more on Homeschooling...

According to the Bible, the home is to be the center of all education. Education is the God-ordained function of the family. No one else is given the responsibility to teach children — not the government — not the church — but the parents. It takes a family, not a village, to raise a child.

I am not saying that there is no place for others to help parents in the process. What I am saying is that the work of educating children is what the family is all about. When educational bureaucrats and social psychologists and religious education specialists take over this task, leaving the parents largely in observer status, the family suffers greatly.

Both the parents and the children are cheated out of a huge portion of God’s ordained process for sanctification. (You could write an
entire book on that one subject.) As we continue down this road of separating children from their parents we are tearing apart the sinews of our culture.

Parents and children are hurting badly. We need to teach our children — for our sake. Our children need to be taught by us — for their sake.
The way to destroy the family is to divide the children from the parents. And the way to divide the children from the parents, is to remove from the family its authority in education.

The above is from a family who has been homeschooling for over 20 years; read more at triviumpursuit. I have been inspired by their article Ten Things to do with Your Child Before Age Ten.

I wanted to jot down just a few more thoughts on homeschooling I left out last time. I don't mind that I don't have many readers because this way I'm more inclined to really write what is on my heart and what I am passionate about without fear or predjudice. :o)

What I love about home-schooling is that I can following through on my deep desire to keep my children with me (Tomato Staking) and be a Deuteronomy 6:6 parent.

...these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

That is homeschooling. How can I do that when they are gone for so many hours of the day? Everyday that I put Aidan on the bus, my heart tugged at me, and I pushed the thoughts away, telling myself that was just my not wanting my oldest to grow up. No, that wasn't it. It was the Holy Spirit saying, "Raise your son, guard his heart, and teach him the way he should go." And not just at breakfast before school and after 4pm when he's tired and grumpy from the non-stop stimulus and contradicting authorities.

The way to destroy the family is to divide the children from the parents. And the way to divide the children from the parents, is to remove from the family its authority in education.

Another very important reason for homeschooling which is becoming more and more apparent is the way the that the educational bureaucrats are trying to undermine parental authority by attempting (and far too often succeeding) to prevent parents from passing their values on to their children.

"Education is thus a most powerful ally of Humanism, and every American public school is a school of Humanism. What can the theistic Sunday schools, meeting for an hour a week and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching?" Charles F. Potter, a leading humanist, wrote in the magazine "Humanist," (1930!).

"I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity. ...The teacher must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit.... The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new — the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism." John Dunphy, wrote in the Humanist Magazine (1983).