Christians and Public School

Oh, Kelly. I am with you 100%, but be prepared for all the “salt and light” arguments you’re going to hear!
I’ll be praying. 🙂

Oh, yes, Kelly. I’m with you. After my own experience of public schools, I’m never sending my future (God willing) children there.

I don’t disagree with you, Kelly.

But when I have difficulty with our public schools, I still hope to find grace and WILLING PRAYER in Christian circles even as I send my older children to public school in obedience to my husband, that somehow God will protect my children. I would hate to have an “I told you so” attitude from Christian folks when we struggle so much at home on this issue already.

I know that God can change hearts and I know that he can cure my son’s autism. I don’t know how on earth I could educate two autistic children at the same time at home with all my little ones as well except that God’s grace would be sufficient, etc. My older son has some severe problems with autism and they manifest in his behaviour as well… Enough said, but you can imagine the dilemma we face with our son who can be very verbally abusive toward the other children, but yet certainly isn’t learning good character traits at school. (Um, the “teach him it’s not acceptable” thing doesn’t always work when you deal with autism, but I wouldn’t expect anyone who hasn’t been there to fully understand this concept. It’s NOT an excuse.)

I think this is yet another situation in which the “ideal” doesn’t always match the reality… I think homeschooling is the ideal and there are plenty of good reasons why.

I think some of us feel like we’re in a bind and get defensive on issues like this. So I am laying my cards on the table and telling you, “Yes, I hear ya. But I just am not there yet and here’s why.”

God bless.

Mrs. C

Homeschool etc.,

I appreciate your “laying the cards out”. I don’t know the detils of your situation, and of course, would never try to impose a guilt-trip on any parent who was truly seeking the Lord. You know from my saying it many times before, with all these controversial subjects, there will always be those one in a thousand “special” circumstances which may warrant a temporary compromise of what a person feels is best…we live in a fallen world with fallen circumstances.

That being said, I certainly don’t want people to assume I mean that a “special circumstance” can be made out of everything (i.e. “my daughter enjoys school”)

While I certainly can’t answer for a couple’s choice of educating their children, I’m speaking to a majority of Christian parents who are abdicating their responsibility to protect and nurture the hearts of their children.

Kelly, LOL on the “my daughter enjoys school” as a special circumstance! How I wish life were that simple!! Sigh. OK I needed that laugh.

No, I meant to say through my ramble that I TOTALLY agree with you and unfortunately some of us are in “situations.” BUT the ideal (homeschooling) is the same. So I was backing you up!!

I was just mentioning that I *hope* to find through our discussion that Christians can be understanding of one another and offer genuine prayer even when it *looks* like we’re not all together or doing the best thing.

As the mom of two children on the autism spectrum, I find much of the judgmentalism to be IN the church and that’s a painful spot to be… when the people who “get” what you are going through and are able to offer the therapies your child needs do not share your worldview for the most part.

You know, most church folk SEEM to feel… if she would only discipline her children / homeschool / fill in the blank her kids wouldn’t have these problems.

That’s what I meant.

Mrs. C

This comment and answer could really get us off track here :-), but I feel it is worthy of addressing. I am not going to make a sweeping affirmation or condemnation in regard to private schools.

I would like to offer, however, my personal convictions, experiences and opinions of what I feel is the majority of situations.

Two major points:

1. I believe we highly underestimate the practical implications of Deuteronomy 6. Consider the greatest commandment which Jesus taught in the NT:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart…and your neighbor as yourself.”

That was not a new commandment, but a repeat of the law in Deuteronomy.

But remember what went with the first command?

“And you shall teach them diligently to YOUR CHILDREN when you rise up, when you lie down, when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way.”

Is this command symbolic? Is it obscure? I personally believe it’s pretty clear. PARENTS are to teach their CHILDREN…to impress on their hearts the commands of God, and this is most likely successful when they do it all day, every day.

2. Parents can argue that a good Christian school can fulfill the command. Even if they do, does that fulfill the command of “parents teaching children”? Just asking.

Here is my PERSONAL experience after teaching at a Christian school:

Every teacher was, of course, required to at least profess to be a Christian, and I believe almost all of them were. We’re good so far. BUT, in the high school where I taught, I only knew a handful of kids I could say that I saw fruit of their salvation. Very few of these kids were walking with the Lord.

Now either the majority of them did not have Christian parents (in which case the children of believers greatly suffered), or the ones who had Christian parents weren’t embracing their parents’ faith, or the children of Christian parents were being led astray by the other children.

Whatever the situation, most of them were involved in the same things you would expect at any public school…premarital sex, drugs, alcoholism, profanity, and disregard for authority. I know. I heard about it, I saw it.

So I ask you, does an implicity Christian school, with Christian teachers and Christian curriculum succeed in raising up our children to love the Lord with all their hearts, souls, and minds?

Just asking.

Jen,

I completely respect your choice to send your children to a Christian school. That is why I was careful to say that I was expressing my personal conviction and experiences.

And I hope everyone who reads this discussion understands that I have the tenderest of intentions even when I speak out against something that maybe you are doing.

I do not judge anyone. I do feel strongly enough about it to say that I believe Christians should be doing anything they can to keep their children out of public school (which is the main intent of this post).

On the private school issue, I don’t condemn parents at all for choosing a Christian education for their children; however, I feel burdened to warn them of the realities of having their children influenced largely by (often non-believing) peers for the better part of the day.

For some parents, this is what they want for their children. For some children, they will be able to stand alone and stay the course. But sadly, for many of them, they will suffer many unecessary scars, at best.

It is nothing more than deep concern for families that I address such topics. I simply want to make sure parents are fully aware of the battle that is being waged for the hearts of their children.

Love, concern, and utmost respect for ALL of you drives me.

I totally agree with you Kelly. Although homeschooling isn’t always easy and some days I think what am I doing – that’s just my selfishness creeping in! I speak from experience as my eldest attended school here in the UK for some time and it was not a good experience for him at all. Apart from the bullying suffered, the foul language used by so many children at the age of 5/6, there were just so many things – they always celebrated mothers day making things, but when fathers day came along the school wouldn’t acknowledge it or let the children celebrate their dads as children living in families were the minority – the majority of families were single mothers, sex education is taught over here at 7 years of age, evolution is everywhere in the curriculum, the sexual orientation classes were being tested in some schools to be introduced on a countrywide scale where marriage is not celebrated and the children are taught that it is normal for people to have homosexual relationships. I could go on and on, but I don’t want to bore you!

“PARENTS are to teach their CHILDREN…to impress on their hearts the commands of God, and this is most likely successful when they do it all day, every day.”

For the sake of those who might not have a Bible in front of them, I’d like to print out all of Deuteronomy 6.

1 These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 2 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. 3 Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you.

4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. [a] 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 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. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

10 When the LORD your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, 11 houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied, 12 be careful that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

13 Fear the LORD your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. 14 Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; 15 for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land. 16 Do not test the LORD your God as you did at Massah. 17 Be sure to keep the commands of the LORD your God and the stipulations and decrees he has given you. 18 Do what is right and good in the LORD’s sight, so that it may go well with you and you may go in and take over the good land that the LORD promised on oath to your forefathers, 19 thrusting out all your enemies before you, as the LORD said.

20 In the future, when your son asks you, “What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the LORD our God has commanded you?” 21 tell him: “We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 22 Before our eyes the LORD sent miraculous signs and wonders—great and terrible—upon Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household. 23 But he brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land that he promised on oath to our forefathers. 24 The LORD commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the LORD our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today. 25 And if we are careful to obey all this law before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness.”

The things the Israelites were commanded to teach their children were the commands, decrees, and laws of God. Love God, obey God, don’t forget God, fear God and serve Him, keep His commands. These were the things that they were supposed to impress upon their children, to talk about when they wake up and when they go to sleep. These are the things that they were supposed to bind on their arms and foreheads, and this is what Jews still today strap to their heads and arms when they pray… not grammar, not fractions, but the Word of the Lord.

As important as school learning is, the MOST IMPORTANT thing in their lives, as well as our lives, is the Word of the Lord and His laws, and THIS is what the Israelites were commanded to teach their children.

When our relationship with Him is right, when we follow His precepts, it will go well with us. When our relationship with God is disordered, everything else in our lives will suffer accordingly.

I think it’s great that parents take upon themselves to educate their children, but ultimately THAT type of education is not what Deuteronomy 6 is discussing. We can’t extrapolate from these verses that since God commanded them to teach their children His precepts, that He’s also commanding them to teach them how to conjugate verbs and multiply three digit numbers.

Kelly, Thank you for having the courage to boldly declare the truth of God’s word! I appreciate the encouragement that you give to other women who are struggling to go against the grain of society in order to be obedient to the Lord.

Mrs. Sara-Thank you for posting scripture! That is the only source to find answers to questions such as these. I agree with you that teaching typical school subjects are found nowhere in these verses.

The only place that our children can be in order for us to be as obedient to God’s Word as possible is the home. Unfortunately, we must also then be subject to our federal and state government which requires us to teach these subjects. In many states, we must educate our children well enough to pass standardized tests. Our job then is to try to incorporate our faith into these subjects to the best of our ability.

Quinn,

I think I was typing out my response while you were posting yours…you said what I was trying to say with much fewer words 🙂

Thank you.

Kelly,

Just to be clear, I don’t like public schools either. My main concern is to try to point out the benefits of solid private Christian schools as a valid and beneficial schooling option, along with homeschooling. Your experiences are certainly valid, but my experiences with Christian schools has been completely different. So we can’t really make a solid decision based on experience alone.

“What I was calling unfortunate is the government’s hand in the homeschool. I don’t feel they have any business telling me exactly what and exactly when, or else. Every child was created as an individual and should be allowed to move along at their own pace without fitting into a mold.”

And yet, that’s the government’s job. It’s their responsibility to make sure that each child is progressing along with children of his same age, even if they are at different schools. And when they require a certain curriculum, and require children to pass standardized testing, it’s to make sure the TEACHERS, in this case the parents, are living up to their job to fully and responsibly educate their children. If a parent decided to homeschool their children and didn’t teach the required skills and topics, that child might grow up and not be able to become a contributing member of society.

If the government will allow parents to buck the trend and homeschool, they have to make sure to “protect their investment,” so to speak by assuring that each child has the best possible chance at being productive and able to support themselves rather than living off government aid. And as long as the government provides social programs for those who aren’t contributing citizens, they do have a right to tell every teacher and homeschooling parent in this country what exactly they should teach.

“Book smarts aside, I really don’t think that gov’t run schools are putting out productive members of society in large numbers. Have you ever been to the mall on a Friday night? I’m terrified to think of what these people aged 15-30 are going to do to society.”

I think homeschooling is great, and I appreciate people who are choosing to take a primary role in their child’s education. But it’s statements like this that are really harming this discussion. Broad generalizations are worthless. Someone who was anti-homeschooling could easily say, “Kids who are homeschooled are socially inept and will never fit in with other kids.” You can see that this statement is ridiculous, and yet you’re doing the same thing when you talk about public schools this way.

I think that the success of children in private schools is mostly due to the high level of parental involvement, not just the merits of homeschool alone. You’re just not going to get parents that don’t care homeschooling (barring a few exceptions), and children who are attending public or private school who have parents who are so interested and involved in their children’s lives are going to have similar success rates. There’s no way you can compare the successes of home vs. public school, at least on that front, based on test scores, because it’s a completely different set of parents that you’re measuring. For instance, a single working mother who sends their kid to public school is, unfortunately, probably not going to have the same level of involvement in their child’s success as a married mother who’s able to stay home and help after school with homework and stay on top of their children’s success and any behavior issues that come up.

There are successes and failures in both home schools and public schools. Some of the most successful people in our country have come from public schooling. Then again, some of the most successful people in our country have come from private or home schooling as well. And there are some bonehead kids that come from each type of school, too. There’s no “magic” to homeschooling, there just happens to be a higher level of parental involvement, which can also happen in public or private schooling.

“There are successes and failures in both home schools and public schools. Some of the most successful people in our country have come from public schooling. Then again, some of the most successful people in our country have come from private or home schooling as well. And there are some bonehead kids that come from each type of school, too.”

What is your definition of “success” and “failure” as you use it in this phrase?

-Amy

Mrs. Sara,

I am really glad you clarified because sometimes people have different ideas about what the same term means, in this case “success”. I can see how your idea of success may be “produced” by the public school system, or any form of education- but I am still a little confused. For instance, what do you mean by “well-rounded”, and what does “contributing member of society” look like to you?

Also, I feel that I have a different idea of what I want for my children, what is “successful” in my eyes, or more importantly, successful in God’s eyes.

I agree that it is important to be well-educated, although I may have a slightly different view of what this means. I want my children to do their best, working for the Lord, not men- hopefully this propels them to excellence in all of their endeavors, but I am not going to base this on their “grade” in a class. I also believe that children need to know how to have healthy relationships, but where better to learn this than from God’s Word? Also, having good relationships with others begins with having good relationships at home. Being home with children all day gives more than enough time to work on these skills, not to mention their interactions with others at church, in the neighborhood, community, etc. This seems to be a better place to learn about relationships than a school setting. You can’t be sure what your children are picking up about relationships from the authorities and their peers. Besides, being age-segregated puts a focus on relationships solely with others your age, and children need to be able to form relationships with those of all ages. I just can’t see any better place than home to do this, and most things I see occurring in public and some Christian schools are not helpful in this realm. As for having an understanding of the world around them, I feel that there is no better way to learn about this then to actually be exposed to it and have the freedom to explore it. This doesn’t generally happen when children are in school for many hours each day. They are learning about the world according to their textbook or their teacher or their peers, not necessarily the real world. Furthermore, schools don’t operate like the real world does, so a much better place to learn about such things would be at home, where parents and families have unlimited opportunities to experience and discuss the real world (also they may discuss things from a biblical worldview and not a humanistic or any other un-biblical worldview)

Beyond all of this, what makes someone successful in God’s eyes is not how well-educated they are, or how many facts they know, it is that they love Him with all of their heart, mind, and soul, and seek to honor Him in all they do. I don’t see the school system producing those kinds of people. People who love God and follow Him WILL be successful no matter what kind of education they have or what they do. As we are citizens of heaven first and foremost, it is important that the education our children receive revolves around the Lord and His Word. Without that any earthly success will not amount to anything. God doesn’t command us to teach our children school subjects, but He does command us to teach our children about Him. Anything beyond that, though it may be necessary, is secondary in importance. I don’t see how teaching our children about God and to love Him can be better accomplished anywhere besides in the home. As parents we should be spending the majority of our time doing this. Sending children to school for academics takes away very precious time and, I believe, limits our children in their educational capabilities- yes, limits. All children are not the same and forcing upon them an education that hardly changes according to their needs actually limits them- how can anyone reach their full potential if they must follow what everyone else is doing, or are restricted by a teacher’s daily lesson plan that cannot be changed?

As for public schools, it doesn’t make sense to me for parents to teach their children about God and His laws at home and then send them to a place 7 hours a day that doesn’t fear God, follow Him, or reinforce what they are teaching at home. In fact, many things being taught in and going on in public schools are against what parents are trying to teach their children about God. It just doesn’t make sense to send them there.

Ok, so I feel like I have been all over the place here, but I hope that my point comes across: that a person’s success in God’s eyes (which is all that really matters anyway) is not based on their education or any other worldly thing, therefore we should find out what success means to God and then have that as our goal for ourselves and our children; and that schools can actually limit children from reaching their full potential in many ways, not just academically (because our full potential goes way beyond academics).

Amy

This will clear up alot of those moms of weaker faith as we are not to be stubbling blocks to anyone: Where in scripture does God call us as parents to teach our children academically? Give me chapter and verse and then i know God is commanding me to do so. Otherwise as a family this issues of homescholling or not is to be taken to the Lord and followed by his direction by faith for that family. His will for each family is different but always best for that family because not follow His will would be disobeying what he thinks it’s best for our children.

~ Homeschooling mom of 4 or which 1is now in private christian school and thriving unbeleivably for the Lord! Amen! =) When you walk by faith and follow HIS will for YOUR family it is a lovely thing indeed, amazing the lessons of grace and so many other blessings from submitting to HIS will which may not always be what WE think it is.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. I have a blog of my own…same song….different tune…I am a bit more *cutting*. Email me if you would like the link. Blessings to your family in 2008.
Lisa, a fellow Mom of 8 with #9 due in 10 weeks, and of course a homeschooler in the middle of her 10th year. 🙂

Since this man supports a system that suggests children should never learn ANYTHING outside their parents’ presence, I have a hard time fully backing him here.