Reason #738

Sometimes folks will ask why I homeschool my children. This is reason #738.

I read a...gracious, I don't know quite how to characterize it...a sad/alarming/hilarious/tragically believable article on WorldNetDaily today about a teen beauty queen. Here's a link, for your perusal: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/staticarticles/article57350.html .

By her own admission, she carries a 3.5 gpa, is a "student leader", whatever that means, and a varsity athlete. Her train of thought, however, was apparently still boarding at the station, because this chic had trouble finding two brain cells to rub together to answer a (really, really sad) question about the state of the American public education system.

Her bizarre answer is all the commentary we need to read to prove that our schools are bottomless pits of mediocrity and a vast waste of time for most of the poor kids who wander through the dangerous hallways and loud classrooms of today's schools.

This girl is one of the "smart ones"! Oh, she has her excuses for why her response was both unintelligible and totally off topic. We are real good at excuses today, but not so good at original thought. Student leader-oh my. Leading where, I wonder?

Now, I know that there are gifted, brilliant even, educators out there on the front lines of the public education battlefield (and make no mistake, it's a battlefield, people), and they invest not only in their students, but in their communities, their churches, and their own homes. But, anymore, they are becoming a rarity.

The Bible says, "I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren..." and then it instructs us, and teaches us. I don't know what is going on at most schools today, but instruction on things like writing well, effectively communicating, comprehending a great book, being able to do a geometric proof, understanding the human nervous system, and learning about great people from history like Sacegewea or Winston Churchill or Stonewall Jackson or Alexander the Great, and being able to find Oman on a map are not amoung the educational priorities in government schools today.

For me, I will teach my children as Jesus taught his disciples: by being a one-on-one tutor, available at any moment for them. I will endeavor to learn as I teach, and teach them to love to learn. And I will pray fervently for those who strive to teach things of value in the public education system.