Sunday Ponderings ~ Rejecting Knowledge

Thinking this evening about a verse from our Sunday School lesson this morning. Continuing in the class on minor prophets, and today we looked at the book of Hosea. One of the verses that arrested my attention:

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My priest. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children (4:6).

 Israel was in decline and being judged by God. They had once followed Him, but now

• The priests were no longer teaching them God's laws.
• They rejected what knowledge they had.
• They would not listen to warnings about their lifestyles, their immorality and idolatry.

The parallelism of Israel's decline to our own nation is striking.  When prayer and Bible reading were taken out of the government schools back in the 1960s, the decline began. Children being educated in that system of philosophy have not been taught God's ways and have grown up in a society of moral decay. They have a lack of knowledge.

Many of those who have had the teaching of God's ways have rejected it. That is their own doing. I have a friend in her early 30s who has the knowledge from years and years of being taught about God, yet she rejects Him and His ways. She has an anti-God, recovery from religion, freedom from religion agenda. It is sad to see her so empty as she pulls others down into the pit with her. Yet it is her own choice. She will not listen. Thousands upon thousands will not listen.

But God continues to pursue the hearts of people. Some of them He lets go their own way and suffer the consequences, but others He draws back to Himself. For that we are eternally grateful.

Has God drawn you? Do you have knowledge of Him? Have you rejected His ways?  Have you given your children knowledge of Him? Does their educational system teach them about God's ways?

I do hope you know Him. I do hope you pursue knowledge of His ways. I hope you haven't forgotten. It would be so sad if you have. And, oh, the children......

Painting ~ School Is Out, Elizabeth Forbes 1889

If You Really Want to Annoy Me...

If you really want to annoy me, act as if families who are educating their children at home are second rate. When you do your back-to-school acknowledgments and hip-hip-horrah-here-we-go-again fanfares, give us a little nod, like "homeschoolers, if you want to join us, you can come up, too" as you call those in the traditional school systems to the front for recognition and applause. Act like we're not particularly involved, anyway, like we're just peripheral to the celebration. It really annoys us.

Take little notice that we're doing what we believe to be best for our children as much as those in your school. We're pulling money out of our own pockets for books and dictionaries and crayons and curriculum--a full set for each child, including a teacher's manual, reference books, supplemental materials, science lab equipment, foreign language classes, music lessons, on and on it goes. There are no discounts to us for our field trips, either, because our family isn't very large, and we can't sell Christmas cards and candy bars to help with special purchases. The neighbors frown on that, but we buy yours. And we still pay our taxes so the government schools can buy all that stuff for their students and take them to the movies for good behavior.

Our own homeschooling days are in the past. We're finished. But my heart is still with those who are giving it a go for themselves in the here and now. I want to cheer them on. I want to acknowledge their hard work and the prayers they pour out over their children, that God will give them wisdom and success. And many, many, many of us have succeeded and been stellar. We have children of homeschooling friends who are, in turn, homeschooling their own children now. Our precious grandchildren are being homeschooled. There are homeschooled graduates who are exemplary mothers and fathers. There are those who have upstanding positions in their careers, who are, by anyone's standards, pillars in the community. Homeschooling is not a second rate, second choice mode of education.

I taught in a traditional classroom before I began homeschooling. Education in the home was our personal choice for offering our best to our children. They flourished. We began a local support group that grew to over 200 families that provided activities, field trips, and specialized classes that can be challenging for single families to tackle, like speech class and foreign languages. Parents who were specialized in their fields taught small classes, like chemistry labs and biology labs. 

We worked on the state home education board to provide conferences, achievement testing, monthly newsletters with timely articles on materials and methods, awareness of legalities and legislative involvement. I was the state testing coordinator for several years, and It thrilled me to see that homeschoolers' achievement test scores far exceeded students in the government schools and out-distanced private schools as well. 

After we finished our own journey through homeschooling, I went back to get my masters degree in instructional strategies and processes, planning to return to the traditional classroom. It was amazing to see that what graduate students were being taught as new methods and strategies were simply those that homeschoolers use on a daily basis. We had already figured it out because we search for effective means to help our children succeed. No, we don't know everything there is to know about education, but all we have to know is our own children and how to help them be successful learners. And we give our best to the task. 

Homeschooling families go above and beyond what most people observe, simply because it's done in the home and in the heart. And it really annoys us when we're so marginalized, especially in the church where there should be a biblical framework for all fanfare. This is a major reason why most homeschooling families aren't attracted to churches with private schools. 

Just sayin'.

 ~ Photo, One of Our Graduations

For the Children's Sake

Sharing with you today some September book highlights that I added to our church Book Nook. School is back in session, and minds are being conformed or transformed, depending on the setting and the teacher. A couple of the books highlighted this month focus on the importance of educational choices for our children and how to give them a love for learning and living. Another calls us to examine how we lead our children to the truth of the gospel and the genuineness of their profession, that they might not put their trust in a simple act but rather in the Savior.

For the Children’s Sake: Foundations of Education for Home and School 

Susan Shaeffer Macaulay knows that every parent wants the best education for their children. No matter what educational setting they might choose, parents play an important role in helping their children develop a love for learning and living. This is done through the authority structure within the home, freedom within boundaries, respect to the child’s own personality, and time…time to explore and think and read “living books” that breathe life into learning. As Susan says, it’s true education without the “twaddle.”

 How Important Are Educational Choices? CD 

As Christians, we know that educational choices can hold eternal consequences. Not only is what our children learning shaping their minds, but the environment in which they learn and the hearts of those who teach them are equally affecting them. Doug Phillips exams educational philosophies, their consequences, and what we should biblically look for regarding our choices.

 Your Child’s Profession of Faith 

A parent’s greatest concern is the salvation of the children, particularly the genuineness of their profession of faith. How do we bring children along in their understanding of the gospel? How can we know if our children have responded to God’s grace or to an outward pressure? Dennis Gundersen discusses how to recognize the essentials of a genuine profession—for the child’s  eternal welfare. One of the ways is to “fix your child’s eyes on Christ, not on his own profession.” This is a valuable book for all who work with children and desire for them to come to an understanding faith in Christ.

Schooling or Education?

 

"Thank goodness I was never sent to school.

It would have rubbed off some of my originality."   

Beatrix Potter

I was chatting with a couple of young homeschooling moms at church last night. They had been to a curriculum showing earlier in the day. What a blessing to share in their enthusiasm for training their children at home! It isn't an easy road, but everyone will benefit. The children, obviously, but mom and dad will, too, as God uses daily experiences and their love for their children to change them more into His divine image of parenthood.

A few thoughts about schooling and education from some famous others:

"I've never let school interfere with my education."   

Mark Twain 

"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education."

Albert Einstein

"I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built upon the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think. Let him come and go freely, let him touch real things and combine his impressions for himself, instead of sitting indoors at a little round table while a sweet-voiced teacher suggests that he build a stone wall with his wooden blocks, or make a rainbow out of strips of colored paper, or plant straw trees in flower pots. Such teaching fills the mind with artificial associations that must be got rid of before the child can develop independent ideas out of actual experiences."

Anne Sullivan ~ Helen Keller's teacher

"You send your child to the schoolmaster, but 'tis the schoolboys who educate him." 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 
Schooling or education? There is a difference!