Homeschooling

[Áthas]

[WolfVanZandt]

[AllanS]

For my part, I'm glad all the sub-cultural groups mix together in schools. Do you really want every Moslem kid in the country being educated at home, and so on?

Intellectual and social inbreeding spawns monsters.

Rather than keep kids at home, get really involved in the schools. Do someone else's kids a favour, as well as your own.

[provis]

[WolfVanZandt]

I believe that people should be exposed to others traditions and cultures - to the point that they have enough understanding to rationally interact with them and, yes, I feel that there should be respect. I do not believe that everyone should merge into one indistinguishable cuture. I value diversity.

I wish that all Muslims were Christians, but that won't happen. Yet, if we are to minister to them, we need to have a basic understanding of their world.

I had a Christian brother explain to me today that he had evidence that they really are all murdering monsters and I didn't argue - no real prophet arguing with this particular person. But I've studied the Islamic people pretty closely and what he doesn't realize is that, although the Koran does say to go out and kill everybody that doesn't think the way they do - it also says to live and let live and if someone wants to have a different religion, that's okay. The Koran is an extremely self-contradictory document and where some Muslims latch on to the more vicious parts, some go for the very compassionate, altuistic parts and, in fact, they are not all out to kill anyone who doesn't accept their mindset. How do you witness to someone when you're so in error to who they are?

The Bible calls for variety - and, of course, there's Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety.

[ArdenZ]

[Shadowland Dweller]

[ArdenZ]

[Shadowland Dweller]

[Coyote Goodfellow]

I was not homeschooled, but I just finished working on a Guatemalan volunteer program with two people in their mid-twenties who (along with 5+ siblings in each case) were. The one had a father who was a Landmark Baptist preacher, the other a father who was an atheist Marxist. I was actually very impressed with both of them, both in terms of social skills, self-confidence, and intellectual capacity. They also seemed fairly tolerant.

I spent a lot more time with the guy whose father was landmark Baptist, and was impressed by the range of conversation topics we covered, everything from Tolkien, to comic books, to Marxism, to a book he was reading about whether the King James Version was divinely inspired. However, he seemed to have some sense of the potential dangers of insularity. He told me that he gave a speech to his local homeschooling group pointing out that History should include perspectives critical of Martin Luther, or other Protestant icons, so that when people get to college they aren't totally blindsided by the existence of people who see Luther as an antisemite, or question other aspects of their worldview. It doesn't seem very likely that he will leave the church, broadly defined, but he was talking about how he wanted to talk with his parents about questioning some of the tenets of his particular church...but I doubt that has much to do with homeschooling. His parents seemed an interesting combination. He said that his dad listened to the doors, but was worried when he found out he was reading people like Menno Simons, and similar 16th century Anabaptist Christians.

I also worked with a 15 year old last summer who was homeschooled, and was also impressed with his personality and work ethic. I have to admit I felt much better after I learned that he participated in a soccer team with a local High School.

I do have certain ideological doubts about homeschooling, but the actual products who I've seen have generally been quite impressive. As some one said above its the living witness which persuades more than the reasoning.

[ArdenZ]