As a mother who teaches her young children at home, I am frequently asked, “What are you gonna do about teaching chemistry?” Admittedly, chemistry is not the only subject that people are concerned about, sometimes it’s also physics, foreign language, calculus, or biology. Homeschooling is popular enough that most people know a neighbor, distant relative, or someone who teaches their children at home, but they certainly do not understand what goes on inside their home and how these kids are actually learning. The majority of those who want to know how homeschooling moms plan to teach high school fall into three categories.

The first of these categories is The Spectator. Those who ask this question about home schooling remember the difficulties of being in real school with professional teachers. They know that it was hard enough to keep up with these subjects as a student. What they are really asking is “How could a regular mom possibly have enough mastery of the material to competently teach the high school subjects?” Commonly, good mothers will admit to each other that trying to help their gifted second-grader with homework can be a challenge.

For these people, it’s impossible to comprehend families who take the entirety of their children’s education into their own hands.

Indeed, the homeschooling family can be an intriguing mystery. For many, homeschool families provide the same curiosity as sideshow exhibits at the state fair. To these people the question of how to teach an upper-level subject is as important as paying their fair ticket and stepping into the tent to find the answer to this strange phenomenon. It’s a wonder. It’s a relief to know. Nevertheless, when they exit the tent the show is over, their curiosity satisfied, and their life goes on as usual. Truthfully, it didn’t matter if their questions were ever answered because they weren’t affected.

Others ask because they are affronted that one might try educating their children outside of the professional teaching industry’s realm. Likely, they are a proud teacher. They’ve spent a lot of money on a college education to earn a degree that has trained them in their occupation as a teacher. They’ve spent so much time and put immense effort into their work. It’s only natural that they will not comprehend how a plain untrained mom with a will could do it.

Asking “What are you gonna do about chemistry?” is the polite way of asking, “What makes you think that you can teach your child successfully?”

It implies, “Even if you have a teaching degree, surely you aren’t qualified to teach all of the subjects necessary for a good education.” Their question is rhetorical. Firstly, they know how much devotion they put into their own classes for their student’s sake. It is a lot of work. Moreover, they only teach one class!

Which leads me to my second point; teachers are aware that they are not qualified to teach every subject a student would need for graduation. They confess that no teacher could do it all. Their question is meant to take the wind out of our sails before we‘ve gone too far. It’s a question of discouragement — one to sober us to the task ahead. Perhaps they are kindly trying to spare us because they don’t think we’ve counted the cost. I call this second group **The Affronted*. Homeschoolers bother them because they think our decision to homeschool is one of judgment on them or lack of concern about our children’s welfare. They don’t yet know that teaching my children at home is a matter of faith.

Some ask because they are considering homeschooling and are trying to find answers about how it all works. I like to call this last category of questioners The Innocent. They’re looking to compare notes because they are curious to find out if they‘ve got what it takes. They want your formula for success.

Usually, I vary my reply depending on the audience. Here I address this response to Christians with young children. To lay the foundation you must know that I have an intimate relationship with the Creator. He made the universe. He made me. When I was wicked and when I was His enemy, He died so that we could have a relationship. He has already proven His faithfulness. My decision to homeschool is a constant exercise of faith. I am teaching my children at home to glorify Him. It is not easy. I am not faultless. I am naturally lazy, impatient and selfish, among other things that I don’t care to admit.

However, God calls me to be more like Him and promises to help me make the transition. By spending my life with my children, I have abundant opportunities to exercise patience, compassion, selflessness, gentleness, and did I mention patience? I am given the potential to cultivate the character of Christ. Whether I seize them or neglect them, the opportunities to grow in spirit that come from the decision to continue my role as parent into the educational realm are never-ending.

When the Christian mom who has decided to homeschool has her eldest in kindergarten and is asking, “What about chemistry?” what she wants to know is “Will God abandon our family when we reach high school?”

So now I ask “What?” Why would He do that? Is it too hard for Him? He knows more about that subject and every other than anybody! Oh, I know, He’s so tired of me utterly relying on Him that He will simply refuse to provide a way. Perhaps I’ve used up my favors and now I’m going to have to go it alone. Do we see the absurdity of the question?

It is God’s desire that we become as dependant on His provision as little children. Since He’s promised to take care of our needs, our obligation is to seek Him first. It is our duty to walk by faith depending on Him. Abraham is an example of faithfulness that pleases God. He was obedient to God’s command to sacrifice his son. Yet Abraham believed God would fulfill His promise to build a great nation through Isaac. How could a dead son be the father of a great nation? This is no doubt the question that Abraham grappled with. He certainly speculated on how God would fulfill His promise; however, it was only when Isaac was tied down on top of the altar and the dagger drawn that God provided a way and Abraham saw God’s provision. Don’t draw your daggers yet. We aren’t asked to sacrifice our children. Just to trust them and ourselves in God’s hands. When we stay awake at night worrying about how to teach chemistry to our children when the oldest is yet seven are we really walking by faith? It’s not wrong to speculate on how God will provide. Abraham did; but, his focus was not on fixing the problem. It was on obedience which God credited as faith. It’s not walking by faith if we fret because we can’t see every step of the entire path of our children’s 13-year education. We, like Abraham, need to have confidence in God’s provision.

Beloved, let me propose one last thought. Above our children’s learning chemistry, it may be that the greatest lesson is for us to live by faith. When someone asks you the question next, do not give the glory to the plethora of aides that are available such as DVDs, co-ops, satellite schools, special classes and tutors. Give the glory to God and say, “I dunno yet how I’ll teach chemistry, but I am confident that God will provide for all of our needs.”

Yvonne Clark resides in Red Bank, Tenn., with her husband, Brent, and two daughters. This is their fifth year homeschooling, each day being a step of faith. She is a contributor to http://Rubysisters.blogspot.com/.

Last month we learned that we are failing to give our boys a reason to learn. We learned that boys are motivated by honor and that our society has left them without hope. We also learned that one antidote to the problem may be using great literature to motivate our sons to pursue honor. But what books should they read? I recently asked a group of longtime homeschooling mothers, women I highly respect, what books they recommend0.. The following is what I gleaned from raising my own sons and also their suggestions. I have broken the list down into three parts: fiction, poetry, and biographies. With a few additions, this would be a fine list for girls also. But we have seen our girls motivated, more motivated than ever before. It is our boys who are struggling.

Noticeably missing from the list are books I would classify as victorian moralism. The group of women I surveyed almost unanimously agreed that moralism is antithetical to real heart change.

A friend Chris puts it this way, “Moralism looks good on the outside, which makes mothers feel more comfortable with their children: if they look good on the outside, I must be doing things right. It is just another kind of legalism. But in a world out of control and chaotic, one is always willing to sell their liberty for tyranny that will bring order. It’s an old, old story.” Our goal is not to produce self-righteous prigs like our old friend Eustace Scrubbs before he met the dragon in The Voyage of Dawn Treader but rather to motivate our sons by the examples of true heart change whether that heart change is in the real man Stonewall Jackson or the fictional mouse Reepicheep. When we read of these sorts of characters we don’t feel smug and good; we feel challenged and even ashamed.

We question our own motives and behaviors. In the best cases, we repent.

Fiction

1. Men of Iron, Otto of the Silver Hand, others by Howard Pyle
2. The White Company, by Arthur Conan Doyle (Sir Gerhard and Sir Nigel. Not as well-known as his Sherlock Holmes books, but for illustrating honor they cannot be beat.)
3. The 39 Steps etc., by John Buchan (all Richard Hannay books. People often love 39 Steps but don’t realize there are at least 3 sequels. Greenmantle is next followed by our family favorite Mr Standfast.)
4. The Scottish Chiefs, by Jane Porter; In Freedom’s Cause, by G.A. Henty and others dealing with Scottish liberty.
5. Black Fox of Lorne, by Marguerite de Angeli
6. Sugar Creek Gang, by Paul Hutchens (I highly recommend seeking out the originals rather than the updates.)
7. C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia, The Space Trilogy, The Screwtape Letters. (Don’t forget The Abolition of Man, by Lewis, that describes in depth our dilemma.)
8. Little Britches series by Ralph Moody “Son, there is no question but what the thing you have done today deserves severe punishment. You might have killed yourself or the horse, but much worse than that, you have injured your own character. A man’s character is like his house. If he tears boards off his house and burns them to keep himself warm and comfortable, his house soon becomes a ruin. If he tells lies to be able to do the things he shouldn’t do but wants to, his character will soon become a ruin. A man with a ruined character is a shame on the face of the earth.” That is just a small taste of the riches available to your sons in Ralph Moody’s books.
9. Captains Courageous, by Rudyard Kipling (Kipling is a among the best authors for boys. Try Jungle Book, Just so Stories and Stalky and Co.)
10. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Middle English author unknown), J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings (Don’t miss Tolkien’s Farmer Giles of Ham.)
11. Ivanhoe and others by Walter Scott
12. Redwall series, by Brian Jacques
13. The Princess & Curdie, and others by George MacDonald
14. The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame
15. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen (Don’t underestimate the power of this book for boys. They naturally like Mr Darcy.)
16. Rolf and the Viking Bow, by Allen French (French is an author worth searching out.)
17. The Marsh King, by Walter Hodges
18. G.A. Henty (In spite of the fact that Henty is formulaic fiction; he does manage to tell the kind of stories boys love. Some of his books are even good literature. At least read a few Henty’s: The Boy Knight, In Freedom’s Cause, etc.)
19. The Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. (This is NOT a feminine series. The hero is Pa. Is there a better book for boys than Farmer Boy?)
20. Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe

Biographies

1. Man Called Peter, by Catherine Marshall
2. Quiet Strength, by Tony Dungy ( Great book for the athletes in the house.)
3. Endurance Alfred Lansing
4. Childhood of Famous Americans (COFA) books for younger boys (Our favorites are William Penn, Francis Marion, Stonewall Jackson, Lou Gehrig)
5. Leaders in Action series edited by George Grant (Our favorites are Carry a Big Stick (Teddy Roosevelt) and Never Give In (Winston Churchill)
6. Of Courage Undaunted, by James Daughtery
7. Christian biographies such as Borden of Yale, Jim Elliot, Eric Liddell, Hudson Taylor
8. Mornings on Horseback, and other books by David McCullough

Poetry

1. Idylls of the King, by Tennyson
2. If, by Rudyard Kipling
3. Opportunity, by Edward Sill
4. The Charge of the Light Brigade, by Tennyson
5. The Leak in the Dike, by Cary
6. Casabianca, by Hemans
7. The Village Blacksmith, by Tennyson
8. Horatius at the Bridge, by MacCaulay

Cindy Rollins, who resides in Hixson with her husband and children, is a homeschooling mom of nine. Visit her blog at <www.dominionfamily.blogspot.com>. E-mail Cindy at dominionfamily@gmail.com.

By David Tulis

On April 18 the Times Free Press ran a front-page story about teacher tenure in the area’s compulsory school systems. After three years teaching, a state-trained professional on a county school payroll can receive tenure, essentially a job for life if said teacher avoids certain distruptive offenses. A teacher might be fired for incompetence, insubordination, immorality and “any other good and sufficient cause,” but only after prolonged administrative tribulation to remove him. Tenured teachers are rarely fired because of the hassle imposed by due process and procedural requirements. It is “very, very difficult” to fire a lousy, dead-handed employee, one observer told the newspaper.

Repeated stories about malfeasance in the state-run school monopoly make little impression among its clientele, that host of local families who insist on the school freebie and who believe that while problems exist in other schools, the school they know personally (where their children are enrolled) is either good or not that bad. A measure of wishful thinking and fantasy keeps these tax-funded heirarchies from crashing to the ground in flames. This sort of intellectual and emotional subjection Tennesseans and Georgians have before the thrones of these school corporations with their public authority will last even after they have fallen and the smoke and dust cleared.

Tenure has little to do with school quality, caring for children or making sure students can read, write and cypher. It has everything to do with the power of unions to secure easy livings for the leisure class that is the public school establishment.

Tenure is part of the surveillance and day-care apparatus of state employees. In The Underground History of American Education, John Taylor Gatto explains why administrative utopias are so appealing and so hard to get rid of.

“Administrative utopias are a pecular kind of dreaming by those in power, driven by an urge to arrange the lives of others, organizing them for production, combat, or detention. The operating principles of administrative utopia are hierarchy, discipline, regimentation, strict order, rational planning, a geometrical environment, a production line, a cellblock, and a form of welfarism. Government schools and some private schools pass such parameters with flying colors. In one sense, administrative utopias are laboratories for exploring the technology of subjection and as such belong to a precise subdivision of pornographic art: total surveillance and total control of the helpless. The aim and mode of administrative utopia is to bestow order and assistance on an unwilling populaton, to provide its clothing and food. To schedule it” (Page 142).

The utopia of public schooling is evident in tenure, which isolates the functionaries from the demands of the marketplace. Tenure is a roadblock of old cars, tires and construction trash intended to keep the mob away from the seat of power, to prevent an angry people from despoiling the privileges of the school elite, their guaranteed incomes and staffs. Tenure makes it impossible for there to be quick, prompt firings that make the daily press. It slows the pace of a teacher’s removal so that it is so dull a procedure and so dryly administrative no one would care about it either way.

In 2008 began the first signs of an extended national financial collapse, with the fireball in the night that of the meltdown of the Bear Sterns trading house, followed by other notable corporate crackups, Lehman, Fannie, AIG, etc.

As the collapse ripples outward for the next several years, the cost of maintaining luxurious taxpayer-funded school systems will rise, as will the pressure to scale them back. It is happening already. California districts have given pink slips to 22,000 teachers; 17,000 layoffs are predicted in Millinois; New York has started by trimming 15,000. The feds’ Arne Duncan says up to 300,000 public school jobs face elimination.

Utopian idealism, the worship of the state, the great confidence people have in administrators and functionaries are wilting. This reversal in the status quo will provide great opportunity for Christians and free market educators such as you and me. As these systems collapse, without any help from us, we should reconsider some of our precious educational shibboleths about the necessity and benevolence of public schools, and press forward to encourage others to a more godly existence based on free enterprise, personal relationship and local economies.

By Joyce Herzog

Identical desks. Identical books. Identical uniforms. Identical input leads to identical output…. Or so they think!

This paradigm is how traditional classrooms are set up, but it is easy to see that this system is failing many of our children. You may have chosen to homeschool to get away from this one-size-fits all mentality. But even within the homeschooling community there is often pressure to conform to a pre-determined schedule of learning. How many times have you been asked if your child is working “on or above grade level” in a certain subject?

God did not create us using a cookie-cutter. Knowing that, how can we expect our children to learn in a cookie-cutter fashion? Within families, you can find several different learning styles, strengths, and weaknesses. As parents, even more as homeschooling parents, we should seek to know our children well enough to nurture their strengths and strengthen their weaknesses.

One of the more significant benefits to homeschooling is the ability to tailor an education to each child. If you have an auditory learner, audiobooks may become a daily part of your lessons. With a kinesthetic learner, hands-on activities are a must. Visual learners may enjoy drawing illustrations to solidify their lessons. You do not have to conform to one set way of teaching your children or of having them express that they have learned. Children are individuals and are meant to be treated and taught as such.

God created us with our own particular strengths and weaknesses that are suited for His perfect plan for our lives. While our strengths are usually seen as our biggest asset, sometimes our weaknesses can bring even more glory to God. In our weaknesses, we can more readily see His hand at work.

While we help our children improve in their areas of struggle, we cannot forget to utilize their strengths as well. Do not let those gifts from God grow stagnant in the wake of hours spent trying to bring their struggles up to an average level. Set them up for success as often as possible. Go deeper in the areas where they excel. Allow them to dig as far into a topic of interest as they want to go. They may surprise you with their tenacity when given a task they enjoy.

You may have a child who has so many struggles you are beginning to think that they don’t have any strengths at all. Take heart and give him some time and space to discover his God given passions. He may be so worn down from his difficulties that he doesn’t know what would be a pleasure to him. She may have a schedule so full of athletics, arts, church events, and social activities that she doesn’t ever have an opportunity to entertain herself and discover what she enjoys. Each child has passions from God deep within them. We have to help them find those passions and it takes both time and space. Be thinking about that when you sit down to plan your “school.”

We did not design our children. God did. We must look to Him as the ultimate guide as we facilitate our children’s education. He holds the plans in His hands. He knows what they need and He cares for them even more than we do. Let us not forget our ultimate goal is not necessarily to have the most intensely educated children, but to have children brought up to fulfill the goals that God has for each one of them individually. Start with God, work with God, lean on His wisdom.

Twenty years ago my oldest child was 5 years old. I had been reading about homeschooling since before he was born, so you can bet I was rarin’ to go. I have such fond memories of that first year sitting on the couch reading about Daniel Boone, Dan Beard and Teddy Roosevelt. I modeled that whole first year on ideas I got from Susan Schaeffer MacCaulay’s For the Children’s Sake that I had providentially picked up off a sale table at the local Christian bookstore. It was a serendipitous year and the glow of it has never worn off in my memory. After that things got a little hectic. I began adding baby boys to my collection on an almost yearly basis. At the same time the homeschooling movement was exploding and instead of sitting around reading books I was constantly overawed with choices.

I learned how to throw money at every secret fear and panic that I had. And so the years, good and bad, began to add up. The little boys, who had come so fast and furiously at one point, began leaving home at an equal pace. As I watched them leave home, though, something grew within me: confidence. They were leaving the nest and really and truly making it in the world. They were also returning to give me feedback: “I am so glad you taught me this,” or, “I hope you are continuing to do that with the little guys. It made a big difference in my life,” or even, “Wow, that was a major waste of time.”

And so I began to distill everything I had learned and done over the years into one concept that I realized was the tie that binds, the thread of grace, the heart and soul of the matter. The most important life lesson that I brought away from 20 plus years of homeschooling is summed up in this poem by Julia Carney:

Little Drops

Little drops of water,  
little grains of sand,  
make the mighty ocean  
and the beauteous land.

And the little moments,  
humble though they may be,  
make the mighty ages  
of eternity.

So our little errors  
lead the soul away,  
from the paths of virtue  
into sin to stray.

Little deeds of kindness,  
little words of love,  
make our earth an Eden,  
like the heaven above.

You got it. It is not the grand schemes, the big purchases, nor the entire year’s lesson plans that make up the fabric of our homes and schools or our children’s educations; it is the little moments that we faithfully administer year after year.

I learned this quite by accident. When my eldest was 5, we began something that eventually became known by the clever (?) title: Morning Time. Morning Time was just my way of gathering all those subjects together that generally fell through the cracks: hymn / Psalm singing, Bible memory, poetry memorization, prayer time, composer study, Plutarch, Shakespeare, artists, folk songs, reading aloud, etc. all the things that were important to me but were outside the curriculum.

Every morning we would, and do, gather together and spend a few minutes on these things. Spend five minutes a day for 20 years singing hymns and I can guarantee your children will know a lot of hymns in the end. I just cut our family hymnbook down from 115 to 95 hymns. The hymns we chose to sing over the years have become a biography of our spiritual and theological journey. Add to all these tiny minutes the discussion that takes place as you read and think and memorize together and you have a Socratic program of the highest order.

Let me put this concept another way. My parents gave me the gift of personal daily Bible reading. That is probably the most valuable gift I could have ever received from them. As a mother, you will find me on an occasional Saturday morning studying Matthew Henry or reading Keith Mathison, but my true spiritual reserve comes from a lifetime of daily Bible reading, not complicated Bible study.

The more complicated your plans, the less likely they are to take place. Simply put, if you have something that you want your children to assimilate like poetry or scripture or music or Shakespeare, forget the grand schemes, forget what the Konos mom is doing down the street, forget the running around. Start giving that thing one or two minutes of your time daily and watch the years roll by. I promise this is the magical formula for successful homeschooling.

If you are interested in more information on having a daily Morning Time with your family you can find some resources at my Morning Time blog: http://morningtimemoms.blogspot.com/.

Cindy Rollins, who resides in Hixson with her husband and children, is a homeschooling mom of nine. Visit her blog at http://www.dominionfamily.blogspot.com/. E-mail Cindy at DominionFamily@gmail.com.

By Cory Bennett

It is generally recognized that home educated students compare favorably academically to both public and privately schooled students. As homeschoolers we observe with interest public school reform proposals intended to enable students in the state’s care to find educational success. But we are skeptical of efforts to improve the state school monopoly because they involve secularized goals pursued by the coercive power of the state to achieve them. Government schooling is one of the biggest businesses in our state with lots of money and power at stake. Allowing the state authority over the education of our children opens the door to our family, and can lead to immense abuse of state power and abridgement of individual and family liberties. An educational emergency can be used to justify increased educational budgets, higher taxes and increased government power.

On Oct. 22 a group of public school devotees, the State Collaborative on Reforming Education, led by former U.S. Sen. Bill Frist released a 33-page state report proposing ways to make state government’s school system among the best in the Southeast within five years http://www.tennesseescore.org.

Before we are tempted to applaud the well-intended efforts of this group, it is important to examine some of its premises. SCORE seeks to improve schooling based on a secular, state-centered definition of success that is intended to reinforce and increase state authority over parents and responsibility for children.

Moral ambiguity as an educational hindrance

Government can only define educational success in the area of academics because of limited ability to produce growth in other essential areas of life. When children are confined in age-segregated classrooms for the majority of their first 18 years, they cannot learn character skills, domestic skills and vocational skills that require family and community involvement in a real-world setting. Modern government education seeks to achieve success by replacing the family with government agents and programs conducted in classrooms in the company of student peers. The state program assumes human nature is not flawed, and that students will exhibit good behavior and will want to succeed if given the right information and environment.

Discussions of God are seen as an impediment to this process and He is not acknowledged or valued. Because government officials and educators are morally confused, discussion of God and the spiritual aspects of human nature are confusing to the student. Schools and educators are unable (legally prohibited) to embrace the One, true God or to acknowledge absolute truth. Moral and ethical training is muddled, which impacts student behavior, relationships, the safety of students and faculty, classroom environment and academic success. Moral ambiguity makes state schoolteachers unable to define a healthy family and encourage a family environment that aids learning.

Christian home education rests on different premises. We contend that parents, dependent upon and honoring God, can successfully educate their children in the context of the family with support of a community of believers. Our goal as homeschoolers is to obey God in raising each child to love God and others and to equip each child to be a healthy, responsible adult able to function in the context of the family, a body of believers and the local community. This goal involves character training, religious education, academic education, training in family and domestic skills and training in basic vocational skills. Isolating and focusing on academic skills to the exclusion of the other objectives result in immature, ill-equipped adults. The Christian approach recognizes that human nature is flawed. Students and parents need God to experience and express forgiveness, best learned in the context of the family and the real world.

The Consequences of Wrongly Defining Educational Success

Paul Harvey has been quoted as saying “Education without religion produces clever devils.” As a Christian, he meant Christianity when he used the word “religion.” There is plenty of religion in modern schools of the humanist and materialist sort, but little biblical Christianity to offer clear moral guidance for students, families, teachers, and schools. Is it any wonder that we are suffering under the schemes and actions of clever devils? An ignorant robber can steal your wallet and the $100 it contains. A clever devil can bilk individuals, families and corporations out of billions of dollars. Education without effective religious and moral training has resulted in a well-educated criminal and political class.

The solution is to produce healthy families that are the foundation of any society. It can be argued that extensive time away from parents and family reduces the ability of students to learn necessary relational and family skills. Such deprivation results in multiple generations of dysfunctional families, dysfunctional students, a dysfunctional classroom environment, reduced academic success and a declining culture. Government schools cannot even agree on the definition of a healthy family and must therefore diminish or limit family involvement to that which meets politically correct standards. Because government education by nature can only focus on academics, efforts to improve its system will result in “raising academic standards” and increasing the length of school days and years so that these raised goals can be reached. One result is that healthy family life and other key elements of education will be further neglected and academic efforts will fall short.

Public education families have made a commitment to school systems that, with the help of the ACLU and other policy groups, are bringing more consistency to the system. In its latest suit Nov. 16, that group is suing Cheatham County administrators for allowing Bible distribution and prayers in schools. Nearer to Chattanooga, the ACLU is harassing Rhea County over Internet filtering by public schools, concerned students can’t obtain access to homosexual materials. The drive to make public schools entirely atheistic and materialistic is not over, but much progress has been made to eliminate any reference to God and Christendom and its principles for civilization.

Keeping Our Eyes on the Prize

Public school families that believe its members can spend extra time on family life, Bible study and spiritual matters to counter the strident agnosticism of state schools are taking a gamble with the souls of their children and assuming on God’s mercy. Private schools that absorb so much of the students’ day and interests that they turn parents into mere appendages and monitors of schooling machinery are making a similar mistake, though the Christian “veneer” may have some value in keeping young people in the faith and not abandoning it as weak and phony on graduation.

In the sense that the SCORE report might induce the General Assembly to restrict our liberties, we should follow the development of this story and be ready to act.

But in another sense, home educators should pay a slight attention to Sen. Frist and his group’s doings. The work of his group should not impress, nor the woes he seeks to address in the statist system intimidate the faithful home educating mom and dad. Yes, the public system is having a crisis, but one it deserves, for which there is no remedy. There is one temptation Christians outside of public education’s “2012” must avoid. That is the idea that because we are no longer in educational Egypt we are absolved of our sins and stand in favor with God for our deeds. Instead, we must repent of our sins, love God earnestly and study his word, and help our children develop a relationship with God and a character that honors him. We are proving that our children can achieve academically; we must be careful to see that they grow into godly adults

Highly touted, expensive educational studies and plans may look attractive as we read about them in the Times Free Press or hear about them on Channel 9, but we must remember that most education failure can be traced back to a failure in the parents and the family. No government program can compensate for failure in family life.

Cory Bennett is president of Foundation for Educational Leadership in Knoxville. Its website is http://www.ffel.org/.

When listening to criticisms of homeschooling, it doesn’t take one long to hear that it is not good for moms to homeschool older boys. Homeschooling after 7th grade may be great for girls but mother-son relationships can get tricky and it is best for boys to have male role models, the argument goes. As a woman who will graduate her 5th son this year, I say hogwash. While it can be tricky, mothers can homeschool their older sons through high school, even without outside help. And while outside help is sometimes needful, the power of being in the home daily should not be underestimated.

Raising sons these days is no easy task. Femininity is in. Masculinity is out. Sometimes we don’t even recognize masculinity when we see it. It makes us uncomfortable.

If you find that you are fainthearted, steel yourself; it may be a bumpy ride. Literally. My minivan has gashes down each side and probably a whole host of angels who follow it around. This comes from having boys. I have eight of them. Or maybe you think you will have those nice boys who never go over the speed limit and who always want to know their father’s every opinion, those nice boys in the homeschool catalog. You probably won’t have a houseful of testosterone looking for a cavalry to lead.

My advice to you, Mama of boys: Don’t get in a tizzy about every little thing. Save up those tizzies. You are going to need them when your son punches his brother hard, jumps off a cliff into a pool for the fun of it, disagrees with the sanest commands and wrecks the car. Remember you are raising men. Real men like to crack their skulls against the wall a few times before taking sound advice. Just leave the room until the skull-cracking is over and wait patiently until the advice is asked for. Never answer a question that hasn’t been asked nor give advice where a need isn’t felt. It will be just grasping at the wind and your squeaky voice will become an inoculation against wisdom. I call this Socratic Son Rearing.

Some mothers naturally “get” this. They don’t nag their sons and they often say, “Boys will be boys.”

Boys will be boys, right? Maybe not.

By this we don’t mean that boys will be rude and nasty and ugly and we will all just smile because they are, after all, boys. Certainly boys will be boys and that means that they will not always think of taking a shower until they are 16, but if you have a 12-year-old who has never on his own thought of taking a shower, by all means suggest that he take one, perhaps in a voice that communicates your disgust but not forgetting the twinkling eye.

If your son is a regular nuisance getting into scraps every time he goes anywhere, then get control of him. Don’t make excuses for him. I suggest you make sure he is reading the “right sort of books” lest he turn out like our good friend Eustace Scrubb*. This is where the role of literature in the home becomes a real tool. Our sons should be reading. Readers are leaders. This means you will have to evaluate all the things vying for your son’s time and make time for him to read. Don’t substitute video games for reading.

Mothers need to watch out for the BIG error of being overcontrolling, but this doesn’t mean a mother isn’t TOUGH. A mother of boys must be tough. She shouldn’t have to wait for her husband to return home in the evening to gain control over her sons. Her arms should be strong for the task.

Are your boys growing in grace while they grow to manliness, or are they becoming unbearable prigs and bullies? You may want to ask your true friends how your boys are doing in this area.

Finally, one key to homeschooling sons is letting them have control whenever it is possible. One of the more obvious areas to develop this is with a son who has a new learner’s permit. Allowing a 15-year-old to chauffer you around on errands is one of the simplest ways to build a relationship. Just sit quietly in the passenger seat until he starts talking. Works like a charm. The only bug in the system is that sometimes you have to interrupt the flow of conversation to scream at the child that there is a red light or a dog. This type of yelling will not hurt the relationship. Your son will just ignore you. A good rule of thumb is never drive your son around; let him do the driving.

Never forget that your goal is to raise men. This can be disturbing to the feminine mind. Last weekend, three of my sons were shark fishing and another one was out hunting gators (legally). Two of my sons have taken up dangerous careers. I like to think that they are warrior poets. The No. 1 thing you can do for you son is offer him respect. It is surprising what a little respect will do for a young man and an older one, too.

*The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by CS Lewis

Cindy Rollins, who resides in Hixson with her husband and children, is a homeschooling mom of nine. Visit her blog at http://www.dominionfamily.blogspot.com/. E-mail Cindy at dominionfamily@gmail.com.

In Tuesday’s Times Free Press appeared a story that told how President Obama and his treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, want to assign new regulatory powers to the Federal Reserve System “to guard against the types of risks that could bring down the entire system.”

This sort of language about the “entire system” collapsing has been so pervasive since the national financial meltdown began in September that we scarcely seem to notice it. So great has the financial decimation been in Chattanooga and around the country that cataclysmic language and fresh exercises of “emergency” powers behind them seem ho-hum.

Almost daily we read how national chieftains and financial wizards propose solutions that do nothing to fundamentally alter the system they have created and which is now in the process of collapse, with zombie banks doddering about, a federal deficit of more than $1.8 trillion and imposition of regulations in the past year that one study estimated cost Americans more than $1.17 trillion. This from a set of Washington barons fit only to defend the country and deliver the mail. But that job’s too small. They want to add departments and devise new “facilities” and “tools” to regulate the American economy and increase their surveillance for the benefit of us yokels.

“A stronger framework,” the Times Free Press story said.

“Increased oversight.”

“A regulatory overhaul.”

I.e., more departments.

More centralization.

With these solutions the people of Chattanooga and the rest of the country can regain the $1.3 trillion in assets lost in the last quarter and become more confident in the system, or so they’d have us believe.

“Like all financial crises, the current crisis is a crisis of confidence and trust,” Geithner was quoted as saying. “Reassuring the American people that our financial system will be better controlled is critical to our economic recovery.”

“Better controlled.” Right.

Confidence in princes

The Bible warns us about putting confidence in princes. God does not delight in the strength of the horse; he takes no pleasure in the legs of a man (Ps. 147:10). Mordecai, when destruction loomed for the Israelites in Babylon at the behest of the wicked Haman, assured Esther that if she did not risk her life to plead for her people before the King, “deliverance will arise *** from another place” (Esther 4:13). Esther screwed up her courage, threw herself into the breach, trusting to God and his innumerable means to bring a salvation and save his people.

If we cannot trust the “stronger frameworks” and other ministries of Obama, Geithner and Fed chairman Ben Bernanke to save us, where do we turn for solutions?

To the Word of God, which is all about antithesis. It’s all about separating the black and the white, rescuing them from the gray, a divine revelation of violent opposites. In the Bible there’s no support for blurring lines between public and private.

The Bible that opens to us the will and mind of God pushes the concrete vs. the abstract. God heralds the personal vs. the impersonal. The human vs. the corporate. The self-government of a free people vs. total government by strangers and by others.

The Bible would create a free society governed by the laws of God vs. the top-down pyramidlike society of the modern superstate governed by federal law and funded by easy credit and the enslavement of your grandchildren (or so the critics warn). It’s about taking personal responsibility vs. casting it upon others, i.e., it’s paying debts and absorbing risk personally rather than offloading our obligations onto taxpayers or agencies of government. It’s about self-control vs. endless consumption and an endless wash of promissory notes. It’s about homes and families vs. institutional life, whether nursing home, prison or rescue mission.

The Bible invites not a pyramid, but a decentralized social order. If you extend this concept, it goes far afield: Local economies vs. national economies. Small business vs. monopolistic cartels such as Fannie Mae. Gold and silver vs. unbacked paper money and inflation. Actual payment vs. promises to pay. This last is all our bankrupt overlords can offer to forestall a collapse, a papering over of disaster with new layers of promises, churned out in ever greater numbers as were Zimbabwe dollars before the country’s recent devastation under Comrade Mugabe.

Personal responsibility

In sum, the Bible promotes a personal reality vs. an impersonal one. The reality of the world we live in is under the superintendency of a personal, sovereign God who lets no hair fall from your head without personally knowing about it.

The thrilling question of what sort of life we should lead is explored in the faithful teaching of the Christian church. The simplicity of Christianity is something that startles many, especially newcomers to the faith. Look how elemental are its rites. There is the bread and the wine of the Lord’s supper, representing the body and blood of the Lord Jesus. There is the plain water in Baptism. There is the simple preaching of the Word unto life for listeners of faithful exposition.

No military parades. No government takeovers. No wars of conquest. No sword. No big media.

The Union Gospel Mission in Chattanooga, of which I am director and only paid staffer, has an interest in interaction between the world informed by the Word of God and that conjured by rebellious and proud men.

Homeless men, shirtless bankers

Our ministry gives charity food and lodging to men of two categories. There are the overnighters, who must be in my 5 p.m., eat dinner, endure a worship service led by a volunteer minister of the gospel, and be out of the building by 6 a.m. Then there are homeless men who enroll in a Bible study course that lasts six months, in which time we ask God to work salvation on their souls and rejuvenation of their wills and character. Some go on to find jobs and honorably sustain themselves.

We are a nonprofit organization separate from any particular church, yet the servant of all of them. We are funded by gifts, have no debt and don’t receive any benefit from the coercive offices of civil government. The troubled men we serve and our interactions with them echo the national calamity that is impoverishing us all. Without our service of mercy, these men live beneath underpasses, scrounge for food in Dumpsters or pass their days dozing in threadbare front seats of barely serviceable cars.

The 20 to 60 men we deal with on any given day face the struggle for solvency, the temptation of intoxicants, the calculation of conniving to get freebies, the willingness to wear two faces (looks of piety in prayertime but profane utterances outside while smoking) are issues I deal with everyday. Like the bankers, my tough customers are waiting for a bailout. They want other people to handle their problems. Many of them would prefer the charity they receive to be impersonal, so they’d be under no duty to render thanks. They want to be cleaned up after by other people. Though many are penniless, they are tempted by pride and laziness and an incapacity to see beyond the next free meal or the next pulse of electrons on their federal food stamp debit cards.

Christ’s universal claims

My answer to these often unkempt men at the bottom of society is the one that brought about the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s: A personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, established by conviction of sin and acceptance by faith in his sweet, enervating grace. Faith in the person and work of Jesus, who alone has the power to save the most decrepit sinner and the most abandoned loser — faith in and obedience to Him is how life can once again be breathed into individual lives and the life of our nation.

That is the message our volunteer preachers impress upon these men every night at the worship service. If Mr. Geithner and our federal barons could sit in our humble worship hall they would realize that they don’t have the answers and that our nation is under judgment and cannot be rescued by them, and that they should quit while they are ahead, shut down the whole of the District of Columbia and go back to their hometowns, get some much-needed sleep and enjoy their neglected families. The message of repentance and redemption by God is no less relevant to our homeless men than to these national leaders in their $1,200 linens.

One of the big problems I have faced as director of this Chattanooga ministry is the lack of manpower and organization. God has blessed us with many wonderful donors and support from churches, but God has constrained our 501(c)3 organization to better get our attention to his will. Just as he has brought about an economic meltdown to get our attention, God is using a unique circumstance to get us to look further in ways to serve Him. Now that I am at wit’s end, I am better able to see a more sustainable model for operation our group.

One of my goals is to find a better way of determining who are worthy receivers of charity among the bedraggled souls who walk through our front door. Our rules are simple and strictly enforced, but they go only so far. Unlike the free services of the welfare state, I really can’t be faithful to God and give out charity anonymously and impersonally. Like Jesus himself, the operation of reformation is personal, face to face, and the recipients of charity must be accountable for the receipt and use of it.

Historical wisdom for charity

An author who has written about the necessity of true charity is Marvin Olasky, whose book “Tragedy of American Compassion” was recently summarized by an article he wrote in World Magazine. In it he looks at examples of American history to see what lessons might be applied to helping the homeless and poor today.

Christians want to be generous, Olasky says, and that’s as it should be. But we can learn from our predecessors who emphasized that generosity is only the first step. If we act without discernment, our generosity may actually be selfishness that gives ourselves a warm glow but hurts others.

We can learn from the oldest charity still existing in the United States, the Scots’ Charitable Society of Boston, founded in 1657. The Society from its start resolved to “open the bowells of our compassion” but to make sure that “no prophane or diselut person, or openly scandalous shall have any part or portione herein.” They viewed poor people not as standing at the bottom of a ladder but halfway up, capable of ascending to independence and even wealth if they saw themselves as created in God’s image and were willing to live and work accordingly, but likely to descend into abject dependence and despair if they started to see themselves as animals.

Boston pastor Cotton Mather three centuries ago asked his church members to be charitable but also careful not to “abuse your charity by misapplying it.” A half-century later prominent pastor Charles Chauncey instructed leaders of the Society for Encouraging Industry and Employing the Poor to be careful in “the Distribution of Charity” so they would not “dispense it promiscuously” and “bestow upon those the Bread of Charity, who might earn and eat their own Bread, if they did not shamefully idle away their Time.”

We tend to think of generosity in a linear way as the opposite of selfishness, but there’s actually a spectrum: Generosity is in the middle, the selfishness of not giving at one end, and the selfishness of giving that warms the giver’s heart but hurts the recipient, on the other. Jesus’ parable in Matthew 25 emphasizes that “as much as you did to the least of these, you did to Me.” That cuts both ways: A person who offers help is helping Jesus, but a person who gives money that goes for drugs is shooting heroin into Jesus’ veins.

Two centuries ago Americans did not subsidize others in self-destruction. Some 23 Boston charity societies declared in 1835 that recipients should believe it “disgraceful to depend upon alms-giving, as long as a capacity of self-support is retained . . . [To] give to one who begs . . . or in any way to supersede the necessity of industry, of forethought, and of proper self-restraint and self-denial, is at once to do wrong, and to encourage the receivers of our alms to wrong doing.” The groups declared that “Christian alms-giving” means that relief should be given only after a “personal examination of each case,” and “not in money, but in the necessaries required in the case.” (World Magazine, March 14, 2009, Vol. 23, No. 5. World is on the Web at http://www.Worldmag.com.)

My trials as a minister to the homeless

Isn’t this just a great article? It really encouraged me and gave me a sense of perspective on the work God has called me to. The lessons Olasky describes will help our ministry continue to glorify God and to serve Him.

But there is a minor obstacle for Union Gospel Mission, as you may have heard in the news.

It looks as though we will continue to learn to have bowels of compassion for the homeless by being made homeless ourselves for a third time. God in his providence has so arranged secondary causes such that Union Gospel Mission will be losing its home Saturday (June 20). For some time it has been a guest of the Salvation Army on McCallie Avenue. But the Army has plans for the space we’ve occupied.

My hope has been to raise enough money to relocate in a former food wholesaler warehouse, but structural problems put that location out of reach for now. Another prospective location, a former funeral home, would need major remodeling and would be too small for us to launch any kind of “wood yard” or Goodwill-type business that characterized every Christian charity in the 19th century.

I don’t want you to think that the homelessness of our 59-year-old Union Gospel Mission is anything you should feel personally responsible to try to avert. The jarring dispersal of our stores and assets into the street is not something you can stop. It is being ordained by God for a very significant purpose, the end result of which I am unable today to perceive. It will teach me more things I need to know about having no place to lay my head. Like the empathy bellies school counselors invite teen girls to wear to warn them against the perils of illegitimate pregnancy, God is strapping to my shoulders a 30-pound administrative — even existential — crisis that he expects me to bear cheerfully and matter of factly, for his glory. Girls and their teachers in class may laugh at the hobbling exercise, but it makes a serious point. Our being bounced into the street has its humorous aspects, I’ll admit. But it is making a serious point and creating its own opportunities.

Can homeless men create capital?

I would ask for your prayer support for the vision I have outlined of how Union Gospel Mission can be more effective in the future. If you are as excited as I am about our finding a permanent place big enough to handle the ideas outlined here, then ask God to show me what to do next. I don’t need just a bigger permanent place for our ministry. I need administrative help and a business overseer who can develop the value-creating efforts that will encourage our men and help us determine whom to help so as not to waste the money donated to us.

If you are as encouraged as I am by rediscovering the forgotten rules of charity, consider supporting us financially, too.

Our Web site is http://www.theuniongospelmission.org/index.htm

You can send mail to me at: P.O. Box 983 Chattanooga, TN 37401

My phone is 423-752-4998.

God is loving and merciful to his people, and in the crisis of the day he is showing us the way. We should be thankful for all he has done for us, for his salvation and his providential care of each of us. Despite crisis, we should be excited about what God is bringing to bear.

JON RECTOR is director of Union Gospel Mission.

That question was at the heart of the discussions during the recent annual meeting of the Tennessee Home Education Association in Nashville. My wife and I sat with the pioneers of the Tennessee homeschooling movement for a full day and considered, debated, and reconsidered the very core of our existence as a “nongovernment schooling option.”

This body of representatives, leaders from every homeschooling association in the state, spent well over half of its agenda defining what we do, what we call ourselves, what we believe in, and what we would go to jail for. Interestingly, though understandable given the time constraints, that question was never fully answered. I found it remarkable too, that some on the board could not relate to each other. One group was the “old guard,” the hardcore believers who have been around since Genesis … well, since the dawning of homeschooling — even before it was legal. The other group was the keepers of the faith, those introduced to and actively engaged in homeschooling from 5-7 years ago. It was not that these folks disagreed; they all shared the common ground of desiring the best for their kids and the freedom to exercise that desire, but it was the shift of core principles from one generation to the next that startled the board.

At the heart of the matter is a trend that seems to be a fulfillment of prophesies spoken in the early days of the legal homeschooling debate. It was argued back then by the powers of government that homeschooling would eventually, at best, transform into a confederation of very small, unregulated, private schools. It seems, given the proliferation of co-ops, enrichment programs, and tutorials that those public detractors may have been on to something.

Bear in mind, I do not write those words without fear and trembling; I am the codirector of a two-day enrichment/tutorial… any mud I sling will land directly in my face.

My colleagues in the THEA identified, correctly, that homeschooling has changed during the 25 years since its legal right to exist. That change has brought us to a fork in “the road less traveled;” and the future, indeed, the legality of homeschooling, may hang in the balance. We in the THEA may not have defined any solutions to the change but we definitely identified two distinct motives that separate the founders from the faithful: “Conviction vs. preference.”

It was conviction that provoked those “radical” 80’s era parents to brave the taunts of their contemporaries and families. It was conviction that drove them to develop escape plans for their children should the truant officer come knocking. It was conviction that caused them to lie awake at night wondering if they would end up in jail tomorrow for doing what they believed God was commanding them to do today. It was the overpowering conviction and the unyielding belief that they were under the compulsion of the Almighty to take control of their children’s training and Please turn to next page “socialization.” Christ was the center of their education and family discipleship was the reward of being outcast and alone against the monolith of government schooling.

And here we are 25 years later.

One of the most remarkable testimonies uncovered at the THEA meeting was the fact that many of the new board members had never even read the laws concerning their rights; rights that other members had stood before the state legislature and defended. Ironically, the same shift we decry in our national government, the systematic erosion of our forefathers’ intent to create a nation under God, seems to be happening to us. The conviction to homeschool has slowly turned into a preference to homeschool.

So what? What does that mean? So what if you prefer to homeschool? So what if you don’t know the law… it’s still legal, isn’t it? So what if you don’t know the difference between an LEA and a Category IV school? So what if you don’t know what the Jeter amendment is? Your kid just got kicked out of public school and you can’t afford private school. Your kid just brought the “F” bomb home from 1st grade last week and you can’t afford private school. You want your kid to have a private school teacher-student ratio, but you can’t afford private school. Maybe you don’t even have these issues, you just prefer to homeschool; you have a choice now, it’s legal.

Can you see the difference? Is homeschooling a duty to God or a merely a privilege granted by the state? It’s worth mentioning again that I am the beneficiary of both groups; over a hundred and thirty K-6 graders come to my program on a weekly basis and I have seen the trend first-hand. Perhaps it was preference that prompted us to expand our services. I wonder now if we are unintentionally contributing to a culture of enabling parents to homeschool “just enough.” The trouble is, without knowing what the law says, parents won’t know what “just enough” is.

“Not on my watch” was a popular phrase a few years ago. President Bush assured us that the U.S. would not fall to the grip of terrorism while he was in office and that the democracy protected by law and constitution would not disappear from the face of the earth. Can we say the same thing about homeschooling? Do we not realize that our parental rights hang on the narrowest of margins?

Yes, they do.

One administration change can change everything. And our attention to what is and what is not homeschooling may make the difference in whether we retain this right. Who knows what wild cards we have placed in the deck in Washington, D.C.? But that’s another article.

So what can you do to ensure that your sons and daughters will have the same right to teach your grandchildren at home? Of course, the number one answer is pray. Pray hard. We need to appeal to the great Lawgiver that we will be faithful to the freedom He has granted us; not just to the human statute but to the spirit that wrote on the hearts of those homeschool pioneers who stood up to the Department of Education and 80 years of government control. Then read the law. Post it in your home. Print out the Jeter Amendment.

Also, encourage your homeschooling friends to join the local and state homeschool associations. This is crucial to the future of homeschooling. Let me explain why. When THEA was formed, the founders decided to decentralize the organization through the creation of regional chapters that could meet the needs of the homeschooler at their kitchen table.

By outsourcing the inevitable questions from hundreds of new families to regional representatives, THEA could focus on its core competency: keeping close watch on our rights. Therefore, local chapters are an extension, a hand up, and a hug from THEA. You get both the mind and heart of homeschooling in Tennessee.

Patti and I want you to know that we are praying for all of you as you homeschool. We hope you will join us in preserving this precious liberty that God ordained and the state of Tennessee has provided.

Randy McCoy is president of MTHEA. Reprinted by permission from the March 2009 issue of Jonathan’s Arrow, the newsletter for MTHEA.