Post Modern Education and Why I Homeschool My Kids

    There are many reasons I never put in/pulled my kid out of school.  Safety, peer influences, genetic inability to sit at a desk for long amounts of time... they all make the list, but the main reason I chose to keep them home has to do with the educational shift in our post modern culture.  It came on us fairly quickly and subtlety, but spend 5 minutes watching a children's television program, or add up how many hours a week your child spends doing schoolwork and it's obvious things have dramatically changed from when we were kids.  In order to fully understand the repercussions of this shift, we must understand the purpose of education, the times in which we live, and how the two overlap.

Education at its core is the process by which an immature human being gradually becomes a recipient of and participant in the world around him through the cultivation of preferred skills, knowledge and values. *  The determination of these skills, knowledge and values are based on assumptions about the nature of the universe, human beings, and "good"...also known as philosophy.  (One last point before you doze off, I promise!)  There are 4 main areas of philosophy that directly affect education: metaphysics (the study of nature and ultimate reality), epistemology (the theory of knowledge/knowing), axiology (ethical and aesthetic "good"), and logic (rules and patterns of correct thinking). *

Ok...so why am I forcing you into a coma by telling you this?  Because the answers to questions like...Is reality spiritual or natural? (Metaphysics)...What is truth and who gets to define it? (Epistemology)...Is "good/right" rooted in the universe itself or relative depending on particular situations? (Axiology)...Are there rules that correctly frame our propositions and arguments? (Logic)...determine the purpose and function of education.  As believers in a post-modern world, we know that our answers to these questions differ greatly from the rest of society, but how and why?

There was a time when our society used education to answer those questions with a biblical worldview, but post-modern society no longer views the world as the means to an objectively good end.  Instead, our goal has become the transformation of the here-and-now into a peaceful, tolerant utopia.  Citizens of this utopia do not need morals to restrain their evil nature, but simply need information to combat ignorance.  Thus the transformation of education around the worldview of a 20th century philosopher named John Dewey, who viewed a hybrid pragmatic/progressive approach as the only way to achieve societal utopia.  In a nutshell, truth can no longer originate from an authority independent of human experience, and it is no longer the unchanging, absolute path to "good".  Truth is now derived from human experience (pragmatism), and it must progress/change along with those experiences in order to improve and perfect our human environment (progressivism).  This redefinition of truth shifted education from a "restricted view" (less time in school - more time learning morals at home) to a "broad view" of education, which is framed by the following:

1.     Morals and values presuppose that truth is absolute, and when people don’t agree on what those absolutes should be, conflict arises.  Therefore, the best way to prevent conflict and produce utopia is to remove the absolutes altogether and replace them with academic content.

2.     Because of the emphasis of academics over morals, formal education (a.k.a. school) is responsible for all learner experiences as only schools/teachers are “qualified” to instruct learners.  Parents cannot objectively direct students to experience and progress their own environment without imposing their own "experiences/environments" (morals and values) on the learner.

3.     These "external limitations" of the home stifle progress and growth of the learner by creating conflict and inequality (imposing morals rather than letting experience dictate right/wrong).     

4.     Liberation of the learner to "problem-solve" conflicts with solely academic tools will result in peace, equality, and environmental perfection for all.

5.     An increase of time at school (or at home doing academic schoolwork) acquiring as many academic tools as early as possible should replace the informal time spent at home where "external limitations" lurk around every parent/child interaction.*

   This is not a doomsday prediction.  This is post-modern education at its finest...today!!  This is why you believe you are not qualified to teach your own children.  This is why your child will never survive kindergarten if he doesn't attend preschool everyday from the time he's 3.  This is why your kindergartener will come home with at least an hour of homework every night after spending hours at a time sitting at a desk in school all day.  This is why you can only find children's shows that teach academic content or environmental morals like recycling and celebrating differences.  Gone are the days when we taught our kids courage under persecution, standing up for what is right even if it's hard, putting others before yourself and treating them with respect and kindness even when they don't return the favor rather than celebrating how wonderfully different we all are.  This is why our babies are walking into schools with guns...and this is why my babies, at least for now, will not step foot in one.

*The content preceding the asterisks come from the book Philosophical and Ideological Perspectives on Education by Gerald Gutek.  If you are at all interested in a non-biased look at the development of education throughout history, and you enjoy reading dull textbooks for fun like me, I would highly recommend this book!