Why do you home schoolers insist on sheltering your kids from reality, from mixing in the real world?
Posted in Tough Questions
Why do you home schoolers insist on sheltering your kids from reality, from mixing in the real world?
Parents who teach their children at home are often accused of not giving their children a “fair chance”, of causing them to miss out on a “normal” education, of sheltering them from the real world. But Christian home schoolers often level these exact same accusations at the state school educational authorities…..and with far greater accuracy. It is the state-run public schools which, having tossed out the Bible as its infallible point of reference, is now engaged in wholesale deception and deprivation of the nation’s children.
Let us not be timid about this first point. NONE of the students in the state schools is getting a “fair chance”. The Bible clearly states why: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” (Prov. 9:10.) Children in state schools are being grossly deprived of a sound education and the ability to acquire wisdom. Legally the state curriculum cannot and does not inculcate the fear of the Lord as the beginning, the starting point, the necessary benchmark for gaining wisdom. Having rejected the only sure foundation for wisdom, upon what are our state education authorities building their educational edifice? Section 77 of the Education Act says that the instruction in state primary classrooms shall be entirely of a secular character. According to a past Minister of Education, David Lange, “secular” means “without any religious instruction or observance.” That is, the teaching shall be from a point of view which assumes that God doesn’t exist. Now, Psalm 14:1 warns us that the FOOL says in his heart that there is no God, but here we have the Education Act saying it out loud, boldly, in black and white print! So what are we left to conclude about that which state educators can offer our children?
Besides, Godly education does not give a student a “chance”, but a choice. The Lord lays before each of us only two options: “See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you this day, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in His ways, and by keeping His commandments and His statutes and His ordinances, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you….But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you this day, that you shall perish.” (Deut. 30:15-18.) God promises (which is not the same as offering a chance) life and success in His terms to those who love and obey Him. He promises death and destruction to those who never learn to do so. State schools are legally required to teach children from a frame of reference (the secular clause from the Education Act) which tends to draw students toward the second option. Just as the state offers New Zealanders a “chance” in the Lotto games or with Bonus Bonds, so also the state seems to at best only offer our children a “chance” in the public schools.
It is the children in state schools that are missing out on normal education. The reason this is not so immediately apparent is that since most of us have already been through this education system ourselves, we still tend to unconsciously regard it as the norm for no other reason than that it was our own personal experience. Turning to the Scriptures for our norms, we get a totally different picture. First of all, education is the responsibility of the family, not the state. (Deut. 6:4-9.) Education is to be thoroughly Christian in nature, not secular. (Eph 6:4.) It is becoming obvious that because of the compulsory attendance law, most students have been snatched away from their parents’ care at too early an age. Children have been deprived in many ways as the state schools can only provide a bare shadow of the love, attention, understanding, empathy, guidance, role-modelling, encouragement, correction, discipline and tailor-made johnny-on-the-spot education and training that most Christian parents are more than capable of providing. Parents’ God-given responsibility to train up their own children has been largely usurped by the state. We must never allow ourselves to consider this state of affairs as normal.
Because the state school classroom is off-limits to consistently teaching the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the truth, relevance and necessity of His Word, the Bible, in every area of human thought and endeavour, it is the children in these state institutions who are being sheltered from the real world. Instead of being taught in a context of a universe created and sustained every moment by Almighty God, they are fed on the false, fruitless and futile philosophies of fallen men who legally cannot present the truth, Christianity, as even a viable option (not that many would want to do even that.) The Bible being off-limits, the mind of man is now put forward as the only “infallible” point of reference to which the public school student may legally be referred. Even well-meaning Christian education groups are propagating this deception because of a lack of understanding the issues involved. There are those who want to see Christianity taught in secondary schools as a viable, philosophical or religious alternative world view. That makes it merely one of many in the market place today. This is just a secular view of Christianity, and not real Christianity at all. Real Christianity is and claims to be the ONLY viable world view. (Why do we quibble and go weak-kneed at this point? Out of fear, that’s why. I know. Only today I missed a rare opportunity. My education professor at Massey asked me on this first day of the new semester in front of the whole class of 40 others what is the whole purpose of education. I merely said it was to properly take dominion over the whole earth. Why didn’t I say, “To enable us to take dominion under God over the whole earth and to make disciples of Jesus Christ of every nation”? Because, to my shame, I choked — me, a 46-year-old father of three teenagers, veteran of newspaper interviews, radio interviews, rabidly hostile talk-back hosts and even the Holmes show — I choked in front of 40, 19-year-old first year students.)
And space would fail if we were to launch into comparisons between the contrived and artificial environment of an age-segregated classroom with the grass-roots reality of a typical home environment which quickly and easily expands via almost daily field trips into the real-life environment of the community, the workplace and the marketplace. But these are secular arguments, which any intelligent person can readily see if they are willing to see them. They may add some reinforcement, but our basic argument, upon which we stand as Christians and realise we can do nothing different, is that we have had our marching orders from the King of kings Himself regarding the education of our children, and we MUST obey God rather than men.
From Keystone Magazine
July 1997 , Vol. III No.4
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email: craig@hef.org.nz