A Big Decision – Where Should Your Children be Educated? Choices (Part 2)
Categories: Choices, Léo’s Insights 2022-2023
The fact that I became a public school teacher many years ago is somewhat of a miracle. I always liked learning, but I never really liked school, particularly not grade school. How did I end up working in a place like that? I never aspired to be a school teacher, that’s for sure, but I needed a job. I believed it would only be for the short term, but this career decision now includes nearly fifty years of history!
Even though my negative school experience challenged me, I decided that if I was going to be a part of that system, I would do my best to improve it. This turned out to be a major case of naivety as I quickly learned the system is inflexible. There was no changing it so the best I could do was give my all in the classroom where maybe, just maybe, I could make a difference. Once a teacher, I realized very few of my colleagues were dedicated to training children and those who were tended to stay away from the staff room where true colours went uninhibited.
Still, with this inside knowledge, once our eldest reached school age, we simply did what was expected of us. We unquestioningly offered our child on the altar of public education despite knowing this was not a good environment. We followed the crowd which had no idea what it was doing, where it was going or what the outcomes would be.
How could we not understand the daily tears being shed by our “baby” as we abandoned her to perfect strangers? Why could we not see that nobody, not even a caring teacher, could love and cherish our child like we did? When did we simply adopt the idea that a child could learn more or better in a foreign institution than in the home?
It took me a few years of moving from town to town and school to school to realize I was not only searching for a better place to work, but also for a school to which I could comfortably send our children. After years of experiencing public, separate, private, urban and rural schools in two provinces and two languages, I finally came to the conclusion that there was no such thing as a school good enough for my children. I eventually came to understand this to be true of everybody’s children, at least those being raised by loving and caring parents.
My wife and I eventually came to see we would only get one chance to educate our children. Considering we were the ones God used to give them birth and we would have to live with the outcomes of how their education would be delivered, we determined the best candidates to do the job were ourselves. And so, we became pioneer home educators in Alberta. This was no small commitment for a man who continued to work within the system and had to endure a lot of questioning and persecution for deciding to home educate his children.
That was a long time ago and a few things have changed. Aside from the fact that I have aged, schools have become much worse over the years. Students are having to learn the basics by doing home work, as the school is too busy advancing the latest woke narrative. And the little girl I mentioned is now approaching the end of her home education journey with her four children and will eventually be taking over the leadership of this ministry.
Simply agreeing with the status quo that the government can somehow educate children better than loving parents is an error. In fact, it is a classic decision by which parents abdicate their authority and responsibility to others who are less likely to care about the outcomes.
When I hear what is going on in schools today, I cannot help but see a broken system. There are good teachers and good schools doing good things, and it is not fair to label all teachers, schools and programs as failing, but there are many examples of things being done that could mar a child for life. The question is, are you willing to risk having your children in a potentially bad environment? Don’t kid yourself with the idea that bad things only happen in schools not attended by your children. And don’t think like I did that by being involved in the school, you will be able to make it a better place. Schools remain inflexible and have not improved while you educated the children at home, so do not send there again.
Most of you may not know or understand what is going on in schools yet you do know one very important thing: Your children are your children and their welfare is your welfare. If God intended children to be “schooled”, He would have given schools the ability to procreate. Obviously, that didn’t happen. God gave parents this ability and with it comes the responsibility to prepare children for the future God has foreordained in keeping with the uniqueness of each child. Schools can never address this need better than loving parents who take their responsibility with commitment. There is no place like home and no one more dedicated than parents.
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