All in All... :Pros and Cons of Home Education, Part 1

Don't your wish there were a perfect educational system? Let's see, what would it be? Public schools? Homeschools? Private Christian schools? Maybe hybrid schools? Nope, nope, nope, and nope. Each one of these options comes with some kind of cost, and each offers its own advantages.

Over the years Tim and I have watched families use every one of these methods with good fruit. We've seen other families produce bad fruit from each of these schooling options. Why's that? Because parenting trumps schooling method. If your home is in order, you can successfully use various means to educate your children, but if not, things will be more troubled no matter how you delegate teaching jobs.

This is not to say the different methods are neutral and the pros and cons even out in the end. They don't. But each family, especially each father, must determine for his particular family how the factors will play out. Knowing the pluses and minuses of educational options can help us to make choices, and perhaps even more importantly, work to minimize the disadvantages associated with our schooling plan. Since I'm most intimately familiar with homeschooling, I'd like to write a series of short posts on the upside and the downside of homeschooling. Ideally, I'll post another in this series each week.

Please note – I'm not advocating homeschooling for every family. What is best for one family is not optimal for another. Our church has decided we will not divide over educational choice, to which I heartily concur!

I'll start off with the big guns, my number one pro and con.

Pro #1: Homeschooling provides extended time and opportunities for parents to disciple their children.

More than anything else, Tim and I long for our children to love the Lord with all their hearts, souls, minds and strength. Homeschooling allows us time to intimately know our children, their sins as well as their strengths, and to be there time and again to teach, train, and disciple them.

I first saw this in action when my oldest was a kindergartener. My normally laid-back, compliant son blew up over something during school. Initially I was frustrated, thinking this wouldn't have happened, or at least I wouldn't have known about it, if he were in school. But within seconds, I realized that because his bad attitude did happen under my eye, I had the privilege of helping him see his sin, deal with it, and move on.

Because we have a large family, the extended time we have together to disciple them is all the more valuable. Sometimes this happens formally such as when my daughters and I meet for our weekly "Girl Time," but even more often as we live, learn, and work together. The ordinary business of managing a home with many children is so consuming, that were they to attend school elsewhere, I am pretty sure we would not know them so well nor have the relationships we do. We love being able to teach our children to think biblically in whatever they are studying, whether it is as we discuss historical events or wrestle with literature together. From time to time Tim has been able to take each of our sons along with him to work, helping them grow to be men. We cannot imagine how we would find time to do this well if they were away the bulk of each day.


Con #1: Homeschooling requires endurance, commitment, and just plain hard work over a long period of time, often decades. 

One of our kids once said to Tim, "Dad, homeschooling isn't expensive, is it?"

To which he replied, "No. It just costs your mother's blood."

It's true. Teaching your children at home, while incredibly rewarding, is not the easiest path. Planning, researching curriculum and methods, and then overseeing the daily instruction, not to mention keeping up with the grading and record keeping, takes large amounts of time and energy. Sometimes it can feel overwhelming. Anyone who says otherwise is not giving you the straight story. But as in everything, the Lord will give grace and strength as each day requires. Oh yeah, that's why I named my blog "As thy Days."

Deut 33: 25b "...and as thy days, so shall thy strength be."


To be continued...