6 Responses to “Why do I advocate Homeschooling?”

1. dogeatery
   March 28th, 2008 @ 7:56 am

   Yes, homeschooling is right for America; it will make us much more competitive with the rest of the world and their silly ideas of humanism and evolution, taught to their entire populations in a uniform manner that ensures a widespread grasp of the knowledge needed to function in our increasingly complex society.

   We should only teach our children only using a 2000 year old text, instead of the total accumulated wealth of human knowledge and understanding embraced by humanism. Da*n those humanists and their intellectual understanding of the universe!

2. Deadeye
   March 30th, 2008 @ 7:24 pm

   Nice try dogeatery!
   It’s commonplace for a person, wanting to shoot down a point of view, to exagerate to the nth degree how the other person’s viewpoint must be wrong.

   Since a lot of folks don’t understand homeschooling, I can see how their point of view might be confused.

   I’d like to suggest that anyone who thinks that the average homeschooled kid is not getting a good education should do a little “homeschooling” themselves and google the topic. Don’t just focus on the sites that “poo-poo” it, find some sites that promote it. Find sites that give some solid numbers about how well educated the average homeschooled child is.

   Oh yeah… do some google searches on regional and national spelling, math, and geography bees… there’s some good info there.

   By the way, the average homeshooler typically gets history lessons that actually focus on real history; math lessons that focus on real math; social studies that point out the errors of socialism; psychology lessons that focus on why people do what they do (do a bible search on “out of the heart”).

   By the way, homeshoolers are held to a much higher standard than public schooled children. Look it up. Don’t trust what I’m telling you.

   If you can’t tell from all the google study you can do, hopefully you’ll know from this posting that, even though the Bible is more than capable of doing a great job teaching all we need to know about how to live right, interact with others, and die right, it obviously doesn’t teach many other topics required for folks to live and work and be part of life in this world. For instance, computer skills, advanced math, engineering, etc. The Bible sure can put a soul on track to ultimate questions and answers in life. Is it more important to know the square root of a prime number, or is it more important to know the creator and sustainer of life, the universe, and everything? Someday, we’ll all have to have the right answer to that one… or else.

   Cheers,

3. RAH
   February 10th, 2009 @ 1:40 am

   Have I misinterpreted this thread? It appears that the OC was advocating homeschooling because of the threat that public classrooms were a vehicle for humanistic teaching, that it is necessary to isolate our children from mainstream schooling to protect them from exposure to non-christian ideas and ideals.

   My concerns with this is (again, assuming I have interpreted the thrust of thisthread correctly):

   “Offensive Christians” advocates Christians proactively advancing upon the shores of ignorance. Homeschooling, in the context of this thread, sounds distinctly DEFENSIVE since it is offered as a means of sequestering our children – which may protect them from other viewpoints, but also prevents them from sharing their own views with their classmates. Why not let the children be a part of the offense among their peers? Also, if you are confident in your faith, why not allow your children to be exposed to other viewpoints, then discuss them at home, and help the kids affirm their own faith in the face of questioners?

4. RAH
   February 10th, 2009 @ 1:47 am

   Also, the quote from Mr. Dunphy that kicked off this thread seems the opinion of a single person. There may be others who share his view that the classroom should be a pulpit for humanistic teachings, but I am confident there are just as many others, including teachers, who hold their own views about how a classroom should be conducted. I do not see a wave of humanism sweeping the nation’s public schools. Obviously different school districts in different geographies will put different emphasis on what enters their classrooms, some will be closer to Christian values, others farther. But I do not see a reason to advocate a blanket exodus from public school for the reasons implied by the initial quotation. Better education via home schooling I can accept. The threat of humanistic teaching in public school I do not accept as a reason to home school, both because I do not see the threat, and because I think keeping our kids IN public school is a better defense against the threat if it does exist (see my previous post).

5. OC
   February 10th, 2009 @ 2:41 am

   RAH,

   Thanks for the comment. How do you come up with the “proactively advancing upon the shores of ignorance” statement from the post?

   I advocate homeschooling for many reasons – one of which is to ensure children are given a chance to understand the presuppositions inherent in any worldview before being exposed to textbooks and teachers blithely parroting evolutionary and humanistic assumptions alongside the observable science in their curriculum.

   It is either naive or underhanded of you to assume that the marketplace of ideas is balanced in a setting designed by Dewey and other humanist thinkers.
   The deck is stacked for the humanists the moment you cross the threshold of the school room door.

   Children are not capable of evangelizing effectively until they can fully understand the basics of the worldviews in play and the underlying assumptions made by each. Biblically, it is rare to expect a child to fight in any battle, even one of ideas.

   Homeschooled children are exposed to many other viewpoints on a regular basis. A perusal of the daily news or a glance at our lifetime subscription to National Geographic is sufficient to get the evolutionary, anti-God perspective prevalent in our society. Most homeschoolers are quite concerned that their children understand intimately the competing arguments and counterclaims that abound- We want them to understand why our, admitted, presuppositions are more logical and hermeneutically sound than the unspoken assumptions of the anti-God crowd.

   I want my kids to know more about evolution, earth science, eugenics, and a myriad of other topics than the people they may encounter in a debate later. A tactical retreat is sometimes needed to ensure your army is strong enough to defeat your foes. Going on the offense doesn’t mean charging into an ambush.

   Thanks again for commenting and I hope to hear from you again.

   OC

6. OC
   February 10th, 2009 @ 2:46 am

   RAH,

   Wow,

   I’m honored you replied twice. Thanks for caring enough to continue the discussion. I see humanism as a serious threat in our schools. Have you read David Noebel’s

   Understanding the Times

   or John Morris’

   The Long War Against God?

   I don’t know where you’re coming from theologically but I sure hope to convince you that its a humanistic jungle out there.

   Thanks again for stopping by.

   OC

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