Purposeful Education

of course education has a purpose...most of the time it probably deals with real subjects and relevant processes. But what makes a good education? Being able to check off a list of things someone somewhere has decided that your child should know according to a specific time table?  That's all well and good...children need to learn to read and add, need to understand how the world around them works...but what good is checking off a list of stuff to learn if one never develops a love for learning?

One of the things my husband loves about me is that when I am faced with a challenge or task that I don't know much about, the first thing I do is research. I get online, go to the library, ask someone who knows what I don't. I love to learn! And I love that homeschooling has allowed me to pass that on to my daughter. Whenever she wants to know about something, off to the library she goes. I love to see her devouring books.

I'm not going into a long diatribe on homeschooling vs. public school right now. My opinion is that God has given the responsibility of their children's education to them. If they delegate the responsibility to a godless, humanistic secular education industry, they are still responsible for that choice.  It makes no sense to me at all to send young, impressionable minds off to an environment where God is not allowed, where He is mocked and replaced with a doctrine that says that truth is relevant to the individual, and that all lifestyles must be embraced and validated...except the Christian's...and then to expect the few hours of influence and guidance parents and pastors and Sunday School teachers provide each week to be enough to keep that doctrine from firmly taking root in their children's precious hearts and minds.

A friend of mine  has on her Facebook page a quote that says it all for me:

When my children have the faith of Daniel, THEN I will throw them into the lion's den.

Children need guidance, instruction, and training. They need to know what they believe and why they believe it, not just that mommy and daddy said it's true. Saying that they need to experience the 'real' world in order to 'cope' with it makes as much sense, to me, as saying a medical student with no training needs to perform a real, live brain surgery assisted by other medical students with no experience in order to understand the procedure. What a child needs to be able to cope with the 'real' world is a solid foundation, lovingly built by their parents upon the principles of their faith. A person who doesn't stand for anything will fall for everything. I feel that the best way to accomplish this is through loving, Christ-centered training in the home, not in a government-run institution.

Of course, this is just my opinion. This is what our family believes. You may or may not agree with me and that's your choice! I don't look down on anyone for the choices they make...I just hope that they understand their choices have lasting and far-reaching effects.