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In this post, I want to discuss the educational philosophy of Saint George Academy (our family homeschool). It’s important for everyone to know why they do what they do. Many who have opted for other educational methods often wonder why people make the choice to educate at home. They see a variety of potential problems with homeschooling (some legitimate, some, eh, not so much), and even those considering homeschooling themselves worry about some of these potential problems.
So it’s worth answering the foundational question of why we do it. Later, we can talk about objections to homeschooling, and deal with those potential problems. But first we need to establish that home education is a legitimate choice; and in fact that it is much more.
People from a wide variety of religious (and “non-religious”) backgrounds homeschool their kids, so I need to establish here at the beginning that what follows is written from our family commitment to the historic Christian faith. We are what some would call “conservative” Christians, which means we believe in the truth of the doctrines and history of Christ and His Church. We believe the Bible as written, and take the historical sections (including accounts of the supernatural) as history, the poetical sections as poetry, and the whole Bible as the Word of God, without error and without anything that should worry or embarrass faithful Christians.
With that said, our philosophy of education—why we do what we do—begins in Deuteronomy 6:4-9:
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.
And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.
Here is the basis for all education: "thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up."
Moses here commands the people of God on this wise:
1. Education consists in teaching children to love (v. 5) and obey (v. 6-9) God.
2. Education is the responsibility of parents (v. 8).
3. Education is an all-day, every-day enterprise (v. 7).
Let’s unpack each of these briefly. First, there is wisdom here for those struggling to figure out the content of education: what shall we teach? In any subject, whether Bible, history, math, English, science, or whatever, we should be asking: “are we, through this subject, teaching our children to love and obey God?” This, by the way, is not an argument for neglecting any of these subjects: all of them can be taught in such a way that fulfills the requirements of the Scripture passage quoted above.
Second, it is parents who are called to this work. Not the State (which rules out public schools; more on that anon), and not even the Church, here (though there is more to say on that subject some other time). It is parents: “thy children.” It’s worth noting that only in home education are parents actually doing what this passage requires. There is of course the question of distribution of labor and delegation (such as in a Christian day school), which we will discuss in due time. But at the very least, applying this passage to the question of method, we can conclude that home education is, if not the only, then at least the best-suited, method for putting these principles into practice.
Third, according to this passage, education is not limited to normal “school hours.” It is always taking place. The unofficial motto of Saint George Academy is, Always Open. We should be speaking to our children, day and night, at home and away, of God, His Word, His Law, His Love, His Judgment, His Story. Our normal frame of mind should be watching and listening for opportunities to tell God’s story to our children, and to help them see where they fit in it.
Next, we turn to Ephesians 6:1-4:
Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.
Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise;
That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.
And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
Paul expands on Moses somewhat, teaching us that:
1. Fathers in particular are charged with the education of their children (v. 4).
2. The Education fathers are to provide encompasses all of life, all subjects, spheres, and disciplines (v. 4).
3. The Education fathers are to provide must be specifically Christian (v. 4), as seen by Paul’s phrase, “of the Lord.” Fathers are not just to provide an education, but an education "of the Lord;" that is, a Christian education.
The second point in the list above may seem puzzling to some readers. How do we know that Paul has in mind an education that “encompasses all of life, all subjects, spheres, and disciplines”? We know this by Paul’s use of the Greek word paideia, here rendered “nurture,” often translated “instruction” or “discipline” in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament). To the Greek mind, this expansive word would have included everything from formal academic instruction, to athletics, domestic life, politics, warfare, art, and indeed everything that touched on human life. Doug Wilson explains, in his essay, “The Paideia of God:
“So the word paideia goes far beyond the scope and sequence of what we call formal education. In the ancient world, the paideia was all-encompassing and involved nothing less than the enculturation of the future citizen. He was enculturated when he was instructed in the class-room, but the process was also occurring when he walked along the streets of his city to and from school. It included walking by the temple for the gods of his people. That too was part of the process. If we bring this down into the present in order to illustrate what it would mean to us, paideia would include the books on the bestseller lists, the major newspapers, the most popular sitcoms and networks, the songs on the top forty lists, the motion pictures seen by everyone, the architectural layout of most suburban homes, and, out at the periphery, the fact that all our garden hoses are green.”
So we have here a point-blank requirement to provide a specifically Christian education: the paideia “of the Lord.”
Implications of this passage:
1. Government/Public school education is thus ruled out for Bible believers, since public schools today are avowedly secular and agnostic, not Christian.
2. The education required by Paul cannot be provided by mere Sunday School participation, since the paideia must encompass all of life, including Monday through Friday formal schooling. It is also worth noting that Sunday School would not exist for nearly 1800 years after Paul penned these words.
3. Homeschooling is again seen as the best option for fulfilling these requirements, since delegation to a school makes it difficult (though perhaps not impossible) for fathers to provide the paideia of the Lord.
4. But this also means that fathers must be involved as directly as possible, even in a homeschool education. This of course is the major concern of this website. Many homeschool fathers think that because their wives are teaching the children at home, that they, the fathers, have faithfully discharged their Ephesians 6 duty. But this is not so. Fathers need to explore creative ways to be involved in the education of their children. We’ll be taking a very close look at this subject in the near future.
Third, our educational philosophy is founded on Matthew 22:36-38:
Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
This is the first and great commandment.
The aspect of the commandment that requires us to love God with all our mind presupposes the educational requirements of Deuteronomy 6 (which also, it is worth noting, begins by commanding us to love God). If we would love God with our minds, we must train our minds to think His thoughts after Him. This means thorough training in Holy Scripture, of course; but also, when taken together with Paul’s teaching in Ephesians 6, requires us to teach our children how to think Christianly about all of life.
Fourth, we turn back to the beginning, Genesis 1:28:
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
This is the dominion mandate, or cultural mandate, in which God gives man the task of exercising dominion over the earth. This clearly encompasses everything from technology to the arts, all of which are things man has learned to do by exercising dominion over the earth. And this mandate presupposes a rigorous education, for we cannot exercise dominion over the earth unless we have a great deal of knowledge about it.
These four passages yield the following foundational points in our philosophy of education:
1. Education is God-centered: we care much more about raising children who love and trust God than about raising intellectuals (though the two are not necessarily in opposition).
2. Parents, especially fathers, are God’s chosen teachers: the education of our children is our responsibility, and we cannot blame anyone else if it does not turn out the way it should.
3. We are required by God to provide a thoroughly Christian education for our children: Holy Scripture itself rules out the secular and agnostic government school option.
4. We are required by God to raise our children for participation in a Christian culture: they must be trained to think as Biblical Christians about every aspect of life; they must also be trained to take dominion in the world by hard work and superior knowledge and wisdom.
5. Education must be rigorous, for the work is great and demanding; yet also joyful, for God has promised to bless our work.
What about you? Whether you educate your kids at home, or in some sort of school setting, what ideas or principles drive what you do in the education of your children? Leave a comment, and continue the discussion.
