What Education is Best?
As I have already asserted, I do not believe homeschooling will automatically be the best education. I do not have anything against homeschooling, both my husband and I being the products of K-8 & K-10 homeschooling. Our mothers homeschooled before homeschooling was cool, they fought for the legal right and for popular acceptance, they waded first through material not designed for them and then through a glut of material targeted at their business, they were the pioneers. We respect them and are grateful to them; it is upon their shoulders that we now stand. However, Now is not then. Homeschooling is cool. In many churches, instead of being weird and mocked because you homeschool, you are weird and often rebuked for not homeschooling. In this setting we now find ourselves. It is as misguided to homeschool by default as to send your children to public school by default or as to send your children to a private school by default.
If homeschooling is not necessarily best, then, what is best? I would suggest that a superior education must account for the following points:
Parents are the ones responsible for their children. That responsibility cannot be passed off; whether or not it is abdicated, the responsibility is still theirs. I believe it is allowable and often a good option for a parent to delegate the task of academic education, but even in such cases, the ultimate responsibility is still the parents’, and not the teachers’ or the schools’. Parents will be held accountable for their educational decisions; parents are charged with the task of teaching their children to know, understand, and love the Gospel.
<a href=”http://www.reformed.org/christian_education/children_trap.html” title=”read the section on “Myth of Neutrality”>Education cannot be neutral. This means more than acknowledging that not even math cannot be properly understood apart from a knowledge and worship of God. This means that those who profess to teach without agenda are lying and those who attempt to teach without worldview are lying to themselves. If your children are being taught that gravity makes things go down, regardless of whether or not God is in His heaven, they are being taught a lie. If your children grow up in an atmosphere that separates religion from academia, they are being taught implicitly (and children always pick up these lessons, even when we adults do not even realize those lessons are there) that God doesn’t matter, that God is irrelevant, that God doesn’t reign. If education is not neutral, it is therefore either Christian or anti-Christian. It behooves us as Christian parents to choose a Christian education for our children. God has given us children as an inheritance and blessing because he desires godly offspring; they belong to Him, not Caesar.
Children are sinners. Any teacher, school, or method that relies on a child’s basic goodness or love of learning will be disappointed in the end. The Fall has corrupted our nature so that we do not desire the things we should; instead, we are selfish. This is true for all men, even our children. If we want our children to love anything that they should — God, one another, learning — we must discipline them to do so by word, action, and the model of our own life.
Learning requires teaching, guidance, and accountability. This fits in with the point above. Children left to themselves will bring shame to their mothers.
Character is more important than intelligence or knowledge. A classical education without love is a clanging cymbal.
I believe as long as the above six points are acknowledged and acted upon, and the parents are actively engaged in the education, which method they use — by choosing a homeschool curriculum or a Christian day-school — is relatively unimportant. Those who wander aimlessly through homeschooling or consider signing the check to private school their only responsibility are no better than those who send their children to the government schools by default — if you choose your option by default without engagement and are not actively involved in your child’s education, you are not fulfilling your God-given responsibility as a parent, regardless of the school or curriculum you choose.
My conclusion and opinion is that location of the school doesn’t matter so much as the parents of the students — and that is a sobering thought, indeed.
I’m sorry Mystie, I’m falling down on my part in the discussion. :-) The way I read it, you just said that the determination of the best schooling method is left to each family and that the place is irrelevant as long as the parents are taking responsibility and doing the right thing… ?My only comment is that there probably is no perfect situation, even if one tailors everything to every different child. But as my pastor says “everything that’s worth doing is worth doing badly” – not as an excuse for poor performance but because something like giving your children a godly education is so important that it’s better to give it your best, albeit imperfect shot, rather than saying you can’t possibly do it right and therefore doing nothing!
In regards to your 4th point above (children left to themselves…) – what do you think about so-called “unschoolers” who believe that children should be allowed to direct their own education based on what interests them and through learning in daily life (fractions in cooking, etc.)?
it’s better to give it your best, albeit imperfect shot, rather than saying you can’t possibly do it right and therefore doing nothing!
I agree there are no perfect options. Nothing is perfect in this fallen world and we will only beat our heads against the wall if we try to make that happen. However, are you saying that homeschooling is the “imperfect shot” and sending your kids to a godly school is “doing nothing”? There are certainly homeschool die-hards that would say that and would question the possibility of a “godly school.” That is the assumption I want to refute, even if we end up homeschooling.
I’ll reply more later!
No.. I didn’t mean that a “godly school” was doing nothing, nor do I dispute the existence of godly schools. I guess that I meant that if one felt daunted by the task as you laid out in your 5 (not six! :-) ) points, that you should remember that anything worth doing is worth doing badly, so go for it. You WILL look back on your decisions (in either situation) and see mistakes you made, but God is sovereign. That’s all… Also, here’s a link to an article by Jim Jordan that does dispute whether Christian schools are the best idea: http://freebooks.entrewave.com/freebooks/docs/26f6_43e.htm
Five, yes. :)
I completely agree that the responsibility of parenting (which includes ensuring your children are educated) is daunting; however, it is one God has called us to and will give us the grace to perform and grant our children the grace to survive our parenting. :)
I’ll read that article and probably make a separate post. That is the main issue I want to discuss first, before any methodology or curriculum. Before we get too far from the school mentality and because in 3 years we will come to it again with more pressing practicality — should we throw our efforts into starting a school or into research of homeschool curriculum? Neither are perfect situations. Both can be good, and both can be bad.
My reaction to “unschooling” is that it doesn’t account for 3 or 4. I don’t think our fallen natures can be trusted to lead us in the right direction, especially a child’s nature. “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child” comes to mind. However, this is something I plan to look into more. My opinion is merely a reaction and not derived from real knowledge. I am also intrigued by a plan such as Bluedorn’s that is less textbook and formal during the early elementary years, but still a disciplined routine. So, more will be forthcoming on this topic, as well.
I read the Bluedorn’s article that you linked to and it WAS very intriguing. It seemed to propose a method or approach much more graciously than many others do. I’ll have to look into it more. Thanks for the link.