Author: Michael Wagner

In August 2013, I began writing a weekly school-year blog. I envisioned being able to help home educating parents by providing information that would enhance their understanding of relevant educational matters. Hopefully the blog has been serving this purpose.

But, I realize that my desire to work on behalf of the home education community requires a lot more than this initial effort.

During the last school year, the website LeoGaumont.com was launched, containing numerous audio recordings of presentations I have given, as well as some of my articles and a few videos. It is still a work in progress. All of these materials reflect my full-throttled commitment to home education as the best form of education for children. Please take advantage of the many resources provided there.

This school-year we intend to ramp up our efforts to help the home education community even more.

We plan to include video and audio versions of my blog, along with the text version. People who would rather watch a video than read the blog can do so. And those who would like to listen to the blog while doing chores or some other task can do that as well.

These improvements involve a learning curve on our part, so please be patient if they don’t roll out as smoothly as planned. We still have our training wheels on, but we are fast learners!

In the longer term, we anticipate including these videos in a new internet-based venture called Gaumont Academy. The purpose of Gaumont Academy will be to explain the biblical model of the family, education, and church, to encourage families to exercise their God-given authority and responsibility. Instructional videos will be the central feature of this site, at least at the beginning.

I have frequently encountered situations where families are not operating according to God’s plan, and that has led to problems in the education of their children.

As well, I have encountered several instances where churches have undermined the biblical plan for the family, and there is always the added concern of organizations who, while advancing the welfare of home education, are really just businesses looking to increase their market share. These errors need to be corrected.

The resources provided on Gaumont Academy, therefore, will help to explain the biblical model of the family, education, and church, to encourage families in their authority and responsibility. We believe that enlightening and empowering parents is the only effective means to get the home education movement in Alberta, back on track.

In short, our vision is to help parents exercise their authority and take charge of the education of their children. We aim to fulfill this vision through our work as a home education ministry, providing facilitators who understand the preeminent role of parents in education, and providing biblical instructional materials in multimedia formats using the latest and best technology.

The biblical family is the most important institution in society and it is worth fighting for. We plan to use all of the tools at our disposal, including Education Unlimited, LeoGaumont.com, parent-initiated community conferences and the soon to be created Gaumont Academy.

From our biblical perspective, we hope to advance the faith and to encourage and equip parents in their vital task of raising their children.

We hope that you will make use of these resources and encourage others to do likewise.

Part of the series Wrapping Up 2015-16
Written by Léo Gaumont, published on 2016-05-23.

The focus on what’s best for the children has been obscured by a focus on what’s best for parents or organizations because we don’t focus on Jesus.

We are generally all ignorant of what is actually happening around us. This ignorance can either be perpetuated and capitalized upon or fixed to empower the masses. It is time to enlighten home educators who have generally been kept in the dark respecting what is occurring within their community. (Ephesians 4: 11-16)

Bible Reference: 2 Chronicles 7:14

Don’t we just love finding solutions to problems? At least, I do. Perhaps that is because I am a natural fixer and I delight in seeing what was broken as repaired or restored. In fact, I believe that is also the heart of God. He created the world perfect and willingly gave man enough freedom to reject Him which, as you know, he did. And, even though man has been running from God ever since, God never gave up trying to fix the problem created by the fall, even being willing to personally descend on earth in the form of man to not only repair and restore man, but to redeem him. The ultimate solution to the ultimate problem! Thank you, Jesus!

To redeem is to go beyond repairing or restoring, which actually deals with the effect of a problem rather than the cause. Redeeming goes beyond fixing the cause or the problem, to eliminating it. This is what we need to do to save Christian home education. We need to bring it back into right standing, much the same as Jesus’ sacrifice provided opportunity for mankind to be repaired and restored into right standing with God. I am not saying that we need a saviour, because we already have one. What I am saying is that unless home education agencies in general, and home educators in particular, seriously refocus on why Christian education was restored to the home from the schools, we will not be able to clearly see what the objective for home education was and continues to be and we will simply return to what we want to escape.

Home education has never been about money, as almost every other jurisdiction in the world knows. Neither is home education about out performing the world in their school and educational games. It is not about winning spelling bees, writing a world class essay, offering solutions for some major issue or inventing a new gismo, even though these are noble accomplishments, nor is it about being able to fill the children’s heads full of knowledge, even though this is good too.

Home education is when parents seriously consider that Jesus’ great commission, to go out into the world to preach the gospel, starts at home with the children God has given them. It is about taking the authority and associated responsibility to make sure that the truth has been written in the hearts of the children and demonstrated as being the major component of the heart of those in authority, starting with the parents. To teach the heart is to prepare for eternity. The head may get us through this life, but then what? How about eternity? What was Jesus willing to give us so that we could have that eternity with, rather than separated from, God? What do you think His expectation of us would be in exchange? Is this expectation part time or only applicable in some instances, something like entertaining a Christian world view on Sunday at church then a secular world view thereafter? We cannot serve two masters so let’s pick the Winner.

The problem with Christian home education today is that we are becoming increasingly unaware of where we have come from and as a consequence we have mostly lost our faith and vision, not only for ourselves and our children but for society in general and the home educating community in particular. We have traded the eternal for the temporal. We have become self-serving and sectarian. We need to be shaken out of our lethargy and cult-like followings so that the Christian faith and home education can be redeemed as a service to the Lord and not to ourselves or our children, even if they are the focus of the exercise.

The solution, while simple, is not easy. Christian home education needs to be reunited, repaired, restored and redeemed as a service unto the Lord as we fulfill our responsibility to share the gospel with a lost and dying world. When money, grades, subjects, government, schools, home education providers, agencies, ICHESs, facilitators, and a whole host of other home education issues and concerns take second place to seeking the Kingdom of God, they will find their place and their appropriate functions. Let us all passionately repent, refocussing back on the author and finisher of our faith and make all that we do, starting with our children, a full time, uncompromising ministry unto Him.

Part of the series Wrapping Up 2015-16
Written by Léo Gaumont, published on 2016-05-16.

The truth will set us free, it is said.

We are generally all ignorant of what is actually happening around us. This ignorance can either be perpetuated and capitalized upon or fixed to empower the masses. It is time to enlighten home educators who have generally been kept in the dark respecting what is occurring within their community. (Ephesians 4: 11-16)

Bible Reference: 2 Peter 3:17

After spending nearly two months travelling the province, visiting families; hosting a number of Community Home Education Conferences (CHEC) where I had the opportunity to talk to all manner of families; having to deal with government in one way or another, either directly or indirectly; sponsoring a few campaigns dealing with pertinent and urgent issues potentially damaging to the home education community in this province; and having time to think on these things while travelling thousands of kilometres in our truck and camper; I have much to share and little time to do it in these blogs.

The biggest lesson learned this year is that I have been in error by desiring to be liked and not wanting to cause discomfort to others. You can chalk this up to my “being a nice Canadian” and my subscription to the unbiblical attitude of being positive at any cost. Both are just excuses cloaking cowardice with a sweetness more akin to aspartame than real sugar. I was corrected by a lady who attended my presentation at the provincial conference for alluding to problems and issues while carefully avoiding the use of names in order to … protect the guilty?! After having checked, I realize that the Bible is full of examples where bad people had their names published. How else could they be avoided if not by being revealed for the crooks and scoundrels that they were? Indeed, when nothing is done about bad people doing bad things, nothing changes and good people are hurt or taken advantage of by these bad people, who may not even realize they are being bad. Therefore, I have determined to tell the truth, at great personal risk, by including the names of the people and organizations that are continuing unchallenged with their ungodly, self-serving causes. There is a great deal that I see wrong with the world, but my most sensitive “buttons” include the abuse or manipulation of parents and children and the tarnishing of the name of Christ by people and agencies pretending to be Christian while obviously neglecting to apply the teaching of Jesus Christ.

One mom attending a CHEC frustratingly shared her concern that most home educating parents were more often being duped than being informed. It has long been known by manipulators that the first thing necessary for anyone to be manipulated is that they be ignorant of the truth, otherwise they will be on their guard against being used by others. I am simply amazed at the level of ignorance, not only about things pertaining to home education in general, but things pertaining to the life that has been freely given us by our Lord. The frustrating thing to me is that most of these young people have a genuine and sincere desire to come to the knowledge of the truth about our faith, but most have no where to go. Churches are too often focussed on nearly everything other than supporting families and growing their faith, leaving the world without a compass along with the resulting madness of relativity and corresponding normalization of deviation. Today, it’s an anything goes world with the very agencies that should be defending what is right, encouraging rather than resisting secularization, for the sake of survival. This perverted progressivism has crept into the Christian community and through it to the home education community as well. True, there is more resistance to this insanity within the home education community, but when those purporting to be on guard for it make compromises towards their own self-interests, there is little one can do but watch traditional home education slowly slip into oblivion as it becomes more secular and driven by questionable motivation.

I am even more convinced than ever that the plight of traditional home education in this province is not good. Between government heavy handedness, and home educating parental ignorance and fears, not to mention the ICHESs, private schools and other home education providers competing for the students and the associated cash, parents are unwittingly being taken along on a wave of compromising that can only lead to the destruction of traditional home education in this province. Most parents quickly see that it is the money that is causing the problem, but they are not entirely correct in this observation. It is the love of money, demonstrated by some parents’ pursuit of what this money can provide, and hidden by the pseudo-wisdom of agencies willing to sacrifice parental authority on their altar of survival, so they can get even more of it. This problem will not go away until we start refocussing on Jesus and hearts are changed.

Part of the series The Problem
Written by Léo Gaumont, published on 2016-05-09.

We can compromise until there is nothing left to give. How close are we to the end of the traditional home education movement?

We are generally all ignorant of what is actually happening around us. This ignorance can either be perpetuated and capitalized upon or fixed to empower the masses. It is time to enlighten home educators who have generally been kept in the dark respecting what is occurring within their community. (Ephesians 4: 11-16)

Bible Reference: Luke 12:4-5

In the last two weeks I concluded the summary of The Problem with a no-holds-barred critique of the various players in the home education community, including (and especially) the parents. Organizations and individuals have been focusing on themselves and their own personal interests to the detriment of the home education community and its testimony for Christ. This self-centred emphasis has led to a kind of blindness towards the “big picture” of decay among the home education movement. In Hosea 4:6 the Lord said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” This lack of knowledge is being facilitated and encouraged by the agencies mentioned in the series that benefit from the derailing of home education in Alberta.

Most people are under the illusion that they are informed, but in reality they have been purposefully misinformed so they can be supporters of a system. For example, Vladimir Lennin, the Russian dictator of yore, referred to the “useful idiots”, who in their misguided zeal, supported and defended his subversive system. Although there is a greater chance that home educating parents are somewhat more aware of the trappings of secular socialist indoctrination, most people, while believing they are free, are oblivious to the fact that a lot of what they do believe has been instilled by controlling agencies. It should come as no surprise that indoctrination is always towards the bondage of serving man and his agencies, rather than to God, the author of freedom, often even when coming from a religious perspective. This was what Jesus most vehemently opposed during His earthy ministry.

It can be safely said, therefore, that ignorance has always been anybody’s biggest enemy. Unless people in general, and home educating parents in particular, make being informed an important part of their lives, they will go on being duped, tricked and manipulated by those who would direct others into being part of the problem, by either providing or perpetuating faulty information. In fact, most home educators subscribe to elements of the secular socialist worldview without truly understanding why or how. They believe in government; trust the media; follow a church or church leader; normalize all schools; are loyal to a home education provider, even if unethical, to the point of dividing the community along tribal lines; and support organizations that are more about themselves than home education. While all this demonstrates an abiding confidence in the “progressive”, secular socialist agenda, it shows little to no faith in God.

Today, the home education community has generally accepted the very things that moved parents to leave the system a generation ago. It is not uncommon to see parents educate their children at home by repeating what is being done in school, or worse, allowing the school to dictate what is to be done. Parents wonder if they are doing the right thing or doing enough, looking to man’s agencies for answers. Parents may start by teaching their children at home, then send them to school or bring the school home so the “education” can be “completed” by “professionals” in keeping with government accreditation. This reminds me of the Apostle Paul’s admonition to the Galatians: although they had begun in the Spirit, they believed they could only be perfected by the flesh!

The result of accepting the false claims to authority, the marketing of products over service to the people and the focus on money, is that resourceful people have successfully recaptured the home education community and submitted it back to the world. Even though the movement started with people convicted of their God-given responsibility for the teaching and training of their children, it has slowly devolved to a choice of convenience, even if it means sending the children back to school. Home educators can be just as ill-informed, narrow-minded, short-sighted, and self-centred as any other parent. When external agencies put themselves and their well being ahead of the parents’, the lines get so blurred as to make home education no longer stand out. Home education, as it was originally, is in trouble because we have lost our original reason for doing so. It has become a movement more focussed on immediate self-serving issues than with the greater purpose of preparing children for God’s Kingdom.

Part of the series The Problem
Written by Léo Gaumont, published on 2016-05-02.

This blog summarizes and concludes “The Problem” series.

We are generally all ignorant of what is actually happening around us. This ignorance can either be perpetuated and capitalized upon or fixed to empower the masses. It is time to enlighten home educators who have generally been kept in the dark respecting what is occurring within their community. (Ephesians 4: 11-16)

Bible Reference: 1 Tim 6:10

Home Education Providers have given me one of the biggest reasons for concern about the future of home education. Like most beginnings, these organizations may have had a valid part to play in supporting home education, but most, if not all, have lost this focus, to concentrate on self-preservation. Whether public, separate or private, any school’s reason for recruiting students has likely more to do with money than wanting to support home educating families. There are only three independent contracted home education specialists (ICHES) left and of them, two thought nothing of knocking out a former ICHES in a brazen effort to take out the founders, destroy the entity and steal the students. Whose job description contains that? What could possibly be the motive for such a diabolical action? Trust me, this is not “sour grapes” on my part, but bewilderment as to how these entities can on the one hand claim a Christian perspective yet behave in such a fashion that even the world found the actions to be deplorable! What is Christian about a private school and two ICHES conspiring to destroy a “brother”? Yikes!

Home Education Facilitators, if experienced in home education, having more faith in God than fear of man and in subjection to the authority of the parents, can become a real blessing to home educating families. Alternatively, if representing government or schools, or if pretending to be authorities in education, facilitators can not only provide a great deal of grief, but actually be destructive of parent-directed home education.

Home Education Organizations ostensibly created to support home education have, for the most part, taken on lives of their own. I am fond of describing bureaucracy as an animal that has learned to feed on its own young. Nearly all these entities have become so. Whether a local support group, a provincial organization or a national group, all have seemingly lost the Christ from their definition of Christian! Parents complain about the sectarian nature of local support groups which have mostly become fan clubs for certain providers whether led by the parents or by the providers themselves. Our provincial organization has become a defender of the need for ICHES’ more than of home education. A provincial home education conference that bans children is hardly a defender of family! A den of confusion which cares little for what is being offered reminds me of the merchants and money changers who moved our Lord to make a whip, is not likely putting the needs of home educators in first place. On a national level, do we really need a representative to interpret the government’s position without defending ours? Has anyone noticed how scripture, Bible, God, Lord, Jesus or any reference to Christianity is increasingly being avoided? Could it be that we do not want to alienate any potential members and corresponding income? Survival first, then ministry is backwards, isn’t it? If ministry is not first, it cannot be ministry.

Home Educators are most responsible for the downward spiral of the home education movement. Aside from being ignorant of what is really going on, apathy is worst. Home educators are often no better than the other parents in that they are primarily concerned with their own comfort without regard for the future well-being of the movement. Fathers are abdicating their authority to the delight of those who can only benefit from this error. Normalizing what is clearly in contradiction of biblical directives and common sense is no way to escape the problem. However, the biggest issue, the source of my greatest heartaches, has to be the ethic-defying demonstration of unabashed parental greed. I have seen more garbage Christianity in this area than everywhere else combined. No doubt the entire home education movement has defaulted to a movement of money, but parents could have stopped it in its tracks if not so attracted to it. I could write a book on how parents and home education providers have made a mockery of acceptable Christian behaviour when it comes to the home education funding. I have already extended this blog way beyond its usual length, so I simply want to end by saying that the home education providers’ manipulation of the parental love of money is largely to blame for the deteriorated state of home education today. If money keeps talking, God help us all!

Part of the series The Problem
Written by Léo Gaumont, published on 2016-04-25.

This blog summarizes and concludes “The Problem” series.

We are generally all ignorant of what is actually happening around us. This ignorance can either be perpetuated and capitalized upon or fixed to empower the masses. It is time to enlighten home educators who have generally been kept in the dark respecting what is occurring within their community. (Ephesians 4: 11-16)

Bible Reference: 1 Tim 6:10

Have you ever known something about someone or something and decided that it was best to say nothing? We likely all keep those secrets, thinking that we will only make things worse by spilling the beans. True, there are times, likely more often than not, when we should hold our tongues, but there are also times when the truth must be revealed. When people, a group or a movement is threatened by the silence of those who see the problem, it is imperative for those who know to make it known.

I have been a professional educator for forty years and part of the home education movement for twenty eight of them. Long enough to remember how it started and enough time to see the trends that help me predict with a reasonable amount of certainty where the movement is likely headed. I may have tended to be a bit philosophical in the recent past blogs in an attempt to say something without sounding negative or to be accused of having bad motive. Please understand that I am speaking in general terms and so not everything mentioned is applicable everywhere or all the time, but I do not believe I am doing the home education movement any good by remaining silent or by obscuring the truth as I have of late. Therefore, I am going to take a risk and tell it as it is. You may not be happy with what I will have to say. The truth is, I am not happy with having to say it! However, I believe it needs to be said, so here goes.

I listed seven agencies as part of the problem, but before I review what has been said, I want to bring in the eighth agency, the one most likely to have the greatest influence of all as it represents all. The media, for the most part, has purposefully been providing a very slanted view of things, reporting what they want you to hear and not necessarily the news. News junkies are pretty well indoctrinated into accepting, defending and advancing the modern “progressive” agenda that is both secular and socialist. Even professing Christians are at risk of being part of the problem rather than offering sound solutions through the power of the media.

Government makes claims to having authority which when accepted by parents, validates the claim and empowers the government to totalitarian rule in education. When did God give parents permission to abdicate their responsibility and to take directives regarding the teaching and training of their children from government?

The modern institutional church is compromised and therefore, sick. Not to be confused with the Church, the body and bride of Christ, modern day churches quickly give credence to government “authority” which makes them more an arm of the bureaucracy than the representatives and voice of God. A greater focus on attendance, buildings, cash, and survival has largely usurped ministry in importance. As a consequence, most churches, even if sympathetic to home education are not really supportive of it.

Schools are schools. What more can be said? In my opinion, school has devolved into the most dysfunctional institution ever created by man, unless of course, you are a believer in using it to indoctrinate the children of our society to think, say and do as directed by a secular government that desires to be God. School has so infiltrated the world as the standard format for the education of children, that most everybody simply defaults to it as the norm, not only advancing it, but defending it or trying to fix it by creating variations of the same thing.

Private schools may be private, but they are still schools. Private Christian Schools may also be private schools, but are they actually Christian? No doubt some are. However, there are certainly some for whom the talk is much different from the walk. Our personal experience this year has clearly demonstrated that the “Christian” part of a “Christian” school can most certainly be questioned. If we are to use scripture as the premise upon which to measure the validity of the claim to Christianity, one need look no further than whom the private Christian school is beholden to. A Christian school should be seeking God before government, but that is actually becoming increasingly rare these days. I have witnessed first hand as a teacher, a facilitator and home education provider that there is little faith in Christian schools today. There may be Christian curriculum, Christian teachers and Christian leaders, but when faith in God is replaced with a Christian version of secular indoctrination, there is no real life, just a more lively version of death.

Part of the series The Problem
Written by Léo Gaumont, published on 2016-04-11.

Leadership requires a goal bigger than one’s survival.

We are generally all ignorant of what is actually happening around us. This ignorance can either be perpetuated and capitalized upon or fixed to empower the masses. It is time to enlighten home educators who have generally been kept in the dark respecting what is occurring within their community. (Ephesians 4: 11-16)

Bible Reference: Romans 12:2

It is pretty well a given that human institutions start with good reason and purpose. It seems that as long as the original founders are active, they are able to remind others of the initial objectives, but once the institution starts to move into its second generation, the collective memory starts to fade, remembering less about “why” it was created and focussing more on “how” it is to survive. Sometimes, the “how” eclipses the “why” in importance and it metamorphoses into something entirely different from the original.

Once again, it is important for me to reiterate that my purpose is to expose issues that go largely unnoticed, not to sweep everything with the same brush of negative judgements. Before we begin our discussion of home education organizations, there are a few characteristics about institutions that must first be clarified.

To start, it is important to understand that institutions are constructs of man and not God. They may appear to be the same as jurisdictions created by God, such as man’s government as opposed to God’s government, but these similarities are only superficial. Another thing about institutions is that they are mostly ruled by committee, referred to as a board, usually made up of well meaning, if not misinformed and inexperienced volunteers desiring to serve their fellow man, but occasionally also by individuals wanting to advance more self-serving causes. Either way, it is important to understand that institutions are constructed by man and led by his appointed, as opposed to jurisdictions which are constructed by God and led by His anointed.

Home education organizations can be national, provincial or local, such as home education support groups. Everyone of these levels have important parts to play within the home education community. However, in keeping with the natural tendency to lose sight of original objectives, any of these organizations may become something that was not intended in the first place. Assuming the original objective to be to advance, protect and defend parental freedom in education with an emphasis on educating children at home in keeping with a Christian world view, one has to question if home education organizations may not have lost some of their original reason for being.

If a home education organization advances questionable objectives, such as how to measure students by the world’s standards; or how to outperform the world’s schools; or that we should strive for worldly recognition or values in employment and position; or to have the biggest or best convention; or to become an arm of a particular home education provider or some other cause leading people away from truth and faith in God, does it truly have Christian home education at heart or has the objective become more a matter of maintaining or increasing membership towards survival?

As home education organizations at any level adopt faulty premises, leading to wrong objectives, do they not also lose their usefulness? If belonging to a club is contingent on being alike rather than like-minded, is it not essentially doing what the schools we are trying to escape are doing? Each level of home education organization has unwittingly created barriers to those who do not subscribe to their way of thinking. They may not beat up opponents, but are not above ignoring them or “blacklisting” them as potentially dangerous to the cause, which is usually self-preservation by the time it gets to this point. Not to worry, though. If you are one who does not ask potentially embarrassing questions, pay your dues and adopt what the leadership advises, you should be okay. However, if you are one who believes the organization is headed in the wrong direction and if you are not bashful about saying so, you could find yourself being viewed as an enemy of the very institution originally created by people who thought as you do. Such is the nature of institutions, whether they subscribe to a Christian world view or not. If these organizations put themselves in positions of leadership, perhaps it is time we ask how and where they intend to lead us!