Home School Commentary
As the 1994-95 school year begins, it still amazes me as to
how much opposition there is to the issue of homeschooling.
I have talked to a number of people (who have had their children
in public schools or whose children currently are in the public
system) about the public education system, and the statements
that I am hearing from these people still shock me! Brandon is a
small city of 30,000-45,000 people, so many times we get the idea
that things only occur in the “big cities”. Well, I
guess when things really happen in your own town, then the impact
is fully there.
For a moment let me just give you, the reader, four simple
instances of what is going on in Brandon’s or Canada’s
public, educational system. We will put aside the Biblical
aspects for the minute, outline the following four instances and
then, of course, hear what the Inspired Word of God has to say
about the issue.
1. In this city, one teacher is promoting the
concept of “approximate math.” In this concept the
answer to a question no longer has to be exact, only CLOSE OR
APPROXIMATE !! The teacher’s premise is this:
“when we go to the grocery store to buy food (without a
calculator) we round off prices to the nearest dollar as we
budget the items placed into the shopping cart. We don’t use
‘exact math’ then, so why teach it to the
children.”
Now the children do not learn absolutes!! As long as your answer
is close or approximate...great!!
Would anyone like this child to build the next bridge or house?
2. When you, dear reader, were going to school,
you had to memorize the multiplication table (e.g.
2x2=4, 12x11=132). Guess what! In the public school system, the
kids don’t have to know the
multiplication table because they get a card placed in front of
them with all the answers on it.
Don’t send these children down to the store with a five
dollar bill and ask them to get as many bananas as they can with
that money. You'll send the poor child to the “looney
bin” trying to figure that math problem out.
3. There are murmuring starting to happen in the
education field that perhaps teachers don’t need to teach
correct spelling, only teach the child to spell the words the way
it sounds. (e.g. this is the correct spelling for the word
“know” now the new spelling would be “no”.)
Throw the rules out, just get the child learning or trying to
learn how to spell first and then, maybe, teach him the correct
way later.
I have a problem with that. After years of letting a child learn
to spell the way he thinks a word should be spelled, do you think
it will be easy for him to read or write correctly later in life?
Do you think it will be an easy task for the child to learn that
he has been doing it wrong for some period of time and that now
he has to try and learn all over again how to spell, only this
time it has to be correct? One that was once known as a
“poor speller” is now called a “creative
speller.”
This last issue has not surfaced itself in Brandon yet, but I
doubt that it will take long. It is already being tried in some
major cities in the United States so it will soon be tried here.
4. In the province of British Columbia, a law is
being put forth before the Commons to ban the Gideon Bible from
being freely passed out. Yet it is all right to set up condom
machines in the public school washrooms. Where has society’s
values gone???
These examples show us that no matter what the world thinks,
Homeschooling is the correct thing to do!
Deut. 6:4-8 says: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one
LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words,
which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou
shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of
them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by
the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And
thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall
be as frontlets between thine eyes.”
Parents are responsible for the education of the children and the
Bible needs to be the text book from which we teach them the
absolute values which God, in His holiness, has set forth. The
children are to learn to read the Word of God, study the Word of
God and write the Word of God! They need to be taught the
absolutes of God: Jesus Christ and Heaven or the devil and Hell.
No “close enough”, or approximations, no “sounds
right to me.” John 14:6 “Jesus saith unto him, I am the
way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but
by me.” This verse does not leave room for approximates or
“sounds okay” or anything else. It is simply Jesus
Christ or Hell. The battle cry of the Baptists has and should
always be taught to our children “turn or burn.” (Lk.
13:3 “I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all
likewise perish.”)
Prov. 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go: and
when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
It is the duty of the parents to teach the child the eternal
values that God would have the child learn, not the Humanist view
point of the world.
This commentary could go on and on and on. Yes, more quotes from
God’s pure Word could be used, but I think the point has
been made. The public school is no place for a child to get an
education, because it is not being offered there. At least not
one that I would want my child taught.
~ a concerned parent