Though she was uncomfortable keeping her kids in public school for this reason - among others - she was reticent to make the leap of bringing them home because she didn't want it to seem as though her family was rejecting their small community - of which the school is a large part - and because she felt strongly that her kids could be 'salt and light' to non-churched peers.
This mindset troubled me for several reasons.
1. You can't 're-educate' a child educated outside a parent's worldview. What children are taught when they're young tends to stay with them because they're impressionable. If a school's values aren't your values, they will be impressed upon your child whether you want them to or not and you may not even know about it if you're not involved in examining every piece of the school's curricula.
Oklahoma City Public Schools, for example, has a track record of supporting LGBTQ issues. Today, they support the practice of teaching racism despite a law preventing such and will foster BLM chapters in high schools - and some middle schools.
Kitty Werthmann, an Austrian Jew who was a young woman during Hitler's takeover, had this to say about public education after the Nazi's implemented the ideal of equal rights for women, allowing them to work outside the home:
Then we lost religious education for the children.
Our education was nationalized. I attended a very good public school. The population was predominantly Catholic, so we had religion in our schools. The day we elected Hitler (March 13, 1938), I walked into my schoolroom to find the crucifix replaced by Hitler’s picture hanging next to a Nazi flag. Our teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told the class we couldn’t pray or have religion anymore. Instead, we sang ‘Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles,’ and had physical education.
Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance. Parents were not pleased about the sudden change in curriculum. They were told that if they did not send us, they would receive a stiff letter of warning the first time. The second time they would be fined the equivalent of $300, and the third time they would be subject to jail.
And then things got worse.
The first two hours consisted of political indoctrination. The rest of the day we had sports. As time went along, we loved it. Oh, we had so much fun and got our sports equipment free.
We would go home and gleefully tell our parents about the wonderful time we had.
My mother was very unhappy,” she remembers. “When the next term started, she took me out of public school and put me in a convent. I told her she couldn’t do that and she told me that someday when I grew up, I would be grateful. There was a very good curriculum, but hardly any fun – no sports, and no political indoctrination.
I hated it at first but felt I could tolerate it. Every once in a while, on holidays, I went home. I would go back to my old friends and ask what was going on and what they were doing.
Their loose lifestyle was very alarming to me. They lived without religion. By that time, unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler.
It seemed strange to me that our society changed so suddenly. As time went along, I realized what a great deed my mother did so that I wasn’t exposed to that kind of humanistic philosophy.
If you're a parent and don't see the parallels between modern American public schooling and Kitty Werthmann's experience, you might take a minute to think on the notion that we have no Christian symbolism in the public school classroom but there is a flag to which kids pledge their allegiance during compulsory education which consists of little work on Fridays during football season and 16 and Pregnant has made movie stars out of high school girls who engaged in pre-marital/pre-adult sex.
You might also examine The Cardus Education Survey which essentially finds that public school students not exposed to Christianity in school practice very little Christianity compared to their private religious or home schooled peers. Then, there's the second 'most striking' finding from a 2019 Pew Research poll that "The decline of Christianity is continuing at a rapid pace in the US." Gosh, I wonder why that is happening {insert eyeroll}.
2. Christians tend to forget - or easily overlook - our hierarchical pyramid of God, family, others. Caring more about what others think about what we do - or how we educate our own children - shifts the focus from the top to the bottom. The tendency toward entropy in any system is why achievement bars should be set as high as possible - the slide - the energy - is always DOWN.
Christians should be a group set apart. We're told that's who we are. Why does it always seem so easy then to run with the crowd - to be influenced by others outside of that group? From the first centuries Christians have been persecuted; there's nothing in our faith that says the journey is - or will be - easy. Sometimes we'll be made to feel like the odd man out, but that's not only okay, it should be expected. Once we become engrained in that idea, it's easier to ignore naysayers.
3. Kids can't be salt and light to other kids when they're just kids with kid-sized worldviews.
3. Kids can't be salt and light to other kids when they're just kids with kid-sized worldviews.
I can't number the times when my kids were enrolled in public elementary that my daughter would come home mad because I complained to her teacher about indoctrination in her classroom.
"But MOOOOOOOM! You're the ONLY parent who ever gets upset at this kind of thing! You're embarrassing me!" she'd scream and stamp her foot at me.
Peer pressure is huge on college campuses for Christians today. If young adults can't hang on to their faith in the face of campus bullies, how in the world are younger kids? The answer is, they're most likely not. Again, look at the statistics.
4. For decades, Marxists/Communists have tried very hard to drive a wedge between parents and children and ruin the family structure. This article explains the history of how this happened in public schools and how this wedge is perpetuated. Please take the time to scan it and really understand and KNOW that what is happening today in public education was DESIGNED to happen, we're just going along with the Marxist/Communist agenda by leaving our kids - unhindered - in public (state) schools.
5. I fell into homeschooling because my oldest son begged me to homeschool him after being bullied by classmates and his teacher in 3rd grade. Fortunately, I had a friend who was a tutor in the Classical Conversations homeschool program at the time and she helped me get me started in what became a way of life for me the following year when I pulled the other two kids out.
At first it was a juggling act to be sure, but within weeks, I was astonished to learn how much I HATED BEING AWAY FROM MY KIDS. In fact, I TRULY LOVED having my kids 'under my feet' all day.
Knowing that no matter how busy I was researching, writing or doing home chores during the day, my kids were close by was a priceless thought to me. Even if we didn't talk, or see each other for hours because they were in their rooms, it was truly just a comfort knowing where they were and what they were doing.
No, our days weren't always rainbows and sunshine, but I wouldn't have changed a thing. I still consider it a great privilege to have had the opportunity to teach and rear up my children in my home under the watchful eye of my husband and I.
Today, I have only one high school junior left under my care. I miss the days of the full, busy house and the lessons we all learned together, but there is joy in knowing I FULLY performed the task of parenthood to the best of my ability and that today, my kids are all fully functioning, educated members of society that still remain indoctrinated in their faith.
If you have an uneasy feeling after reading this blog and would like to research homeschooling, start here. It will be the best adventure you'll ever have.
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