It may surprise you to know that I believe you are already a homeschooler. Planning to enroll your second grader in August at the neighborhood school? You’re a homeschooler! Maybe you’ve already put up the tuition for the private school at the church you attend at Christmas and Easter? Yes, you! Yup, you’re still a homeschooler in my books. But, maybe I have an uncommon view.

When our children were infants most parents delighted in teaching  them to sit, to stand, to crawl and to walk. As they grew, we oohed and ahhhed and encouraged when they mimicked our language. As they grew we taught basic life skills like tooth brushing, standing in line, treating people with kindness and timliness. We teach them how to love and how to fight. We teach them the ways of our household, our family and our world. Parents teach at home and organically as we live our lives.  We all teach, intentionally and unintentionally, good and bad. Parents are homeschool teachers. Period.

But, if you are considering home schooling your little heritage you are probably not thinking about the lessons I just outlined. You are likely considering academic subjects like reading, math, history and science. Possibly you’ve enrolled your student with a math tutor or in a music class. Maybe they participate in seasonal sports or debate in a local after-school program. Your family might be in the dwindling crowd who attend church with youngsters in tow, as religious training. Most folks already agree that it’s all important for creating well-rounded humans ready to raise families, participate in civil society and enter the workforce.  I propose that schooling is far more than what is taught within the home or within walls of a public-private school-shaped building between the hours of 8 am and 3 pm, 5 days a week. 

However, there is one thing that only parents can teach your children and it is a primary reason to homeschool. Some may view me as a radical but following nearly 20 years of homeschooling, I stand by the inspiration and my claim.  

In short, while we must be responsible parents, endeavoring to guide rigorous academics,  teaching our children about faith and things of God is our number one job and our greatest calling. And it is achieved not in the peace of a perfect plan, the most inspired curriculum, the very best tutors and extracurriculars that money can buy and our first world school system can deliver. The best lessons come in the mess of a life lived walking with the Lord faithfully on display for your children. The most meaningful lessons are the unexpected twist in life’s road, a flat tire on the way to a field trip, the agony of a lost job, the struggle to eek a little extra out of the budget for a gift, the hope for an ill-family member, prayers over a budget deficit or surplus, the heartbreak of great loss and the joy of desires fulfilled. When our daily lives and practical day-to-day dealings are almost totally replaced with the order of 6 periods neatly timed around highly structured, well-studied and documented curriculum and highly skilled academic teachers, I would argue that we change the focus of training up our children. 

Please chew on that for a moment. You, dear parent, have loved them, fed them, nurtured them to the point they are of the age for academic studies. But, friend, if you call yourself a believer, a Christian, a lover of Jesus, I humbly ask you to consider this:

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. [Pro 22:6 KJV]

What is the way our children should go? Is it to be an excellent mathematician but unable to find grace for a neighbor?  Is the goal to train our child to earn sports accomplishments while harboring destructive self-talk and suicidal thoughts? Shall we teach our children the origin of the universe is known but the problems that face our household and nation are hopeless because our history is irredeemable? Is it enough to teach our children the quadratic equation but not faith? Is the empirical evidence gleaned from a textbook science experiment of greater value than the empirical evidence seen in a family that knits themselves together by learning together?

I’ve poured over scripture as a homeschool mom for more than 20 years. Often I’ve prayed for direction from God as to how He would have me teach my challenged reader, my little one with math-allergies (near literally) and the student who struggles with spelling or penmanship so completely that their calling is clearly to become an adult who pens those prescription slips I can never read.  I have never received a stronger word than this: 

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you : and, lo, I am with you alway, [even] unto the end of the world. Amen. [Mat 28:18-20 KJV] (emphasis mine)

Teaching them to observe all things that God has commanded us.

I beg you to press this into your mind and pray on it. God doesn’t call us to teach language or science? Surely, these are necessary in the world we live in but as a follower, we recognize Biblical priority. His specific direction is to teach our children about Him. The academics are extra, of the world, and important but not our top job as parents and especially not parents who enjoy the privileged of homeschool.