A Fresh Start

As our understanding of the principles regarding education was solidifying, Heidi finished high school and headed off to college. At the same time, Morgan was coming of “school age” and Peyton was a toddler. An outsider would likely look at our situation and assume we only had two children. Lori and I were left with only Morgan and Peyton at home. In many ways, it was a fresh start for us; we had a clean slate for Morgan and Peyton. From the beginning, we have homeschooled them and will do so through the high school curriculum. Neither child has ever been in a public school setting and exposed to that environment.

As long as I have breath in me, neither ever will.

I have deep regrets for my choices in the past for the two older children. As a non-custodial parent, I had no meaningful input in the directing Sean’s education path. I don’t have that excuse for Heidi, but I still felt as though precedent and inertia had prevented me from directing her education as I should have. In practice, the situation for the two older children was similar. The challenges for the two younger children are much different than for Heidi and Sean, but I will not abdicate the responsibility to educate them in accordance with Ephesians 6:4…

“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” (ESV)

Based on that scripture, my older children have every right to be angry with me for failing in that duty in regard to their education; but by God’s grace, I do not think they are. We don’t always see things the same way, but both of my older children have grown to love and fear God in spite of my failures.

Next…Moving away from the subject of homeschooling…

DSC

Another Move…

 

Picking up where we left off before the flashback, Heidi returned to public school after 2 years of homeschooling.  Before the year was over, however, we were moving to a new state once again – from Wisconsin to southern Ohio.

 

This time, Heidi had matured emotionally and was not influenced by the fear of fitting in with a new group of peers.  Lori and I still did not have the conviction necessary to reject public schooling out of principle.

 

For the remainder of that year and the entirety of the next, we were not what most people would consider a homeschooling family.  Sean, who was living with his mother, attended public school; Heidi attended public school; and Morgan was pre-school age at four.  Peyton arrived on the scene during the summer between the two school years.

 

In spite of not actually homeschooling during this time, it was then that we (by God’s grace) became functionally aware of one of the great truths of education – that education is not something that only occurs between bells ringing in hallways.  We are learning during every waking moment.  Education is something that occurs from the time you rise up to the time you lie down. 

 

“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.”  Deu 6:7 (ESV)

 

I say “functionally” to distinguish our awareness from that to which all people would agree.  In conversation, all parents would acknowledge and agree that from the moment they are born, children begin learning.  Indeed, it is within the care of parents that children learn to walk, talk, eat, etc.  Proactive Americans have even been known to begin training their children in the womb with things such as soothing music.  In spite of this awareness, there is a sense that parents are not directly responsible for certain fields of learning.  Mathematics, science, grammar, history and such are left to “professionals.”  This belief will be the topic of several upcoming posts.  For now, I will summarize this functional awareness as the recognition of education as a life-long lifestyle as opposed to a season of life.  It is a walk-along, talk-along method of training that is holistic in that all areas of education support, rely on and overlap other areas.  It is the acknowledgement that education serves a purpose other than merely preparing for the next step in education – there is an end goal toward which education is aimed that is beyond the pursuit of “personal peace and affluence.”

 

Failure to grasp this distinction leads to parents becoming disconnected from the learning processes that their children are experiencing and comatose in their own ability to continue learning.  In our nanny-state mentality – in which we increasingly rely on government to provide all our needs – it has resulted in a virtual abdication of parental responsibility in the academic training of our children.  If our children can’t read or write (and many of them cannot), the schools are at fault.  Poor ACT and SAT scores are the result of under funded school districts.

 

A second aspect of this awareness was the realization that learning consists of much more than academic subjects.  Our presuppositions are formed by the constant exposure we have to our environment.  What constitutes “normal” behavior?  What is the model for family life?  What is my place in the family?  How do I balance my place as an individual with my role as a member of a group?  How do I respond to authority?  What is truth?  All of these questions are answered by our daily interactions with people, not in a classroom.  The underlying assumptions about life are formed subconsciously moment by moment and become a set of “absolutes” that are much more difficult to reshape if necessary.  This “sacred” nature of our presuppositions is firm in our thinking largely because we are seldom aware that they even exist!  They are the subconscious framework through which we evaluate everything around us.  They are the foundations of our worldview.

 

This realization has been the key for us.  An understanding of presuppositions and the establishment of a Christian worldview automatically excludes public school as an option.  Regardless of how well the government system might be able teach the mechanics of mathematics, it does so using a model that explicitly excludes God.  The presupposition is that God is irrelevant and has no place in education.  It teaches anti-Christian values by ostensibly excluding our Creator from the process.  True education cannot be achieved because “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” Proverbs 1:7a (ESV).  There is no fear of the Lord in the public school system, therefore true knowledge cannot even begin in that setting.

 

It was during this time and for these reasons that the homeschooling option became less preference and more conviction.  We began to realize our desire was rooted in more than the obvious issues of carrying guns, distributing drugs, teaching evolution, and applying peer pressure.  My resolve was still inadequate to address Heidi’s schooling, but this was when I knew that I would do anything within my power to retake the responsibility and the authority that God granted parents to train our younger children for His purposes.

 

David

Flashback #1

 

I think it is time I rewind a little to give the reader a brief summary (very brief, but I plan a lot of expansion of the following information as time unfolds) of the make-up and spiritual history of our family.

 

I am 48 years old and was reared in a Christian home.  I had always considered my self to be believer, but it was not until shortly before my second marriage that I realized I needed to make Christ Lord of my life.  I had lived a sort of antinomian lifestyle in which my profession of faith had not been translated into behavior that reflected that claim.

 

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”   John 14:15 (ESV)

  

The most obvious indicator of my spiritual condition at that time was the fact that I had failed to view my first marriage as a sacred bond and model of Christ’s relationship to the Church.  True to my human nature, I was focused on my own personal satisfaction (that selfishness trend is quite persistent).  I had one son, Sean, by that marriage.

 

My second wife, Lori, was also divorced and I am confident she would admit to similar spiritual failings in her life as I related above.  When I met Lori, she had daughter named Heidi.

 

The table below summarizes our family members:

 

Name	Age	Relationship	Current Status
David	48	Me	Neophyte blogger
Lori	40ish!	Wife	Registered pharmacist, now stay-at-home mom
Heidi	26	Lori’s daughter by her first marriage, adopted by me.	Married and the mother of my first grand-daughter!
Sean	20	My son by my first marriage.	Starts Junior year in college in Sept 2008
Morgan	13	Daughter	Homeschooled entrepreneur
Peyton	9	Son	Daddy’s homeschooled “deputy”
Abigail?	<0	Daughter?	Due date — November 2008

 

 

As I mentioned, I understand that this introduction to our family is very brief.  I will add this table to the “About Us” page for future reference.  I also plan to elaborate on several of the issues brought to light.

 

How Our Journey Began (Cont’d)

In my last post, I described how our decision to homeschool our daughter launched a spiritual journey.  In the 12 years since that decision, that journey would take us places that we never would have imagined.  The road was rough in the beginning, however, and we were slow to recognize God’s working in our lives.

 

After only 2 years of homeschooling, our eldest daughter Heidi returned to public school.  Considering the depth of the foundation underpinning the homeschooling decision, this relapse was predictable.  Again, I will summarize the event with a list of observations explaining the factors that contributed.  As before, these factors are interrelated:

 

1)  Principle – As mentioned previously, the decision to homeschool was based less on biblical principle than on perceived benefits as measured by our secular standards.  As time passed Heidi became acquainted with other children in her age group.  My wife and I gained confidence that the school was “good” academically and that overt heathenistic curriculum was not being forced upon the students.  At that point, the perceived benefit of Heidi’s participation in extra-curricular activities out-weighed our reasons to continue training her at home.

 

2)  Momentum – 8 years of living the “normal” public-school-two-parent-working lifestyle proved difficult to surmount.  Attitudes regarding the underlying principles to the model American family were not fully recognized and our shallow foundation was insufficient to overcome those that were.  Prevalent assumptions about key issues such as boy/girl relationships and parent/teacher distinctions were reinforced by church youth groups.  Nearly all of these assumptions supported the notion that the homeschooling option is merely one choice among many equally valid ones.

 

As a consequence of the items discussed above, sending Heidi back to public school became a reasonable avenue for our family.  In reality, it was a compromise through which we avoided potential conflict with our daughter.  We still preferred to homeschool, but we did not have the conviction necessary to counter Heidi’s desire to return to public school.  Quite honestly, we feared a blooming of the rebellion that we had increasingly observed in her.  Once again, a selfish desire — this time to avoid conflict — dominated our thinking.

 

To be continued…

 

 

 

 

How Our Journey Began

Our current journey of spiritual growth began with our decision to homeschool our then 13 year-old daughter.  In retrospect, we made a good decision, but it was not based on the reasoning we use in continuing to homeschool our younger children.  In fact, our reasoning was flawed in at least four interrelated ways:

 

1)  Leadership – As husband and father, I failed to lead my family in this matter.  My wife and daughter investigated the idea and requested my agreement.

 

2)  Justification – As nominal Christians, we joined the battle cry opposed to the abolition of God from the public schools and the resultant curriculum that included topics such as evolution.  We still oppose these things, but we now recognize them more as symptoms of a pagan society than specific reasons to reject public schooling.

 

3)  Focus – The decision (at least from our daughter’s perspective) was driven largely by fear related to our recent move from Indiana to Wisconsin.   The prospect of transferring to a new school was intimidating.

 

4)  Materialism – The move mentioned above included a dramatic change from an affluent suburb of Indianapolis to a small, rural community without the resources that we considered essential to a “good” education.  Our pride had convinced us that we could do a better job preparing our daughter for the future than could the local school.

 

The bottom line?  We had a secular world view that caused us to misunderstand the purpose and goal of education.  In fact we misunderstood the purpose and goals of everything we were doing.  To paraphrase a quote from Francis Schaeffer we were dedicated to the pursuit of personal peace and affluence.  In spite of our genuine concern about issues such as anti-Christian values and evolution in the classroom, our motives were still selfish.

 

DSC