By Contributing Writer, Jennifer Ross
Do you send your children to school, or do you home school? Perhaps you home educate instead? And if you do home educate, is it a Biblical education? What’s the big deal? What’s the difference? Plenty!
Schooling vs. Education
I need to confess; I’m a word junkie. So naturally when comparing definitions, I click over to www.dictionary.com to see the actual differences. Not surprisingly, the differences between schooling and education are vast:
Schooling: the process of being taught in a school.
Education: the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing… others intellectually for mature life.
“Preparing others intellectually for mature life.” Did you catch that? That is what “education” does. “School” does not. Interestingly enough I did a Google search to identify the goals of just a few schools. This was a completely random search, and to say it was eye-opening would be an understatement.
The Anti-Biblical Goals of Schools Across the Country:
- Cultivate loyalty to the school
- To educate each child in the academics of secular knowledge (emphasis mine)
- To become productive citizens in a global community
- To cultivate a continuously… student-centered learning experience in order to prepare innovative learners who realize their maximum potential in a global society
Loyalty to the school? That should raise red flags. Educate in the academics of “secular” knowledge? Off the top of your head, can you define “secular” accurately?
“Of or pertaining to worldly things or to things that are not regarded as religious, spiritual, or sacred; temporal.“
The “educators” at that school want to teach our kids temporal, worldly things. It’s one of their main goals. That should cause us to run and not look back! And then there’s the goal of wanting to produce citizens in a global community. That was a common goal, over and over again, “global community” popped up in most schools’ mission statements.
By their own admission, schools are not seeking to provide an education. Remember, education is “the process of … developing the powers of reasoning and judgment…” Reasoning is: “the process of forming conclusions …from facts…” Can everyone say, EVOLUTION? Like it or not, schools don’t always teach facts. Because of that, they aren’t developing powers of reason, and therefore are incapable of providing a true education.
A Biblical Education
Biblical: in accordance with the Bible.
If our children are not receiving an education that is in accordance with the Bible, they are not receiving a Biblical education. If our children are not being taught actual facts, they are not receiving a Biblical education. If our children are learning anything that is in contrast with God’s Word (evolution, secular sex education, gay rights, girls need a career, boys must suppress God-given masculinity, dis-loyalty to parents, etc…) they are not receiving a Biblical education, and we will one day give an account to our LORD of why we permitted such potential apostasy in the lives of our children.
“And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” Deuteronomy 6:6-7
About Jennifer Ross
Can you explain more your issue with, o become productive citizens in a global community? As people who are called to go into all parts of the world teaching and preaching and since being productive citizens is how most of our husbands provide houses and food for us I’m not sure I understand why this is bad? maybe we are reading this differently or I am missing something. I’m not trying to be argumentative I truly don’t understand.
Hi Dawn!
It’s not the “productive citizens” I take issue with. It’s the “global community” bit. When the schools advertise that they are training your children for a global community or society, they aren’t speaking in a missions oriented Biblical way. They are speaking of one world government, etc.
The mission of most public schools is to do to your children what Hitler did not so very long ago. To make them government dependant and loyal to the state. Not to God. I apologize for it being misleading at first!
Blessings!!
Great job with this article. I really enjoyed how you researched to see what education and school actually mean. We develop a preconceived notion of what things mean, without really knowing. I agree that public school teaching is unbiblical. I also think home educating is so much more important than home schooling. What a different focus!
wonderful post, thank you!!
Love all the definitions, Jennifer. Great post
Focus (on the right things!) is so important Trina! Blessings to you!!
Whenever I think of the word school, I think of a bunch of fish all looking alike going in the same direction. Not what we want for our children! And yes, educating sounds so much better. We like to say we unschool.