Transcript
Ben Fallon: Paul, today's question comes from Matthew. He's a public-school teacher himself, thinking about education options for his children in the near future. He emailed in and said, “What recommendations would you have for Christian parents navigating choices for their children's education?” So, can you tell us what you and Luella did with your kids, both while they were in the home and as they were transitioning out of the home to go to college?
Paul Tripp: Well, before I answer this question, I think it's a very, very important thing we're talking about; I just want to say that there simply is no job more important than to be God's primary tool for the forming of a human soul. That's what parenting is. And as a parent, that job of influence, you can't outsource to anyone. You can't outsource it to the school, the church, or government. The school, at best, will support you as you do that job. The church, at best, will equip you as you do that job. And the government will protect you as you do that job. But you are irreplaceable!
Ephesians 6:4 talks about bringing your children up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Now, that means parenting is all about teaching. If you're not constantly teaching your child, you're not being a good parent by Bible definition. And every day you're given multiple opportunities to instruct your children in God's way of thinking about life. I think creation, fall, redemption, way of thinking about life. And so, when you think of school, don't think of some kind of institution that's going to relieve you of your role because nothing will ever relieve you of your role because you have that 24-7 access to your child that no one else has.
Now, having said that, teaching, schooling, is very, very important. In modern culture, your children are going to go or participate in some kind of schooling. And before I talk about the options, I want to say that there's no direct biblical teaching about school. And so, we have to say that. That means you have the liberty to consider three options. I want to give the strength of each of these three options.
The first option is home-schooling. The strength of this is that, by far, this is the most protective of all of the options because your child doesn't hear anything in the educational process that you haven't personally approved. Now, if you're going to do home-schooling, you also need to supplement that with the need to find ways to have your children experience the socialization of activities while they are children, and the socialization of being under other authorities. That's why, often, homeschool parents have the home-school co-ops, so home-schooled-children can be together on a field trip, or some special science activity, and they have to work with authorities other than their parents. That socialization is very, very important because God has designed us to live in community with one another and community that is beyond the family. We know that because God's ordained government and God's ordained the church.
There's another thing that you need to consider. You need to also consider that this puts a particular stress on the parent-child relationship. For example, when your child goes off to school and they have a bad day, they come home, and they are able to talk to mom and dad about their bad day and either receive correction or comfort or encouragement. That's a lot harder when you're the person that they've had the bad day with. And so, there is a stress that happens; it's not impossible and it can be worked with, and some people even say that's wonderful. They have to work through those things that happen during the school day later on, but that needs to be considered. Home-school is wonderful because it's protective; it's in the context of your home. You know that everything that's going to be said there, and you can guide the educational process in an upfront, firsthand way.
Second option is the Christian school. That's the option that Luella and I took for our children. The strength of this is you have educators, trained educators, who have spent years considering how to look at their area of concentration, whether that's English or math or science, or history, from the vantage point of a biblical worldview, from the vantage point of the biblical gospel narrative. And after they've done that for a few years, they're very skilled at doing that. Christian school is not just about regular education with a Bible class at it. No, it's looking at all of life, every subject from the vantage point of the biblical narrative!
Now, what you need to be aware of here, the weakness is, that although this may be a Christian school in name, it doesn't mean that everyone in the community of parents and students will behave Christianly. We experienced rather shocking things in Christian school because not everybody was a mature Christian, and clearly the students weren't always. And so, in the hallways of a Christian school were many of the same problems that you would get in secular education.
There's one other thing I would mention that often Christian schools are better at a system of law than they are forming a culture of grace. And it's almost like all the children need are a set of rules with compensatory threats of punishment and that will form them. And that means that they don't address the deeper issues of the heart and the deeper causes and the deeper gospel cures. So, we have the home-school, we have home-schooling, we have Christian school.
The third option is the public school. This is probably the most difficult in our world. The good thing about this is from day one, your children are learning to live in the real world and encountering real world difficulties and things that are different than the instruction they are receiving in the home or the teaching you receive in your church. But they are learning young to negotiate their way to the world that they will have to live in for the rest of their lives. Probably the weakness here is just how hard it is to stay on top of everything that your children are being taught in the classes there in school that clearly do not honor scripture and do not come from the position of belief in the existence of God. And so, you need to think really long and hard and very practically about the amount of biblical and gospel instruction you're going to need to counteract the things that are not true that the children will be learning in this environment.
This means you really need to know your children's teachers. You really need to have open lines of communication, and you need to know what your children are experiencing there. You need to be aware of the curriculum, get the curriculum, look at it, examine it. And it may be that you think the curriculum is so far away and so anti-Christian that this is not an option for you. But you have three options. Homeschooling, Christian school, and public school. There are good and godly parents who are making all three choices.
I want to say another thing, “We don't have biblical warrant for judging brothers and sisters in Christ who have made a different choice than we have.” It's very important that we encourage and support the people who have made choices different than us. We pray for them and pray that God would protect and guide their children.
So that brings us to college. The sad reality is that many kids raised in Christian homes go off to residential universities each September and forsake the faith. Now, this means that they were clearly spiritually unprepared to be where they went. So, I would say right from the get-go, this is not a decision that should be made by a teenager alone. Think about this, “What eighteen-year-old knows himself that well? And what eighteen-year-old knows himself well enough to make the decision for what his gifts are and for what career he's going to have in life?” I mean, the norm is that kids go off to college, they choose a major, and they change a major somewhere in the middle because they just don't know themselves. And they get there, and they realize, “I'm not good at this,” or “I have no passion for this.”
So, here are some questions that I think parents need to ask. Parents, if you're listening to this right now or watching this, I think you'll have to take notes. Here's the first one. “How easily influenced is your teenager? Is this an independent thinking, self-starting teenager, or is this a non-negotiable or is your teenager a follower?” That's an important question to ask.
Second question, “How biblically literate and theologically knowledgeable are they? Do they know the teaching of scripture? Do they know the core truths, the non-negotiables of the biblical narrative?”
Third question, “Do they have a committed relationship with the Lord?” You know, “Do you drive them to church? Do they not want to go to youth group? Or is there a clear relationship with the Lord?” Maybe you see them having their own personal quiet time devotions. “What's the state of the relationship with the Lord?”
Next question, “How would you imagine they would do with the craziness of dorm life?” It's going to be like nothing they've ever experienced in their lives. It's not going to be like being at home.
Next, “What are they wanting to study? Do you think that's a good choice? Do you think they're being realistic? Do you think that comes out of a knowledge of themselves? Does that correspond to their high school education and where they've done well?”
Next, “Are there any good churches near the college where they're going to be? Are there good campus ministries? Have you investigated that? Is there a good place for them to land? Have you gone with them and introduced them to a church?”
And then, this sort of summarizes all of that, this last question, “What is the level of their emotional spiritual maturity? Are they mature enough for you to say goodbye to them and send them on their way with some confidence that they'll do well?”
I want to say this, “Don't let sports or academic scholarships be a reason for making this decision.” That may pull them off into an environment that would not be best for them and that would not help them to continue to mature and make a good launch into God's world. So, there's a lot to think about in this college decision, and it definitely should not be made by the young person himself or herself.
BF: Thanks, Paul. Well, you heard Paul say that Christian schools can often present a culture of law, when on the contrary, it needs to be a culture of grace. So, Paul Tripp Ministries created a video series called “Your Christian School, A Culture of Grace?” This resource is for Christian school teachers and administrators as they try to incarnate the grace of Christ to their students while providing a high-quality education. You can learn more about this resource at paultripp.com/school.
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