Do We“School at Home” or Do We“Home School”?

The wording of the question is subtle, but the differences are striking because it gets to the heart of character training and raising up children to serve God.

In our culture, education has primarily become the transfer of knowledge in the intellectual and technical areas of life (e.g., reading, writing, and arithmetic, etc.) An instructor teaches his pupil certain rules and procedures which may help to develop an aptitude the student might possess or fill the student’s mind with collections of facts.

Every educational approach is designed with the end product in mind. In the case of public education, the goal is to produce well-adjusted productive members of society. However, to be successful at doing this, the state-run approach must adopt the convictions, values, and goals of the state. R.C. Sproul Jr. says this:

Education is the sacrament of the Enlightenment world view...It's how you get saved.

As mentioned earlier, the transfer of knowledge and facts are seen as primary. All other goals (such as character training) are subservient to maintaining the schedule and progression of information transfer. It resembles a factory's production line designed to produce a billion carbon copies cut from the same mold. The children in the classroom jump on the conveyor belt when they arrive, and 12 years later they pop off the conveyor trained to know what the state thinks they should know. To make matters worse, the mold which guides the assembly on the production line consists of knowledge and facts which are interpreted for the students with a view of the world that is markedly anti-Christian. The end result is a product in which biblical character training has not happened.

To “school at home” is to borrow the production line approach of our culture and bring it home. We copy the subjects, timings, methods, and expectations of the corporate classrooms and reproduce them at home. Only the location of the classroom is changed.

The problem comes when home school parents sense the need to "add" character training to the production line (or anything else for that matter). Unfortunately, the production line isn't designed for additional content, and often times the result is a home school experience that is amazingly frenetic and fast paced with little room for error. There is no margin and no flexibility. Life happens, but the school schedule doesn't include room for life. Many home school parents feel as if they are doing something wrong when the scheduling train wreck hits their house. After all, with such a favorable student-teacher ratio, homeschooling is supposed to be more efficient, right?

An alternative to the scheduling train wreck of "schooling at home" is true "home schooling". A home school education begins with a blank slate and adds to it the activities which truly educate a child for service to God. Knowledge and facts are seen as secondary to character in that they are built upon the foundation of character.

Everything we learn is built on the foundation of our character. If my child grows to be a self-centered, me-first, materialistic adult, it doesn’t matter how many graduate degrees he has, they will never fix his heart. And what is more important to God, knowledge or character? This is what Paul says:

..we know that "all of us possess knowledge." This "knowledge" puffs up, but love builds up. -- 1 Corinthians 8:1b (ESV)

Not only is the emphasis on content different in home schooling, the method of implanting the content in the student is different. Deuteronomy 6 gives a nice picture of how a true home school education should be taught:

You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. -- Deuteronomy 6:7 (ESV)

Home school education is discipleship; it's not textbooks and tests. Home school is about training children to live life in a biblical, God-honoring fashion. Home schooling is walking through life with our children much like Jesus walked with his disciples during his Earthly ministry. In fact, learning how to deal with real life is a big part of a true home school education.

We never stop learning information, but no amount of information can address selfishness and pride. When we as parents choose a true home school education over a "school at home" education, we're on the path to getting it right.

Why Do We Home School?

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. -- Deuteronomy 6:4-9 (ESV) (emphasis added)

This passage of Scripture forms a strong basis for why we home school our children. Here we find that God is telling parents to live out a whole life devotion to God, and then to disciple their children to do the same thing. The manner of training described here seems to indicate that the training period is not confined to a particular time or hour. It really is built around the parent-child relationship as a whole and encompasses all aspects of daily living.

My wife and I considered how we could mold and train our children in the ways of the Bible, and we became convinced that there was no way to do this if our children weren't with us for a majority of their time. To us, sending them away to school would be quietly encouraging our children to pull away from us. The trappings and temptations of life away from home in an age-segregated, peer-led environment would be too much for them to process at such a young age. The influence of mom and dad at home would slowly erode away as the relationships with peers and non-parental adults strengthened. In our opinion, it's pretty futile to believe that our children would maintain their loyalty to the family when most of their lives would be spent away from the family.

On top of the principle laid out in Deuteronomy 6, there also was a practical problem with sending our children away to school. We haven't seen any public or private school in the area that would train our children with the information we believe to be crucial to their development in the doctrines our family holds dear. Consider the words of Jesus:

A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. -- Luke 6:40 (ESV)

The principle that a student or disciple, when fully trained, becomes like his teacher is crucial when considering the education of our children. We realized that the educational process is more than just the transferral of information. It encompasses the whole life. Deuteronomy 6 describes a whole life devotion to God that is to be passed on to our children. The scope of that instruction is consistent with the implication that regardless of who is teaching our children, the teacher is communicating more than just information. Students look up to teachers and learn more than the words which come from their mouths. On display for the students is the teacher's whole person, and when the teacher is teaching, it is the whole person which is being taught.

So we asked ourselves, whose lives do we want our children to model? Who do we want our children to look like when they are adults? Their peers? Their favorite school teacher who might think that Christianity is just one of many valid religions and that as long as you are basically good you get to go to heaven? Really, the ultimate answer to those questions is that we want our children to look like Jesus. If our educational process results in children who have multiple college degrees but live lives in opposition to what God desires, the we have failed as educators. We missed the boat. We may have taught them the ways of math and science, and they might even by very rich, but their lives are bankrupt with no eternal value. We want our children to be Godly men and women regardless of how many degrees or accreditations they have.

We then asked ourselves, who is going to teach them to be like Jesus? Who is going to train the whole child to correctly assimilate the necessary information for life into a moral context which is built around sound Biblical doctrine? Ephesians 6:4 instructs me as the father that regardless of who teaches my children, I will be held responsible for how their education proceeds.

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. -- Ephesians 6:4 (ESV)

It is I, dad, who is responsible for training them. My wife will function as my helpmeet in this area, but I am to lead. What are the consequences of fathers not properly discipling their children? A provocation to anger. How much of the teenage culture today is characterized by anger? When you look around the general teenage population, do you see joy in their eyes? Do you see children who are devoted to their families and their parents? Do you see families operating in harmony? I sure don't, and I have to wonder if that is a result of fathers not properly executing their role as laid out in Ephesians 6:4.

Between Deuteronomy 6, Luke 6, and Ephesians 6, God is instructing parents to disciple and train their children to be godly men and women. No one loves our children more than my wife and me. No one knows our children better than my wife and me. No one else in this world is in a better place to influence the lives of our children than us. If we want our children to be a light to this world, if we want our children to bring honor to God, if we want our children to not depart from the way they should go, then it is up to us to disciple them in those ways. No one else can do it like we can and no one else ought to be put in the position to do so.

So, that's why we choose to keep our family together during the educational process. The primary reason is to worship God through obedience to His instructions as we see them in the Bible. And really, obedience to God is a sufficient reason to make the choice we did. However, as is typical with God's ways, obedience produces joy in the hearts of those who love Him. Home schooling isn't a guarantee that we will always be happy and feel good about being together, but it will keep us together in a framework that will allow us to persevere in the face of the trials that will come. It enables us to establish a God-honoring vision for our family and to remain faithful to that vision. When the world comes crashing in on us, as it inevitably does, we will face it together and those trials will make us stronger in the end.

Seek The Things That Are Above

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. -- Colossians 3:1-2 (ESV)

When I think about this verse, I can only reflect back on how much time I have wasted in my life thinking about things "on earth". So much time has been spent reading books, watching movies, listening to pop music, and sitting in front of the television. So many opportunities lost to focus on "things that are above."

Why lament the time lost?

Because I have so much to learn as an adult, and I seem to have so little time to do it. If I had spent more time earlier in my life (when I had free time) thinking about "things that are above", then I would be much farther along.

However, it really is a more complex lament than just time management. All of those things (books, music, movies, television) did more to me than just entertain. They taught me. Every one of the books I read, songs I heard, movies I watched, and television shows I followed trained my mind to view the world in a particular way. The vivid pictures, interesting plots, and repetitive choruses conditioned my mind into defining what was "normal" for our world.

When I saw a weak, bumbling father repeatedly portrayed in the media, my view of masculinity was being defined for me. When I allowed my mind to form mental allegiances with the "good guys" in the stories who when analyzed from a biblical perspective were evil, I was eroding away the foundations for absolute truth. When I let the music carry me off into a sea of emotions that was almost drug-like in its disconnectedness from reality, I was preparing myself to desire and even worship my feelings.

So now I find myself with a lifetime of learning to catch up on, but I also find that I have quite a bit of retraining to do. This is no different than gardening. I didn't plant good things, eternal things, things that are above, and now I find that my garden is full of weeds that thrive in the hard, unhealthy, fallow ground of a mind trained in earthly things.

So what am I to do? Work. Work. Work some more. Now is the time break up the fallow ground and allow the Spirit of God to illuminate and cultivate a deep understanding and desire for truth. I have too little time to waste it on what my wife calls "twaddle" or meaningless, lifeless, purposeless endeavors. It is time to fill my mind with heavenly things. There is plenty of ground to break up -- let's roll!

But wait. There's one more thing....

My vision for this activity cannot stop with me. As the family leader, I must direct my family in a way such that my experience is not repeated in my children. My children haven't lost the time that I have. They still have a chance to be so much farther along than me. So I need to take a good look at my children and figure out how to maximize their time in the things that are above. I should have a laser focus on the development of my children, asking the tough questions about what they read, watch, and do. If it doesn't have eternal value or build them a foundation of absolute truth, then it's continued existence in my family is in jeopardy.

It doesn't matter what everybody else is doing with their children. It doesn't matter how many people have said such and such is OK. I am the dad of my children. God has told me to raise them in fear and admonition of the Lord. What others are doing is irrelevant when it comes to authoritative decisions in my family.

We all need to be humble, be thorough, and seek to redeem the day.

Stop the Erosion

A recent blog entry sent me to the Pulpit Magazine article from which this snippet comes:

"Passivity toward known error is not an option for the Christian. Staunch intolerance of error is built into the very fabric of Scripture. And tolerance of known error is anything but a virtue." -- John MacArthur

I often feel that many men in the church today are wandering through life, nearly oblivious to the offices of biblical manhood (prophet, priest, king). It's really hard to watch -- men, by and large, voluntarily giving over 95% of their influence in their children's lives. The duties of biblical manhood require men to be intimately connected to their children. Malachi says it well...

"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction." -- Malachi 4:5-6 (ESV)

Hearts turned towards each other -- a very good picture! I see too many men who think the discipleship of their children is better done by someone else because they believe they aren't really qualified (or that the "someone else" is more qualified) to do the job. After all, why should a man NOT send his children to someone more expert than himself?

Malachi has the answer. Placing a child in a situation where Dad is not leading the discipleship results in a child whose heart is, at the very best, tempted to move away from Dad. What normally happens when a child is given over to the "experts" is the slow erosion of the parents' influence in the life of the child. Slowly, mom and dad become irrelevant. How can a dad counsel a child when the child thinks Dad's ideas are irrelevant and out of step with what the "experts" are saying (or even worse, what the circle of peers is saying)?

A Dad will lose his child's heart if he sends him off to someone else for discipleship.

Now comes the connection to the John MacArthur quote… If I know that I can't really expect to keep my child's heart by sending him to someone else for discipleship, what must I do? Can I do nothing? NO! I must take action and seek out my child's heart by stepping up to the plate and preforming the biblical duties of manhood.