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| The Girls |
When I became a true Christian, my older children were young teenagers. We had lived our lives with a very worldly mindset. Our thinking, our values, every aspect of our lives was based on our experiences and what we had been taught. Those experiences, those teachings, were primarily formed by our public school education, the media, and our peers. While both my husband and I had Godly people in our family, they weren't strong influences in our lives. We wouldn't let them be. The strongest influences were the ones we were around the most, or that we chose to be around the most... our peers and our school.
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| Church Life |
When your values have been formed over a lifetime of public schooling, current psychology, the media, and peers, it can take a long time to change the worldviews you hold. Every new discovery was like turning on a light. I would discover something in my Bible or at Church or through a study I was doing or a book I was reading, and I would get so excited. Then, I would also get aggravated because I had been taught differently and had spent a lifetime living out what I knew then. Sadly, most of what I had been taught was not true.
When God called me to homeschool my daughter, Laura, I blindly thought it was about her. I thought homeschooling was a chance to give her a Christian education. And... that is part of it. However, the one that has learned the most is not Laura but me. As I read and study, as I teach her, I have been transforming my own mind and heart. I have been "re-educated", and the process continues still. I'm discovering more and more about God every year as I teach my children. I have learned about the Godly history of our world and the Christian history of our country. I have learned about the Creationism, and how it isn't a blind faith in God, but faith backed up by true science. I get excited when I read about a scientific discovery that backs up the Bible.
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| New Traditions |
Making the decision to homeschool has been one of the most life impacting decisions that God could ever lead our family to. The fact that I am not left with the same option for my step-daughter grieves my heart, but I have had to leave it in God's hands. Parents turn blind eyes to what happens in the public schools. They see the schools as what they had when they went to school. Pride in their school causes them to gloss over the anti-Christian values set forth. Even though they read about the horrible academic scores of American students, they somehow choose to believe that their school is different. Even when their child is struggling, they assume that it is their kid, not the teaching methods or the peer pressure. Yes, Christian students do keep their faith through public school. However, 88% walk away from their faith by the time they finish their freshman year of college. Their faith, through out those years of schooling, wasn't really their faith. They had been taught that God wasn't real. They had been influenced by teachings of humanism five days a week, 180 days or more a year.
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| Making it our Foundation |
Be honest, your student is in public school an average of 35 hours per week. That is 1260 hours per year where many other people can directly influence your child's values, beliefs, and worldview. Christian parents are often comforted by the fact that they are in church. Even if you attend every service with your child; Sunday School, Regular services, Sunday night services, and Wednesday night classes; you are still only looking at roughly six hours per week of Godly influence. Statistically, most families don't do Bible studies at home or even pray together. That six hours a week is 312 hours of God in their lives year round, without a break or a week off. That 312 hours year round is compared to 1260 hours of public school time. Which has a greater impact? We may want to believe that the church time is more influential, but the truth is that it has been proven statistically that it isn't.
The girls that were young teenagers when my husband and I became Christians are now adults. The truth is coming out, now that they are grown, about the secrets they held. They were so very influenced by their schooling and their peers, despite my husband and me taking them to church, having them involved in so many aspects of church life, and doing our best to live it at home even as we were learning ourselves. They did so many things that was outright rebellion against God. They lived almost secret lives, and kept it cleverly hidden. They were taught one way at church and at home, but in their school and time with friends they caved easily to the teachings and peer pressure of the world and compromised their faith.
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| Dressed for Easter |
As a mom, I believed the best about my children. I easily put aside the Biblical teachings that we are all sinful creatures. I chose to ignore that check in my spirit when I knew something wasn't exactly right, but I couldn't place a finger on what. I, too, was comforted by the knowledge that my children were learning about Christ in church every week, and we were active participants in our church. I leaned heavily on that, only to discover that church attendance and even participation isn't enough. My husband and I tried living Christianity out in our homes, but often failed as the devil threw whatever he could into our paths. Our children saw our failures, the times when we were angry, the times when we were frustrated, and used them to excuse their own choices instead of seeing two people learning and growing in Christ through the battles placed before us.
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| The other influence |
I chose to trust programs in the church, such as Sunday School teachers and Youth Programs, only to find out that these didn't have near the impact on my children that I had assumed. Worse, the teens often saw the hypocrisy of the people in the church and used that to excuse themselves. It was literally, if that person can do this or that or watch this or that, then it must be okay for me. They never learned to hear from God for themselves, as I had thought.
I didn't know about having our child's heart. I had never even heard that phrase until a couple years ago. It was in my own studies and reading that I came across that concept. I thought the only way to have my child's heart was to be their friend. I had seen to many parents try to be their child's friend, and it backfire big time. So, instead, I had a more dictator type mentality, and my children didn't feel free to come to me when they needed to. I would reach out, but they would back away. I never could get the discipline thing balanced well with the being close with your kid thing. I decided it was better to be the parent instead of a friend, which isn't wrong, but I never really pushed to win their hearts as their parent. Sadly, since I didn't have their hearts, it was easy for other influences to gain it. Friends, boyfriends, teachers... all had a strange sort of influence on my children that was stronger than mine. My kids would pretend to listen to my instruction, but then hide their true lives from me. Ironically, I rarely found out the truth until it was too late or years later. While I feel like an ignorant fool, I know that God has vital lessons for me in this.
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| The allure of Media |
What does this have to do with education? Everything! Education is a primary influence in the formation of your child's value system. It's that 312 hours versus the 1260 hours. Even more than the 1260 hours, add in the hours watching television where the world is an influence on your child. Add in the time spent with friends from school, even those you assume are Christians but often are leading the same double life that your child is.
While you can't so shelter your kids that they are never in the world at all, I think eyes need to be opened. We give our children away to the public schools, thinking that our child will be salt and light. Instead, our child's salt is often watered down and useless. The light is dimmed by the compromises the child makes just to fit in and have friends. Only a small percentage hangs on to their faith.
And all of this is for what? SAT scores are the lowest they have ever been, despite revamping the SATs to make them easier. America's ratings when compared with the rest of the world is barely average. We are no longer leading the world in literacy, math, or science. In fact, we have an illiteracy rate that is lower than before we had any compulsory schooling back in the beginning of the 1900s. In other words, less people can read and read well than before we required children to go to school. What, then, are they learning at those places we send them to for those 1260 hours per year? It isn't Americans leading the way as scientists, inventors, writers, doctors, or even as teachers.
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| graduation from school |
I found it ironic that the SAT scores are super low, but those that are homeschooled or go to private Christian schools perform, on average, as high as our schools did when prayer was allowed in schools and the Bible was taught. Why? Because the influence of God is more than just spiritual. It transforms the mind too. The influence of the Bible is great. Bible studies cause the brain to think. The KJV of the Bible, which is used in many Christian schools and homeschools to this day, is written in a form that many claim they don't understand today. It is written in an older style, with a vocabulary that is a lot more extensive than what we use today in everyday language. Yet, it was read and understood by common farmers 100 years ago. (And we think we are advanced because we have more gadgets!)
This idea that taking God out of something can have an incredibly negative impact on education is obviously going to be fought by the system. However, in my home, it is a reality. I've seen the results of it all around me and in my own children. While I can't go back and change how I raised my older children, I can make changes in how I raise and educate my younger children.
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