Assumptions About Life

Adapted and reposted from a conversation two or three years back (David, remember this one?).

There is a line I love from one of our favorite movies-
"There's more ways of being lost than just being lost in the woods."

I think of that from time to time, often when somebody comes up to me to explain, for reasons I cannot discern, how they sent their kids to public school and they turned out okay, even great, and never lost their faith. They speak the truth, too, I do know many families who send their children to public school and the kids remain strong in their faith walk all through their school years.

But there's more than one way of being lost.

There are other errors picked up than those of doctrine. Lots of devoted parents rear children who go to public school and still come through it as faithful
Christians. However, they also will pick up some false assumptions along the way that may have nothing to do with salvational or even spiritual issues.

If you've ever read anything by John Taylor Gatto, or Mr. Llewellyn Davis' book "Why are So Many Christians Going Home To School?" you'll note that they focus on _other_ underlying assumptions that we generally pick up in public school. These assumptions come through in how school functions rather than in particular teaching.

I'm talking about things like how to study, how to learn, what we come out of school believing about ourselves, about who our friends are, about how the world works, about our expectations for what is normal, about peer relations, about free time, about the purpose of education, about knowledge, values, ideas, family, state, kirk, and home, about utilitarianism, politics, and more. People can and do go to public school and continue to be decent, upright folk. But there are assumptions imbibed in the very air, things more caught than taught, that I do not share and do not wish my children to pick up without questioning.

I also strongly disagree with the concept that there is such a thing as secular, i.e., neutral, education. We certainly don't have such a thing in this country- we only have Bible free public schools. Other spiritual teachings make their way into the schools freely.

Even a so-called values free education actually does educate children towards a certain idea about values. Spending 8 hours a day in a forum where God cannot be mentioned does communicate something about the importance of God. Sending children to a public school, paid for by tax dollars, does communicate something about the function of government, and it communicates what I believe is a false message.

I would not send my child to a public school for the same reasons that I would not go on welfare. These are things that I believe are not the proper function of government, and I wouldn't want my child to think I felt otherwise.

It takes a long time to unearth those assumptions we assumed, and it takes longer to actually think about them and replace the assumptions with carefully thought out reasoning. Ask yourself, sometime, what do you think about X, and why do you think so? Where did you learn this? How do you know? For X, insert almost anything.

What do you think about socialization? What is it, what does it look like, how does it happen? Why do you think so?
What do you think about the pyramids? What were they, how were they built, who built them, why did they build them? Why do you think so?
What do you think about learning? What is it? What does it look like? How do we learn something new? Why do we learn? Where do we go to learn? How do you tell when something has been learned? And why do you think so?
What do you think about government? What should it do, what should it not do? How should it do those things? Why? Where does it belong, where does it not belong? Who decides? How? Why? Why do you think so? Where did you learn this? How do you know?

And if this hasn't made you too mad to speak kindly, you might take a gander at Carmon had to say about public schools last week.

You know what else? Home Schools are not immune- we also communicate ideas and thoughts to our children without ever realizing the message we deliver.