Introduction

The decision to teach one's own children at home rather than sending them out to a school can be a very difficult one since it is a break with the traditions under which the present generation of Americans have been trained. The trauma is greatly increased by the very na­ture of that training. Furthermore, public education has taken on the nature of a religion; promising answers for all ills of life and nation.

That "religion" holds that men can successfully disregard God's teaching mandate bestowed upon parents. and that by other means and by their own understand­ing they can educate children so as to save themselves, their nation and the world. That "religion." or belief system, incorporates into its dogma a faith in "The Secular State," which is now carved in the likeness of God.

Along with holding to a belief in "The State" has come a total lack of confidence in God and His founda­tion for true primary education which rests upon par­ents, family, and faith in God. Disregarding all of that. state-run schools have taught Americans to put faith in "The State" where they once put faith in God and His way. It can readily seen that the error has produced generations of Americans who have been robbed of their faith. As a direct result of being trained in "secular" schools, they lack real faith in God and have little, if any, confidence in parents or their God-given abilities.

Sad, though true, many Christians and churches have now accepted the error as truth. When thy think of edu­cation they think of public schools. When they think parents they think of failure. When they think of homeschooling they think of poor cheated children.

Blind faith in the error has further laid the ground­work in our thinking, allowing a myriad of myths and fears to become accepted as if they were very real dan­gers to anyone considering home education. Those myths and fears, however, are but paper tigers which can be readily expelled by a return to faith in God, His Word, and His way!

Although Virginia and I did not begin with a lot of confidence, it was our growing faith in God which sus­tained us throughout the years of homeschooling our children. I speak not only of a faith in His being near to support our efforts day by day, but more specifically of a return to a belief in the methods He originally designed for passing knowledge from the older generations to the up-coming generation.

It was but few generations ago that the education of children was looked upon as neither a problem nor a li­ability, but to the contrary, a normal duty of parents. With natural support from grandparents and commu­nity they were expected to be well able to accomplish their duty. Parents could readily get help with whatever they might lack. The imagined threats we face today and accept as hindrances to proper education were not even considered those few generations ago. They were certainly not accepted as menacing beasts. Even today, however, these "beasts" can easily be exposed as paper tigers. So let's take a closer look at our "paper tigers."

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