A Clarion Call for Christian Isolationism
Scott on November 1, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Now that Ingrid Schlueter is back posting at Slice of Laodicea, we are being treated to a classic example of her “us -vs- them” mentality. This time, she is advocating a wholesale withdrawal from the public education school system. This clarion call of isolationism was prompted when California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed two bills aimed at dealing with issues connected to sexual orientation, sexual preference, etc.
In no way am I endorsing these two bills (SB 777 and AB 394). According to the Canadian Free Press:
SB 777 prohibits any “instruction” or school- sponsored “activity” that “promotes a discriminatory bias” against “gender” (the bill’s definition includes cross-dressing and sex changes) and “sexual orientation” (the bill’s definition includes bisexuality). Because no textbook or instruction in California public schools currently disparages transsexuality, bisexuality, or homosexuality, the practical effect of SB 777 will be to require positive portrayals of these sexual lifestyles at every government-operated school. Otherwise, “discriminatory” schools will be subject to intimidation and lawsuits by the State Department of Education.
Now, in case Ingrid or one of her cohorts happen to read this post, let me prevent them from misconstruing what I am saying by being perfectly clear: I am IN NO WAY endorsing these two bills or what they stand for. I am not in favor of the homosexual agenda in any way shape or form.
That being said, I am taking a stand against the way of thinking exhibited by Ms. Schlueter and those like her. According to Ingrid:
Sending our Christian children to the atheists, the evolutionists, the activists who seek acceptance of sexual perversity is simply wrong.
If Ingrid spent any time in a public school classroom or spent time speaking with a cross-section of public school teachers, she would discover the following:
1) There are very few teachers who are atheists, and those who are don’t tend to be vocal about it. Unless they are teaching something like science, the curriculum doesn’t provide much leeway to spread the “anti-gospel.”
2) There are definitely more evolutionists than there are atheists, but even those are few in number. As with the small numbers who are atheists, unless they are teaching science there isn’t much room to spread the “evolutionary word” in Math, Science and History. (In fact, I have encountered many more theistic evolutionists in my time teaching than I have atheistic evolutionists. I know that Ingrid doesn’t believe that theistic evolution is even a consideration. I’m just saying…)
3) In terms of activism, the majority of teachers in the public schools are NOT activist about anything. They simply want to be good teachers. And those who ARE activists tend to focus their activism on union issues like pension, health benefits and salary. There are few open homosexuals in the teaching profession. The few who are openly gay do probably tend to be more activist-oriented, but they do more harm to their cause then good by being very over-the-top and “unsubtle” in the absurdity of their positions.
Again, to be clear…isn’t that I am saying that there are no atheists, evolutionists, activists or homosexuals. I am saying that if you could pull together hard data you would find that all together these types of teachers add up to less than 5% of the entire profession. Though what I am presenting here is certainly anecdotal, I would bet that many of the teachers who frequent this blog would back me up on what I am saying.
Ingrid goes further and adds:
The idiotic idea that our kindergarteners will go off and be “salt and light” to their lesbian teachers is finally being exposed for what it is.
What’s odd about this is that her admonition against what she claims is idiotic seems to fall apart in light of Christ’s words in Matthew 5:13-16 which she alludes to:
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”
Ingrid sets up a strawman with the whole idea of kindergarteners going off to be salt and light to their lesbian teachers. To the best of my knowledge, nobody is advocating sending a kindergartener in to debate their teacher regarding issues of sexual orientation, evolution, atheism, etc. Ingrid is just being disingenuous.
She further tries to muddy the waters with this outrageous image:
No Israelite general in his right mind would have sent off a regiment of little children to face the Assyrian army.
While she is stating the obvious, she is doing so while trying to make an emotional connection by making an analogy between the violence and brutality of battle and the collision of ideas and morality within the classroom. As she does this, she seems to have forgotten about a Biblical example of a boy who was, indeed, sent in to battle and with a giant no less:
I Samuel 17:4-7 & 12-14
A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. He was over nine feet tall. He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels; on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. His spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels……Now David was the son of an Ephrathite named Jesse, who was from Bethlehem in Judah. Jesse had eight sons, and in Saul’s time he was old and well advanced in years. Jesse’s three oldest sons had followed Saul to the war: The firstborn was Eliab; the second, Abinadab; and the third, Shammah. David was the youngest.
As often happens with Ingrid, she seems to have supplanted God’s wisdom with her own. I guess if she had been calling the shots back in the days of Israel, she would have made sure that little David was in his father’s tent “being nurtured.” I guess God sucked as the chief general of the Israelite army.
Obviously it is essential that Christian children be raised with as much training as possible in the things of the faith. I have nothing against Christian schools in general. In fact, I attended an amazing Christian school in Seattle, WA that competed with the most rigorous private prep schools in the area. I also have nothing against home schooling. I have known some very academically astute home-schooled students over the years.
Unfortunately, the really solid Christian schools and the really solid home-schooled students are few and far between. Many Christian schools are weak academically and use substandard curriculum that is cheaper and/or that has been created by Christians who aren’t educators and/or who try to sanitize the curriculum in an effort to Christianize the subject matter. Many (if not most) parents who home-school their children end up as lazy teachers, which in turn promotes rote-learning and not critical thinking in their children. Ingrid seems very excited about her son’s curriculum as she says:
My son has delightful, master teachers and a rigorous curriculum, and I don’t have to do the teaching. He has a laptop where he watches his DVD teacher, and then he does his homework for the subject.
What kills me is the “…and I don’t have to do the teaching.” The problem here is that a curriculum can’t be rigorous if there is no actual face-to-face engagement with a knowledgeable teacher or an engaged parent. THAT is what teaching is all about! Sure, there can be information that is presented in an engaging way with cool graphics, music, etc. But besides just rote learning, how is he developing critical thinking? What kind of discussions is he having with the DVD? How can the DVD take him further/deeper into the curriculum by asking him follow-up questions based on answers to questions he has presented and come up with on his own?
I’m sure Ingrid would agree that it is her job as the parent to take things to the next level, but most parents don’t and wouldn’t know how to even if they wanted to. And Ingrid’s comment seems to indicate that she doesn’t take things that far, either. Based on how Ingrid conducts herself at Slice, I’m willing to bet that discussions between her and her son would be pretty one-sided, with her guiding him to the “right” answer and him wanting to give her what he knows she wants. Honestly, that may not be a fair characterization but the way she conducts herself at Slice speaks volumes.
I can’t tell you the number of home-schooled students I’ve had over the years who come into the “public school” classroom after years at home. The vast majority of the time these students can’t carry on a discussion. They aren’t able to see both sides of an argument. They can’t engage in dialogue and in taking their thoughts and ideas to the next, deeper level. Their critical thinking skills are weak and their logic is almost non-existent, mainly because they have been fed a one-sided, one-position, one note stream of curriculum that doesn’t offer any subtlety or nuance or any variety in shades of meaning.
Besides all of this, since when has God ever called for removing ourselves from the world? “In the world but not of the world” isn’t just a cute little catch phrase. Though the sentiment has become cheesy over the years, it is still true: Sometimes, you’re the only Jesus some will ever see. The kindergarten child that Ingrid alluded to earlier may not be in the position to deal with the teacher (maybe lesbian but most likely not), but the parents of the kindergartener sure are in the position to engage that teacher over the course of the year and during the time their child attends the school. Parents have a tremendous amount of influence in schools and in the classroom, and the more involved the parents are the more weight they carry at the school.
What Ingrid is advocating virtually guarantees that Christian parents will have no influence in ANY public classroom anywhere. Their voices and their views will never be represented. She is forgetting that the families who are not Christian STILL benefit from the influence of Christian families because it is the families of faith who ensure that craziness like “Steve has 2 Daddies” isn’t the norm in education. It is the families of faith who stand up against the Governor of California and say “This isn’t right.” If Christian families across the nation have pulled their children out of the public schools, how likely are they to get involved in this current SB 777 / AB384 fight or other fights like this across the country? Not very. Why should they get involved when they don’t have a dog in the fight?
In the church we attend we talk about our calling to be the “conduit of blessing” to the world. This touches on the idea that as the Lord shines His light in us and through us, we then send out His light into the world. We befriend. We touch. We minister. We play. We serve. We go. We do. Jesus’ charge in Matthew isn’t an abstract concept. It is framed in the real world setting of the Be Attitudes…how we are to conduct ourselves as we live our lives and how we are to treat our friends and family and co-workers and enemies. How can we be a conduit of blessing to the world when we have withdrawn from it? How can we be a conduit of blessing into the schools, a conductor of the light and love and grace of God, if we never show up there in the first place?
(PLEASE NOTE: In the name of full disclosure, I will say that our two youngest began attending a Christian school this year for various reasons, though they will attend public high school when the time comes (as does our oldest child now). We were not motivated out of a fear of our children being tainted by the world. We do our best to both educate them and inform them regarding things of the faith. We discuss the Bible. We pray. We engage them in discussions about how the Christian faith should look in “the real world.” We do the best we can. But at the same time, having attended a fantastic Christian school in Seattle I wanted our kids to have the same opportunity for a quality education colored by a set of close relationships with other students and with teachers. I wanted them to be able to have a rigorous curriculum that also approached life from a faith perspective. I also appreciated that they would interact with a great Bible curriculum that wasn’t just fluff. This was especially exciting for me when thinking about our middle child who is especially sensitive and “in tune” with the things of the Spirit. Also, our youngest child has some other issues that could be better addressed in a small school/private setting than they could in the public school.)
I think that in the end Ingrid is so afraid of being tainted, of having her view of the world challenged in any way, that she thinks that is how all parents should feel about their children…guard them, shelter them, keep them close and in the dark. I’ve seen too many times when that method of thinking leads to a reality shock when the guarded/sheltered/ignorant children have to interact with the real world (either in the work place or in college or somewhere else “out there”) and their hearts and minds and souls reel from the impact. Never having had to deal with the world in anything but abstract terms, they are almost defenseless as their sheltered upbringings never prepared them for how sly and seductive and enticing the world can be. Never having had to deal with the world in anything other than in abstract terms, they aren’t prepared for the eloquence of atheism and humanism or for the temptations of hedonism and ambition.
Obviously the public school system doesn’t prepare a Christian child in Christian terms for dealing with the world in the context of their faith. The Church and a Christian home does that. But at the same time, an educational experience carried out in seclusion and isolation rarely provides the type of rigorous mental, intellectual, social, psychological and philosophical workout that enables a child to grow into a man or woman of God who is able to stand in the middle of the maelstrom and cry out that God is their rock and their fortress and on Him alone do they stand.
Category: News |
Really?
I think you’re deluding yourself if you believe that any public school provides a ” rigorous mental, intellectual, social, psychological and philosophical workout .”
I know where I live, that is a completely laughable statement.
State sets low test standards
Reading gap is nation’s worst
~Heather
November 1, 2007 @ 5:59 pmHey E.W.M., Can we buy the Cliffs Notes version of this?
November 1, 2007 @ 6:50 pmYuk it up, mister quiet guy! I could have shortened it up and in fact my original version was about 1/3 shorter. But then I realized that if I left out some things, Ingrid or one of her minions would breeze on through, make sweeping generalizations and accusations regarding what I had said, and then swoop out again. I just thought I should try and be as clear as possible in what I was talking about. And besides, I am pretty sure that I have written longer posts before now!
November 1, 2007 @ 10:16 pmScott – I don’t really have any experience of Christian schools or the US education system, but I agree with you about salt and light, and what you say all makes sense to me. My question is what can be gained by engaging with Ingrid and Slice? Does anyone of what we might call the ‘Slice mindset’ ever change their minds about anything?
I got cross with myself a while back for perpetuating that dialog with John ( the guy with the blog called True Discernment) because, even when faced with conclusive proof that he was wrong, his response was just to stonewall and say we were all going to hell. You might as well debate a laptop and a DVD. Hang on, no, some DVDs have interactive features. You get my point, though.
November 2, 2007 @ 2:17 amWell, it seems that Ingrid is of the “one size fits all” wing of Christianity. Belief in certain doctrines is absolutely essential to Christianity, and there are certain standards that, I believe, anyone self-identifying as a born again Christian should adhere to; however, how to educate your children is certainly NOT one of them. This is a personal issue dependent upon many factors. Our daughter attends a small Baptist school. I understand the point about “salt and light” and it is certainly valid. But I do have to say that the public school system does appear to be hell-bent on driving the truth right out of the curriculum. Just take a gander at the history text books. Our daughter would probably do very well in the public school system, however, our desire is that she be taught the truth, not “pc” lies.
On a side note, my daughter and I attended a volley ball game at our local public high school. After the game, we were confronted with the sickening sight of a male student doing the “perp walk” right down the main hallway while clutching his private parts in his hand. Oh. My. God. I thought I would die of embarrassment. Not one adult confronted this kid. So, I guess this is acceptable behaviour in a public high school?
If so, I just pray the Lord continues to make it possible for us to send our daughter to Christian school.
November 2, 2007 @ 4:36 amAnother reason for Christian Schools – the Montgomery County, Maryland council is considering an “open door” locker room and restroom policy for public schools – apparently to satisfy the demands of the enormous transgender demographic. I am a resident of Maryland. What happens up around the beltway gradually moves to the rest of the state. I think I’ll keep my daughter in Christian school.
November 2, 2007 @ 7:13 amHeather,
Wow! Some pretty strong words! I wasn’t trying to paint an overly positive view of public education. There are PLENTY of flaws in the system and I could spend hours enumerating on those flaws. The point that I was trying to make is that, contrary to what Ingrid (and you it seems) is implying, learning IS taking place most of the time in most of the schools around the country. Yes, in most schools there are things that probably could be taught better. There always are. But there are so many things that ARE being done right. Teachers have to deal with so much more now than they did 20-30-40 years ago. It isn’t just about basic reading and writing anymore. Students are expected to have technology skills, speaking skills, reading skills that cover a variety of modes, writing skills that cover a variety of modes, etc. They have to deal with students who have a variety of interpersonal and developmental issues that were rarely seen in the classroom 30+ years ago. In border states like California, teachers may be working in a classroom in which there are 3 or 4 or even 5 major language groups represented. And yet learning still goes on.
Obviously things seem bleak to you living in Wisconsin. Do you have children in the public school system there? If so, what grades? I am blessed to live in California, which has some of the highest standards in the nation, though it is also a curse because with unreasonably high standards come a large number of students who can’t achieve them (especially in the illegal immigrant populations). To be honest, the problem with the field of education is that there are so many variables to deal with and sift through. Scores are never JUST scores. Test results are never cut-and-dried numbers and percentages. There are a variety of factors that influence categories and classifications, test outcomes and evaluations – ethnicity, socioeconomic level, parents’ level of education, location of residence, type of residence, two parent/one parent household, etc, etc, etc.
One of the things I point out to people is the fact that in the U.S., public education is compulsory and NON-exclusionary, meaning that everyone has to go and we turn nobody away. We make room for everyone. When the U.S. school system is compared to other countries, this is never taken into account. Most of the countries in the world do not have compulsory education, nor do they have to accept any and all comers. Some countries have higher test scores and high academic levels of achievement, but they do so because they do not test those on the “lower” end of the academic scale. They only test those who are at a specified level of academic ability and at a certain level of socioeconomic achievement.
While the articles you linked to certainly paint a dark picture of things, let me caution you. Newspapers have agendas that they want to push regardless of the facts. School boards and unions have agendas they want to push as well. Rather than just taking the word of an organization whose motives might be suspect, go directly to the data and see for yourself.
If you go to the College Board site, you can view the page dealing with college bound high school seniors. It is a page with links to .pdf reports. Wisconsin’s numbers are not NEAR as bad as the articles you linked to make them out to be.
The information reported by the State of Wisconsin Department of Instruction indicates that Wisconsin SAT scores for 2006 were 85 points higher than the national average in Critical Reading and 82 points higher than the national average in Math.
The Wisconsin Education Association Council (the teacher’s union for Wisconsin) reports that a record 70% of Wisconsin’s 2007 high school graduates took the ACT during high school with an average composite score of 22.3, up from the 22.2 state students scored for the seven years previous. Wisconsin students also outperformed the national composite score and percentage of students meeting ACT college readiness benchmarks. The average national ACT composite score is 21.2. Wisconsin is tied with Iowa for second place in the nation on ACT scores, behind Minnesota.
Obviously there is room for improvement everywhere, but it is interesting that the articles you linked to don’t mention any of the “up sides” of the situation in Wisconsin. After reading those articles, the reader is left to assume that students attending Wisconsin schools are blithering idiots. Obviously that isn’t the case.
You say:
When I talked about a “rigorous mental, intellectual, social, psychological and philosophical workout,” I was obviously not speaking in terms of an all-ness statement. Obviously, there are places where this will be true -and- there will be places where there is more rigamortis than there is a rigorous environment. The danger comes when you try to make broad judgments and assumptions without any sort of direct examination and observation. Before thinking that the statement is laughable, have you stepped into a variety of classrooms to actually see what is going on there? Maybe you have and haven’t seen anything to give you hope, but in my experience the majority of people whose view is extremely pessimistic about education have actually never gone into and observed classrooms and the teaching environments and processes.
Over the years I have taught in harsh, inner-city conditions at schools that would be classified as low in every sense (low socioeconomics, low test scores, low passing rate) and yet there were classrooms where there were tremendous things going on – students being challenged to think critically and to write clearly and succinctly, to socialize positively and develop a well-rounded world view. I have also taught at higher level schools where there was very little problem solving and/or creativity evidenced. There was a lot of rote learning and memorization and a lot of regurgitation of what was expected, but there was very little original thought.
As I said earlier, I am not an apologist for public schools. I could spend A LOT of space enumerating the problems with the educational system (as opposed to the small amount of space I have used here). Yes, there are people who are trying to control the educational system that wouldn’t know how to run a school or a classroom if their life depended on it. They are trying to dictate curriculum and policies without having a clue. And yes, there are outside influences that are trying to twist and corrupt the educational process for their own agendas. These people view the classroom as the best place to change the culture. Like various groups throughout history, they know that to grab the hearts and minds of the children is to take control of the direction of society.
But if people of faith withdraw from public education, who is going to take a stand against the outside forces? Who will be there to stand for a non-corrupted curriculum and for classrooms that aren’t seen as captive audiences for indoctrination? Who will wrest control of society away from these people who are more concerned about their own agendas than they are about the well being of the children?
To quote the Talmud…”If not you, who? If not now, when?”
November 2, 2007 @ 10:27 amThe biology textbooks and especially at the AP level all teach atheistic human evolution. I scored a 5 on that test, so I know what I’m talking about. Science is not religiously neutral, and such teaching definitely attacked my faith. My sister is now reading John Shelby Spong because of her deep indoctrination into atheistic evolution in college, despite how weak the science actually is.
Definitely true.
The parent definitely has to know what they’re doing. I disagree that learning from a textbook teaches rote learning. That’s how most people get through engineering and science degrees.
Agreed.
The problem is, the Leftists in Sacramento have some new outrage to perpetrate against us almost every single day. One gets battle fatigued after awhile. Can’t really blame them.
November 2, 2007 @ 10:59 amHey, I came across this last week and almost posted it. Seems germane.
November 2, 2007 @ 2:37 pmAll that did was raise my blood pressure, which is fine because it was only 109/70 last time. Yeah, we sure need all those H1-Bs, don’t we? We can’t get enough technical people!!!111!!!
Word of warning to the power elite: Don’t leave a bunch of engineers at home unemployed. They’ll start thinking of things you may not like.
November 2, 2007 @ 2:58 pmI know this isn’t really what your entry is about, but I can’t help myself…I have to comment on this one little bit:
I can’t tell you the number of home-schooled students I’ve had over the years who come into the “public school” classroom after years at home.
I think it is important to note that the children you are talking about are those where the parents have given up. Your sample size is self-selective toward those who were struggling and does not include those who were doing well and chose not to re-enter the system.
I think it highlights the benefits of parental choice because a parent will rarely continue doing something they perceive as harmful to their own children. If they can’t “hack it” as homeschoolers, they send their children back to school. That does not mean that homeschooling doesn’t work…after all, you will likely not see the ones it is working well for.
November 2, 2007 @ 11:37 pmI’m with Dana (sorry Teacher friends). I think home schooling is awesome when the parent is capable. I also do not think I am one of those parents. I can’t even keep up with piano practices so there’s no way I’m taking over teaching English.
They’re all yours Tim and Scott!
November 3, 2007 @ 12:02 amOK, my post on art education got left as a draft and I took this up at length. I don’t see where you accept trackbacks here, but here is the entry, should you be at all interested:
http://principleddiscovery.com/?p=679
Thank you for the mental exercise. I am sure my readers will be delighted at the length of it. : )
November 3, 2007 @ 2:12 amDana,
First of all, in no way was I trying to imply that home schooling is useless or a total negative or pointless. Homeschooling can certainly be a viable alternative for education, as can the various hybrid methods that mix homeschooling with traditional classroom settings.
Actually, I would say that my sample size includes a variety of homeschool participants. Yes, some of the students I have encountered are ones where the parents had given up or where the students themselves asked to go into the traditional school setting because they could tell there were things that were lacking/missing in their learning and educational experience. But at the same time, I have dealt with other parents and their students who did just fine in the homeschooling environment and had a good experience with it, but who realized that it didn’t go far enough in the directions that I alluded to earlier like critical thinking, the give and take of intellectual discussion and interaction, analysis of alternate interpretations and perspectives, the processes of ongoing synthesis, etc.
I have known exceptionally bright, well-rounded homeschooled children who have had wonderful experiences all the way around in the homeschool process. Those are the students who would “rise to the top” no matter what the setting…private school, public school, or home school. But in my experience I would say that the ratio is 2 or 3 to 1, meaning that for every great home school success story there are 2 or 3 kids who are having a “bad” experience and not getting a proper education or who end up back in the public school setting because either they or their parents can’t handle it.
I agree with you about the benefits of parental choice. Unfortunately, many parents who should know better make bad choices anyway when it comes to their children’s education. I can’t tell you the number of times I have been told by parents of junior high and high school students that they don’t push them to study and do their homework because they (the children) should be old enough and responsible enough to handle it on their own; or the number of times I have been told by parents that they don’t want to enforce any sort of curfew or bans/restrictions on “fun stuff” like video games, TV, movies, cell phones, computer time, etc…because they don’t want to stifle their creative outlets and they don’t want them (their children) to feel like life is all negative and work without any fun and relaxation; or the number of times I have heard from parents that they tell their students that their homework is less of a priority than their participation in sports or cheer or any number of other extra-curricular activities because what they learn in those activities is more important than the worthless/pointless/waste-of-time busywork they do in school; or the number of times I have been told that they (the parents) have their own stuff to deal with and they can’t be bothered/don’t have the time to keep track of their children’s school stuff.
I could go on, but my point is that in an ideal world you would be correct about parents rarely continuing doing something they perceive as harmful to their children, but this isn’t an ideal world and you would be surprised at the number of parents who are selfish or lazy or ignorant or foolish or just plain stupid. It is only when you become a teacher that you realize the truth of this statement – “It’s amazing that we make people take classes and pass a series of tests to drive a car, but any idiot is allowed to make a baby and become a parent.”
When John, one of the smartest guys I have ever known and one of the men I respect greatly in this world, says that he doesn’t think he would be capable of homeschooling his kids, that tells me something, because if he couldn’t do it right/well, then neither could most of the people I know and come in contact with on a daily basis. It takes a TREMENDOUS amount of patience, a lot of time and discipline, a decent amount of intelligence, and a HUGE amount of patience (and did I mention patience).
As I mentioned earlier, when Ingrid (who is obviously a very diligent and intelligent person) says, “…and I don’t have to do the teaching,” it demonstrates that she doesn’t get it. She will be one of those parents who think that homeschooling is working great for her and her kids, but with a mindset like that keeps her disengaged from doing the actual “teaching” part of homeschooling, her kids will never achieve the full potential of what they could be doing if they were in a setting where they had high quality materials, opportunities for stimulating and meaningful interactions, and a teacher who is there to actual supervise, engage and challenge on a constant basis.
The last thing I will say is this. Parents have a tendency to be parents no matter what. Their kids can be 5 or 50 and a parent will still try and parent them. When a parent is homeschooling their own children, they will inevitably slip into the parent-role, which means they will always want their kids to feel good about themselves and will always want their kids to succeed and do great at their studies -or- they will come down hard on their child, believing that they are just being lazy or are slacking off or aren’t trying their hardest.
These two approaches lead parents to: a) NOT push their children hard enough, to give them the answer more quickly rather than make them “work for it,” to extensively “help” them write and rewrite their papers (and when I say “help” I mean they do much of the work themselves), etc. OR b) push them TOO hard and to assume the worst in their child’s motives and work habits as opposed to actually seeing areas of genuine weakness.
The other side of this equation is the baggage that the parent brings with them. If a parent is a weak writer, if they try and home school they will pass that weakness on to their children/students. If they are weak at math, they will pass that weakness on to their children/student. It goes on and on and on. Part of what the school setting does is provide students with an opportunity to interact with several different teachers who are “experts” (relatively speaking) in their respective fields. If I have students who need help with math, I send them to a math teacher because I teach English. If they need help with reading, writing, literary analysis, etc then I’ll work with them all day because that’s “my bag.”
November 3, 2007 @ 9:51 amIt’s always nice to see reasonable, rational responses to Ingrid’s acerbic commentary. Regarding your comment about not removing ourselves from the world, I agree, but school is not the world. We homeschool, and we’re living, working, playing, and interacting in the world daily. Raising my kids to be salt and light and reaching out to others in our community and the world as a family are among my primary goals as a homeschooler, and I know quite a few other homeschoolers who share that view and intentionally find ways to serve others.
Granted, there are homeschoolers and certain churches who tend to isolate themselves from everyone who isn’t just like them and strive to shield their children from the world and protect their innocence (I think they truly believe that sin comes from out there somewhere instead of from within), and although I don’t agree with that approach at all, I don’t think it’s the norm. When Christians withdraw from the world, it’s an intentional decision on the part of the parents and certain churches, not a symptom of homeschooling. I wrote a little more about this here. When parents want to be a light to the world, they’ll find a way to make that happen no matter whether they homeschool or send their kids to public or private school.
Most of the people we know have kids in public schools or are teachers themselves, and most of my daughter’s friends are in public school. We can still have an influence on them even though our kids aren’t in the local school. I’ve also met several wiccans, pagans, and atheists in homeschooling groups (homeschooling is more diverse than most people realize) who I likely never would have had the opportunity to interact with if we weren’t homeschooling.
My position is that Christians should prayerfully consider their options and do whatever God calls them to do. I do wish that more people would consider homeschooling as a viable alternative to traditional schooling, but I also appreciate that it isn’t for everyone. But regardless of which educational option parents pursue, involvement in their child’s education is crucial.
November 3, 2007 @ 10:02 amShauna,
Excellent points! Thank you for adding to the discussion. If I may ask, why do you say that “school is not the world?” Isn’t just as much a part of “the world” as the places where we work, play, shop, etc? I’m glad to read that you have regular interaction with “the world” in its various forms, and I agree that a well-balanced view of Christian home schooling should lead a parent to just that kind of approach. Obviously, I began this whole thing by reacting to Ingrid and her belief that Christians should withdraw from the public school setting while also reacting to her discussion of home schooling as her method of educating her son.
I guess more than anything else I was reacting to Ingrid’s apparent beliefs (as evidenced quite frequently in her writings) that Christians shouldn’t interact with the “icky-ness” of the world and should withdraw to a safe distance where they can pass judgments and throw stones.
I agree that the home school approach is not inherently isolationist. It just happens to be an approach to education that fits in well with the philosophy of Christian isolationism.
I think that home schooling is certainly a viable alternative. Over the last few years as home school support groups and area networks have sprung up, it has become more so. If we could afford to not have my wife work, it might be an alternative for us. I say that my wife wouldn’t work, not out of any latent feelings of gender superiority, but because I know for a fact that she is far more patient than I am. But even then I’m not sure if we would go that route because we both still see benefits to the larger classroom and large school setting that home schooling just can’t offer.
By the way, I can’t help but wonder what a wiccan/pagan home school experience would look like!
November 3, 2007 @ 11:15 amWow, Scott. Thank you for such a carefully thought out, detailed response. Very unusual, in my experience, in the blogging world. Sorry if my words were a little harsh and not well supported – I was commenting five minutes before “The Office” came on. ;-)
I absolutely agree that some public schools are wonderful! I can think of three public schools off the top of my head in the affluent part of southeastern Wisconsin that are academically top notch.
Also, I am not in the “homeschooling” is the ‘only’ acceptable education choice for Christian children camp. We only plan to homeschool our children (currently ages 7, 5, and 2) through 8th grade and then enroll them in a local, private Christian school.
I also agree that there are many academically weak Christian private schools. That, along with the atrocious public school that my children would have attended, is why we chose to homeschool.
The newspaper articles that I provided are from our local ~politically liberal~ newspaper. I can think of only one instance in the last 10 years where they endorsed a conservative candidate for any office whether it was school board, county supervisor or president. They are always on the side of the teacher’s union and usually their articles slant that way.
“If you go to the College Board site, you can view the page dealing with college bound high school seniors. It is a page with links to .pdf reports. Wisconsin’s numbers are not NEAR as bad as the articles you linked to make them out to be.”
The problem with this is that this only reports on college bound seniors. Ditto for students taking the ACT/SAT.
I live in Milwaukee County, the most highly populated county in WI. I would venture to guess, based on how many Caucasians along with the socio-economic and educational levels were in the samples provided, that hardly any of our students were in that sample.
The Milwaukee Public School System, Milwaukee Teacher’s Education Association, and the African-American Education Council recently issued a new “strategic plan” to improve our public schools. You can see if for yourself here: Working Together, Achieving More: Action Plan to Improve the Milwaukee Public Schools, 2007-2012.
Currently only 57% of our students read on grade level.
Only 38% are on grade level in math.
37% are on grade level for science.
Only 65% of our ninth graders graduate in four years.
81% of our students attending the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (our local university) require remedial classes.
So, whatever statistics you were reading … They don’t apply where I live.
I feel bad for the students that have no other choice but to attend these schools. It infuriates me to see that our public schools are failing whole generations of students. I long for the day when there is, truly, ‘no child left behind’.
“But if people of faith withdraw from public education, who is going to take a stand against the outside forces?”
I still do this.
“Who will be there to stand for a non-corrupted curriculum and for classrooms that aren’t seen as captive audiences for indoctrination?”
I still do this, too.
“Who will wrest control of society away from these people who are more concerned about their own agendas than they are about the well being of the children?”
I still try to do this, too.
As long as I’m a tax-payer, which I shall be until the day I die {grin}, I still have the right as a citizen of Milwaukee County, and of Wisconsin to raise my voice (and keyboard!) to question and argue my point of view.
But, I won’t sacrifice my children’s education for it. It’s too important to me.
November 3, 2007 @ 11:36 amIf I may ask, why do you say that “school is not the world?” Isn’t just as much a part of “the world” as the places where we work, play, shop, etc?
Oh, it definitely is. I only meant that it isn’t THE world; there’s much more to the world than just school.
November 3, 2007 @ 2:35 pmHeather,
Yes and no. In my experience in teaching in CA along with attending college in three states (WA, OR and CA), 85-90% of high school juniors and seniors take one of these tests (SAT, ACT, Iowa Skills Test, etc) whether or not they are planning on going to college. Most schools encourage it. I know of districts that cover the cost of the test for their students so that it isn’t a burden on lower-income families. I would be interested to know how many/what percentage of students took an SAT/ACT/IST type test at your local high schools. I think you would be surprised at how high that percentage would be.
At the same time, every state now has some form of standardized test in order to be in compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act. In CA it is called the CST (California Standards Test). These standardized tests are not optional and all students take them. Honestly, the standards tests suck in a variety of ways and I would never try to entirely defend them; however, they do establish a rough baseline and a rough approximation of how things are going.
That was one of the points I was trying to make earlier. These types of statistics don’t apply anywhere. You really can’t classify and/or quantify a school or a district or a city or a state in terms of the quality of education or the quality of teaching that goes on. It can be different from classroom to classroom and from school to school. For instance, private high schools tend to outperform public high schools on any sort of standards/achievement tests. People tend to assume that is because the teachers are better and the institutions are better. That may be true on occasion, but typically it is not. The scores are better because the quality of student is better and because the families function at a higher/more healthy level.
Private school families tend to be 2 parent households with both parents having college degrees and with everyone recognizing the value of learning and education. To be honest, at many private schools the quality of instruction is less/lower than what you would find at a good public school. Private schools are not required to use teachers who are certificated by the state. They can use anyone with a college degree. Private schools can also weed out students that they don’t want because they score low on tests or because they are discipline problems or whatever. Thus the classrooms are less disruptive/disrupted allowing students to focus more on the subject matter.
I don’t doubt that you will take a stand regarding what goes on in a general sense in education, but honestly you can’t take a stand about what goes on in the individual classroom because you won’t be aware of what goes on. You won’t know about the comments that teachers might make in class or about specialized curriculum that an individual teacher brings in on their own to supplement the existing materials. You won’t know about an individual teacher’s bent towards humanism or atheism, just as you won’t know about the teachers who are Christian and who try to bring in various faith-based materials because you won’t be around at the school and in the classroom (and when I say “you,” I mean both you and your children). You won’t know how they need direct, hands-on and verbal support as they battle it out in the classroom.
That isn’t meant as a guilt trip at all. I totally understand where you are coming from. As I said, our two younger are in a private school for a variety of reasons. And I commend you for staying on top of the issues in the public sphere and being aware of what goes on in terms of education policy.
An Anecdote – When my daughter was in 7th grade, she had a history teacher who was very nice but was antagonistic towards Christianity. She would do selective class readings where the students read “round-table” style out loud to the rest of the class, but they would only read select paragraphs on the page which highlighted some aspect or another of the rise of Christianity that could be construed as negative (the crusades, Christianity in the rise of the KKK and as a method to control slaves, etc). These allowed her to slant the discussion in the way she wanted it to go.
However, our daughter being raised as a critical thinker and a Christian came home to discuss some of what was happening her class. We spent a lot of time talking with her about it and helped her prepare some responses to some of the teacher’s typical snide jabs at people of faith. She went into her classroom and took a stand on a few different occasions, calling the teacher on a couple of her little “jokes” and pointing out on occasion some inconsistencies between what the book said and what the teacher claimed the book was saying. We made sure that she was very respectful in how she handled these situations and that she understood that she was still the student and the teacher was still the teacher, even though she knew the teacher was wrong.
Over time, other students began to take our daughter’s lead and spoke out as well at times. They had simply been intimidated until they saw someone else taking a stand. Only one time did I actually intervene and communicate with the teacher. I sent her a very respectful but very clear note that expressed my concern with some of her comments and offered to come in and discuss with her where I felt she was being inconsistent and was misrepresenting the historical record. I Cc’d the principal as well. I was not contacted by the teacher, but the principal contacted me and let me know that she had spoken with the teacher and that the teacher had, in fact, been warned before about being too “liberal” with her opinion. She promised that it wouldn’t happen again, which it didn’t.
If my daughter would not have been in the classroom, she would not have learned from the situation and nor would the other students have seen an example of someone standing up against what they knew to be wrong. The principal also would not have known to put the teacher in check. True, my daughter wouldn’t have been exposed to some dangerous ideas, but we had prepared her for those types of occasions so her exposure didn’t do anything but help to strengthen her faith (and ours).
I certainly commend you for doing whatever you need to in the name of your children’s education. Home schooling is not an easy choice and I respect any parent who takes that challenge on themselves. I especially see the value of Christian education in the younger/more formative years (K thru 6) when important foundations can be laid.
Again, thanks for engaging. This is why I LOVE our blog!
November 3, 2007 @ 2:49 pmAn annoyance for me in regards to most of Ingrid’s posts that talk about any subject in which she can find a way to bring her children or family in as an example is that her children and her family and her methods are always used as the perfect and correct example. They are the foil to the bad, the evil, the sin, the corrupt, the systems or situations that are just down and dirty yuck.
Oh, to have such perfection and control in my own life so that I may use it as a high and mighty weapon against those God has chosen not to bless in the same ways. You know, people who have done their very best and have kids that won’t eat their peas or refuse to go to bed on time.
A facade, of course.
November 3, 2007 @ 8:50 pmJohn- Re: #12
Uh..hem…
November 3, 2007 @ 10:57 pmJulie,
I whole-heartedly agree. Ingrid should really show some restraint. I know that I do. John can tell you that I have the perfect life in every possible way (think of me being like Mary Poppins but with a…well, you know). Anyhow, I try not to flaunt the perfection of my life because I know how bad it can make others feel. Alas, if only Ingrid would be as considerate. I must go now. I always like to polish my halo before retiring for the night.
Scott
November 3, 2007 @ 11:45 pmI had a discussion with someone about homeschooling. I was asked what I thought about it and I said that I’m not against it if the parents are able to do it right. I pointed out that there are too many parents who are not capable of teaching beyond a certain level, and generally, the areas that suffer are maths and science. There is a local family with a bunch of kids that are all home-schooled. They’re getting a great music/reading/art education because that is the mother’s strength. They take long trips to historic places or museums and learn about history. Important things. I’m pretty curious on the math and science part, though. Those tend to be left to the child reading the material or…watching a DVD…on their own.
There is something about interacting with a live person teaching you material that is lost when that happens. And math and science are important.
The obvious rebuttal is that public schools don’t always do a good job in specific subjects, to which I would say “that is true.”
But I wonder the benefit of homeschooling once you get to the point where you’re popping in a DVD or letting the child read and do on his own. At that point, homeschooling seems more like a solution to the problem of not being “defiled” in a public school and less the classic (and more valid) argument of parents being responsible and taking the education of their child seriously enough to do it themselves since it’s being passed off to another person who wrote the curriculum materials or is recorded on the DVD.
November 4, 2007 @ 5:45 amJulie – I agree. I know several home schooling familes – one does a very good job overall, another does an excellent job in the arts and reading and history, as in your post (the math and science are taught by the father in the evening – I don’t know how that’s going). These two families are a beautiful picture of what, I believe, God intended families to be – very close and supportive of each other, focused on the Lord, happy and healthy. The other family? Oh dear, what can I say? When the mother comes across a topic she doesn’t understand, they “skip it”. The children are whiny and spoiled, the teenagers are in total rebellion and, when they are out from under the thumbs of their parents, are going to go hog wild. Educating children is not a “one size fits all” thing. I believe each family must seek the Lord’s will and rely on Him for wisdom and direction.
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November 12, 2007 @ 8:05 pm