing that you learned? I felt like the summer was their time to have connections with a ton of other kids. As a little girl, I remember feeling sorry for them because I felt like they lived for the summer. They would explain to me that it was part of their faith, that the Bible told them education was the responsibility of the parent. I remember I was always asking them why they were homeschooled. I had never known any homeschoolers in my life so every summer I would connect with these homeschooled kids and we would have fun in the summer and I would never see them during the school year. He brought his whole congregation with him. The pastor of the church was a college swimmer and became the coach of our community swim team. My family was a part of our community pool and there was a church community near us that got very involved. Jennifer Mathieu: When I was growing up, I went to Catholic school my whole life. Note: this interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.Īlisa Harris: Did you have any connection to the homeschool community before you started researching? How much did you know? CRHE’s Board Member Alisa Harris spoke with Jennifer Mathieu about her research, what she learned from talking with homeschool alumni, and how her own experience as an educator played into the novel.

Mathieu deftly paints a very sensitive - and very realistic - portrait of a young girl whose education has effectively ended but who has so much more that she wants to learn. She reads the blog of Lauren, an older girl who left their community, and Rachel begins to question whether she really wants the path that’s set out for her: marriage, childbirth, and an end to her education. As Rachel’s mother struggles through depression, Rachel cares for and teaches her younger siblings, escapes into forbidden books, and begins to wonder about the world outside. In her novel, Devoted, Jennifer Mathieu enters the world of Rachel, a dutiful homeschooled daughter and sister to five younger siblings.

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