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Hand in Hand

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:03:00 -0500

Hand in Hand

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. (3 John 1:4)

A couple days ago after shopping at the local hardware store, I walked one of my younger children across the street and through a busy parking lot to our car. While we were both in the store, my child had more freedom to roam around, always staying within eyesight of me but never too far. As we walked out of the store and into the busy parking lot, I reached for her hand as she reached for mine. We walked together hand in hand across the street, through the maze of cars and safely to our van. Between the two of us, one of us needs to know how to negotiate the busy traffic. Such a simple thing--holding a young child’s hand--but oh, what a responsibility one must carry.

This made me reflect that, as a parent, one of my responsibilities is to “walk” my children across the busy street of life. We walk hand-in-hand for period of time, and when we reach our destination, we let go. I surely don’t send my young children through heavy traffic by themselves, nor do I just tell them how to get across, yelling out directions to them as they encounter danger. I simply take their willing and teachable hands in mine, and we walk together. Yes, I talk to them as we walk, reminding them to slow down, look both ways, and to watch out for cars because "they can give you a big owwie." And as I walk with them, I show them how it is done.

Sadly, most Christian parents today send their children into the busy and dangerous traffic of today's public schools. These poor children have almost a 90% chance of being hit but still these parents' resolve is unaltered. My heart goes out to these children who are being put in places that has been proven to cause them great harm to mind, body, and soul. Most parents know about the garbage that occurs in these godless schools but refuse to change course. Some use the weak excuse that they are still giving their public schooled children Bible training at home. I like this response shared by Dan Smithwick of the Nehemiah Institute: "Really? Are you going back to all subject matter your children are taking and giving them a scripture-based education to correct wrong teaching? If so, you are in essence homeschooling them, so why continue to have them enrolled in the public school?"

Our children really do want to be guided in life and prepared for adulthood, but we need to walk with them during such passage. We parents need to pour ourselves into our children--pour our love, our time, our knowledge and our examples of faith into the next generation so they can have a strong foundation to build their lives on.

Do you remember being 18 or 19, thinking you knew everything about everything? Then you hit your 30’s and realized how naïve you really were. I did and still do. So here I am now in my 40’s with much more life experience that I wish to instill into my children. I desire for them to seek true Wisdom (Proverbs 1, 2, 8, 9; James 1:5 & 3:17) and not just books smarts. True Wisdom will continue to help them in life once I have let go (John 14:16 & 26). And true Wisdom will lead them to someday guide their own children to seek Wisdom themselves. Yet the cycle needs to start somewhere. And I guess the first step is to make sure that we, as parents, are walking in Wisdom ourselves (Proverbs 28:26) as we walk our children safely across the busy street of life.

“Don't send an eight-year-old out to take on a forty-year-old humanist. I have never seen any people more unhappy than fathers or mothers who have come to me and said, 'Where did we go wrong? We gave him everything, and now he's turned his back completely on everything we believe.' Yes, they gave him everything but a Christian education.” -Dr. D. James Kennedy

—David d'Escoto is a teaching elder, the co-author of "The Little Book of Big Reasons to Homeschool" and its companion Bible study, he also co-hosted the former radio program "Homeschooling for Life." He and his wife, Kim, have homeschooled their five children for over 10 years. Visit their website to sign-up for their free webinars and newsletters at http://dexios.info.

A "Common Standard" for Homeschoolers?

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:11:00 -0500

President Obama is justifying the violation of the Constitution and the take over of education by declaring that it is "inexcusable" for the United States to have 50 standards for education.

Today's system of 50 different sets of benchmarks for academic success means 4th grade readers in Mississippi are scoring nearly 70 points lower than students in Wyoming -- and they're getting the same grade. Eight of our states are setting their standards so low that their students may end up on par with roughly the bottom 40 percent of the world.

That's inexcusable.

Hmmm. Currently, homeschooling laws also vary in all 50 states. Illinois is light on regulation while Pennsylvania is much more stringent. So it is hardly a stretch of the imagination to think that Obama could declare that 50 standards of homeschooling is "inexcusable" and demand a "common standard" for home educators?

Not saying it is going to happen, but with Obama anything is possible.

And if you're a long time reader you may recall former HSDLA attorney, Scott Somerville, once thought me a bit of a "sucker" when I predicted national standards in 2006 and later said "she's right."

Forewarned is forearmed.

BTW, Scott Somerville is a great guy and someone I am privileged to call a friend. He's also pretty awesome on Twitter and definitely worth a follow. You can find me on Twitter too, but I'm just getting the hang of it.

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Karen "Spunky" Braun

It's Summer: Have You Planted or Watered Lately?

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:18:00 -0500

With all the talk about education overhauls and the continuing decline of the public alledgeducation system, most of you probably read this blog and breathe a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness my kids are safe at home,” you say, or “I pity the neighbors’ children, that they can’t be home like mine.”

You can’t actually bring other people’s children home, to their own homeschools or to yours, but there may be something you can do to encourage their parents, to plant a seed which may in time grow into a homeschool opportunity for those who might have considered it beyond their reach. It does require a little extra education for your own kids, and a little extra effort on your part, but in the end expanding your homeschool to include “summer guerilla missions” probably won’t feel like any work at all.

What is Summer Guerilla Missions? Read on…

How many times have you heard someone tell you a truth that you didn’t want to acknowledge at the time, but after the fact it lurked around in your thoughts until you couldn’t do anything but accept it? Jesus says the Kingdom of God is like that, like a tiny seed that grows until even the birds of the air can nest in its branches, or a tiny bit of leaven that, hidden in a large quantity of flour, eventually leavens all. (Matthew 13.31-33) The positive presence of homeschool families can do that, too.

Maybe your friend says, “I wish I could homeschool, but I just don’t have the brain power to teach like you do,” or “my kids love playing with your kids after school, because they’re always so polite and homeschooling seems like so much fun, but I just don’t have the energy to do all that work.”

You might want to invite her children over this summer to do a science experiment with yours, something fun like making homemade root beer from a kit or making and flying kites to learn about physics. Even if you’re not in school, find a stand-alone project that’s both educational and fun. Then teach the whole group like you would a regular school activity. When the kids go home, they’ll talk about their experiences and what they learned. When your neighbor comments on what an amazing experience her children had, explain how easy it is to get the kits and follow the instructions – and the same goes for curriculum too. Don’t make it a hard-sell – nobody likes that – but her children’s positive experience with a homeschool activity, and hearing how easy it is to do, will have an impact. And even if she never mentions the activity, you’ve planted a seed through her children. They will remember, and they will talk about it, even if you never hear a word.

Including your non-homeschooling friends and their families in fun summer activities will have a greater impact than you could possibly imagine. It takes some time and effort to schedule educational activities, and more to find ways to integrate non-homeschoolers without specifically telling them you’re promoting education. But the truth has a way of working on its own, and once people realize how easy homeschooling is, and how much rewarding time we can spend with our children in the process, it’s enough for you to plant. Or to water. God will give the increase.

Susan Spann

Train Them Up

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:34:00 -0500

“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6

A homeschool mom recently shared with me an interesting conversation she had with a confused friend about Proverbs 22:6. Her friend’s distorted reasoning can be summed up as follows: since we, as sinful parents cannot save our sinful kids, why should we try to follow the guideline/command given in Proverbs 22:6?

First off, anyone who believes they can save their child's soul needs to re-read the Bible, especially Ephesians 2:1-10. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

Now that we cleared that up, let's quickly look at what Proverbs 22:6 is really teaching parents. First, notice that the Bible says that we should "train up a child" not train up an adult. Why a child? Our gracious Lord is teaching us to train children because these are their most impressionable learning years. Do you think it is any coincidence that the public schools and their like-mined socialists are working on getting our children younger and younger?

If you are among many who think that public schools are neutral and that there is no underlying agenda, please read the following quotes by just a few liberal educationalists and secular-humanists/socialists who understand the importance of capturing little minds.

"We do not need any more preaching about right or wrong. The old ‘thou shall nots’ simply are not relevant. Values clarification is a method for teachers to change the values of children without getting caught." -- Dr. Sidney Simon, Lecturer, Secularist & Educator

"Having found the present generation composed of materials almost unmalleable, I am about transferring my efforts to the next. Men are cast-iron; but children are wax. Strength expended upon the latter may be effectual, which would make no impression upon the former." –Horace Mann founder of public schools

"Every child in America entering school at the age of five is mentally ill because he comes to school with certain allegiances to our founding fathers, toward our elected officials, toward his parents, toward a belief in a supernatural being, and toward the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity. It is up to you as teachers to make all of these sick children well -- by creating the international child of the future." -- Dr. Chester M. Pierce, Professor of Education at Harvard (1972)

" I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers that correctly perceive their role as proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being … The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and new. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing the classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level—preschool day care or large state universities." John Dunphy (The Humanist magazine, Jan/Feb 1983)

"He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future." —Adolf Hitler

"Give me your 4-year-olds, and in a generation I will build a socialist state." —Vladimir Lenin

"Education is thus a most powerful ally of humanism, and every American school is a school of humanism. What can a theistic Sunday school's meeting for an hour once a week and teaching only a fraction of the children do to stem the tide of the five-day program of humanistic teaching?" - Charles F. Potter, Signer of the Humanist Manifesto

"There is no God and there is no soul. Hence, there are no needs for the props of traditional religion. With dogma and creed excluded, then immutable truth is also dead and buried. There is no room for fixed, natural law or moral absolutes." --John Dewey, co-author, signer of the Humanist Manifesto and founder of today's public schools

The public school model and its curriculum is working on the kids young so they can indoctrinate them to think like secular-humanists/socialists. Period.

By the way they (the Liberals) are having a tremendous amount of success. Makes you wonder why the Church (Shepherds and sheep alike) do not make this a topic of utmost importance, huh?

So going back to Proverbs 22:6, why should we train up our children in the way they should go if we cannot save them? How about because we love our Lord and want to obey Him? Let us obey our Lord and let God be God. "If ye love me, keep my commandments" John 14:15.

Listen to the wisdom of Matthew Henry, a former homeschooling father of nine kids who was homeschooled himself and was considered by the likes of Spurgeon and Whitefield to be a superb and gifted Bible commentator: "Train up children in that age of vanity, to keep them from the sins and snares of it, in that learning age, to prepare them for what they are designed for. Catechise [instruct] them; initiate them; keep them under discipline. Train them as soldiers, who are taught to handle their arms, keep rank, and observe the word of command. Train them up, not in the way they would go (the bias of their corrupt hearts would draw them aside), but in the way they should go, the way in which, if you love them, you would have them go."

God clearly tells us to train up our children in the way they should go. If we don't or only make a half-hearted attempt to train them up, their sinful nature will take them on completely different path in life. We need to start when they are young because if we don't, we will make our labor all the more difficult. Again, quoting Matthew Henry, "The branch is easily bent when it is tender."

Let me put it as simply as possible. Children would naturally follow their corrupt hearts if parents did not train them up as they should. This makes them easy prey in the hands of the public school gurus. Therein lies the reason we should follow Proverbs 22:6. Either we train them, or someone else will.

—David d'Escoto is a teaching elder, the co-author of "The Little Book of Big Reasons to Homeschool" and its companion Bible study, he also co-hosted the former radio program "Homeschooling for Life." He and his wife, Kim, have homeschooled their five children for over 10 years. Visit their website to sign-up for their free webinars and newsletters at http://dexios.info.

Britain's New Homeschool Regulations are Extremely Invasive

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:41:00 -0500

Parents in the U.K. who are homeschooling or intend to homeschool can now expect home visits from government officials who will make certain the children are learning according to government standards. For instance, if your child can't read by the age of 8 then the parents may have to send their child to a government school.

What happens if your child has a learning disability? Does it magically go away for those children who attend state schools? Not likely as those same schools are full of remedial reading students. Can we go in and pull those students out because the state hasn't met their "Must be able to read by the age of 8" rule? Oh no, if a child can't read it's the parents fault all the way around.

"Education is unique among consumer products-–when it fails to work as advertised, it's the customer that gets labeled as defective." – Kevin Killion

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C.S. Lewis

World Net Daily and Spunky report on how this could impact homeschooling here in the U.S.

Tia Linschied
Senior Editor of HSB