by The Conservative Mindcleaner has an article that gets us back on the topic of instructing our children and who should be doing it. In his post, Lesbian Totalitarian, he introduces us to a woman who had a complaint about a question on a test in an Alabama sex education program.
Question No. 8 is: “What can I do if I am attracted to someone of the same sex?” The answer includes the statement: “Too often, homosexuality is shown as a legitimate lifestyle equal to a heterosexual lifestyle.” It also says homosexuality is “contrary to the laws of nature.”
This, as you can imagine, upset the mother. Mindcleaner goes on to say that this is a good reason to have children educated by their parents and for local control over public schools by the community where the school is located. That, and for eliminating sex education althoughter. Those are both fine goals which I have no trouble supporting, but there’s a bigger issue here. The issue of where our society is headed.
And this is a substancial problem. We can say that we should have more homeschooling parents, but then we run into the problem of what kinds of citizens do we want? The people that I am associated with would have no problem saying that Christians should educate their own kids, but what if a family of six wanted to bring their children up as Satan worshippers? Wouldn’t it be better to have them in the public school instead?
Now, granted, you could say that the humanism taught in the public schools is akin to Satan worship, and I’d have to disagree with you, but not in spirit! You see, there’s an inherent benefit in training children in a godly manner– which is what was done in the founding of our country and was the reason for our first group school houses. Bible based training tends to yield children and adults with good morals and good citizenship. When we take that out of our schools, we need for it to be taught somewhere.
What’s the solution? Hard to say. I’m still going to homeschool because, when it comes down to it, parents are the ones with authority over how their children are brought up (regardless of what they are teaching their kids). At the same time, Christians need to be the salt and light of the Earth that they are supposed to be so that parents can experience the life-changing result of salvation.
If you want salt and light, go into cyberspace and blog. A teen can lead his or her peers to Christ online (two of my children have done so) without having to sit through thirteen years of secular indoctrination from authority figures. Homeschool your kids long enough to teach them to love grace, think clearly, and write well, and then turn them loose on Xanga or MySpaces. You’ll be amazed at the results–and you can set your RSS feeder to watch it all unfold in real time.
I am torn about homeschooling and allowing my children to attend public schools.
Right now they are both in public schools and they seem to be learning a lot. I live in the bible belt which helps a lot. I just cannot see myself homeschooling because I am not the most patien person and I would feel inadequate to teach them everything.
I really feel that even Christian kids should be allowed to attend public schools, because they need to be prepared to face how harsh and different people can be. If they are homeschooled, and then sent off to college, my gosh! What eye-opener would be.
Just my two cents, but don’t get me wrong, I fully support the families who homeschool because that takes a great deal of dedication and time.
Homeschooled kids aren’t all in a parent controlled vacuum…my two are exposed to reality even in our homeschool co-op and at church! Hurt feelings lead to many great conversations of how “not to be”, if you’ve got your child’s heart trusting in your counsel. We are with our kids at 4H meetings, community events, swim lessons, etc and when these things come up we talk. Also, there are great places to send your juniors/seniors to prepare them for the humanistic viewpoints they’ll encounter at college…places like Summit in Colorado. Homeschooling does take patience/self-discipline, but anyone can do it, and the rewards are priceless. Personally, dealing with all the ways public schooling would disrupt our lifestyle would drain a whole lot more of the patience out of me than homeschooling does! It’s not as hard as it sounds.