Homeschooling Makes Me a Better Parent

“Aren’t you worried you are going to screw up?”

That question, or one like it, is often asked of homeschoolers. Some parents find the responsibility of educating their own children so great and so intimidating that they can’t even contemplate it.

My answer to the question is Yep! You bet I’m worried that I am going to blow it

But it’s not concerns over my children’s academics that keep me up at night. It’s that other awesome responsibility that I have. The one that God gave me the moment I became a mother. I’m a parent and that means that God has charged me to disciple my children and cultivate their souls. That’s the part that I’m worried I am going to blow. And that’s why I homeschool.

My children were 6 and 4 when we began homeschooling almost 10 years ago. They attended preschool and kindergarten at a classical school where I taught. I felt good about the education they were receiving. But I didn’t feel so good about our frenzied lifestyle, so we returned home.

I confess it was a shock. I went from seeing my children very little—a rushed breakfast and an equally frantic dinner time, homework, bath and bed routine—and learning about them by reading notes from teachers to being with them all day long every day. And I discovered something: they were little sinners. They had character flaws and bad patterns of behavior that I had never seen. It was overwhelming, not to mention exhausting. I had to correct, and disciple, and instruct.

That’s when I realized that coming home was God’s gift to me. Being with my children in such an intimate and prolonged way allowed me to see into their hearts in a way that I never did when they were in school. Educating my children at home provided me with many—many—opportunities for discipleship and cultivation.  Opportunities that I would have missed if my children had been with some other teacher all day long.

Now, I am not saying that it is impossible to disciple your children if you don’t homeschool. Not at all. But I do think that the task is more difficult. A parent will have to work harder to find those teachable moments. And no doubt some parents do.

But if I am honest, I don’t think I would have been one of those parents. I was clueless when my kids were in school. They brought home good report cards. Their teachers liked them and praised them. And, frankly, that was good enough for me. I am grateful that it wasn’t good enough for God. He yanked me out of my complacency and put my children’s spiritual needs right in front of my face. Even I couldn’t miss it.

So, for me—and people like me—homeschooling makes us better parents by providing daily opportunities for discipleship. Does that scare me? Absolutely! Do I feel the weight of this awesome responsibility? All the time! Can I alleviate this responsibility by sending my kids to school? No!

A formal education is only one part of a child’s discipleship. Whether or not I put my son on a school bus in the morning does not change my duty as a mother. One day I will have to stand before God and give account. I doubt that He will be much interested in SAT scores. And, yeah, that scares me.

The Totally Epic Problem of Language Inflation

Stan Carey of the Macmillan Dictionary recently wrote a short blog about language inflation, which ultimately creates a devaluation in meaning. Popular expressions like epic and brilliant are used to express a more modest meaning than their traditional uses. Brilliant means clever, and epic means surprising.

Carey explains, “Such is our need to imbue our words with force and significance, that we use hyperbole to entice people to pay attention – and the hyperbolic terms gradually normalise.”

The same tendency can be seen in numbers as well. Once giving 110% became cliché, people started insisting that they give 210%, 310%, and on and on. To create even more force behind the phrase, people will also throw in a literally. I literally gave 210%. That’s not numerically possible, of course. What the speaker really means is I worked very hard.

This is no new trend. My generation destroyed words like awesome and totally. My parents and grandparents robbed of meaning words like incredible, wonderful, and fantastic.

C.S. Lewis even warned against language inflation: "Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say infinitely when you mean very; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite."

And this is precisely where we find ourselves right now. We have no words left when we want to say that something truly is awe-inspiring or full of wonder.

This language inflation causes problems not only for speakers and writers, but for readers as well. Robbing words of their true meaning and force makes it all the more difficult for modern readers to connect with older books.

Odysseus had an epic adventure, which means more than just out of the ordinary, and he encountered fantastic creatures, which were more than pretty cool. 

Language inflation particularly cheapens our understanding of the Scriptures. Jesus Christ is called wonderful. He is truly full of wonder. The Lord God is awesome. These words have powerful meanings that a modern reader can’t instantly grasp.

As a child of the 80s I was always uncomfortable calling God awesome like my Christian friends did because I knew that they meant something much less by the use of that word than was fitting to God. If my sunglasses are totally awesome, I need some other word for God!

What’s even more disturbing to me is the trend to use negative words positively. In the 80s, bad was good. Two decades later sick was even better.

I suspect that this trend is more than just sloppiness with words. I suspect that this is really a worldview issue as our culture retreats more and more away from Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.  We’ve long preferred ugliness to beauty culturally; it makes sense that our language would reflect that as well. That’s the only way that I can understand how calling something sick is a compliment.

Our souls starve and atrophy in the current culture. We neglect the spiritual aspects of our own being more and more. It makes sense that the language would reflect that as well. Caring primarily for our physical needs, we run across fewer and fewer moments that inspire us with true awe or fill us wonder.  Those emotions would require an encounter with the sublime and the time to contemplate it.

Who’s got the time or the desire for that? We’ll settle for pretty good experiences and just label them totally awesome. 

She's a Product of Her Generation

Today my seven-year-old daughter was reading out loud to me and encountered an ellipses.
She paused and said, "Oh, it's loading."

Building Cathedrals: Lessons from the Middle Ages

Here's one from the archives.

The consensus among historians is that the cathedrals of the Middle Ages are the single greatest artistic and technological achievement of the Medieval Era and perhaps the greatest architectural achievement ever known. But what is truly fascinating is that these wonders of beauty and engineering could only have been built at a time when Christianity flourished, for cathedrals are the outworking of a Christian worldview that we moderns can learn much from.

A cathedral was a monumental undertaking and took anywhere from 100 to 600 years to complete. Try to imagine this: men and women spent their whole lives working on a project that they would never see completed. Parents worked alongside their children, and when the older folks died, the younger ones carried on their labors, and so on for hundreds of years—each generation sacrificing and expending themselves for those they would never meet. This future orientation and patience is almost incomprehensible to those of us who feel like waiting two and a half minutes to microwave popcorn is interminable! Yet, these medievals labored faithfully on, content that their posterity would enjoy the fruits of their labors.

Additionally, the medievals thought of themselves in terms of the community, in terms of their relationship to others as opposed to the modern focus on the individual. And this sense of community led to a most remarkable thing. Many cathedrals were built by volunteer labor. In the evening, after work, people would volunteer to work for 2 or 3 hours (which helps to explain why it took so long to build a cathedral). Unlike the great monuments of antiquity, which were built using forced slave labor—usually for the self-glorification of some pagan ruler—the cathedrals of the Middle Ages were built by the hands of those who freely gave of themselves for the glory of God and the good of the community—a community which included those yet to be born.

The people of the Middle Ages were also greatly concerned with beauty. For the medieval, God is the God of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty; therefore, the place where He is worshiped must of necessity be beautiful. So they constructed cathedrals filled with the beauty of vaulted ceilings, domes, gothic arches, stained glass, paintings, and sculptures. But, their commitment to beauty extended beyond these obvious touches. The recognition that they were working for the glory of God caused them to be meticulous in ways that seem almost ridiculous to us moderns. Everything had to beautiful: the latches on windows, doorknobs, hinges, you name it. The medieval did not separate function and beauty. If the object was going into the house of God, then it was going to be beautiful. Furthermore, even the backs of statues which were placed in corners were beautifully and ornately sculpted. The sculptures were in a corner; no one would ever see it. But the medieval knew that God would see it, so he made it beautiful just for His pleasure.

Additionally, this concern for community is why individual artists did not sign their works. It was not about the individual’s glory; it was about the community and contributing to the community effort. It was not until the humanistic focus of the Renaissance that artists began signing their works and became focused on personal glory and fame.

Centuries later these cathedrals stand out as stunning object lessons to us moderns. The medievals continue to teach us, the future generations who benefit from their labors. First, they remind us of the importance of beauty. Our modern culture idolizes pragmatism and functionality; beauty is an afterthought, if that. Yet, our souls were made to respond to beauty, and we neglect it at our own peril.

Secondly, cathedrals highlight the significance of working to the glory of God. The focus for the medieval was on God’s glory, not on individual fame or honor. Cathedrals were built by anonymous craftsmen and artists, craftsmen who were more interested in the praise of God than the praise of men. This is an especially important encouragement for homeschoolers. The daily labors of homeschoolers will not likely result in the praise of the world and personal glory and fame. But we can rejoice knowing that the God who delights in the backs of statues in the corners of cathedrals, sees our efforts and takes pleasure in the beauty we are crafting in the lives of our children.

And thirdly, we are admonished by the existence of cathedrals to think beyond our own individual lives, to consider the lives of those who do not yet exist. Homeschoolers have done a great job resurrecting the past, refusing to buy into the vanity that deceives us into thinking that we have nothing to learn from those who came before us. Ancient history and ancient literature have found their champions in the homeschool movement. At the same time, however, we must turn our attention forward as well. In addition to mining the past for its treasures, we must also plant seeds for future generations to reap.

We should find great encouragement in the idea of sowing seeds for the future. We don’t have to build cathedrals by ourselves. All we have to do is make a start, and our children and grandchildren will carry on the work. John Milton wrote that education was a process of “repairing the ruins” of our first fathers. Take comfort. You don’t have to undo thousands of years of ruin, you just have to give your child a better education than you received. And if your child continues your labor with his own children, then in a few generations, you will have built a cathedral.

No Time for Beauty

On a cold January morning world famous violinist Joshua Bell entered a metro station in Washington, D.C., during rush hour as part of a social experiment conducted by the Washington Post. The Post wondered if people would perceive beauty in an unexpected context or stop to appreciate it.

Armed with his 3.5 million dollar violin, Bell, who just two day earlier had played to a sold out theater in Boston where seats averaged $100, played six sophisticated and difficult pieces by Bach for 45 minutes. The Post calculated that 1,100 people traveled through the station during Bell’s performance. Most were on their way to work.

A full three minutes went by before anything happened. A middle-aged man turned his head but continued on his way without stopping. Thirty seconds later someone threw a dollar into Bell’s hat and hurried off. Finally, six minutes later, someone stopped, leaned against a wall, and listened. After checking his watch, he too continued on his way.

In the 45 minutes that Bell played, loudly and with great emotion, seven stopped at least for a minute to see the performance; twenty-seven donated money, mostly as they passed by—Bell collected a little over $32; $20 was donated at the end of the performance by someone who recognized him and felt embarrassed by his lack of attention.

In all 1,070 people that morning completely ignored one of the world’s finest violinists playing some of the most beautiful music that has ever been written. Many passersby were only three feet away. Few even turned their heads in Bell’s direction.

"It was a strange feeling, that people were actually, ah . . .ignoring me." Bell laughs. "At a music hall, I'll get upset if someone coughs or if someone's cell phone goes off. But here, my expectations quickly diminished. I started to appreciate any acknowledgment, even a slight glance up. I was oddly grateful when someone threw in a dollar instead of change.”

Interestingly, children noticed Bell and stopped to listen. Without exception, their parents pulled them away and forced them to rush off.

And just as interesting, yet far more disheartening, is that 100 feet away from Bell stood a line of folks, sometimes 6 people long, waiting to get lottery tickets. In 45 minutes, not one person turned around.

It’s easy as I sit here at my desk on a quiet evening at home to think well of myself. Surely, I would be different. Certainly, I would make time for such rare beauty. But, would I really?

Most of the people in the subway station that morning were rushing to work or to school. Would I be any different? Was it that the subway passengers truly did not recognize beauty or was it that the beauty was simply irrelevant to them? Far greater concerns pressed upon them that morning.

That’s the saddest part of this story to me. Our lives are so busy that we have no time for the very things that bring meaning and joy to our lives.

Click here to read the full story and to view the video footage.

Aesop Got It Wrong!

In the fable “The Tortoise and the Hare” Aesop teaches us that steady, persistent hard work is better than natural talent, overconfidence, and a poor work ethic. That part is true. But the “slow and steady” moral of the fable has its limits.

Parents and teachers looking for slow, steady incremental improvement in their students will be frustrated and discouraged. Children—and adults for that matter—don’t learn “slow and steady.”

Try teaching a child to read. Faithfully, the teacher drills phonics flashcards every day. On Monday the student gets every flashcard correct. On Tuesday the student not only can’t remember the phoneme in question, but will often passionately argue that he has never seen it before in his life! By Wednesday, he is reading whole sentences flawlessly. But as soon as the teacher starts congratulating himself on little Johnny’s reading improvement Thursday rolls around and Johnny can’t remember half of his flashcards again. By Friday the teacher is convinced that either he is the worst reading teacher in the world or something is seriously wrong with little Johnny.

But nothing is wrong with Johnny or with the teaching. This is simply how kids learn. Little kids, big kids, it’s all the same.

Some days I wonder if my high school student is learning anything. He reads his books and I ask him questions and then torture myself that he just doesn’t seem to be “getting it.” A few days later he without prompting offers me his comparison of the current American political crisis and ancient Rome. I stare at him with my mouth open and wonder, Where has this kid been?

He’s been the hare. And he’s been asleep. And now he’s sprinting!

When it comes to learning, children are not tortoises. They are hares. They sprint and they nap and then they make mad dashes and leap ahead. In education, the teacher is the tortoise, slowly and steadily teaching his students, persevering even when his students seem mentally asleep. But in this scenario the tortoise and the hare aren’t racing, they are travelling companions heading toward that same finish line.

On those days when we can’t wake up our hares, we need to keep plodding along toward that finish line, confident that they will catch up. And unlike Aesop’s fable, our hares will ultimately pass us and we will consider that our victory.

Everything Old is New Again: Thoughts on the Constitution

A few days ago I stumbled onto a conversation about politics and world affairs. It didn’t take long before someone made the oft-repeated remark that the world is such a different place from when the Constitution was written. The Founders could not have imagined the world we live in, she argued. She stopped short of saying it outright but the implication was that since the world is a different place than the 1780s, the Constitution is irrelevant.

The first problem with this attitude, of course, is that once we reject the law of the land—for whatever reason—anarchy quickly ensues. But leaving that problem aside, I’d like to examine the truth of her statement. Is the world really so different today?

We tend to romanticize the past, especially the time of the founding of our country. We underestimate the incredible difficulty of establishing a new form of government, as if the early Americans had peace and prosperity and very few worries and the idealism of the Constitution was forged in a simpler time and therefore has little relevance in the complex modern world. But a close look at the early days of the Republic provides a very different picture.

Economic Woes

At the end of the Revolutionary War, the fledgling country was faced with a serious economic depression caused by a massive war debt. The government tried to spur on the economy by printing more paper money, which resulted in skyrocketing inflation. The country was broke!

Additionally, banks were foreclosing on homes and property. Outraged citizens who believed that the government was conspiring with banks to abuse the populous did more than “occupy” Washington, D.C. They marched on the town with weapons and intended to overthrow the government.

Foreign Affairs

The early Republic also relied heavily on foreign trade for its economic survival. The truth is there has never been a time when the US was not involved in a global economy—a current popular catchphrase used to distinguish modern America from its allegedly simpler economic past.

To complicate matters, the perpetual European warfare constantly threatened American economic interests. There were some who, as is the case today, insisted that the young country go to war to protect its interests, but the majority preferred diplomacy. It’s nothing short of miraculous that the Founders crafted a foreign policy that was both concerned with avoiding war and with protecting our economy, livelihoods, and safety.

Terrorism

Furthermore, within a few years the fledgling country was faced with attacks from Islamic terrorists. Barbary pirates attacked Americans and the US was drawn into its first foreign military conflict.

Sounds awfully familiar, doesn’t it? Of course I suspect that when people speak about how different the world is they are really talking about technology. The girl confirmed my suspicions when she said, “The fact that we are having this discussion on Facebook shows what a different ball game we are in.”

Really? The existence of Facebook negates the US Constitution? I don’t understand why people insist that technology changes enduring principles. Technology does not alter human nature. People are still people and throughout time people have always wanted the same things: personal peace, prosperity, the good life. Technology changes none of that.

If anything, the existence of technology that can destroy multitudes should make us cling even more to the guiding principles of the Constitution. We need more wisdom from the past, not less.

There is no issue confronting our country right now that was not at least in principle in the hearts and minds of those who crafted the Constitution. We may debate how to best apply those principles, but we disregard their wisdom at our own peril.