When You Rise Up | Homeschooling High School

Who’s responsible?

It doesn’t matter if you are [tag-tec]home schooling a high schooler[/tag-tec] or have an eight year old enrolled in public or private school, you are responsible for your child’s education. You & I are responsible for what our children learn, whether at home or in an institutionalized setting. What’s more, the responsibility for education doesn’t stop when the clock hits a magic hour.

On the contrary, Deuteronomy 6:4-7 states:

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 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 [rise] up.

This scripture is the basis of the thought-provoking book by R.C. Sproul Jr, When You Rise Up: A Covenantal Approach to Homeschooling. The book is fairly short, and easy to read. However, the meat of the content is very weighty – challenging traditional “schooling” mindsets. The challenge is issued not only to those who choose to allow others to educate their children, but to home schoolers as well, particularly as they get into the high school years.

In When You Rise Up, R.C. maintains that our children’s education is essentially discipleship and that the responsibility for education, according to God’s word, falls squarely in the laps of parents. In the chapter, “The Three G’s” he states, “…it is parents alone who will answer before God for the education they provide for their children.” If R.C. is right, then we as parents, need to very carefully and prayerfully consider what our kids are learning and where & how they are learning it.

What I really loved about this book, besides the challenge to my way of thinking, is the freedom I found in my homeschool mindset which spilled over, in a very positive way, into our home school experience.

God’s Word is clear, “the Truth will set you free”. I believe that finding this freedom is exactly what When You Rise Up is challenging and encouraging us to do. When approaching [tag-tec]home schooling high school[/tag-tec] (or any grade) from God’s perspective, we will find freedom from the traditions of man and man’s expectations and the fulfillment that comes from doing things God’s way.

What do you think?

Sue

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 16th, 2007 at 4:33 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Who’s responsible?”

1
Schoolingathome
October 22nd, 2007 23:27

I made the mistake of loaning When You Rise Up to a friend. I thought it was a good book, but my friend did a web search on R.C. Sproul Jr’s name and what a surprise that turned out to be! I didn’t know that he’d been defrocked, and he was defrocked over some pretty serious things. I won’t recommend his book again to anyone else. Too much risk of causing confusion with my friends that I’m trying to talk in to homeschooling. There are better books by people who haven’t been defrocked.
2
Sue
October 23rd, 2007 07:37

Thanks for taking the time to post your comment. I had not heard about any of this & sadly, very sadly, when I checked it out, you & your friend are right. My heart is grieved, as I’m sure God’s is, when any of his children fall, but especially when it’s a leader in the church. No matter who we are, we have to be so careful “lest, we too, fall.”

My personal opinion is that When You Rise Up is still a good and thought-provoking book and I hope that we don’t throw the “baby out with the bath water”, so to speak. However, I can’t argue with you, that because of what has happened, it probably isn’t the best book to give to someone you are trying to persuade to consider homeschooling. So sad.

You mention other books, would you, or anyone else for that matter, be willing share the titles, or better yet, write a review of some of the other good books that express reasons why parents should consider homeschooling?

Again, thanks for commenting!
Sue
3
Schoolingathome
October 23rd, 2007 08:53

The only problem I have in answering your question is trying to narrow my answer down to just a few good books. There are so many good ones out there. Here are a few of my personal favorites.

Dumbing Us Down, by John Taylor Gatto
So – WHY Do You Homeschool?, by Mimi Davis
Teaching The Trivium, by Harvey and Laurie Bluedorn

As far as reviews go there are already some good reviews of these books on Amazon.

Hope this helps.
4
Sue
October 23rd, 2007 10:19

Thanks again for your comments.

I have read Dumbing Us Down and agree it is excellent! (He is also an excellent speaker! If anyone has the chance to hear him speak – GO!)

I just checked Amazon & So – Why Do you Homeschool looks very good & I will probably order it & review it.

Teaching The Tivium also looks interesting, but for time & money reasons, will have to wait to personally check it out

Thanks again,
Sue