Choosing Curriculum
For today's homeschooler, the curriculum options for every subject are overwhelming. There is so much out there. So many good things to choose from. How do you decide what to use? I believe it boils down to your ultimate goals for your children. What do you want more than anything for your children? To be academic scholars or perhaps devoted Christians? Ideally it’s both, but one will take precedence over the other in each family. When I first began homeschooling, I would have vehemently answered that it was the latter—to be devoted Christians. But if you looked at my curriculum choices, you would have believed that it was the former. Let's just say I could talk the talk, but I wasn't walking the walk.
Over time, the Lord impressed upon my heart some profound truths about His call for me to homeschool. First, that homeschooling was not my idea, nor my own personal choice for my family. It was His calling on my life as His own personal choice for my (His) children. Second, that these were, indeed, His children and I am accountable to Him for what I put in front of them, including which worldview I teach them.
Is history the study of man and all that man has done over time? That's a secular worldview—humanism. Or is history the study of God's workings in mankind? If I teach history from a "neutral" text, then I'm teaching history as though it were separate from God; again, humanism. If I teach science as though science was a series of data and facts separate from God, then I am teaching my children science with a humanistic flare. And the old adage “More is caught than taught” becomes true. Consequently, our children come to understand history and science, and thus life in general, as separate from God.
The third thing God impressed upon me was that my choice to homeschool was not about me or my children but about His greater plans and purposes for all of mankind. I know that seems a little dramatic, but I feel strongly that this is a truth from God. He began the homeschooling movement, not because the public school system wasn't working anymore, but to accomplish a greater, more holy purpose. Just as the Hebrews, when forced to dwell in a strange culture, lived separate and different lives than those around them, I believe God is using the homeschooling movement to separate His people unto Himself to be people who are not polluted by the culture. People who are as wise as wolves but as innocent as doves.
People who have His law written on their hearts.
People who will be used by Him in a mighty and powerful way for whatever His plan is on Earth.
Should we not choose to fill our children’s minds with books and curriculum choices that continually point their hearts to their Creator, to Him who controls every event and everything in the whole world?
Read on for more homeschool encouragement.
