Category Archives: Education and the Family

deschooling, Education and Language Instruction, Education and the Family, Literacy, Schools

The Importance of Recognizing Student Difference

Last night I watched the film, Shine Like a Star on YouTube.  The setting for the film was in India; in some Indian schools, with class sizes of 40 plus students. The main character was an eight-year-old boy called Ishan.  Ishan was portrayed as having dyslexia, and because he could not read and write, and didn’t have fine and gross motor coordination, he experienced bullying from teachers and fellow students, and rejection by his family.

The theme of the movie was individual difference in students.  With the right kind of support, and feeding of passion, all students are able to be an expert in something.

In the movie, Ishan’s solution was found in the context of school.  However, for me, the film highlighted the harmfulness of schools and schooling – just like in a school of fish, the individual is expected to be the same as every other member of the collective.  However, egalitarianism is a myth.  None of us are the same.  Everyone is unique and created for a different purpose, and the uniqueness requires difference in educational input.  Home-based education would have been a much better solution for the young lad’s situation.

Another issue was the child’s need for a multi-sensory / multi-modal approach to literacy and numeracy.  It was a great advertisement for intensive phonics methods of literacy instruction.

I would thoroughly recommend the watching of the movie.  You have to persevere through some Bollywood-like scenes (it is an Indian movie, when all said and done), but the perseverance is worth it.

References:

Aamir Khan Productions / PVR Pictures. (2013). Verry Inspiring Movie (Shine Like a Star). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22xmvxGtx4o

 

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Education and the Church, Education and the Family, Education and the Marketplace, Education and the State, Funding, Home-Based Education

Government-funded education and Fundamentalist Evangelicalism: the dependence must stop

According to North (1982) the concept of neutrality in the market place is a myth.  The myth, extended to education, has created an opportunity for the enemies of Jesus Christ to gain control of the institutions that drive culture.  Sadly, Christian Evangelicalism and Christian Fundamentalism, because of the influence of Pietism, have been on the cutting edge of promoting marketplace neutrality.  North’s answer to the problem, and anticipation of Fundamentalism’s response to the solution is as follows:

What is the proper argument?  Simple: there is no neutrality, and since there is no neutrality, the present legal foundation of government-funded education is a fraud.  Conclusion: close every government-financed school tomorrow.  Refund the taxes to the tax-payers.  Let the taxpayers seek out their own schools for their children, at their expense (or from privately financed scholarships or other donations).  No more fraud.  No more institutions built on the myth of neutrality.  But the fundamentalists instinctively shy away from such a view.  Why?  Because they see where it necessarily leads: to a theocracy in which no public funds can be appropriated for anti-Christian activities, or to anarchy, where there are no public funds to appropriate.  It must lead to God’s civil government or no civil government.  In short, it leads either to Rushdoony or Rothbard.  Most fundamentalists have never heard of either man, but they instinctively recognize where the abandonment of the myth of neutrality could lead them (North, 1982. p. 20).

Quite rightly, non-Christians object to state-raised funds being used for purposes that promote the Christian religion.  This is perfectly consistent with the reality of there being no neutrality in the marketplace.  The religion of the marketplace is Secular Humanism (proclaimed a religion by Humanists themselves*).  This is the pressure that is applied to so-called Christian Schools that receive government funds to be established and sustained.  Humanist tax-payers object to their tax dollars being used to promote a rival religion.  The government-funded Christian schools, if they are not fully controlled by government agendas at the moment, shall be completely controlled in the future.  He who pays the piper calls the tune.  The only way for Christian education to be conducted in a Christian way, under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and in accordance with the Word of God, is for Christians to stop receiving government subsidies.  Initially this will be extremely painful.  It will mean shouldering the full responsibility for the education of their children.  Christians will also need to pay the full tithe to the Lord, and churches will need to shoulder their full social welfare responsibilities, which includes helping the righteous poor families fulfill their educational responsibilities.

It was Fundamentalist Evangelicalism that led the charge towards the secularization of Education in Australia.  According to Barcan (1980):

In September 1874 James Greenwood, a Baptist minister who was also a journalist on the Sydney Morning Herald, formed a Public School League whose objective was a ‘national, free, secular and compulsory’ system (Barcan, 1980, p. 139).

The Christian church in Australia is addicted to procuring government funds.  Think of the funds being given to the Salvation Army, Baptist Care, Catholic Care, Frontier Services, Anglicare, etc.  Government money for the Lord’s work.  Try preaching the gospel to the recipients of the welfare distributed through these organizations – challenge the recipients with the crown rights of Jesus Christ the Lord and King – and see what response comes from the funding source: “Shut up, or the funds will dry up.”  In the early days of these organisations, when the money came from the church’s tithes and offerings, listening to the gospel was often a condition for receiving the welfare distribution – in many cases it was failing to obey the gospel which got people into trouble in the first place.

Well done, those Christian families who have fully owned their responsibility to educate their own children, by bringing them home and giving them a home-based education.  Well done to those families who have paid the financial cost of educating from home.  I applaud your efforts.  And may the Triune God reward you abundantly for your faithfulness to Him.

* Dunphy, J. (1983). A Religion for a New Age. The Humanist, Jan-Feb.; Potter, C. F. (1930). Humanism a New Religion. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.

References

Barcan, A. (1980). A History of Australian Education. Melbourne, VIC: Oxford University Press.

Dunphy, J. (1983). A Religion for a New Age. The Humanist, Jan-Feb

North, G. (1982). The Intellectual Schizophrenia of the New Christian Right, Symposium on The Failure of the American Baptist Culture.  U.S.A.: Geneva Divinity School, Christianity and Civilization Vol. 1.  Editors Jordan, J. B. and North, G.

Potter, C. F. (1930). Humanism a New Religion. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.

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Education, Education and the Family, Education and the Marketplace, Education and the State, Home-Based Education

Home-based education, entrepreurship and the Old Age Pension

At a workshop that I attended, which was conducted to develop Financial Literacy curriculum for Australian schools, Paul Clitheroe made the following comment:

We are living in a time unprecedented in history, where it is so easy to spend far more than we earn.  This has not been the case in most of history.  This also includes spending beyond our earning years.  The Old Age Pension commenced in 1908, and was designed to be paid to those who lived up to 2 years beyond their life expectancy.  Most men did not live beyond the age of 60, at that time.  Over the past one hundred years, life expectancy has increased by 25 years.  This means that the government-promise of supporting some people for a maximum of two years after they have finished being financially productive, has now ballooned out to a promise to support most people for up to 25 years after they have stopped being tax-payers.  This situation is totally unsustainable.  Eventually the pension age will have to be pushed out to age 90 because there will not be the capacity to pay pensions in the future (Clitheroe, 9th August, 2012).

This is not fear-mongering, it is economic fact.  No amount of claiming rights will change the facts.  Growing numbers of non-working tax recipients will eventually outnumber a shrinking pool of tax payers.  At the cross-over, tax payers will have to pay 100%  of their earnings to support the non tax payers, and after that, … ?  Succeeding Governments did not save the tax money paid by workers over their working lives.  They spent the money on other projects.  There is a shrinking taxation base, because more and more Australians are either being aborted before birth, marrying later and later (and therefore having less and less children per married couple), or entering relationships that are sterile (LGBT relationships).  Receiving a pension is not a right, it never has been, and never can be.  It was always a ponzi scheme*.

Home-based education must include entrepreneurship and economic independence.  Dependence upon others to provide a job is a risky business.  Maintaining a good relationship with your children is also a critical part of home-based education.  It may literally mean life or death, when governments are looking for ways to solve the problem of a logarithmically increasing number of non-working pension recipients.

References

https://www.google.com.au/?gws_rd=ssl#q=ponzi+scheme+definition Accessed: Thu 16/10/2014 18:32

* Ponzi schemeˈpɒnzi/noun
noun: Ponzi scheme; plural noun: Ponzi schemes
  1. a form of fraud in which belief in the success of a non-existent enterprise is fostered by the payment of quick returns to the first investors from money invested by later investors.
    “a classic Ponzi scheme built on treachery and lies”
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Education, Education and the Family, Education and the State, Funding, Home-Based Education, State Schools, Teaching

Globalisation, Schools and Home-based Education: the economic pressures

Sean Casham (2014), writing from an unashamedly socialist perspective, discussed the impact of globalisation on education, in his paper: Globalisation and Education.  He argued that globalisation has ensured that schooling is finance-driven rather than education-driven.  Measurable outcomes, such as high exam scores, become the educational objective of schooling to attract parents to enroll their children and to secure government funding.  These globally originated economic pressures, from such sources as The World Bank (Casham, 2014, p. 2), create insecurity of employment for school staff and ensure that there is a need for particular teachers to prove their ongoing right to be employed.  In this context, data collection becomes connected to professional competence, rather than actual teaching ability and learning outcomes in the lives of the children; value is given to things that can be measured and produced, rather than to the elements of a true education.  Casham writes: “By focusing on the knowable and instantly quantifiable, we may diminish the more abstract qualities of being human, such as kindness and wisdom” (p. 2).

Casham points out that Waters (2011) wrote: “In Australia, 25% of our young people (aged 15-19 years) have a mental disorder and 1 in 3 young people experience moderate to high levels of psychological distress” (Waters, 2011, p. 75).  This figure is an increase on the number of mentally disturbed young people reported in the earlier Sawyer, et al. (2000) Mental Health of Young People in Australia, report.  In the Sawyer report it was recorded that “Fourteen percent of children and adolescents in Australia have mental health problems” (p. xi).  However, it is interesting to note that Sawyer, et al. claimed that there was “a higher prevalence of child and adolescent mental health problems among those living in low-income, step/blended and sole-parent families” (Sawyer, et al., 2000, p. xi).  The Sawyer report claimed to be accurate because “the prevalence of mental health problems identified in (the) survey (was) very similar to the prevalence identified in previous Australian and overseas surveys” (p. xi).

Casham suggests that  these globalisation pressures may have a negative influence on young people.  Making educational processes finance-driven rather than education-driven may be limiting our human capabilities, and “limiting our human capabilities could paradoxically prove harmful to our mental health and the economy” (Casham, 2014, p. 2).  Maseman (2007) pointed out that the increasing trend in measuring school effectiveness “rests on productivity-oriented criteria, and analysis that is used on every level of education from early elementary school up to the tertiary level” (Maseman, 2007, p. 101).  This has led to “the increasing homogenization of the culture of education on a worldwide scale, with the accompanying assumption by educators that there is only one valid epistemology” (Maseman, 2007, p. 110).  Casham summarises this phenomenon by suggesting that “financial objectives can … be at the expense of a truly coherent focus on school improvement” (Casham, 2014, p. 6).

It is my argument that schools cannot be improved, whilst they are the recipients of Government funding.  It is the pressure of Government accountability measures that is apparently skewing pedagogical approaches.  Teachers who are anxious about their job security will not be primarily concerned about the educational outcomes of their charges, rather they will be driven by considerations that revolve around assessment imperatives.  Testing does not deliver an education.  Tests test whether the students have memorised the data that is deemed important to pass the test.  An education results in a lifestyle change.  Testing involves cramming as late as possible before the test date, then promptly forgetting as much as possible after the test.

Home-based education does have its financial pressures.  Home-based education families mostly choose to live a leaner lifestyle than they could if both parents were working and the children were sent to school.  However, when there is a resolve to live contentedly within the family’s single-income means, there are no pressures for financial accountability in relation to the education of the children.  Time can be dedicated to education, and if there is no state-mandated registration, then the testing regime can be done away with all together.  The proof of educational success is not in the results of tests; the proof is in the adjustments to lifestyle that the children make as a result of their educational development.

Casham’s essay is helpful in understanding some of the pressures upon schools and their teaching staff.  Those pressures may also be contributing to the poor mental health of many of the children attending the schools.  Add the pressures of globalisation to the factors of bullying, academic struggle and the corresponding shame that many children experience, and it is no wonder that a large number (between 14% and 25%) of children exhibit mental health problems.  However, Casham holds out hope for schools, and this is where I depart from his analysis.  The hope will be found in strengthening families, and then mandating families to deliver an education from the base of their own home sweet home.

References

Casham, S. (2014). Globalisation and Education. Unpublished Masters level assignment.

Maseman, V.L. (2007). Culture and Education. In: Arnove, R.F. and Torrens, C.A. (eds). Comparative Education: The Dialectic of the Global and the Local, 3rd Edition. pp. 101-116.

Sawyer, M.G., Arney, F.M., Baghurst, P.A., Clark, J.J., Graetz, B.W., Kosky, R.J., Nurcombe, B., Patton, G.C., Prior, M.R., Raphael, B., Rey, J., Waites, L.C. and Zubrick, S.R. (2000). Mental Health of Young People in Australia. Child and adolescent component of the National Survey of Mental Health and Well-being.  Canberra: Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care.

Waters, L. (2011) A review of school-based positive psychology interventions. The Australian Educational and Developmental Psychologist. 28(2), pp. 75-90. DOI 10.1375/aedp.28.2.75

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Education and the Family, Education and the State, Home-Based Education

Why on earth would parents want to take on the responsibility of educating their children?

According to Drabsch (2013) the three principle reasons home-based educating families do not register with the state are:

  1. Parents don’t want to follow the state curriculum;
  2. Parents don’t believe the state should dictate the curriculum; and
  3. Parents resent any intrusion by the state into their lives (Drabsch, 2013, p. 4).

On the other hand, the list of research-accumulated reasons provided by parents for choosing to educate from home is substantial:

  1. Parents are primarily responsible for the education of their children;
  2. The health needs of the child prevent him or her from attending school on a regular basis and so the flexibility afforded by home schooling is optimal in the circumstances;
  3. The child has special education needs, such as autism, which leads some parents to feel the child will cope better in their home environment with a familiar, regular caregiver as educator;
  4. Religious reasons;
  5. Philosophical/ideological objections to traditional schooling — for example, some parents believe that ‘schools have a forced curriculum, that desagreeable beliefs and values are placed on all the children, that peer pressure is prevalent, that schools are too competitive and that they cannot provide what children need’;
  6. Objections to the socialisation process that occurs through traditional schooling as well as a belief that the use of age-structured grades for school forces children into an artificial network of peers who are all the same age.  Home schooled children mix with different ages rather than being artificially restricted to their peer group and there are some thoughts that their social skills are better as a result;
  7. The family travels regularly and thus requires flexible schooling options;
  8. There is a desire for closer family relationships and a strong family unit;
  9. To avoid negative peer pressure, unwanted influences, school bullying and violence, substance abuse, etc.;
  10. In some cases it is a response to perceived inadequacies in the school system and a lack of satisfaction with the education offered by traditional schools;
  11. The quality of teaching in schools may vary with some parents subsequently believing they could do a better job;
  12. The local school is too far from home;
  13. Schools cannot provide children with the same level of personal interest and attention that a family can.  Parents have a vested interest in the wellbeing of their children;
  14. The child may have had a negative schooling experience and thus needs some time away from the school environment;
  15. The parents are not opposed to traditional schooling per se but cannot afford to send the child to a private school;
  16. Schools are not the only arena in which children learn and home schooling allows better use of multiple environments conducive to a richer learning experience.  It is not subject to the limited choice of subjects, texts and approaches to learning;
  17. It avoids the homogenisation of children;
  18. A belief that schools generally provide for the average student, with inadequate support for shy, clever of slow children;
  19. According to Rochelle Sutherland, ‘Home school children have more common sense, a better developed social conscience, are more motivated and think more laterally’;
  20. There is a greater opportunity for one-on-one interaction — the child can ask questions, difficulties can be quickly followed up and resolved and there are extra opportunities for extension;
  21. Children can learn at their own pace — they can go over areas that require extra time for understanding whilst moving ahead in areas that are more quickly understood.  Children are also not locked into particular year levels.  For example, a student strong in mathematics could move ahead in that subject whilst completing English work at a lower level (Drabsch, 2013, pp. 8-9).

When I was interviewing families for the research component of my dissertation, most of them did not want their responses to be traceable back to them.  Some of the families were not concerned.  However, those families that were concerned expressed their distrust of bureaucrats.

Once again, the issue distils to one question: “Who owns the children?”  For most of history the answer to the question was: “The Triune God is the owner of the children, and parents are appointed by God to be the trustees of their children’s welfare — accountable to Him on the Day of Judgment.”  The idea that the state owns the children, and only tolerates parental involvement in out-of-school activities, is a relatively modern one.

There will be no progress on this matter, in the favour of parents, until the Sovereignty of God is re-established in the marketplace:

May He have dominion from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth!  May desert tribes bow down before Him, and his enemies lick the dust!  May the kings of Tarshish and of the coastlands render Him tribute; may the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts!  May all kings fall down before Him, all nations serve Him! (Psalm 72:8-11).

References

Drabsch, T. (2013). Home Education in NSW. Sydney: N.S. W. Parliamentary Research Service. e-brief 15. Downloaded 25/09/2014, from: http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/publications.nsf/key/HomeEducationinNSW/$File/Home%20schooling%20GG%203.pdf

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Education and the Church, Education and the Family, Education and the State, Funding

When it all boils down to the essence of the matter, it is a question of: “Who owns the kids?”

The concluding remark in the e-brief to the New South Wales parliament on the question of home education is that “much of the division of opinion (about home education) centres around whether the greatest right and responsibility for a child’s education rests with the state or with parents” (Drabsch, 2013, p. 13).  This is the question that must be revisited and satisfactorily answered.  Drabsch admits that it “was the introduction of compulsory education that saw responsibility for the education of children generally shift from parents to the state” (p. 2).

In my PhD Dissertation I wrote:

By the mid 1800s, “… in country districts the denominational system was unsuitable – too many small rival denominational schools were being established” (Barcan, 1980, p. 78). By the late 1800s, across all the colonies, Free, Secular and Compulsory education campaigns were launched. This resulted in the Free, Secular and Compulsory education Acts variously introduced across all of the colonies.

In September 1874 James Greenwood, a Baptist minister who was also a journalist on the Sydney Morning Herald, formed a Public School League whose objective was a ‘national, free, secular and compulsory’ system” (Barcan, 1980, p. 139).

Victoria, in 1872, “was the first colony not merely in Australia but also in the British Empire, to provide in combination, free, compulsory and secular education” (Barcan, 1980, p. 176). Queensland began the process in 1870 but did not complete it until 1900. South Australia set in place legislation in 1892, Western Australia in 1901, New South Wales in 1906 and Tasmania in 1908 (Barcan, 1980, p. 151). “State control of the purse ensured centralized control” of all aspects of education in the new states of Australia after federation (Barcan, 1980, p. 177). (Box, 2014, p. 106).

It is rather ironic that the the push for transferring responsibility of children from their parents to the state was lead by members of the Baptist Church in Australia.  This is expected of the Communists, because the tenth objective of Karl Marx, in his program to introduce international communism was:

“10. Free education for all children in public schools. … ” (Marx and Engels, 2010 [1848], p. 27).

However, the Biblical position is that children belong to the Triune God, and God has entrusted the responsibility for the care and nurturance of children to the parents of those children as a trust.

According to Rushdoony (1983) the issue that resulted in Christians being fed to lions and variously tortured by the Roman state was that the early Christians exalted Jesus Christ as Lord over the state (as represented in the person of Caesar).  He wrote:

Peter’s message to the elders and scribes, recorded in Acts 4:12, best sums up the conflict we are involved in today: Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

It is important for us to understand the context of this verse.  With the statement, Peter effectually issued a spiritual declaration of war against the Roman Empire.  When Augustus Caesar took the helm in Rome and had consolidated his power, a great celebration was held throughout the Roman Empire.  It was called the “Advent” celebration — a very significant term, and a very religious one.  It was the Advent celebration because Augustus Caesar had come, in all the fullness of his power.  The heralds — again an interesting word — were sent to the far corners of the Roman Empire with a great Advent proclamation: “There is none other name under heaven whereby men may be saved than the name of Augustus Caesar!”  It was the proclamation of Caesar, of the state, as man’s savior.

We can understand, then, why conflict between Christ and the Caesars was inevitable, why the church went through all the troubles it did, year in and year out, and why men were martyred for the faith.  It was because of this question: “Who is the Lord, or sovereign?  Who is the savior?” (Rushdoony, 1983, pp. 7-8).

Sovereignty and Providence, as universal realities, do not disappear with their denial in theology.  If Sovereignty and Providence are no longer acknowledged in the Triune Creator God, as revealed in the Bible, the principles are then taken up by the state.   This is what happened in the late 1800s.  Compromised theology in the pulpits of Australian churches transferred absolute sovereignty from the God of the Bible to the civil state, and with that transferal went the ownership of the children.

This question of prior responsibility for the children will not be settled in the favour of parents until the church once again thunders from its pulpits the doctrine of the Sovereignty of God, and once again God’s people think His thoughts after Him — having the mind of Christ.

References

Barcan, A. (1980). A History of Australian Education. Melbourne, VIC: Oxford University Press.

Box, L A. (2014). A Proposal to Deschool, then Unschool Australian Biblical Christian Education. Unpublished dissertation submitted for fulfilment of Doctor of Philosophy, in the School of Applied Theology, New Geneva Theological Seminary, Virginia, U.S.A.

Drabsch, T. (2013). Home Education in NSW. Sydney: N.S. W. Parliamentary Research Service. e-brief 15. Downloaded 25/09/2014, from: http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/publications.nsf/key/HomeEducationinNSW/$File/Home%20schooling%20GG%203.pdf

Marx, K. and Engels, F. (2010 [1848]). Manifesto of the Communist Party. Moore, S. (1888) [Translator into English]. Marxist Internet Archive.

Rushdoony, R. J. (1983). The “Atheism” of the Early Church. Vallecito, California: Ross House Books.

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Education and the Church, Education and the Family, Education and the State

The Role of the Church to Protect the Family from the State, as it relates to education

The following has been lifted from my PhD dissertation, and slightly edited for this blog site.  I continue to give thought to some of my earlier ideas, and welcome feedback as I continue to refine them.

As discussed in a previous blog, the state has the God-ordained function of being a minister of justice, “not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.” Justice is to be defined in terms of God’s Law-Word, and the state is “an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer,” i.e. on those who transgress God’s Law (Romans 13:1-7). However, when the state assumes jurisdiction beyond that which God has assigned it, because it bears the sword (Romans 13:4)—i.e. the capacity to inflict sanctions in terms of fines, imprisonment, or even administering capital punishment—God’s people need to be protected from the state because it has taken to itself too much power and authority. To stand between the state and the family, and between the state and the individual, is a legitimate role of the church.

When the church is weak, the Family is vulnerable to the state. I Kings 21:1-16 is a story of the de-capitalisation of a family by the state. At that time the church was nowhere to be seen. It should have been there to defend the family with the prophetic word in regards to God’s Law concerning inviolable land inheritance (Numbers 34:1-29). On the other hand, when David violated a family’s sanctity in regards to his sin with Bathsheba, appropriately, the church was there to pronounce, “You are the man!” (II Samuel 11:1-12:23).

Gary North (1995) wrote: “… the family is a legitimate and necessary institution, but separate from the institutional church, it has been no match for the state in history” (p. 6). Part of the problem is that in more modern times, the church has not insisted that the family pay the tithe. When tithes are not properly paid and then properly administered, the church does not have the financial resources to administer all the proper social functions that God has ordained should be conducted by the church. The state, according to God’s command, should be collecting less than the tithe to administer its God-ordained functions (I Samuel 8:10-18 – in this passage a tenth being given to the state is considered a great judgement upon the people). North, commenting on this writes:

… What are the biblical limits of state authority? …the tithe sets these limits. Civil government at all levels combined is not authorized by God to collect taxes equal to the tithe (I Sam. 8:17). Nothing funded by the state beyond this limit is biblicly legitimate. Taxation in the twentieth century has exceeded this limit by at least three to one in every nation. The modern world stands condemned (North, 1995, p. 6).

God’s condemnation is upon the church for failing to collect the tithe as commanded by Him, and thereby failing to engage in the work that God has ordained for the church. Or, if the church does collect a tithe, then God condemns improper administration of the tithe by spending the full tithe on sanctuary-related activity (such as Pastors’ salaries, building expenses, and other accoutrements to worship), instead of tithing the tithe for sanctuary purposes, and using the remaining nine-tenths for kingdom-oriented activities (such as support of Christian families in the educating of their children). His condemnation is upon the family because by failing to pay the tithe, it has created a vacuum that the state has willingly filled. Filling the vacuum is funded by stripping the family of its assets through taxation. Such assets should be used to capitalize families across multiple generations. The condemnation is upon the state, because by weakening the family, and over-riding a weak church, the fabric of society is weakened which will ultimately result in the state being undone.

It is the church’s responsibility to defend the role of the family (specifically fathers) in the education of the children of the family. However, family heads are accountable to church officers for the way in which they discharge this responsibility. It is not for the state to dictate the curriculum and enforce syllabi upon families. This is a family responsibility. However, families should obtain assistance from the church in this matter, and assistance from church-trained experts in the market place.

References

North, G. (1995). Baptized Patriarchalism: The Cult of the Family. Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics.

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deschooling, Education, Education and the Family, Unschooling

Family-Based Education: The role of the family in education

The following has been lifted from my PhD dissertation, and slightly edited for this blog site.  I continue to give thought to some of my earlier ideas, and welcome feedback as I continue to refine them.

In the book of Malachi, God indicated that a key purpose of marriage is “godly offspring” (Malachi 2:15[1]). For offspring to be godly, they must be trained to know God and to obey His commandments (Deuteronomy 6:1-9[2]). Raising godly offspring, therefore, is a significant goal of Biblical education, and the principle context for this goal is the trustee family. The trustee family is held by Rushdoony to be in contradistinction to both the atomistic family and the extended family. The atomistic family is, essentially, husband, wife and kids. The extended family includes husband, wife and kids, but also includes grandparents, grandchildren, cousins, uncles and an extended network of blood-related family members who are living.  The trustee family, on the other hand, takes into consideration the heritage and inheritance received from long generations past, and looks down history to many generations to come. The family holds in trust all that has been passed down, adds to that trust, then passes an enriched inheritance and heritage to children’s children to be passed on to their children’s children, and so forth (Rushdoony, 1983, pp. 201-206). This, therefore, provides the context for the commandment that God gave to the newly formed family in Genesis 1:26-28. Mankind, both male and female joined in marriage, is to be “fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (by implication: with godly offspring). Godly offspring will then “subdue” and “have dominion” until such time that “the meek … shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5; c.f. Psalm 37:11). “God is not a man that He should lie” (Numbers 23:19). He commanded us to pray that His kingdom come, and that His will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10) until the time that His promise is fulfilled that says: “But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD” (Numbers 14:21, KJV). This shall be a day when multitudes of godly offspring, across the face of the whole earth, willingly live out the commandments of God, to the glory of His Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and the manifestation of His kingdom in time and on earth.

Sin introduced frustration to this dominion mandate. God cursed the ground and ordained thorns and thistles to frustrate man’s dominion efforts (Genesis 3:17-19[3]). Ungodly offspring are one of the outworkings of unatoned-for sin (Genesis 6:1-7[4]). David wrote: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5). This does not imply that the act leading to conception is sinful, necessarily[5], but rather, sin resides in a person from the moment of conception, and ensures that all who are born are born sinners, needing a Saviour: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one” (Romans 3:10-12).

It is the atonement of Jesus Christ worked out on the cross of Calvary that deals with the sinful nature. Paul writes: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). As the redeemed of God, we are to live as those who are dead to sin, but alive unto God, walking in newness of life, in Jesus Christ (Romans 6[6]).

Education does not make children of God. Education is not the Saviour/Messiah[7]. Giving new birth to children of God is the work of God’s regenerating Word and the Holy Spirit, according to the will of God (I Peter 1:3; I Peter 1:23; John 3:5; John 1:12-13[8]). However, a godly upbringing helps children to recognise the voice of the Lord when He speaks to them, and makes it easier for them to respond to the Holy Spirit when He calls them. It must be conceded, however, that in both the case of the child that is brought up in a godly way, and the child that is not brought up in such a way, it is a sovereign work of God’s grace that brings such a child to a place of salvation, not the upbringing.[9]

Willing obedience to Jesus’ commandments is the principle Biblical evidence of new birth (John 14:15; John 15:10; I John 2:3[10]). The evidence of love one for another (John 13:34-35; I John 4:7-12[11]) is qualified in the statement that love is expressed in the willing keeping of God’s Law: “…(by) this we know that we love the children of God, that we keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome” (I John 5:2-3). Therefore, this is the fulfilment of the New Covenant promise made by God in Ezekiel when He said:

“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” (Ezekiel 36:25-27).

The sanctifying work of Biblical education is to be conducted in the context of family and family life. Rushdoony (1973), in his book, The Institutes of Biblical Law Volume I, wrote a chapter called ‘Education and the Family’. In this chapter he outlines six aspects of family-based education, from a Biblical perspective. These aspects include chastisement; sound instruction (a godly education); an intensely practical education; the responsibility of parents and children to be productive, responsible family members; a consciousness of membership of a family; and godly learning (pp 182-185). These things are instilled by teaching and practically applying the Law-Word of God as the foundation of family-based education. Paul alluded to this kind of education when he wrote to Timothy:

I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well (II Timothy 1:5).

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture[12] is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work (II Timothy 3:14-17).

The Christian home education movement takes these Scriptural injunctions seriously. Home educators seek to provide Primary, Secondary and Tertiary education for their children in the context of their homes. Some home educators simply try and replicate the structures of school, and administer schooling in the context of the home. These I would call ‘home schoolers’. Others, however, take seriously the passage in Deuteronomy that says:

Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the LORD your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, that you may fear the LORD your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the LORD the God of your fathers has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind then as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates (Deuteronomy 6:1-9).

This is what I would call, life education / education in life/ education for life. Those who conduct education in this way I would call ‘unschoolers’. God places education in the context of family members together living life, with parents teaching their children how to live in a way that is pleasing to God, in the light of His Law-Word: ”when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deuteronomy 6:7). Nothing of this implies the need for schools or schooling (even home schooling).  It is my contention that the unschooling model is closer to what God was talking about in this passage from the book of Deuteronomy; i.e. the unschooling process approximates the life education / education in life/ education for life paradigm. However, this must be qualified with the rider that the extreme manifestation of unschooling (i.e. radical unschooling[13]), where every learning decision is made by the child, is not Biblical. Proverbs 22:15 teaches us that “Folly (foolishness) is bound up in the heart of a child, … .” There are some very important educational decisions that must be made by parents on behalf of the child, simply because parents have lived life and can see consequences where there is neglect; such fundamentals as Scripture memorization, instruction in literacy decoding and encoding skills and foundational arithmetic (i.e. tables, etc.). These things are best learned by wrote, and learned early in a child’s life. Such things as basic manners and respect for God and others are best learned by example, through godly admonition and discipline, and in extremely serious situations, by appropriate punishment.

[1] Malachi 2:15 “Did he not make them one (man and wife), with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.”

[2] Deuteronomy 6:1-9 “Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the LORD your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, that you may fear the LORD your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey. Hear, O Israel: The LORD your God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

[3] Genesis 3:17-19 ‘And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

[4] Genesis 6:1-7 “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God (men of the covenant line) saw the daughters of man (women of the ungodly line) were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose (according to physical attraction, not according to God’s covenant law—II Corinthian 6: 14 “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. …”; the sin of mixed-marriage). Then the LORD said, ‘My Spirit shall not contend with man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.’ The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth (the state of apostasy of the progeny of inter-faith marriages), and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the LORD said, ‘I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.’

[5] When in the context of a legally married male husband and female wife, sexual activity is a gift from God (The Song of Solomon is a complete book of the Bible teaching about the joy and pleasure of human sexuality in the context of marriage; fully sanctioned and encouraged by God). On the other hand, when sexual activity is practiced outside of God’s ordained parameters (i.e. homosexuality, lesbianism, bestiality, fornication, adultery, and all other Biblically defined sexual perversions), then such sexual activity is sin worthy of God’s just punishments (I Corinthians 6:9-10; Galatians 5:19-21;Colossians 3:5-6; I Peter 4:3-5; Revelation 22:15).

[6] Romans 6 “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Chrst was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. …”

[7] The principle theme of the book: Rushdoony, R. J. (1976 [1963]). The Messianic Character of American Education. Nutley, New Jersey: The Craig Press.

[8] I Peter 1:3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, …”

I Peter 1:23 “… since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; …”

John 3:5 “Jesus answered, ‘’Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”

John 1:12-13 “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

[9] Much thanks to my friend Steve Swartz for his feedback on this part of the dissertation.

[10] John 14:15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

John 15:10 “If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.”

I John 2:3 “And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.”

[11] John 13:34-35 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”

I John 4:7-12 “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”

[12] In this context, “all Scripture” is referring to everything written in the Old Testament, including the Law of God as delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai.

[13] (Gerzon, 2012; Martin, 2014; N. Olsen, 2014)

References

Rushdoony, R. J. (1973). The Institutes of Biblical Law. Nutley, New Jersey: The Craig Press

Rushdoony, R. J. (1976 [1963]). The Messianic Character of American Education. Nutley, New Jersey: The Craig Press.

Rushdoony, R. J. (1983). The Trustee Family and Economics. The Journal of Christian Reconstruction. Vol. IX, Nos. 1 & 2, pp. 201-206.

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Aboriginal Education, Accelerated Christian Education (ACE), Denominational Christian Schools, deschooling, Discipleship, Education, Education and Culture-making, Education and the Church, Education and the Family, Education and the Marketplace, Education and the State, Education Delivery Programs, Funding, Hebrew Pedagogies, Home Schools, Home-Based Education, Indigenous Education, Indigenous Pedagogies, Ivan Illich, Life Learning, Natural Learning, Schooling, Schools, Socialization, State Schools, Teaching, Tertiary Education, Themelic Christian Schools, Unschooling

God doesn’t want you to send your children to school: He wants them to have an education

After climbing to the top of the academic tree of education by earning a Diploma of Teaching (Primary), Bachelor of Education, Master of Education (School Leadership), Doctor of Philosophy (Christian Education) and a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment [mostly self-funded], and working for about 30 years at all levels of school from Preschool to adult education, I have come to realise that the deficiencies in educational outcomes for children in the western world are because of schools and schooling. Schools and schooling have always been the problem.

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My new book is now available from Amazon.

Education and Schooling are not synonymous. A proper education does not require children to be sentenced to twelve years locked away in a total institution as if they were criminals, mentally insane, enlisted in the military or part of a religious cult.

The state has no mandate, at all, to be involved in education. Education is the proper sphere of the family, with support from the church, and assistance from free-market tutors and other community custodians of skills and knowledge.

True education should be delivered through unschooling, with a discipleship emphasis. Ivan Illich explored the idea in the 1970s, and the Triune God of the Bible emphatically agrees.  You can get this book from Amazon.

Some time ago, now, I walked away from working in a school as a school administrator. I am on the road to deschooling, but am conscious that there is much more of the road that needs to be traveled.

The focus of my research is around Biblical Christian deschooling/unschooling.  Over time I will be triangulating the things that I have found in the literature, with interviews conducted with families that are actually unschooling, and comparing the results with the development of my own thoughts over 30 years, as recorded in my personal journals.

I look forward to the day when home-based education is the norm, not just a curious anomaly.  Those who would like to read my book, you can get a copy from Amazon.

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The dissertation for my post-graduate doctoral degree is located here: Dissertation found at this location .

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