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"...The church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth."
I Timothy 3:15
High School Commentary
A Concerned Parent
As the 1994-95 school year begins, it still amazes me as to how much opposition there
is to the issue of home schooling.
I have talked to a number of people (who have had their children in public schools
or whose children currently are in the public system) about the public education
system, and the statements that I am hearing from these people still shock me! Brandon
is a small city of 30,000-45,000 people, so many times we get the idea that things
only occur in the “big cities”. Well, I guess when things really happen in your own
town, then the impact is fully there.
For a moment let me just give you, the reader, four simple instances of what is going
on in Brandon’s or Canada’s public, educational system. We will put aside the Biblical
aspects for the minute, outline the following four instances and then, of course,
hear what the Inspired Word of God has to say about the issue.
1. In this city, one teacher is promoting the concept of “approximate math.” In this
concept the answer to a question no longer has to be exact, only CLOSE OR APPROXIMATE!
The teacher’s premise is this, “When we go to the grocery store to buy food (without
a calculator) we round off prices to the nearest dollar as we budget the items placed
into the shopping cart. We don’t use ‘exact math’ then, so why teach it to the children.”
Now the children do not learn absolutes!! As long as your answer is close or approximate...great!
Would anyone like this child to build the next bridge or house?
2. When you, dear reader, were going to school, you had to memorize the multiplication table (e.g. 2x2=4, 12x11=132). Guess what! In the public school system, the kids don’t have to know the multiplication table because they get a card placed in front of them with all the answers on it. Don’t send these children down to the store with a five dollar bill and ask them to get as many bananas as they can with that money. You'll send the poor child to the “looney bin” trying to figure that math problem out.
3. There are murmuring starting to happen in the education field that perhaps teachers
don’t need to teach correct spelling, only teach the child to spell the words the
way it sounds. (e.g. this is the correct spelling for the word “know” now the new
spelling would be “no”.) Throw the rules out, just get the child learning or trying
to learn how to spell first and then, maybe, teach him the correct way later.
I have a problem with that. After years of letting a child learn to spell the way
he thinks a word should be spelled, do you think it will be easy for him to read
or write correctly later in life? Do you think it will be an easy task for the child
to learn that he has been doing it wrong for some period of time and that now he
has to try and learn all over again how to spell, only this time it has to be correct?
One that was once known as a “poor speller” is now called a “creative speller.”
This last issue has not surfaced itself in Brandon yet, but I doubt that it will
take long. It is already being tried in some major cities in the United States so
it will soon be tried here.
4. In the province of British Columbia, a law is being put forth before the Commons
to ban the Gideon Bible from being freely passed out. Yet it is all right to set
up condom machines in the public school washrooms. Where has society’s values gone?
These examples show us that no matter what the world thinks, Homeschooling is the
correct thing to do!
Deut. 6:4-8 says:
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God
with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words,
which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them
diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house,
and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest
up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets
between thine eyes.”
Parents are responsible for the education of the children and the Bible needs to be the text book from which we teach them the absolute values which God, in His holiness, has set forth. The children are to learn to read the Word of God, study the Word of God and write the Word of God!
They need to be taught the absolutes of God: Jesus Christ and Heaven or the devil and Hell. No “close enough”, or approximations, no “sounds right to me.” John 14:6 “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” This verse does not leave room for approximates or “sounds okay” or anything else. It is simply Jesus Christ or Hell. The battle cry of the Baptists has and should always be taught to our children “turn or burn.” (Luke. 13:3 “I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.”)
Prov. 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will
not depart from it.” It is the duty of the parents to teach the child the eternal
values that God would have the child learn, not the Humanist view point of the world.
This commentary could go on and on and on. Yes, more quotes from God’s pure Word
could be used, but I think the point has been made. The public school is no place
for a child to get an education, because it is not being offered there. At least
not one that I would want my child taught.