Making the Right Impression: The Experiences of 21 British Christian Home Educating Families - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0955585503 ISBN 13: 9780955585500

Publisher: Home Service, 2007

Synopsis

At a time when education and schooling are rarely out of the media spotlight and there seem to be many voices arguing for a greater role for professionals in raising children, Making the Right Impression is a celebration of Biblical parenthood. It contains the stories of ordinary Christian parents who have chosen to do an extra-ordinary thing - to allow their children to grow up and learn at home within the community. In their own words, 21 parents tell of the joys and challenges of raising children without school. From varying backgrounds and using a variety of approaches, here you will find stories that encourage and uplift all those who believe that parents are the most important people in educating children.

About this title

From the Publisher

Making the Right Impression contains the stories of ordinary
Christian parents who have chosen to do an extra-ordinary thing - to allow
their children to grow up and learn at home within the community. In their
own words, 21 parents tell of the joys and challenges of raising children
without school. From varying backgrounds and using a variety of
approaches, here you will find stories that encourage and uplift all those
who believe that parents are the most important people in the education of
children.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

In Deuteronomy 6 we read of a revolutionary plan, hatched in the mind of
God, to ensure that Israel was an educated nation:

"These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to
teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to
possess, so that you, your children and their children after them may fear
the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and
commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. ... These
commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them
on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk
along the road, when you lie down and when you get up." (Deuteronomy 6:1-2,
6-7)

Here we observe Moses as he describes the aims of Israelite education - God
having his rightful place in the centre of personal and communal life,
leading to obedience that in turn offers the promise of long and enjoyable
lives for the people. Every education system makes promises to its
graduates - in 1997 Tony Blair described education as his new government's
best economic policy. For many in Western society, the promise of education
is little more than economic prosperity. For Christians however the aim of
education is to establish in ourselves and our children a focus on life
which is God-centred. It is for this reason that Moses describes a system
of education that begins with parents - these commandments are, '...to be
upon your hearts' and only then focuses upon children. Parents themselves
are then instructed to impress this God-centred worldview upon their
children; the instruction is not merely to mention God once or twice during
the week or even to ensure that they receive good Biblical teaching on
Sunday. The writer of Deuteronomy is clear - the purpose of education is to
firmly fix in children an awareness of the reality of a living God moving
in history. In addition, the method and location of education is clearly
described - as parents go about their daily business - when they get up in
the morning, whether they go out and about or sit at home, when they go to
bed at night, they are to breathe learning over their children.

During the last twenty years a quiet revolution has been taking place.
Without formal approval from church leaders, without the support of large
organisations or mainstream publishers and without the backing of wealthy
benefactors, increasing numbers of Christians in Britain have been prompted
to raise their children without sending them to school. Just how
revolutionary this is, can be seen from the reactions of some church

ministers, magazine editors and national Christian leaders who have looked
at home-based learning with suspicion, dismay or outright opposition. And
yet despite this lack of support, growing numbers of young families have
chosen to use the home and the wider community rather than the local school
as their primary places of learning.

This book contains their stories - or at least the stories of a very small
number of those ordinary families who have chosen to do a quite
extraordinary thing. As you read these accounts you will quickly notice
that the typical home educating family simply does not exist. At a time
when our state-funded schools are becoming increasingly monolithic in
educational approach, with every child being expected to conform to a
pattern set down

by central government, education within the home education community is
varied, vibrant and, genuinely, focused on how individual children learn.
Time and again, within these accounts, the reader is challenged by the
reality that children learning at home with their parents are more likely
to have their educational needs met than those who sit in a class of
twenty-five to thirty, vying for the attention of one adult.

Edition details

• Publisher: Home Service
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0955585503
• ISBN 13: 9780955585500
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 220
• Editor: Richards Lyn