When we first decided to homeschool, Hero was tiny. Religion wasn't one of the reasons; we were more concerned about things like protecting our son from the bullying. We both also spent quite a lot of wasted time, bored in school but unable to do much about it. It would be years before religion rose very high up my list of reasons why we homeschool, and a couple more after that before the integration of religion into education would reach the top of the list and become the number one thing I love about homeschooling.
Religion matters. And it matters in education. I believe this is especially true for LDS children: they have more light available to them, so the powers of darkness will be working overtime to neutralize them.
As I suspect that anyone reading this blog is already aware, parents have a solemn duty to teach our children the Gospel. We are commanded to bring up our children "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Eph. 6:4)." We understand that, should we fail in our duty to teach, their sins may very well be on our heads; their suffering would be our responsibility (D&C 68:25). But, I wonder how many of us consider these commands when we are deciding how to educate our children? When I dreamed of becoming a mother, I planned to teach my children, but it never occurred to me to educate them! When we made our decision to homeschool, it was not with these things in mind. We knew we felt lead by the Spirit down this strange, new path, but I wasn't thinking about the Gospel, I was thinking about academics, about education. And one of the subtle lessons taught in the public schools is that education is entirely separate from faith. It was a lesson I absorbed very well. It was years after the decision to homeschool before I started to get the tiniest glimpse of what a difference the decision to homeschool was going to make in terms of gospel teaching.
By law, public education and religion are separate. For our own protection -- after all, we don't want someone else's religion being taught to our children. For this protection for strange teachings, we have given up much. Not only have we given up teacher-lead prayer, we have created a taboo, if not yet a law, banning all prayer. We generally no longer study the Bible in schools as literature, much less as the Word of God. He is no longer welcome in our textbooks; the barest mention will get a whole book banned - particularly a science book. It is no longer uncommon to read news articles about students being forbidden to bring their Bibles to school, or in trouble for wearing tshirts with verses printed on them. Regardless of the fact that the Constitution guarantees our God-given right to a free exercise of religion for us and for our children, the courts rulings have repeatedly confused freedom of religion with freedom from religion. The result is that the education in our public schools is godless. It matters little what the beliefs of the teacher are; in her classroom, she is silenced, and the teaching is, by law, atheistic.
What has happened to our schools? ... What has become of the teaching of values? We are told that educators must be neutral in these matters. Neutrality in the teaching of values can only lead to an absence of values.
President Gordon B. HinckleyThe absence of Christian values in our children's education is of grave concern. Then too, we must look at the teachers. Many of the teachers are wonderful people, and this is not an attack on teachers or the teaching profession. However, the scriptures tell us about the qualifications of teachers, and we must examine teachers in the light of scriptural standards:
Speech given at the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Salt Lake City, Utah, September 25, 1998
And also trust no one to be your teacher nor your minister, except he be a man of God, walking in his ways and keeping his commandments (Mosiah 23:14).
And this one is a personal favorite that I've long applied to teaching at church, but more recently realized that the verse offers no such limitation in its scope:
Again I say, hearken ye elders of my church, whom I have appointed: Ye are not sent forth to be taught, but to teach ... And ye are to be taught from on high. Sanctify yourselves and ye shall be endowed with power, that ye may give even as I have spoken (D&C 43:15-16).
In case those leave room for doubt, the Brethren have elaborated.
And the Spirit shall be given unto you by the prayer of faith; and if ye receive not the Spirit ye shall not teach.
(D&C 42:14)
There are tons of wonderful men and women teaching in our schools. But they are not permitted to teach fully, least they "contaminate" the teaching with belief in God and offend someone. The teaching these good people give in the public schools, in many cases, bears little resemblance to the teaching they would offer, were they free to express their real thoughts and beliefs. They many not do it; they will loose their jobs if they teach from a perspective of faith. Even if one of our child's teacher's happens to be LDS, in the public schools it makes little difference, because they cannot teach in a distinctly LDS way; it's forbidden. Yes, they do the best they can, but is it good enough to fulfill the mandate for the instruction of the LDS children?
“And then we want to study also the principles of education, and to get the very best teachers we can to teach our children; see that they are men and women who fear God and keep his commandments. We do not want men or women to teach the children of the Latter-day Saints who are not Latter-day Saints themselves. Hear it, you Elders of Israel?”
-John Taylor
(Journal of Discourses 20:179,General Conference April 1879)
A glance over the conditions of mankind in this our day with its misery, discontent, and corruption, and disintegration of the social, religious, and philosophic fabrics, shows that this generation has been put into the balance and has been found wanting. A following, therefore, in the old grooves, would simply lead to the same results, and that is what the Lord has designed shall be avoided in Zion. President Brigham Young felt it in his heart that an educational system ought to be inaugurated in Zion in which, as he put it in his terse way of saying things, neither the alphabet nor the multiplication table should be taught without the Spirit of God.
-Karl G. Maeser, quoted in Educating Zion, p2, emphasis added
This standard cannot possibly be met in the public schools, not with the restrictions that teachers presently labor under. In the early days of the church, the Brethren worked hard to persuade the Saints to create a system of parochial schools for Mormon children (that effort was the forerunner of the current Church Education System), but the Saints were not responsive to the call of the prophet, and we do not have the advantage of parochial schools at this time. Many of us do, however, have the option of homeschooling. Though it is not always an easy choice, it is do-able, and the Lord will be there to assist, every step of the way.
When reading the scriptures about teaching, I'd always thought of the teaching they were talking about was gospel teaching. But what is gospel teaching? What topics ought we to be learning and teaching to our children. Obviously, we have to teach about Christ, with all that entails. But is that all?
How will our children come to revere and cherish truth, if they are educated in an environment that, at best, disregards the most precious of Truth, and at worst denigrates and mocks it? And, as parents, can we feel confident that we will be able to detect and correct all the wrong teaching? What about most of it? How do we even know? When my kids come back from Sharing Time, I can seldom get them to effectively tell me what they did, even if the primary teachers have already told me and I ask leading questions. In an environment where schools are increasingly unwilling to let parents look at textbooks or have a meaningful role in the classroom, how would we even know?
Knowledge of truth, combined with proper regard for it, and its faithful observance, constitutes true education. The mere stuffing of the mind with a knowledge of facts is not education. The mind must not only possess a knowledge of truth, but the soul must revere it, cherish it, love it as a priceless gem.
-Joseph F. Smith
Here's another thought:
"It is spiritually unsafe to attend public schools." President Packer said that in 1996. Since then, things have hardly gotten any better. Contrast that with the sort of education we ought to be securing for our children:
“In many places it is literally not safe physically for youngsters to go to school. And in many schools – and it’s becoming almost generally true – it is spiritually unsafe to attend public schools. Look back over the history of education to the turn of the century and the beginning of the educational philosophies, pragmatism and humanism were the early ones, and they branched out into a number of other philosophies which have led us now into a circumstance where our schools are producing the problems that we face.”
-Boyd K. Packer (emphasis added)(full speech)
Since finding this quote, I have given a great deal of thought about what it means for the scriptures to be a "chief text book" in our education. Here are some of the ideas that I have come up with for carrying out that mandate: When we study history, we integrate sacred history into secular history. We often use scripture to practice penmanship. Our grammar program draws heavily on the Bible for examples for the kids to work with as they learn the conventions of the English language. One of the ladies on Facebook mentioned that she's using scripture to generate spelling lists. What an advantage it would be for the missionary who read the scriptures in what would become his mission language while he studied in school! As I've thought about it, I've realized that, while we have many books that come and go in our kids' education, scripture is and will remain a constant.
"Our children should be indoctrinated in the principles of the Gospel from their earliest childhood. They should be made familiar with the contents of the Bible, the Book of Mormon and the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. These should be their chief text books, and everything should be done to establish and promote in their hearts genuine faith in God, in His Gospel and its ordinances, and in His works."
-Wilford Woodruff (source)
And I give unto you a commandment that you shall teach one another the doctrine of the kingdom. Teach ye diligently and my grace shall attend you, that you may be instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God, that are expedient for you to understand;
Of things both in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth; things which have been, things which are, things which must shortly come to pass; things which are at home, things which are abroad; the wars and the perplexities of the nations, and the judgments which are on the land; and a knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms—That ye may be prepared in all things when I shall send you again to magnify the calling whereunto I have called you, and the mission with which I have commissioned you.
Things in heaven and earth; that's life sciences and earth sciences, as well as astronomy. Things which have been; that's history. Which are; that's current events. Things which are at home and abroad; that's social studies and citizenship, and more current events. Probably geography. The wars and perplexities of nations, and knowledge about countries and kingdoms. That's civics and citizenship, geography, and history, again. Languages and cultures. Literature. Those aren't "gospel teaching," not as you usually think of it, anyway. That's education - the school kind of education. But the Lord charges parents with teaching, and this is one of the lists He wants taught. And He wants them taught with the Spirit so that we, and our children, will be prepared to fulfill our missions, to do our life's work. I do not think that this teaching can reach its full potential in an environment that is lacking any reference to Creation's God.
The question of how to educate our children is a most serious matter, and should be given the most careful, prayerful consideration. It is my experience that these particular teachings of the prophets are not well known. Certainly I did not know about them when we made our decision to homeschool! Now that I do know about them, I think that I do my friends a disservice if I keep the knowledge to myself. I want to be clear that I am only trying to share what I have learned, so that we can all grow together. I consider what you do with this information to be, really, none of my business, and when someone asks for my input, I encourage them to pray over the question and get a testimony of what they chose. I am happy to share what works for us in our homeschooling journey; that's one of the primary purposes of this blog, actually. May the Spirit of the Lord guide you in deciding what is right for your family.
“I am opposed to free education as much as I am opposed to taking away property from one man and giving it to another… Would I encourage free schools by taxation? No!”
-Brigham Young
(Journal of Discourses, vol. 18 p. 357, General Conference 1877)
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