Our Churches and our Schools

[Gail]

Dr. Raymond Moore used to remind us that Jesus was homeschooled until the age of 12, when he went to the temple in Jerusalem.

He found out that he knew more than the teachers, so he went back home

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[Gail]

My daughter was asked over the Christmas holidays how she liked her homeschooling experience

Her response was that for math Mom used to send her out to do the shopping, giving her the list and the money and asking her to make judgements to the value and quality of the items. Rikki found that she gained much practical experience from real life

It's funny, but I thought she might have mentioned something positive or negative about socialisation, but it was practical skills that seemed to stand out in this conversation

I always listen with interest when the topic comes up, for you never know what your kid is going to say

[Gail]

The other interesting development for my daughter, now that she is in college, is that her friends with residences off campus ask her to come over and cook for them, especially if someone is throwing a party or having a birthday. They give her money and she does the rest. She will whip up sushi for everyone or pasta or this last Canadian Thanksgiving it was a turkey dinner with stuffing and all the trimmings. I was amazed...

Concerning the stuffing, which she made from scratch and not a package, I asked her how she knew how to do it. She said that she just remembered from doing it with me when I used to prepare it. I had no idea she what she was retaining

It's a benefit for her now, as I know that she is eating well and not living always off cafeteria food

[Gail]

I cannot stress enough how much including work experience into our curriculum helped my kids become independent. That is why I offered that idea as a solution to debt-ridden academies. It is a win-win situation

Because of being observed at work (with real jobs) while they were younger, my children were offered other, better jobs. The job my son currently has in Africa was offered to him through word of mouth

My daughter, through a recommendation, was offered a job over the holidays working in the Admittance office at the school. Apparently it is the highest paid job for students that they have.

My reason for mentioning this is that practical arts are SO important for real life. Employers are interested in self-motivated, self-disciplined, knowledgeable youth.

Teaching kids how to live, I feel, is the job of the parents. Not many school environments can offer such training and it may be reasonable not to expect them to.

[Taylor]

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Planey said:

As a teacher I would like to thnk you all for your vote of confidence. It is reassuring to realise that the large number of years I spent studying to become an educator was just time wasted.

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Perhaps it shows how misguided the Israelites were when they instituted the schools of the prophets. Surely inspiration should have revealed to them how much more efficacious it would be to homeschool instead.

Graeme

PS

And how humiliated and chagrined Bravus must feel - after all, he trains even more teachers!

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There is definate room for SDA schools. Many SDA schools are doing a wonderful job and are, in general, a much better option than public schools. I personally know of many a young person whose life has been changed by a godly teacher, or classmates that they could pray with etc. There will always be the good and the "not so good" no matter where you look and that includes the people who attend the schools. However, there is a lot that can be said for teachers and the wonderful influence they have in people's lives, not just in SDA schools but also godly teachers in public schools.

I would like to sit in classes taught by Bravus!

[Nicodema]

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Neil D said:

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It is not expensive to do outreach. In fact, anyone can do it in their spare time--just go to your neighbors and reach!

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True...Just getting to know your neighbors would be a start.

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Yeah, right. I'd rather take the easy route and ship out to some mission overseas.

[Dr. Shane]

I have shared Christ with both of my neighbors. I have even given them tracts and Christian music CDs.

[Dr. Shane]

I go over seas too. Well we go to Mexico, I guess that is just over a river

[Neil D]

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When I first addressed the issue of homeschooling, Neil came down pretty hard on the concept. Just as it is wrong to say that homeschooling is "usually" bad, it is wrong to say that a typical classroom setting is "usually" bad.

Each and every case is different.

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Hmmmmm....I didnt' think I came 'down hard on homeschooing"...I think some assumptions were made that were not intended.

First off, we homeschooled our children for the first 2 years of thier educational experience. We did this because children of 6 years of age are a bit too impressionable, and pick up some habbits that are not conducive to thier behavior. IMHO, homeschooling is for establishing character habits/development of character, not education, persae as edcucation is a relative easy transaction compared to moral development. And that is the reason for SDA schools, IMHO also. Development of character all the while of passing on information for other skills. IOWs, our schools should be developing kind, clever, curtious human beings....not competitive monsters.

What I did mention was that 'our experience' with homeschoolers, is that mostparents of who my wife sees usually do not come up to the level that is seen as acceptable in the SDA Sschool system. Usually, this means that the parents, while attempting to follow what they percieve is EGW advice, do not have the know how to achieve the goals that are currently miminum accepted standards. Currently, 4th graders in my wifes school are doing Algebra math problems, something that I didnt get taught until 7th grade something that didn't take me long to catch onto. Teaching techniques and goals have changed since I was a child. And yet, some of our SDA people are still attempting to teach thier children with 1800/1900 techniques that cause thier children to fall behind or by causing their children to just read from cirriculum books at home.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with one on one teaching. It is the prefered way to teach, however, ecomomically, it is not practical. Parents who are willing to teach thier children are the best teachers. But some children become bored with thier parents and know how to work thier parents to avoid the work that they need to get done. That is where a teacher outside the home comes in. Children have little ability to manipulate people outside the home. Kids are clever little creature in that way....

I come down hard on any teacher who is not 'up to specs' in our SDA school system. An 'average' teacher doesn't cut it for me. Most of the teachers in my wife's school are nothing short of excellent teachers. I think the same is true of many SDA schools on the West coast. I dont know about else where as I have not lived elsewhere other than the Western states. I have heard of some eastern SDA schools where former colleges of my wifes went east and came back. They had some major problems with the cirriculum and policies....And that is the reason why they came back to the west...as they wanted to keep up thier skills. How true this is, I don't know.

But as for coming down hard on homeschoolers...I don't think I did so...perhaps the communication medium is adding things where none is needed. ?

[cricket]

Neil,

Ok. I re-read your initial post. I can agree that you didn't necessarily come down hard on homeschoolers. But, there was no praise for them in the intitial post. The comments were made that "most" of the homeschooling parents were ill-prepared for homeschooling their children up to par of the SDA schools.

I misread this as coming down hard on homeschoolers because it has been my experience that homeschoolers have taught their children above par of the SDA system.

My humblest apologies.

QB

[Neil D]

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But, there was no praise for them in the intitial post. The comments were made that "most" of the homeschooling parents were ill-prepared for homeschooling their children up to par of the SDA schools.

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Yeah, and the comment was made under "some observations"...IOWs , "our experience has been....." The statement was never to be the "gold standard"...more annadoctal...Plus, while it has been a while, I have said that OUR children were homeschooled the first 2 years of thier education. And Dr. Moore has said that if the empiror of Japan's son is homeschooled, it should be good enough for us as well.

It's just that we are seeing more and more SDA parents ill equiped for the task, while they are being told what to do. Sda Teachers, who are worth thier weight in gold, will work with homeschool parents to help thier child maintain and be at the same comparable educational levels as thier peers.

So, I am in support of homeschooled children. And I am in support for our SDA teachers who do a darned good job at what they are doing [You are welcomed, Planey! ] I don't know what the answer it regarding those parents though....

[cricket]

Neil,

You have made it perfectly clear that you are an advocate of homeschooling.

My even humbler apologies.

QB

[Michelle]

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Stan Jensen said:

Too many of our Schools are grossly underfunded and yet at the same time are draining the local Church's budget so much that the Church can not do outreach..

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I assume that this is NOT Stan's opinion but the passing on of arguments . . .

I find this argument intensely frustrating. Not getting involved in the HS vs Church School argument (I'm a teacher who homeschools--so I have it both ways and have arguments on both sides of the issue)--but why is it the school's fault that the church can't do outreach? Isn't the school supposed to be an outreach of the church? Oops, I forgot, we're not supposed to let "outsiders" into our schools--we need to keep our children protected and ignorant (even though we ignore EGW to take this attitude, as she says our schools should be an arm of outreach and evangelism--shhhh! don't tell anyone!).

I have done most of my teaching at Adventist schools where the SDA population was at 35% or less. Every teacher on those staffs viewed this as an outreach mission every bit as important as sending missionaries overseas (well, I guess that's kind of funny, because both of these schools were "overseas" from the mainland US!). However, there have been constituents who have argued that the school was a place to protect "our" students, not a place to reach out to the community. It doesn't matter that these "outsiders" were becoming vegetarian (free will), visiting our church on Sabbaths, arguing with their parents about drinking alcohol (isn't that a switch--telling their parents that they really shouldn't be drinking--yes, these were high school kids!), and even becoming baptized (or, postponing baptism until after they left home so as not to offend their parents--very Asian, family-oriented, respectful of parents, etc).

*sigh* So since we are not utilizing our schools as outreach, now we are "taking too much money" from the church that the church should/could be using for outreach? Absolutely astounding logic!

M

[Michelle]

Hi Dgrimm--What I have found is that people who view non-SDAs as "outsiders" in regards to our schools usually don't view our schools as being mission-oriented. "Outreach" implies reaching out beyond the church. So, while it's reaching the children of the church, it's not truly an "outreach."

Also, I may have been unintentionally misleading--one of the schools I was teaching at WAS in the US, just not the mainland US (in HI, which many Americans forget is actually a state!). And even there we had the issues--one constituent church wanted us to be an outreach, mission-minded school--the other wanted us to be insular and protective. So we limped along without guidance, because the board was split and we never knew what was expected.

M

[Gail]

Talking about schools being a form of outreach...

The academy where my husband teaches has 300 students, many of which are from non-SDA families.

Many of our churches are not that large... I feel that our schools are kinda like churches, in that they should have a chaplain. Our school reaps a lot of baptisms. Many make a decision for baptism when still in childhood