When you think about school, what do you remember?  Little-girl pigtails?  Teenage acne?  Best friends?  Bullies?  Well, this week’s Blogger Friend School assignment is all about the feelings associated with school for us as children, and our homeschooling journeys now.

BFS Assignment #100 – Oh What a Feeling!

Intro:  Oh What a Feeling!  (Marketing credit:  Toyota)
Wow!  As many of us enter into another school year, the feelings that we have permeate in setting the tone for the upcoming school year.  Box Day! “ahhh!”  The new books and the sound of cracking the binding and smelling the freshly printed pages! Can you FEEL the freshness? ….

Assignment: Take time this week to write about YOU and your feelings of trials and triumphs with homeschooling.  Touch on when you first heard about the concept of home schooling and whether you tip-toed into the idea or just jumped in and never looked back.  Share your schooling as a child and how you compare it to what your goals are for your children.

For me, my own schooling is closely tied to my decision to homeschool my children.  I was homeschooled myself!  Only from sixth grade on, though.  When I hear Christian parents talk about how school is harmless because their schools “are good,” or their “teachers don’t teach evolution,” or whatever, it grieves me.  What they don’t realize is that more is taught at school than that which is officially taught.

When I was in school, I learned to be a “strong” (read: “feminist”) woman.  I learned that feminine softness was a bad thing.  I learned that I needed to work even harder than the boys to “prove” myself, rather than just being who I was and excelling at being me.  I learned that my little sisters were pests to be brushed off or gotten rid of, rather than friends to love, relatives to honor, and younger Christians to mentor.  All of these are unGodly mindsets and attitudes that grieve the Lord – and, now that I know better, me.  This is not the worldview I want my children to learn.

Although we are not far into our “official” homeschooling journey (Ariel is only in first grade this year, and we haven’t started for the year because of the move), I am blessed by the very counter-cultural attitudes we see in her.  Granted, she is very young yet, and we will have to work hard to preserve these, but I believe we have started in the right direction.  Preserving is much easier than undoing!  (I know; it took me many years to overcome my own wrong thinking.)  Just yesterday, she told us that Sophia is her best, best friend.  This is what we want to encourage and develop in her, and in Sophia – a view of the world as God sees it, which includes a good relationship with her sister!

Michael and I knew before we were even married that we wanted to train our children ourselves.  It is our belief that discipleship cannot truly take place if we are sending them away for many hours of the day, even if the place they’re being sent away to is a “good” place.  (For this reason, even a private Christian school is not an option for us.)  It is our responsibility as parents to “bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,” to “teach [God’s words] diligently to [our] children,” talking of them when we sit in our house and when we walk by the way, when we lie down, and when we rise up.  (Eph. 6:4; Deut. 6:7)

We don’t want to be like King David, who was known as a man after God’s own heart, and whose children were wicked.  Or Eli, who served the Lord but did not pass a true heart of worship onto his children.  We want our children to love and serve and follow Yahweh wholeheartedly for generations to come.

There are a few who “escape” public school unscathed. But we find our children too valuable to leave to chance* – and our assignment too clear to do so with clear conscience.

*Did you know that, according to the Center for Excellence in Education (as quoted by Considering Homeschooling), 98% of Christian homeschoolers maintain their faith, but 85% of Christian children in public school do not hold a Christian worldview by the time they graduate, and drop out of church?