Why
Home School?
by Phil Lancaster
There are many excellent reasons for choosing
to teach your children at home.
There is now incontestable evidence that, on
average, children who are home schooled fare better
academically than children of either public or
private schools. This is not surprising since
tutoring has always been recognized to be the
best method of education.
Home educated children are spared the corrupting
environment of the peer-oriented classroom and
thus benefit socially. A common myth of our society
is that children need to be with other children
for extended periods of time to be properly socialized,
but this is the exact opposite of the truth. Much
time in a peer culture is damaging to children.
Socialization is one of the best reasons to home
school.
Any home schooling family will tell you that
one of the greatest benefits of the process is
the way that family bonds are strengthened. Parents
and children grow closer through the shared hours
of each day. Siblings develop a new love and respect
for one another as they live and learn and work
together day by day. These families can overcome
the
family-fragmenting forces of modern life. They
have more time together, and love is spelled t-i-m-e.
Home educating families prosper spiritually.
Parents are able to guide their charges in Godly
paths as they protect them from the immorality
and falsehood so prevalent in public schools and
teach them the Bible and its application to life.
The very process of disciplining one's own child
results in character growth in both the child
and the parent.
However: As good as all these reasons are,
however, the very best reason to choose home education
has not been listed yet. The Scripture is our
wholly sufficient guide for what to believe and
how to live in ways that please God.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of
God, and is profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction
in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect,
thoroughly furnished unto all good works (2
Timothy 3:16,17).
Or, put another way: According as his divine
power hath given unto us all things that pertain
unto life and godliness, through the knowledge
of him that hath called us to glory and virtue
(2 Peter 1:3). Or, finally: Your
Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto
my path (Psalms 119:105). In other words, in our
Lord Jesus and His Word, the Bible, we have all
we need for spiritual and moral decisions in life.
The best reason for choosing home education is
that it is God's revealed plan for raising our
children. The Bible knows no other system of education.
God did not prescribe schools for His people;
they were invented by others. The pages of Scripture
espouse, by precept and example, a process that
closely resembles what we call home education.
The Teachers:
Throughout the Word it is the parents who are
assigned the role of teaching their own children.
The primary responsibility rests on the father.
God said of Abraham, For I know him, that he will
command his children and his household after him,
and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do
justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring
upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him
(Genesis 18:19). Paul gave this guidance under
the Holy Spirit's inspiration: And, ye fathers,
provoke not your children to wrath: but bring
them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord
(Ephesians 6:4).
Of course, as the man's helper (Genesis 2:20-23),
his wife is also a teacher of the children. My
son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake
not the law of thy mother (Proverbs 1:8; Proverbs
6:20). Even the grandparents are to share in the
teaching task: speaking of God's
commandments, Moses said to God's people, ...
but teach them thy sons, and thy sons' sons (Deutoronomy
4:9).
The Method:
God's method of education is revealed in Deuteronomy
6:7-9. Speaking of God's commandments it says,
And thou shall teach them diligently unto
thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou
sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest
by the way, and when thou liest down, and when
thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a
sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets
between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them
upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.
True education occurs any place ("home
and road") and any time ("lie down and
get up"). The parents are to be the constant
companions of their children, teaching them God's
view of life at every opportunity. Every child
of a Godly family will live unceasingly in an
environment that is saturated by God's Word, and
his parents will be creating that environment.
Since the purpose of education is to love God
with the whole heart and to have His commandments
lodged in the heart, the method must be one which
reaches the heart. Discipleship-along-the-road
living with the two people to whom the child is
closest (his parents) is God's method for reaching
the heart of the child.
Our educational method must reflect a Biblical
understanding of truth and life. The
Greek/Western worldview sees truth as ideas
that can be reduced to printed pages and considered
in abstraction in a classroom. In the Biblical/Hebrew
worldview, truth is personal (Jesus said, "I
am ...the truth." John14:6); while it can
be expressed in the statements of Scripture, it
is always connected to life and conduct (...speaking
the truth in love... Ephesians. 4:15). Truth is
not only something we can know, it is also something
we can and must "do" (1 John 1:6). God's
truth is only communicated truly in the context
of relationship. God did not just give us the
written Word of truth, He gave us his Son and
fills us with Himself (Whosoever shall confess
that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in
him, and he in God. 1 John. 4:15).
The Content:
All education should focus upon the Lord God:
who He is, what He has said, and what He has done.
Fathers are instructed concerning children to
... but bring them up in the nurture and admonition
of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4), not the instruction
of the world or of mere men, but "of the
Lord."
That is not the only use of the Scriptures. Psalm
119:105 presents one of the broader purposes of
the Bible: Your Word is a lamp unto my feet, and
a light unto my path." God's Word is intended
to illuminate the world we live in so that our
walk is pleasing to God. The purpose of a light
is to shine on an object so that it can be discerned
more clearly. Similarly, the Bible is meant to
"shine" on anything we encounter in
the world so that we can understand it from God's
perspective. This means that beyond studying the
Bible itself, we should use the Bible as our lens
throughwhich to view any other subject in life.
The second component of study in a Godly education
is what Psalm 78 calls the praises of the Lord,
and his strength, and his wonderful works that
he hath done (verse 4). To study these works of
God we must, of course, begin with the Bible itself
which reveals His mighty works of
creation and redemption. This study will lead
us beyond the pages of Scripture to the whole
wide world that God made and sustains by His power.
History, science, geography, law, art, music,
mathematics, language-any subject area is a study
of the works of God since it is He who created
this world and guides the history of men in their
scientific,
cultural, and civil endeavors. Each of these subject
areas must be approached in the "light"
of the Word, if it is to be properly understood.
The Bible should not only be a subject in the
curriculum; its truths should permeate every other
area of study, providing God's perspective on
every subject.
That is why many home educators abandon the traditional
school-subject approach to teaching in favor of
a "unit study" approach which takes
into account the inter-relationship of the disciplines.
Children thus engage in academic study in the
same manner in which they experience the rest
of the world-encountering the connectedness of
the various elements of life. Such an approach
not only respects the nature of the content of
education, it also is most compatible with the
discipleship method of teaching: learning from
real life as it is encountered "along the
road" every day.
The Goal:
Education ought not to be seen as an end in
itself. Nor should it be viewed in terms of mere
academic or social preparation for life. Knowledge,
by itself, is nothing and leads only to pride
(Knowledge puffeth up... 1 Corinthians 8:1). We
could give our children the very best academic
preparation in the world, and only end up making
them more effective instruments in the devil's
hands. No, God has something higher in mind.
Understood in its broadest terms, education is
character training. God is in the business of
transforming people. He is creating a people who
have a living relationship with Himself. The beginning
of the process is simply to take God seriously
in everything or, as Scripture has it: the fear
of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge ...
(Proverbs 1:7; 9:10). The end of the process is
mature people who know God; and who, knowing Him,
love him; and who, loving Him, obey Him in all
things.
The path of safety and blessing is always that
which adheres most closely to the revealed will
of God. Home education as we practice today falls
short of the perfect pattern set forth in the
Scriptures, but it is certainly a big step in
the right direction-because home education is
God's idea.
Article by Phil Lancaster, publisher of the Patriarch
Magazine. Suggested donation: $25 per year (for
six issues)
Patriarch
PO Box 50
Willis, VA 24380
www.patriarch.com
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