"The Bible says, "Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it." (Proverbs 22:6) There is simply no easy way around the fact that putting our children in an anti-Christian education system is not training them up in the way they should go. Many parents want to say, "But we are giving our children Bible training at home." Really? Are you going back to all subject matter your children are taking and giving them a scripture-based education to correct wrong teaching? If so, you are in essence homeschooling them, so why continue to have them enrolled in the public school? If you mean that you are giving your children moral training, and letting the public school give them 'academic' training, you are simply denying them a Christian worldview. Your children are being given an anti-Christian worldview in all subjects at the local public school."
Might this be part of the exodus of our youth from the Christian churches?
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Voddie Baucham put it this way in a talk called Heaven or Harvard (For whom are we preparing our children?): say our children spend 14,000 hours being educated (discipled)in our God-less, humanistic, truth-is-relative public school system. How long would it take to offset this teaching time if we spend four hours a week in church (two on Sunday, one in Sunday School, and one other hour during the week)? Answer: almost seventy years. What, you spend just two hours a week in church? 140 years.
ReplyDeleteAnd we wonder why our children are leaving the faith?
Furthermore, it is not just homeschooling that is the answer. As homeschool advocates, we have justified our existence and promoted our position by demonstrating that we get better test scores than public and private schools overall. People are beginning to listen. If there is no biblical discipleship occurring within the context of the home, even homeschooling fails to prepare our children for Heaven.
It is biblical discipleship that is important, the kind written of the the book of Deut...teaching them diligently to thy children...as you talk to them...as you sit in your house...as you walk by the way...as you lie down...as you rise up...
Voddie sums it up with this: If we allow Caesar to train up our children, why should we be surprised if they come home as Romans?
Thanks for addressing this, Scott.
Russ Adelmann
I had many friends who only attended Christian schools and Christian colleges. I hear many of them say that they were never presented balanced or opposing views.
ReplyDeleteYou can send your kids to Sunday School and Christian schools but if you have no part in their education you make the same error as the example above.
Russ is correct. Fathers, Teach your children well.
Besides, $10,000 a year for tuition is alot of money to waste on a student who never learns how to think critically.
*Parenting advice provided by a person with no children. Please feel free to disregard completely.
The article from which Scott quotes has some truth to it, but I believe the author paints with a too broad a brush when he characterizes all public education as “anti-Christian education.” This is a stereotype that is not true in my opinion. Home schooling parents are subjected to a comparable stereotype by detractors who portray them (unfairly) as seeking to brainwash rather than teach their children.
ReplyDeleteOur three children have attended public schools for the last ten years and are vocal about their Christian faith. Their teachers have fallen into two broad categories:
-Christians, many of whom find avenues to express their faith to students and parents in various ways; and
-Non-Christians, who have without exception treated our kids’ views with respect.
I’m certain there are public school teachers who are openly hostile to the Christian world view, but we have never encountered one. If we ever do, we will remove our kids from that teacher’s class.
Public education is not without risk and it is not appropriate for everyone. But in the right circumstances Christian children can thrive in a public school and grow in their faith, as I believe our children have. There are a many ways for parents to ensure a positive experience, including the following:
-Get involved in school activities. My wife and I have helped coach quiz and debate teams, we’ve made presentations in our kids’ classes, we’ve accompanied classes on field trips and overnights, and we participate in parent-teacher appreciation events. We’ve found that teachers value parents who contribute in these ways. They get to know us and what we believe, and they respect our views.
-Christian families attend public schools in large numbers and they are organized. They have prayer groups, and they sponsor Christian events for kids at school. For example, there is a Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter at our daughters’ high school that parents assist with. Such groups have been a great resource for us.
-Invite your kids’ friends — and their parents — into your home
-Read your kids textbooks and homework assignments. Monitor the feedback they get from their teachers.
Finally, like Scott I can only speculate about why children leave the church when they become adults. My guess is that a public school education plays no more than a secondary role in a child’s decision to leave the church. I suspect that what happens — or doesn’t happen — at home is the primary factor.
Doyle, thanks for your comment above. I agree with you on many points. I myself was educated in the public school system, and while I never felt hostility or antagonism, as I reflect back on my education, I also never was trained to see from a distinctly Christian worldview. I was taught as though God had no bearing on Math or science or literature.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't a believer in Christ at the time, so it didn't seem to bother me, but now it does. How is a Christian to view science? Where is God in the midst of literature? What is the purpose of philosophy and how does it relate to theology?
These are large questions, can the public school system answer them? Absolutely not, I would never want them to try. But by not answering them, they are subtly teaching a form of atheism or agnosticism or deism depending on the teacher. When God is removed from the curriculum, then what is a child left to conclude other than God is irrelevant at worst or uninvolved at best.
Can a parent effectively counter this kind of implicit teaching when the average non-working mother is spending 1.2 hours a day with their children and the average working father gets 50 minutes a day, but the school system is getting 6 hours or more a day depending on how many extra-curricular's the child is involved in? (See http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus2.nr0.htm)
As a parent you are active in your kids world, I know from experience. But how many parents are like this? How many parents are really active in their kids education? Not many I am afraid. That may be why parochial schools and public schools are not very far apart in the type of students they are producing - those with no need for the Church.
I agree with you Scott: any parent who spends little more than an hour a day with his or her children can't effectively monitor what those kids are being taught, regardless of whether those children attend a public or parochial school. Kids in that situation are being shortchanged. They would also be shortchanged if their parents tried to homeschool them while maintaining no more than the same one-hour-a-day contact.
ReplyDeleteParents who successfully homeschool their kids are heavily involved in their children's lives. In my experience, the same is true for parents who send their children to a public or parochial school. Children who are educated outside the home can thrive and grow in their Christian faith if their parents are actively involved in their lives in and outside the home. The problem, as you recognize, is that many parents are unable or unwilling to maintain the necessary level of involvement.