Wisdom is Simple: Why Complicate Things? (Part 3)

Categories: Why Complicate Things?, Léo’s Insights 2020-2021

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In the last two blogs, I discussed how a nearly twenty-year-old presentation on home “schooling” affected me, both nostalgically and philosophically. It was good to be reminded of what home “schooling” was like and to be able to compare those times with what is going on today.

Indeed, what I observed reminded me of some of the wisdom Solomon shared with us in the Bible, particularly his statement “that there is nothing new under the sun.” It brought me sadness to see that in spite of having gained many victories in home education, much has really not changed.

This is largely due to the fact that school has been so internalized as the way to educate. In spite of the great strides made to bring home education to the forefront of educational approaches, many, if not most, people continue to practice some variation of schooling at home. Even when claiming to be unschooling, parents make references to curriculum, grades and standards.

We just can’t seem to shake ourselves loose from school-based thinking. I believe that this is largely due to two main things.

First of all, school is so “normal” that it is rarely questioned. It is assumed that the system has a long history of educating students and should know something about how to do so. That certainly was the case many years ago.

However, when one considers that much has changed in the world and that schools can also be nefariously used to advance questionable agendas, it is no longer a system that should be emulated.

I believe that the biggest reason schools are seen as the exemplar of education is that we have pretty much lost our faith in God. We no longer truly celebrate the diversity inherent in mankind. Instead we prefer to have everyone conform to something that is neither described nor questioned.

Schools specialize in this. If there is something that can be said about schools, it is that if everyone is trained and taught the same way, there is a much greater likelihood that everyone will end up the same.

You have heard me say this many times, but it bears repeating. The only way to make a difference in this world is to be different, which is absolutely not what schools emphasize. In fact, the opposite is true.

So, we either believe in schools with all the complicated ideologies, processes and jargon leading to semi-cloned citizens or we trust in God and his love of diversity. Most people will confuse complexity with wisdom, but that is completely wrong. Wisdom is not defined as complex, but simple, indeed simple enough for a child to understand.

You could say that I have been around the block a time or two and since I have had a lifelong desire to learn, I have learned a thing or two about a thing or two. I have also lived long enough to have learned that what I truly believed in the past has sometimes been replaced with something much better and every time the new lesson is simpler to understand. I guess one can call that wisdom.

The best examples are age old ones found in the accounts of Jesus’s life on earth. Time and again, I found myself cheering as the “authorities” intent on causing Him to stumble were embarrassed with answers even a child could comprehend. They may have gone to Jesus with complex questions, yet His answers were simple.

Knowing that the wisdom of God is simple and that the wisdom of man (also known as foolishness) is not, I was disappointed to have realized that the issues that plagued the home school movement of twenty years ago are still here today, largely because of the fact that in spite of most claiming to be home educating in obedience to God’s direction, we take our directives from school.

We find it is easier to try to outperform school in all of its complexities than to trust God and His simple wisdom.

My advice? If we are going to pull our children out of the system, leave that system behind. Life as a home educator will be much simpler and the process will be much easier. As Jesus showed us, a simple answer to a complicated question demonstrates that wisdom need not be complex.

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