H is for Homeschooling

Jeremy Walker (00:04):

And welcome back to another episode of Preschool Pioneers. I am your host, Jeremy Walker. You can follow us on our parent network, CR101 Radio, on social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Gab, and YouTube, and you can subscribe to this podcast and your preferred platforms so that you never miss an episode. Visit cr101radio.com for these links.

(00:44):

Well, well, well, welcome back guys to another episode of Preschool Pioneers where we discuss parents, families, teachers, and Christian education, and in particular why Christians should become teachers. This episode is entitled, H Is For Homeschooling, Why Educating Children is Important and Why Child Rearing is not the Same as Educating Children.

(01:18):

I want to start with our scripture passage for this episode, Ecclesiastes 12:8-14. "Vanity of vanities sayeth the preacher, all is vanity, and moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge. Ye, he gave good heed and sought out and set in order many proverbs. The preacher sought to find out acceptable words and that which was written was upright, even the words of truth. The words of the wise are as goads and as nails fastened by the masters of Assemblies, which are given from one shepherd. And further, by these, my son, be admonished of making many books, there is no end and much study is a weariness to the flesh. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep His commandments for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil."

(02:30):

I want to start this episode by giving perspective to Christian parents and Christian teachers. There are three different subjects that we're going to be talking about on this episode of homeschooling. We're going to be discussing the different concepts between government education or schooling, home education or schooling, and a third, which some people may not be familiar with, which is called uneducation or unschooling.

(03:02):

Let's start by defining some terms. For government education or schooling, what is their goal? What does this mean? What is it that happens at a school that is government run? Well, it's about statist loyalty and learning that is focused on political goals and ends, whatever those might be, whatever the purposes are, but they're not about traditional education, reading, writing, and arithmetic. That is not the goal. It's about forming a person it's into who the state wants that person to become. Simple as that. So statist or government education is better known as child molding or rearing more than child education.

(03:50):

All across the United States, everyone knows that the educational levels have been dropping, dropping, dropping. If you're familiar with this podcast, we've had many times where we've talked about the various teachers inside the government school system making these comments of how the educational level, the reading, writing, arithmetic levels of their students continues to drop, drop, drop, and it's even gotten so worse that certain aspects of the student bodies, depending on their race, gender or otherwise, is being lowered even further. So academically in the government school system, they're destroying education as we know it. But education is not their goal, therefore they are achieving their goals, the statist loyalty, child molding, adult becoming goals.

(04:43):

Home education or homeschooling. A lot of people have the wrong idea about this. They think it's about book learning, so they do lots of different studies on Ancient Egypt and about the Indians and teepee making. They'll go out and find owl droppings and try to find out what was inside the owl puke that's out there, building forts and baking cakes and all the different type of things that they try to do. They try to fill up their day with what they think is learning, but I wouldn't call it education per se. But the homeschoolers do focus on one thing, which they do a lot better than the government school system and that is the reading, writing, arithmetic. They do excel at that. They do, however, fail at molding their children to becoming the adults that they need to be. They kind of leave them in a perpetual state of, I would say adolescents. Adolescents where they're smart, great, they can read, they can write, they can do arithmetic. They know history or proposed history better than other people, but they're not really ready for the real world.

(05:58):

Where the government school system is not turning out intelligent people, reading, writing, arithmetic related, and the homeschool families are, the government side of education is producing people who are prepared for engaging the real world. That's their goal. Their entire focus is creating children who become adults who then take over the real world, who can mold it in their own image. Where the homeschools and the Christian families on the other side are producing intelligent children, reading, writing, and arithmetic related, but are not prepared to engage the real world. In fact, they're sheltered to such an extent, the only thing they really want to do is go and hide from the real world. They don't want to engage.

(06:46):

The only way they're going to really engage for the most part is if they can do it online. If they can sign a petition of some sorts, if they can together as a group go show up at a rally maybe to show their presence, but that's kind of it. They're not really building businesses. They're not starting schools. There's no community outreach. It's about what happens within the four walls of that home. In fact, not only did the homeschooling families promote that the mother never leaves the four walls of her property at all, she never produces any income, never helps the family at all. It's just about the kids and if there's no kids, what does she do? They never say. But even the fathers, the husbands want to stay in their homes. They want to be these guys who work in tech, who can have these remote stations where they also stay at home. Everybody stays at home on their little prairie and no one engages the real world.

(07:45):

Is it not a shock and surprise then that the real world is being molded by students from government schools and not from home schools? You'd like it to be the other way around, but it's not. The state schools are producing immoral people who engage the world in an immoral way. They propagate immorality, anti-Christian behavior and laws on the political level. Where the homeschool families traditionally, generally speaking are Christian to a large degree. However, though they're attempting to produce more moral children, they're not engaging the world in that manner, so it's kind of isolated to them and to their families. They have no community outreach to speak of and certainly not on a larger level, but then they endlessly talk about what happens in the society, what happens in the political world, but they're not engaging in it. They're not trying to actually make a difference.

(08:50):

Then you got the uneducation or unschooling crowd where these ones here are completely individualistically based. They're kind of like homeschooling. They're lumped into that same category, but they're not focused on academics at all. Everything is focused on the child. Now, me, I work in the preschool realm with our community and I get to see what the government educators and the government preschools are promoting, and it is largely a form of unschooling or uneducation where they don't want you to teach anything to children. That's right. You're not supposed to teach reading, writing or arithmetic to any child under the age of five before they enter into the government school system and as mentioned previous, then they still aren't focused on reading, writing, arithmetic at all. So before the ages of five, the goal is to let the child be whoever the child wants to be. It's a Montessori style education of sorts.

(09:56):

The main focus is not trying to change the child, but letting the child be whomever the child is. Now, as Christians, we understand that that means that they are a fallen creature, they're at war with God, they're selfish to the core, and they have no care or love for anyone besides themselves. Well, that's what Christianity is completely against, and that is why the preschool world as we know it, that is government controlled because the vast majority of preschools here in the United States run off government dollars. Now, our preschool did that years ago. Government can produce vouchers for parents to help pay for it, which is great if they can get help, funding, help their family, that's a wonderful thing. However, what do they do with these vouchers and funding? They give it to the parents so the parents can choose the school like a facility like mine who is a Christian school teaching Christian values, and then they come in and say, "Well, you take our vouchers and since you do, you must meet our standards."

(11:05):

You could say kind of like the social media platforms, "our community standards." And what does that mean? It means you can teach values as long as it's not related to God or Christianity. Teaching children not to steal because it hurts somebody else's feelings is good. Teach that all day, teach that it's against the law because the United States of America says that stealing is bad. Teaching state loyalty, perfectly okay. Telling young children that stealing is wrong because God says "Thou shalt not steal," now, that's inappropriate for children. You heard me, inappropriate for children. And I had to sit and listen to many state inspectors talk about how it was inappropriate for children to be taught The 10 Commandments.

(12:02):

Well, let's stop for a second. The concept of community standards is important because we all have them. Social media platforms have kind of coined this phrase of community standards and you're in breach of our community standards. Well, as Christians, we should not shy away from this term. We have community standards as well, and there are tons and tons of people who are in violation of our community standards.

(12:32):

In schools, the current state of education, as we like to talk about here on Preschool Pioneers, one of the things that your children, if they are in a government school and depending on which state you're in, it can be better or worse, just depends on where you're at and how liberal or how woke some of these things are, your child is going to school every single day and they are not going to be taught reading, writing, and arithmetic. Instead, they were going to be taught that sexual perversion is good. Sexual perversion is something that children should experiment with because this is what they want. They want children to defile themselves. They, of course, remember, molding the child to become the adult that they would like them to become.

(13:26):

Now, what happens when you take a child and don't educate them, no reading, no writing, no arithmetic, and then you teach them to be sexual deviants? Well, one, they're going to cripple them the rest of their life because they have not been taught properly how to live in terms of the real world and does a statist government that is tyrannical want independent thinkers, independent workers, people who are responsible for themselves and their families? Is that what they want? Well, no, it's not. It's not what they want at all. A intelligent population that is moral, dedicated to itself and its family is not easily controlled, is not easily lied to and is not easily corrupted. So you first have to strip away a Christian foundation before you can get people to follow lies. If you teach a child as they grow the 10 commandments, as they grow, they are a creature created by God with purpose that is not easy to overcome.

(14:37):

If you are on the other side who want them to grow up, become little statist drones who are sexual deviants, who need the government to take care of them, you keep voting us into office and we'll keep giving you what you need. See, to me, I don't see how parents don't see it and on the other side, I think it's far worse that they do see it and just keep going. See, I've mentioned before, to what degree does a person have to teach deviancy, disgustingness and evil to your child before you stand up, put your feet down and say, "Not to my child. You will not teach that to my child," whatever that is. When you don't have a Christian foundation, this is eroded.

(15:40):

I've been now working in Christian schools for over 25 years, so a quarter-century, and I have been able to see the transformation of both employees, children, and even parents. Now, transformations don't necessarily mean salvation and I think that's a very important thing for you Christian parent, Christian teacher, to think about, Christian school. We are not in the sole winning business as some have kind of coined the phrase, I suppose you call it, soul winning, where they're the ones because of what they're doing, they grab the brands from the fire and they save that soul for eternity from hell. Well, that's not something we have the power to do.

(16:28):

We do have the power and the responsibility to plant seeds and to influence to the degree that we can. The seeds that we plant, well, we don't have the control over if that actually starts to take root or not. That's just outside of our control, but the influence part that we can have an influence on. See, even evil people who have, say, Christians in their midst, say, you take Christian families and Christian kids and stick them in the government school, you're going to corrupt them morally. You're not going to, if they're a child of God, strip away their eternal life, their salvation because it was a gift, but you can get them to commit sins.

(17:19):

See, in the Bible, there was the case of Balak and Balaam and King Balak wanted to curse Moses and the Israelites as they were coming through the desert and he hired Balaam to do it. And Balaam says, "I'm sorry, long story short, you can't do that. I can't curse them. You see, God is on their side. If you want to have them cursed, there's one thing that you're going to have to do and it's very simple. You have to get them to corrupt themselves. That's right. Convince them to break God's commandments and now they will step outside of God's protection and then we can get them." That's the only way that somebody can hurt or touch you or your family if you corrupt yourselves.

(18:11):

Now, let me ask you a question, christian parent, Christian teacher, are you corrupting your child or are you working on the sanctification of your child, the righteousness of your child? In Ecclesiastes, we had Solomon talking about how everything was vanity, vanity, vanity is everything is vanity for him, the whole chapter, the whole book of Ecclesiastes, you should go back and read it. Talks about life and how so many things are just not really that important because life is short and most of the things we do are just silliness.

(18:48):

But even though he saw that everything was vanity, he still went in there, he says, however, I still went out and I taught people knowledge and I went and tried to help so many people and I wrote so many proverbs. I wrote acceptable words and I gave the truth that was upright to them because after all what he said was the words of the wise are goads. Goads are like when you have an animal and you're trying to lead it into a certain direction. As a Christian parent and a Christian teacher, that's what our teaching does. We're goading, we're herding children to a certain direction. We're trying to guide them. We are the builders, you could say. Like the nails that are fastened by the masters of assemblies. These are people who are constructing and building something.

(19:33):

But what are you trying to build? What is your finished product going to look like? Is it going to look like a pristine ship that can sail on the seas like we used to, these big massive ships that could hold together and go across oceans? Or is yours going to look like a fort put together by a bunch of seven year olds with hammers and nails that falls down with the first person who steps into it? That's kind of the idea behind being a parent and being a teacher. In a lot of ways, you're guiding your building and you're trying to create something by the time that you're done.

(20:13):

The main goal of non-Christian governmental education is to pervert and destroy people. They want to create wrecks. That's right. They want to create wrecks that are so broken down that the government has to keep coming back in with their nails to prop them up with another board before they fall down, and eventually of course, they are going to fall down on their own weight. They will in effect destroy themselves. But of course the statist government doesn't care. That's what it wants. It keeps them in power and stops people from challenging them or trying to convict them of their sins. They don't want that.

(20:53):

What is it that you want? Do you want to create a wonderful, independent child who is now an adult who can grow their own family without you, without the government, dependent upon God and His word, trusting in Him daily? I think that you have to stop and ask yourself that question. There's a massive difference between schooling, which is about academic subjects, that's what schools do, and parenting and families who they're trying to develop that child so they're ready to live successfully in the real world. That's not exactly an academic thing in nature.

(21:35):

See, what Sullivan was talking about is not just us goading people, our admonishments, that we are going to put enough books inside of our kids' heads, or put enough knowledge, enough information, that we're going to make them something special. That's not what's going to make them special. Information is not where it's at. That's why the government school system is not putting information into people's heads. They know where the real power is at, and that is in self-control and morality. Your religion, basically. It is your root, it is your cornerstone. You have to prepare and try to teach the cornerstone as Christ, the foundation is God and his law word, that is going to be your focus.

(22:26):

But why? Well, Solomon gave us that answer as well for us parents and teachers, the conclusion of the entire matter according to Solomon, what you're supposed to be doing, not just teaching facts and information or even is more important than reading, writing, and arithmetic, is teaching the fear of God and the keeping of His commandments. This is what Solomon said was the whole duty of man. This means the parent, this means teacher, this means school, our jobs primarily should be teaching the fear of God and the keeping of His commandments. That's our whole duty. That's the duty of our children as they grow up. But what does that mean, the fear of God? It means to hate evil and the evil way according to the book of Proverbs. In other words, the government schools are attempting to strip away the fear of God and to teach the breaking of God's commandments. That is what they see is their full duty. Their entire being is geared towards teaching people to love evil, love deviancy, and to break God's commandments as much as possible, as early as possible.

(23:43):

The answer behind all of it is why are these things important for you as the parent and the teacher as a Christian? Solomon gives the answer. "For God shall bring every work into judgment, whether every secret thing is good or evil." So Christian parent, Christian teacher, do you want your children to be blessed by God? Then you have to teach them to live a godly life. Do you, when it comes your time to stand in the judgment yourself, do you want it to be said that you did a good job, that you goaded in the right manner, that you built a fine ship ready to sail, or that you built a crummy tree house that fell down on its own weight? You're important, Christian parent and Christian teacher. Don't squander your time and responsibilities. This is Jeremy Walker. Thank you for joining me. God bless.