Thirty years ago, my parents pulled my younger sister and I out of the private Christian school where we were enrolled. My mom, a teacher by training, decided that my sister needed some focused one-on-one attention to master reading, writing, and arithmetic. Their plan was to put her back in school in a year or two. I asked them to home-school me too, and they agreed.
Thirty years ago, home-school families were 100 miles beyond unusual. People brought up questions about socialization and quality education and looked at us askance. For a variety of reasons, each year all the way through high school graduation, my parents chose to teach us at home. Twenty years ago, when I arrived at college, my friends trotted out the same arguments against homeschooling (socialization and quality education) plus a new one – Christians shouldn’t abandon the public schools. I argued back that my 3.8 GPA testified to my quality education, and the fact that they were my friends proved I had fine social skills. (They could of course retort that I was/am plenty odd, and I’d reluctantly agree. But oddity is like personality. It knows no educational bounds, nor is it a product of socialization or lack thereof.)
It’s astounding to me that today, twenty years later, the arguments haven’t changed.
I will be the first to concede that home-schooling has its weaknesses, as do the public schools (the current teacher strike in Chicago is a prime example). It isn’t fair to paint all home-schoolers with the same brush, any more than it’s fair to lump all public schoolers together. Home-schools can be (though they don’t have to be) insular and over-protective. Public schools can be (though not all of them are) brutal and negligent.
Last week, Tony Jones painted home-schooling with an unfair brush. He wrote:
So it seems to me that to withdraw my children from public education is to not play my (God-given) role as a missional member of society — like I can’t just choose to withhold my taxes. We give our children all those vaccinations when they’re young not necessarily to protect them from polio (since the chances of any one of my children getting it is exceedingly small) but because we live in a society, and part of the contract within the society is that we will never again let polio gain a foothold.
In a follow-up post, he defines missional as “showing Christlike compassion to other human beings and to all of creation” and asserts that “missional means being the salt seasoning in the world, and you cannot be that seasoning (no matter your age) if you withdraw from society.”
His critique has three weaknesses.
1. Sending one’s children into the public schools is missional living by proxy.
Based on the posts in question, Tony is not going into the public schools to be the hands and feet of Jesus; his children are. Certainly parents of students have a small presence in the school system; however, if Tony believes he has a God-given obligation to show Christlike compassion in the public schools, shouldn’t he be the one going in? How is his children’s presence in the classroom him being salt and light? A Christian who works in the public schools is showing Christlike compassion, shining God’s light, etc.
In addition, some children are ready to be God’s hands and feet. Some are not.
2. Tony focuses solely on the process and overlooks the results.
I know we are just three of hundreds, but my sisters and I all have a passion for God and for reaching others. We are still growing into our selves just like everyone else, are in different seasons of life, and therefore can engage in different kinds of ministry. So, while our childhood may not have been missional the way Tony describes it, we have grown into missional adults. That is worth considering. (Side note: my children are all enrolled in public schools, not to be my Jesus-proxies but because our public schools are excellent.)
3. One’s choice of school is only one small facet of their life and sphere of influence.
Tony’s post overlooks the fact that “human beings and all creation and the world” aren’t only out there. The world is right here at home, too. Men and women who choose to stay home to raise their children are just as missional as men and women who move to the inner city or to tent cities in Haiti or the garbage dumps in Africa. Jesus said that whatever you do to the least of these, you do to Him. He didn’t say “the least of these (except your own family).” “Other human beings” includes our children and our parents, our neighbors, the congregants in our church, the librarian who helps find age-level books, and anyone else with whom we rub shoulders. Jesus tells us to be faithful in the little things.
Posts like Tony’s don’t contribute anything constructive to the conversation about how Christians are to live in the world. They only serve to create controversy and pile guilt on those who for now, whether by choice or by necessity, serve in small ways to the least of these in their homes.
Amen. And I never knew you were homeschooled!
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Let’s not even get started on the social contract theory he’s posing here… We were BORN into society, but we have no contract with it. To accept implicitly or explicitly that we have a contract with society means that we are allowing society – man – to set our identity where the name of Jesus Christ should be setting our identity.
If He’s the one who changes lives, we can dispense with our own “mission” and let Him work in us so that He accomplishes His mission in us and through us. Enough with the murky right-and-wrong, let’s-pick-a-fight-over-issues.
We are His or we are not His – this transcends the boundaries of society, so that homeschooled or public schooled, He is still our Head, and we are still responsible for relationship with our children that will lead them into a knowledge of Him.
Kelly Sauer recently posted..On Living, Simply – And What We Figured Out About Love
Well, the social contract theory isn’t a terrible one – but I’m rabidly anti-individualism, I’m terrified of parents who don’t get vaccines, and I read Emily Post articles on a daily basis.
Well done, Joy!! You have nailed it, especially the first point. Over the past 45 years of my adult life, I have met people who were home schooled, educated in Christian schools, private schools, and public schools. Each has benefits. Over time it has been proven that home schoolers lack nothing as adults.
From a Lutheran perspective, we speak about “vocation” meaning we serve God wherever we are in whatever role we are in. For children and young adults that means the vocation is being a student. The best witness, no matter where they are educated, is for children to study to be best that they can be. When I worked in secular field, and it was not permitted to “witness” overtly, many people were attracted to speak to me, because of the quality of work I did. That opened avenues to speak outside business hours. I was faithful to the employer, but also saw God open doors for more effective witnessing. Some Christians thought I wasn’t “aggressive” enough to be doing the kingdom of God much good. To that I declare the theologically solid term: Baloney!!!
Glad you posted. (BTW, you were homeschooled, eh? That explains a lot!! including the blue/teal/green hair, soon to be rainbow! LOL Sorry, couldn’t resist)
God’s richest blessings in Christ.
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Rich – incredibly cool comment. I want my kids to know that they are in God’s will wherever they find themselves, that nothing about their lives takes Him by surprise or gets in His way of doing His work in their lives and in the lives of those around them. I’m going to remember “vocational living.”
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Awesome comment!
This is just brilliant. Love it so much.
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I’m really shocked about anyone making a assertion like that. It makes the error of equating homeschooling with creating an isolated Christian subculture. While that can happen, I’ve seen it happen in private schools and even in public school cliques. Going to school isn’t the only way to be “in the world” when you’ve got kids. Living in a neighborhood for one can make a huge impact. Most of my closest friends growing up were homeschooled, and all of them are confident and passionate about sharing Jesus with others. I can’t think of one who isn’t “missional” in one way.
In fact, this sort of makes me hate the word missional even more than I already do. It shows that it has now become a concept that is divorced from real life. There now are categories and “strategies” for embodying what missional supposedly means rather than simply loving neighbors and making disciples. Those who want to be “missional” should probably start by canning that word and growing a garden instead. A garden is a great way to meet your neighbors and to serve others.
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Ed, I absolutely love everything about this comment.
I couldn’t agree more about gardening leading to friendships. I live in Latvia and Latvians often love their gardens, it has been the best way of meeting folks
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Joy, thank you so much for this post. It is the reply to Tony that I wanted to write but could not. I was absolutely livid to read both the initial post and the follow-up, and by his attitude in replying to comments and questions. While I did comment, your post is much more succinct and also puts forth a couple of points that didn’t occur to me. I love the reminder that I *am* serving the least of these. I must first serve my immediate family well, before I can consider serving well outside the walls of my home. Otherwise my priorities are out of line. Of course, this may look different for me than it looks for my neighbor, or my friend, or anybody else, but the principle still holds true.
We all have our stories and why we make such blanket statements. Thank you for sharing some of your story. Yes, to homeschool 30 years ago was radical. I’m glad it turned out well for you and your sister. It sounds like your parents didn’t consider homeschooling a silver bullet, but a year-by-year choice.
I just wanted to share that this year would have been my 10th year of homeschooling our three children, aged 16, 14, and 11 except that I knew what I could offer did not exceed what the local public school could offer. I knew between my own mid-life struggles coupled with my children’s needs, I couldn’t home-school anymore. It is heart-breaking. My two youngest had never been in classroom school until this year as 9th and 6th graders.
I guess my bottom-line is that as we, as a family, shift from a homeschooling lifestyle to a public schooling lifestyle, it has broken my heart as a mom. Where do we fit in? We are not conservative Christians who home-school anymore. We are not understood by Christians who cannot understand why I cannot get myself off the front porch staring into space because I am so burned out from the last decade of service to my children. This service, according to home-schoolers who are deeply perplexed by my deepest need to say, “I can’t anymore!” would reward me with healthy, emotionally and spiritually, children. But there is no silver bullet. AND there is no church or community that can all agree and live together in these lifestyle choices.
I just wish we would stop with the defensiveness of our choices that don’t line up with others in the church. That our friendships and communities could reflect who we are and where we are in all our created humanity.
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Oh for the love, can’t we retreat from this overplayed battle of the Mommy Wars (or Daddy Wars as the case may be.) Only this is worse, because it’s Christian Wars.
We are all so blessed to live in a time and place where there are so many options for us to choose. My kids are in public school. It’s working for us. If it ceases to work, we’ll change the game plan. And Jesus will love us just as much.
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I home-schooled my three children when the youngest was 9 and the oldest 12 and continued until the older two were 16 and the youngest 14. Home schooling allowed them to overcome some significant educational learning barriers due to one to one tuition and learning styles that addressed their needs. Two have been diagnosed either with dyslexia or a dyslexic type condition at university and one was diagnosed with ADD – keeping him focussed was a challenge. My kids work well with others and are mature adults now, one works as a nurse in a mental hospital, one as a bike mechanic and the other studying car design at university. I’m not so sure they would have turned out as well rounded adults if they had continued in school at that point in their schooling lives.
I too have seen cases of over-protective home-schooling, but I have also heard it said “Socialisation? I agree many 16 year olds in schools lack socialisation skills.” In other words, putting children through school does not always result in children who can interact with society in a meaningful way. Supporting parents through their choices is more important than taking one stance on this issue, there is no definitive right or wrong on it, it is as individual as each precious child. We are called to make the best choices we can for our children, wherever that might take them.
Joanna recently posted..RIP Hoppy!
Joy, I completely agree with this post–thanks for communicating these ideas so well. I was home educated thirty years ago as well and am currently in my eighth year of teaching my own children at home. Praise God that He has allowed them to have a significant impact on all the kids in the neighborhoods where we have lived. They spend a lot of time with publicly educated children and share Jesus with everyone they meet. I don’t claim any credit for that–God is using them.
Emily, Loving others and bodlly telling them about Jesus is indeed a simple truth that we all should live by. Reach out to some moms and get them dialoging here as I too would love to discuss the cultural pressures/influences that are robbing us of blessings we might otherwise experience. I see a clear tie in between Helen’s challenge and those presented by Tripp in Shepherding a Child’s Heart. The challenges of cultural influence is ringing everywhere in my ears these days. The problem (as I see it) is that Christians have not stepped out to bodlly speak and live the gospel as God commands. We are not the influencers that we are called to be salt and light, city on a hill, etc. Rather we have consciously or subconsciously accepted the many lies and deceit presented by the culture. Now is time to engage as a peculiar people.
Anything and everything can become non-missional if we let it. When we chose to do anything for our own selfish desires (and here I use the word selfish to mean something that benefits no one – not even ourselves), it stops being missional. Likewise, when we chose to do something to better the health and wellbeing of ourselves and others, doors are opened. I use to be completely against homeschool. The model I was shown growing up was that of insular fundamentalist families who looked down not only on Non-Christians, but Christians who weren’t homeschooled. The girls took electives such as “quilt-making” and the boys took “wood-work” and never will the two genders cross. I now know there is a variety of ways to homeschool. I also know that with my own chronic health issues, it might be best for me to homeschool when I have children – at least a first to watch them carefully for the same problems.
Joy, this was one post of yours I didn’t read just because I saw “homeschool” in the title and I thought NOT AGAIN. I am not going to read any more controversy about homeschooling! You may or may not know this – but we homeschool primarily because Amy is high-functioning special needs but would definitely be in a special ed classroom. The classroom in our small rural school district has a population of 5 and there is no integration with regular classroom at all. There is NO way this would be a beneficial situation for her. So, we decided to homeschool. For now. It is really hard work. I fear that, even though I can educated college students about complicated things like pathophysiology, I will never be able to teach my brain-injured daughter her alphabet.
But enough about me. I ended up BACK here after being unable to ignore the internet firestorm stirred up by Tony’s “Death to Homeschooling” post any longer. I am so thankful you put the time and effort into a logical and brief counterpoint. My hair is on fire, so I would have been unable.
Also, never would have guessed you were homeschooled. Most people in college – and certainly now in life – never guessed I was either. It was usually my GPA (without hardly studying) and testing out of basic classes that gave me away, not my social oddities. As far as I recall, everyone in college had those!
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Good stuff, Natasha.Last week I taught missnois to about thirty 3 and 4 year olds each morning at VBS. We talked about Graffiti 2 Community Ministries’ Andrew Mann and his missionary dog Proof in NYC, Chris and Melody Julian and the ZOE Church in Sao Paulo Brazil, and the IMB’s Fusion group. The thing that most struck the preschoolers (aside from the ZOE Church baptizing new followers in a blow-up pool in a backyard) was that a dog might be a missionary. The key was obedience. Simply put to the preschoolers: if we do what God asks us to do, He can use us as missionaries. . . anywhere, everywhere. We have to be willing to love others and boldly tell others about Jesus. Perhaps that’s simplifying it, but I believe it’s pretty clear and eliminates any disputes about politics, etc. It’s what were supposed to do, and each person’s mission field will be uniquely situated by our God.(I think some of the disputes come when we start trying to frame some mission fields as more worthy or important than others.)I’d love to hear more from other moms on what cultural pressures/influences they find that are perhaps robbing them of blessings they might otherwise experience! The cultural pressures/influences can be tricky since some of them are so ingrained in our society.