So why are we home educating? When we ask people “Why are you home educating?” and we do ask them all, there are generally two answers.
The most common one is disappointment with the school system. Disappointment for one of three reasons:
They’re not teaching what we believe;
They’re not meeting the child’s needs, and,
The last one, of course, is bullying. You know, the old socialization issue that we are so often challenged on!
If you take a closer look at the answers, the three reasons that we get for people being disappointed with the school system actually reflect our human composition of spirit (they’re not teaching what we believe), soul (they’re not meeting the child’s needs), and body (children are being bullied). Using this perspective and reasoning, we can say that the regular school system is a complete failure!
The reason for home educating that I appreciate and approve of the most, is when people say that they were called to educate their children; that they’re doing so in obedience to God; that they’re really, truly convicted in their hearts that this is what God is asking them to do with their children. I believe this has to be the main reason.
I’ll tell you what motivated me. A long time ago, I was gazing upon the most remarkable miracle, the birth of my little baby girl, who is now home educating four children of her own, and realized the enormity of my responsibility for properly raising this child.
I suddenly started getting panicky because, if I was going to lead my children, I should really know where I was leading them. I realized that I would have one chance to do a good job and that in order to do so, I needed to be able to clearly distinguish between right and wrong.
I wasn’t a Christian at the time, but I certainly believed that there was going to be a day of reckoning. I believed that someday I’d stand before God and render an account for what I had done with that child or that I would be staring right back into what I had done. That was my big motivator and it sent me on a journey that continues today.
Fast forwarding, having discovered faith, we ended up home educating because when we sought God, as to what we should do respecting the education of our children, we were convicted that we should teach them, ourselves, at home, all the time.
You have to understand that this was a very big stretch for a public school teacher, but my commitment to God was greater than my commitment to the school way of doing things. Besides, I was inside that system and I did not like what I was seeing.
When I looked further into this by studying Scripture, I got the same message. Parents are directed to teach their children. There is no place in scripture that instructs us to send our children to professionals and certainly no opportunity for parents, dads in particular, to foist that responsibility onto others.
Raising, training and teaching children has always ultimately been the parent’s responsibility. Parents will answer for what they have done. No excuses or negotiation will be permitted when we stand before Him who has given us this responsibility.