Tuesday, January 12, 2010

School


Time has flown since Jocelyn was born. What a delight this baby is! The whole family is in love with her. In the morning when I hear her screeches of delight Aiden and I dash in to greet her. She waves her arms and kicks her legs grinning from ear to ear. We cherish her.

Now that I am past my knee surgery--some of you may not have heard, I wasn't very communicative about it, but on October 6 my knee, which had been injured 10 years ago while playing soccer, bit the dust. I was sitting on the floor playing with Jocelyn and as I switched position I felt it go out (which happened quite often). Immediately I tried to straighten it to get it back in, but it wouldn't straighten. It turned out to be a bucket handle tear of the meniscus (fun, fun) and required reparative surgery. The surgery turned out to be a longer ordeal than we anticipated because it was a repair--usually they just snip out cartilage and let life go on, but in my case, since I'm still pretty young, the doctor decided to repair it. Needless to say, it was impossible for me to care for Jocelyn on my own for quite some time and all of my energy went into recovering from that. Then Christmas came and suddenly I find our family halfway through January--and it's time for me to buckle down and consider what needs to be done to gear up for Aiden's first year of homeschool.


Yes, we have decided to homeschool him. We feel that the public school education does not offer the same worldview that we hold and we want to be sure that this precious child, who was entrusted to us, is educated fully and completely. We don't believe that can be done unless the Creator is included in the lesson plan. After all, it baffles me how one fully explains the creation without the Creator.

We also believe that much of what composes a successful education has been cut out of the public school curriculum in favor of politically correct social messages. What is so silly is that if the messages of Jesus were taught in public school, we wouldn't have to worry about having a politically correct agenda--Jesus taught us to love one another (Matthew 22:37-40) 'Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself. The Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.' (NIV).

Also, God commanded us to care for the earth (Genesis 2:15) 'The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.' (NIV). It seems to me that if we didn't cut the Bible out of the curriculum in a misrepresentation of what the "separation of church and state" really meant we wouldn't have to spend so much of our time teaching basic morals in secular ways.

My mom gave me a 2nd grade reader from the 1940's as a Christmas gift...Do you know what they used to teach reading back then? Aesop's Fables! Today the literature is chosen carefully to reflect current political views--I know because I was an English teacher. What wonderful lessons on wisdom and morality have been lost to a generation of children because top educators decided to neglect the classics in favor of a social agenda!

And so, we are going back to the basics with Aiden's education and pursuing a Christian-based classical education.


Don't get me wrong. I'm choosing the form of education that I like best and I believe God has put the burden on my heart to educate my son following the classical method, but I also understand that I am not perfect and I know there are going to be struggles--I'm sure that you'll read about them here in the years to come! No one form of education will turn out the perfect child. I will do what I can, but ultimately it is God's work that is going to be done, not mine. The prayer of this mother's heart is that her children will ultimately become children of God's kingdom. Nothing else matters in light of eternity.

1 comment:

The Esperats said...

Hi Elsie! I'm excited for you all to explore all the comes with homeschooling. It's been a wonderful start for us, and though we're not on the classical track at this time, the boys best friends are, and their family is loving it! We should find a play date sometime soon. I made the drive from my sister in law's in Richmond by myself with the boys this weekend, and it was so easy. So I'm willing to do it again!