Should Christians abandon public education and home school?
he1ididog asked:
I have many friends who home school or educate their children in privately. I also have several friends who no longer teach because of the violence, immorality, lack of parental involvement and overall dysfunction in public schools. They also bemoan the secular, politically correct agenda. I was educated in public schools, but not the same schools that exist today. If I had children; I would home school or send them to a private school. What is your opinion?
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I have many friends who home school or educate their children in privately. I also have several friends who no longer teach because of the violence, immorality, lack of parental involvement and overall dysfunction in public schools. They also bemoan the secular, politically correct agenda. I was educated in public schools, but not the same schools that exist today. If I had children; I would home school or send them to a private school. What is your opinion?
June 28th, 2009 at 9:09 am
Sure, keep them away from other kids so there’s no distractions and talk of imaginary friends.
I should clarify: School is for learning. Not religious indoctrination. If you’re there to learn, religion doesn’t factor into it, but if you’re there to preach, you don’t need to be distracting the other kids from learning.
June 30th, 2009 at 7:06 am
not its not smart. Most moms dk art, music, all that and they need friends and someone teaching who has a degree..
July 3rd, 2009 at 4:14 pm
if i had kids i would…or at least go to a private school.
July 4th, 2009 at 12:06 am
Someday the kids will have to live in a world that has non-christians.
I recommend public school. There are some bad apples but they are mostly OK.
July 4th, 2009 at 6:30 am
A young woman teacher with obvious liberal tendencies explains to her class of small children that she is an atheist. She asks her class if they are atheists too. Not really knowing what atheism is but wanting to be like their teacher, their hands explode into the air like fleshy fireworks.
There is, however, one exception. A beautiful girl named Lucy has not gone along with the crowd. The teacher asks her why she has decided to be different.
“Because I’m not an atheist.”
Then, asks the teacher, “What are you?”
“I’m a Christian.”
The teacher is a little perturbed now, her face slightly red. She asks Lucy why she is a Christian.
“Well, I was brought up knowing and loving Jesus. My mom is a Christian, and my dad is a Christian, so I am a Christian.”
The teacher is now angry. “That’s no reason,” she says loudly.
“What if your mom was a moron, and your dad was a moron. What would you be then?”
She paused, and smiled. “Then,” says Lucy, “I guess I’d be an atheist.”
EDIT:
It’s just a joke - lighten up people.
July 7th, 2009 at 10:45 am
works for me.
July 10th, 2009 at 4:49 am
what’s the point in that?
Teach them and let them choose their own believes
how bout that?
July 12th, 2009 at 10:09 am
” what? Ignorance is bliss? where then would you suggest? “
July 15th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Wait, what’s wrong with being politically correct?
TEH DEADLY KITTEH HAZ SPOKANE!
July 19th, 2009 at 12:34 am
Christians should have a little island in the middle of the Pacific where they can fight amongst themselves in peace.
As for home schooling, it is a sure fire way of maintaining ignorance.
Taoist/Atheist (highly educated away from home)
July 22nd, 2009 at 2:31 am
I’m totally going to homeschool my kids, but it’s not because I think what they would learn in school is too secular or “politically correct”, it’s because I want to be close with my children and I think they’ll get a better education if they are homeschooled. Homeschooling has been shown time and time again in studies to be superior to government education AND private education.
July 25th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
thats between them and god but i think most would just be in regular school because they have the responsability to show the kinda attitude that other kids should behave and give testimony so i think it depends on the parents as well
July 27th, 2009 at 11:12 am
I’ve only met one person who was home schooled, she worked at a place I did. She was shy, and had the look of domestic abuse on her, but she was a very intelligent and well-read girl.
July 30th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
Home schooling has become very popular.
August 2nd, 2009 at 10:14 pm
I’m sure there are plenty of shitty schools out there, but even the ones I’ve seen that are at worst poorly lacking in eduction… don’t come close to the evil ideal the fearful have in their heads. My kids have been in their fair share of schools, in different parts of the country and I attended parochial, public and charter schools in my youth. Nothing horrific happened. Not that bad things don’t happen, but if you shield your child from the realities of the world, then you set them up for shell shock in adulthood. You do them a disservice.
That being said, you are going to do what you feel is best as a parent, and that is your right. Just know that your overblown idea of evil schools is mostly in your head.
August 3rd, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Christians (I’m one of them) should get their religion from their church and their education from their school. Public schools are, for the most part, fine. Private schools are always an option.
I think children miss out on too much if they are home schooled.
August 5th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Parent involvement varies a lot from school-to-school, I want my child to go somewhere where she is expected to be politically correct and secular- I want her to get a larger scope than just the things I know and believe. Then agaon, I am not christian and like my parents before me, I want my child to turn out even a better person than myself.
August 6th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
I agree and I came to this conclusion 20 years ago.
Edit to Rod B.
Home schooled children consistently get the highest scores on standardized tests such as the ACT and SAT.
Every major university who keeps track of such statistics knows that home schooled students get the best grades at the university.
Two years ago a young man who was home schooled, not only got good grades at the U of Florida, but he won the Heisman Trophy, while a college sophomore.
After the Heisman Trophy was awarded last December to a college senior, the following month that senior’s team played the U of Florida, and that home schooled boy from Florida cleaned the field.
That home schooled boy from Florida, did so, wearing John 3:16 etched into his face paint.
In a couple of months, that home schooled boy from Florida, whose parents are missionaries to the Philippines, will return to the Swamp for his senior year.
The name of that home schooled boy is Tim Tebow.
August 9th, 2009 at 4:45 am
If splintering the country into radicalized religous factions is the overall goal- I say home schooling for all Christians would be a pretty effective means towards this end.
We should focus on bringing people together, not factionalizing them based on faith.
August 11th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Depends on the county. I think Children should be home schooled or online schooled regardless of their religious affiliation. I think that gives them the ability to be with people with similar beliefs and learn slimier beliefs. I also see that schools tend to overstep their boundaries with education.
August 13th, 2009 at 11:59 am
My opinion is that homeschooling generally makes kids naive and antisocial. The parents are hiding them and sheilding them from the real world. When these children have to be adults…how will they survive at work? It doesn’t make sense…they are going to be exposed to it and have no idea how to cope. This is not the case of all home schooled kids…but I’m just thinking of one group I know in particular. I feel bad for them because now as adults they can’t deal with reality. They don’t know how to properly socialize with people because their parent’s basically kept them inside or at church for their entire childhood.
I”m Christian, but I think that life was meant to be enjoyed and lived. Not lived in ignorance.
August 13th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
If God leads you to homeschool: go for it!
I homeschool my children and love it, and so do they!
It depends on what’s right for ur family
August 17th, 2009 at 12:28 am
Well, the world needs ditch diggers too.
August 18th, 2009 at 9:50 am
my opinion is this:
as long as the parents teach their own morals and values to their children, there shouldn’t be a problem. if you, as a parent, equip your children with the tools to hold true to what you and your family values, then nothing can break that.
children need to be in the world. keeping them separate may seem like a good idea, but it can harm them in the long run.
one day, all of this will change and there will be tolerance for all people in the public school system.
August 21st, 2009 at 4:36 am
That’s just great. Instead of fixing the problem, just abandon the kids whose folks don’t have time to home-school and can’t afford private education. No Rich Child Left Behind. FAIL.
August 21st, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Christians are supposed to be the salt of the earth, but if the salt is removed, decay sets in.
In other words, bad things happen when good people do nothing, and a person who removes their children from the public school system also abdicates their rights to have a say how the school system should be run.
If a parent is willing to work with the child through the lies being taught, the child can get an education and still get the truth, and the door remains open to the parent to speak up when needed.
August 23rd, 2009 at 5:55 am
You should only home school your children if you are fully capable of providing them with a genuine education. Learning is a process of discovery, and children should be encouraged to explore, discover, learn from their mistakes. Teachers in public school for the most part are well trained and educated and have the ability to foster such learning for students which parents often cannot. Being a parent does not automatically make one the best professor and I think that when people who aren’t qualified home school their children they are making a sacrifice. If you have a degree in teaching and truly are qualified to teach at home than that is one thing… if not…
There is still Sunday school and church for all other purposes.
August 25th, 2009 at 1:46 am
I think it’s all a bit dramatic. I attend public schools and it really isn’t that bad. There are fights, drugs, pregnancy, and bombs threats in my school just like every other one, but they don’t affect me in any way. It depends on who the child surrounds himself with.
—–
And contrary to popular Christian belief, teachers don’t evade the school-religion line, unless they’re Christians of course…I’ve never had a teacher tell me to believe what they believe like the little anecdote someone wrote above. That’s just ridiculous.
August 26th, 2009 at 5:36 am
Well, they teach science in public schools, and science is pure evil, so I would home school my kids and teach them about how donkeys and snakes and bushes can talk, and humans can live inside of a fish stomach for 3 days, and a man made a boat that fit 2 of every living animal AND plant, and there were people who lived to be 900 years old, and there were people who were raised from the dead, and there was a guy that could walk on top of water.
August 26th, 2009 at 7:54 am
It’s ultimately your decision, but my opinion is that you remove them from the schools immediately. I’m glad the public school system didn’t fool another mom into thinking their kids are safe when all there is in front of their children’s eyes is a parade of immorality and bad behavior.
August 28th, 2009 at 10:21 am
Being sheltered by Christian morals and values and mommy’s love does NOT prepare one for the real world.
Being yourself is great, but you have to be prepared to face the real world, know when to shut up, know when to speak up, know when to do something, etc.
August 30th, 2009 at 4:36 am
it depends on personal choice the parent has to make the decision.
August 30th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Why so you can pick and choose what parts of history and facts get omitted because they prove your belief to be wrong. I dont think kids should be home schooled unless the parent home schooling is a licensed teacher, and on top of that, you need to socialize you kids, and bringing them just to church is not true socialization, unless you fear that they will grow up and not be the clone’s you want them to be. Let kids be kids, no need for home schooling!
September 1st, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Sure, if they don’t want to get into any good colleges or learn how to cope with life on their own. My nephews are in this situation, and neither of them (22 and 18) can manage on their own - they’ve been too sheltered. I don’t think either of them has even been on a date yet, their mother thinks its too dangerous for them to take public transportation but wasn’t willing to teach either of them how to drive, and their entire social life is their church group.
September 2nd, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Actually - Red, some things that public school teach do go against my Christian beliefs, evolution, for one. And, school is not the best place to learn how to socialize. There are tons of misfits there. I rather my children play with Christian children.
September 2nd, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Public schools vary widely from place to place.
My daughter just graduated from the 4th grade at a local elementary school.
She went to Kindergarten and 1st grade at a catholic school, and then 2-4 in public school.
We are considering homeschooling her next year, rather than sending her to the public middle school.
She is intelligent, bright, artistic, and creative, so I don’t think she will have any problem. My wife is a college english teacher too, so she has the credentials to teach.
I will be involved too, since my field is science, engineering, computers, and mathematics. She will most likely get a lot out of the individual attention, and we are still planning on having her in some home-schooling co-ops or other social activities to keep her from being isolated.
It will be interesting to see how it works out. In the long run, I believe she will benefit greatly.
Most of the home-schooled children I know do pretty well, although some of the ones that do it for purely religious reasons don’t tend to be making decisions in their childs best interest.
September 3rd, 2009 at 12:42 am
We have many teachers in our family, an honorable profession. But we have yet to see a REAL history book on history. Too much political thumbs in the pie and not enough people with the guts to speak out and make it right. And now with so many new immigrants from many races, countries and faiths, we will have books with blank pages.
I home schooled for a few years because they didn’t have the right books, left out the math, learning to budget, sew, cook, fix things, handwriting, real history (especially the truth of Thanksgiving and the traitor, Jackson and the Trail of Tears, for starters), or the real history of Alexander Hamilton or Mark Twain or even Ghandi or the real reasons for our revolutionary war or the mistaken Spanish-American war, etc. And English, we had to read books weekly, now they think it is great a kid reads 1 book a month. Yes, many have turned to home-schooling until I could find a private one that addressed global history, survival skills for this generation, and how to plan for a real job. In NYC, the Japanese have their own schools, so do some of the Chinese, most Muslims and there are many others that find our system so poor, some send their kids back to their homeland for their education.
September 5th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
well my children go to private school , but one IS because were Christan’s two is because FL public school’s sux big time. third is because if someones going to shoot my kids i want it to be me lmbo
but mostly because FL SCHOOLS SUX !!!
September 8th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Yes, I think that kids would really be better off home schooled or in private school.
I was home schooled from grades one to ten. Yea, I lacked social skills, but I was a heck of a lot smarter than the other kids in public school. Actually, I’m not really sure if it was that I was smart or that they were just REALLY dumb. I think it was a mixture of both….. sorry, I don’t mean to sound cocky:P
I graduated when I was seventeen. I’m nineteen now and going to college majoring in English:)
Edit: Hold on, are we talking about getting a good education in math, history, science, english, and all those other subjects, or are we talking about getting a good education in Christ? Because I’m kinda getting the feeling that I missed the point…..
September 12th, 2009 at 4:44 am
Well look at the history and violence of religion.
Christianity continues to violate human/civil rights. The majority of hate groups in the US consist of Christians.
Federal hate crime bills had to be established to control the religious people using their interpretation of the bible to comment heinous crimes.
Geoffry Dahlmer was home schooled and a good christian boy….look how he turned out. Killing and eating homosexual boys.
Religion can be harmful and detrimental humans.
Look at the headlines on Yahoo today….as is the usual….
Christians murdering doctors. Christians shooting people at holocaust museum. Christians buying kidnapped babies from Guatemala and won’t return them to their real families. Christians hating homosexuals.
Religion should definitely be kept out of Politics and public schools system. It just adds to problems. Home school if you want religion to be a priority but don’t equate Christianity or any other religion to goodness when it/they are not.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
I personally have a strong opinion about this. My boyfriend and his siblings were home schooled until they reached second grade and then attended private Christian schools for middle school and high school, except in my boyfriends case where he went to public school for highschool so he could play sports. I on the other hand attended public school from kindergarten all the way through highschool.
With all of this information, when I have children they will attend the best schools in the area, christian or public. I know that despite having taken education courses in college, and working in curriculum wwriting, I would not be the best teacher for my children. I would not be able to teach my children the social skills critical for successful interaction in the real world. In addition to this, while religion is important it is not the end all be all when it comes to education. Concepts such as science which are traditionally attacked by adament christians are an important aspect of understanding our world. While concepts, such as evolution, may be considered contradictory to the bible, I personally find it presumptuous to believe that we can understand how the universe works. To that end I feel that knowledge is important, whether you agree with it or not, in order for children to be able to formulate educated world visions. I know that I was taught that evolution was the only explanation, and yet I still believe in creation. Knowledge does not hurt children, ignorance does, and ignorance is what is bred when children are taught by incompetant teachers or sheltered from the world.
This does not mean that private school, home school, or public school is necessarily incapable of educating children, I just know that it takes a special kind of person to home school, and certain public schools are better than private schools and vice versa. I have great respect for anyone who can home school their children, I encourage joining a homeschool network if you do so as to expand your child’s horizons. If you think about it, your child can learn no more than their teacher, and I acknowledge that I don’t know everything. I don’t want my children to end as little clones of myself, and I could never teach them concepts such as science or math, or even history outside of my very small sphere of expertise.
If you are worried about certain concepts not being taught in schools, remember that your job as a parent does not defer to the teachers of your child’s school. You can still be their teacher out side of school. Infact morals, religion, etc. are left out of school curriculums specifically for this reason so that you can instill the virtues, morals and beliefs of your own culture in your child outside of school.
Research which the best option is for your area, it is not always the same from place to place. Talk to the administrators and teachers before make your decision, it does not need to be a blind decision. And in the end, make the choice that is best for YOU, not your friends, your pastor, or even us here on our little soap boxes.