Please note before you read further:
This is NOT a homeschool vs public school debate. Please don't start slinging mud at other parents for their own personal choices. Those comments WILL be deleted.
My children are in public school. There was never really any option since both parents have always worked (except when they were not yet school-age). I home schooled my oldest for a year, due to some violence issues he faced at his new school his freshman year. But other than that, they have been in public schools from K-12 (my daughter currently being a Junior, the boys graduated). They are believers, they are firm in their faith and convictions. My boys support our current President, my daughter leans more toward the right – perfectly fine with me. They research and read and watch (both at home and our actions/words and outside) and make up their own minds - as they should as young adults. I am not the least bit afraid of them being "led astray" by a speech from the President of the United States - whoever may be in office at the time.
How is a public school address considered “indoctrination” (as was said on the other blog - a comment, not the article), any more than homeschooling a child is? Home school parents are teaching specific things which go against other specific things. My children have learned from both sides – in our Christian family and in the public, including their public schools.
My children are/were lights in their school – my daughter is the first to invite the new kid to sit at lunch with her, or carry the handicapped child’s books to class. She also “took on” a young girl in her class who was going on about premarital sex and called my daughter a “goody two shoes Christian” because she is waiting until marriage (which she is not ashamed to let people know). She didn't "take her on" by name-calling, not by putting the other girl down who proudly and publicly discusses her sexual practices. My daughter told her very simply and compassionately what the Bible says about saving herself for marriage, and that she is a Christian who believes in this and has vowed to be abstinent. This all took place in front of the entire class, by the way. My "public school kid" has NO shame in discussing her faith. Not many Juniors in high school will step out this way. Who knows, she may have just hit a nerve with that girl. Maybe that was why she was in that class. Perhaps God put my daughter there - at that table, in that particular class - to reach that one young girl before she did something else she'd regret. All I know is I am one PROUD public-school mama. :)
Jesus did not live in a bubble. Nor did God create us to live in one.
Hear me: I am NOT saying that home schooled children are completely sheltered from the world. I am very well aware, and applaud, all of the programs available for home schooled children to participate in extracurricular activities and the parents who go to the extra effort to not only teach but create and lead outside activities.
What I am saying is that many of our Christian public school kids are ministers where God has planted them. And for those who say we should home school “if we don’t want our kids learning things we don’t agree with”, perhaps you should try to see that there are godly children who do attend public schools and try to serve as ministers there every day – along with Christian teachers, principals, counselors, lunch ladies, and others. Those students bring their un-churched friends at school to church on Sunday mornings, they share their faith to kids who may not have otherwise heard of how much Jesus loves them. Try to see, instead of passing judgment or looking down on "public school kids", what a BLESSING it is to the whole community when there are Christian children in the public schools! Jesus didn't sit and wait for those who needed Him to come to Him. He went out and met them where they were (at the well, in the town square, at the tax collectors stands, in the Temple, and on and on...) I dare say if He were walking the earth today - He'd want to be in our public schools so he could reach those kids who need Him most!
We have to trust that our children are capable of living what they have been taught, and trust the LORD that he will protect them in the world.
As Jesus said to Mary: "but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."
