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Education God's Way...
Lee Duigon
September 6, 2006
The right place for a child’s
education is his home, and the right teachers are his parents.
We hope we’ve convinced you by now
that the public school, for a host of very good reasons, is the
wrong place for this. But there are equally strong reasons for
educating at home. This article will introduce you to them, and
they will be fleshed out in subsequent articles.
 1. Home education is the only
model for education given in the Bible.
“Earlier this year [1981],” R. J. Rushdoony recalls, “I was a
witness in the trial of some fathers for having their children
in a Christian School which refused to submit to state controls.
The charges against them were criminal charges. The state’s
attorney general granted immunity to their wives, who were then
compelled to take the stand and testify against their husbands
or face contempt of court charges … [T]o endanger the family is
to endanger the basic institution of society according to
Biblical law.”[i]
In the early days of the homeschooling movement, Rushdoony
testified in many such trials. These, thankfully, have become
rare. As more and more families get into homeschooling,
opposition to it has had to become less shrill and less
heavy-handed. Meanwhile, legal agencies, such as the
Home School
Legal Defense Association (hslda.org), have been set up to
protect the rights of homeschoolers.
Some parts of the country are homeschool friendly; others, less
so. Before you begin homeschooling, make sure you learn what the
requirements are in your state. State-by-state information is
available on the HSLDA website, at no charge.
Rushdoony’s point is Biblical. In God’s scheme of things,
parents have the responsibility to educate their children. This
can be seen in many Bible verses. “[T]he LORD said … Gather me
the people together, and I will make them hear my words, that
they may learn … and that they may teach their children” (Deut.
4:10). “Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart …
And ye shall teach them your children” (Deut. 11:18–19).
We cannot stress this too much: in the Bible, education happens
in the context of the family. You will not find anywhere in the
Bible a single example of government involvement in children’s
education. Public education was not invented until less than 200
years ago; civilization managed without it for thousands of
years.
As will be seen from the rest of this list, doing education
God’s way confers many benefits on families.
2. Homeschooling fosters a deep family bonding, a natural
consequence of parents devoting time and energy to their
children.
How could it be otherwise? Unfortunately, most American parents
pack their children off to public school every day to be
educated by strangers for whom one child is no more important
than another. Then there are after-school programs, soccer,
Little League, gymnastics, and whatnot, often with both parents
working full-time and too tired in the evenings to do anything
but sprawl in front of the TV set.
How many public service spots have we all heard on the radio,
saying, “The most important thing you can give your child is
your time”? Even the secular media know that absentee parenthood
doesn’t work.
Homeschooling is “quality time,” all the time. It’s part of a
broader picture of love and bonding that families took as a
matter of course for millennia until the public school and the
two-paycheck household came along.
Quality Education
3. You’ll have the freedom to
center your child’s education on God.
We guarantee that a God-centered education will not be available
in any public school, where God is systematically ruled out of
the curriculum.
At home, you can ensure that your child is taught that God, not
man, is the center of the universe, its creator and sole
proprietor. Imagine the difference it would make teaching civics
and government from that point of view!
You can still teach how the government works, but you can also
teach how God wants government to work. You can still teach how
a plant photosynthesizes sunlight into energy for life, but you
won’t have to teach that it all happens by chance. In either
case, the observable facts remain the same. What changes is the
point of view, godly vs. humanist.
4. Homeschooling is also a boon to parents: you’ll learn a
lot.
You’ll have to study the subjects that you teach your children,
from algebra to zoology. Much of it you’ll already know, but you
won’t be able to avoid learning new material. You’ll become
better educated.
If that sounds daunting, remember that there is now a booming
market in home instructional materials, most of it easily
available over the Internet and relatively inexpensive.
There is also online instruction available in specialized
subjects that may be beyond your scope.
There is a reason why advanced students at martial arts schools
are asked to teach newcomers. True, it saves wear and tear on
the regular instructor, but more importantly, it makes the
advanced students that much better.
5. Homeschooling can be infinitely flexible.
Flexibility — that is, instruction tailored to the individual
student’s abilities and interests — is one luxury a public
school teacher doesn’t have: not with 20 or 30 children in her
classroom.
If your child has difficulty learning arithmetic, for example,
you, as the parent, are in the best position to find the best
way to pitch the numbers to him. When I was a little boy, I
simply couldn’t learn, in school, how to add up columns of
numbers. But my father taught me how to do it in a single
session. He was not a certified teacher, but he did understand
how his son’s mind worked.
Fringe Benefits
6. You’ll be in charge of your child’s “socialization.”
For the older child in a public school, by far the biggest
influence on him is his peers, other children in his own age
group. But the homeschooled child also interacts with adults,
children younger or older than he, and anyone else you want to
throw into the mix.
Do you want your child to alter his behavior to fit in with a
certain crowd? If so, send him to public school — and don’t
complain to us if he decides he wants to fit in with the wrong
crowd. In all probability, this will never be a problem for a
homeschooling family.
7. You’ll save money by not having to try to keep up with
kids’ fads in clothes, movies, video games, etc.
“There is a huge selection of polyphonic and mp3 ringtones
available,” says an ad on the Internet (http://softwareforhomes.com/Gift-Idea/Download-Free-Ringtone.htm),
“and they make great gift ideas for the kids in your life. How a
caller is announced on a cell phone has become a fashion
statement as important as clothes these days.”
If you don’t want to get involved in financing your children’s
fashion statements, keep them at home for their schooling. The
public school is an arena for one-upmanship among the students.
It’s not the place for a child to go to learn habits of thrift,
independent thought, or the true value of things. But you can
teach these at home, without being undermined by your child’s
peers.
8. At the same time, you’ll learn habits of thrift and
economy that will help you in life. Self-reliance is its own
reward.
Although homeschooling is not in itself expensive, it will mean
saying good-bye to the two-paycheck lifestyle. You’ll probably
have to learn how to do without a new car every year, a plasma
TV, and other luxuries. You’ll have to learn how to avoid
running up debt on your credit cards and how to prepare your
family’s meals.
But these are good things to learn. Why waste hard-earned money
on things you can easily get along without? You can have just as
much fun playing chess, checkers, or Monopoly with your children
as you can by shelling out for a plethora of video games; and a
properly maintained five-year-old car will serve you just as
well as a new one.
9. By shouldering this responsibility yourself, you’ll become
a more responsible person, which will positively affect
everything else you do.
To give your children a good education by your own efforts is
something you can be proud of. Going into homeschooling, you may
be thinking, “I could never do that!” And then you learn you can
do it, and do it well. That ought to boost your self-confidence.
If you can do something as important as educating your child,
you’ll be able to do other things just as well. Homeschooling is
always an education for the parents, too.
10. Homeschooling will empower you to give your child a
strong religious, moral, and intellectual foundation.
Given the state of our culture today, they’ll need it. Of
course, no parent can ensure that a child won’t go astray later
in life. But a godly upbringing will make that less likely:
“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old,
he will not depart from it” (Prov. 22:6). And if he does depart
from it, he’ll be more likely to find his way back.
Much of homeschooling is self-education. A child who has learned
how to learn will have a great advantage over one who has only
been spoon-fed a public school curriculum.
From Whom All Blessings Flow ...
How many times have we sung “Praise God, from Whom all blessings
flow” without realizing that those words are literally true?
When you live in obedience to God, blessings follow.
Too many parents worry that homeschooling will remove their
child from the mainstream and that people will think they’re
peculiar. But the homeschooling community is growing every day.
There will probably be a homeschooling families’ association in
your county, maybe sponsored and assisted by a church. If not,
the Internet now links homeschoolers coast to coast.
One way or another, you’ll have plenty of company and moral
support. There’s no excuse anymore for feeling isolated.
Are there any parents today who regret having spent too much
time with their children while they were growing up? Is there
anyone who has come to a bad end by following the teachings of
the Bible?
Of course not.
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Homeschoolacademy.com All Rights Reserved.
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