Category Archives: Articles written by Craig

The Corporal Correction of Children – Part 1

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The Corporal Correction of Children – Part 1

Posted in In line with Scripture

“Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction will drive it far from him.”

— Proverbs 22:15

We Need More Grandpas

Junior bit the meter man, and then he hit the cook;

Junior’s anti-social now, according to the book.

Junior smashed the clock and lamp, and then he

hacked the tree.

Destructive trends are treated in chapters two and

three.

Junior threw his milk at mum, and then he screamed

for more;

Notes on self-assertiveness are found in chapter four.

Junior tossed his shoes and socks out into the rain;

Negation this, and chapter six says disregard the

strain.

Junior set dad’s shirt on fire and upset Grandpa’s

plate;

That’s to gain attention as explained in chapter eight.

But Grandpa takes a wooden spoon, pulls junior ‘cross

his knee;

(He’s read nothing but the Bible since 1933!)

What did Grandpa read in the Bible? He would have read a great deal about how to love, train and discipline children. The other book referred to in the poem was also ostensibly about how to love and train children, but instead of disciplining them, it seemed to emphasise understanding them.

We have here two very different world views which give opposing advice regarding the rearing of children. One world view is found in Grandpa’s Bible: that of the Creator God. The other is found in the literature of created humans. In the final analysis, there are only ever these two world views: one from the mind of God, the other from the mind of man (although there certainly is a vast amount of variation in this second one; see also Proverbs 3:5).

Our text says, “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child”. This is a foundational statement about the nature of the child. Jeremiah 17:9 expands on this: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” Children are NOT blank tapes who learn evil from elders, an idea championed by John Locke in the late 1600s. They pick up bad behaviour NOT from the environment, as behaviourists such as B.F. Skinner would advise: it is in their hearts (and in our adult hearts even still) from conception. Children are NOT little bundles of innocence: they are little bundles of depravity (see Psalm 51:5) and can develop into unrestrained agents of evil unless trained and disciplined according to God’s Word. Selfishness, violence, lying, cheating, stealing and other such behaviour are just the child unpacking some of this foolishness from the vast store in his heart. Bad examples such as ungodly parents, siblings, peer groups or television heroes only bring out the worst of the child’s innate foolishness and allow the child an excuse for its own bad behaviour….these things do not cause the bad behaviour. Each child has its own personalised store of foolishness bound up in its heart. Some seem to have vast amounts of the most amazing variety of dirty tricks, rebellion, manipulation and other forms of selfishness, combined with really cunning and creative ways of inflicting them upon you. Others seem so sweet and innocent all the time. Don’t be deceived (which is a weakness of our sinful hearts and minds that takes prominence in situations where we are called upon by our duty to God to rouse ourselves out of the old easy chair and do some unpleasant discipline and training). Visiting us for the first time from the USA 17 years ago, I asked my mum to give her opinion of our child training and discipline practises. She’d observed for some weeks, and we knew we were doing a great job. “You want my true opinion?” she asked ominously. “Well, yes, of course Mom!” “That 3-year- old of yours has you both wrapped around her little finger”!!!! I couldn’t believe it! But my mum went on to name example after example of us being pushed around and manipulated by this sweet little girl who we were sure was obedient and respectful in every way. How wrong we were!

The text further says, “but the rod of correction drives it far from him.” Three things are immediately apparent: First, a rod is to be used. Second, it is to be used as correction. Third, it is to drive the foolishness out.

The “rod” here may have some reference to ancient symbols of authority or guidance, such as a shepherd’s rod or a ruler’s scepter. Both are very applicable to this situation, for a shepherd’s rod, like a good spanking, is to keep one out of future trouble. And parents, like rulers, must exercise over their children the authority delegated to them, or else be found guilty of abdication, neglect, irresponsibility, etc. A rod is probably not a hand in most cases, though exceptions may have to be made at times.

Spankings are to correct the child, not punish the child. Our culture is quite used to the idea of spankings being referred to as “corporal punishment”. This terminology is quite correct in describing the way certain criminals are to be dealt with by the civil government (Deuteronomy 25:1-3). Once public schools came into existence, the teachers, being agents of the civil (secular) government, could not corporeally “correct” to any particular standard (lest they break the secular clause of Section 77), and so simply punished…..usually by caning. It is instructive to note that Section 59 of the New Zealand Crimes Act 1961 (the statute which protects parents from being charged with assault whenever they spank their children) reads as follows:

“59(1) Every parent of a child and, subject to subsection (3) of this section, every person in the place of the parent of a child is justified in using force by way of correction towards the child, if the force used is reasonable in the circumstances.

“(2) The reasonableness of the force used is a question of fact.

“(3) Nothing in subsection (1) of this section justifies the use of force towards a child in contravention of Section 139A of the Education Act 1989.”

It says parents are justified in using reasonable force by way of correction. This is a legal recognition of a parent’s Biblical duty as spelled out in our text. Note: the force used must be reasonable in the circumstances (which appears to include ethnic and familial traditions…see “The Parental Use of Physical Discipline in New Zealand”, Parts 1 & 2, Keystone Vol. V, Nos. 3 & 4, May & July 1999) and used for correction. (Section 139A of the Education Act prohibits anyone from using force “by way of correction or punishment” in any early childhood centre or registered school “unless that person is a guardian of the student or child.”)

Spankings are further meant to drive the foolishness, the sinful manifestations, out of the child’s personality so that they do not become permanent fixtures. If the foolishness and sin are not driven out, but simply left to simmer inside, what do you suppose happens? The child matures in foolishness and grows into a fool. Read through the book of Proverbs for some sober warnings against such a thing. It is so bad that at one point the Scriptures declare: “He who spares his rod hates his son.” (Proverbs 13:24).

The objective behind spanking is to train, to correct, to discipline. It is not retributive, it is not vengeful: “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord” (Romans 12:19b). God’s law requires the entire community was to take a hand in stoning capital criminals to death — with the exception of parents if it is they who turn their child over to the civil authorities. (Compare Deut. 17:7 with 21:18-21). Parents DO NOT have life and death powers over their children.

Because we each have this foolishness, we can easily identify with our children and help them see it is something we all must struggle with. Our job as parents is to drive the foolishness out until such time as the child can toss it out himself. It is a problem the child and the parent together can point out, identify and deal with together: often children are very perceptive in spotting parental inconsistencies (foolishness), and parents should be thankful — and repentant — when their children do point these things out. We therefore do not label our children “bad”; they and we see that there is bad in them, but with training they will master it.

From Keystone Magazine
May 2000 , Vol. VI No. 3
P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
email: craig@hef.org.nz

The True Millennium — and Other “Timely” Questions (Part 2)

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The True Millennium — and Other “Timely” Questions (Part 2)

Posted in Teaching Tips

(Researched from the internet)

PART 2

When the papal bull of February 1582 decreed that 10 days should be dropped from October 1582, so that 15 October should follow immediately after 4 October, and from then on the new Gregorian calendar should be used, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain all fell in line with other Catholic countries following shortly after. Protestant countries, however, were reluctant to change, and the Greek orthodox countries didn’t change until the start of this century.

In Bulgaria 31 March 1916 was followed by 14 April. In Russia 31 January 1918 was followed by 14 February. And in Greece the changes didn’t take place until only 73 years ago when 9 March 1924 was followed by 23 March. This whole business is so confusing that sources disagree, some saying it took place in 1916, others in 1920.

Further, the Gregorian calendar was introduced into Turkey on 1 January 1927, replacing the Islamic calendar. It replaced the Chinese calendar in either 1912 or 1929, depending on which authorities you believe.

The Roman calendar?

Remember from Part 1 of this article in the last issue of Keystone, that the Roman calendar was replaced by the Julian calendar in 45 BC, and this was replaced by the Gregorian calendar we use now. That old Roman calendar was such a mess, that much of our so-called “knowledge” about it seems to be little more than guesswork.

Originally, the year started on 1 March and consisted of only 304 days of 10 months (Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Junius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, and December). These 304 days were followed by an unnamed and unnumbered winter period. The Roman king Numa Pompilius (c. 715-673 BC, although his historicity is disputed) allegedly introduced February and January (in that order) between December and March, increasing the length of the year to 354 or 355 days. In 450 BC, February was moved to its current position between January and March.

The Romans didn’t number the days sequentially from 1. Instead they had three fixed points in each month:

“Kalendae” (or “Calendae”), which was the first day of the month.

“Idus”, which was the 13th day of January, February, April, June, August, September, November, and December, or the 15th day of March, May, July, or October. (You have heard of the need to “beware the Ides of March”? This was the 15th of March, when Ceasar was assassinated by his “mate” Brutus and friends.)

“Nonae”, which was the 9th day before Idus (counting Idus itself as the first day).

The days between Kalendae and Nonae were called “the 4th day before Nonae”, “the 3rd day before Nonae”, and “the 2nd day before Nonae”. (The first day before Nonae would be Nonae itself.)

Similarly, the days between Nonae and Idus were called “the Xth day before Idus”, and the days after Idus were called “the Xth day before Kalendae (of the next month)”.

Julius Caesar decreed that in leap years the “6th day before Kalendae of March” should be doubled. So in contrast to our present system, in which we introduce an extra date (29 February), the Romans had the same date twice in leap years.

January 1st Not Always New Year Day

When Julius Caesar introduced his calendar in 45 BC, he made 1 January the start of the year. However, the church didn’t like the wild parties that took place at the start of the new year, and in AD 567 the council of Tours declared that having the year start on 1 January was an ancient mistake that should be abolished.

Through the middle ages various New Year dates were used. If an ancient document refers to year X, it may mean any of 7 different periods in our present system:

– 1 March X to 28/29 February X+1

– 1 January X to 31 December X

– 1 January X-1 to 31 December X-1

– 25 March X-1 to 24 March X

– 25 March X to 24 March X+1

– Saturday before Easter X to Friday before Easter X+1

– 25 December X-1 to 24 December X

Choosing the right interpretation of a year number is difficult, so much more as one country might use different systems for religious and civil needs.

The Byzantine Empire used a year starting on 1 September, but they didn’t count years since the birth of Christ. Instead they counted years since the creation of the world, which they dated to 1 September 5509 BC.

Since about 1600 most countries have used 1 January as the first day of the year. Italy and England, however, did not make 1 January official until around 1750.

In England (but not Scotland) three different years were used:

– The historical year, which started on 1 January.

– The liturgical year, which started on the first Sunday in advent.

– The civil year, which from the 7th to the 12th century started on 25 December, from the 12th century until1751 started on 25 March, from 1752 started on 1January.

The Names of the Months

A lot of languages, including English, use month names based on Latin. Their Latin names and meaning are listed below. However, some languages (Czech and Polish, for example) use quite different names.

January: Januarius. Named after the god Janus.

February: Februarius. Named after Februa, the purification festival.

March: Martius. Named after the god Mars.

April: Aprilis. Named either after the goddess Aphrodite or the Latin word “aperire”, to open.

May: Maius. Probably named after the goddess Maia.

June: Junius. Probably named after the goddess Juno.

July: Julius. Named after Julius Caesar in 44 BC. Prior to that time its name was Quintilis from the word “quintus”, fifth, because it was the 5th month in the old Roman calendar.

August: Augustus. Named after emperor Augustus in 8 BC. Prior to that time the name was Sextilis from the word “sextus”, sixth, because it was the 6th month in the old Roman calendar.

September: September. From the word “septem”, seven, because it was the 7th month in the old Roman calendar.

October: October. From the word “octo”, eight, because it was the 8th month in the old Roman calendar.

November: November. From the word “novem”, nine, because it was the 9th month in the old Roman calendar.

December: December. From the word “decem”, ten, because it was the 10th month in the old Roman calendar.

The Correct Way to Write Dates

Different countries have different customs. Most countries use a day-month-year format, such as: 25.12.1998 25/12/1998 25/12-1998 25.XII.1998

In the U.S.A. a month-day-year format is common: 12/25/1998 12-25-1998

International standard IS-8601 mandates a year-month-day format, namely either 1998-12-25 or 19981225.

In all of these systems, the first two digits of the year are frequently omitted: 25.12.98 12/25/98 98-12-25

This confusion leads to misunderstandings. What is 02- 03-04? To most people it is 2 Mar 2004; to an American it is 3 Feb 2004; and to a person using the international standard it would be 4 Mar 2002.

If you want to be sure that people understand you, I recommend that you:

* write the month with letters instead of numbers, and

* write the years as 4-digit numbers.

The Origin of the 7-Day Week

The Christian, the Hebrew, and the Islamic calendars all have a 7-day week.

Digging into the history of the 7-day week is a very complicated matter. Authorities have very different opinions about the history of the week, and they frequently present their speculations as if they were indisputable facts. The only thing some academics seem to know for certain about the origin of the 7-day week is that they know nothing for certain.

The first pages of the Bible explain how God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. This seventh day became the Jewish day of rest, the sabbath, Saturday.

Extra-biblical locations sometimes mentioned as the birthplace of the 7-day week include: Egypt, Babylon, Persia, and several others. The week was known in Rome before the advent of Christianity.

Names of the Days of the Week

These are closely linked to the language in question. Whereas most languages use the same names for the months (with a few Slavonic languages as notable exceptions), there is great variety in names that various languages use for the days of the week. A few examples will be given here.

Except for the sabbath, Jews simply number their week days.

A related method is partially used in Portuguese and Russian:

The order of the following is: English / Portuguese / Russian / Meaning of Russian name

Mon. / segunda-feira / ponedelnik / After do-nothing day

Tue. / terca-feira / vtornik / Second day

Wed. / quarta-feira / sreda / Center

Thur. / quinta-feira / chetverg / Four

Fri. / sexta-feira / pyatnitsa / Five

Sat. / sabado / subbota / Sabbath

Sun. / domingo / voskresenye / Resurrection

Most Latin-based languages connect each day of the week with one of the seven “planets” of the ancient times: Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. French, for example, uses:

(the order is: English / French / “Planet“)

Monday / lundi / Moon

Tuesday / mardi / Mars

Wednesday / mercredi / Mercury

Thursday / jeudi / Jupiter

Friday / vendredi / Venus

Saturday / samedi / Saturn

Sunday / dimanche / (Sun)

The link with the sun has been broken in French, but Sunday was called “dies solis” (day of the sun) in Latin.

It is interesting to note that also some Asiatic languages (for example, Hindi, Japanese, and Korean) have a similar relationship between the week days and the planets.

English has retained the original planets in the names for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. For the four other days, however, the names of Anglo-Saxon or Nordic gods have replaced the Roman gods that gave name to the planets. Thus, Tuesday is named after Tiw, Wednesday is named after Woden, Thursday is named after Thor, and Friday is named after Freya.

The planets have given the week days their names following this order:

Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Sun

Why this particular order?

One theory goes as follows: If you order the “planets” according to either their presumed distance from Earth (assuming the Earth to be the center of the universe) or their period of revolution around the Earth, you arrive at this order:

Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn

Now, assign (in reverse order) these planets to the 24 hours of the day:

1=Saturn, 2=Jupiter, 3=Mars, 4=Sun, 5=Venus, 6=Mercury, 7=Moon, 8=Saturn, 9=Jupiter, etc., 23=Jupiter, 24=Mars

Then next day will then continue where the old day left off:

1=Sun, 2=Venus, etc., 23=Venus, 24=Mercury

And the next day will go:

1=Moon, 2=Saturn, etc.

If you look at the planet assigned to the first hour of each day, you will note that the planets come in this order:

Saturn, Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus

This is exactly the order of the associated week days. Coincidence? Maybe.

It is hard to say if the 7-day week cycle has ever been broken. Calendar changes and reform have never interrupted the 7-day cycles. It is possible that the week cycles have run uninterrupted since the days of Moses (c. 1400 BC).

Some sources claim that the ancient Jews used a calendar in which an extra Sabbath was occasionally introduced. There is strong Biblical evidence for this, but scholars do not agree.

The Bible clearly makes Saturday (the Sabbath) the last day of the week. Therefore it is common Jewish and Christian practice to regard Sunday as the first day of the week (as is also evident from the Portuguese names for the week days mentioned earlier). However, the fact that, for example, Russian uses the name “second day” for Tuesday, indicates that some nations regard Monday as the first day.

In international standard IS-8601 the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has decreed that Monday shall be the first day of the week.

Are There Weeks of Different Lengths?

If you define a “week” as a 7-day period, obviously the answer is no. But if you define a “week” as a named interval that is greater than a day and smaller than a month, the answer is yes.

The French Revolutionary calendar used a 10-day “week”. The Maya calendar uses a 13 and a 20-day “week”.

The Soviet Union has used both a 5-day and a 6-day week. In 1929-30 the USSR gradually introduced a 5-day week. Every worker had one day off every week, but there was no fixed day of rest. On 1 September 1931 this was replaced by a 6-day week with a fixed day of rest, falling on the 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th, and 30th day of each month (1 March was used instead of the 30th day of February, and the last day of months with 31 days was considered an extra working day outside the normal 6-day week cycle). A return to the normal 7-day week was decreed on 26 June 1940.

The French Revolutionary Calendar

The French Revolutionary Calendar (or Republican Calendar) was introduced in France on 24 November 1793 and abolished on 1 January 1806. It was used again briefly under the Paris Commune in 1871.

Their year consisted of 365 or 366 days, divided into 12 months of 30 days each, followed by 5 or 6 additional days. The months were:

1. Vendémiaire 7. Germinal

2. Brumaire 8. Floréal

3. Frimaire 9. Prairial

4. Nivôse 10. Messidor

5. Pluviôse 11. Thermidor

6. Ventôse 12. Fructidor

The year was not divided into weeks, instead each month was divided into three “decades” of 10 days, of which the final day was a day of rest. This was an attempt to de-Christianize the calendar, but it was an unpopular move, because now there were 9 work days between each day of rest, whereas the Gregorian Calendar had only 6 work days between each Sunday.

The ten days of each decade were called, respectively, Primidi, Duodi, Tridi, Quartidi, Quintidi, Sextidi, Septidi, Octidi, Nonidi, Decadi.

The 5 or 6 additional days followed the last day of Fructidor and were called:

1. Jour de la vertu (Virtue Day)

2. Jour du genie (Genius Day)

3. Jour du travail (Labour Day)

4. Jour de l’opinion (Reason Day)

5. Jour des recompenses (Rewards Day)

6. Jour de la revolution (Revolution Day) (the leap day)

The Chinese Calendar

Although the People’s Republic of China uses the Gregorian calendar for civil purposes, a special Chinese calendar is used for determining festivals. Various Chinese communities around the world also use this calendar.

The beginnings of the Chinese calendar can be traced back to the 14th century BC. Legend has it that the Emperor Huangdi invented the calendar in 2637 BC. Like the Hebrew calendar it is a combined solar/lunar calendar in that it strives to have its years coincide with the tropical year and its months coincide with the synodic months.

Unlike most other calendars, the Chinese calendar does not count years in an infinite sequence. Instead years have names that are repeated every 60 years.

(Historically, years used to be counted since the accession of an emperor, but this was abolished after the 1911 revolution.)

Within each 60-year cycle, each year is assigned a name consisting of two components. The first component is a “Celestial Stem” (these ten words have no English equivalent):

1. jia 6. ji

2. yi 7. geng

3. bing 8. xin

4. ding 9. ren

5. wu 10. gui

The second component is a “Terrestrial Branch”:

1. zi (rat) 7. wu (horse)

2. chou (ox) 8. wei (sheep)

3. yin (tiger) 9. shen (monkey)

4. mao (hare, rabbit) 10. you (rooster)

5. chen (dragon) 11. xu (dog)

6. si (snake) 12. hai (pig)

Each of the two components is used sequentially. Thus, the 1st year of the 60-year cycle becomes jiazi, the 2nd year is yi-chou, the 3rd year is bing-yin, etc. When we reach the end of a component, we start from the beginning: The 10th year is gui-you, the 11th year is jia-xu (restarting the Celestial Stem), the 12th year is yi-hai, and the 13th year is bing-zi (restarting the Terrestrial Branch). Finally, the 60th year becomes gui-hai.

The current 60-year cycle started on 2 Feb 1984. This means we are now in the year geng-chen, the 17th year in the 78th cycle (since the Chinese calendar began in 2637 B.C.): the year of the dragon.

From Keystone Magazine
March 2000 , Vol. VI No. 2
P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
email: craig@hef.org.nz

Surely you home educators cannot expect the rest of us to accept that love for your child and an impressive library is a valid substitute for a teaching degree?

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Surely you home educators cannot expect the rest of us to accept that love for your child and an impressive library is a valid substitute for a teaching degree?

Posted in Tough Questions

Ok, ok, I can already hear all you veteran home educators out there choking and gagging at this one. But let’s break it down and examine it.

The stated issue is that trained and certified teachers are obviously superior teachers to untrained parents. The assumptions behind this are many: that certified teachers are far more knowlegable than parents about what constitutes education; that the money and resources behind certified teachers in registered schools is clearly superior to what all but the more financially endowed parents can provide; that the entire school environment, from dedicated Ministry personnel and curriculum developers to textbook providers to overworked school administrators and board of trustee members to the enthusiastic teachers at the coalface and the brilliant variety of peers within the typical classroom, that all these things combine to provide a palpably well-rounded and comprehensive educational experience the like of which an isolated mum at home with only some out-dated School Certificate passes could never hope to match.

These assumptions, however, are all false for they are based on the false foundational idea that politically conceived, taxpayer-funded, secular and compulsorily-attended mass schooling is equivalent to even a basic education. Leaving aside completely the argument as to whether Christians should allow their children to attend secular schooling institutions, let us examine the simple logistical advantages of one mum teaching a small number of her own beloved children at home compared to the conventional classroom situation.

Most of us are aware of cases where teacher certification has not meant the same as teacher competency. In addition, there is the almost unrecognised fact that classroom logistics can make even the best teacher’s efforts an exercise in futility: over-crowded classrooms, lack of discipline, unsupportive administration, inability to give needed individual attention, time restraints which force them to move on to new material before the previous material is comprehended. Teacher certification does not ensure a quality education. In fact, many students who do not catch on at school must go home and get their parents to help out. There are already many parents out there who do the real teaching at night after school while the certified teacher gets the credit.

Home education is a tutoring or mentoring situation. One mum can give her full attention to one or two or three children at a time for whatever period of time is practical and comfortable for them all. Or she can focus on just one child for a piece of time and move to the next and then to the other. Overall she will have far, far more significant one-to-one time than what occurs in the typical classroom where the teacher can expect no more than ONE MINUTE of significant one-to-one time per pupil per day. Because of this the home school mum can cover a vastly increased measure of subject matter in the same length of time even though she may be dealing with a range of ages, possibly including a toddler and a newborn. She can assess more exactly whether each child has grasped the concepts or mastered the skills for she is observing the child for most of the waking day, is far more concerned for the child’s welfare and future prospects and is intimately in tune with the child, being her own flesh and blood, than even the most highly trained and skilled professional teacher could ever possibly be. The enthusiasm, commitment, love, vision, intimate knowledge, and one-to-one tutoring situation of the home school mum, combined with the God-given heart-desire of the child for its mother, ensures that the average home education teacher/parent is starting with vast logistical and relational advantages the classroom teacher can only dream about.

So what does a true and useful education consist of? For the school teacher it is in a politically determined mix of subjects pitched a certain way for a classroom full of children from all sorts of backgrounds and filtered through legal and other socio-political parametres with the aim of producing an outcome in students’ lives which matches a stated objective in a Ministerial document. If the powers that be decide a change is necessary, it will be a good seven years before the drafts are formulated, trialled, assessed, redrafted, approved, adopted and actually introduced and implemented. By then of course the initial problem has mutated beyond recognition and the target children have passed through the system and a new set are being served a special mix designed for a situation and a time which no longer exist.

For the home educating mum it consists of those basic skills plus general and specific knowledge she knows are required to get on in the world: she and her husband and extended family talk about what it’s like out there to be a worker, an employer, a homemaker, a spouse, a parent. They know the character qualities employers want, that they have always wanted throughout history, and that neither School Certificate exams nor university degrees impart those qualities. Christian parents in particular are individually crafting unique children to serve the God of the Universe according to the syllabus He has provided in the Scriptures. They are not that impressed with the state’s attempts through the schools to improve children, the country’s most valuable resource (right up there next to chilled lamb and green-lipped mussels), or with the socialists’ attempt to inculcate the simplistic non-judgmental vision of tolerating every perversion under the sun, somehow making our global village a better place in which to live.

The home educating mum knows that rooms, desks and books are dead things. It is imparting life from her heart to her child that makes an education. The most important lessons in her life she did not learn in the classroom but in the school of hard knocks. This is what she imparts. The children are not left interminably to interact with books or CD ROMs, but are encouraged to interact with mum and dad and other siblings and people in the real world of the home, the marketplace, the workplace and the community. They don’t only do word problems from a text book, but do real-life problems like working out the week’s menu from the available budget.

In short, marriage, parenthood and homemaking are probably the best teaching credentials one could have.

From Keystone Magazine
March 2000 , Vol. VI No. 2
P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
email: craig@hef.org.nz

A Skilful Man Will Stand Before Kings

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A Skilful Man Will Stand Before Kings

Posted in In line with Scripture

Do you see a man skilful in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men.

— Proverbs 22:29

Now there is a promise of a passport to greater things! And our Lord God Himself is making this promise.

This Proverb is a promise with a condition. The promise is to stand before kings. And we are talking plural here. A skilful man will stand in the presence of mighty and powerful leaders, political leaders. He will stand before them, not crawl or bow down. He will look them directly in the eye on the same level as a peer. It is as if they summoned him to them. And this makes sense, for he is a skilful man, possessing some skill they obviously do not possess. They are looking to him for his services for they acknowledge his superiority in some area.

But he will not stand before obscure men. What? Is he too good for regular folks like you and me? No, the way the word “stand” is repeated gives it a similar context. Obscure men would not be comfortable asking such a skilful one for his help, perhaps because their objectives are so obscure almost anyone could lend a hand. Obscure men would be embarrassed to ask a man of such skill to help them, to take note of and help their unimportant projects because he is sought after by so many others of might, authority, power and renown. It would be cheeky, or more like something bordering on an insult. Why? Because the man of skill is so obviously in a much superior league than they. Now this does not mean he never lends his skill to lowly projects: assuming this man of skill holds other Christian qualities, he will most definitely lend his skill and acumen to projects his wife, his children, his church and his close friends are involved in.

So how did this man become skilful in his work? He was disciplined. He was focused. He not only studied the finer theoretical aspects of his work, but he constantly practised to finely hone and perfect his senses and abilities as they relate to this work. It is said that the great Louis Armstrong, the trumpet player without equal, still practised up to eight hours a day, even while travelling the performance circuit. The man was surely only competing against himself, constantly pushing the boundaries outward.

Natural talent does not make someone skilful. Concert pianists constantly play the piano. Olympic athletes are obsessed with training. Professional writers are profuse writers. The finest engineers are found in engineering shops. Skilful men have mastered certain arts to a degree beyond the common or average. They may be able to perform physical feats of strength or skill or possess mental capabilities such as concentration, memory or spatial conceptualisation that leave the rest of us for dead. There are many experts whose skill lies in the way they see things, and some who are famous for their finely discriminating sense of smell. Whatever natural talent they may have started with, they had to develop it through constant practise and training.

There are at least three applications here for us home educating parents.

First, we need to impress upon our children the need for training, for follow-through, for self-discipline. We need to help them learn how to focus on a task, to concentrate, to filter out distractions, to know when to press on without a break and when to step back for a moment to shake out the stress and check that the whole thing is in perspective. Our children need to learn how to strive for an acceptable standard of excellence in what they do. “Whatever your task, work heartily, as serving the Lord and not men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you are serving the Lord Christ.” (Colossians 3:23-24).

Second, it is our privilege to observe our children and spy out those natural talents and personal passions the Lord has put within them. We can direct and train their tendencies into usable channels. This includes knowing how to discern whether an obsession with computer games is an unhealthy addiction to fast-paced and violent visual and mental stimulation or an urge to conquer ever-greater challenges in the areas of logistics and strategy. “For by the grace given to me I bid every one among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment … Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them.” (Romans 12:3 & 6). We parents should be providing a fair measure of that sober judgment and helping our children to identify their gifts.

Third, we ourselves need to be setting the example and the pace when it comes to the standard we accept for the things which are our responsibilities. One tendency I see in my own life is to let the little things slide so I can concentrate on the bigger, more important items. But the Word of our Lord Jesus Himself says, “He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and he who is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much.” (Luke 16:10).

Faithful home schooling parents have the unspeakable honour and privilege of working in cooperation with the God of the Universe in moulding His children into men and women of God who, because of their surpassing skill in various areas, will stand before kings and help change this country back round the way it should be. And what is more, they like St Paul will have the opportunity to speak the words of eternal life into the ears of the highest leaders in the land.

From Keystone Magazine
March 2000 , Vol. VI No. 2
P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
email: craig@hef.org.nz

How do you keep a baby/toddler occupied while teaching the older children when you have a chronic lack of energy?

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How do you keep a baby/toddler occupied while teaching the older children when you have a chronic lack of energy?

Posted in Tough Questions

Home education is not as easy as it could be because not only do we each have pre-conceived ideas to re-think and re-evaluate, but the society around is generally not at all supportive and sometimes downright anti. We began home education at a time when it was only the lunatic fringe and house truckers who would do such a thing, so we know how isolated, misunderstood and marginalised one can feel at the prospect of teaching at home. But we have also discovered the most difficult obstacles were in our own minds: pre-conceived assumptions about what “home schooling” (as opposed to “home education”) was all about, and what constituted “teaching” and “learning”. Re-thinking these things actually helped in the area of lacking energy!

There are a number of things one can do in regards to a toddler. Have special toys that he/she can play with only during those occasions when you need intensive time with the other(s). Do your intensive work when the toddler is having its nap. Have the other child(ren) care for the toddler while you are doing individual work with another….it then becomes part of the other child(ren)’s home education in “child-care”.

Sometimes you can play with the toddler yourself while having that intensive time with the other child…. Barbara would be nursing our newly-adopted son (and I mean physically nursing, as she had to go through a relactation programme to get her milk going…..an exhausing regime), while teaching our 6 year old how to read. We have three older ones who were sometimes available to care for the baby, but he is very clingy, so generally she had to do everything while holding onto him. (This is also good training for the other children, as they see before their eyes the commitment some babies require of their parents.) Note that there is intensive time needed to teach little ones to master reading (and listening), writing (and composition and spelling and comprehension) and arithmetic, the three Rs. General knowledge at the primary and even intermediate level can be gained by fun, relaxed family activities of reading, telling stories, going on field trips, doing projects, playing games. This covers subjects like geography, history, technology, sciences, art, literature, music, P.E., etc. You only need to worry about the detailed content if the child is going to sit exams for paper qualifications or is aiming toward tertiary study. By then one of the major aims of home education should be in place: to have instilled into the children such a love and desire for learning, that they will be almost totally self-motivated to pursue subjects at the upper-intermediate and high-school levels on their own.

To conserve or gain energy, you may need to have a total change of lifestyle. First, you may want to abandon all pre-conceived ideas of turning your home into a school. Much of how schools do things is a result of logistical requirements (one teacher to 25 children) which simply do not exist in the home education situation (one parent/teacher to a couple of children). Even so, some families can make their home into a school and run it with excellent results. Most seem to adopt a very casual approach, an educational lifestyle that ends up being totally comprehensive and immersed in the context of the everyday social reality of the home, the community, the workplace and the marketplace. Learning is taking place all the time in all these places without textbooks, pre-written timetables or programmes or any notes. What this means is that you may want to plan a rigid 2 hours or so a day, but beyond that you can have general aims. For example, do pages 24-25 of the maths text and pages 17-18 of the grammar text this morning, and in the afternoon we’ll do some art and then maybe read a biography or something else to do with English history.

OK, let’s look at tiredness. Being tired at the end of the day is often a good sign that you’ve put in an honest day’s work. If the tiredness is not relieved by a good night’s sleep or the Lord’s day of rest, then do all the sensible things: have a proper physical check up with your doctor and have a good look at your eating, drinking, viewing, exercising and sleeping habits. Cutting down on red meats and dairy products, drinking more water, getting to bed early and not staying up late watching the TV or reading while (and this is the worst) snacking away on chips and fizzy will make a world of difference in most cases. I struggled with guts aches and migraines for something like my first 35 years, just accepting them as part of life. Then somehow I noticed a connection between migraines and how much cheese I ate. As I explored dietary connections it became obvious almost immediately that certain foods caused me great problems: peanuts, cheese, coffee, eggs, milk, ice cream and saddest of all, my favourite maple syrup recipe which I’d make myself and would use to smother a huge pile of hot pancakes dripping with butter. Once I eliminated or strictly reduced these items, the problems stopped!

Be aware also of the fact that your entire metabolism changes with time and with changes of lifestyle. These changes may take place over a period of time and be firmly in place before you are consciously aware of the change. For example, you may have gone from a relatively care-free fit and trim jogger, working out at the gym, playing squash reqularly to a parent with many pressing responsibilities and no time now to chase the squash ball around the court. Yet during this time of transition, your eating habits may have remained the same. For many of us in this situation it means we are carrying more weight than we should, which certainly contributes to tiredness.

So three areas of investigation are warranted. First, how can we modify our entire diet, not only the volume of what we eat but also the variety and proportions and when during the day? (Home education pioneers Raymond and Dorothy Moore eat breakfast and lunch and virtually nothing in the evenings). Second, how can we work into our weekly schedule some pleasureable physical exercise, true recreation? Mums with little ones may feel they are running around all day as it is, but stop and analyse just what it is you do physically — lifting infants and toddlers in certain ways can be doing yourself lower back damage. Third, how can we cut down on the stress of our responsibilities? That is where re-thinking the whole area of what constitutes “home education” comes in. I have a farmer friend in California who solved his farm’s weed problem while lying in bed…..in his mind he re-defined what constituted a weed.

Re-think your household chores as well. Because home education is a lifestyle, a certain amount of orderliness and tidiness may have to be sacrificed….the dusting may go undone, as with the vacuuming and bed making. But they don’t have to necessarily….the children need to learn these tasks and to pull their weight around home and learn about responsibility, teamwork and routine in the process. We have six children aged 20 down to 3. Neither my wife nor I have washed a dish, hung out any clothes, cooked regular meals or mowed any lawns for years!!! But just as you must set reasonable goals and expectations and standards of excellence upon your children when home educating, so with yourself. Do not expect yourself to be super-mum…it is only creating a rod for your own back. Life is full of trade-offs, and it is no different with home education. Coffee mornings with the “girls” may have to go or be replaced with support group get-togethers. You may have to ask others not to call-by or phone up between 9am and noon (or whatever you work out as your most productive times) as you will be permanently busy during those times training the next generation of God-fearing, thinking-beyond-the-box leaders of this country. Local support groups or a single other home education family can be a tremendous support in so many ways, from swapping resources and ideas to giving each other a morning a week without the children (or a certain “one” child!), so you can catch up on other stuff. Once you begin to see that education is a lifestyle and not a 9 to 3 activity, once you begin to experience the academic benefits of a tutoring situation, once you taste the many socialisation and family advantages by being together for extended periods of time, you will find these benefits far outweight any difficulties. At this point the “where there’s a will, there’s a way” principle kicks in, and you’ll be away rejoicing!

From Keystone Magazine
January 2001 , Vol. VII No. 1
P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
email: craig@hef.org.nz