Home Schooling - A Way of Life 2

Home Schooling - A Way of Life (part 2)

Home Schooling Challenges

. . . that's great, but will it work for us . . . A Father's Perspective

Is Home Schooling for You ?

Home Schooling Challenges

by Margie Gray

I've been reading a book called The Right Choice - Homeschooling by Chris Klicka for about a year. In the book, Mr. Klicka relates many quotes and experiences of knowledgeable and respected scholars. I want to share with you three points that I was challenged and encouraged by.

First, I was challenged to ask myself if I was teaching what really needed to be taught. Martin Luther asserted "I am afraid that the schools will prove the very gates of hell, unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures and engraving them in the heart of the youth." Certainly today's secular schools have proved his statement true, but more importantly, was I being diligent in explaining and engraving the Bible on my children's hearts?

Second, I was encouraged to be diligent in teaching my slower children. Susanna Wesley managed to instill a passion for learning and righteousness in all her children. Her husband once asked her in exasperation, "Why do you sit there teaching that dull child that lesson over the twentieth time?" She calmly replied, "Had I satisfied myself by mentioning the matter only nineteen times, I should have lost all labor. You see it was the twentieth time that crowned the whole." Our home instruction need not continue until our child has mastered the subject. We thereby avoid developing holes in his or her education.

Third, I was challenged in my thinking toward compulsory education. Home schooling almost became extinct in this country with advent of compulsory education. R. L. Dabney, a reformed preacher and writer during the Civil War stated "But the result of public education is to bring a larger number of children into primary schools, and reduce the illiteracy somewhat which is a great delight to shallow philanthropists. But the number of youths well educated above the mere rudiments and especially those brought under daily Christian training is diminished...Christians must prepare themselves then, for the following results: all prayers, catechisms, and Bibles will ultimately be driven out of the schools. But may parents nevertheless neglect or pervert the powers? Yes, but does the State never neglect and pervert the powers? With the lessons of history to teach the horrible and almost universal abuses of power in the hands of civil rulers, that question is conclusive. In the case of an unjust and Godless state, the evil would be universal and sweeping. There is no doubt that God has deposited the duty in the safest place (the parents)." How right can a man get? Dabney saw the writing on the wall over a hundred years ago. Compulsory education was a major step in taking away parental rights.

Reading The Right Choice Homeschooling pricked my heart. I still have a lot of learning to do. I don't want my home to prove to be the very gates of hell. I want what is spoken of in Isaiah 54:13. "And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children."

. . . that's great, but will it work for us . . .

A Father's Perspective

In the summer of 1993, my wife suggested that we consider home schooling as an educational option for the coming fall. Home schooling was not unfamiliar to me. We have many friends who home school, and we home schooled one of our children for kindergarten. But this was not just kindergarten we were talking about. It was kindergarten, third, and fifth grades with a toddler under two years of age. I had grave misgivings. My response was, "No, I don't think that will work for our family."