Biblical view of Homeschooling

[MrsDeweySmith]

Rather to the point and no candy-coating...
Deanna


>>Good Reasons for Christian Homesteaders to Homeschool

Public education in America is under fire. Parents and taxpayers are aware
of getting very little for all the effort and money put into state-run
schools. I would postulate that public schools are not just a poor
investment. They are, in fact, undermining the mental and moral health of
students and their families.

What I'm sharing here comes from twenty-five years spent working in schools.
I have been a classroom teacher, a consultant, a custodian, a maintenance
man and a parent of three students. My wife was also a teacher. Our
experiences
have led us to a sad observation: Public education is broken. It cannot be
fixed with reasonable effort because it is built on a rotten, faulty
foundation. It is time for parents to seek other solutions for their
children.

If you don't think that public education is fouled up beyond all recognition
I challenge you to volunteer for one week in the state-run high school of
your choice. Don't go to an elementary school. The results of diseducation
will not yet be evident. Watch the students in action. Is there discipline
in the building? Watch the students interact with each other. Would you want
your children to act like the students you're watching?

I contend that state schools are built on non-Christian ideals which have
led to the mess that we see today. Teaching our children at home, on the
homestead, is one very logical solution to the failure of public education.


What's Right with Homestead Schooling?

The Christian homesteading parent can base educational decisions on the
Bible. Public educators sought from the very beginning to rid themselves of
all godly influences. They have succeeded, with disastrous results. Here is
the State's educational premise boiled down to its essence: All children
have the potential of goodness. They are not sinners. Children will learn
and prosper if they are taken away from their homes (where there may be
religious influences) and placed among their peers in large groups. Children
should be taught, not by their parents who may believe in antiquated Bible
stories, but by professionals who have been properly trained to avoid all
things religious.

Let's look at the State's position through a Biblical lens. God tells us
that we all are sinners. We have a potential for good only by submitting
ourselves to Him. He gives us clear instructions for educating our children.
You will see that God's plan is diametrically opposed to the plan of public
education.

1. God says that education is the responsibility of the parents, not the
state. Speaking of the Ten Commandments, a good starting place for all
learning, God says to parents in Deuteronomy 6:6+7: "These commandments that
I (God) give to you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your
children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the
road, when you lie down and when you get up." Homesteaders have an
opportunity to spend more time with their children. That is one of the
reasons we homestead. We can keep our children by our sides and teach them.
2. God says that , "Folly is bound up in the heart of a child."
Proverbs22:15. Why would any sane person place 25 or 30 foolish children in
a room with one adult and assume that the foolishness of the majority would
not prevail? Indeed, we have seen that it does, as peer pressure becomes the
guiding light of young adults who have spent their formative years in public
schools.


I encourage all parents to take off the binders. Quit thinking that
state-run schools will get better. They can not. They are built on a
crumbling foundation that denied God. Those of you who are homeschooling are
on a good and godly path. The personal costs of homeschooling are great. The
rewards for your family and for the nation in the future are incalculable.

[debelynne]

Dear Deanne...You don't know how right you are about public school...I was reading a news article about a father that was arrested because he protested against the homosexual curriculum they were teaching to his Kindergartener...he asked to be notified when they would be covering this material so he could excuse his child from class and they denied him this previlage...then at a high school they had an all day assembly promoting "GLBT" agenda...parents were not allowed to attend....they wanted the children to be in a safe environment to learn about the agenda and feel free to come out without fear of parent reactions...two parents showed up to view what was being said and they were asked to leave by the principal and a undercover police officer...they were told they had one minute to vacate the school property or be arrested for tresspassing...don't believe me? I have the news website for it if anyone is interested in reading the articles...let me know and I will PM them to you, unless Preacher Ben says it's ok to post them...We really need to remember to pray for all the children forced to attend public schools and be indoctrinated into this evil.......Sister Debbie

[benshelpmeet]

[Deleted]

Amen! I know this too is an older thread, but wanted to add my agreement.

I too worked in Public School and saw first hand its brokenness, worldliness, and utter sinfulness. Praising the Lord that He opened our eyes and convicted our hearts, and then provided a way out. It is extremely heartrending to witness so many professing believers turn a blind eye to the abdominal institution of Public School, giving their children to the wolves everyday.

Before I worked in PS I would cry everyday my children headed out the door; once working in the system I no longer wept I simply prayed my husband saw what I was seeing and that he would agree to return us home to train up our children in the way that they should go; and here we are today. Hallelujah!!!

[jew4jesus]

Our Children were in public school until my daughter was in 6th grade. She was told to write a report on the history of cooking. I helped her find information from Biblical book and a cooking book on Biblical cooking.
Her teacher was going to fail her and a dear friend who was helping her grade the papers asked her why and she said she did not use the encyclopdeia for her information and she wrote it from the Christian view. Well my friend had read the report and told her that it was a A+ report and she had better not fail her or her mother would take her to the school board. She scoffed and said "Oh she's just one of those christians". She won't do anything. Well she was convinced (mainly because my friend said she would go to the principle if she gave her a F) but she gave her a A- instead of the A+ she deserved. My friend was talking to me later in the week and she told me what happened and I went to the teacher. I told her she was lucky she had not failed my daughter because I would have gone to the principle and if she did not do anything, I would have gone to the school board, and if they did not do anything I would have gone to the state. I told her if it took it I would go to the Supreme court. She was shocked. We are to take thing meekly but when it comes to Christ and sharing the Gospel we are to be bold and I told her that.
Later that year we had problems with a psycologist who told us she could see our sons whenever she wanted to. We took our children out at the end of the year. We never looked back.
I said in a previous reply to a similar subject that we taught in the dark ages and there were 2 christian teachers at that school who helped us greatly with discontinued books and papers that went with them and everything. That was a blessing because we did not have the computer or internet at that time (1983).

Sincerely
Jackie Schlageter

[rachel]

I know this is an old thread but I feel I must wholeheartedly agree with the truth of it.

I don't think the public schooling system is as bad in Australia as it is in America, but they can be pretty against Christians here. Some public schools have 'Christian Pastoral Support Workers' (known to most as 'chaplains') but they are usually on there for one day a week, do not very much, some of them aren't even Chritians, and they're not allowed to talk about God and Jesus.

I was in the public education system until about eighteen months ago when I left and began being homeschooled. Christians are mostly frowned-upon there, I found.

I can distinctly remember an assignment we were given around Year 4 about how dinosaurs became extinct. I wrote several pages on how I believed that dinosaurs and humans had existed at the same time for a while, but they hadn't fitted on the ark (look, I was eight. I've revised my theory a bit now) and I was told to take the paper back and re-write it properly.

Throughout primary school, whenever I told my parents about something we were being taught about that I knew they wouldn't agree with, they would ask for me to be allowed to sit out of the lesson. They were repeatedly refused.

I was always up-front about my religion when I was in public school. I was bullied about it a lot. My close friends knew and accepted me, and most of my class at any given time knew not to swear or say nasty things about God in front of me. I had several friends who said that they were 'Christians' and their parents went to church but it always disheartened me how they would hide the fact and pretend they weren't.

The first year after I left my primary school, my younger sister (then in Year 6) tried to start a Bible study group with several children in her class, two of whom were Christians and one who wasn't. They went into the library at lunch times and sat quietly in the corner doing the Bible notes she had brought. When the principle found out about it, she forbid my sister from continuing. They didn't allow us to have anything to do with our faith at school, some of the teachers didn't even allow us to pray before eating our lunch. The worst part was, there were several Muslim kids at the primary school who were allowed to leave class several times a day to pray. That was allowed because we were meant to be a multicultural and accepting school.

After the incident with the Bible study, my sister stopped professing her faith. She doesn't like me mentioning it in front of her friends and she doesn't like me going to pick her up because I'm clearly religious. I think that most of her class probably don't know that she's a Christian. I can understand why she is reluctant to let them know, because I went through the persecution at primary school that she is going through now, but it saddens me that Christian children learn to deny their faith at these schools, and that they think it's good to do so.

I was only at public high school for one year, but that was even worse for Christians, I think. We had a chaplain there once a week but from several conversations with her, I don't think she was really a Christian or had any relationship with God. I mentioned something about an Old Testament story once (it wasn't Creation, I can't remember what it was, I think Job) and she told me that those things didn't really happen, they were just analogies or something.

There was a token 'look-at-us-we're-diverse-and-accepting Christian Prayer Group' once a week at recess which I went along to, only to find that it was an excuse for kids to go along and eat sugary foods. I think I was the only Christian there, and I had been quite looking forwards to it as soon as I saw it on the list of extra-curricular activities (although I was rather furious that the Christians had a prayer group once a week, and the Muslims had one twice a day).

The worst thing that happened with the school itself at high school was when we started learning about evolution in science. My parents had been along to a P&T meeting at the beginning of the year and laid it out pretty clearly (I thought) that we were Christians and I wasn't to be taught about evolution and the teacher (who claimed to be Greek Orthodox) agreed. Then she completely forgot about it when we began learning about evolution.

Once we were learning about astronomy and how the sun has so much gravity that it pulls everything in to it. I asked the teacher why all the planets weren't pulled in, too, to which she replied that she didn't know and it was a wonderulf freak of nature and physics. I told her that it must be God who was keeping the planets from falling into the sun, and she gave me a look like 'don't be silly', and said, "Well, if that's what you want to believe."

Apart from all this, public schools aren't a very good environment for Christian children I think. The children are generally unaccepting of anything percieved as 'odd' (including Christians). In primary school I was teased a lot along the lines of "Hey, Rachel, what did you do last Sunday morning?", to which I would naturally respond, "I went to church, of course!", and the bully of the day would say something like, "You're so weird! I stayed in bed and slept and then I watched TV, like a normal person! How do you cope with getting up on a Sunday morning?" I didn't know any different.

At the higher end of primary school and in high school, the mentality of the children began going down the drain in quite a foul manner. Conversations usually ranged within in the realm of the opposite sex and sleeping with them, to the exclusion of most other conversation. I began feeling very excluded as I simply refused to join in with that sort of conversation.

The clothing of high school children is another matter, too. We have school uniforms here and the regulations at my school said that we had to have the shirts done up within three buttons of the top, and also wear our skirts so that they touched the ground when we were kneeling. I was the only one who complied with this latter (and thought it much too short). The other girls wear their skirts so that they barely cover their undies (and in some cases, didn't). Some girls wore bike shorts underneath their skirts and your could invariably see them. Summer dresses tended to be even shorter (if that's possible) and also very tight-fitting. Girls got dresses several sizes too small so that they were more form-fitting, and they also tied their winter jumpers and shirts back with a hair elastic so that they would be more form-fitting.

Flirting and dating is an acceptable activity in high school, accompanied of course with some rather blatant PDAs. It was not unusual to catch a couple snogging in plain view in the schoolyard.

In summation, I believe public schools (or pretty much any schools) are very anti-Christian environments. They're pretty much the opposite of what a Christian believes or wants for their child. I've only been out of the public schooling system for 18 months so I believe my experiences are fairly accurate of what's happening now in Australia. I'm still school-age but homeschooled and going past public school kids acting exactly how I remembered sickens me, and I have no reason to believe that the teacher's opinions are any different.

If I could do my primary school time again, I would most definately be homeschooled. I love homeschooling and having a more Christian curriculum and environment, and I have made lots of nice friends with the local homeschooling group, 99% of whom are Christian. When I have children, I am definately going to homeschool them. I wouldn't want to subject my worst enemy to the school environment.

[Brother Ben]

Amen, Rachel, well put. Many "adults" think children just go along with homeschooling because it is the choice of their parents. It is good to see that the Lord has openned your eyes to the ills of public school.

[rachel]

Here's a couple of things other homeschooled teenagers have written. I subscribe to several magazines for homeschooled girls, and you'll find that many of us share the same opinion.

The first is one teenage girl's response to the question "Would you homeschool your children?" She replied:

I will defiantly home-school my kids when I am a mother. I have many reasons but there are the two main points.
First of all, looking at the state of schools out there, I would never send my children to a school and am very glad I have never been to one. Even at a private Christian school, there is bullying, peer pressure and disobedience. I had a very small experience with these at gymnastics. It wasn't much, but I saw a few girls who really hated being immersed in it all day. I handled it fine though, because I experienced it only a few hours a week so didn't care, whereas most children endure it eight or so hours a day.
At schools, even reasonably nice schools, there is a circle of top guys who are looked up to as the coolest. This puts pressure on people to be like them in the hope of being included in the group too. As Godly young women, we must shine for God which means standing out and not going along with the crowd.
Schools also "dumb kids down". What I mean by this is from quite a young age, kids get the impression that learning is boring. Yes, even I don't like school at times, but textbooks aren't the only way to science, maths, and writing. God has provided us with nature. Instead of watching God's creation and asking why, most kids would rather play computer games, sad to say. And that leads to another thing. With out realising it, they are also pressured to not question things or ask why. As a result, the country is in the political state it is because no one looks at it and says, "Hang on a minute, this climate change (for example) doesn't make sense!"
A more important reason for home-schooling is I strongly believe that that is how God intended it to be. In the Bible, He charges parents with the responsibility to teach their children. And they are well able to! When we were young, our parents taught us to eat, talk, go to the toilet, wash our hands, brush our teeth, cook... everything! School is just another aspect of learning, so why can't parents teach their kids that too? Also, God created people to be in a family. The father works and provides food for the family, the mother takes care of the home, the children, as they get older, help out and the parents teach the children.
Although schools have their good points as well, they are tainted with unnecessary and bad things. Home-schooling, on the other hand, is free of those things. It is how I believe God set up the family, with parents teaching their children.

The second is a ten-year-old girl's thoughts on "Why are we [homeschooled kids] so different [from public schooled kids]?"

Why are we so different, homeschooling girls and public-schooling girls???
The reason we are so different is because we homeschoolers were raised with higher standards. And we were not exposed to things we should never be.
Although you can get along with some public-schoolers, sometimes you wonder if there is ever going to be a way where you can be friends with others. A few days ago I wanted to go to public high school but then I went and got to see the inside of one. I was astonished at what I saw. Dark halls, fluorescent lighting, nasty language, and horrible bathrooms were enough to convince me that I would never want to be there ever again. Right then and there I realized how lucky I am to have parents that want to homeschool me, and I thanked my mom so much for never putting me in a public school! Now I can honestly see why we are so different. Now I can see that everybody who is home schooled should be so grateful and thankful to have their parents!!!!

I think these two girls have summed up rather well my (and I am sure, many others') opinion on homeschooling verses public schooling.

It's interesting that you said lots of 'adults' think that children just 'go along with' homeschooling... I don't actually know that many parents who homeschool (at least not well enough to ask them about that sort of thing!) but I know quite a few kids and there are some quite interesting conversations... around 99.99% of us wouldn't go to a 'normal' school ever, even if someone forced us there... When I was at school I didn't know any different, but now I've been taken out of that environment (which I didn't like even when I didn't know any different) and have experienced the alternative (homeschooling) I absolutely never want to go back! And I'm certainly not sending any children I might have one day to public school! Moreover, I get the feeling from other homeschoolers I know that their feelings on the matter are as strong as mine.

[Brother Ben]

Amen!