Opposing The Widespread Narrow View
Posted on May 16, 2007
This is going to be different, so just bear with me. If you start reading and it doesn’t interest you, just move on, but this is something I have to do. As the title states, I’m opposing the widespread narrow view.
I’ve never said much about my feelings or beliefs about homeschooling, but I feel I need to take a stand because there are some who are vocal about their beliefs and honestly, their stance is narrow and misguided.
My wife and I homeschool our children and we have since our oldest was about 3, she’s now 11 and just finishing 5th grade. I remember before she was born, when my wife declared she wanted to homeschool. That was foreign to me but I went along with it, considering at the time, kids were not even a consideration for us yet. She was strongly convicted that it was what she wanted. Ultimately, I told her I wanted her to be sure because she was the one who will be home with the kids day in and day out and responsible for teaching them. She never wavered, she seriously wanted to do it.
We didn’t know any homeschoolers, neither one of us were homeschooled, so it was a big step to commit to doing it. Did you know you can buy curriculum for your child’s entire school career all at once? Man, that blew us away, it costs something like a million dollars and there was no way we could fork that kind of money out. Actually, it wasn’t quite that much, but it is a substantial amount of money to do that.
For us, we couldn’t commit to 12 years of homeschooling, because who really knows what the future holds. So, we committed to a year at a time, we still do it that way, in fact. Each year is a re-evaluation to decide if homeschooling is still the best option for our family. So far, it is.
Our decision is not based on scripture, there’s no Biblical mandate that proclaims homeschooling to be superior and we are not commanded by God that we have to teach them, protect them, shelter them, filter them from all the evil of this world. But, the Holy Spirit does guide our thoughts and actions and we seek the Lord in all we do. At least we are supposed to and that’s what we intend.
Recently, this post linked to Tim Challies post, which is a long, drawn out post opposing homeschooling, based on a post written by KimC. KimC states the following about public school:
The system was conceived upon the tenets of Marxism and Darwinism, is paid for by theft, openly indoctrinates children into secular humanism and all the abominations that flow from it.
What?!? Ok, so there’s no good in the public school system, it sounds like. Tim follows up with:
I felt compelled to write a reply not because her article offended me, but because the things she said are so often said by proponents of homeschooling. And I want to reply to a few of them because they represent some serious misconceptions and even dangers to the church.
So, KimC is representative of most homeschoolers and Tim feels that this attitude that is “so often said by proponents of…” homeschoolers is a threat to the church. Remember bizarro world from Seinfeld? Is that where I am right now?
Ok, quite honestly, they are both wrong. Public school is not inherently evil and not all homeschoolers believe that it is. After doing this homeschooling gig for 8 years or so, I know quite a few homeschoolers and I don’t know one that believes the way either one of these people above do. We are part of a homeschooling co-op where the moms and kids get together one day a week and the kids go to specific classes, the moms teach or serve in other ways and they also get support and friendship with other homeschool moms. This group now has about 200 kids and another group in town has over 200 kids and we know families in both. We just saw 5 seniors graduate from our group and that was really cool, those kids are so smart and have such a bright future.
Ready to shatter some homeschooling myths? We don’t homeschool to shelter our kids or protect them from the cruel world or because we think public school is marxist or because we want to teach our kids to be anti-social or because school buses don’t have seatbelts or any other warped reason like that. We do it because my wife and I feel like it’s the best thing for our family right now. It might be all the way through high school, for both of them or it might not be. All we are concerned about is basically next year, this year is over, for the most part.
My kids are extremely social and well-adjusted and typically, home schooled kids relate better to adults. My kids have way more friends than I had at their age, they have friends in the neighborhood, friends at church, friends in our homeschool group, friends at gymnastics, friends at cheerleading and others that I probably am not thinking of. That’s because our goal is not to shelter them, our goal is for them to be active, well adjusted kids.
So, what’s better homeschooling or public school? According to Tim:
If we allow that there are times that it may be right for a family to send their children to public school, we must also allow that there are times when it may be wrong for a family to homeschool.
Ok, what I’m hearing is that Tim is very much in favor of public school and very much against homeschooling. Fine, can you take a stand for one without piling on the other?
There is no definite right or wrong, everybody needs to make their decision. It’s sad when an apparent lack of understanding of homeschooling leads to attacking it. It’s also sad when people take a hard stand for one thing and against another without accepting that there is good and bad to both.
I almost didn’t name the sources of the posts that led me to write this, but I think it’s fair. If I’m going to get on my soapbox, I want you to understand fully what led to this.
To be fair, I don’t normally read either of the blogs referenced above and I don’t know if either one of them read me, I doubt it, but if they do, they probably don’t anymore. My intention is to offer the middle ground. There are many great public school teachers, teachers that really help their kids to grow and learn and granted, there are some bad public school teachers, as well. At the same time, there are good and bad homeschoolers. My point is there is good and bad on both sides. If you send your kids to public school, that’s great. If you homeschool your kids, that’s great. As long as you know that what you are doing is best for your family.
To be fair, I will say this, after 94 comments (before they were closed) and who knows how many e-mails(at least one, from me), Tim did clarify his point in a followup post and said not all homeschoolers were bad, but he’s still concerned that homeschooling will divide the church. He also responded to my e-mail in a friendly way and I appreciate that.
By the way, my current pastor homeschools and a previous pastor at our last church in Tulsa also homeschools, and the funny thing is, both churches are strong and growing with no sign of splitting, even with a leader that homeschools.
I just had to respond with my view, plus I want to brag on my kids. They are very smart and eager to learn and it’s fun to be directly involved in their education process. I don’t know if I have the temperament myself to do the homeschooling, if it was fully up to me, but I’m blessed to have a wife that can keep everyone on track.
Know where you stand and don’t attack just because you don’t understand. I don’t know how widespread this narrow view is but now you know why I’m opposing the widespread narrow view. That might become my new tagline, it’s got a nice ring to it.
End of my rant, now back to regularly scheduled programming.
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Jim, I was homeschooled all the way through highschool. We, too, were part of a co-op and had great science labs, a baseball and basketball team, and a band (though it was very small).
During that time we met many many families, some of which would agree with KimC, and others who were (what I call) normal, like what you describe above. In fact, there were probably some families who shouldn’t have been homeschooling, but who am I to judge that?
Homeschooling isn’t for everyone. I think it’s great and I’m glad I was homeschooled. But there is no way we’d have made it if it wasn’t where God wanted us to be. I believe the same is true of public school.
My brother (6 years younger) was homeschooled up until the 9th grade. At that point, he and my parents both agreed it was time for him to go to public school. Not because Mom was tired of teaching, but because that was where God wanted him at that time. Looking back I can see they were right. God used him in that school. Yes, there were some frustrating times there (just like there were frustrating times in my homeschooling), but that’s part of life. God uses those times.
Homeschooling isn’t for everyone. You’re right, it’s not a mandate from Scripture. There are advantages and disadvantages. Same with public school.
I guess all of that’s just a long-winded way to say “Ditto and Amen!”
(P.S. Sounds like a good tagline to me, too)
Thanks for the link and the thoughtful commentary. I’ll be posting it as an aside for my readers to review as well. Keep up the great work!