Is this click-bait? A bit of controversy to get some traffic to our website? An opinion piece with a dollop of shame thrown in for good measure?
No. None of the above.
How we educate our children is a deeply personal choice. Every family has individual circumstances, convictions, callings – private school, Christian school, state school, or home education are viable options for Christian families.
However, in the UK at least, Christians home educating their children is a relatively undiscussed thing.
So today we’re going to outline 4 reasons why Christians should consider home educating their children. Or in other words, we will debunk 4 commonly held myths about why Christians shouldn’t home educate. We’re not telling you that you have to or ought to – only to consider it.
Under UK law, as a parent, the educational provision of your children is your responsibility (not the State’s).
Section 7 of the Education Act 1996 provides that:
The parent of every child of compulsory school age shall cause him to receive
efficient full-time education suitable –
(a) to his age, ability and aptitude, and
(b) to any special educational needs he may have,
either by regular attendance at school or otherwise.
So given that your child’s education is your choice and responsibility. Let’s consider some of the benefits of home education:
Socialisation
There is sometimes an assumption (it was there before COVID, but certainly government-mandated lockdown “homeschooling” did nothing to help) that home educated children do not get opportunities to socialise. They are weird, unsocialised, socially inept individuals – kept away from the real world and therefore unable to engage with the world outside their home.
This couldn’t be further from the truth for most home educating families. Their children are learning in the real world – literally – the parks, forests, museums, art galleries, gymnastics club, first aid courses, horse stables, the list could go on.
True, they are not simply mixing in classes of children all of the same age (which is a product of the school system developed during the industrial revolution) instead they are socialising in multi-age settings. But this is no weakness. One of the first things that attracted us to home education was seeing how older children interacted with our small children with respect and inclusivity.
Children are like sponges and have their social skills modelled by those around them; when their peers are the same age, their modellers are immature themselves. A huge benefit of home education is the range of people, including a large number of engaged, respectful parents who can model and coach your children in social interactions.
It’s hard to express in words quite how special home ed meets are. Everyone from babies to teens (and parents) learning, sharing and growing together. If you are interested in home education – connect with others in your local area and experience firsthand what sort of socialisation I’m talking about. Then draw your own conclusions about whether home educated children are socialised. And if the socialisation that you see has a different flavour to school-educated children that you know, ask yourself, is it in a good way?
Salt and Light
Which brings us to our second point, which is the fear that you can’t be a good witness to the world if you are home educating. There can be an assumption that school gate evangelism is a true avenue of outreach, but home education is too inward- looking for evangelism to be a priority.
Being a witness in the school community is a wonderful thing, whether it’s sharing the gospel at the school gate, speaking in assemblies or serving as a school governor and seeking to bring kingdom values there. We are thankful for every Christian presence in schools in the UK.
But the home ed community is ripe for the harvest.
Home educators are by nature thinkers, questioners and explorers. As this is the case, many are open to spirituality and in the absence of Christian witness are are actually being drawn into wiccan, pagan and eastern philosophies. Home ed camps often have these spiritual elements as part of them, and already we are seeing relatively new home educators and their children being drawn in.
But it also means that home educators are often open to the gospel.
The biggest joy of 2021 was a home educating family in our town starting to engage with Christianity. And because home educators have a come-one-come-all mentality to their family life – evangelism is a whole-family-affair. So in contrast to other mums I’ve reached out to in the past at play groups, this time it’s mum, dad and the three kids all engaging in Christianity. I’ll be honest, I doubted that they would be interested in Christianity when I first met them (they are from a wiccan background) and yet they are currently engaged in our church life. Mum was baptised last year. Shame on me for forgetting the transforming power of the gospel!
Notice the difference here. Our children are largely observers of us parents doing the outreach – overhearing conversations, sharing our home with other families etc. Our children aren’t expected to be converted, well rehearsed in apologetics or gospel fluent in conversation with peers. Our children aren’t the primary missionaries, they are our apprentices.
Exposure
There can be concern that home educated children aren’t exposed to hard things or different worldviews.
Let’s be honest, families that send their child to school and home educating families are equally in danger of avoiding talking about hard things. Both can fail to train their child to understand different worldviews and can try to shelter them too much. But equally, both types of family can make apologetics and talking about issues and real, hard things, a part of their family culture. Let’s all aim for the latter.
However, the advantage of home education is that you can be the doorkeeper to what comes into your home and line of sight of your children. You can have the upper hand when it comes to what they are exposed to and critically, when. Don’t underestimate the secular agenda which is pervasive in schools from the early years – if you send your children to school they are being exposed to an aggressive worldview at odds with your own. You must have a game plan for how to undo the work that the school does in worldview training. Mamabear Apologetics is an excellent place to start.
Inferior education
It is often believed that an education at home is inferior. In the home setting, there aren’t numerous experts in their subject area with a teaching qualification, specially designed classrooms and a lot of free resources. But it’s comparing two completely separate experiences. It’s like comparing a meal made by a chef, who may have extensive training and an industrial sized kitchen designed to feed a restaurant full of customers; to granny’s delicious home made roast dinner with all the trimmings. She knows just how you like it and adds a spoonful of love to the the mash (a very corny illustration, but hopefully it shows the point). The point is granny’s dinner is delicious, meaningful and personal. It doesn’t compare, but it doesn’t have to – it is an entirely different experience.
Home education is like granny’s dinner. It is personalised, relies heavily on close relationships and is an absolute delight. And just because it includes English lessons on the sofa, P.E in the garden and times tables memorisation while counting and eating cheerios, doesn’t mean that it’s less effective or robust.
Many Christians are drawn to a Charlotte Mason philosophy of home education – a philosophy based on a biblical understanding of personhood and education, which encourages children to study a wide breadth of subjects. Shakespeare, nature study, classical music and artist study are all components that are encouraged in this educational philosophy. I’ve started teaching our young children these subject areas, without being taught myself (having been through the school system). By learning alongside my children, I am being reeducated, and they are getting to feast on the best and most beautiful ideas throughout time. In my opinion they are not getting an inferior education, they are getting a fantastic one.
The question is not, — how much does the youth know when he has finished his education — but how much does he care? And about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? And, therefore, how full is the life he has before him?”
― Charlotte Mason,
Closing thoughts
So there you have it. Four reasons why Christians should consider home educating their children.
We’ve pondered whether to write about home education for a long time. In fact, this post has been in the drafts section for over a year! This is is a blog about being a gospel-centred parent, not a how-to blog. And we are not suggesting that you have to home educate to be a gospel-centred parent, certainly not! And equally, you can home educate and be a raging legalist!
The gospel says that our external behaviour can do nothing to make our standing before God secure, only the righteousness of Jesus, who shed his blood on the cross for us can do that. Being a gospel centred family then, is to be a family who loves the gospel and tries to keep it central in family life. Wonderfully, that can and should look different in different families as they live that out according to their own circumstances, opportunities and giftings. That will encompass different education choices for different families.
But the more we adventure into our own home education journey as a family and the more aggressive the secular worldview becomes in society (it is far more aggressive than it was when we started this blog 8 years ago), the more we felt we ought to say that home education can be a great option for Christian families. It can be a positive choice for discipling our children, for reaching out with the gospel, for providing a rich and varied education and for fostering positive social skills.
If you are interested in learning more about Christian home education then here are some helpful resources:
Educating the Wholehearted Child
A Charlotte Mason Education – Podcast with Jennifer Pepito
Pod of the Gaps Podcast – Should you be homeschooling your kids?