Category Archives: Biblical Worldview

May 28, 2013 · 4:23 pm

Homeschooling Momma Bears

mama bear

What are you teaching your children?

I called the home of a student I had been tutoring to tell the parents that their son had plagiarized his paper. Never entering into these conversations lightly, first I do my most careful work to document the offense and make certain of my accusation. I hate this kind of conversation, but it is necessary. Yes, even homeschooled children sin.

I asked for a meeting with the parents and the student so that we could look at the work together and talk about a plan for getting him back on the right track. After a pause, the mother said, “I have to tell you I am really angry right now.”

“I understand,” I began. “I have teenagers myself–”

She cut me off. “No, you don’t understand. I am so angry at you right now, it’s a good thing we are not talking face to face.” Shocked, I took a few seconds to respond. We agreed that waiting a couple of days to before we met would be a good idea.

Mom and Dad came with their son, an eleventh grader. I won’t go into detail, but I will tell you that she was furious that I would accuse her son of plagiarism. When I showed her the bald facts, she still protested. “No one cares about plagiarism. It doesn’t really matter these days,” she argued. “It’s just another way to use research.” Even her husband looked sideways at her. What was she teaching her son at that moment?

It is admirable that a mom wants to go to bat for her son, no matter what. But there comes a time when reality dictates that the child must take responsibility for his own actions, and the parent must let those consequences take effect. This mom wanted to protest everything, including giving her son a zero on the assignment without the chance of making it up. When I told her that colleges will toss out a student who plagiarizes, she finally sat still. I have heard of Masters degree candidates who are summarily kicked out, unable to continue at any other college because of the blackened reputation they now had for the plagiarism on their record. And we could talk about the authors and journalists whose reputations have been ruined when their plagiarisms were revealed. That is reality.

I suspect–though I never had another conversation with that mother–that she was so wrapped up in her son’s schooling, mama bear with babiesshe took great offense at anything negative said about his work. I suspect that she took it very personally.

Being a momma bear is not a bad thing. Every child needs someone to be their best advocate. However, momma bears must know their limits, and they must realize that they are always teaching their children, in the words they choose, their attitudes toward others, and in the way they deal with failures and successes.

So I have some helpful advice for those momma bears out there–and you know who you are.

Help your child to own his responsibilities and his mistakes. Be realistic about the fact that  you are the parent of a sinner who needs your instruction and loving guidance. You will do him no service by covering up, excusing, masking, or downplaying his slip-ups. When will he learn from his mistakes, if it cannot be under your roof? Better that the plagiarism happened to my student at age 16 and under his parents’ authority, than while he is at college where his record could have been permanently affected. Or perhaps when he is on a job and falsifies or plagiarizes a report, and gets fired. Use that opportunity to discipline, correct, and point him in the right direction.

Be your child’s best advocate. Fight for the very best for her. Don’t settle for less. Investigate the options and be ready to change gears if something is not working. However, remain consistent with your child. I know a family who used three different math programs in one year because their child couldn’t “get” the math. That set the child behind considerably, and it took them a couple of years to catch up.

Be realistic about your expectations. Set attainable goals each year, or perhaps each semester. Review your goals. Set long-term ones as well, so that you know where you are aiming from year to year. Those long-term goals become more and more important the older your child gets. And by high school, your child needs to own those goals himself. If he does not, you both may be in for a load of trouble each year you try to homeschool him in high school.

Realize you cannot do everything, so instead do a few things well. The older your child gets, the more important this becomes. Over-committing your child to all sorts of seemingly good activities may look like fun at first, but it will only complicate your high school student’s life as he tries to study the basics and manage a half-dozen extra activities. Choose carefully, allow him time for studying, and give him time off to breathe. You do not need to fill all of his moments; help him to find a healthy balance of study and activities. This is especially important in high school when you must give him his basics plus an elective, build in time to study, and provide opportunities to serve others or develop leadership skills or sports. There isn’t a lot of time for all the extras you used to do when he was younger. This will teach him balance and perspective.

At some things your child might not be a shining star. Be okay with that, but continue to push for excellence when reasonable. Not every child is gifted in every area. Each child has his own special talents and gifts. If your child is only average academically, that’s fine. Encourage him to do it well and to learn how to work hard. Help him through some of the disappointments, and point him toward those things in which he does excel. Reality parenting means acknowledging the situation.

Don’t cheat your child by inflating her abilities. If your child is earning a low grade, leave it at that. One mom asked me, “If the tutor I hired gives my [high school] child a C, can I inflate that if I think she put forth good effort?” As the homeschool parent you are free to put whatever grade you want on your child’s transcript. However. Just ask yourself if the C was an honest representation of your child’s actual work. How would your child benefit from your inflation of that grade? Sure, she might get into that college, but based on whose grades and on what work? Does her SAT score reflect the C or the inflated grade? And have you done your child a disservice by falsifying what was the actual grade? Finally, what lesson did you just teach your child when you inflated her grade?

When you hire a professional tutor/teacher, seek excellence. Use your money wisely. Find someone with a reputation for excellence. Ask to see samples of the syllabus he or she has given students before. Look up reviews of the textbook he or she will use. If you are using an organization to teach your child, examine the organization’s reputation. Read reviews online if they are available. Talk with other parents who have used that organization, if you can.

Be firm. Be ready to accept tears and pouting faces on occasion. Work done well is often difficult, and the process can be painful or unpleasant at times. Schoolwork is not always sunshine and roses. The outcome, though, can be satisfaction of a job well done. Remember, “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11).

I contacted the parent of a student who was barely passing my class, and with just three or four weeks of class left, I wanted to make sure we were doing everything we could to help this student to finish well. “That’s okay,” said the mom. “I’m pulling my child out of your class.” With three or four weeks left of class? “We want people to build strong character qualities into our children, and that is more important than a letter grade,” she said.

Is this an either/or situation, either you get character or grades? How about building character through the application of hard work? What about the lessons the parents taught their child by pulling him out of a class instead of allowing him to press on through the difficult circumstances into which he had gotten? What about finishing the job well, running the race to its completion, all of that? What about the character qualities of persistence and strong work ethic?

Be aware of what you are teaching your children, through those things you DO and what you AVOID doing. Both can send a very strong message to your child. And you know he is watching.

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May 25, 2013 · 4:09 pm

Homeschool: Plan the High School Career

graduateIn my years of advising and teaching, I have met some parents who seemed to be surprised that they had older teenagers who actually needed to finish high school with enough credits to enter college.

However, for as many poor planners I have met, I have encountered just as many parents who deliberately plotted out their students’ high school paths so that they would be ready for college.

It’s important to set out your student’s junior high and high school years, to know what is required for graduation in your state and for entrance to college. Some high schoolers do not intend to go to college, but isn’t it wise to aim them there, in case they change their minds? Better to be prepared than caught off guard.

Check with your state’s requirements for graduation. As a homeschool parent you should know these things, since your state may require reporting of you each year they are homeschooled. Go to HSLDA to find your state’s requirements.

Plan out those six years

While a transcript only needs to report the four years of high school, it’s best to start planning in junior high or earlier so that you know what to expect. Plot out the progression of math, science, English, history, and foreign language you want him to take. Carefully regard what is considered high school versus junior high curriculum.

For instance, Physical Science and General Science are not considered high school courses; they are for junior high. Colleges want to see high school science courses (some with labs) on the transcript. Those would be Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Anatomy & Physiology, and so forth. Plan accordingly.

Math, too, must be dealt with carefully. A transcript should show an upward progress in Math. Algebra 1, for example, is a junior high class, so make sure your student is aimed toward Algebra 1 then, not in high school.

On the reverse side, some parents want to give their children high school classes while in junior high. Be careful with this. You can cover some high school subjects earlier, such as Math, if your student has an aptitude for it. But there are some subjects, like science, English, and history, that require maturity in all areas of thinking and are therefore ill-advised for junior high. Let your child be a child for a while. I covered this in an earlier blog.

What does my child need to get into college?

Each year of study is one credit. A one-semester class is a half-credit. Meet the requirements  for your state, but also keep in mind that colleges may have more stringent demands. Contact the colleges of your choice or browse around at College Board to see what colleges are looking for.

My own polling of colleges–including military academies, Ivy League, state universities, and Christian colleges–shows that on average these are the credit requirements for entry:

  • English–4
  • Foreign Language–3
  • History/Social Science–3-4
  • Math–4
  • Science–3-4
  • Electives, including art–1 to 4.

Included in that Social Science category is 1/2 credit of Government and 1/2 credit of Economics. Those are usually taken at the junior or senior level of high school. Keep in mind that the college you’re looking for may have other numbers, so take a careful look for yourself.

A word about English, since it is a passion of mine. Don’t just think that a few books and a couple of essays a year will suffice for High School English. An English class must teach literature, grammar, and composition purposefully. (Grammar can be left behind on or about 9th grade if your student’s understanding is sufficient.)  One incredibly popular writing program used by many home schoolers is sufficient up toward junior high, but it will not do as college prep for high school. Its formulas help set the foundation for good writing, but your child needs to grow beyond that formula very soon. See my past blog on writing well. You do your child no favors if you try to take shortcuts with his writing.

In addition to a good transcript, colleges have their eye on a few other criteria. Of course they will look at your transcript. Then they will, in essence, say, “prove it to us.” They want to see if your student’s SAT and/or ACT scores match up to what you say he has taken on his transcript. Some colleges may also require some placement tests upon entry. I have known students who had to take a foreign language placement test on the first day of Freshman Orientation at college. Just because the transcript said there was a foreign language, didn’t mean the student had met their standards.

Colleges also want to see a few other things when looking at the transcript, application, recommendation letters, and college essays:college pennant

  • Excellent academics
  • Special talents
  • Community service
  • Leadership
  • Initiative
  • Extracurricular activities
  • Jobs held

I often recommend showing some of that by attaching an Appendix to a student’s transcripts, listing the curriculum and books read each year, as well as extracurricular activities, honors, sports, community involvement, and so forth, so that colleges can see your student is well-rounded.

What about CLEP, AP, and Dual Enrollment?

By all means have your student take the CLEP exam upon entering college if it is offered. The tests cost, but if a student earns credit you will save money in the end. AP exams are a good idea, if your child is prepared for them. Some homeschool programs offer AP courses. They are a lot of work, but they are excellent preparation for college. The growing trend these days is more toward AP in homeschoolers, and I welcome it; just make sure your child is well-prepared for the AP classes. Don’t pile them on; two a year is sufficient, and honestly, the junior and senior year is the time for those classes–no earlier. Again, we are talking about maturity of the student as well as maturity of the subject matter.

I have written about Dual Enrollment before. There are hazards inherent in such programs, including the fact that your little darling will be spending part of his day in the presence of countless adults on a college campus, while he may not be old enough to drive. Be sure your child has the maturity to be there. Also, be sure that the college he plans to attend will accept the dual credits he is earning.

Also understand that a college-semester math or science class will not cover everything that very same high school class covers. In essence, then, your child will not be learning the same amount as his peers. Whether that sets a strong foundation for college is up to you to decide. Sometimes the “free” tuition in some dual enrollment programs may not turn out to be so advantageous when looking at its down sides. Be wise in your decisions. Yes, Dual Credits seem like a good thing, but there seem to be some risks involved, so just be cautious.

Excellence is the key

In all you plan for your child, do not settle for less than excellence–in curriculum, in classroom opportunities, and in results. If your child is not headed to college, it doesn’t hurt to have a great transcript anyway, because in a few years your child may change his mind, or be required by his employer to take some classes, or just be ready to meet the demands of an increasingly competitive work force. Choose excellence for your child no matter what.

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May 22, 2013 · 6:56 pm

The Pitfalls of Classical Homeschooling

You’ve done your homework, made your preparations, and purchased all the Great Books you plan to read during this year of Classical Homeschooling. What could possibly go wrong?

In previous blogs I lauded the merits of Classical schooling. I have worked in the Classical realm for 20 years and have watched many, many children move through their high school careers. I maintain that this is a marvelous method for educating young minds. And yet there are still some reservations to keep in mind as you go along.

glasses kidFirst, this method is not for everyone. It entails a huge amount of reading, and not every child has a natural bent toward reading. For some, reading takes a lot of work, whether from a mild to moderate learning disability, or because his mind is always on some activity he would rather be undertaking, or simply because he hates it. If the reading is just taking too much out of your child, then consider 1) testing him for a learning problem and/or 2) finding another path of learning for this one child.

Second, some in the Classical model have a tendency to overemphasize one area at the expense of others. For example, Classical is more heavy on the humanities; that’s just its nature. However, do not think that since you are “doing Classical” you can just put off math and science for another time, or minimize its importance. No, remember that all things are connected, and that we do not just separate out the subjects. All of this is part of one well-rounded, well-educated child. In fact, learning math and science helps a child to think more logically. That can help him to make connections during his Dialectic and Rhetoric stages. This is important in higher level thinking.

Third, some in Classical figure that this kind of program is only for the humanities kid, and not for the math/science student. That too is wrong. It’s not just the English major who needs to think well, to write well, and to learn history. Science and math students–yes, and engineers–need to know how to write reports and studies. All of them also need to make logical, compelling, and beautiful defenses for their faith. Don’t let your math and science kid convince you that he doesn’t need to go very far in his humanities. That’s just not correct. In fact, when Rhetoric is taught well, the math guy will like learning how to write for Rhetoric just as well as the humanities kid. (As the author of Biblical Worldview Rhetoric and the teacher of that class for many years, I can attest to the number of engineering guys who passed through my classes with flying colors. There’s something about the formulaic method in Rhetoric that they seem to love just as much as the potential English major!)

Fourth, the Classical method is not necessarily THE only way to educate. It is, in my opinion, superior in many ways. But it does not give a parent or teacher license to brag, boast, or snobbishly declare that all other ways are rubbish. That’s just irritating, unkind, and wrong. I urge all parents to educate their children WELL. Use what methods you can afford and what you have the time and inclination for. However, Classical schooling does not give you license to rub other people’s faces in it. Don’t let me catch you doing it.

In fact, in some places I have witnessed overemphasis on the METHOD of Classical and Christian education, rather than on the HEART. Once Christ has been abandoned as the center of all things, it will all fall apart quickly. Keep perspective, knowing that Christ is at the center, holding all things together. Never make Classical THE THING in your lives more than Christ is.

Fifth, some people will try to sell you on Classical models that 1) might not truly be fully Classical or 2) may be wrongly administered or 3) might just be low quality. Inspect the material well. Does it include answer keys, supply links and lists of extra reading? Does it cover enough material for 9 months of deep study? By high school, your child should be able to spend one to two hours per day on each subject. Is the curriculum providing enough rich materials for that kind of study? Or does it skip around from here to there, not focusing for very long? Does it offer opportunities for students to reflect on what they read and make connections to their studies?

One popular Classical set of studies, selling from Ancient to Modern syllabi, piles the reading on to the students but does not supply any kind of teacher guide so that the parent or tutor can help the student make connections throughout. That’s unfortunate. Some programs I have seen will provide classes for 8 weeks and then encourage parents to give their students full credit. I beg to differ; no 8-week course can give the kind of breadth and scope necessary for a full high school credit (hardly even for a half-credit). Nor should you, for example, award an English credit for some curriculum that has you read a few books and write one or two essays. Be reasonable. That’s cheating your child of valuable and necessary learning.

Sixth, and this is very important, the student in Classical all the way through high school may tend toward arrogance if not carefully balanced. existentialismAgain, some of this has to do with the exclusivity that one might feel about having done this wonderful thing called Classical. But much of it comes from knowing that you are reading and studying some very difficult material at a very high level of thinking and writing, and that just makes you superior to your peers. Arrogance has no place in Classical and Christian education. This kind of learning may cause you to think deeply, write beautifully, stand up and speak well for yourself, and you may be able to hold a conversation about existentialism with the best of them, but that does not make you even one small step better than others. Parents, do not let your teenager take that unwise step. May your child grow into a humble, patient, wise, and caring young man or woman, groomed by Classical education.

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May 19, 2013 · 10:10 pm

Classical Homeschooling at the upper levels

In my last blog I touched on the parroting aspect of the grammar level of classical schooling. If you were to continue schooling your child this way all the way through high school, you will have failed miserably. Education runs aground if it ends in parroting. Without the growth and expansion of the dialectical and rhetoric stages of education, a student will not know how to handle the information he has learned all along, and he turns out no better than his public-schooled peers.

Dorothy Sayers, in her 1947 essay “The Lost Tools of Learning,” asked her readers if they were not disturbed by certain signs of modern education:Dorothy Sayers

Has it ever struck you as odd, or unfortunate, that today, when the proportion of literacy throughout Western Europe is higher than it has ever been, people should have become susceptible to the influence of advertisement and mass propaganda to an extent hitherto unheard of and unimagined? Do you put this down to the mere mechanical fact that the press and the radio and so on have made propaganda much easier to distribute over a wide area? Or do you sometimes have an uneasy suspicion that the product of modern educational methods is less good than he or she might be at disentangling fact from opinion and the proven from the plausible?

 Sayers, in her post-World-War-II thinking, is asking how an educated people could have succumbed to the propaganda of such madmen as Hitler or Mussolini or Stalin. What would she say today about our political-correctness run amok? Where people spout empty philosophies that sound so great but are completely meaningless? Or where people spew forth ideas full of the failings of philosophies past (i.e. socialism)?

You will be easily led down the wrong path if all you can do is parrot back what you have learned. If you cannot plumb the depths of what you study, if you cannot separate emotion from fact, and analyze the information that is coming at you, if you cannot then articulate your beliefs, you run the risk of falling into the trap of whoever holds power. This is why we teach our students how to think, analyze, process, make connections, read for themselves the ideas of the past. This is why we educate classically.

Thus we begin a discussion of Classical Schooling at the upper level. The standards suddenly just got higher, didn’t they? When you look for curriculum for your teenager, you need to discern what is being taught. Is it more rote learning? Is it empty of meaning? Then discard it. Does it teach a student to make connections between disciplines? In other words, does it encourage the reader to study the philosopher and the age in which he lived, and then look at the impact of that philosophy on the age that followed? Does the curriculum walk a student through history to make a point? Does it bring in the writings of great thinkers (both good and bad) in their own words?

One very impactful part of high school Classical schooling comes when students make connections that startle them and get them thinking. I have my students read “The Communist Manifesto” and then Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address. They are stunned to see ideas put forth in FDR that they had just read in Marx. It’s those kinds of connections we want to see.

Some Classical curricula just piles on the work, pumping students full of learning but never encouraging them to pause and contemplate the connections they need to make during these crucial teenage years. If there is no directed learning, just a lot of reading, discard it. Does that mean there needs to be a teacher at the other end? Maybe. If there is no teacher material that helps you, the parent, to direct your child’s thinking and make significant conclusions about the material, then perhaps this isn’t the curriculum for you.

Over the years I have encountered six or seven key brands of curriculum that consider themselves classical, and perhaps a handful more of classical schooling brands that tout an online form of some sort. Evaluate them carefully. Ask questions.

If this is an online or face-to-face learning experience, ask lots of questions. Hold them to a high level of accountability, because they are probably asking for a lot of money. Will there be someone to direct my student’s thinking, to help my student break down the information he is consuming? Will someone give my student directed feedback at regular intervals so that his learning/writing will improve and grow? Is this taught from a biblical or secular worldview? Is it learning just for the sake of learning, or is this learning in order to produce a thoughtful young man or woman? What will they be reading? Will there be plenty of primary resources to read?

Focus on writing. Be sure that you begin their writing in their earlier years, and be sure to continue at a high level throughout the Dialectic and Rhetoric level. They should be done with grammar by (or including) 9th grade or so, and they should be able to focus on writing well from then on. Ensure that the student gets directed feedback on his writing from someone who can hold his feet to the flames, so that he can grow as a writer. Do not ignore his writing! A purposeful Rhetoric curriculum will improve his writing as well. By the end of his high school career he should have learned how to express his thoughts beautifully, both written and orally.

A thoughtful, purposeful Classical educator will look at the young child and envision him as a high school senior, and the parent/teacher will begin to pour into him those things that will form him into the thoughtful human being God has created him to become. Isn’t that the goal of parenting anyway?

In my next blog I will talk about the hazards of Classical schooling.

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May 16, 2013 · 9:02 pm

Classical Homeschooling: A definition

Aristotle“The failure of our educational system goes beyond what they fail to teach. It includes what they do teach, or rather indoctrinate, and the graduates they send out into the world, incapable of seriously weighing alternatives for themselves or for American society.” –Thomas Sowell, columnist

My visit to a recent homeschool convention showed me not only that some of the curriculum “out there” is inadequate to teach students thoroughly and well, but also that Classical Schooling must be the newest fad to follow.

This both encouraged and disheartened me. As a teacher in Classical methods I was encouraged because Classical Schooling is gaining in popularity among homeschooling families. Discouraged because, from my experience as a teacher, curriculum writer, and attendee at many homeschool conventions over the years, I know that many of the offerings I saw at tables were not high enough quality to meet the stringent demands that some classicists have.

What is Classical Schooling?

The writer Dorothy Sayers sparked a flame that began to grow when she wrote an essay titled “The Lost Tools of Learning” in 1947. In that essay she expounded on the way a child learns best, and that is according to the model of classical learning from times past. She mourned the loss of such educational methods, as she was very much a classicist herself. “Is not the great defect of our education today–a defect traceable through all the disquieting symptoms of trouble that I have mentioned–that although we often succeed in teaching our pupils ‘subjects,’ we fail lamentably on the whole in teaching them how to think: they learn everything, except the art of learning.”

Sayers posits that a child learns best if his learning methods are addressed according to his age group. When in the Grammar level (up through 6th grade or so)–Sayers calls it “Poll-Parrot”–the student learns the components of his language and of the other subjects in school. The “grammar” of math, then, are the math facts every child can learn to parrot back to his parent. The grammar of history would be those history facts that every child learns: the presidents, the continents, the states, the names, places, and dates. And so forth. Children learn in a sing-song manner the parts of language, almost as much as you can cram into their darling little heads. They don’t need the whys; they just stuff their heads full of facts and parrot them back.

As a high school English teacher I was in tears when I first watched third graders diagram sentences. The year before, when we had not yet transitioned to Classical, those same children hardly knew the parts of grammar. Here they were a year later diagramming sentences, having fun showing off their knowledge.

Once they have their facts, and they reach  the age of argumentation (those little eyeballs start to roll around in their heads about 6th or 7th grade), they have transitioned to what Sayers calls “Pert” or Dialectical. This is when their teachers need to incorporate Logic into their thinking. This is when we take the facts they have been learning and make connections for them–or better put, we allow them to make the connections. Their writing becomes more sophisticated. Their history, math, and science understanding grows because they can begin to form hypotheses and test them out based on what they already know.

This is the time that they want to challenge authority, whom they suspect doesn’t know what they’re talking about. So they learn Logic, a new way of thinking, almost the equivalent of learning a new language. They see how arguments can be analyzed by their component parts, what makes fallacies, and why. They pick up on the fallacies of other people’s ideas–then they realize that they themselves make fallacies too.

By the time they reach 9th or 10th grade, they are ready for what Sayers calls the “Poetic” or Rhetoric stage. Here they can put all their past learning together and figure out how to make connections across the broad scope of their learning. They can look into the ideas and philosophies of the past and see how mistakes of the present day are a direct result. They can put into writing those thoughts and ideas that come flowing out, beautifully expressing themselves.

Nuts and Bolts: What gets done?

One of the hallmarks of Classical education is the integration of learning. The classical approach is known for moving through the periods of history and learning everything there is to learn at each level. So what you read in literature you are also learning in history and geography, and you’re doing art projects connected to the history and country that you’ve been studying. Science gets involved, as you can study the inventions of the ages you visit. As students get older the studying goes deeper. Delve into the religion of the age, read the philosophers, study their style of writing and their art, their music and theater. At the Rhetoric level, examine the ideas of the authors and philosophers. See how they lived out their own ideas and how well that worked. Imitate the writing of the great authors to see how their words flowed. Make your own writing soar beautifully like that. Examine your own philosophies and worldviews based on what you learn in the worldviews of others whom you study. For example, in history they may be learning about the French Revolution, while in literature they read Tale of Two Cities, and in philosophy they study the ideas of the Social Contract and  the writings of Rousseau and other Enlightenment philosophers, while in Rhetoric they study and analyze the speeches of Robespierre and Desmoulins. These students can reach across the disciplines of study to make connections and conclusions, and they can amaze their teacher by what comes out of this kind of thinking.

What material works best?

I am not going to recommend particular curriculum. That’s the job for other people. But I will give you criteria to use when examining curriculum.

For the grammar level, find curriculum that will teach grammar facts in a sing-song manner, just the same way you might teach them Bible verses through song. But don’t just go for the singing; aim for the breadth of what is covered. Are all the grammar facts–are all the math facts–covered in an age-appropriate manner, and is it achievable in a span of 9 months (the length of a school year)? Make sure to expose your children to lots of age-appropriate literature. Give them plenty to read. Choose their history, literature, geography, and science in a complementary fashion that goes along with their literature. Start simply and add more complicated information as they get older. Give them great books to read, not just simple junk you pick up at the Christian book store.

Some parents think that makes their job easier, to know they will be studying all one age in history and focusing everything around it. Some science curricula break up a year of science into four sections: earth, biology, physical, and chemical. Those sciences get more and more complex until the student can take a full year of general and then a full year of physical science in the dialectical stage, then moving up to Biology in 9th.

Should they take Latin? Most classical schooling does include Latin. Some have done that so by a certain point the child would be ready to read some of the philosophers and poets in the original language. The rote method helps a student to organize his thoughts, to learn English grammar, and to expand his English vocabulary. At the grammar stage Latin is simply just rote learning: repeating sounds back to the teacher. Look for early Latin grammar that focuses on rote (sing-song) learning. Those mechanical memories get attached to meaning once they move along into vocabulary-building. The acquirement of this second language will help aid in the learning of yet another language–Spanish or French–when they get older as well. You’ll be amazed, when you learn with them, how similar much of the vocabulary is.

At the high school level there is much to be had for the teaching at the Classical level. Some of it is good. In another blog I will provide some more thoughts on what to look for. Just be careful to find high school curriculum that doesn’t simplify but includes readings from primary sources all through history. Read the great thinkers (authors and philosophers) in their own words, and connect that with what’s going on in their time of history.

Can Classical Schooling be done at home? For years it was thought that no, this was too difficult, too wide and too deep. However, as they sometimes prove to be pioneers, homeschoolers met that challenge and decided to climb Mount Olympus.

However, don’t be drawn in by all the flashy offerings that call themselves “classical” just because it carries the name. It needs to have certain criteria to be considered good enough for your classically-schooled child. Look for more helpful information on classical schooling in the Dialectical and Rhetoric level in my next blog.

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May 13, 2013 · 2:36 pm

Homeschooling with a Biblical Worldview: How?

If you are like me, you grew up in public schooling, because “back then” Christian or home schools were not very popular or widespread. There, we learned to separate out our course work. This is math, and this is science, and so forth. Nothing had anything to do with the other.

Schooling with a secular mindset is just like that. I don’t mean to criticize; it just is that way. Subjects are subjects, and their relation to the world at large might be addressed in some fashion, but there is something distinctly missing: how it all connects.

When we look at the world through biblical glasses, we see a universe that is governed and held together by one Creator God through his Son, Jesus Christ. “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16-17, emphasis mine). When we see the universe in that light, we begin to have a different perspective on all sorts of areas.

Education, for example, is one institution that can never be the same again–at least for me–when seeing with those biblical worldview glasses. Our children need to know that all things came about by God’s hand. When we say “all things,” we can no longer wonder what that means. “All,” we teach our children, “means all.” No single thing has come about without the hand of God overseeing, maintaining, and holding it together.

stars and planetsThat makes us look at science differently, doesn’t it? Certainly a God who governs all things also governs science, because He is the author of it all. So since science belongs to Him, how can we teach it with a biblical worldview? We study the elements, the basic units of life, the way they react and interact, with a sense of wonder about the One who made it all.

Science is not anti-God, nor is God anti-science. There are scientists who have pitted themselves against the biblical worldview, so we allow them to speak, we examine their worldviews, and we arrive at our conclusions based on the fulness of what we study. If God is the author of all things, we should not fear man’s schemes to eliminate God from the practice of science. Rather, we should hold up what they say, balance it against a biblical worldview, and make reasoned hypotheses, testing them out. What cannot be tested remains an item of faith on both sides.

On to mathematics. Did you know that there is a biblical worldview to math? Again, if God is the center of all things, and all things come together in Him, it stands to reason that He created the elements of math. Numbers have patterns; they fall together according to those patterns. “Why can a few basic equations predict the motions of planets, the paths of projectiles, and so on? If mathematics is man-made, merely a product of human thought, why does it reflect the way the universe works?” (James Nance, Repairing the Ruins 62). The work of God’s hands is evident everywhere in the study of mathematics. James Nance states it well:

Applied mathematics is the process of discovering and using the laws by which God governs (rules and sustains) His creation. Jesus Christ is Lord of all. In Him all things hold together (Col. 1:17). The mathematical laws which describe how things are held together are consistent laws because Christ Himself is consistent and unchanging (Heb. 13:8). When we discover laws in astronomy, we are discovering the laws which describe how God sustains the heavens (Ps. 33:6-9). When we discover the laws of atomic physics, we discover how God sustains matter, “upholding all things by the word of His power” (Heb. 1:3). (66)

Biblical worldview instruction in math should teach that it recognizes the invisible attributes of God. It should “show students how mathematics relates to physical reality because God is the Creator both of the workings of men’s minds and the workings of the universe” (Nance 70).

History is sometimes easy to see and study from a biblical worldview. But are we handling it well? Students come into my class saying something their parents probably told them: “History is His-story.” That’s cute, and it comes close to what we really mean. But do they know why we study history? Do they realize that God commanded the preservation of the stories of what He had done in the past (Deut. 6:20-25; Josh. 4:5-7; 1 Ch. 16:7; Luke 17:32, and more)? Do they know that the term history came to be understood during Greek times as “a systematic inquiry into past events and their relations to one another” (Chris Schlect, Repairing the Ruins 148)?

Why do we study history? Teaching it from a biblical worldview provides the framework for students, and for ourselves as we read. God instructed men to record histories so that people could learn from the experiences of those who have gone before. If the only way to learn something is by your own experience, then you have no need of history. But if we intend to teach the errors and majesties of history, we need to be ready to learn from them. We need to use as our foundation the fact that we as Christians believe in the history of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who lived and walked among men at one point in history, a history that was recorded by other people. Our faith is not nebulous or manufactured; it is based on events that truly happened and were witnessed by others. This fact alone serves as foundation to our faith.

Somewhere at the turn of the 20th Century some people began to conjecture that Christianity was not based on some historical person but on some subjective idea of Jesus based on the experience of the Christian himself. If we cannot point to the historical fact of our faith, then it is nothing more than a collection of morals and fables, like many other religions. So we study history to know the truth about our faith, but also about mankind.

As with the study of history, we learn about man and his yearnings, his ambitions, his errors and failings, when we study literature. We can see the sweeping beauty of a mind that can create such classics as Les Miserables or Macbeth. We can see the depths of horrors to which man can stoop as well. We study literature to study the nature of man.

And we cannot easily study man, through literature, if we only choose Christian novels. I can say with assurance that, short of CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien, there are not many pieces of excellent Christian literature out there. You can try to name some, but I will argue that they are not classical literature, not able to stand the test of time, not able to even depart far from the stagnant formula of most secular romance or historical romance novels. See my blog on the value of those Christian novels as compared to great classical literature, as well as my blog on reading literature with a biblical worldview.

bonnetsIf we only teach our children from Christian “literature,” they only get exposed to those super-sweet, falsely presented dilemmas with formulaic endings. They will not experience great writing, only so-so handling of the pen. With formulaic stories, we don’t see the pain and anxiety of a dark, fallen, and sinful world. I am always disappointed when a Christian homeschooled teen tells me her favorite novel is one of those horribly written Christian romances with bonnets and farms on the cover. It shows the shallowness of what her family considers good literature.

But I digress. Teaching literature with a biblical worldview allows discussions of the depravity of man, about his yearning to find a savior, about the way he sets up idols that will always disappoint. Have you ever discussed Frankenstein with a teenager? That novel tells the story of a man who made himself a god, created a human creature, abandoned it, and lived the rest of his life pursuing the creature’s death. It is also the story of the author, Mary Shelley, who never felt the real love of another person, who probably felt like God had created and then abandoned her. What a horrible way to live–and then we see her pain poured out on the pages of her novel.

This is reading literature from a biblical worldview. This is teaching with a biblical worldview. Not simply plopping a Bible verse down at the beginning of a lesson and calling it good (while that can be quite good, because God’s word will never return void). Instead, it is taking the view that if God is the center of all things, so must be what we study. All of it. Because all means all.

(Some of this article was inspired by essays within the book Repairing the Ruins, edited by Douglas Wilson. Canon Press, Moscow, ID, 1996.)

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May 10, 2013 · 8:28 pm

Biblical Worldview Apologetics for Teens

argumentTeens like to argue. Have you noticed? Some find it invigorating to argue with people who don’t have the same beliefs. Some will try to argue the superiority of their own belief systems. Some will argue just to argue.

When it comes to apologetics, though, you want your teen to have a solid grounding in biblical worldview before he ventures out ready to argue. For some teens, having just a little information is like putting a gun in their hands before they know how to aim it.

The Apologist’s Mind

I like knowing that teens have a foundation in the Word of God. Since His Word never fails, and since it will never come back void (Isa. 55:11), we know that a teen who knows his Bible is well-armed against his opponents.

I also love to teach teenagers Logic. That course teaches students how to think and how to order their thoughts. It helps them organize information that is coming at them and helps them to see arguments from a different perspective–not totally emotionally. Douglas Wilson and James Nance wrote Introductory Logic and Intermediate Logic, which I have used for many years.

Teach Doctrine to your student. How will he know what he is defending if he doesn’t know doctrine? Teach from Luther’s Small Catechism and the Westminster Shorter Catechism. I also love the Heidelburg Catechism. Teach from Paul Little’s Know What You Believe and open up Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology. Grudem also wrote Christian Beliefs: Twenty Basics Every Christian Should Know, which might be instructive for doctrine.

Learn together the different belief systems of other worldviews. You need to understand their beliefs and backgrounds in order to counter their arguments. Together you and your teen can pray for the people who fall into those beliefs, knowing that there is only one true Creator God, and His Word is the only measurement of absolute truth. The world is starving for truth and searching for it in unlikely places. God’s Word has the answers. Josh McDowell has written several books on other religions and worldviews, such as A Ready Defense and The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict. David Noebel wrote Understanding the Times and its smaller companion, Battle for the Truth. These are all good resources.

Study the works of apologists. McDowell’s More Than a Carpenter, CS Lewis’s Mere Christianity, and Little’s Know Why You Believe are all solid foundation-builders. Lee Strobel wrote his powerful book The Case for Christ, followed up by The Case for Faith and The Case for a Creator, all great resources by a former atheist who set out to prove Christianity wrong. Greg Bahnsen’s Always Ready was my constant companion when I taught high school apologetics. I’m sure my readers will write in with many more great resources.

The Attitude and Lifestyle of an Apologist

Being grounded in God’s Word and then armed with all the resources named above, you would think that the teenager will be more than ready for the confrontation when it comes. However, he’s only part way there.

All that learning can make a person proud, can puff up, as 1 Corinthians 8:1 says (out of context). As you are building up your store of knowledge, remember that Proverbs 1:7 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (ESV). When learning is dedicated to God, when you take the time to ask for His wisdom in the midst of what you learn, your pride and boasting takes a different direction. Rather than boasting in yourself or in your vast treasury of knowledge, you will boast in Jesus Christ, your Savior, who enables all of this learning. With this perspective in  mind, what will follow?

Avoid arrogance. “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Phil. 2:3-4, emphasis mine). Apologetics is not a rivalry, not an opportunity to come out on top. This is a battle of light against darkness, and only the Lord will secure the outcome. When you have the best interest of your “opponent” in mind, you will not consider this a debate contest in which to earn points.

So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will. (2 Tim 2:22-26, emphasis mine)

Bahnsen used the term “humble boldness,” which I love to use. Teens can see what that is supposed to mean. The boldness entails assurance of what you know, while humbleness speaks of someone who considers others before himself.  Boldness also speaks of fearlessness in the face of opposition, and the following passage in Philippians addresses that beautifully.

Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God. (Phil. 1:27-28, emphasis mine)

Realize from whom all your words come. Paul reminded the Corinthians that when he came to them, he “did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (1 Cor. 2:1-5). Paul makes it clear it is not his great mind that did the work of saving the people of Corinth, but God himself through the power of His Spirit. Keep in mind that you can draw attention to yourself or to your great God with the apologetics you use.

Finally, be prepared (1 Pet. 3:13-17). You may not know the next time you are called upon to defend your faith. This is one reason that the Bible urges us to wear our armor (Eph. 6:10-20), so that we can always be in a defensive position. This same passage in Ephesians reminds us to pray always, too, for the right words, to declare them boldly.

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May 7, 2013 · 4:19 pm

Biblical Worldview for Teens: Watching, Reading, Listening

“That’s my online stuff. It has nothing to do with school or with church.”

So goes the teenage (and the adult) mind. A wide gulf separates churchy stuff from school stuff and from media. Never they will meet, in the teenage mind. In other words, the teen things, what I do in school has nothing to do with the movies I watch. What I say and do in Youth Group has nothing to do with my online activities or the songs I choose to listen to.

Unfortunately, God does not see it that way. If all things belong to God–and they do–then everything under the sun is His. All my time, all my thoughts, all my goals, and all my media belong to Him.

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!  You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.  (ESV Ps 139:1-6)

We think about God in the appropriate places: in class if we are in Christian or home school. In church and Youth Group. With our Bible study friends. But walk out the door and that gets left behind.

Teach  your teenager to think biblically about all things, whether school or church or home. Teach him that whatever goes into his mind is subject to worldly thoughts or biblical thoughts. Teach him to filter all things through his biblical worldview. And that includes media. Teach him that to love God is to love Him “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30).

Do not allow him to separate the secular from the sacred. If media is out there, it is being watched, read, listened to, and discussed. Talk with your teen about the media he uses. Don’t be afraid of it!

kid on computerBe purposeful with your teenager about media. Talk about his social media: what he does online. Who does he follow on Twitter? What does he say on Twitter? Follow him to find out! If it looks sketchy, like he is taking risks talking to people who have uncertain reputations or followings, then take action to block your internet service on all of his devices. Ask your phone provider how to block his internet use on his phone. Talk to your service provider about parental controls. Load Covenant Eyes onto your computers. It is impossible to disable and sends a report to you about his internet activity. We have used it for years. Your job is to guard their hearts, and to teach them how to guard their own hearts, by guarding their media. See Ps. 139:23-24 and Prov. 4:23.

And honestly, what might you lose by taking away an electronic device or two while you wait for his behavior to improve? Does he really need it all? Don’t be afraid to be a parent to your teen.

If your child doesn’t want to be your FaceBook friend, then he is not old enough or mature enough to have an account. Your child–this may seem shocking to you–does not have a right to privacy in your home since you are his parent and he is a minor. If he is secretive about his social media, there is probably a reason.

Watch TV and movies together with your teen, if you allow television. Even if you do not watch regular TV, you should be getting together to watch movies and discuss them, just like it is part of a class activity. Get out a sheet of paper and write down the following questions about the movie. Take notes during the movie. As a family, discuss everyone’s notes. Ask these questions about what is contained/portrayed in any piece of media you read or watch together.

The Seven Worldview Questions (thanks to David Quine, Cornerstone Curriculum):

  1. What is the nature of God as displayed in this (movie, book, TV show)?
  2. What is the nature of man?
  3. What is the nature of the universe?
  4. What is basis of morality and ethics?
  5. What is the cause of evil and suffering?
  6. What happens to man at death?
  7. What is the meaning of history?

Do the same thing with books that your teenager reads, either for class or for leisure. Choose classics, and choose contemporary books that other kids are reading. Don’t be afraid of them. Kids are reading them, and you bet they are talking about them, so you might want to examine, from a biblical worldview, what they are talking about so that your teen has an answer for the faith that lies within him. So that he is not taken captive by empty philosophy because no one talked with him about it.

True story: I was afraid of the Harry Potter books and forbade my children to read them. They argued with me. “Mom,” they reasoned, “how do you know they’re bad if you haven’t read them?” I just asked them to trust me. And then a few years later a student’s mother told me that she wouldn’t let her son read a horror novel like Frankenstein for my class. We read that book from a biblical worldview, and it produces some great a-ha moments for my teenage students. I argued with the mom. “How do you know it’s a horrible book if you haven’t opened it to read it?” I went home fuming to my family. My oldest son just looked at me, and I read his mind. I had given my son the same answer to the Harry Potter series without even having cracked them open.

Once I read the books, I could see the beautiful worldview depicted in JK Rowling’s world, and I highly recommend it to every parent. The sacrificial love, forgiveness, redemption, and friendship in that book are incredibly poignant. I apologized to my son.

Fearlessly view and review your teen’s media together. Talk about it from a biblical worldview. You will learn something as well as he does. And neither of you will be able to view media the same way again. I called that “spoiled for good.”

watching moviesMovies to ponder from a biblical worldview.

(Remember, I am not limiting this list to Christian media, or to “safe” movies. We live in the world and are not of the world. We view media and discuss it biblically. Examine it for truths and for lies. Spot them and discuss them. With the above discussion guide, it should get easier to discuss.)

  • Pocahontas
  • The Island
  • The Village
  • Star Wars
  • The Hunger Games
  • Lord of the Rings
  • Mulan
  • The Truman Show
  • Brave
  • The Lion King
  • Avatar
  • The Dark Knight
  • Signs
  • Life of Pi
  • I, Robot
  • Surrogates
  • 2001: A Space Odyssey
  • Star Trek: Wrath of Khan
  • Les Miserables

Books to discuss from a biblical worldview.

You can do the same with books, using the seven worldview questions.

  • Frankenstein
  • The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
  • The Picture of Dorian Gray
  • Heart of Darkness
  • Macbeth
  • Hamlet
  • Tale of Two Cities
  • Hunger Games
  • Harry Potter series
  • Lord of the Rings series
  • Narnia series
  • Lord of the Flies
  • Animal Farm
  • 1984
  • Anthem
  • Ender’s Game
  • Last of the Mohicans
  • Les Miserables
  • Moby Dick
  • Count of Monte Cristo
  • Brothers Karamazov
  • The Iliad
  • To Kill a Mockingbird

Be wise, and don’t fear. Together you and your teen will survive these years, and with prayer and wisdom, he will come out the other side holding onto his faith more strongly than before. And he will be armed with information and ideas to take out into the world to his friends as an apologetic tool (1 Pet. 3:13-17). See my next blog on apologetics for teenagers.

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May 4, 2013 · 8:28 pm

Biblical Worldview Homeschooling for Teens

I don’t know what I believe.

Six in ten young people will leave the church for an extended period of time, according to a Barna study from 2012. Kids who grew up in the church, spent time in Sunday school and Youth Group, many of them, will leave when they get to college.

Lots of people are studying why this happens, and many of the answers are instructive. I’d like to suggest that if you have children, and you homeschool (or plan to), you should put a plan in place for instructing your child in biblical worldview. See my earlier blog on biblical worldview and the young child. In fact (and I really don’t need to say this), anyone who parents a teen should  find this instructive, homeschooling or not. 🙂

Biblical worldview instruction begins with the very youngest and doesn’t end until the child has moved out. It doesn’t need to be all classroom instruction, but the aim of biblical worldview education for the teen is so that he can assuredly, eloquently, passionately give a reason for the hope that lies within (1 Pet. 3:15).

An interview with some of my teenage students showed me some of the things they think about and showed me the importance of biblical worldview teaching for teens.

Key Reasons Teens Need Biblical Worldview Teaching

1. Helps to give me an identity. Teens struggle with who they are. When they are comfortable with who they are–and I mean who they are in Christ–they can wade through the identity struggles of their teenage years. (Eph. 2:1-10)

2. Helps me navigate the dangers of adolescence. anchorThe teen years are more dangerous than when you and I were young. They receive endless messages from media, from peers, from teachers, about who they are and about what is true. They must battle their way through temptations we never imagined. Rebellion, sex, pornography, drugs, alcohol, eating disorders, self-abuse–and that doesn’t even begin to touch on the dangers Christian kids face from unbelievers who will try to pull them away from their faith. They get hardened. They begin to pull away. With a solid foundation of faith–with a solid biblical worldview–their feet are firmly planted in soil that will never give way. They will not be “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (NASV Eph. 4:11-16, esp. v 14).

3. Helps me to combat other worldviews and ideas that come at me. My students were adamant about this one. They know that “out there” they will meet much smarter people whose ideas will be strong and who will argue forcefully. When a teenager knows what he believes–and believes in it with his whole heart and mind and soul–he will not be so anxious when someone is forcefully arguing. He may also be able to counter an argument with one of his own. Biblical worldview teaching means not just learning about your own faith. It means learning about other worldviews so you are not knocked off your feet by every stray idea that comes along.

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. (ESV Col. 2:6-10, emphasis mine)

4. Helps me to remember that there is an absolute truth. Children and teens receive guidance from older Christians, but teens are busy challenging authority, ideas, peers. Teens are pressured by situational ethics that challenge their understanding of the truth. Homosexuality, alternative lifestyles, sex outside of marriage, friends who are pregnant from date rape and don’t want to keep their babies–these all challenge absolute truth. Where do I stand on these? The answers are hard, but the truth is still the truth.

The pressure to rebel is huge, but if a firm foundation has been built in them–knowing that there is an absolute truth, and it is found in scripture, and it never changes–they can fall back on that guideline when all else fails them. “The sum of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous ordinances is everlasting” (Ps 119:160).

5. Helps me to own my own faith. Children follow along their parents’ leading, and that lasts for several years. But somewhere along about the early teens, the questions begin to form. The challenges increase. Children begin to grow into thoughtful adolescents who need to understand for themselves what is right and true. If you teach them early, that foundation will have begun to take root. Make sure not to stop when they hit their teenage years. Make sure that during their teens they are surrounded by adults who will teach, exhort, and challenge them to grow and to grasp the faith to make it their own. When Christ prayed for his disciples, he prayed knowing that his disciples needed truth to hang onto when they lived in this world. He prayed,

But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves. I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. (John 17:13-18)

6. It keeps me disciplined. “We have more freedom as teens. We are making more decisions for ourselves. So we need to have a firm foundation to use when we are deciding what to do.” I liked that idea, and I think that even we adults can learn a thing or two from these wise teenagers. As long as I learn that I am not my own, that I belong to a sovereign God, then my decisions should be based on that knowledge, and that should free me (1 Cor. 6:12-20, esp 19-20; Rom. 14:8; Rom. 12:1-2).

7. It helps me to keep things in proper perspective. Some of my students told me they were bothered by how easy it is for teens to separate themselves from their Sunday School or Youth Group personae. (It is something that bothers me about adults too!)  A solid biblical worldview will show a teen that all of life is God’s. There is nothing–not one thing–that is hidden from Him. If there is not a thing that He does not see, then how can we go about our daily lives acting like the unsaved (Ps. 139:7-12)? Well, I can tell you it is because we all sin and have fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). Keeping in mind that every single thing belongs to Him, and that I am at the mercy of my sinful self, makes me want to press in to Him even more so that I do not separate my Sunday self from my weekly self.

Finally, my students wanted to give advice to parents and to teens: Stay in the Word. Their prayer for teens and their parents:

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,  from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,  that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith – that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,  and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Eph. 4:14-21)

Amen.

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May 1, 2013 · 2:49 pm

The Why of Biblical Worldview Homeschooling

“Why” for the younger child

When the Pilgrims migrated to the New World, they did so because of their faith. They were persecuted in Europe for their stance on the truth of scripture, and they wanted to find a place where they could practice it.

Within one or two generations, though, these Pilgrims had begun to drift toward the despotism that they had tried to escape. They imposed strict religious principles on their communities and placed their definition of Christianity inside a tightly controlled box. Any deviation from their idea–man’s idea–of the way a Christian should act was fiercely punished. This led to, among other things, the terrible time of paranoia, hysteria, and idiocy called the Salem Witch Trials. Why? One contributing factor was the early Pilgrims failed to pass their faith onto the next generation. They failed to pass on that fervor, that great faith it took to leave one country, cross a terrible ocean and start life in a strange land.

Psalm 78:1-8 instructs us in our faith: pass on the faith to the next generation: “We will not conceal them from their children, But tell to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, And His strength and His wondrous works that He has done” (v 4). In all, this passage refers to at least four generations of descendants, directing the faithful in careful teaching of their descendants. Faith was meant to be carried forward through the generations. Parents and grandparents are urged not to forget nor to neglect the teaching of the faith.

mom and child with BibleMany parents homeschool in order to teach their children their faith, train them up in the way they should go (Prov. 22:6). Establishing a strong biblical worldview foundation is the vital stage in homeschool parenting for younger children. (In another blog I will address the absolute necessity of biblical worldview for teens.)

Very young children can enjoy the songs and stories from the Bible that teach lessons and show the majesty of our great God. Even very young, children can be taught a high view of God and of scripture. This is where biblical worldview begins. We follow the instruction of the Bible, which tells us in a beautiful manner about how to train a child:

Hear, O Israel! The Lord is 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. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons 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 up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (ASV, Deut. 6:4-9)

When my children were little we took time to wonder at the beauty of nature and of the God who so meticulously created it. We talked about each season in turn, and took special care during Christmas to talk about the symbolism of every decoration we hung with intention around our house: the lights, the stars, the angels, the nativity scene–all of it. We purposefully talked about it as we walked, as we lay down, as we drove, as we worked.

While we drove in the car we sang along with Bible verses put to music, sometimes stopping the tape (yes, cassette tapes and CDs–it was the 80s and 90s) to talk about it.

When I asked some of my current teenage students what helped them to develop their biblical worldview as children, they gave me a variety of replies. Some of them said Sunday School and Veggie Tales were instrumental. Another student chimed in: “Don’t worry about Sunday School–have them listen to the sermons each week!” Some mentioned that time in the Word as a family was key for them.

One student mentioned something I emphasize to families all the time: the integration of media into your family life. No matter what you watch on TV with your child, stop and talk about it with them. Everything has a worldview–even (and especially) children’s programming. Disney has a definite worldview that could keep you talking for hours. I remember taking my children to see Pocahontas in the theater, and we talked all the way home about its deceptive worldview. (Today I still use that movie with my students as a great worldview discussion.) There is value in even those things that mistakenly get shown to your children–for instance, if they are at someone else’s house and see something of which you might not approve. There is a great opportunity not to freak out, but to talk.

While your child is young, make sure of your purpose for homeschooling: not to isolate your child from the world, but to insulate him. There is a huge difference, and it has to do with biblical worldview.

Some parents will homeschool out of fear, and this will drive them to isolate their children from the world. They don’t completely withdraw; they have their church friends and other homeschoolers to play with. But they unplug from the rest of the world and create their own little community, separate and apart from everything else. This is not completely wise, in my humble opinion.

Raised in relative isolation, these children will not know about the world in which they live. They will not know about how other people think and act, and why. They will know nothing of the depravity of the world in which they live, and this will also produce another effect of having no idea of the depth of the sin from which they are saved. When the song says “Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!” I wonder if our children know what wretches we really are, and how deep grace really is–that sweet and severe balance of Law and Grace in our lives.

I am not advocating the soaking up of every bit of news and immersing your children into the depths of darkness. However, talking frankly about some of the bad things that go on in the world will help them to see our world’s need for a savior. About the sad lack of truth in this world. We shared some news stories with our children and talked about them openly, answering their questions as best we could. Because we had a fearful child, we didn’t go into detail, but we prayed together about the bad things and the need for our presidents’ wisdom over the years. (On a side note, as I grew up my parents sheltered me completely from the Vietnam War that was raging. I saw and heard the hippie protest songs, but I had no idea what they were for. I was in junior high before I had any clue there had been a war, and in high school before I was taught what it was about. I felt pretty stupid!)

This is reality parenting from a biblical worldview. Letting them know that “out there” is a world full of pain and ugliness, but that God has a plan through it all. Let them know that people do not have any idea what truth is, but that the Bible is the measuring stick for absolute truth, and truth can be found within its pages.

armorofgod350We talked a lot about character, about the fruits of the spirit, about the armor of God. We read plenty of good literature that posed moral problems the characters had to work through. We talked a lot about that literature, fostering in them the love of reading. We helped them choose good books rather than trash at the library. But we talked to them about why that novel was trash and not edifying to read.

Have a high view of scripture and of God in your home. Teach them those central passages of scripture that show the vitality and truth of the Bible and its importance in their daily walk. Show them that Christ is the center of all things (Col. 1:16-20), and all things hold together in Him. When examining a flower or a butterfly, talk about the care God took to make even these small, beautiful items, and how much more He cares for His people.

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