In case you are new to the series, you can start at
the series opening or
the first series post.
Although not everyone has the ability to homeschool (because of financial or other concerns), it is important for so many reasons and I will try to address as many of them as possible in this post; so it is rather long.
As emphasized by a declaration from the Second Vatican Council and by Blessed Pope John Paul II in two different writings, we as parents must keep in mind that we are not only the primary but also the principle educators of our children. This duty was not given by the Church but by God himself and as such this right is completely inalienable. (See
Familiaris Consortio, 40.) In Proverbs 1:8, the child is told “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and reject not your mother’s teaching.”
We must teach our children from the beginning about the world and about God. It is our duty and our right to be the principle teachers of our children, not to surrender our responsibility to someone else.
Whether we want the duty or not we are the primary teachers of religion. Our attitudes, actions, beliefs, and words will form the child in his or her view of religion. Catholic schools are not designed to be the only or even the primary teachers of religion, because the child will follow the parent, not the teacher. Therefore, homeschooling fulfills the duty for us as parents to educate our children, especially where religion is concerned.
Along with this, I must emphasize the principle of subsidiarity. Subsidiarity is a principle of Catholic social teaching which states that all institutions exist for the sake of the individual/family so that whatever the individual/family is able to do, society should not take over and what small societies can do, larger societies should not take over. Below are two excerpts from writings of Blessed John Paul II.
Familiaris Consortio, 45: “But society -- more specifically the state -- must recognize that ‘the family is a society in its own original right’ [111], and so society is under a grave obligation in its relations with the family to adhere to the principle of subsidiarity. The public authorities should take care not to take from families the functions that they can just as well perform on their own or in free associations; instead it must positively favor and encourage as far as possible responsible initiative by families.”
Letter to Families, 16: “Parents are the first and most important educators of their own children, and they also possess a fundamental competence in this area: they are educators because they are parents. They share their educational mission with other individuals or institutions, such as the Church and the State. But the mission of education must always be carried out in accordance with a proper application of the principle of subsidiarity. This implies the legitimacy and indeed the need of giving assistance to the parents, but finds its intrinsic and absolute limit in their prevailing right and their actual capabilities” [emphasis original].
Thus, when parents have the ability to teach their own children, it becomes important that they do. They have the ultimate responsibility as primary and principle educators of their children to teach them the ways of the world. As Chesterton says in
What’s Wrong with the World, “How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone?” Governments cannot usurp this responsibility from parents,
although many states try. Parents have an obligation and a right to decide what is important for their children to study and to teach it to them. The government’s role is to make sure children are being taught, but not to tell the parents what to teach.
We must also heed the warning from Chesterton in one of his
Illustrated London News articles when he says, “The purpose of Compulsory Education is to deprive the common people of their commonsense.” Looking back at
my old education post, we recall this quote from the HSDLA.
“Is it merely a coincidence that the two countries [Germany and Japan] whose educational system we have most admired gave rise to totalitarian states in the 20th century, bent on world domination? Looking into the dying embers of two world wars should remind us that the utopian impulse that lures men to entrust control of the individual—including compulsory attendance and state control of education—to the wisdom of the state, sets the stage for corrupt and domineering governments. And, as experience should have taught us, this can lead to horrible results. Although today’s proponents of compulsory attendance will argue that their purpose is benign, when the power to control education is concentrated in the hands of a few, it can easily be turned toward objectives which are not all benign.”
We must be careful sending our children away for nine months a year, twelve to fourteen years of their young, moldable lives, especially when there is plenty of evidence of schools keeping parents out of the loop. How many children are
graduating today, after twelve years of school, without the ability to perform simple math problems or to write articulately? As parents, it seems by giving up our responsibility to the government, we have ourselves allowed education to decline.
The purpose of compulsory education today is quite different than when it first came into law. In the 1800’s, its main purpose was to keep children out of the work force and teach them to become good citizens. Today, it seems to be solely about test scores—teachers teach to the tests as well as teaching test-taking skills. Many schools have gotten rid of recess time and some have even gotten rid of the playground. (Yes, it is true. I have read the news articles.) The authorities think more time sitting in a classroom will somehow make better students, but many of the boys are being drugged with ADHD medications in order to keep them still (more on that later). Meanwhile, many young homeschooling students are finished before lunch and have higher test scores!
Children (and adults) have a grave need to be kept away from temptation so as not to fall into sin. Both public and private schools (secular and Christian) are full of foul language, materialism, sexual information, tolerance and encouragement of sin, and false religions. All these things can cause children to succumb to sin and turn away from their family even with a Godly, religious upbringing. The large amount of time children spend in school, school activities, and transiting to and from (seven to eleven hours on school days, nine months a year) as well as the strong urge to fit in can easily allow children to be led down the wrong path. This article shares a similar perspective:
Parents: Beware the Danger of Peer Orientation.
We must always remember that even though we live in the world, we are not of the world. As Romans 12:2 says, “And be not conformed to this world: but be reformed in the newness of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and the acceptable and the perfect will of God.” Cultures, society, sometimes even laws must not keep us from living as true Catholics. The popular opinion, government mandates, and even “majority rule” do not imply goodness or Godliness. Let us look at James 1:27. “Religion clean and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their tribulation and to
keep one's self unspotted from this world [emphasis added].” It is clear that we must not live as if we are of this world and it follows that we must not allow our children to live as if they are of this world as well. Looking back at the previous paragraph, we can see that the influence of others can and most likely will greatly exceed our own as parents when the children are sent off to school.
Finally as mentioned above, the bible stresses the importance of parents passing on their faith. Blessed Pope John Paul II in his
Letter to Families says, “Certainly one area in which the family has an irreplaceable role is that of
religious education, which enables the family to grow as a ‘domestic church’” (16, emphasis original). We cannot send our children off to Catholic school and expect any faith teaching to stick if we are not practicing our faith and setting the example in the home. In the Second Vatican Counsel’s declaration
Gravissimum educationis, Pope Paul VI states, “Since parents have given children their life, they are bound by the most serious obligation to educate their offspring and therefore must be recognized as the primary and principal educators. This role in education is so important that only with difficulty can it be supplied where it is lacking” (3).
Public schools, especially, cannot teach religion to children when there are children from twenty different religions present in the classroom. Yet, Chesterton says in
What’s Wrong with the World, “It is quaint that people talk of separating dogma from education. Dogma is actually the only thing that cannot be separated from education. It is education. A teacher who is not dogmatic is simply a teacher who is not teaching.” Even when the schools are trying to avoid religion, they are still actually teaching it. They just choose, willingly or unconsciously, to teach atheism.
As you can see, there are so many immensely important reasons to homeschool our children. If you can make the sacrifice to teach your children, you should do so, for their benefit and the benefit of this country and the world. Where the family goes, society will follow.
For more information on homeschooling, please
read the resources listed here.
