Category Archives: Education

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. The 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.

“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.

Many 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.

We 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.

“Just let your child follow his interests!” say unschooling advocates to unsuspecting young parents. As free spirits, not wanting traditional schooling, some naive individuals will unplug from the grid and unschool.

Unschooling gets a bad rap. And deservedly so. Its principles–if you can find them–are to let your child learn what he is interested in. Let him go with the flow. If he shows that he likes sciencey things, then let him do some science. If he likes to take apart the toaster, give him the space heater too.

I’m simplifying, but not too much. For some in the post-hippie world, it sounds, like, great to let your child raise himself and teach himself whatever he wants. For those of us who teach–even those of us who have homeschooled for many years–unschooling is a disaster waiting to happen.

I am certain that young men and women who come out of unschooling are nice, respectful, kind, and love their parents. No doubt they were raised by parents who loved them. I will ask, though, if it is loving to pull them so far out of academia that they cannot function to meet the goals they might have liked for themselves farther down the road?

For instance–and I can give you MANY very similar instances–a mom of a 17-year-old told me her child wanted to go to college, and she proceeded to ask me about what classes he needed for his final year of high school. We began with math. “He is just now finishing Algebra 1,” she said. She explained that he really wasn’t interested in math as a younger child, so they didn’t do it. A college bound teen needs four years of high school math in his tool belt. Algebra 1 does not even qualify as high school math, since it is normally taken in 8th grade. So he is already three years behind. After a long pause, the mom admitted that she had probably done her son a disservice.

“My friends just told me to let him do whatever he wanted!” she protested.

Did that mom love her child? Undoubtedly–most definitely. So remember, I am not equating unschooling with unloving. I just want to remind parents that loving your child means doing hard things once in a while. Sometimes it means saying no. Sometimes it means insisting on doing hard work.

Yes, math is hard. My children often reminded me that it was painful. Yet because we loved them, we insisted that the hard work needed to be done, and done well. They learned from the DOING as well as from the subject itself. Doing the hard work built their little characters. It showed them how to apply their hard work to other areas. It showed them how to be disciplined, how to manage time and frustration. It instilled a work ethic and taught them the VALUE of hard work done well. It taught them how to think.

Just as I would not let my toddler run out into a busy parking lot without holding my hand, I also would not let my child decide his own path of schooling. Some unschooling, I propose, happens because parents don’t want to hear the whining of little voices lifted in protest. It is easier to take them to the children’s museum than to plan a four-week science curriculum. Go to the museum, call it science. If he liked it, get him a couple of books at the museum gift store. Done. 

One mom told me her daughter was a “real science kid.” In fact, she wanted to focus on science when she got to college. But heading into 9th grade, the child had never done any science before. Fortunately she will have time to get some training from some science teachers so that she will be able to pursue what she says is her real love–science.

My daughter and I had a conversation recently about schooling. She graduated from home school, graduated from university with a Bachelor’s degree, and is moving to graduate school in just a few weeks. I reminded her how much she hated doing school work when she was younger. She got tears in her eyes. “But I am so thankful that you made us do that hard work,” she said. “I don’t know anyone I went to school with who regretted doing hard work in school. They complained, but they appreciated having done the work.” We insisted she do hard things so that she could be ready for whatever. Her “whatever” begins at grad school in not too many weeks.

Let me be honest: we have tried all sorts of schooling: public, private, and home. Never “un.” One child graduated from a public high school and a public university before getting his masters degree at a private university. We didn’t always do it right. We were, however, quick to make changes if what we tried wasn’t working. We admitted our mistakes and moved on. But we never once regretted having our children learn to do the hard work of their academic classes.

“Why do math, if you can’t find math in the real world?” I found this question on an unschooling web site. Really? There is no math to be found in the real world? On what planet? Math is not just about numbers or finding the value of x, which I always found just a bit confounding myself (and thus the reason I majored in English…). Math is about thinking well, logically applying knowledge learned in one area into another. Math is about cars and cell phones, travel and technology, recipes and retirement accounts, measurements and medicine. Math is about statistics and economics and politics. Lack of understanding in math may really get you into trouble with  your bank or your boss. Think you can just hire someone to do it for you? Then you need to be smart enough to earn enough for that.

(I thought, with an English degree, that I could just escape math altogether. God has a sense of humor, though, because my first job out of college was as a communications consultant in an actuarial firm. Translating math-speak into English.)

Look, there are lots of kids out there who will never go to college because they don’t want to. Because they have figured out their own path to life. Because they have already been hired somewhere and earning enough. That’s fine. But what about those kids who unschooled all the way through, like our unfortunate 17-year-old at the beginning of this article, who has doors closed to them because they were unprepared for what they really wanted to do later on? How did unschooling work for him?

See related blogs:

Homeschooling means seeing reality

Homeschooling means pursuing excellence well

Homeschooling well means writing well

Read good books

Rising above mediocrity

“My daughter is extremely gifted,” a mother informed me. (I wish I had a dollar for every time I hear that one!) I waited for her to go on. “No really. She tests as ‘profoundly gifted.'” That’s wonderful. What are your plans? “Well, she needs to be challenged, because every class she sits in, she is terribly bored. She is going to be 11 soon, and I want her to take an upper-level high school English class. I don’t think she is ready for Advanced Placement (AP) yet.”

Probably not. In fact, I urged the mom to think about the kind of advanced discussions, topics, and types of literature that are read at the upper high school level. Did she really want her daughter exposed to the level of maturity required of students in 11th and 12th grades? Mom hadn’t thought much about that. She just knew her little one needed challenging. Let’s go ahead and challenge your gifted child, but in a way that she can handle it at her age and maturity.

This is reality schooling. While your little sweet one may be extremely advanced, you need to think “big picture.” Is your child ready for the maturity of the other kids in the room? Is she able to hold her own in the discussions, manage the logical, higher-level-thinking going on around her? Maybe for a while. But can she maintain it, realistically?

A  well-designed humanities class develops more than just “objective” academic knowledge. A student assimilates a body of knowledge and learns to analyze, to form ideas, to articulate. There is more to “readiness” for a class than academic ability. It also includes emotional and spiritual readiness. Choosing one or two subjects in which to move ahead, at the expense of other academic areas, doesn’t provide a broad intellectual base. What you get in the end is an unprepared student who is frustrated.

If you are tempted to move your gifted child way ahead in an area, first make sure he has a strong foundation in all academics, appropriate for his age. Some families (ours included) move their incredibly gifted children faster than they should, which often results in a child who is challenged but frustrated. Frustrated  because a) he is not mature enough to handle the material, b) he is not mature enough to handle the ages of the children around him, c) he cannot manage the advanced workload because he has not built a base of necessary work ethics/habits from which he can draw, or d) he ends up feeling inferior in many other ways not pertaining to academics. Or all of the above.

Some parents tell me that their children have earned enough “credits” to graduate at 15. Then what?

Think about it for a bit. The “then-what” means either college, working in the family business or an apprenticeship with a family friend to develop skills, or some other time-filler. Yes, today’s idea of the age of maturity is not the same as it was in Puritan times. So why did he hurry up to graduate? To go to college early?

Let’s talk about going to college early. You homeschool your child so that he can grow up in a protected environment with loving family members, supervised by you and nurtured to maturity. So at 16 he is ready to go sit in class with a bunch of adults who think a rite of passage in college is sex, drugs, and alcohol? “No, you have it wrong. My son will live at home.” Yes, and during the day he makes friends with a bunch of adults who think a rite of passage in college is sex, drugs, and alcohol. You really want that for your young teen?

Remember, please, that high school is not all about credits. It’s about preparedness for life. It’s about discipleship. It’s about maturing. I’ve seen some parents hoard high school credits like money, eagerly aiming their child to graduation by pushing them forward and cutting corners willy-nilly. “I can give him two credits here because he read a history book and wrote essays!”

Realism dictates that we take a hard look at ourselves and at our families. Look realistically at where your gifted little love-bug is academically. Feed his mind with books and curriculum that will challenge him at an age-appropriate level while at the same time developing him in all his other areas–physically, spiritually, and emotionally. Refuse the temptation to make your child grow up before he is ready just because he shows some giftedness. Certainly give him Calculus at age 12 if he can handle it, but oversee him with his tutor–don’t shove him into a room full of 17-year-olds and expect him to do well with it. And maybe you also cannot expect him to move at the same speed of those 17-year-olds. So teach him at his own skill level and pace.

Gifted–maybe. Well-rounded in all things–doubtful. I urge you to look at your whole child rather than at just his one area of giftedness.

See related blogs: Educating with excellence, reading well, writing well, rising above the mediocre.