Education is Discipleship

Education is Discipleship

In my last post I asked,

“WHY is it so important to you to home school?”

It wasn’t an overnight decision to home school our daughter.  It was something I thought I wanted to do since she was born!  Somehow, we ended up at the close of 4^th grade before we made the leap to home school her in 5^th grade.  Initially, it was dissatisfaction with the public school system which propelled us forward in this decision.  However, around the same time, in my personal life, I was being pushed into discovering more about discipleship. 

As I was scouring the internet for information about homeschooling I discovered Dr. James Dobson’s radio program "Family-Talk."  In the episode on homeschooling, Dr. Dobson interviews Jay and Heidi St. John, founders of First Class Homeschool Ministries about, you guessed it, homeschooling.  Heidi made a statement that really stuck with me; I think because it was on a subject I had already been primed to pay attention to.  She said,

“ …Jesus said in Luke 6:40 that when a student is fully trained he will be like his teacher.  We need to be thinking about who is teaching our children and looking at education as an opportunity for discipleship.  When we talk to home school parents or people who are thinking about homeschooling we remind them education is discipleship.  Who is discipling your child?” 

(visit  http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/family-talk/listen/homeschooling-in-2010-ii-131002.html  to hear the 25:55 minutes long episode.  It’s definitely worth it.)

Did you catch that?  Education is Discipleship.  Wow.  Any of us who grew up in church recognize discipleship as a couple of classes you have to take when you join a church.  But a closer inspection of the Bible reveals that discipleship is a lifestyle.  It’s welcoming others into your life and them welcoming you into theirs.  It’s a time to learn and train, by example, in a hands-on kind of way.

Daddy and I chose to home school because DD was beginning to hate learning; her attention was moving toward what others thought of her rather than increasing her knowledge.  I remember being that age.  It was such a hard time to balance education, boys, friends, self esteem, chores, parents, etc…..  We believed that by bringing her home for her education she would not have to worry about wearing the right clothes, being pretty enough, and knowing the right things to say to make others like her.  By removing the distractions she would be able to discover who she was and who she wanted to be without someone dictating to her who she ought to be because they said so.  And she would be able to focus her attention on her education, especially the parts that she liked best!

I must say, although it hasn’t always been easy and she hasn’t always loved it, the changes I am seeing in my daughter make me proud.  While she was in public school I felt like I was losing her.  Choosing to home school her gave me my daughter back.  And I couldn’t be more proud of her or more happy with our decision to home school.

So?  Why is it so important to ME to home-school my daughter?  Growing up, one of the things I disliked most about my father was his ‘Do as I say not as I do’ philosophy on rearing his children.  Some of the things I hate most about myself now are things I grew up seeing my dad do.  Heidi is right, education is discipleship.  And my opinion is that discipleship is leading by example.  I didn’t like the example her teachers were providing her with.  And despite my imperfections, I felt I could provide her with much better examples of how to live while giving her an education the public school system could only dream of providing.

When I started writing this, I was planning to go in another direction with the next post.  But I believe this post, with all of its talk about removing my daughter from the opinions of others and their “bad” examples, lends itself to a question commonly asked of parents who have made the decision to home school and is a pivotal  consideration for those thinking about home schooling:

What about SOCIALIZATION?

New Beginnings

New Beginnings

8:20 am, August 20, 2012.  That was DD's first day of 7^th grade.  The beginning of our third year home-schooling.  The family all piled into the mini-van and headed down town.  Daddy had a meeting to attend.  DD brought her school books; I brought my camera and subject, DS.  C:

 

While Daddy attended to his meeting and I photographed DS  (he will be beginning his first day of 2^nd grade in a few days), DD got to work studying about America’s first state, Delaware and taking her very first math pre-test of the year!

Afterward, we took DS for a haircut and went to a new pizza place for lunch (it was REALLY good!)  Finally, we headed back home where DD finished up her school work between short breaks.  It all went smoothly and, at the end of the day, I was pleased with the way it turned out.

That’s not to say I didn’t spend some time breaking up sibling rivalries or reminding/encouraging DD to continue plugging away at her work.  Or even reminding myself to stay calm and patient (I apparently woke up on the wrong side of the bed  yesterday morning and just had an overall bad attitude to overcome in addition to all else that was going on).  Despite all of it, I felt prepared and organized for the work of the day and really, of the school year.  A far cry from the first day of our first year of homeschooling when I felt inadequate, incompetent, and, generally, ill-prepared to be a homeschooling mother.  One word describes that first year: Chaotic.

Sadly, the first year is pretty much evidence that I was ill-prepared to the task at hand.  Not that I was unintelligent, I just didn’t know where to begin.  I didn’t know what to teach or how to teach it or even where to find it to teach it!  Although the internet is an unparalleled resource there is also such a thing as information overload.  The amount of information was overwhelming.

There were many well meaning individuals who encouraged me toward home-schooling saying how easy it is to do.  But, despite being more prepared than I have been in the short three years that I have spent home-schooling, I still don’t find home-schooling to be “easy.”  I don’t say this to discourage you from home-schooling your child.  In fact, I have been known to tell my husband, “If it’s the hard thing to do, it’s probably the right thing to do, too,” and, “It’s ‘hard’ is not a valid reason for not doing it.”  That is the time you have to delve deep into it and figure out if and how it works for you.

As I chronicle the events of this year week by week I hope to provide you with assistance in figuring out how and where to get started and help give you that forward momentum needed to keep going on!

The first thing I will address and would encourage you to weigh heavily as you decide whether you will home-school your child is:

 WHY is it so important to you to home-school?