HOME EDUCATION: AN INSIDE LOOK
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: 5 and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. 6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: 7 and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” Deut. 6:4-7
GOD WANTS TO TEACH OUR CHILDREN
This is a Scripture that helped motivate my husband and me when we discovered the option to home educate our children. Once the home-schooling movement was well underway, we heard it often. The early Hebrews, for whom this Scripture was written, primarily educated their sons in a rabbinical setting but all fathers were commanded to make sure their families were taught the precepts of God. Our thinking was that we could best obey this if we literally brought them home and educated them ourselves.
HOME EDUCATION IS THE NEW WAVE
Obviously, we took this mandate from God very seriously! Being the committed, dedicated parents, we aspired to be, why not?? Who wouldn’t, right? Lol -- a lot of us felt that way. Thinking back, this was a common cultural movement within various segments of the church that really gained momentum at that time, in the late ‘80s and ‘90s. Clearly, many of us were having a strong reaction to the decline in quality education and moral principles we had been observing in the schools. We believed it was a direct result of the 1960’s court decisions to remove prayer and Bible reading from our nation’s classrooms. So, we brought our first 3 children home and sailed away into the unknown…
THE ADVENTURE OF A LIFETIME
It really felt like an adventure at first. I’ll never forget that first day. It was the most delicious thing—there I sat with my children around me, feeling like I had stowed them away on a getaway boat and legally nobody could stop us! We were going to have the time of our lives -- learning and doing all kinds of fascinating things with lots of time to take field trips and go places anytime we wanted to…..the sky was the limit! Or well, until the money ran out, which didn’t take long…actually the ‘treasure chest’ was rather limited, but we would find a way to do it cheaply or best of all, free. Resourcefulness is certainly a by-product of the home-schooling experience, ha ha!
REALITY SETS IN
And of course, being the idealistic dreamer that I am, my enthusiasm carried me a long way as I researched, studied, stayed up way too late, planned lessons and field trips, etc.; all the while doing the cleaning, cooking, laundry, chauffeuring, and all the other things busy moms do to serve their families.* Not to mention tending to my husband and his needs. Not that we saw each other enough. (A story for another time.) All things told, pioneering this adventure could be exhausting and overwhelming; there were fears to battle, and doubts that crept in. Especially when there wasn’t much help available from others, but our MO was simple—it’s something you just dig in and do. And all along, God was there to guide and empower. So, for the next 28 years, I would spend nearly every waking moment until age 60 doing the best I knew to teach our children the Three Rs and so much more.
*I must add, we taught the children to do their share of the work so it definitely wasn't all on Mom.
OUR GREATEST DESIRE AS PARENTS
That “more” was what my husband and I wanted to do most of all. More than anything else, our # 1 desire was to prepare our precious children for adulthood by leading them to know and love Jesus. Early in our home-schooling experience I had heard something from a home-school Dad who was very wise. He said, “Let your intention to raise godly children be your desire, not your goal.” He pointed out that, according to Psalm 37:4-5, if we delight in the Lord, He will give us our heart’s desires. (“Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. 5 Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.”) Wow, did that ever take the pressure off! When we give our burdens to our Father, He takes care of it, and us! Self-effort and performance are out of the equation. Whenever I felt inadequate for the job or bogged down by my own expectations, this really helped me keep moving forward with greater confidence.
IMPERFECT PARENTS NEED THE PERFECT PARENT
Don’t let me give you the impression, though, that I had it all together! I didn’t. Not by a long shot. In fact, as I’ve stated on this website, I had a lot of insecurities because of my own immaturity as a believer. Also, our marriage was far from perfect. In fact, we had a long way to go before we were even across the starting line, as I like to put it. Again, this is a whole other story in itself, but, keeping to the subject at hand, sometimes I wonder why God entrusts His children to such imperfect parents. It’s such a weighty responsibility and extremely intimidating when we think about how much our mistakes, our weaknesses, and our bad decisions can affect the next generation and beyond. However, I now realize God wisely planned it that way for a reason. I know that when I am weak, He is strong. And He wants us to involve Him in everything. After all, He is the Perfect Father!
LIVE IN LOVE WITH GOD
Now that our children are grown and we are grandparents, hindsight is truly 20/20. There is much more I could say, but I would like to leave you with very sage advice I heard a few years ago from a godly father, Demonte Edmonds. He admonishes us to live in love with God before our children. He says, “to receive the love of God, come to God not based on your works but because He is good and loves us first. Secondly, our parents aren’t God the Father. Abba is our good Father. Thirdly, come to God transparent and honest—start a prayer life. Have a conversation, not religiousness.” I now understand the best way to pass our faith on to our children is to show them. “More is caught than taught.” We show them Who God is by our actions, reactions, and communion with our Best Friend and Father. Directly teaching them the Word of God is super important, but we have to back our words up with our behavior. If we ourselves learn how to know and walk with Jesus, and grow in Him every day, before our children, they will have a practical example to follow. They can then receive the benefit of our prayers and love relationship with God.
OTHER RESOURCES
My prayers are with all of you who read this post, as you love, teach, train, and nurture that precious family of yours, whether or not you decide to home educate. Also, I go into a specific explanation of what led to our decision to educate at home and my opinion about whether to home educate under Question 3 and 4 of the FAQ page.
