Category Archives: Homeschooling

Should You Be Homeschooling?

In the past couple of decades, home schooling has risen from the ranks of being considered the bizarre behavior of an obscure group of fringe extremists to being one of the major trends of our society. And is it any wonder? By now, most of us are at least casually familiar with the frequent reports of poor academic performance by public school children. And who can miss the appalling headlines of shootings, drug trafficking, and seedy affairs between teachers and students?

Read more… →

Q. How can I afford to homeschool?

This article was originally written in 2009 and was revised in 2019.

A. My wife and I homeschooled all three of our children. We started them in homeschool and they graduated from homeschool high school. We started homeschooling our two eldest sons in the late 1980s. Our youngest came along later and graduated in 2018. How did we do it? The answer is found in Matthew 6:33: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”

Read more… →

The Hijacking of Homeschooling

The apostle Paul wrote that he marveled that the Christians in Galatia had so soon turned from grace to another gospel, the bondage of legalism. I marvel at how quickly Christian home educators are turning from the freedoms they have won over the past couple of decades back to the bondage of government control. As the patriarch of a family that began homeschooling in the 1980s, perhaps I’ve earned the right to look with a critical eye on younger parents who take for granted their freedom to teach their children 1) at home and 2) without government interference. Keep in mind that there are two freedoms—two birthrights—involved here. Parents who believe they have made a shrewd deal that allows them to retain the first while bargaining away the second for a pottage of textbooks and other “benefits” have indeed been deluded. And make no mistake about it, being deluded necessitates a deluder. In this case, it is the education establishment wielding the bait of government funding.

Read more… →

Are you concerned about what your child is reading– Some Facts and Fiction About Reading, Truth, and Knowing

This article is far-sweeping, and I hope it will be helpful to readers with children and without. It discusses whether fiction is truer than facts, whether knowing someone is different than knowing about someone (such as whether knowing Jesus is different from knowing about Him), why we should monitor our children's reading, and why we should all be more careful when reading fiction than nonfiction. Along the way, we'll grind the truth out of Thomas Gradgrind, meet poisonous snake dealer Bill Jones, get thrown into a dungeon, learn some facts about the Wotton Electric Picture House, and gyre and gimble in the wabe—so hang on!

Catchy slogans, colorful posters, and summer reading programs at public libraries all try to get kids to read. So do school teachers and homeschooling moms and dads. But while we are encouraging our children to read, how much thought are we giving to what they read? And, as odd as it may seem to those parents who can hardly convince their child to pick up a book, some parents might also consider whether their children are reading too much, or at least too much of certain kinds of books.

Read more… →