Excellence in Education

As a Christian educator, I’ve seen varying perspectives on school from different families and communities. There are classical approaches, “unschooling” methods, and of course, the societal norms of a public education followed by university and further career specialization. Lots of options. But one isn’t necessarily better than another.

I was homeschooled for most of my life, but also attended private Christian schools, a secular university, and am currently in seminary. I have also homeschooled my younger siblings (up to 12th grade) and currently work as a high school/college math and English teacher. I’m passionate about education because I’ve seen it literally change people’s lives, especially during my time serving on the mission field.

There are plenty of hot debates on homeschool vs Christian schools, different curricula or learning methods, Eastern vs Western educational systems, etc. which I'm quite familiar with. Instead of nitpicking the various methods of education (because I can see value in each of them for different seasons of motherhood/stages of childhood), I want to take a closer look at our view of education on a whole.

I will start by saying I believe it is possible to place an undue emphasis on education, to the extent that more important things like our children’s spiritual or physical wellbeing is neglected and grades are all that matter. But in most cases today, this is the exception to the rule.

Here’s a truth we seem to have forgotten.

Christians should be striving for excellence in all areas, especially education.

Those who grasped the majesty and wisdom of God were leaders in science, mathematics and every other field out there. We, of all people, should comprehend how education does more than set us up for a nice career—it makes us wiser citizens and better stewards of the Lord’s creation.

The “bare minimum” mindset many homeschoolers have does nothing to help us take dominion. They’ll just keep complaining about how evil schools and universities are and continue to rob their kids of a stellar education built on Truth—that they could be providing at home!

It is the privilege and responsibility of every believer to discover what the Almighty God created for our enrichment: math, language, history, music, science, art, etc.

It’s easy to get trapped in a Christianity bubble where all that’s considered important is theological knowledge (and perhaps some conservative politics). We often group every other learning avenue under the banner of “secular education” and forget that God Himself created these things for man to explore and conquer for the glory of God and the building of civilization.

Anyone can see that culture, technology, medicine, etc. took a nosedive when Christians grew slothful and stepped out of these arenas. Do we want to sit back and “watch the world burn” or do we want to obey God-given mandates and bring what is noble, excellent, beautiful, virtuous, brilliant, and skilled back through the wisdom that God gives?

Why should we let the world dominate areas that were created by God for us to master?

Consider this: there are posts floating around that say people homeschool mainly because “kids don’t learn life skills at school”. I mean, you’ve probably asked yourself a couple times why teachers didn’t teach you how to do your taxes or laundry when you were in school either. To which my response would be: it really isn’t their job to do so.

Parents should be teaching their kids these basic skills, whether they’re homeschooled or go to private school. Homeschooling may make it easier for us to teach our kids homemaking or financial sense along with their schoolwork, but that shouldn’t be the primary motive to homeschool or a reason to hate on private schools, because we are responsible for passing on this information to our children anyway.

Another question we probably asked ourselves, and many homeschool moms are facing as well, is “how am I going to use xyz”? Insert the Pythagorean theorem, facts about rhombuses, or sentence diagrams! Why DO we learn all this stuff?

Mathematics is a common “victim” in this scenario, although I’ve seen homeschool families neglect other disciplines for the same reason. Interestingly enough, we don’t ask the same question regarding extracurriculars like music or creative pursuits, where the effects, such as improvement of hand-eye coordination, memory, and better brain development are more readily seen. And yet, we think “Johnny’s not going to be a rocket scientist—why does he need to waste his time studying precalculus or physics?”

We don’t seem to remember that a well-rounded education is beneficial precisely because children are introduced to a variety of subjects that stretch their brain, pique their interest, and serve as building blocks. There is a concerning percentage of the homeschool community that thinks reading, writing, and basic math are all a child really needs to learn.

Education is so much more. Sometimes education involves doing something you don’t want to do, whether it's repetitive, complex, or boring. And whether its trigonometry or penmanship—whether you think you’ll use it or not—learning has value beyond just critical thinking or problem-solving skills.

It’s not always enough to foster a love of learning, hoping they’ll learn everything they need to because they know how to.

Sometimes education involves doing something you don’t want to do, whether it's repetitive, complex, or boring. And whether its trigonometry or penmanship—whether you think you’ll use it or not—learning has value beyond just critical thinking or problem-solving skills.

Now of course there are several factors involved here: such as exactly when or how to introduce/reinforce different subjects to different children, depending on their personalities or learning abilities. And education encompasses more than difficult subjects; I would add that we should be encouraging our children to explore creative pursuits, outdoor movement, and domestic/agricultural skills, as well as computer literacy, language learning, or written & oral communication skills.

All of these areas have value, beyond the application of the skills themselves.

I believe the question we should be asking ourselves is: “how do I equip my child to become a spiritually-minded, intelligent, and multi-faceted individual for the glory of God, reclaiming of a degenerate culture, and the enrichment of personal and family life?”

That perspective propels us away from simply asking “will I actually use this?” and turns our focus from mere schooling or illustrious careers to a greater purpose.

Here's another thing to consider. You've probably heard, repeatedly, that homeschooled students consistently outperform public school students on standardized tests and in college. Therefore, homeschoolers are smarter than most.

That's only partly true.

There are more advantages and positives to homeschooling than I can count when it comes to giving your child a customized learning experience. However, it's quite misleading to brag on the academic excellence of our homeschoolers based on standardized tests.

The truth is, only a small percentage of homeschoolers actually take those tests or apply to colleges included in these studies. Factors such as economic status, family size, and geographical location determine whether a homeschool student even considers a higher education, which means the majority of homeschool families are not included in statistics illustrating the academic prowess of homeschoolers.

Now, I'm not saying state standards are necessary to test your child's education, but if you've always heard that homeschoolers are smarter than other students, take that with a grain of salt.

Here's an excerpt from an article explaining this idea further:

Homeschool advocates often point to positive studies of homeschooled students’ performance in college as proof that homeschooling not only works but actually has better results than other educational methods (there are also studies that find more mediocre performance). However, if only a narrow slice of homeschooled students take the SAT and attend college, it is to be expected that these students—the best and brightest—would both score better on the SAT and perform better in college than their traditionally schooled peers, not because homeschooling is a superior method of education but rather because lower-performing homeschooled students have been removed from the sample.

So no, the kids are not alright. But we can be instrumental in changing those statistics.

Because here is a huge myth that saddens me every time I hear it: "Moms (parents) aren't qualified to homeschool their children".

That is patently false.

I can't think of better people to instruct their children than the ones God literally created to raise and discipline them. And whether you need a college degree to do so, well, that’s a discussion for another time. Let me just say, if we paid more attention to giving our girls a rich education instead of arguing about the merits of attending (or not attending) college, I think we'd worry about a woman's qualification to teach her children a lot less.

However, we often think homeschool means parent-taught, when it should actually be parent-led education. Parents are responsible for facilitating their children's education, whether that means teaching a subject themselves or providing the resources they need to do so. That can include videos, coops, tutors—anything.

I don't know who needs to hear this, but you don't have to personally teach every single subject your kids are learning.

If your hesitancy to tackle high school math or science is impeding your child's progress or driving you to consider institutionalized learning, maybe it's time to start outsourcing.

You don't need to sacrifice the quality of a home-based education from a biblical perspective when you partner with organizations or individuals that allow your child to work one-on-one with Christian educators. I love working as an online educator for Christian families who need some help with trickier subjects (and I get to put my degree in math, computer science, and statistics to good use!)

Instead of giving them books or videos and leaving them to fend for themselves, you can find people who will guide your kids through more difficult subjects. While the Lord created various fields for all of us to benefit from, He gave different individuals specific interests or skills to specialize in.

Maybe there's a retired chemistry professor at your church who would be willing to pass on his knowledge to your children. There might be a local coop or ”church school” where lab classes or apologetics courses are taught. Perhaps your high schooler would really enjoy an online course on coding or data analysis.

The options are endless.

As I wrap this up, let me be clear: academic success is absolutely worthless, a thin veneer of refinement, apart from a real, robust love for Jesus Christ and the eternal wisdom that is gained by sitting daily at His feet. The spiritual legacy we pass on to our children has greater value than any book knowledge we give them.

However, once we have laid (and continued to build) upon the foundation of Scripture, we must not overlook our duty to prepare our children for the world we live in, the world we are called to not only be salt and light in, but also take dominion of, as believers.

"Isolating the student from large sections of human knowledge is not the basis of a Christian education. Rather it is giving him or her the framework for total truth, rooted in the Creator's existence and in the Bible's teaching, so that in each step of the formal learning process the student will understand what is true and what is false and why it is true or false." ~ Francis Schaeffer

Did any of these points resonate with you? Have you changed the way you view education recently and why?

What are the most common myths you've heard in the homeschooling community? Or what's something you're doing differently as a teacher/homeschooling mom?