In light of the new report just posted by the Arkansas Department of Education I thought, how should we feel?  Several schools are still not measuring up in Arkansas?    As homeschoolers, there are times when we feel that we are right and the world and wrong.  As public schoolers, we feel that we are right and they are wrong.  (Yes, I was a public schooler and so were 2 of my kids and I worked there for a total of 4 years).  So the question then becomes who is right?  

Well that debate will never end because examples can always be shown to sway opinion one way or the other.  I started off homeschooling thinking that everyone could do if they just would.  After nearly 11 years as a homeschooling mom I realize how naive and misguided I was at the beginning.  I won't make you sleepy giving you all the details except to say that my heart was and is still in the right place.  

Now, my reasons that I homeschool are just a varied as each of my kids.  I have learned this though; education is more than books.  It is parental involvement no matter what educational choice you make.  It is discipline and I am not just talking about corporal punishment.  I am talking about the ability to have a list of activities that must be completed preferably by 2 or 3pm every day.  It is passing along the desire to learn, even if you must do some self teaching.  It is the passing down the desire to do whatever it takes to keep a family together.  It is passing down the desire to do whatever it takes to keep a roof over your head and your families, while keeping the running water going.  It is the passing down of being frugal and using the resources you have to make do.  

"Formal" education was coined by institutes to raise the standards of employment and to be able to charge others to pass down a skill.  Initially, doctors learned from other doctors.  Engineers learned from others.  Those skills were passed down from a kind older person to the new young person because the realization that life was short was always there.  It was important to the older generation to make sure that the next generation could keep society going.  

Today's society lets you know quickly that nothing is for free and if you want to play, you have to pay.  All of those skills are not only great to have but so is education.  Doctor's still have to learn from other doctors in a hands on setting more than books.  Books give you the background and the foundations so you can have a better hands on experience.  They also help get you in the working world faster.  

So which is better you ask?  Home education, public school or private school?  Formal education, vocational education or life experience education?  Being a parent and making the most out of the hand that your family is dealt.  Embrace what you have.  Don't long for what you don't have.  Make goals, make short term goals towards the big goal and achieve them.  Number one, involve your kids.  Big families that pass down family businesses, trades or have a legacy of degrees, they share a lot of knowledge from parent to child.   Each child will have a great foundation to decide what his/her goals in life are and then will take steps to achieve them.  Then you are successful as a parent because you taught them how to question, think, study, plan, act and accomplish.  

Finally, if you are saved by the blood of the Lamb like I am, you know that your children are your inherintance.  Don't squander them.   The Lord commands and expects you to give them an inheritance to pass down too.  Teach them to love learning no matter what educational setting you choose for them.  Just teach them to love it.  Take them places on the weekend to see science in action, to see/experience the living history, to see the way people speak and act in different settings.  Combine book knowledge with life experiences and you can help them become productive, successful adults with their own families.   Are they going to make mistakes?  You bet but just show them the right way and move on.  Failure is often the best teacher.  Don't rescue them if blood won't be gushing.  Believe me, I know.  I have failed alot and no bleeding yet!!!   

Ouch many of you say.  Big topic right?  Well maybe not so big.  I am going to try to keep this brief for the sake of Monica and Kimberly (my friendly editors in their hearts...Teehee).   The question of church attendance keeps coming up for so many people and believe me so many people are disenchanted with church.  I have been disenchanted with church at times in my life.  I am human, not super human.  

A few years ago Vernon and I looked at this from a lot of angles.  The first question we had to consider was how to keep the youth in church as they age out into young adults; mostly because the season was fast approaching for our own children.  Churches are losing membership as a children graduate from high school in alarming numbers.  But why?  We truly believe it MAY be a result of some of the following...

• Teens are not stupid for sure.  
  
• Teens want the truth.  Not what you think but the truth shown to them in the scriptures.
• Teens don't want a red ribbon week lesson in Sunday School.  They get that it is wrong.  
• Teens want to know why they do things.
• Teens want to see that you live what you say at least some of the time. 
• Teens don't want more of the world.  They have that the other 6 days and 22 hours a week.  That want something else.  That don't want peer pressure and your expectations that are not God's expectations.  They can read. 
• Teens don't trust teachings on tithing especially when they are having to make a car payment and insurance and they only make $7.35.  So teach them about stewardship instead of tithing.  Besides, tithing is not a word in the Bible and they are going to question that and probably refuse it.  
• Teens want ways to defend their faith.  Proof.  Movies like... "THE SEARCH for the Real Mt. Sinai" will open their eyes and give them answers from watching the scriptures come alive.  Those men could literally show you the biblical outline for where the real Mt. Sinai was.  They weren't flowery, smiling constantly, using loads of "religious" words in their speech.  Those men were real men that lied to sneak into a country and risked their lives in an attempt to find the proof that the Bible says there is.  That will teach them how to prove the Biblical stories. 
• Teens want to know why to not believe in Evolution if you are going to teach against it.  Show them the book of Job and how God told Job to consider the Leviathan and the Behemoth.  Look at the descriptions God gave and show them even in the footnotes of the Behemoth, humans have inserted that it was an elephant but look at that description.  A tale like a cedar, a neck that drinks the river.. sounds like a long neck.  If the Bible is true, then man did walk with dinosaurs.  Introduce them to Ken Ham, former high school science teacher, Creationist and now jailed man.  Let them see the court records for themselves and see if there is persecution and if so, for what.  That will jolt them.   
• Teens want to know if the medicine of the Bible is for real.  Do some research, have them research.  Are seeds of fruit meat for our bones?  Really?  Have them eat different seeds from fruit and research what chemical compounds make them up.  Have them research how these particular compounds vs synthetic compounds of the same name interact in our body.  
• Teens want to know if it is true that without a good relationship with their father, their ways will become wayward.  They want to know how to stop the bad behavior, build a relationship with their own earthly father.  They need to know that even a good, no great relationship with their father still isn't a guarantee that they won't mess up.  The Brookland School District had a few teachers do a study of the involvement of dads in girls lives.  Why?  They were targeting a few girls that were always in trouble, fights, etc.  They asked the dads to just come eat lunch with their daughters of these selected girls once per week.  They didn't tell the girls what they were doing but after a short period of time, the girls stopped getting into so much trouble.  The Biblical standard was proven and the study was not even faith based.  Real life situations that prove God's Word, not just for instances or because the Sunday School lesson said so...  hmmmm...  Then the tough one... they want to know what relationship they can have if they don't have their father in their life and how to trust an invisible father and why they should.  
• Teens don't want to waste their time getting up for 2 hours on Sunday for a feel good lesson/sermon that doesn't really prove the Bible to be truth.  Meatless messages, lessons, they all just serve to let them know that they would feel good just sleeping in.  They know that God is good and what sin is.  They want to know how to serve outside the walls without being made to look like a freak in school.  They need to know that they don't always HAVE to stand out for the Light of Christ to shine.  They are still teens and they are persecuted enough so teach them how to get respect for their beliefs and the fact that there will those that will never respect that.  
• Home schools that have teens that don't have a church life, what about you?  Everyone thinks that everyone homeschools for religious reasons right.  The bar is set higher for your kids if you go to church and that isn't fair either.  How do get encouraged as a family?  People the reasons for home education are now as varied as fingerprints.  I know many of you out there have tried church.  I know many of you are foster parents that may have just gotten a heartbroken, maybe even angry child that just got removed from his/her home at 2 am and now you are so exhausted from consoling a child through the night that you just have no physical strength to go.  I know that many of you are viewed for the income that you have and looked upon for good tithes.  They want to promote you to positions that you don't want because you want to learn just like everyone else.  Money does not always equate with Biblical knowledge.  I know that many of you are barely keeping bread on the table and may even have to ration that out (been there, done that) but when you come to serve, you are turned away because you are new and you need time to grow but yet you have seen the Hand of God and He has held your hand.  You have the relationship with Christ that is sweet, serene and one that others only long to have but yet you are viewed as not worthy.  Some of you have disabled children such autism and church attendance means that you get up, fight to get everyone dressed and go to church only to have to sit with your child in the back to keep him/her quiet just so others are disturbed.  

These are all issues that come up over and over. 
 
Wait, did I say teens?  I think this applies to most everyone.  Am I a member of a perfect church that always gives in depth lessons and sermons?  Well no.  No one is.  We are all human.  So why am I pointing out the church?  Because parents, the church starts in your hearts.  You need to research all these things.  You need to prove these things to yourself.  You need to find a biblical based church and go every chance you can.  

If you attend one that you feel is not meeting the criteria you need, talk to your Pastor.  People will never know where you stand if you just stay home.  Home church is not what God had intended but neither is church without faithfulness.  

Finally, as Christians we are to encourage one another.  Don't judge others that don't attend church.  If you don't have a personal relationship with those that don't/can't/won't you probably don't know the reasons they don't.  Church is the place to get filled up with the Word so that you can survive the week in the world.  It is a place that you can fellowship and grow in the Word.  So Christians, pray for one another, pray for those that don't have faith and serve as Christ served you so that others might want to serve.  Don't beat them over the head.  It absolutely never works because who wants to join up with something that says if WE convict them and tell them to pay up for blessings, they will come.  Wrong.........  

It is your walk that shines the Light of Christ or turns others away.  People like the truth.  God will do the convicting.  

Wait, did I say you?   I meant.... I    

Where are you on this issue?  

Life comes with a lot of challenges, huh?  One of the challenges is how to deal with those challenges.  In my younger days, I would roll over and there really wouldn't be a challenge because whatever people said to me, about me or around me, I just accepted.  I had limited self respect and basically doormat was my usual state of being.  Then I decided to stop being a doormat.  I used the skills I had learned in college to not only debate to legally but to formally stand.  Instead of getting mad, I defended myself.  Initially, I did it without grace, integrity or poise.  Sometimes, I still do that on occasion.  I am not perfect, that is for sure.  Ask my sisters, they will tell you.  They know too many secrets on me but what they may not know is that I have secretly been very envious of them. When problems have come their way, they have stood up.  They have done that since we were kids.  I just learned that skill about 12 years ago.  Being a nerd, thick glasses and just not quite as glamorous as my sisters made me feel ill equipped to stand.  In the last 12 years, I have found myself in situations that have required me to either defend myself or have my reputation seriously compromised.  The comments were never founded in truth and frankly those people got very angry when I stood up but I did it.  My self respect is very different these days.  I now realize that as a believer in Christ, I am not only defending myself but a representative of the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.  I am not a pushover.  I do not always use poise and grace.  I do stand up....LOUDLY.  I guess I am making up for all the years that I didn't stand.  Life is too short to drag it out. 

So here once again in my life, comes another challenge.  Sometimes I still drastically fail to demonstrate grace and poise but integrity and to know the difference between right and wrong, I know.  So I am standing again this week.  I have already been viewed as non compliant for expressing my opinion and frankly expressing the policy with my opinion, which I favor.  So instead of writing a book, I wanted to ask you, how do you handle challenges?  And here is another question.... when did it become ok for men to speak boldly and even with anger but never acceptable for women?  Oh yeah, I asked it.... what are your thoughts on the subject?