I am truly concerned about my children’s education. And I don’t believe I am alone. Many families have decided to homeschool their children. I applaud them. I am not there yet, although I have been looking into all of the curriculum available. We just aren’t in a place to afford it.
I don’t like the way I see things heading here in the U.S. As a conservative and a Christian mom I want to preserve our heritage as believers and Americans. My children can’t receive that in the public school setting. It’s my husband’s and my responsibility to ensure that our children learn what is true!
As parents, we must be completely engaged in our children’s lives at home and at school. We did not have children so others could teach them right from wrong. We cannot drop our children off at daycares, public schools or private schools and expect that they are being taught our values, morals and ethics.
In today’s educational environment we must take an active role in educating ourselves as to what is being taught in the classroom. I must confess, I often wonder if they are being taught anything at all. The way they teach anymore seems to lead to chaos and confusion. Do they even teach the fundamentals anymore? You know, reading, writing, and arithmetic. Oh and how about spelling. Heaven forbid we circle a misspelled word in red and have the student look the word up in a dictionary and spell it correctly.
Things sure have changed and they haven’t changed for the better. Take for instance teaching children how to read. You might be excited to see your child come home and read some words, but do you really know how they are being taught to read? It probably isn’t by using phonics. Our children are taught to guess, to think about what would make the most sense, to sound out the first part of the word and then finish it with what they think fits. Whole language at it’s best.
I saw this effect my oldest child’s reading ability and I wasn’t about to let it happen to my other two, so I preceded to reteach my oldest and then teach my younger ones how to read. I used Turbo Reader by Phyllis Schlaffley. It was easy and precise and my children can read excellently. Unfortunately, my oldest got a bad taste for reading and still struggles, but I hate to imagine where any of them might be had I not intervened.
We must be involved and educated ourselves. Parenting takes hard work, but it is so worth it.
