Janie B. Cheaney: School choice

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, October 16th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next, WORLD commentator Janie B. Cheaney reflects on the education choices she made long ago for her family.

JANIE B CHEANEY: As a young mom, I thought of homeschooling as a good option for other people, but my aspirations led in another direction. I looked forward to the day when my youngest would be in school all day, so I could pursue my writing career. But a funny thing happened when the kids were gone from 8 to 3: I missed them. The house was too quiet, the writing hours unproductive, and the other hours hard to fill. Worst of all, when the kids came home they weren’t interested in spending time with me. After being cooped up in a classroom all day they couldn’t wait to rustle up some friends and create mayhem.

My journey began when I ordered a book after hearing about it on Dr. Dobson’s program…Home Grown Kids: A Practical Handbook for Teaching Your Kids at Home, by Dr. Raymond Moore. It was intended as a gift for a relative, but instead the message came home to me. While obsessively turning pages and highlighting paragraphs, I thought: “this is what we must do.” Since that day I’ve often told friends that homeschooling was the one thing I recall God specifically telling me to do—after, of course—“repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.”

At first, I was just going to do it for a few years, to give our children a better grounding in faith and basic skills.

Twelve years later our son received a hand printed diploma in the first graduation ceremony of our local homeschool group.

Homeschooling has become almost commonplace, as opposed to the days when we were encouraged to keep a low profile during school hours. These days, Christians tend to get more defensive about public schooling. On a Gospel Coalition podcast last year, Bible teacher Jen Wilken laid out her family’s reasons for putting six children (now grown) through public education. More recently, in Christianity Today, theology editor Stephani McDade cited those reasons and more for leaning toward the same decision for her preschool daughter.

Jen valued the diversity of backgrounds and beliefs her children were exposed to, and the lively discussions they brought back home. Stephani looked back on her own checkered school experience as a training ground where she learned to defend her faith. She writes, “Let [your children] wrestle with worldly counternarratives to God’s truth while they’re still under your care,” rather than sheltering them at home. Good points, though intentional homeschool families have found both of those experiences for their students in other ways.

“Sheltering” is too often the main reason parents choose to homeschool. But Fortress Family is no cure for what ails the sinful heart. Though, neither is carefully-monitored public or private education. Whatever educational choice Christian parents make, they should keep one difficult truth in mind. We parents who have overcome our mistakes the hard way (by repeatedly making them) can still underestimate the seductive power of sin on our children. Homeschooled kids are no less susceptible than others—I’ve known plenty who have walked away from the Lord, temporarily or permanently.

It's a privilege to have choices, and I’ve never regretted mine. But the main resource for parenting is the same it’s always been: fervent prayer…no matter what you feel God is encouraging you to do.

I’m Janie B. Cheaney.

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