Chuck Colson has a great entry about how important it is to have a biblical worldview. He points to Dorothy Sayer’s “Lost Tools of Learning.”
Sayer’s says about teaching, “…we fail lamentably on the whole in teaching them how to think: they learn everything, except the art of learning.”
I believe this so much! I graduated from a public high school with fairly good grades. I feel like I succeeded there because I could test well…not because I was taught to think and learn. In reality, I learned very little. I have learned so much more while homeshooling my children!
If we teach our children to start with the Bible, research, think, learn…won’t they be able to discern if they need to read Harry Potter, watch a particular movie, drink at a party, etc? Which brings to my mind the Southern Baptist Convention this summer. There were resolutions brought before the members on abstaining from alcohol and removing children from public schools, among other things. If our churches were more interested in teaching their members how to think about all of life with a biblical worldview, wouldn’t these kinds of resolutions be unnecessary?
This is why I have moved away from using textbooks while homeschooling. It is much harder to teach your children how to read, reason, think, and write than it is to read the chapter and answer the questions at the end. I am still not sure how to totally teach this way, but I am trying to move in this direction. I have been so pleased with some of the papers that my two oldest have written this year. I usually have to discuss and help lead them in the right direction, but it is great to see some fruit in this area. I guess I should post one…