** My thinking has moved on since I wrote this (we keep learning don’t we). Please read my latest thinking here **
The choices we make about how we educate our children is one of the most important decisions we will make for our children. Any parent who cares about how their children are raised and whether they are raised in the fear of the Lord or not will be deeply concerned that their children are being educated to the best of their abilities.
When we first sent our children to school, we sent them to the state primary school just down the road from where we lived. Of the schools in the area it was recognized as one of the best, so we thought we were doing the best for our children.
One of the guiding principles of the primary school our children attended was the concept that they concerned themselves with the whole child. This sounds pretty good. They don’t just teach them the alphabet, they also do sports, social studies, art, science and other facets of modern education.
While this sounds good, our understanding as parents of our responsibilities given by the Lord require us to bring up our children in the instruction of the Lord (Eph 6:3, Deut 31:12-13). Indeed, it is the parents responsibility both to teach and to train our children for adulthood. This does not mean a mandate for home schooling, and indeed home schooling is not an option for everyone – even though for many it may be the best option.
This responsibility requires that parents own the teaching process, that we are responsible before God for the training and education of our children and whether we teach the children ourselves or outsource the job, we will be held accountable before the Lord for the education (or lack of) that our children receive.
We now have our children in a Christian School and have been shocked and surprised at the responses and opinions many Christians – including close friends – have toward Christian schools.
Today we often hear of children who are not longer in Christian schools as well as those who want to give their children a Christian education but cant and many (most) who sharply disagree with the very notion of Christian education.
Over the next few posts I hope to examine some of the reasons we put our children in a Christian School and also deal with some of the objections we commonly hear.
If you have some objections to Christian schooling, let me hear them and I’ll give my response to the objection – and/or grant the points validity.
