Homeschool News & Views
Issue 39, Sept 20, 2007
from Homeschool Helpers
This is Dan White with Homeschool Helpers.
Homeschooling is challenging. It is the narrow way.
Christ said in Mat 7:13, World English Bible,
(13) "Enter in by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is
the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter in by it.
An article in the
In
From the hslda.org web site; "The Dudeks, a homeschooling family of eight,
were tried, convicted and fined 900 euros (about $1,200) in May for not sending
their children to school.
Following the trial, state prosecutor Herwig Mueller told Mr. Dudek that he
needn’t worry about the fine. “You won’t have to pay
it,” said Mr. Mueller, “because I am going to send you and your
wife to jail.”
He must have been trained by the US National Education Association.
"Additionally, the local Youth Welfare Office in
German courts approve this persecution because, say judges, homeschooling might
lead to so-called “parallel societies.””
Of course, the German authorities are trying to use their state education
system to create citizens who will do whatever the government wants. They
don't want citizens who think for themselves. They want citizens who
think what the government wants them to think. The
From Yahoo news on September 17:
"President Hugo Chavez threatened on Monday to take over any private
schools refusing to submit to the oversight of his socialist government, a move
some Venezuelans fear will impose leftist ideology in the classroom...
All Venezuelan schools, both public and private, must submit to state
inspectors enforcing the new educational system. Those that refuse will be
closed and nationalized, Chavez said...
A new curriculum will be phased in during this school year, and new textbooks
are being developed to help educate "the new citizen," added Chavez's
brother and education minister Adan Chavez...
"We must train socially minded people to help the community, and that's
why the revolution's socialist program is being implemented," said one
official."
In view of those situations, Christian homeschoolers in
However, homeschooling is still the narrow way. One problem that
homeschool parents have is providing social activities for their students.
Compared to the total population, there aren’t that many homeschool
students around to have activities with. Public school students and their
families usually live in routine panic mode, so they don’t have a lot of
time for activities other than public school stuff. Besides that, you as
a Christian parent probably don’t want your homeschooled student to pick
up the public school culture.
Therefore, a homeschool parent has to actively work to create social activities
for their students. In fact, a major part of a home educator’s job
is arranging social activities. You are the school administrators.
Just as a public school administrator has to oversee field trips, band
practices and sporting events, you have to do the same thing.
Almost all homeschool parents were public school students themselves, and they
can reflect back on the friends they had in school. We all had a couple
of very close friends that we went through school with. Homeschool
parents want to make sure that their students have close friends, too.
Let me tell you about a problem that we have run into.
Our last two homeschoolers graduated two and four years ago. Last week
they went to a graduation service for a homeschool friend. Shortly before
that they went to a wedding for two homeschool friends. They just got an
invitation in the mail for a baby shower for a homeschool friend. And so
on and so forth.
One of their homeschool friends, told them at the wedding, “You know, we
have so many friends, with all the graduations,
weddings and baby showers – this could get expensive!”
The reason these homeschool grads have so many close friends is because a lot
of parents worked to make it that way.
A major part of the job of being a homeschool parent is the job of social
director, activities coordinator, event executive. I think that
homeschool parents usually don’t realize the importance of that in their
overall homeschool education. Parents usually think of education only in
the academic sense, the subjects which are studied out of a book. But if
you reflect back on your own education, you don’t warmly recall the first
time you opened your biology textbook. No, you recall the things you did
and the people you were with. That is a very important part of any
education.
In fact, I think being the social director is the most demanding part of being
a homeschool parent. The book learning usually comes pretty easily.
If you work at it consistently and the children are disciplined enough to pay
attention, the academic results are good. That’s relatively easy,
as has been demonstrated by homeschool families over and over. You just
sit down and do it.
With the job of social director, however, you don’t just sit down and do
it. You have to get up and do something. You have to reach out to
others and often create something from nothing. That’s much more
challenging than sitting down and going over a book.
Often homeschool parents are very concerned about their children’s
studies. They are focused on the kids learning this well and that well,
overlooking the simple fact that most of the stuff they memorize out of those
books will be forgotten in a year or two. Parents must remember that they
have a totally different perspective than their kids do. The parent
teacher is interested in the books and getting through the courses. The
kids are also interested in having fun. Having fun and being with friends
is an important part of an overall education.
The parent teachers’ main emphasis is on the home. That is the site
of their marriage, their family, and their homeschool. That is what you are
doing with your life. Your young ones, however, naturally have other interests
outside your home. The older they get, the more this is true.
Keep in mind your child's perspective. I have seen homeschool mothers go
to the work and trouble of planning an activity for their young students to get
together. Then that activity seemed to be more what the mothers were
interested in than what the students were interested in. The students were
excited to be getting together and were all pent up with energy, bursting to do
something. Meanwhile, the mothers had the children sit and listen to
lectures from the mothers, going over things that the mothers thought were
important in the schooling. The kids just wanted a chance to be kids with
other kids, but they had to spend almost all their time at the activity just
listening to more mothers. Different perspective there.
The parent teachers must work just as hard at the job of social director as
they do at academics. Just as you plan out a course of study, with
curriculum and books and lesson plans, so you must also plan out a course of
social activities, with dates and people and events.
It is much harder to plan a course of social events than it is to buy books and
lay out a lesson plan. Since it is harder, you as a parent may just
want to take the easy way out, and focus most on the books. You may
not want to get out of your comfort level and force yourself to get involved in
being a social activities director.
Public school students say that being with their friends are what they enjoy
most about school. That would probably be the one thing that would make
your kids want to go to public school. Home educators need to give their
homeschool students that same experience, although in a much better way.
You see, when kids have friends at public school, they also have enemies.
They have fights and bullies, gangs and drugs. Teen suicides are a major
problem in
I quote from a story on Yahoo News on September 18.
“
Middle-aged and elderly residents in this southern US city booed and hissed
James Fancy, 19, as he pulled his shorts down at the city council meeting to
expose striped boxers, and Tabby Chase, 30, as she stood up to reveal a bra
under a fishnet-shirt.
Both underwear flashers held up a sign saying "Clothes are not a
crime."
"Disgusting," said a man in the back of the room.”
I am sure you have noticed this fashion trend – guys wearing baggy pants
and no belt, and the pants hang halfway down their hips to show their boxer
shorts.
Let me be diplomatic and say that is an absolutely idiotic trend, just like
young people having holes in their jeans, except dumber.
The question is – how do stupid, vulgar trends like this get passed
around?
Through the public schools, of course.
Do the teachers in the public schools teach the boys to show their underwear?
No. The unguided culture teaches them that. Their friends teach
them that.
So now we have so many guys going around with their underwear uncovered that
cities are beginning to pass ordinances against such dress.
Quoting again from the Yahoo news article:
“[The] injunction is aimed at young people in
The ordinance, which would fine violators, would also prohibit women from
exposing the top strap of their thong underwear.
Martin said baggy shorts are part of an epidemic of bad behavior by youths in
Trying to be hip. Or blindly following what they learn in the halls of
the public schools. But what they learn certainly doesn’t stop with
boxer shorts and thong underwear. They learn drugs, sex, obscenities and
most of all, they learn to follow the world instead of Christ.
All of that is part of having friends in the public schools. The public
schools are unguided. Nobody can make the boys want to pull their pants
up, as long as the peer pressure pulls the pants down. As social director
of your home school, you can guide your children’s friendships. You
can keep the positive parts of friendship and eliminate most of the negative.
I mentioned about some of the homeschoolers and grads in our area having a lot
of good, close friends. They grew to be friends because they spent a lot
of time together, first in homeschool activities, and later just being
together. I think there are so many home school activities locally that a
family would not have time to participate in them all.
Our daughters played on basketball teams and volleyball teams. They were
in a number of drama productions, performed in the city civic center
theater. They participated in the homeschool coop classes. And for
years they have gotten together with the homeschoolers and grads every Monday
evening to play sports and music. Looking back on all that, those are
absolutely some of our greatest life memories. The job of being school
social director is not without its rewards.
Sometimes a homeschool parent will say -- I’m afraid that my children
don’t have enough friends. If you feel that is true, then you have
to ask yourself why that is so. That would be the case only if you as the
social director have not worked hard enough to provide social activities.
And you probably haven’t worked hard enough at being social director
because you didn’t think that was an important part of your job as
educator. It is.