Transcript- EP13: Homeschool 101- Why Homeschool Your Children

Amy: Why the importance of this? Why the urgency?

Hi friends, and welcome. I’m your host AmyElizSmith. I’m a homeschool mom of three and have homeschooled each from the start. While I have a master’s in elementary ed, I want to teach other mamas that you don’t need a fancy degree to have the passion and knowledge to successfully educate your children from home.

I hope to bring you encouragement to jump in and start your homeschool journey and provide my absolute best recommendations to help you begin your homeschool journey. Thanks for joining us along for this crazy, messy grace-filled homeschool ride.

Hi there and welcome back. I am thrilled to bring you a new series Homeschool 101 on all things homeschool and why home education can be right for you. Last time we talked about reasons why you can homeschool so you can feel confident and equipped in your homeschool journey, and making the choice to educate your children from home.

And now we’re gonna be talking today about why to homeschool. Why the importance of this? Why the urgency? Susan Schaffer McCulley in her book For The Children’s Sake, said, “We must tread with extreme care when we hand over to others the delicate task, a providing for large chunks of the growing time of our children.”

So why homeschool? Because our children have been given to us by God, and we are called to help grow them and nurture them. They are highly impressionable at such a young age, and we want to be the influence in their lives. The Bible says in Philippians 4:8, “Whatsoever things are true. Whatsoever things are honest. Whatsoever things are just. Whatsoever things are pure. Whatsoever things are lovely. Whatsoever things are of good report. If there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” We want all of those true, honest, just, pure, lovely and good things to be part of our child’s upbringing and education.

Voddie Baucham, who is a theologian, pastor, author and educator, talks extensively on this subject. I love how strong of an advocate he is for home education. He has two phenomenal videos that you can view on YouTube called The Children of Caesar. Where he states, “If you are taught by Caesar, your children are taught by Caesar, don’t be surprised if they come back as Romans.” And Luke 6:40, it says “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher.”

I’ve heard the sentiment often that if Christian families don’t send their children to public school, then how will other families or other children learn about Christ? While it is heartbreaking that other students might never hear the gospel, our children, are not missionaries. And Voddie Baucham said, “Our children are the mission field. They cannot be the missionaries at such a young age. Like I just said, they’re so highly impressionable and because government education is anti-Christian by design and by federal mandate, And it cannot be reformed back because its intention is to promote secular humanism. You are sending your child as a missionary to others will just allow them to be indoctrinated by these adversaries.”

That’s quoting Voddie Baucham. As I said in my episode about the history of public education, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Universalists, they wanted to establish government education in order to eliminate religious teaching. The goal was to eliminate the stronghold of Christianity and establish that secular humanism.

Secular humanism is the religion that’s founded in the public school system. Now, they’re not gonna call it a religion, but secular humanism is a religious worldview based on atheism, naturalism, evolution, and ethical relativism. So parents must diligently examine both who is teaching their young people and what they are being taught.

Why homeschool? Scripture has both a positive and a negative warning about the outcome of education depending on who the teachers are. Like I quoted just a moment earlier, Luke 6:40 says, “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher.” Just going back to secular humanism and the religion of atheism, they promote evolution.

And some Christians might say, well, we’ve taught creation and biblical creation from home, so our child isn’t gonna be as heavily influenced. That is just not the case because the topic of biblical creation as described in Genesis. Is it’s not a side issue because it truly relates to all biblical authority.

Genesis is the foundation of all Christian doctrines moving forward, and when that is compromised, it compromises the entire Bible and Christianity as a whole. The psalmist warned in Psalm 11:3, “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” The public educational school system, this government system is not for you.

Education went from being curriculum driven and wisdom rich to becoming also child facilitated and centered around the lack of subjects and critical thinking and moral relativism. I’ve talked about that. So make sure to head on over to episode three so you can listen to how that came to be.

But when we send our children off, because it is what is done in our society, we can question those things. And many people, since the shutdowns of 2020, their eyes have been opened because many parents were forced to keep their children home. About 300 million children were home. And they saw the inadequacy, not just of the moral teaching, but also what was being taught as a whole and the educational needs of children weren’t being met. We expect quality education and we shouldn’t accept anything less. The three Rs of yesterday are gone: reading, writing, and arithmetic, and I do recognize that arithmetic starts with an A. I never understood the three Rs, but there they are.

So again, secular humanism and promoting critical theory, critical race theory, critical gender theory. These are the things that are bombarding the curriculum because they’re not based in any moral absolute truth. So of course, this is what the government schools are teaching. That is their goal. However, the purpose of education, what is it?

Many different camps would say many different things. Classical scholars would say one thing, public school reformers would say something different. For the average parent, they might believe education is solely for the preparation of finding a job and then being qualified for a job one day. But if we just think a little bit more, think about what is the true purpose of education.

I believe education is to equip my child with the wealth of knowledge so they will make moral choices in life. They’ll be able to appreciate goodness and beauty, and they’ll choose what is right on behalf of their own family and others for their future. Moving further, this classical liberal arts education that I’m describing, it’s rooted in ancient history and knowledge.

The liberal arts education means a child is free. Free to live in freedom and independence, engaging in the highest matters, and that, and deep questions about justice and virtue and beauty, and truth and goodness. Classical education is a return to that ancient goal of teaching. Teaching children to think for themselves, but imparting on them the tools they need for learning.

The goal is to help them with inquiry so that they can discover for themselves guided discovery on what is true and beautiful. Anne White of Ambleside Online defined Charlotte Mason’s thoughts on the purpose of education and Charlotte Mason. She talked about the science of relations. Charlotte defined education as a series of relationships formed by the learner as he or she develops intimacy with a wide range of subjects.

And Charlotte Mason’s philosophy directed her use of the methods of copy work, narration, living books, nature, fine arts, broad exposure to fine arts, habit training, rich history, and other strong subject learning. So these rich, rich educations are not what we’re seeing in the public school. Instead in the government school system, their purpose is not to fulfill these classical liberal arts philosophies.

Looking at the richness of our own definition of homeschool or these definitions as defined by Classical or Charlotte Mason directed education. Of course, it’s really hard to accept and I think sometimes if your child has been in the public school, it, it feels so like that you’re wandering and how do I make the decision to bring them home?

Our family might be judged. How do I do this legally? It’s okay. Take a deep breath. And just that acknowledgement that you want something more, you want the true purpose of education for your child is so, so good. And I just applaud you and I’m so happy and proud to know that so many more are taking their children’s education back.

If a child doesn’t know what they’re learning, how can they know what is true and beautiful? And unfortunately, I’m not seeing the true and beautiful in public school today. The goal of homeschool is to facilitate that high matter thinking and asking the questions and all those reasons that I talked about and why you can homeschool are further reasons why we can homeschool and we’re gonna continue to talk about those things.

So Katie Foss, she’s the founder and president of Them Before Us, which is a global movement, defending children’s rights. She talked about this actually on a different podcast, but she’s a strong advocate for what does every child need and what does every child deserve? Every child deserves safety. To whom do our children belong? They belong to God. Every child deserves to know about their creator and children’s rights are based in a home with a mother and a father. And those parents’ rights come from scripture, which is our authoritative text.

Children belong to their parents, and we have the right to direct their education. We are the ones that love and care for our children more than anyone. And we know what is best for them. Who am I starts with, who’s am I? I am Gods and my children were given to me from God and they are Gods too and we are.

Given just a short amount of time to nurture that education, nurture that wonder and curiosity in a child. One of those reasons why you can homeschool is you love them the most. One of the reasons why you should homeschool is you love them the most. and getting them out of the cogwheel of public education means you’re taking responsibility for their academics on their own schedule.

You’re helping strategize with them how to utilize your time the best. They are not factory workers getting ready for the cog of a job someday. Instead, no, they are people, they are sense makers. We want their light to continue to shine. Past those younger ages, past the five and six year old ages, into the double digit years, into the early teen years, right on through until they become adults.

This is the greatest privilege, and again, please don’t feel intimidated. You can do this, and if you’re already homeschooling, you know it, you’re in the trenches. Like I’ve said before, the myth of awkward homeschoolers and the myth that we’re one dimensional and non-social is not true. We are building incredible future citizens and entrepreneurs too, as we homeschool.

So why homeschool? You experience life together and you spend time with one another. Susan Schaffer McCauley, she said,” We want our children to experience life together.” Why homeschool to experience life together and spend time your most precious asset with each other? Susan Schaffer McCauley said, “Real life brings hardship, disappointments, and the reality of sin, and you’re able to navigate those together.”

Our family is certainly not without hardship. My husband works from home. He needs us to be quiet during those zoom calls, and that’s been the case since the lockdowns were happening. We have breakfast fights, we have messes, we have a high needs child who teases the other children. We have yelling and teasing.

We have refusal to do schoolwork. All of those things I’ve experienced. But hopefully that encourages you that if you experience those things too, you are in the norm and you are in good company. That even though we are not perfect, we still try every day and we turn to our Heavenly Father who will continue to give us strength.

We experience life together. Children are around people of all ages, and it’s a holistic approach to learning life together, being with adults and peers and siblings, all together, a respect for authority and elders is cultivated, but also just talking through life, talking theology through life and real life situations that maybe we wish that our kids hadn’t learned about quite so soon.

But we are there. Versus the schools teach that authority should be blamed for all of the wrongs that they’ve attributed. And they lack, they don’t just lack a respect for authority, but they teach that authority has oppressed people historically. That critical theory can be so detrimental to an impressionable child.

Why do we homeschool? Because, often government schools push education far too soon, and I’ve seen this many times. I saw it when I was a kindergarten teacher where a child is pushed into full day kindergarten far too soon. And if they’re not quite reading yet, which is perfectly developmentally fine, they are put into developmental groups and they have a label and they know what group they belong to.

And then parents get very concerned that their child isn’t on track for college, and that puts a high amount of stress and undue pressure on both the child and the parent alike. Charlotte Mason explains why the organized kindergarten is not founded on reality. Charlotte Mason wrote in her home education that “Everything is directed, expected, and suggested.”

And that is in a school room or kindergarten room. “No other personality out of a book, picture or song? No. Not even that of nature Herself can get at the children without mediation from the teacher. No room is left for spontaneity, or personal invitation on their part. Most of us are misled by our virtues and the entire zeal and enthusiasm of the teacher is perhaps her stone of stumbling, but the children are so happy and good.

Precisely. The home nursery is by no means such a scene of peace but adventure to think it is a better growing place.” Okay. Early childhood education. There you go. Growing naturally in their home environment will produce a more well-rounded child than in that of a fixed classroom. And we will talk about the types of education, the different philosophies next episode. But we also be homeschooled so that our children are given just an array of beauty in life and experience art and music, and they grow in character through beautiful stories. You can teach true wisdom and focus on that content, and indeed, according to the National Home Education Research Institute, homeschooled children usually score 15 to 30% higher on standardized tests than those government school children.

It’s just a huge gamut, an array of knowledge that is imparted in our children when we take living texts and living books and we understand history and we focus on those things and gather around together and learn grammar and vocabulary and history, more holistically. You avoid that comparison trap in school and also then your children aren’t if you homeschool more exposed to the screens and the social media, which can be a huge comparison trap for children, and they are exposed to so many things far too soon, but when you homeschool, you have a bit more control over what your child is exposed to. And certainly I’ve done, extensive, research on online safety and what you can do for your internet. I’ll make sure to put that in the show notes, a link to some of the resources that I’ve found incredibly helpful. We have to be so proactive that sometimes navigating those screens can feel like a full-time job but we homeschool for the safety of our children.

That is online safety, but it’s also for the safety from bullying, which is a really huge problem because children cognitively, because of all the online time and, because of the lack of accountability, the lack of knowing right from wrong, there is an increase in bullying and also just the physical safety of your child.

That can just mean safety in general, but also, some of the just traumas that can happen with, some of the shootings that have happened. And as a result, schools having drills that can be very traumatic for a child too. So, why do we homeschool? We homeschool because again, we, you are the most qualified to homeschool your child.

You love them the most, you know, their differences, you know, their learning styles, you know their individual needs and you love them the most. So remember as you’re. Thinking about homeschool as you’re continuing and you’re fighting that good fight about, why are you homeschooling, why are you making this choice?

You’re not taking into account the reaction of others or friends and family, but you’re learning and growing alongside your child. There have been, and there will continue to be legislative attacks on homeschoolers and their parents. And we’ve certainly seen that over in Europe too. There’s just a extreme lack of understanding from well-meaning parents, maybe Christian parents who have their children in schools.

And again, going back to The Children of Caesar and the mentality that those children are going to change the hearts and minds of their peers is just, it’s pretty naive. But the elite educated do not know more than us parents. The question as we close out is what is at stake if you don’t homeschool your kids.