"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." Psalm 119:105
Spring curriculum planning
posted Tuesday, March 31, 2009 :: 1:19 PM
My grandson begins kindergarten in the fall (already! Where did the time go?) and I was talking to my daughter this morning about curriculum. She was, like everyone else tends to do, agonizing over this choice or that one, and what if I make a mistake, LOL. I told her, loving and attentive parents, who raise their children according to God's ways and who do not provoke their children to wrath, can provide a superior education with mediocre materials. What curriculum you choose isn't nearly the life and death decision some believe it to be. (Of course, I would love for everyone to use excellent history curriculum - especially mine, LOL. But I digress ...)
Proverbs says, the heart of wisdom loves knowledge. If you teach your children to be wise, to love and fear God, and raise them with a heart of virtue, then they will seek out knowledge on their own. You won't be able to prevent it from happening. In fact, virtue and the fear of the Lord is the number one bedrock all education needs to be built upon. You can try to cram facts into a fool's head, but his knowledge will not profit him, for the end of a fool's foolishness is still destruction. If you could only teach your child one subject, let it be Bible. The older I get, the more I am convinced that a thorough knowledge and love of the word of God is in fact far better than rooms full of silver and gold, and a head crammed with all the knowledge in the earth.
If you don't believe me, try teaching math, science, or literature to a 10 or 12 or 14 year old whose heart was not taught to love virtue or the fear of the Lord. There is no more frustrating experience on earth. The best curriculum in the world will not penetrate a closed heart, or a mind full of foolish assumptions. So this year, major on the majors. Learn the word of God from front to back. I don't think you will be sorry.
"The ruling is so alarming because the state appeals court judges actually wrote that 'parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children.' The judges said that parents without teaching credentials cannot teach. This ruling is a radical slam against homeschooling," his organization said.
However, many organizations are working to overturn the effect of this ruling. There is clear ruling on the federal level that parents do have the right to direct their childrens' education. The governor and the legislature are both taking action to ensure parents' rights to homeschool should this court ruling stand, which seems to be an unlikely event.
World Net Daily has the roundup and all the latest news on the original ruling and the efforts inside California to overturn it.
As opposed to the Law of God, for instance, is that man changes his mind all the time, whereas God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Man will one day decide that parents have a constitutional right to school their children in their home, and then after hundreds of thousands of parents act to do so, another man comes along and says that parents who fail to comply with school enrollment laws may be subject to criminal complaints and other penalties.
The weak housing market means that many families who did not sell out and leave California while the getting was good a few years ago, might now be stuck.
Liberals are so vehemently opposed to homeschooling, because it takes children away from their sphere of power and influence (a detestable state in the minds of liberals), that they instinctively seek to curb its free exercise wherever they have the numbers to do so. California shows us that a Republican head of state is no help in guarding our homeschooling freedoms in the presence of a liberal legislature and court. May we take note for the general election coming up in November.
I came across this in my reading over the weekend:
"Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayngs of Mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of Mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell, and great was the fall of it." Matthew 7:24-27
The Greek word for "house" which Jesus used here is the same Greek word which He used in the parable about binding the strong man so that the thief can plunder his house (see part three): it may mean the dwelling, but it more often means his household, his family that dwells within the house.
So who is the wise man who builds his household upon a rock, that can withstand intact the storms of life? He that hears Jesus' sayings, and does them, not hears them only. I imagine there are people who sit in pews every week, who hear Jesus' sayings, but how many DO them? And it is interesting that this parable closes out Jesus' whole discourse on the Sermon on the Mount, which began in chapter 5. It is His conclusion. "These sayings of Mine" are everything that He had been expounding on, beginning in chapter 5. So what are "these sayings of Mine," which, if the wise man DOES them and not hears them only, will cause his household to be established on the rock, which will withstand the storms of life intact?
Melissa Busekros, the German homeschooled teen who was taken from her family and placed in a pyschiatric ward before being sent to live with a foster family in state custody, turned 16 today. She fled state custody at 3 a.m. and returned to her home, to the surprise of her delighted family. In Germany, 16- year- olds have greater rights than 16- year- olds do here, and she has the chance of refusing state custody if the police come for her again. Praise God that she is home. Previous reports on Melissa's plight here, here, and here.
Three families have written and signed a letter addressed to Christians worldwide to pray for them as the German state has imposed exorbitant fines on them, frozen their bank accounts, and threatened to remove their children from parental custody, all because they homeschool their children.
These are different families than the Brause family, from whom the courts removed legal custody of their children, and the Busekros family, whose 15- year- old daughter Melissa was forcibly removed from their home and taken to a psychiatric ward. Melissa remains in state custody and is imploring the international community for her release so she can return home.
We can help by praying for these five families, as well as all Christian homeschoolers in Germany. We can call our representatives to ask them what repercussions the United States has planned against Germany because of these Nazi- like human rights abuses. We can express our displeasure of the oppressive treatment of these innocent families to the German embassy in Washington. Let us let our voices be heard on their behalf.
We were discussing why homeschooled teens can also go through the rebellion, nightmares, and grief that many public schooled children endure. We mentioned last time that God gives us parents a promise: that if we fear the Lord our God, evidenced in our lives by obeying His commandments, and teaching them diligently (not half- heartedly) to our children also, then our sons and our sons' sons will also fear the Lord. Which is the beginning of wisdom. We mentioned the pivotal role fathers play, which Jesus affirmed:
"Or how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house." Matthew 12:29
If the strong man of the house, the father, is bound, then his household may indeed be plundered by the thief, who seeks to kill, steal, and destroy. According to Strong's, the word "house" means not only the brick and mortar dwelling, but also the family which inhabits that dwelling. And also, "goods" when plural, often metaphorically means "bodies" since the Greeks thought of souls living temporarily in vessels (goods). In the family I mentioned earlier, the thief nearly succeeded in stealing their daughter and destroying her life.
What binds a strong man? Whatever lie of the enemy prevents the father from keeping the commandments of God himself, and teaching His commandments to his children diligently. Unbelief, fear, shame, ignorance of God, love of secret sins or of the world and its ways - the list could go on. May God continue to restore true biblical manliness and godliness to the fathers, and the Church, for the sake of our sons, and our sons' sons.
In Deuteronomy 6:1-9, God answers our question, is it random? and gives us a promise:
"Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the rules that the LORD your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, that you may fear the LORD your God, you and your son and your son's son, by keeping all His statutes and His commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.
"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."
See the promise? "That you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son's son ..." The promise is to us and to our children, as Peter said. Moses tells us what we must do, to ensure that we, and our sons, and our sons' sons fear the Lord our God. The first is that we ourselves must keep the commandments of the Lord which He has commanded us to keep -- not so that we may somehow earn righteousness for salvation, for Paul clearly teaches that keeping the commandments cannot earn us any merit with God. But we keep them so that we may fear the Lord our God, and our sons with us, and their sons also. We keep them to benefit us, in other words, not to benefit God.
Besides keeping God's commandments ourselves, Moses tells us that we must teach them diigently to our children, by talking of them when we are sitting in our house, when we are walking outside of our house, when we lie down, and rise up: in other words, at all times. And by "we," I mean parents, but especially, fathers. The families I mentioned last time, who went through nightmares, in every case had fathers who either did not keep the Lord's commandments themselves, or did not teach it to their children. Strong, godly fathers are so vital to the spiritual, emotional, and physical health and well- being of their children! And that is why Satan's greatest weapon against the family in Christian America is the triple whammy of feminism, homo[s-x]uality, and apathy, all designed to rob men of their God- given masculinity.
I know more families who sacrificed to homeschool their children, scrimped to afford the best curriculum, but when the children reached teenagehood and entered church youth groups, the teens went through similar rebellion, troubles, and grief that their public school counterparts were engaged in. All of the homeschooled teens that I have known personally eventually came back to their families and their faith after going through various nightmare scenarios, but why does this happen? Why isn't homeschooling the protection for them that we parents want it to be?
One youth group pastor in Illinois is sounding the alarm, saying that too many parents, once their children reach the teen years, give "spiritual custody of their children to the church." To this church's credit, they are scaling back the segregated activities and making more and more of the church events whole family events. Sometimes I wonder if homeschooling families are especially susceptible to thinking that their children, in church youth group, are "safe," because after all they have the advantage of their parents' time, attention, and godly example.
One homeschooling family I know went through a nightmare with one of their daughters, who got hooked on drugs and eventually meth, who left home at 16 and lived through hell before getting off the drugs and returning to her family and the Lord. The first pot this young lady ever encountered was at a church youth group event given to her by one of the darlings of the church, another young lady who parents usually held up as a role model to the other young ladies in the church.
So is no friends until the kids are 18 the answer? There are those good families who have gone through nightmares with their teen children, and those good families who haven't. Is it random? I truly don't think it is.
This time it is five "well-educated" siblings who have been placed in state custody. The state has not yet removed them from their home, but has the authority to do so at any time. The parents can only regain legal custody of their children by placing them in a public school.
The judge had concluded that the children were well-educated, but accused the parents of failing to provide their children with an education in a public school. The court noted that one of the daughters expressed the same opinions as her father, showing they have not had the chance to develop "independent" personalities.
See the subtle anti- parent bias? The Scripture tells fathers to train up their children in God's ways, to speak God's word to them when they come in, go out, lie down, and rise up. This is God's way of ensuring that the biblical culture of the parents is transferred to the next generation. But German judges, who know more than God on the wisdom of these matters, conclude that a child who expresses the same opinion as her father has a stunted personality, which can only be remedied by immediate insertion into the nearest public school.
The EU has already proven it will stand with the German courts against the homeschoolers. Neither the EU nor the German government will tolerate unapproved (independent) thinking among the next generation of Europeans. Unless you are a Muslim immigrant, of course.
More letters to the German embassy are obviously required.
A German appeals court ordered a 15-year-old homeschooled girl to undergo psychiatric evaluation after they removed her from her family, and they have now ordered psych tests on her parents as well.
"Even those German families who already have fled to other countries because of Germany's homeschool ban are moving into hiding because of the possibility they could be returned to face German fines or jail time for homeschooling."
...
"Members of the German homeschool community previously have taken their battle for the right to teach their children Christian basics to the Human Rights Court for the European Union, asking for affirmation of the statement in the European Convention on Human Rights that: "In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching is in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions."
"However, that court just last year affirmed a German court which had ruled the parental "wish" to have their children grow up without anti-Christian influences "could not take priority over compulsory school attendance."
"The international court said schools represent society and "it was in the children's interest to become part of that society."
The government monopoly on education in Germany was a policy introduced by Adolf Hitler, and has never been rescinded. Even though Germany is taking steps to strip Hitler of his German citizenship, in this area of mind control over the next generation they show no signs of renouncing Hitler's misguided power grab. Is this 2007 or 1937?
Of particular concern is this paragraph from Germany's director of Education Ministry:
In order to avoid this in future, the education authority is in conversation with the affected family in order to look for possibilities to bring the religious convictions of the family into line with the unalterable school attendance requirement.
Doesn't it seem as if the 1930s are repeating themselves? We have an ineffective UN appeasing tyrants and warmongers, anti-Semitism is at an all time high, and Germany is threatening to bring its citizens' religious convictions into line with government policy. Cue the twilight zone music, and pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters in the faith.
09/26 Update:World Net Daily reports that HSLDA is urging American homeschoolers to write to the German embassy on behalf of Katharina Plett.
*** Original post dated 09/14: Katharina Plett is a homeschooling mom in Germany; she has been arrested for homeschooling the children. The father and children have fled to Austria. Apparently Germany does not have the equilvalent of a 4th amendment, “no warrentless search and seizure,” because that is how the German police got into her home. Hitler was the one who banned homeschooling in Germany; I did not know that Germany still has laws on the books which were enacted by Hitler.
We can do three things: Let us not forget to thank the Lord daily for the freedoms and rights we have in this country. Let us pray for the Plett family. And let us write a letter to the German embassy in Washington D.C. expressing our opinion about Germany’s treatment of Katharina Plett (be polite and respectful!):
If every homeschooling family in America wrote one letter, showing how homeschooling has benefitted the children, the family, and our communities and country, we might go a long way to influence Germany to treat Mrs. Plett with clemency and change Germany’s antiquated homeschooling law.
09/01/06 Update: World Net Daily has interviewed our own Nancy Carter and Gena Suarez
for an article about alternatives to eBay for homeschoolers. I would
also like to note that the article quotes the NEA as saying they had
nothing to do with this, because they have no formal relationship with
eBay. Granted. But this was pressure by the institutionalized school
lobby, bureaucracy, and related interested parties, of which the NEA is
definitely a big part.
Original post on August 28, 2006: By now you have probably heard that eBay is prohibiting the sale of teacher's editions of textbooks.
It is taking this move because of pressure from the institutionalized
schooling lobby. It hurts homeschoolers, who have been buying and
selling curriculum on eBay for years.
eBay now deletes
teacher edition textbook listings, just as it does illegal drugs,
pirated music or movies, and firearms or other weapons. That is because
knowledge in the hands of anyone other than the anointed priest class,
i.e., the public school bureaucracy, is dangerous! Wow, we have
regressed to the days of ancient Egypt or the Druids.
I
guess if the NEA cannot get homeschooling outlawed through legislation,
they will harass homeschoolers in any other way that they can.
And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of 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. Ecclesiastes 12:12-14
I was asked this week what advice I would
give a new homeschooler. My best advice is two-fold: one, go in with your
eyes open, with as realistic expectations as possible. Ask friends who
homeschool what they really think about homeschooling. I predict that
the honest ones will tell you how wonderful it is, how life-changing it
has been, not only for the children, but also for the parents, for the
family; but also that it is a lot of work. Good teaching takes
committment and dedication, just like good parenting, just like good
marriages. That committment sees you through the rough spots (and you
will have them; we all do) in teaching, just as it does in parenting,
just as it does in marriages.
And two, the thing I found that
makes homeschooling hard is not the academics, surprisingly. The
curriculum
available today does a good job of addressing the academics. The hard
part is that as families, Americans do
not know how to live an integrated life with each other, because our
modern
society is so fragmented. In “normal” families where the children
attend public school (don’t get me started on the definition of
“normal”), Dad is gone all day, Mom is alone all day (or gone
all day), the kids are in their separate worlds with their friends, the
family
all lives in the same house, but they don’t see each other a lot or
share their
lives.
Homeschooling changes
that, because all of the sudden families are around each other. You
have to
learn how to live together with love and respect and harmony. This is
harder
than it sounds, because – in my experience – most of us don’t have the
role
models for that (there are blessed exceptions, of course). Most of us were
raised ourselves by parents who both worked outside the home. Most us
were those kids who were in their own in
their own little world with their friends.
But homeschooled kids will still
give their mother attitude and complain about having to do school and be a smart
aleck – just as public school kids often do – if the father
and the mother
allow their children to act that way. It is attitude, complaining,
discipline issues that make homeschooling hard. And I bold ‘father,’
because I believe
that if the kids are disrespecting their mother consistently and over
the long
term, it is because the father is allowing it on some level. Yeah, call
me
old-fashioned.
The difference with public schooled and homeschooled families (of course this is very simplified) is that
the public school kids spend so much of their time away from home, away from
their parents, that they tend to get away with the attitude until they get in
trouble in junior high or high school, and by then you may have already lost
your kid. With the homeschooled families, the parents have to figure out early
on how to deal with the attitude, how to teach their children to be civilized
and respectful, and how to keep that heart connection between the parents and
children in order to survive and thrive being around each other all the time.
If
new homeschooling families do not solve that problem, the character and discipline problem, then they will
not homeschool for the long term. Solving how to be respectful,
civilized, and love each other from the heart is the hardest part
of homeschooling for most homeschoolers. Most new homeschooling families are worried
about finding the best
math curriculum or English curriculum. As a veteran who has been there
done
that, the number one thing to be concerned about is not teaching math
or
science. It is teaching the heart of your children to love virtue.
“For the
heart of the prudent acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks
knowledge.” Proverbs 18:15.
A thirteen-, fourteen- or fifteen- year- old who has not acquired the heart of the
prudent, the heart of wisdom, the heart of virtue, closes their heart
to knowledge. You can try to teach such a child algebra, but if they
have an unteachable heart, it will be a miserable experience for both
of you. Teaching your
children character and virtue is the most important thing you can do,
because
a child’s heart so trained will readily seek out knowledge on his own.
Visit with Christine Miller awhile and let's share our thoughts on homeschooling, education, and life.
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