Photo by Patricia Broyles “Life Flash Photography”

Well I’ve embarked on the adventure of a lifetime – homeschooling. Just a few years ago, homeschooling sounded like craziness – maybe it still does to some of you. But it’s not a new thing, is it?

We are so accustomed to America’s system of compulsory education that several generations have simply taken for granted that the government would educate our children. We would send them to the school they were zoned for, accept the books and teachers they were given and wait to see how the whole thing would turn out in 12 or 13 years.

That wasn’t the method in the Bible. The Law of Moses directs again and again that the laws be taught, that history be explained, that experiences be shared. When we read that perhaps it’s easy to imagine that teaching is by a Sunday School teacher or pastor. Maybe we assume that church schools of old had classes not for American Civics, but for Jewish History. None of that was ever the model though. Children were taught at home; mother’s had children at their side as they cared for the family (both children and the elderly) and father’s had children with him in the fields or working in a trade. Remember that Jesus grew up in a carpenter’s home and that was the trade that he learned before he began his earthly ministry.

The bible commands we teach our children the scriptures (in the home, while you’re walking in the lane, when you’re lying down or rising up – Deuteronomy 6:7) and that we train them up in the right ways so they will know which path to choose in the future. Advanced education in Bible times meant studying and serving under priests at the Temple, or apprenticing with a skilled tradesman. We see that Elisha was loosely affiliated with a prophets’ school; these students were likely studying under him, much like apprentice prophets. And of course the Apostle Paul was educated by Gamaliel in “the perfect manner of the law of the fathers…”, a very similar situation to Elisha’s.

The Romans established formal classrooms, and advocated for children to begin their education early. However, this was only for that class of the population who could afford to educate their children. In fact, that formal, classroom education wouldn’t be tuition-free anywhere in the world until the mid-1600’s when America began opening schools. Of course those wouldn’t be widely available to American children for another 200 years.

Across all of those centuries, parents passed to their children history and culture in ways that we are missing today. Stories of the family and the community were exponentially more important than ancient Greek rulers, military movements or scientific discoveries. Mathematics were taught from a practical viewpoint, measuring fabric for a dress or wood for a house.

I don’t know how long we will homeschool – everything is kind of unsure these days, isn’t it? And, my children will certainly face a different kind of world than my father or grandfather faced as they finished their education. Still, I love that I am having this experience right now, just as mothers have experienced for centuries, and I pray I am fulfilling the command to train them up in the way they should go.