After reading a passage from Psalm 119, I’ve been thinking about how much meat is there for us home educators, for those who doubt parents are the best teachers, or maybe for those who haven’t given it a second thought.
Pay close attention this verse:
“I have more understanding than all my teachers, for Your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep Your precepts.”
How many times have we heard from well-meaning, albeit brain-washed inquisitors that “parents aren’t equipped to educate their children.” Now granted, a lot comes in to play in that discussion. Primarily, “that nothing matters but academics” is the basis of such a comment, and home educators have a lot more in mind than just that (or most do).
But even the best-intentioned homeschooler still grapples with the nagging questions…”Are they going to be smart enough?” “Will they pass the test?”
I submit that there is a mystery given to us in Scripture that we just don’t believe. And its key is in the above verse. We know that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”…but we still spend most of our time searching out “the right curriculum” for our answers.
Of course I know we live in a slightly different time than when the Bible was written. But we also know that the Word is timeless, and what was true then, is true now.
“I have more understanding than ALL my teachers for your testimonies are my meditation.”
If we really believed that, first of all, every Christian would homeschool his children. Secondly, we’d all give ourselves a little slack with the academic pressure!
I am very pro-academics–don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying “Throw all your text books and school schedules out the window!” I’m not.
What I am suggesting is that we too quickly let the world, our preconceived notion of “school”, family, neighbors, tell us what’s most important in our children’s education. And that pressure causes our focus to get out of balance. Do we take as much care with imparting the wisdom of God’s Word as we do with making sure he finishes his math book on time?
Are we taking the time to show our children that ALL wisdom–math, history, science–is from the Creator?
Here again, we have the manual! Our only problem is that we don’t have the blind faith to believe it. (I’m talking to myself here too.) Just believe that understanding, wisdom and knowledge comes from meditating on the precept of God’s Word and it will change the way you look at home education!
More tips on simple homeschooling.
26 comments
I agree.
Maybe this is not the ‘right’ attitude, but I really dont concern myself too much with my childrens grades in public school. I mean, they do excellent, but the times they ddi get a C on a quiz, they seem more upset than I am. I just dont think it is that big a deal. But when they grapple with their sisters, it grieves my heart. When they exhibit laziness, my heart worries.
My children learned to read with very little help. I threw ‘phonics’ out the door after my oldest, the ‘guinea pig’, had learned to read better with just being READ TO. Homeschooling takes a lot of the pressure off to perform a certain way. Learning comes more naturally, and there arent always ‘steps’ to follow. I never had to put in hours of time to get my kids to understand. it just happened.
Other day in the dentists office, I was reading a magazine…and came across a very interesting story. It was in some sports magazine…..anyway, it was about John Hale and his like 17 children. maybe many of you already know the story, but it was fresh and new to me. It certaionly wasnt a plug for Patriarchy….as this father severly abused any authroity he did have in the first place. The oldest child was like 28? and none of them, even the grown men- 20, 22, and 25- were not allowed to leave home or marry. The children were very brainwashed, and had no sense of self.
Anyway, interestingly enough-two by two they began escaping-they had made friends with a christian family in a town nearby, and after a year of coaching, I guess they were of better understanding of the TRUTH and left their father…worried about the youn ger ones, they eventually pressed charges, and he is now in jail.
Here is the part that intrigued me. It was said that they children were poorly schooled, and that the three older boys just made their living (after the escape) by offering their learned trades for money (they live in alaska). A visit by the author of the article some time later revealed, at least from the way it was presented, that the older children though still scarred, were still walking with God, living humbly, etc. “They were poorly schooled”. Huh? If it was enough to keep them living, and taking care of their (new) families, thats good enough for me! The real point was they still loved God, stated God was good even so….
The christian man who ‘rescued’ the older children, eventually took the mother and smaller 11 or so children in. 2 of the older boys ended up marrying 2 of that mans daughters. 🙂 The older children all live nearby one another.
Anyway, my point was that if these kids grew up to be beautiful men and ladies of God, what difference did it make if they had a 6th grade education? They were hard workers, lovers of their siblings, and trying to overcome their abuse-and not blaming God. I am not advocating that we should deliberately give our children a 6th grade education-but I am saying sometimes it isnt as absolutely necessary as we think. It helps, its nice-but we dont need it to live.
If my children grow up with a shred of that type of ‘illiteracy’, i will forever be grateful. Id exchange mathematical genius anyday for a heart that desires and wishes to know God, and have Him know her.
AM…
“Id exchange mathematical genius anyday for a heart that desires and wishes to know God, and have Him know her.”
If only this were the cry of all our hearts!
Good stuff, Kelly.
I want to thank you again for your help in this area. As a new home educator, it has meant so much to me to have someone who encourages this way. (I am imagining myself struggling a lot otherwise). Thanks so much!
Authentically me,
Thanks for sharing this story… it is an encouraging one.
🙂
Kim M…aw shucks 😉 We are certainly learning together…and encouraging each other! Can you imagine how hard our “homeschooling foremothers” had it with little to no support around them?
R C Sproul Jr. wrote on this topic in When You Rise Up. Really helped me prioritize and refocus my goals in my homeschool. It really did make homeschooling simple. I feel such a burden lift from my shoulders when I began to school my children in order to glorify God instead of passing the tests. Thanks for keeping us on track.
So true, Kelly! I think that this verse is important for non-homeschoolers, too. Maybe even more-so than for homeschoolers. We need to get rid of the notion that, as you put it, “academics is all there is.” Children need to be educated in academics, true, but they need to be educated morally, spiritually, physically, socially, and emotionally, as well to be well-rounded, capable, joyful adults. If we are putting our children in institutionalized education (and I’m not just talking about public school, here) we’re going to have to supplement our children’s educations at home even if we’re not homeschooling full-time. Academics is NOT all there is! Of course, I think, as you do, that the best way to implement this sort of learning IS to homeschool, which is what I plan to do with my children (my oldest is only 18 months right now, so it’s not really and issue just yet.) Anyway, thank you for bringing some practical perspective to this verse.
~Bethany
Kelly,
I agree with your thoughts here whole heartedly. Sometimes homeschooling parents need to remember that we aren’t just cloning the school system for our home system – we need to raise up our children to be ‘real people’. For that, they need the text books, but also the open conversations about life. I have seen my daughter retain just as much from talking over the kitchen counter doing dishes as from the text of the day!
BTW – I highly recomment the DVD by Voddie Baucham called “Children of Caesar” for all homeschoolers who are in need of encouragement.
This is great!! I have been reading your blog for about a month now and really get some good stuff from you. Thanks for sharing.
B
I like how you mentioned “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” This is a promise from God isn’t it? and I believe it is believing the opposite of God’s promises that keep us from obedience. I guess the opposite of this promise would be “The forgetting of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” or “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of foolishness.” We can stay on course if we believe God’s Word. Great post, Kelly. We have never bought curriculum – there always seems to be some other need or emergency that comes up but the Lord has provided.
We use our library extensively and play games and use Ambleside…and people like you are such an encouragement and source of ideas.
Much love to you.
Hi Kelly,
I loved your post. Several years ago God took us off that academic carousel. Not that we don’t learn academics, but it is sooooo not the focus anymore. I read some great info back then by Robin Sampson of Heart of Wisdom, maybe “scheduling by faith???” It changed my life!
I still slip every now and again and ‘school’ becomes too much of a focus, but the good Lord puts me right back on the right track!
Homeschooling by faith and lots of Grace is why I can be pregnant, be so sick, sleep tons, barely get out of bed some days, give birth and nurse a little one, feel like we didn’t do ‘any’ school and still get ‘school’ done. All the children at the end of the year are still beyond what they ‘should’ be. All this in a year when I feel like all we did was make sure ‘bible’ happened!
But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
He is so amazingly faithful…even when we are not! I love serving Him, don’t you?
When my littles ask ‘what should I be when I grow up?” my answer is always a godly man or godly woman. They tease me because they want to hear, you know, cowboy, fireman, doctor ect. But I assure them that if they love the Lord with all their hearts I don’t care what they do!
Michelle
http://www.shelookethwell.blogspot.com
I hope I instill in my children the ability and want to learn. I have learned and retained so much more since I have been out of school because I want to know things.
Like our Christian walk, we should be always learning, ever growing and challenging ourselves. The basis should be our knowledge of God, then everything else falls into place.
I’m curious – where will Christian doctors and lawyers come from? Won’t they need med school? Law school? Won’t they have to have studied something to get into those schools besides the “word of God?”
Mother of Dog,
I think what Kelly is saying here and I would agree with her that…
“home educators have a lot more in mind than just that (or most do).”
The key word being “more”.
With me, I *begin* our day with prayer and Bible study (“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”), and I will not move on to the academic side until we have had our time with the Lord.
I have noticed that without the Lord’s help, I cannot be the mother I need to be. My children have more of a sense of peace when we dig into God’s Word and meditate on it.
Yes we do the basics… and then some. I will give you an example of what this looks like.
For example the other day, I was listening to my son read from his third grade reader. The story was about a little girl who was lost in the woods. She kept hearing a buzzing sound, but didn’t know what it was. It was seventeen year cicadas! Because she kept following the buzzing, she was able to get home safely. The story ended there.
As soon as my son finished his reading, we wanted to know more about cicadas, so we looked up a documentary on Youtube.
With home-schooling, there is so much more freedom and opportunity to search and find answers. If a child is sitting in a traditional classroom setting, he cannot seek for more information while his interest is piqued. By the time he gets home, he has most likely forgotten…and he probably has some home-work to tackle.
Thankfully for us, we reach our goals and then we are able to go on to more learning during the day.
So hopefully by the time my children graduate from high school, they will not have just a regular “in-the-box” education, but a superior one. They will have been taught to explore all of the questions they have without being told to “sit down and be quiet” or stare at the wall while the other children finish.
This is the key thing to understand:
A mother who adores her child (more than a teacher ever could) will do her utmost to impart as much wisdom and knowledge as she can. But a true child of God will not seek wisdom apart from God’s word. See Scriptures below to understand what I mean:
“For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, ‘He catches the wise in their own craftiness’; and again, ‘The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.'” 1 Corinthians 3:19-20
“…the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” 1 Corinthians 2:14-15
I hope this helps.
MOD…
Perhaps you didn’t read the whole post…
“I am very pro-academics…don’t get me wrong! I’m not saying “Throw all your text books and school schedules out the window!” I’m not.”
It’s the FOUNDATION of the education that ensures what’s built on top is solid. When the foundation is “the wisdom of God”, the ensuing education will far exceed that of the world.
For another example, we’re focusing on astronomy for science this year. My 10yo son happens to have an intense interest in this subject.
“The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork”
This is why we learn astronomy.
I’m really enjoying learning from him. So far I have just provided the materials. I think that if I was teaching him or he was learning within a school setting, his education would be so stunted. When he tells me what he is learning, it’s like he’s speaking a foreign language! I made the mistake of referring to the Big Dipper one day and was corrected. Apparently the proper name is Ursa Major. It’s a shame we live in a valley and the clouds get stuck here in the winter and hang around for weeks or I’m sure he’d be out there every night with his telescope and Sky Scout.
I was a little confused myself as I read the comments by your readers, Kelly. Confused and surprised. All of the homeschoolers I have ever know have ridiculed the public school system because they “push the kids right through and give them a diploma, whether or not they pass the tests or the courses.”
The homeschoolers I knew were adamant that the public school should NOT grant diplomas to those who could NOT pass the tests or the courses.
Now, it seems some of your readers are saying that passing tests or courses is unimportant for homeschoolers. Are they willing to say the same for public school students? (That it is also unimportant for them to pass tests or courses in order to get a diploma?)
Civilla,
Fair question.
I think it helps understanding that there are two different mind sets (kind of) in homeschooling. One set is still highly “test-oriented” and feel homeschooling provides a superior academic education. While most all homeschoolers feel this is true, some of us others are concerned with academics but not as concerned with test and other men’s ideas of how children should be measured.
We tend to be more entrepreneurial-minded, although not all, and more prone to lean toward apprenticeship-type programs instead of being adamant that our children must go to college (although many will!)
It’s kind of hard to explain. It’s basically a gentle “shift” into the thinking that a “test” doesn’t really measure a child’s aptitude and in the school system can actually limit the education process because it becomes the focus instead of just learning.
So, while we are VERY concerned with learning, our methods of obtaining knowledge may look slightly different than the test-oriented system.
Did that make any sense?
By the way, I think both can be accomplished–that is, a God-centered education, a more relaxed approach AND “passing the test” if need be.
I was wondering if this is a new generation of homeschoolers.
Twenty years ago, homeschool was still a rather new thing, and I guess parents seemed determined to prove that their children were learning more than their public school counterparts, and did so by flaunting tests scores and bragging about those ubiquitous spelling bees.
I guess now everybody feels like they no longer have to prove anything, and homeschool has gone almost mainstream (at least, a lot more people are doing it than used to), and many homeschoolers, from the looks of your blog and the comments on it, taking a more relaxed approach.
Back when my children were ready for school, almost 20 years ago, in 1992, homeschoolers felt like they had to clone the public schools (as some of your readers have mentioned).
I remember many homeschoolers who had a spare room set up like a classroom, with desks and a blackboard on the wall and a flag in the corner, to which they pledged alliegience to every morning, a set schedule, and the children had to call their mother, “Mrs. Smith.”
I took one look at that and said, “I could never do that!” And I wouldn’t have. I’m not that disciplined. Also, I was quoted exhorbitant prices for curriculum (at that time, almost $1,000 per child).
All of the women who were successful at this, from day-one through high school, were at least college graduates, if not former teachers, and one was one of the first female master sergeant in the Air Force. Everybody else washed out in a few years.
Very daunting. I ran screaming for the nearest private, and then public, school for shelter!
Civilla,
I think home-schooling parents act that way sometimes to defend themselves by proving they *can* do it. There are a lot of nay-sayers out there who just don’t understand.
Sometimes in our explaining, we get excited (because we love what we are doing).
I hope I don’t ever seem snooty.. yes I know I did use the term superior education, but it was not meant in a snooty way. My comment was mainly in answer to Mother of Dog’s comment (not trying to be snooty to her either).
We are not test oriented. I tried that, and after about 2 weeks I realized that it is really pointless and unhelpful for us (not knocking others who want to do it).
If my children make a mistake, I don’t just “mark it wrong” and go on. If they make a mistake I am right there and I know where they are struggling. I can show them again how to do it until they understand. And I can research it further if we need. But we do not move on until they know it. We are relaxed that way.
I do have my days though where I push my kids. I am working on being more patient with them. They can be daydreamers sometimes, but I guess that can be normal.
I know I have a lot to learn about approach….
I try to approach learning and education as a lifestyle. Something that we should do everyday and in every activity. Whether we are cooking a new recipe, learning to play a new game, or studying science or history, we should enjoy learning. Like Kim, we begin our day with Bible study and prayer. God’s word is the basis for everything we learn.
There is so much freedom in homeschooling to tailor a child’s education to his/her interests. Quinn, the example of your son learning astronomy this year is a wonderful one. Isn’t it amazing how much children can learn for themselves when you peak their interests?
The math program we used last year came with tests which I took seriously and administered to my son. One day the boy had his head in the clouds and did very poorly. I told him that when I was in school that would have been a failing grade. He felt that he had done well because he answered over half correctly. With that kind of optimism I quickly learned to use them simply as a review of material covered because the grade wasn’t going to mean anything. Perhaps the classroom setting provides enough competition to make grades matter? ( I know that I sure cared!)
I know he is doing well because I’m with him everyday and know what he’s retaining. I don’t need a test to tell me. With the student to teacher ratio what it in public schools, I could see where testing would be necessary to ensure that no students were falling behind.
Our state requires annual testing and he always does extremely well with those. Majority of the states do in some form or another so testing isn’t an option.
I am not sure yet in which grade my son would be considered. He is half in the third grade and half in the second grade. Meaning… we are doing 2nd grade Language Arts (Language & Phonics…at least in the curriculum I am using which is ABeka) and third grade Mathematics and Reading.
He was in a traditional classroom setting and when I took him out, I put him back into the second grade in those subjects. He wasn't doing very well in those so I thought he needed to grasp them before he moved on.
Has anyone else done this? I am new at this home education thing. I love it though…
Thanks! I needed this. We told my MIL last night we are expecting #5 and her response was, “Will you please put the others in school now so that can be educated and go to college.”
All day it made me frustrated, but also question what I am doing. Thanks for your words!
Jess in Peru
Jess,
Congratulatios! Stay the course…words can be hurtful, but we partake in the suffering of Christ with each one.
This particular blog entry really got me. I never really completely understood what exactly the fear of the Lord referred to other than a deep reverence. So, after reading your entry I went on a “treasure hunt” to find out as much as I could about wisdom, the fear of the Lord, and what exactly that means. Now, I am teaching my children. Each day, we now spend the first hour of learning time studying what it means to fear the Lord and why it is so important.
I believe this study, which may take us weeks, will be life changing. We read that the fear of the Lord is, among many things, a gift from God and that humans can’t “find it” on their own. So, we are praying for God’s wisdom and leading and for this precious gift.
Thank you for pointing us in the right direction (again).
Sheena,
This REALLY encourages me!!!