His Treasure Seekers

Educating the WholeHearted Child: Chapter 2 (part 2)

“Here’s the truth: You will never be able to live up to either the real or imagined expectations you place on yourself and your children.  Don’t even try!  Make it your goal to please God in your homeschool, not other people.  If you are truly seeking to please God in all that you do at home, that is the reputation that matters to him and the one that should matter most to you” (page 42).

When I was eleven, my sixth grade teacher sat me down for a conversation that has stuck in my mind ever since.  I was upset over a grade I had received (probably an A-, but for a perfectionist that was just painful), and she felt the need to offer some wisdom.  She told me that someday my perfectionism was going to catch up on me and cause me a lot of heartache if I didn’t learn relax and have a little grace for myself and others.  As I said, her words have stuck with me, and I’m so thankful she took the time to share them, because they have indeed saved me a lot of heartache over the years.  The older I got, the more I learned that I was never going to be perfect, and being able to accept that has been important.  Even more important was learning that God’s expectations for me are sometimes very different than those I set for myself.

Still, I need reminding of this truth every once in a while, especially when it comes to home education.  Not only do I set standards high for myself, but I tend to impose them upon my children as well.  Now I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with setting the bar high.  It’s just that my tendency is to overlook the things that are truly important as I strive to reach that bar.  I get frustrated by Ian’s lack of perfectionism (for instance, wondering why it doesn’t bother him when carelessness costs him a perfect score in an online lesson).  Then my own perfectionism starts to kick in and our relationship suffers.

I am thankful for the Clarksons’ reminder that there will always be a temptation to judge myself by standards other than God’s.  It is easy to worry about our reputation in other people’s eyes.  How do our kids measure up against the neighbor in public school?  Why can’t we get our act together the way that other homeschooling family does?  We can beat ourselves up over which curriculum we should be using or which subjects we should be covering.  There is no end to the standards we can impose upon ourselves, forgetting that the only one we really need to consider belongs to our Lord.

What do I want to be known for?  Not for my children’s test scores or their breadth of knowledge on the vast array of subjects I hope we’ll be able to cover over the course of our homeschool journey.  I want to known in this way: “Let your reputation be that you are faithful to God, known for ‘good deeds.’ (1 Timothy 5:10), ‘full of the Spirit and of wisdom’ (Acts 6:3), and that you ‘seek first his kingdom and his righteousness’ (Matthew 6:33)” (page 42). 

Each Mentoring Monday I share my reflections on what I’ve been learning from my “paper mentors.”  I am currently joining in a book discussion of Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay Clarkson (with Sally Clarkson).  If you want to join in, visit our Facebook discussion group page.

Each Mentoring Monday I share my reflections on what I’ve been learning from my “paper mentors.”  I am currently joining in a book discussion of Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay Clarkson (with Sally Clarkson).  If you want to join in, visit our Facebook discussion group page.

Educating the WholeHearted Child: Chapter 2

Since our group will still be discussing Chapter 2, “The Christian Homeschool,” into next week, I may take two Mondays to write about some of what I’ve been thinking about as I read through it.  This chapter is essentially an encouragement to parents who have chosen to educate their children at home, helping them to confidently address the common questions critics often raise about homeschooling.

At first I considered just skimming this chapter, because I face very little criticism or opposition regarding homeschooling.  In my everyday life I am surrounded by other families who homeschool.  At church, we probably know more people who educate their kids at home than send them to school.  We spend time each week just hanging out with families from our homeschool support group.  Even when we go to activities like library story time or gymnastics, there are lots of families in our area who homeschool.  So I’ve never felt the pressure of making an “odd” choice.

One of the issues raised in this chapter was a concern about whether parents are “qualified” to teach their children.  I have a teaching credential and a Master of Education degree.  I get a lot of comments about, “Well, of course you’re more than capable of teaching your kids.”  And although I know my paper qualifications are not really that relevant, I don’t really want to get into that with people who think such things are important.  My background shields me from criticism so I usually just nod and smile.

However, as I considered this I realized that my confidence only goes so far.  It usually starts to wobble when people ask, “How long do you plan to homeschool?”  People tend to look rather shocked when I express an intention to educate my children all the way through high school.  My insecurity starts to creep up as I wonder what they’re thinking.  Are they surprised because, after all, my teaching credential is only for elementary school?  Do they think I’m some sort of over-protective nut trying to keep my children in a bubble until they’re old enough to get married?

I realized that when it comes to homeschooling beyond the elementary years, I’m left just as exposed as every other homeschool parent.  And so as I read through the Clarksons’ thoughtful responses to the questions that tend to come up, I realized that I am equally in need of a firm grasp on why homeschooling is the best choice for our family.  I want to be just as confident about being qualified to educate my children through high school as I have been about preschool and the next few years.

“There is no biblical argument for putting your children under the shaping influence of other authorities during the most formative and impressionable years of their lives.  American cultural norms notwithstanding, doing so runs counter to the biblical concept of the family… If family is God’s design for raising children, then a spiritually sensitive parent should not be surprised to feel conflict when faced with the choice to allow others to raise them for half or more of their childhood waking hours” (page 30).

God chose Eric and me to be the primary guiding influences in our children’s lives.  We have been blessed with the responsibility of nurturing, discipling, and educating these precious souls with whom He has entrusted us.  He will give us what we need to faithfully complete the task He has set before us.

“As a loving, committed parent, you are already certified by God to teach your children.  You do not need the state to tell you whether or not you are qualified to train and instruct your children.  You are” (page 38).

I’m looking forward to finishing this chapter, mulling over some of the ideas in it, and hearing what the others in our group have to say about it all.

Each Mentoring Monday I share my reflections on what I’ve been learning from my “paper mentors.”  I am currently joining in a book discussion of Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay Clarkson (with Sally Clarkson).  If you want to join in, visit our Facebook discussion group page.

Educating the WholeHearted Child: Chapter 1

I was really convicted and challenged by the first part of this chapter, which is entitled “The Christian Home”.

“A Christian home is never defined by what the children are doing; it is defined by what the parents are doing.  Your child could study the Bible every day, listen only to Christian music, watch only Christian videos, read missionary biographies, know a zillion memory verses, and never miss Sunday School or Bible Club, yet still not live in a Christian home” (page 20).

It is easy to put on those external trappings and consider our job done.  Obviously none of these things are bad.  It’s just that real faith is the result of a Christ-centered heart.  We must always remember that our “doing” flows out of our “being,” and not the other way around.  If we want to raise Christian children, our focus needs to be on their hearts, rather than on “Christian” activities.

So, what makes a Christian home?  The Clarksons say, “A Christian home is one in which the parents purposefully keep Jesus Christ at the center of every area of family life” (page 20).  They break this down into three biblical priorities:

• home nurture (“Shepherding Your Child’s Spirit to Long for God”)
• home discipleship (“Shaping Your Child’s Heart to Live for God”)
• home education (“Strengthening Your Child’s Mind to Learn for God”).

Of these three, I think the first is the one I find most challenging.  “The heart of home nurture is bringing the living Christ into all that you do through the life of the Holy Spirit and through the living and active Word of God” (page 20).

Why do I find it so hard to expose my children to the living God?  He has done so much for me.  My own faith burns fiercely in my heart.  Surely some of that must overflow into my life.  I pray my children can see it.  Yet I feel like I am sorely lacking in this area.  I feel like I get so caught up in the day to day business of running a home and accomplishing everything that needs to be done when there are four little ones in the house that my children don’t really catch more than a tiny glimpse of who I really am, of who God really is, of how He moves in my life and directs my steps.

More than anything, I want my children to long for God.  As I read what the Clarksons have said about home nurture, I feel a deficit that I pray the Lord will help to fill.  I love this quote by Rev. Andrew Murray in the sidebar on page 20:

“To take charge of an immortal soul, to train a will for God and eternity, surely we ought to shrink from it.  But we cannot.  If we are parents, the duty is laid upon us.  But, thank God!  Sufficient grace is prepared and promised, too.”

Sufficient grace.  I will trust in You, Lord.

Educating the WholeHearted Child: Preface and Introduction

Each Mentoring Monday I share my reflections on what I’ve been learning from my “paper mentors.”  Over the next few months, I’m going to be joining a book discussion of Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay Clarkson (with Sally Clarkson).  If you want to join in, visit our Facebook discussion group page.

Our first reading assignment is the Preface and Introduction, and even just these few pages have whet my appetite for the feast that is to come as we make our way through this rich book.  In them, Clay and Sally describe what homeschooling looks like to them: “In a time when you are faced with a confusing and often frustrating array of educational choices for how to homeschool, we simply want to share our vision of WholeHearted Learning–a biblical, commonsense, discipleship-based lifestyle of home education using real books, real life, and real relationships” (p.x).

I love this.  It describes everything I want our homeschool experience to be.  And yet it is so easy for me to get caught up in the “school” part of homeschooling.  Maybe part of that stems from not only growing up in traditional schools but also being born into a family of teachers (my mom, my aunt, their cousins, my brother, his wife… me).  I only spent 3 years in the classroom myself, but even that short amount of time shaped me as a teacher in a ways that aren’t necessarily compatible with this ideal.

I want our homeschooling to be a lifestyle.  Maybe I need to be more intentional about focusing on “home education” rather than “home school.” I want to “declare [my] independence from conventional schooling and establish a new outpost of spiritual, personal, and academic freedom within the walls of [my] home” (p.13). We’re not trying to do school at home.  While I try to stay away from traditional textbooks, mentally I still tend to get stuck in a school rut.  I’ve caught the vision for what the Clarkson describe, but I need to be constantly reminded in order to actually walk that out.  I’m hoping that reading through this book will help to lay down new grooves to help me break out of those old patterns and start falling into a different kind of lifestyle for our family.

“Home education is not our primary goal–home nurture and discipleship are, and home education is simply the natural extension of those biblical principles” (p.14).  In some ways I think we’ve gotten off to a pretty good start for this and are headed in the right direction, but I want to keep this vision in the forefront of my mind. “Your role as a home-educating parent, then, is to provide a rich and lively living and learning environment in which your children can exercise their God-given drive to learn and then to biblically train and instruct your children within the natural context of your home and family life” (p.15).

Yes.  God, help me to make it so.

Tonight I had the pleasure of watching a webinar with Sally Clarkson as she shared about her heart for homeschooling.  Some of the moms watching were chatting and decided to start up a group to go through Clay Clarkson’s book Educating the WholeHearted Child, which I read a few years ago but have been meaning to go through again.  I have been so encouraged and challenged by the Clarksons, both through their MomHeart conferences and their books, and I consider them mentors even though they have no idea who I am.  I decided that in addition to reading through the book with the other moms in the Facebook discussion group, I want to jot down some of my thoughts about each chapter here to help keep myself accountable for actually sticking to the schedule we come up with!  I may or may not write every week, but I want to try to share somewhat regularly what I am learning from the “paper mentors” in my life.