We often heard—and still hear as former homeschoolers—that by
isolating our daughter from the swim of her cohort within the context of the
public school system, we were depriving her of the necessary conditions of
social maturation and normalcy. If
children are to properly mature and grow into balanced, healthy adults, ready
for the so-called “real world,” then they must, above all, experience the allegedly
normalizing potion called public school.
It is safe in the nurturing womb of this venerated social
institution that children have their hearts and minds cultivated. In the bosom of the State, the children have
their intellectual, psychological, moral, and spiritual lives fed by the pap of
Caesar. Or so the rhetoric goes.
So insidious is this faulty line of nonsense that, when we
returned home to Kansas for the first time, after having been in Virginia a
couple of years, some of our closest family made remarks about how “normal”
Israel was—despite being homeschooled those two years. In one subtle form or another, with the
exception of this last time—after Israel
had graduated high school a year early—it happened every visit thereafter.
In October of last year, I had a close cousin take me aside
at a family shindig, and with as much sincerity as I’ve ever seen in him, he
said, “If I am able to raise my two girls into half the young lady that Beaner
(i.e., Israel) is, then I’ll feel like I did a darn good job.” What a humbling statement! This was obviously a lovely thing to hear,
especially from one of our family, since ours is completely unafraid of being
obnoxiously honest with each other.
Of course, Israel is what she is by the grace of God, and I
shared that with Nathan my complimentary cousin. The truth of the matter is, however, that
education in the context of the covenant family is a very important means of
grace for raising godly offspring. So,
we believe that in good measure Israel’s well-developed character and
personality, her gracious heart, and her biblical view of life and the world
grew largely out of, not in spite of, her homeschool experience.
What of this de facto assumption
that public education is the formula for augmenting a child’s maturity and
normalcy, and preparing them for the so-called “real world”? What
is interesting is that it is the nearly unsupervised co-mingling of children
within the context of their cohort, with all its attending allurements and temptations,
which cause many youth to mature far beyond what their emotions, minds, and
even bodies are prepared or designed to handle.
Ironically, juvenile justice scholars decry this aspect of
the youth culture, accrediting it to be a primary contributor to juvenile delinquency. As a result of the accelerated maturation,
caused by the public school environment, “many suffer from health problems, are
underachievers in school, and are skeptical about their ability to enter the
workforce and become productive members of society.”[1] The other irony is that public educators
propose themselves and their institution to either be or have the solution to
the youth crisis—it's priest craft.
So, the duped populace will tell you that, if you homeschool
your child, then it will result hampering her proper levels of maturation and social
normalcy. However, it is the public
school context that cultures the very pre-maturation and pscyho-social problems
that are so-called “normal” today, and often lead to a life of
delinquency. Therefore, the concern
expressed by unwitting family and friends, interpreted in terms of the facts,
actually says: If you homeschool, your child will be more likely to avoid the
unhealthy and ungodly influences that lead to an unproductive outlook or problems
of a worse nature. And this, dear
friends, is hardly a sound argument against homeschooling; rather, it's one for it.
Finally, what is the “real world” after all? In this conversation, “real world” is a
loaded term. Most who make this suggestion
haven’t really carefully thought through what they are saying. They usually don’t even have any meaningful
content to share, if you ask them what exactly they mean by “real world.” That has been my experience at any rate. The unspoken meaning, however, connoted the
very crises that are being decried by the so-called experts. Facing bullying, “Just Say(ing) No” to the
manifold pressures to participate in drug and alcohol use, sexual temptations
or harassments, learning how to sit quietly under an arbitrary authority,
learning how to keep your mouth shut, while a supposed authority figure
contradicts every meaningful conviction, belief, and value of your personal
perspective, and other such madness.
This is what is meant by “real world,” in the mind of the objector.
Do you see the underlying premise? The underlying premise is that the public
school is primarily designed for socialization not education. No one is so stupid as to try to argue that
public education better equips the student’s mind and intellectual development
over homeschooling—the data against such nonsense is overwhelming. No; rather, public school is an institution
for social engineering, to develop not careful, critical thinkers, who can
reason on their own but good little boys and girls, who can perpetuate the
myths of naturalistic, secular humanism.
State schools are not academic but religious institutions, and the
loaded definition of “real world” is simply the humanists’ historical
narrative; the “real world” is just their narration of the world.
After years in the dog business, literally every aspect of
it, I’ve seen so many folks drop their dog of to be boarded for the weekend or
longer, weeping, so anxious to hear the promise that little Princess will
receive the best care available, that she be protected from all the other dogs
in the kennel, and that she receive her mile walk each day, and blah, blah,
blah. Sadly, though, how many
Christians send their kids off to a public school, often not even knowing the
name of the teacher(s), his religion, sexual orientation, background,
worldview, politics, ethics, etc.? What
is wrong with this picture? The oft
quoted Proverb goes, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is
old he will not depart from it” (22:6).
It should be no surprise that eighty to ninety percent of Christian children
wash their hands of the Church and the Faith before the end of their freshman
year of college.
[1]
Siegel, L. J., and B. C. Welsh, Juvenile
Delinquency: The Core, 4th ed. (Mason, OH: Cengage Learning), 3.
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