Reasons for Homeschooling Sunday, August 1, 1993 3:03:20 PM Homeschool Issues Item From: Jason(Ripp) Rippetoe Subject: Reasons for Homeschooling To: Homeschool Issues

Cc:
I found an excellent article in a new magazine I borrowed from a friend. The magazine is called Patriarch and the article by Phil Lancaster is called “Home Education: It’s God’s Idea”.

The first few paragraphs are reprinted below and give a good start to a list. Read through them and let me know what you think. Do you agree that homeschooling is prescribed by scripture? What about the other reasons Phil gives?

There are many excellent reasons for choosing to teach your own children at home. First, there is now incontestable evidence that on average children who are home schooled fare better academically than children of either public or private schools. This is not surprising since tutoring has always been recognized as the best method of education. Second, home educated children are spared the corrupting enviornment of the peer-oriented classroom and thus are benefited socially. A common myth of our society is that children need to be with other children for extended periods of time to be properly socialized, but this is the exact oppisite of the truth. Much time in a peer culture is damaging to children. Socialization is one of the best reasons to home school. Third, any home schooling family will tell you that one of the greatest benefits of the process is that the family bonds are strengthened. Parents and children grow closer through the shared hours of each day. Siblings develop a new love and respect for one another as they live and learn and work together day by day. These families can overcome the family-fragmenting forces of modern life. The just plain have more time together; and love is spelled t-i-m-e. Fourth, home educating families prosper spiritually. Parents are able to guide their charges in godly paths as they protect them from the immorallity and falsehood so prevalent in public schools and teach them the Bible and its application to life. The very process of discipling one’s own child results in character growth in both the child and the parent. As good as all these reasons are, however, the very best reason to choose home education has not been listed yet. But to appreciate the force of thise last reason you must first agree to a vitally important premise. So let me run that by you first. The premise is simply this: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in rightousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Or, put another way: “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness” (2 Pet. 1:3). Or, finally: “Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light for my path” (Psalm 119:105). In other words, in our Lord Jesus and his Word, the Boble, we have all we need for spiritual and moral direction in life. The Scripture is our wholly sufficient guide for what to believe and how to live in ways that please God. Do you believe that? Do you agree that what is written in the Bible is written to tell us how to live; that when the Word of God addresses any particular aspect of life, it is giving us wisdom to be followed carefully; and that God has good reason for all that he reveals in his Word? If you do, then you are ready to hear the final point. The best reason for choosing home education is that it is God’s revealed plan for raising our children. The Bible knows no other system of education. God did not prescribe schools for his people; these were invented by others. The pages of Scripture espouse, by precept and example, a process that closely resembles what we call home education.

The article then presents what scripture says about the teachers, the method, the content, and the goal of education. It’s far too long to type in (sorry!), but this should give us some food for thought.

Patriarch can be obtained from: 601 Madison Drive, Arnold, MO 63010