Always Reforming

It's that time of year again!  The days are getting noticeably shorter,  first day pictures are cluttering up our social media timelines, and those ugly yellow buses are making us late for work again.  A new school year has begun!  It's an exciting time--it's a scary time--as students, parents, and teachers embark on new adventures and experience new first s. It's also the time of year when people begin to notice that some kids don't get on those yellow buses every morning.  Strangers wonder why your kids are at the park during normal school hours or why they look confused when asked, "What grade are you in?"  It's the time of year that homeschoolers start to stick out (well, even more than they usually do). My goal here today is not to tell other parents how to raise their children.  That's not my job, nor, I suspect, would anyone listen anyway.  My goal is to offer a reasoned explanation of why our family chooses to educate our children priv...

Education is important.  Education is vital.  Education is paramount. This has been the universal opinion of tyrants, religionists, economists, and zealots of all persuasions.  In fact, the importance of education is one of the few things upon which virtually all philosophies can agree.  The intentional and systematic training of our children is obviously a good thing.  What could be more important than the formation of the minds of our young?  What is more powerful than the opportunity to shape the worldview of those who will one day lead our nation?  What is more lasting, more enduring, than determining the content and perspective of the education of those who will one day bury you? You may be surprised to hear me say, then, that my favorite hashtag is #abolishgovernmentschools.  You see, too many people (most of whom attended government schools) believe that opposition to government involvement in an activity is equivalent to opposition to that...

Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old: Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, showing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he has done. For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments: And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God. (These are my notes, unedited, from a lesson this mornin...