God Wants PARENTS to Educate Their Own Children
Posted in In line with Scripture
“Hear 0 Israel : The LORD our God, the LORD is one! YOU shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command YOU today shall be in your heart; you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.” –Deuteronomy 6:4-7
The teacher must have the Word of God in his heart. As a matter of fact, the teacher qualifications in the Bible, and those to which we Christian Home Schoolers should automatically subscribe, are far tougher than any College of Education has ever dared to propose. The teacher must first have the Lord as his God. Do the teachers at the public schools who teach your child have the Lord as their God?
Second , the teacher must love the Lord his God with everything he’s got. Do even the Christian teachers at the public schools who teach your children love Him like that? Are they even legally allowed to acknowledge or demonstrate such love for God within the state classroom? Do you love the Lord your God like that? Well, really none of us does. That is why we must continually confess our sins and receive again His assurance of forgiveness. But we should all be working toward loving Him more consistently and completely and with everything we’ve got.
Next this Scripture says that the teacher is to teach the children God’s Word diligently at all times and in every situation. This eliminates the classroom as a proper teaching environment. Teaching is to be done in the context of everyday life. Only parents can do that. They can work as a team, and the children can see the proper way for a man and his wife to behave toward one another, demonstrate affection toward one another, support one another in the running of the house, the earning of the income, the education and training and discipline of the children. It is a 24-hour-a-day process and it takes place in the reality of the home, the community and the marketplace as they go about their day-to-day routines together. It is an education in the real world and will obviously prepare children for the real world. And those silly home schooling critics say WE are the ones sheltering children from the real world!!
It is the responsibility, then, of parents to educate their own children. To delegate the teaching task to another is not forbiden. But neither is it commended. The problem with delegation of this particular task is that it removes from the parents some of their responsibility. As this responsibility passes to another, the school teacher for example, some of the parents’ authority over their children automatically passes over as well. This is a fact of life. If you carry ALL responsibility in an area, you also carry ALL authority in that area. If you share the responsibility, you also share the authority.
The children in a school are now expected to obey not only Mum and Dad but also every teacher at school, even those who hold views and values at variance with the parents. Parents also take pot-luck with whatever peer group socialisation agenda that happens to operate within the classroom and on the playground of that particular school.
To put it in terms of stark reality, sending five and six year olds away from home for six hours a day may cause them:
a) to feel rejected by their parents;
b) to look to the peer group (class mates) for security and acceptance;
c) to become confused as to who is the role model he should be following;
d) to divide their loyalties among competing authorities;
e) to develop self-defensive coping strategies based on the “survival of the fittest” philosophy that may operate on the playgroud;
f) to develop a split personality, adopting one set of behavioural parametres at home and a different set at school;
g) to develop tension and stress-related illnesses and hyperactivity because of the constant noise levels, interruptions, confusions, and competitions within the classroom.
These problems are virtually unknown within the home schooling situation. Mum and Dad are constantly on hand to demonstrate their love and assure the child of their commitment to him. They can train the siblings to likewise love and support other members of the family. The one set of role models, the one authority is constantly before them reinforcing their own standards and values. The environment of the Christian home is at the opposite end of the philosophical spectrum from the evolutionist “survival of the fittest” idea. Behavioural standards of the home, the home school and the church all reinforce rather than contradict one another. (“The LORD is One…”) And the tensions and logistics problems of a classroom of 25-30 mixed ability children from just as many backgrounds just do not exist in the home.
In may ways, home schooling will help us all bring our lives more in line with Scripture.
From Keystone Magazine
July 1995 , Vol. 1 No. 3
P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
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email: craig@hef.org.nz