Among our niche traditional Catholic parish, most children are homeschooled either independently or in a co-op. Some families send their children to a private school or a classical charter school. Very few children attend the public school. Education of children is something taken seriously in these circles. Where a child attends school is a topic which dominates the thoughts and conversations for parents as they navigate educating their children well.
Out of the families, many of the parents were sent to the public school. And, sadly, one or both have reasons from their own school experiences that they do not want to send their own children to public school. That, paired with the news of education as a place of experimentation for concepts such as critical race theory or sexual education without proper parental consent, and parents do not trust public schools.
The experimentation in school systems is why my parents pulled me from school nearly twenty-five years ago. The school gained consent from my parents to show a puppet show during the red ribbon week specials. What was not disclosed in the permission slip was a presentation on sexual abuse.
Teachers and schools have children for a good portion of the day and they influence the thoughts and behaviors of children. This hesitation of parents to allow a stranger to influence the mind and heart of their children is not misplaced. We should never simply trust someone. Children are vulnerable and need their parents to protect them from people and situations that could harm them.
We homeschool our children in order to keep them as innocent as possible for as long as possible. And, to help guide them once they become aware of the greater world around them. We hope to prepare them with the tools so that someday, when they are old enough, they can make moral decisions on their own.
Some people are surprised, then, that my husband is a public school teacher. The fact that we homeschool. The fact that we live a quiet, conservative life. The fact that I am a stay at home mother. All these things seem strange when paired with my husband teaching public school. Some ask how he can stand working for the liberals with their agendas. Something he says is that his bosses are not educators. They are administrators. And, most of them do not care what he teaches in his classes as long as benchmarks are being met. This is good for him, but not as great on a whole. Other teachers enjoy the same privilege and other teachers may not be as disciplined as my husband.
Today, I was reading The Liberal Arts Tradition by Kevin Wayne Clark and Ravi Scott Jain. I only just began reading this book, and in the first part I identified the problem with education today that many of our peers have trouble articulating. Modern education is impious. In the book, Clark and Jain define piety broadly to include the rightful orderliness of sentiment, love, and respect for God and man. They define this by means of examples from ancient practices. Piety encapsulated the love and respect for man and culture.
For the most part, the education system involves attempts at relevance for today's culture. It is not the attempt to provide the torch of tradition. There are some schools and some teachers who still teach history and culture in a way to pass on the torch, sure. But, much of the instruction in our schools today is aimed at being relevant, increasing test scores on a national and international level, and creating students able to enter the workforce. Education in the education is more about skill building than wonder. It is more about relevance than tradition. It is more about exposure than mastery.
