Giving Power to Fools?

…continued from the article When You Rise Up

In 2005, there was a court case involving parents who objected to a psychological survey containing invasive sexual questions, given to elementary aged children in the public school without properly informing the parents. The ninth Circuit Court of Appeals made this ruling:

?Although parents are legitimately concerned with the subject of sexuality, there is no constitutional reason to distinguish that concern from any of the countless moral, religious, or philosophical concerns that parents might have to other decisions of the school district — whether these objections concern information about guns, violence, the military, gay marriage, racial equality, slavery, the dissection of animals or the teaching of scientifically-validated theories of the origin of life. Schools cannot be expected to accommodate the personal, moral or religious concerns of every parent. Such an obligation would not only contravene the educational mission of the public schools, but would also be impossible to satisfy.”

The court went on to make it entirely explicit that once children are left at the public school?s front door, all parental control over the child?s education ceases.

“In sum, we affirm that the Meyer-Pierce right does not extend beyond the threshold of the school door. The parents? asserted right ‘to control the upbringing of their children by introducing them to matters of and relating to sex in accordance with their personal and religious values and beliefs’, by which they mean the right to limit what public school or other state actors may tell their children regarding sexual matters, is not encompassed within the Meyer-Pierce right to control their children?s upbringing and education.?

– HSLDA Court Report cover story, July/Aug. 2006.

Who is called by God to educate your children? ?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…?

Mr.Sproul mentioned that when we tell our child to do a job, he/she might suggest that we ask a sibling instead. But we say, ?No, I told you to do this.? Our heavenly Father has told us to educate our children, not the public, private or Christian schools.

How does God define the proper means of education? ?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 .? Deut. 6:4-7
The means shown in this verse? Talking. Just being diligent in talking to your children while you go about your daily tasks teaches them so much about life and living-out our profession of faith, and how to apply the things they have learned in their studies. Good character is ?caught? rather than taught.

This is part 2, of the article, When You Rise Up.

To continue reading part 3, click The Content of God’s Education – The Three G’s …

This article, written by Sandy Laba, was originally published in the newsletter Moms to Moms, Home Schooling from a Distinctly Christian Perspective, September, 2006, Vol. 12, Issue 2 – Reprinted by permission.

— The book being reviewed is: When You Rise Up: A Covenantal Approach to Homeschooling by R.C. Sproul, Jr.