Notes: The Christian Family Conference 2010 (Part 2)

My wife, oldest daughter and I attended the Christian Family Conference in Denver this past week. It was an amazing time of encouragement with other Christian parents – most of whom are devoted to homeschooling and home-training their children to be godly men and women, prepared to take on the world with a multi-generational vision. I’m posting some of the notes I took from the conference sessions. Some are sure to fly in the face of the traditions and cultures which most people would consider normal in today’s culture. But these men who spoke to us used the Scriptures, and their lives and the lives of their children are a testament to their integrity and boldness on these topics. Their words motivate me to continue to raise my children in a radical, counter-culture, God-fearing way.

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“The Rise And Fall of Western Civilization” by Kevin Swanson

· Is there such a thing as getting an “education with a Biblical worldview”? Or do we think of education in the same way we do about gasoline? No one would pay extra if the local convenience store sold “gas with a Biblical worldview”. So do we really believe that an education with a Biblical emphasis is possible? We should.

· The average Christian does not realize that they are being affected by the non-Christian worldview that constantly surrounds them.

· For example, scientists just recently stated that spanking will permanently damage the psyche of a child. This clearly goes against what the Bible teaches. So, who do we believe – God or man?

· In our culture today, we give God no credit for sovereign control over realities such as hurricanes. Now, it’s all about science and the environment. When did God get removed from thinking about things like natural disasters…or the wonder of the atom?

· Consider Bobbie Carlyle’s statue of a man carving himself out of stone… how did he get started without hands? Someone had to make his hands. It’s an analogy to “The Self-Made Man” – men want to believe that they are the authors of their own lives, but where would they be without God?

· Sex education is best taught in the context of what God wants – not in the context of how to avoid sexually-transmitted diseases! Because without God, STD’s are viewed as something that can be readily fixed. God’s view on sexual purity is for entirely different reasons (and the consequences are not so easily fixed).

· When you separate God from the chemistry classroom, you run the risk of polluting your life with a humanist worldview.

· Aristotle’s big mistake – he didn’t mention the fear of God in his rhetoric.

· For history class, give your children a synopsis of all history, and how every single empire has eventually fallen. But God is building a kingdom that never dies.

· Humanist worldview shows up even in some of the most famous and classic books. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne never once mentions Jesus Christ, nor repentance. Instead, he brings an element of awe to the letter “A” that Hester wears. It’s as if Hawthorne is looking forward to the day when there is no absolute morality – I think that day has arrived – it’s the very definition of post-modernism. It’s okay for our children to read books like The Scarlet Letter, but someone needs to be there to explain the worldview and to counsel for God’s view on such things.

· “I want my children to be Christians. I don’t want them to be compromised.”

· Idea – Google “greatest Christian books” and give them to your children to read

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Back to Notes: The Christian Family Conference 2010 (Part 1)
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Notes: The Christian Family Conference 2010 (Part 1)

My wife, oldest daughter and I attended the Christian Family Conference in Denver this past week. It was an amazing time of encouragement with other Christian parents – most of whom are devoted to homeschooling and home-training their children to be godly men and women, prepared to take on the world with a multi-generational vision.

Some observations from the first 15 minutes of the conference:

· We started off in prayer – for our families, children and our world

· 1,200 of us sang hymns together

· A homeschool family got up on stage to sing America The Beautiful, with the youngest getting a solo or two (she was probably about four-years old, and she was good)

· Two prominent men running for public office got up to speak of their dedication to homeschooling and Christian principles – Dan Maes (running for Colorado governor) and Ken Buck (running for U.S. Senate)

· My local State Senator, Kevin Lundberg, was behind the soundboard, serving as he always does in one form or another(he has the best servant’s heart and attitude of any politician I’ve ever encountered – I talked to him later, and he said he was doing it because they were short-handed and needed some help)

I feel so very comfortable in and among this group of people. And I saw a tremendous number of families who were obviously being blessed in their daily walk. They are not afraid to speak to others about it, either.

I’m going to post some of the notes I took from the conference sessions. Some are sure to fly in the face of the traditions and cultures which most people would consider normal in today’s culture. But these men who spoke to us used the Scriptures, and their lives and the lives of their children are a testament to their integrity and boldness on these topics. Their words motivate me to continue to raise my children in a radical, counter-culture, God-fearing way.

“Getting Your House In Order” by Dr. Voddie Baucham

· The text is Deuteronomy 6, where we learn that the Israelites received a promise that if they obey God and fear God, they would 1) live long, 2) it will go well with them, and 3) they would multiply greatly

· Today, can we say in our American culture that “it is well” with us? We know that God will always prevail, but it is not going well in our land. And children in our land are often seen as a burden, not a blessing (the legality of abortion is one reason, but also because we see some people look oddly at families who have five or six or ten kids)

· The phenomenon of the mega-church – it’s the Wal-Mart effect when they come to town, many of the “mom and pop” churches close – hum the Star Wars Death Star theme – and many of these churches are filled with people who are being coddled in their sin

· From verses 4 through 15 – Why aren’t things going well? Why are we not multiplying? As the passage in Deuteronomy 6 tells us, we need to 1) Worship God without rivals, 2) Love without compromise, 3) Don’t forget God as we prosper

· “Worship God without rivals” – If God were not a jealous God, if He allowed others to share His glory, then He would not be God

· “God is not running for God” – He already has the job

· Don’t worship at the altar of education, worship at the altar of God – What is the goal? To get into a good college, or to serve God for life?

· As a homeschooler, evaluate your priority with this scenario – if your child’s test scores fall, would you consider sending them back to public school? On what do you judge success or failure? If it is test scores alone, then that is a form of idolatry! What test are you preparing them for – the SAT or Iowa Basic? Or a bigger test?

· (in jest) “You should start your homeschool a week later then public school just on general principle!”

· Voddie has talked with people who believe Deuteronomy 6 applies only to “non-school” hours. But if we mark our houses as God’s territory, how can we not be motivated to homeschool? Should we continue to send our kids to Caesar?

· Has our culture eroded our need for God? Example – when sickness comes to our family, are we on our knees before God asking for his help? No, because now we can drive down to the pharmacy to get a cure – and we forget God because we don’t have a need for Him!

· Teach your children to be satisfied with God – not to chase after anything else! Remember – homeschooling is not about education, it’s about discipleship.
For more on the application of Deuteronomy 6 to family life, I strongly recommend that you read Voddie Baucham’s book – Family-Driven Faith: Doing What It Takes to Raise Sons and Daughters Who Walk with God

What Is Missing From A Government-Funded Reading Program?

The local paper article I read today was almost too fantastic to believe.

The Colorado state legislature passed an initial proposal to implement a “Pay To Read” program this week. Under this law, over $1 million of taxpayer money would be used to pay low-income children $2 for every book they read. It’s an effort, theoretically, to get children to read and, thus improve their test scores (based on a Harvard study showing a connection between the program and superior test results).

There is so much I could say about this legislation. Such as why our government feels it can use tax money to bribe children to read? Or why the reward is offered only to low-income children? Or the fact that public libraries full of free books are available to kids whose parents are in any income bracket? Or how such a program puts those low-income children on the government dole early in life? Let’s be honest – one of the lessons that many kids will learn is that the government will pay them just to “show up” or do the minimum required when they become adults. And a lot of those kids will go on to live their lives with exactly that expectation – and find themselves part of the welfare spiral.

I’m tempted to write on all of these topics, but the real issue for me was summed up by the bill’s sponsor – Democrat senator Chris Romer from Denver. He believes that researchers at Harvard “cracked the code” for child motivation and then defended his position with this heart-ripping statement - “It's much cheaper to build children than to repair adults."

“It's much cheaper to build children than to repair adults."…

Why do I think that statement is against all that is right and good and godly? Because Mr. Romer has plainly stated the depths which our society has plumbed. That is – that the parent-child relationship is irrevocably broken, and so we have turned to something else to replace it – the government, acting through federal programs. Rather than fix the very root of the issue, we have decided to spend great amounts of money on an inferior solution. The government believes it now has the duty to “build children”.

In Malachi chapter 4, the Bible tells us that a prophet will be sent to “turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.” That is the most desirable state for a family to be in. This verse is one of the primary reasons that my wife and I homeschool our children – not because they get a superior one-on-one education, but because it gives us far more hours in a day to turn our hearts toward each other. And it has been a tremendous blessing to our family for these past six years.

The idea of a government paying kids to read because society has given up on good parenting is at the farthest extreme from God’s design. The problem of uninvolved or uncaring parents cannot (and should not) be fixed by a government program. The verse in Malachi tells us that the source of the issue lies in the heart of the individual. And the heart is best changed by one thing – God’s gift of the Holy Spirit actively working in a person’s life.

Will Cultural Brainwashing Now Be Mandated To Get A Teaching Degree?

“Whoever controls the schools controls the world.” – Voddie Baucham
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I promise that I am not making this up. Okay, I did photoshop the picture, but really - that’s all. I apologize in advance to the University of Minnesota graduates, but I’m pretty sure Mao would have been proud of what is happening at your school.

A task force at the University of Minnesota is recommending a training plan for future educators that is so Orwellian, you would think that Karl Marx had written it. This group – called the Race, Culture, Class and Gender Task Group – is recommending a multi-step plan of cultural “re-education” for those wishing to get a teaching degree at “the U”.

Under this plan, students wishing to obtain a degree in education must admit - and be willing to go forth and teach - that America’s roots are racist, sexist, and homophobic, and that such attitudes have been the cause of poor minority academic performance in state schools. Put simply, teachers would need to confess their inherent bias, and then pass on to their students that white students have had an unfair educational advantage due to a history of racism in our nation.

The task force’s recommendation comes in two parts. First, a prospective teacher must confess their own history of prejudice. Extra points are given for being self-critical. A sample “confession” is included in the report - "As an Anglo teacher, I struggle to quiet voices from my own farm family, echoing as always from some unstated standard. ... How can we untangle our own deeply entrenched assumptions?" Again – I promise – I did not make that up.

Second, teachers must be able to point out to students the history of racism and how it has led to an unfair bias against non-whites in the educational system. They must be able to teach about “the myth of meritocracy” in the United States – which is a fancy way to say that the people who have been successful in our nation’s history did not earn their position through hard work, but because of racial privilege.

What if a student resists this program at the University? The task force recommendation deals with this specifically. If someone is unwilling to conform to the cultural re-education process, the University must "develop clear steps and procedures for working with non-performing students, including a remediation plan."

The overall direction of this plan is not so different from the reeducation camps used by Mao Zedong during China’s Cultural Revolution. Hitler used similar tactics to brainwash the youth of Nazi Germany. Even if there is a grain of truth in American racism (and there have certainly been isolated examples), promoting this philosophy has nothing to do with becoming a better teacher! It simply arms teachers with an excuse to give their students for underperforming. If you were paying the University of Minnesota a large tuition to turn your child into a quality teacher, would you be happy with this program? Would you like it if a teacher graduating from this program was assigned to your first-grader – to influence their formative years with racial bias and untruths?

We need educators to stand up for what is right and true, and not fall victim to the recommendations of those who wish to corrupt our children. Home educators – Mom and Dad – need to be willing to teach the truth to their children, regardless of social pressures. Public educators need to rise up and stand against the tactics used by “task forces” which aim to offer up our children on the altar of political correctness. Parents of children, whether home-educated or state-educated, should understand the forces which arise to steal our children’s hearts, minds, and souls. They should not be afraid to take a vocal or public stand against the dumbing-down of the American school system. Write an opinion piece for your local paper, get involved with your school’s leadership, contact a Congressman and let them know your wishes for education, or take personal charge of your children’s education by considering homeschooling.

If we don’t, our children’s children will be living in a world far different from the one in which we grew up. And pretty soon, our beloved United States will start to look like Communist China…or Nazi Germany.

Ten Things I Like About The Homeschool Civil War Ball

Yesterday, my daughter and I attended Northern Colorado’s Civil War Ball, sponsored by Agape Family Schools of Loveland, CO. It was a defining and memorable moment in our relationship. Some things I liked:

1) Molly invited me to the ball. Put plainly, she still wants to go to the dance with her daddy as her date.

2) My daughter looked absolutely stunning in her peach dress, complete with hoop skirt. I wasn’t the only one who said that she looked like a real Southern belle. Wasn’t it only a short time ago that she was watching Snow White while sitting at her Little Tikes table and drinking from a sippy-cup?

3) The group practiced for two hours on Saturday morning, just to be ready for the dance that night. During that time, I never saw any of the kids rough-housing or chasing each other around the room. I did not see the typical teen organization into cliques. There was clearly an air of respect and friendship – between boys, girls, and parents. I LOVE homeschooled kids.

4) I got to learn the Virginia reel.

5) During the instruction time in the morning, our coordinator made it very clear – spaghetti straps and strapless dresses were prohibited. If they tried to wear them to the evening dance, they would be prohibited from entering. I like that they were not afraid to draw that line. And the rule was upheld.

6) During the practice, we learned a lot about Civil War era etiquette. Women are to be honored by the men and they go first in everything (which makes some dance moves easier to remember). A man or woman never called someone of the opposite sex by their first name in front of others. It was always “Miss” or “Mister”. Every moment was governed by civility and respect. Our culture could learn a thing or two by going back to those ways.

7) The dresses were amazing. Every girl looked gorgeous in their old-fashioned hoops, and their hair up in curls. It felt like a scene out of Gone With The Wind. Each of the men got to pick a Confederate or Union outfit to wear. I, of course, stayed true to my Southern roots.

8) My daughter and I got to spend some very precious and memorable time together. She got her hair done professionally and was a picture of beauty and elegance. I got to show her how a Christian woman should be treated by a man. It breaks my heart to think that I might have to give her up to another man someday.

9) Molly and I were pleasantly surprised when we were placed next to our Colorado state Senator, Kevin Lundberg, during one of the dances. He is an ardent homeschooling supporter and a devout Christian man – a prince among men in our State Legislature. We got to spend ten minutes talking with him during one of the breaks. His outlook: he has rarely been as encouraged as he is right now over the changes in political winds. He believes that things will get better over the next few years.

10) On a night when so many other teens were taking in the latest installment of the Twilight movies with each other, my daughter and I, along with a dozens of other brave teens and parents, shunned the cultural decay – and spent a wonderful evening together as father and daughter. And made a lasting memory.

More photos are being added on Wendy’s Facebook page.

The Big Test (Part 1 – When To Let Your Kids Go)

For some reason, this subject has been heavy on my heart lately. I have prayed daily for wisdom about whether or not to write about it – and for God to reveal His truth to me on the topic. I have many dear friends who may simply disagree with the amount of protection that I give to my own children. The answer to the question “When should I let my kids go out into the world?” is not the same for every child or family. There is no easy formula. But for those who have children and who want to see them glorify God in their lives when they leave the nest, let me just say this – this is one thing that you don’t want to get wrong.

I plan to cover this topic in three segments:

1) The Big Test
2) The “Salt and Light” Argument
3) The Danger of Not Letting Them Go

Whether you agree or not – I encourage comments. I especially encourage other viewpoints when they are accompanied by scripture. Believe me when I say that this was written under prayerful circumstances, and with no accusing finger pointed at anyone. Really.
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Imagine for a moment this scenario. Your child, along with every other child in your neighborhood, must prepare for, and one day take, a written test administered by the local school district. The ground rules are pretty simple. They go like this: 1) the questions are not a slam-dunk – they require real knowledge and preparation about a known topic, 2) your child may take the test any time between the ages of six and twenty-one, 3) they have only one opportunity to take the test – no re-tests are allowed, and 4) the test is truly “pass-fail” – that is, if they pass, your child will be allowed to live, and if they fail, the school district will execute your child.

How much preparation would you insist on before you let your child go take the test?

I’m sure that most parents would insist on their child’s attention to the subject matter, and would enforce a great deal of preparation time. I think most parents would worry enough about the consequences that they would establish a study routine that would guarantee success. Many parents would take over the training personally, just to leave no doubt that their child is ready for the Big Test. No one would simply look at the test casually, and send them off one day saying, “I think they’re probably ready.”

My analogy is not perfect, but I believe it is very much like the multiple decisions we must make as parents to give up precious hours and oversight of our children– to public school, sports, and even to church youth group. When they are not under the care and attention of me and my wife, bad things can happen. Minds can be changed. Respect and allegiance may shift. Our children may see things that they will not be able to get out of their minds – things that may never leave their thoughts, even into adulthood. Yes, some of these things can happen at home, too, but I firmly believe that my wife and I stand a better chance of providing the proper oversight to my own children than any other people on the planet.

Things are different today than they were for most of the last five thousand years. “Progress” which we now take for granted, like cars and buses and the ability to move about and gather into large groups many times a week have changed the face of the family – and I think eroded the importance of the parents in a child’s life. The practice of stratifying children into age groups at churches, through youth ministry, is fairly recent. Public schools in the United States have only been in existence for the last 150 years. Before this, families would learn together, often huddled around a Bible or a copy of Pilgrim’s Progress. There were no youth group activities or PTA meetings in Bible times.

Most of our friends are aware that we homeschool our children. We don’t do this to provide them with a superior education (though I think that is indeed a benefit). We do it for this reason: a study conducted by the National Home Education Research Institute and presented by Pastor Voddie Baucham shows that 70-88% of professing Christian teens fall away from their faith at the end of their freshman year in college. Yet, only 6% of homeschooled, professing Christian teens fall away in that time frame. Consider those statistics again…there is at least a seven out of ten chance that a publicly-schooled child will reject God after their first year of college. Less than one out of ten will do so if they are homeschooled.

This study may be tough for some to accept, especially when so few of us believe that such a result could possibly occur in our own family. And we should understand very clearly, the study does not explicitly prove that schooling is the only factor that determines a child’s grasp on God’s grace. It stands to reason that a homeschooled child will have more parental involvement in his or her life, and this is a big contributor to the Christian walk. I believe further study would conclude that public-schooled children who enjoy a devoted father and mother, and a family who prays and worships together regularly will improve on the 70-88% odds greatly. But once again, any study that concludes with such a diverse result – 70-88% versus 6% - is either flawed, or else it has uncovered a fundamental issue to be considered.

Either our children will change the world, or the world will change them. It’s a rare situation where two opposing views are thrown together for hours a day without at least one side’s viewpoint being changed. These are hard words to read. They were hard words to write. But in the end, isn’t the goal of every Christian parent to ready their children…for the Big Test?

Next: The "Salt and Light" Argument

Visit the Most Recent "Carnival of Homeschooling"

The 184th Carnival of Homeschooling is up this week over at Henry Cate's Why Homeschool? Wendy and I have entries in it this week. Please feel free to poke around and read about various homeschooling viewpoints and experiences.

Homeschool Lesson – Economics and the Stock Market

One of the many joys of homeschooling is that my wife and I can get very creative when teaching a lesson. I designed a course on Economics for the last half of this year, relying heavily on the book Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? It’s a good read, and engenders many of the conservative qualities that we are instilling in our children. We have had a great year learning about inflation, the money supply, why to avoid debt, the reason that coins are no longer made from precious metal, etc. I’m thinking about putting the course outline and weekly homework questions into a product that I can make available to the homeschooling community at large.

For the last four weeks of the year, I decided to add to the curriculum and design a “contest” to teach some principles of investing in the stock market. I invited all three children to participate, and even provided some incentive for them to do well (if there’s not a feeling of true loss or gain involved, the lesson could seem a little less exciting…and less real, as well). The rules that I laid out to them were these:

· You will start with $10,000 of cyber-money to invest (no real money changes hands at this point!)
· You may own as few as zero or as many as five different stocks at a time
· Money not held in stocks will be kept in a Money Market account earning zero interest
· For a $10 cyber-fee per trade, stocks may be purchased at the end of any given day - the student may use day-trade or buy-and-hold strategies
· An e-mail summary, with tables and charts of the account value will be e-mailed to the student each day
· At the end of four weeks, I will pay 1%, in real money, of any account value over the initial $10,000
· Any student with an account falling below the initial $10,000 at the end of the four week period will be evaluated for special chores

The contest was pretty popular when it started – I know that the kids were thinking of their own little get-rich-quick scenarios. Just buy low and sell high – nothing to it. And the timing was in their favor. The contest started about the time that the stock market was at a seven-year low. The Dow Industrial average actually rose from 7841 to 8331 during this period, as it rebounded a bit after the housing and credit crisis. That’s a 6.2% increase in just four weeks.

So how did they do? The trend chart for the biggest stock loser is shown at the right. This child (we’ll call them Child “A”) started out with a pretty risky portfolio, buying a lot of General Motors (GM) when it fell below the $2 mark. After it continued to fall further, there was a hasty action to dump the stock and buy Apple Computers (AAPL) instead. While starting the contest with several risky and hurried trades, this child ate up quite a bit of money just in the overhead $10-per trade fees. In the end, the reported loss was $317. Chore time!

The second child (Child “B”) decided to buy what they knew – a good strategy – and purchased McDonald’s (MCD), Build-a-Bear (BBW) and Disney Studios (DIS). The trend started remarkably well, and this child’s account was in significantly positive territory right up until the last week of the contest. But consumers must have stopped building their own bears, because the stock suddenly took a sharp downturn. The end result – a loss of $99. Not devastating, but Child “B” was a little disappointed, nonetheless. More chores!

The third child – and the winner of the overall contest – has always been the conservative one of the bunch. I wonder if those of you who know our family will be able to guess who it is? This child (Child “C”) chose never to purchase any stocks, claiming that they didn’t like to spend money on “anything that they couldn’t wear!” Even after repeated invitations on my part, and the offer of a couple of free trades, I couldn’t get this one to budge. And in the end, this child had the best short-term stock trading strategy.

What a great learning opportunity for all of us! It is certainly not my intent to recommend explicitly against buying stocks. As this was a short-term contest, it’s probably not a completely fair assessment of trading in the market. But all three of my kids learned some important lessons, namely: 1) there is no get-rich-quick guarantee in the market, 2) at its core, stock trading is really not much different from gambling in Las Vegas, and 3) the person making the trades for a paltry $10 each is the one who really makes the money.

And that would be me. My next task is to create a fabulous summer chore chart.

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If anyone would like to guess who Child A, B, and C are, feel free to leave a comment. I’ll post the answer in a week.

Also, if you are reading this and are interested in having your children participate in just such an exercise (without the real monetary reward!), I am considering offering a five-week, home-school Economics course – daily e-mail stock account updates, along with conservative economics and investing principles will be taught. It will be enough for a quarter’s credit in Economics. Please contact me at alan@banyanconcepts.com if you are interested.

Getting a Constitutional Education – Free Homeschool Curriculum

As a homeschooling father, I am always looking for ways to teach my three kids a unique, but true, perspective of any subject. I take it as a personal challenge to ensure that I research topics and understand them thoroughly before attempting to pass on any learning. This does require quite a bit of time, and sometimes I wish I had more time to pursue other interests like golf or restoring an old car. But right now, at this stage of my life, nothing is more important than impressing true, meaningful knowledge and wisdom on these three children living in my house.

The Constitution of the United States is one of the most important documents ever created, and likely affects those of us who live in the United States more than any other single paper written entirely by men. It is one of the few mandatory subject requirements handed down by our state board of education. I wonder – how many people have read the Constitution? Do our public schools require the reading of the document, or do they only present the subjective interpretation of what the Constitution means? I have decided this: my children are going to read the Constitution and are going to understand what it means. And I intend to teach them how it can become distorted in our country and in our government so greatly that the principles contained within that document are almost unrecognizable today. Finally, I intend to instruct them on how they can have an effect to reverse this trend in their lifetime.

To this end, I am starting a nine-part series on the Constitution, what was meant in the words that the founding fathers laid out, and how it is interpreted today. I have read several books lately that have helped tremendously on this topic – most notably by David McCullough and Thomas J. DiLorenzo. In the coming weeks, you should expect to read the truth about topics such as (click on the highlighted text to go directly to the article):

1. Does the Constitution give the President as much power as we seem to think? What about the Supreme Court? Are the nine justices that sit on the court really invested with the ultimate authority to interpret the Constitution and how it applies to our freedoms?

2. What was the purpose of the Constitution in regards to states' rights versus central government rights? What did the framers intend in regard to this power struggle? Was the Constitution approved as a nation? How does the Seventeenth Amendment affect this?

3. Is government debt really okay? What are the pros and cons? Is it constitutional for the government to go into debt?

4. What happened to states' rights when the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified?

5. What are the concepts of secession and nullification about? And was Abraham Lincoln really a good president?

6. What are “enumerated powers” versus “implied powers” in the Constitution?

7. What happened to my money when the Federal Reserve Act became law in 1913?

8. What is the “General Welfare Clause” and should I like it?

9. What brought about the birth of “judicial activism”? Was this interpretation intended by the founding fathers?

Consider this to be curriculum suitable for using with your own children – all for free. Two installments per week will be posted, ending in early March. When the series is completed, I’ll put together an official question and answer key that homeschooling families can use. Until then, feel free to share these postings with your children and discuss the overall principles behind some very meaningful Constitutional principles. There will easily be enough material here to count as a quarter’s credit in government.

Never Give Up!

Deciding to homeschool is a big step, requiring a mixture of faith, desire, and often a bit of the attitude that says, “We’re different. We’re committed. We’re a little crazy. Get over it.” For the vast majority of the time, our family and friends have been very accepting and supportive. Many of our friends have made the decision to home educate as well, and we are seeing the growth of a community of like-minded people - people with the desire to depart from state-funded education, and who are committed to the daily discipling of their children. Yes, it’s possible to teach your children to follow God while still participating in the local school district. My wife and I both spent all of our education years in public school. But our family is now going down a different path.

Twice a year, without fail, I get a certain feeling about the upcoming homeschooling activities. This feeling occurs about a week before school starts up again, either after summer or Christmas break. It’s best described as a feeling of trepidation mixed with a little bit of exhaustion. It comes over me when I start to think about the time and effort that will be required in the coming sixteen weeks or so. Make no mistake, my wife spends countless hours more than I do preparing, teaching, grading, and planning for our children’s activities. But for me, preparing for the two or three subjects that I teach our children consumes a great deal of the weekend and even the evenings when I come home from work during the week. And I have to admit to a little bit of weariness when the cycle gets ready to begin.

This feeling hit me last weekend as I was getting ready for the next two quarters. I’m teaching economics to two of our children, and boyhood/manhood topics and guitar to my son. It doesn’t sound like much when I write it down. But I have to admit that I had those weary feelings again, as I began to read and write out assignment topics for an economics book which I had not yet read. Sometimes I feel guilty that I have these feelings. But, at no time do I ever feel like we should put aside our commitment to home education. Homeschooling is not typically compared to washing dishes – except that you have to get to it at some point, and you don’t typically hire it out to get done. So, I spent the better part of a Sunday afternoon getting up to speed on economics principles, and preparing two weeks of assignments in the kid’s daily planners. At the end of it, I was tired, but began to get that feeling of satisfaction that accompanies the completion of an important task.

The reward came four days later. I generally come home from work in the late afternoon on Thursdays and the house is left up to me and my son (my wife takes the girls to dance class for a few hours that night). It’s our “guys night out” time, and we both look forward to it. After doing a couple of chores around the house, my eleven-year-old son and I started into the task of schooling. We spent time discussing the topic of completing meaningful work (how appropriate) and what it means to save up for hard times. He went through a Q&A sheet of his own creation in Excel and summed up the topic very well. Then, we moved on to the subject of economics where we had a great discussion. Our talk about the importance of living debt-free and how government bailouts might not work was far more than I had planned for. But he gets it, far more than I did when I was at his age. That gives me a lot of hope for his future – and mine.

Finally, we concluded by breaking out our bass guitar and drum kit in the basement and having a jam session, in preparation for both of us playing in the worship band on Sunday. It was loud, and fun – and loud. We had a great time just playing and singing and worshiping. Did I mention it was loud, too?

What’s my point here? I would hazard a guess that anyone involved as the primary educator of their children has these fearful, exhausted moments when it seems it would be easier to just stop and let things slide. Chances are, many people experienced this feeling in the last couple of weeks as they prepared to start a new semester at home. But this endeavor is not without an eventual reward. Proverbs 13:22 says “A good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children”. I see this happening in our household right now. My children have a deeper understanding about meaningful subjects – more than I ever did at twice their age. And even more, they are learning to pass these things on to their own children, perpetuating a cycle which I pray will remain unbroken until the end of time. If you are a homeschooling parent, and you have occasional feelings of despair, take heart. It’s all worth it in the end.

Now, I need to go set a reminder in my calendar to read these words next August 15th.

The 3rd Annual Carnival of Homeschooling

Today, I'd like to invite you to peruse The 3rd Annual Carnival of Homeschooling, a collection of blogs related to homeschooling, and those who make it their education system of choice. There are a variety of different approaches and experiences to read about. Just click on the picture below...

Harvard or Heaven?

Our family is in our fifth year of homeschooling. It has been the best decision that we ever made since having children, and the blessings that have proceeded from the decision are countless. Sometimes, it is hard for me to refrain from telling people about the wonders that we have experienced. I recognize that people are not always open to the idea, and have often formed a preliminary opinion about homeschoolers. Just to set the record straight, my wife doesn’t like wearing denim jumpers, and we don’t bake our own bread (very often).

On the occasion where I do get to share our experience, I might tend to ramble. There are so many reasons that we have found to support our decision to educate in the home. For details, check out the Further Topical Reading section of this blog – titled “(At Least) Ten Reasons Why We Homeschool” (in the column at the side). I’m enjoying one of the advantages even as I write this chapter – our family is enjoying the warmth of a California vacation in the month of October, at a time when there are very few people competing for pool time or to form lines at the theme park (we started school a week early in August so we could take this week off in the middle of the fall). Of course, if everyone were to turn to homeschooling, I would probably have to give up this advantage, but I think I could live with that.

If you read this blog very often, you’ll see that our family’s true reason for homeschooling has evolved over the last few years. I recently came across a quote from the Home School Legal Defense Association that perfectly sums up our number-one reason. “Homeschooling is not about getting your kids into Harvard; it’s about getting them into heaven.” This doesn’t mean that publicly-schooled children can’t go to heaven – but we believe we have vastly improved our chances with our own children by doing so. Is that a bold statement? Yes. Is it true for every single family? No, there is no doubt that homeschooling is not practical in every situation. Heaven and Harvard are not mutually exclusive choices that pivot on your choice of schooling. However, to better understand my position, a demonstration using gambling techniques and statistics might be appropriate.

Suppose you were asked to play one game of dice. The stakes are these – if you win, you can count on having enough money in your bank account to retire more comfortably than you have ever imagined. But if you lose, your account will go to zero. The game is simple. By rolling two six-sided dice just one time (just like in Monopoly), your win or loss will be determined. There are two tables to play on, with rules differing at each table. The rules at the first table are these: if you roll anything except a double-one or a double-two, you will win. But if you roll a double-one or double-two, you will lose. If you are looking for statistical calculations, your chances of winning under this scenario are 94.4% (there are 34 winning combinations out of a potential 36).

Things are a little more restrictive at the second table, though the reward or loss is exactly the same. At this table, your roll must contain a six on at least one of the dice to win. If the roll doesn’t contain a six, you will lose. Again, for the statistically-minded, there are 11 winning combinations out of 36 possibilities – a 30.6% chance of winning.

It may seem silly to ask the question, “Which table would you choose to play?” But these odds are exactly what statistics tell us about children remaining faithful when they enter the university system. A study conducted by the National Home Education Research Institute and often presented by Pastor Voddie Baucham shows that 70-88% of professing Christian teens fall away from their faith at the end of their freshman year in college, while only 6% of homeschooled professing teens fall away in that time frame. Consider those statistics again…there is at least a seven out of ten chance that a publicly-schooled child will reject God after their first year of college. Less than one out of ten will do so if they are homeschooled.

This study may be tough for some to accept, especially when so few of us believe that such a prognosis could possibly occur in our own family. And we should understand very clearly, the study does not explicitly prove that schooling is the only factor that determines a child’s grasp on God’s grace. It stands to reason that a homeschooled child will have more parental involvement in his or her life, and this is a big contributor to the Christian walk. I believe further study would conclude that public-schooled children who enjoy a devoted father and mother, and a family who prays and worships together regularly will improve on the 70-88% odds greatly. But once again, any study that concludes with such a diverse result – 70-88% versus 6% - is either flawed, or else it has uncovered a fundamental issue to be considered.

Please bear with me for a moment on this. I recognize that there are some families for whom homeschooling is not possible. Single parents raising children, or parents in family situations that don’t allow the time or monetary investment required for quality homeschooling will struggle under the demand. But for those of you who are considering the pros and cons of home education, don’t neglect to consider the eternal, spiritual perspective because statistics show that the benefits are very real.

I have spoken with many parents who are often shocked at what is being taught to their children in public school. Mere theories such as evolution and global warming are taught as fact. More importantly, the idea that there is a God who created our universe and us, and who wants to have a personal relationship with us is suppressed, and often ridiculed. I know, because it happened to me in multiple instances in public school almost thirty years ago.

Unlike the dice game, the state of our children’s souls is not a random event. Thankfully, God’s grace is the ultimate determining factor in that outcome. But when our children reach the age where the schooling venue decision must be made, do we put as much thought into it as we would our investments and retirement asset distribution? To a degree, we are forced to play the game and choose which table we will play. I understand that there are far more pieces to the puzzle than we deal with in these few paragraphs. High-quality parental involvement and influence takes many forms. But I am personally unwilling to take the additional risk, and gamble away my children’s eternal salvation. I cannot control every detail in the lives of my children, but I can limit their exposure to the godless mindset that has infiltrated our public schools. My children’s eternal destination is far more important to me than my retirement account, and I spend far more time working with them on their A-B-C’s than I do manipulating my 401(k).

For those interested in a very clear opinion on home education versus public schooling, check out http://www.voddiebaucham.org/vbm/Blog/Entries/2007/5/22_SBC_Education_Resolution_2007.html. Fair warning – prepare to be challenged by Pastor Baucham’s writings.

Things Have Changed

July 7, 2008

My wife and I recently attended the Christian Home Educators of Colorado conference. It was a great event, and it gave the two of us much needed time to talk, reminisce, and dream. We played catch-up on a lot of ideas and happenings, as we don’t always get to chat as often as we wish.

This will be our fifth year of homeschooling. It gets better every year. We discussed how things have changed over time – progressing from the first year of experiment and doubting our sanity, and proceeding on through the most recent quarter, which was full of confidence, growth and joy. And as we were talking about curriculum, daily planners, and what special subject I was going to teach to my son this year, a sudden thought occurred to both of us. The purpose for homeschooling our children has completely changed in just four years.

When we began, it was about giving our children the best education possible. And while we admired many aspects of the elementary public school which we attended, we knew that our children were not learning enough, and were not being challenged academically as they should. My son, who was progressing to first grade when we made the homeschooling decision, was destined to spend the next year doing worksheets in the school hallway because he had learned to read earlier than the others in his class. The school could not modify their curriculum to accommodate this, and so he was effectively going to be punished for his effort. I wonder if the “social skills” that people question in homeschoolers develop better in lonely school hallways?

We made the decision to educate at home largely because we wanted our kids to have a superior education – to demonstrate superior academic achievement as they had already shown in their first years of schooling. This desire drove the first two years of our home education. We focused mostly on typical education rigor, making sure that our children could pass any test, in case a surprise auditor came to our door to see if our children were really learning at the pace mandated by the state.

Through God’s grace, a new objective inserted its way into our lives. The primary purpose of homeschooling our children no longer is academic – we do it so that we can disciple our children to live godly lives! The surprising part is that neither of us can recall exactly when this goal came about. It is abundantly clear to us that through God’s leading, our long-term vision for our children (and their children after them) is first to know God and to serve Him. My former self tells me that any of the school day that my children spend in reading the Bible, or in memorizing scripture, or in learning how to intelligently argue against evolutionary theory, is time not spent learning biology. And they aren’t getting as much time in trigonometry or Civil War history (though even this isn’t true – we get more of this because of the sheer efficiency of our “class size”).

Isn’t that thinking backwards from the way God intended? If I allowed my children to spend their time learning secular subjects first, isn’t that time that they could have been spending with God, or learning godly principles? Proverbs 9:10 says “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” The education of my children should first begin with dwelling on God’s precepts. And once they are grounded in what is right and good, they will be better prepared to serve God in this world. Doesn’t that trump our culture’s incorrect interpretation of success?

The bottom line is this – if my child grows up to be a highly-paid, Harvard-educated lawyer on Wall Street, but doesn’t know and serve the Lord God, I will have failed. And that vision will continue to refine our homeschool efforts, as well as our children’s hearts.

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