Gospel Prism

Read David Arnold’s article from the National Education Association and you’ll find that’s exactly what he argues. Parents are ‘gullible’ and ‘well-meaning amateurs. He adds:

They would be wise to help their children and themselves by leaving the responsibility of teaching math, science, art, writing, history, geography and other subjects to those who are knowledgeable, trained and motivated to do the best job possible.

I wish this were true. But schools also teach sex ed to very young kids. They teach morality and ethics when they endorse homosexuality to ‘celebrate diversity.’ And teaching all of those subjects teaches worldviews and paradigms. Anyone who finds this is not the case, needs only to attend a school to see for oneself.

I am not arguing that Christians can’t attend public schools. I believe they can. But if I were sending my kids to public school, I would spend each day debriefing on what they are learning and reinforcing biblical worldviews. Parents are truly gullible if they think they’re kids aren’t being influenced by what they learn in school. I can tell you that I learned about sex, about friendship, about identity not from my parents, but from school and my classmates. And I paid the consequences for those ideas throughout my life, unlearning much that I learned from such well-trained professional educators.

Al Mohler comments on an LA Times Op-Ed piece by Walter Coombs and Ralph Shaffer, two emeritus professors from Cal Poly Pomona. They essentially argue that homeschooling is elitist and undemocratic. But you get to listen to their vitriol and their ludicrous reasoning when they say things like:

The court’s decision means that home schoolers must be given some substantive instruction in social studies and not simply spend their time watching Fox with its strange assortment of oddballs pontificating on current events.

They also pull no punches when it comes to Christians who homeschool:

It’s evident that the vast majority who teach their offspring in front of the television do so because they don’t want their children to be subjected to such dangerous doctrines as evolution, abortion, global warming, equal rights and other ideas abhorrent to the evangelical mantra.

In other words, they think these doctrines that the public schools do espouse, evolution, and abortion, are legitimate and ‘education-worthy’ doctrines. The reality is that educators in the public school systems will do whatever it takes not merely to shape children’s minds to love learning, but to love learning in a way that embraces their values and morality and ethics.

I have always thought that should God ever call Shua home early, that I would put my kids into public school in that case. I have never been a gung-ho homeschooler. I have always thought it is a good option, but just that, an option. But educators like Coombs and Shaffer and the NEA are slowly doing what I thought could never happen, make me glad we homeschool. I still think it’s a choice and not a requirement as a Christian. But the more this issue is in the forefront, the more I am finding out about just how much kids in public schools are being shaped in their morals and values than ever before.