Homeschooling is for who?

The Quick 10: 10 Famous Homeschooled People
by Stacy Conradt - November 17, 2008 - 3:59 PM

1. Agatha Christie. Agatha was a painfully shy girl, so her mom homeschooled her even though her two older siblings attended private school.
2. Pearl S. Buck was born in West Virginia, but her family moved to China when she was just three months old. She was homeschooled by a Confucian scholar and learned English as a second language from her mom.
3. Alexander Graham Bell was homeschooled by his mother until he was about 10. It was at this point that she started to go deaf and didn’t feel she could properly educate him any more. Her deafness inspired Bell to study acoustics and sound later in life.
4. If Thomas Edison was around today, he would probably be diagnosed with ADD – he left public school after only three months because his mind wouldn’t stop wandering. His mom homeschooled him after that, and he credited her with the success of his education: “My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me; and I felt I had something to live for, someone I must not disappoint.”
5. Ansel Adams was homeschooled at the age of 12 after his “wild laughter and undisguised contempt for the inept ramblings of his teachers” disrupted the classroom. His father took on his education from that point forward.
6. Robert Frost hated school so much he would get physically ill at the thought of going. He was homeschooled until his high school years.
7. Woodrow Wilson studied under his dad, one of the founders of the Southern Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS). He didn’t learn to read until he was about 12. He took a few classes at a school in Augusta, Georgia, to supplement his father’s teachings, and ended up spending a year at Davidson College before transferring to Princeton.
8. Mozart was educated by his dad as the Mozart family toured Europe from 1763-1766.
9. Laura Ingalls Wilder was homeschooled until her parents finally settled in De Smet in what was then Dakota Territory. She started teaching school herself when she was only 15 years old.
10. Louisa May Alcott studied mostly with her dad, but had a few lessons from family friends Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Can you imagine?

Thoughts on Public Schools vs Christian Schools

Mat 6:24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot, serve8 God and mammon.

If you allow the government to pick up your children. The public school spends years training and teaching your precious ones to serve the public system as their master. Is it any wonder that when they graduate they hate the other? Now this is not always the rule, and I am sure there are exceptions. I am sorry to say that this is more the case than not.

Although many values-minded parents ultimately choose to send their children to public schools, it’s occasionally worth a side-by-side comparison between public and Christian schooling just so you know what you’re getting for your educational dollar. Discover Christian Schools (the public-relations arm of the Mid-Atlantic Christian Schools Association) recently released such a comparison.

The contrast is presents as follows…

Purpose

Public Schools: To prepare citizens for a humanistic society that tolerates all lifestyle.

Christian Schools: To prepare citizens for the Kingdom of God who are equipped to spread the Gospel.

Content of Education
Public Schools: Humanism – no values are absolute and no truth is final.

Christian Schools: All of life is studied in submission to the Word of God and its precepts.

Control of Education
Public Schools: The State determines the content and methods of education.

Christian Schools: The schools functions in loco parentis, reinforcing and supporting parental values.

Science
Public Schools: Naturalism - everything comes from matter, time, and chance.

Christian Schools: God is the Creator and Sustainer of all things; science involves knowing God through knowing His world.

History
Public Schools: Controlled either by autonomous man or by an impersonal process.

Christian Schools: Controlled by an omnipotent God who knows the end from the beginning.

Math
Public Schools: A tool that is useful because it seems to work in manipulating the natural world.

Christian Schools: A reflection of the mind of an orderly God who has made us in His image to understand His world.

English
Public Schools: Literature must be representative of all cultures, which are seen as having equal value, and has no inherent meaning.

Christian Schools: Students are exposed to a variety of quality literature, which is appreciated as a demonstration of common grace and interpreted in the light of God’s Word.

Teachers
Public Schools: Varied backgrounds - Christianity or some other religion, humanism, atheism; may be straight or gay.

Christian Schools: Born-again, committed believers seeking to model Christ before their students.

Rules
Public Schools: Determined by state and federal laws and guidelines.

Christian Schools: Determined by God’s Word and its moral standards.

Peers
Public Schools: Varied religious backgrounds, often receiving little moral instruction or values at home or church.

Christian Schools: Students from Christian homes who are there because their parents support Christian values.

While this comparison may be helpful, there are many other factors that go into parents’ decision making, such as the availability of local Christian schooling. Furthermore, not all Christian schools should be considered quality just because there’s a cross and steeple on the roof. Some parents, such as ourselves, even choose to home school. My home state Senator and friend, Senator Star recently said regardng the Portland Public School system that parents should "run and not walk" away from the public school system to private and homeschooling. He came under fire for saying this but many know how disfunctional the schooling system has become.


Research your educational options. It’s the child’s parents who know what’s best for the child — not politicians, bureaucrats, teacher labor unions, corporations or even supposedly wise college professors.