EDUCATING OUR LITTLES- PT1

I previously posted that I will do a 2-3 part post on our decisions about education for our children. To appropriately explain the journey God has taken us on I have to go back to the way beginning. Let me lay out a disclaimer here. I do not think the decisions we have made are right for everyone. You will see that this has been a very personal journey and one that God perfectly laid out for our family and our needs. Not one person has the same journey and I don't expect everyone in the world to agree with or understand our decisions. This is just our story and how we got to where we are now.

Flashback to Fall of 2005. Justin and I are in pre-marital counseling. One of our sessions was about family planning. We covered everything from the number of kids to discipline beliefs. Part of that conversation ventured into the area of education. I am a product of public schools. I had a mostly wonderful public school experience. I was from a small town and we had a very close knit community and neighborhood school set up. My husband attended a tiny private Christian school from K-8 grade and then matriculated into the local public high school for 9-12. We both had wonderful experiences and appreciated the decisions our parents made for us.

During my last semester as a graduate student in speech pathology I was an intern in the middle and high school where I grew up. The things that were going on there were horrific. Sexual promiscuity going on in school restrooms in sixth grade, awful bullying, and a significant amount of drug use at both the middle and high school. It was disheartening and obvious that the public school environment had changed drastically in the six years since I had graduated high school.

So during that pre-marital counseling conversation Justin and I agreed that we would explore private Christian school as an option for our children. We knew that a lot could happen before having kids that would change that plan, but we agreed that we were on the same page with private Christian (not just private) school being the ideal place for our children to be educated when the time came.

We were married in December of 2005 and in April of 2008 we welcomed our first son. Nothing had changed when it came to our educational plan for our son. In fact, we had grown a lot in our faith since getting married and were certain we would plan for a private Christian education, even if that meant sacrificing in other areas to make that plan possible financially. Hear this, we were not set on Christian education because we wanted to shelter our children from all of the less desirable activities going on in the public schools around us. We realize that sheltering our children from reality will not prepare them for adulthood. At the same time I could not fathom sending my children into a public school classroom with a teacher that may or may not value the scriptures the way we do for 6-8 hours per day and allow it to be a luck of the draw who gets to spend their days educating and directing my child. When I would think about this Provers 22:6 would echo in the back of my mind.

"Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it."

I wanted my children to be trained up with a biblical world view. I wanted them to see how God worked and reigned even in the most depraved of situations. I wanted them to see how scripture was applicable to every situation during every moment of every day. For me it was not enough that we would be able to teach that at home in the evenings and on weekends. I felt it was very important that those people who engaged with our children in the early years be Christians and hold God's word in the same esteem that we do. The only way to ensure that was to home school or to enroll our children in a Christian school. It was our plan and we whole heartily felt it was the direction God was leading us.

Do I think parents who enroll their children in public school are wrong? ABSOLUTELY NOT! It was a personal conviction for me. I know that there are ways to raise Christian children who stay strong in their faith in public schools. I attended public school. I know several young adults who are wonderful followers of Christ who attended public school. I can't explain it any better than to say that I knew it was not right for our children. It was a conviction that God placed in my heart early at the beginning of the journey.