Saturday, April 26, 2008

Homeschool vs. Public School

We are still very much considering our choice for Sam after kindergarten. Will he continue in public school as a first grader, or will we homeschool?
There are mixed responses among friends/family, those whom we respect and care about.

On the side of public school:
1. We all went to public school, and we turned out just fine.

2. Are you crazy? You want all your children with you all day every day?

3. You're just sheltering them from the world and its evils. How will they learn to deal with that when the time comes?

4. Aren't you afraid they'll be socially backward and not know how to make friends?

5. You realize they'll be there all the time.

6. What about sports and music and all the stuff you can't duplicate at home?

7. Think of all the people they could tell about Jesus.

On the side of homeschooling:
1. You get to have your children with you all the time!

2. You can shelter them from all the evils of public school and explain things to them when you feel they're ready to handle it instead of letting a teacher or their friends make this judgement for you.

3. Home-cooked lunch!

4. The parents get to pick the curriculum.

5. There are lots of groups to join in order to be involved in music or sports or go on field trips.

6. Sibling relationships can be nurtured.

7. Parents will know when a child needs extra help.

8. Behavioral problems can get dealt with in a biblical way, and it can be consistent with what usually happens at home.

These are just a few examples of both sides. Some came from me.

I would like to say that my primary reason for choosing homeschooling for our children, at least at this point, would be not that I could shelter and protect them, but that I could give them things that the school would not. There are some amazing curriculums out there that seek to provide a God-centered world-view for all subjects - history, math, science, etc. Imagine learning science from day one with such a view! I think that science would have had a lot more appeal for me!
The protection would be an added benefit. I do not think that a child should be sheltered from the world to an extent that they are unequipped to deal with it later in life. I do think that we, as parents, have a God-given responsibility to shelter our children from certain aspects of life and the effects of sin until they are able to understand it and are ready for it. This comes at different ages for all children.
For instance, I don't think that my 5-year-old is ready to hear about homosexuality, even on a simple level. I think that there needs to be a certain amount of spiritual understanding, especially regarding sin, before a child can accept this in a godly way. We all know and have seen many examples of children introduced to subjects such as homosexuality too early - teasing and unkind words spoken with carelessness. If I am able to give my child an understanding of a particular evil, I can also try to instill in them grace and compassion for the one who struggles. You don't find grace and compassion in public schools. You find blatant denial that the behavior is wrong, blatant denial that it is even all that different than a "regular" romantic love.

Yes, as a follower of Christ, I do need to trust God with my children. Does that mean I leave them home alone for the day, trusting God to take care of them? No, just that when my children are beyond my protection that the Lord would be their protector. More so, that the Lord is their protector first and foremost! This allows for parental grace - for those many mistakes that we as parents make throughout the day, week, year.
God does give us the responsibility of caring for them though and does not expect us to blindly follow whatever "is done" in society as the best means of raising/caring for our children. I believe that most parents are in a situation where they could choose to homeschool. I'm not ready to say that I believe that most parents should homeschool, but I definitely think it should not be lightly dismissed. Consider carefully with prayer. After all, it is possible that it is God's express will for you to homeschool your children. And it is possible that it is God's express will for you to send them to public school. Pray and see.

So our plan is, right now, to be in prayer about the subject. To seek out opinions. To prepare for either scenario. To be very involved in Sam's experience with kindergarten in the fall. To be aware of what is taught. To pray for the friends he will make. To trust God to protect.

By the way, I agree with many of the points made in the "for public" and "for homeschool" lists above.

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think that "right-wing-hate-radio" has done a great disservice to public schools. They harp on anecdotal evidence of some school somewhere that a teacher read "Timmy Has Two Mommies" and all of the sudden the only thing schools teach 1st graders is how to accept homosexuality. I am only using that as an example. I think the only thing you can COUNT on your child being taught is global warming is a fact and anything that uses electricity/fuel/energy is evil. Truth be told a little conservationism never hurt anybody. I grew up in the Reduce-Reuse-Recycle era and I turned out just fine....IMO.

Molly said...

"Some school somewhere" is likely the school in your very own district. Read this article: http://www.mfc.org/contents/article.cfm?id=1576

and learn that 8,000 youth in the Twin Cities area are learning this twisted take on human sexuality. This project is MN legislation right now and could soon be a mandated program for all MN schools.
First graders are not equipped to have "conversations" about much of anything let alone topics of sexuality. They basically believe whatever they are told. And unless those conversations are based on "whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious" (Phil 4:8) then my children will not "think about these things."
Reduce-Reuse-Recycle, please, but don't make assumptions without researching the facts.

Molly said...

Hey, I just re-read my own comment and realized that I should have probably re-read for "tone" before sending it out. So, while I am obviously concerned about the agendas being pushed in the public school system I don't mean to lack charity in my response. And as for "green living"--I'm all for it!

Beckie said...

While I disagree wholeheartedly with the "Birds & Bees Project" approach, this is the culture in which we live. Jesus lived amongst sinners as well.

As Sarah demonstrated, there are pros and cons to all educational options; choosing one means missing out on the benefits of another. Choosing public school requires a higher level of parental involvement if we, as Christians, don't want our children exposed to the evils of our culture. Know the curriculum, know what's happening in class each day, talk to the teacher and voice your concerns. If you're lucky, you'll get a teacher that respects your values and concerns and will give you a "heads up" if he/she is teaching on something you wouldn't approve of. If you don't get one of those teachers, you have more work to do.

And, like Sarah said, our children are in God's hands. His plan will ultimately come to be regardless of the educational decisions we make. I am a product of public shooling and a non-Christian home and God worked to overcome, what might be considered, bad odds to touch my heart and bring me into His kingdom.

I also think, because we all have young children, that we focus on the younger grades while disregarding the impact middle and high schoolers can have on their peers. Lucky for me, some of my Christian friends were sent to public school.

Sarah said...

The homosexual agenda is being pushed in many different, very subtle ways in our school systems - not just the blatant "let's read this book" approach. When the secular culture believes that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality and, in fact, is a beautiful way of expressing individuality and should be embraced, of course it's going to come out! (So to speak). It's the subtle messages that I'm more concerned about - the ones I won't be aware of by being involved in reading textbooks and that sort of thing - just comments here and there that wouldn't necessarily even be brought home to me by my child but that are very influential on a young, impressionable mind.
On focusing on the younger kids - we all know that there comes an age when kids just naturally repel anything that an authority figure tries to tell them - because they already know everything. I think that between 5 and 12, whatever is told is pretty much accepted as fact if the child does not have a strong belief system, and even if they do, things that conflict with the belief system are a source of confusion to them, not necessarily something they can always look at and say, "Well, that's wrong." I have seen evidence of this in my own children. We come across something that totally contradicts biblical teaching, and they need to be walked through why someone would even think of doing that and that just because that particular person didn't think it was wrong doesn't mean it wasn't wrong (absolute truth - something else they won't get in "the system").
So, I am all for evaluating every single year whether your child is going to be at home for another year or going to public school. There could come a point when the benefits of your child attending public school could very much outweigh the negative stuff. But the parent has a responsibility to equip the child for this. And the more yuck/corruption that there is, the more we need to prepare. It is getting worse, I know that certain districts are "better" than others in terms of this, but when people readily accept evil (let's call it what it is), Satan is going to run with it. Of course it's getting worse.
So I do think that there is a difference between the primary grades and the upper grades - and it's not the difference you might think.
The younger the child, the more he/she should NOT be entrusted to the care of the school, whether this means that you are just super involved in every aspect of the schooling, or whether you choose to homeschool.
Beckie, you said that this is the world in which we live.
I agree...to a point.
To use a maybe extreme illustration, I do not allow Sam to cross the street on his own while riding his bike. Yes, we live in a society where there are a lot of cars, but I'm not going to let him deal with them before he's ready. I hope this doesn't sound patronizing, but I really think that most parents are far more concerned about their child's physical safety than their spiritual safety.
I would like to go so far as to say this:
Would you send your child to a Buddhist temple to be educated?

Our society has chosen their "god" to worship.

How can we claim that we have done as Proverbs 22:6 states, "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it."
if we surrender our child to the public school to be trained?

It sounds like I'm strongly advocating homeschool here, but really I'm just saying that if you choose public school, you'd better be ready to be just as involved (pretty much) as if you were homeschooling.
There should not be the attitude of "Well, phew, I have them out of the house! Now things are finally less hectic around here." Even though this is how I feel some days, it should not be my motivation for sending my child off to school.

If you've read this far, I really congratulate you...it got a little long:)

Molly said...

Amen to your wise words, Sarah. Beckie brings up some good points. Certainly, one could claim that choosing a certain education for one's children can also mean having to sacrifice the good of another option.

Jesus may have lived among sinners, but Jesus also formed His disciples in virtue for years before sending them out to be martyred for their faith. Young children simply aren't equipped to deal with the evils of society until they are formed well as Christians. And no one here would say for a minute that we should keep our children out of society completely and forever. I would only say that sending them too quickly could be a detriment to their innocence--one that deserves to be protected.

Also, it is the impact that children (at any age) have on their peers that concerns me more than a random teacher teaching my kid something he doesn't need to know. I am also a "product" of public schooling and a family with a less-than-desirable background. I am grateful for the hand God had in bringing me to where I am today. And although there were many great influences on me in my days as a child in the school system, there were also many bad influences who led me to also make bad and sinful choices. We can all strive to be involved parents, to know our children's teachers, to understand the curriculum being taught--but what about the things that happen outside the classroom? I certainly remember seeing things on the bus and hearing things on the playground as an elementary schooler that made an impression on me and certainly didn't do me any good. (And I will say that my mom was an involved parent who knew my teachers well and who was concerned about what I was learning. I will admit, though, that there are things I learned in school that my mom to this day doesn't know about.)

While I was raised in public schools and could claim that I turned out "alright", I'm striving for better than "alright" when it comes to the souls of my children.

Also, I just recently commented on Sarah’s post “Preschool or Home?” A reader wanted to know the source of some of my comments and I never even thought to check back to that post until just yesterday. So, my sources are now listed in the comments section of that post if you feel like checking them out.

Anonymous said...

I am wondering how private school is cost prohibitive when you live in the homes that you do, buy the material possessions that you do? Couldn't you downsize your lifestyle and spend the money sending your child to a private school (of your choosing that coincides with your belief system) where they have the benefit of Christian nurturing and elements of "public" school with peers, sports, etc?

Anonymous said...

I'll combine my response from the previous post Molly referred to with this one.

Thank you for stating your sources, Molly. Those are very interesting statistics. However I have a difficult time giving an organization whose sole purpose for existence is to lobby for the advancement of homeschooling 100% credibility. I also could not find any evidence of a direct correlation between homeschooling and community service. I will still argue that this is a product of the child's household not how they are educated. I noticed that over 90% of homeschooled children come from a Christian household. Isn't it possible tha the 40% of adults not homeschooled but still involved in community service were raised in the same type of Christian household? I also notice that one of the examples of community service they used in their question was working in the church. If over 90% of homeschooled kids go to church I would sure hope that 80% of them are volunteering in that church.

Molly, you talked in that post about homeschooled kids being sought out by colleges and being placed in "high profile" jobs. I did not see evidence of that on the article you credited. However I did not look through all of the articles posted on that site. I'm not sure how you are defining "high profile" jobs. I saw ~50% still in school the rest are in regular run-of-the mill jobs. You can easily find anecdotal evidence of people with any background in high profile jobs. Public, private, home, or no- school.

Sarah I disagree with how much you think the world accepts homosexuality. Every state that has had the opportunity to vote on marriage ammendments to keep it between one man and one woman has voted for that ammendment. Most have been landslide victories. If it is so accepted there wouldn't be so much conterversy around it.

As for the approximately 8,000 youth going through the controversial sex-ed course. Using 2006 statistics this is less than 1% of MN pubilc school students [http://www.schooldatadirect.org/app/location/q/stid=24/llid=111/stllid=149/locid=24/stype=/catid=-1/secid=-1/compid=-1/site=pes]. However unfortunate that is, there are organizations doing just the opposite. Amnion Crisis Pregnancy Center has an abstinence program in the south metro that has reached at least that many students. (I'm sorry I cannot provide a source for that but Brian might vouch for me.)

I'll end now, I want to go watch Lost and frankly I'm not making very good talking points.

Sarah said...

Anonymous,
Thanks for your input. You raise a good point.
Yes, I think that the argument of "We can't afford to send our children to a private Christian school." would be untrue. I would say that most people have or find funds for the things that are important to them. However, with private schools being $3000 and upward per year (multiplied by # of children attending), I don't feel that it is money well-spent when I could do the job myself for a lot less. I don't think that it would be wise to spend that kind of money in that area. I've also seen corruption in the Christian school that in a sense can be more dangerous spiritually than some of the stuff kids encounter in the public schools. For instance, I think that there is a judgemental attitude of "sinful society" in Christian schools (I'm making a generalization here) that does not aid in developing the kind of compassionate thinking that I want my kids to have. So many things...I can't go into them all here.
Christian nurturing is primarily my responsibility, secondarily the church.

Sarah said...

Sean,
I would say that in their heart-of-hearts there are many people who don't agree with homosexuality. But they like to pretend that they wholeheartedly do when they're in public.
The beauty of secret ballots...

Brian said...

@Anonymous,
You're making a very easy and broad generalization that really doesn't hold water in my opinion. I will be the first to admit that we do live in a nice home compared to what many are able to afford and it's all a matter of priorities when it comes to making spending choices. However, let's look at the real numbers for a bit and see how your point plays out.

First, let's look at the cost of owning a home. For the sake of example, let's assume someone has a $300,000 house with $250,000 of debt against their home. For a typical mortgage obtained sometime in the past few years, you might expect them to be paying 6% interest which rounds out to be $15,000 in interest and $3,000 in principle the first year. Out of pocket costs (after tax benefits) ends up being roughly $13,000/year. For simplicity, we'll ignore the equity and appreciation, property tax and insurance and write off all the principle you paid as money that's that's forever unavailable. Hopefully those elements even the numbers out and we maintain about $13,000 out of pocket in a calendar year.

Now, private school tuition varies widely from school to school. The bottom-dollar-who-knows-the-quality private school that is near us charges $3,000 per year for half-day kindergarten. That was the cheapest we could find when looking around. A friend checked into a more expensive school which charges $10,600/year for kindergarten. I'll give our local private school the benefit of the doubt and assume they provide quality education and spiritual nurturing. Now, we have one child entering Kindergarten in the Fall with two others soon to follow in the next four years (let's not get into the issue of whether we should be having so many children). By the time all three of our children are of school-age, we would be spending a minimum of $9,000/year. Note that I'm not aware of any tax advantages to sending your child to private school so this money is "real" money and you don't get any of it back through tax deductions (I may be mistaken on this fact).

So, if we were to change nothing else about our budget except our housing expenses and schooling choices, that would leave us $4,000/year ($5,200 including tax benefits of paying mortgage interest) left after tuition fees that we would have for providing housing for our family of 4. I can't fathom any viable housing option for the $433/month we would have available. Even if we cashed out the hypothetical $50,000 of equity in our existing home, that would require us to by a house for less than $125,000. BTW, I found one single-family home in the southern metro area in this price range (see here) but it looks to be in very poor condition and would require a large amount of money to make it livable for a family of five.

Of course, this assumes there are no other corners we could pinch to save money from other areas of our spending. Again, I admit that just being an American puts us head and shoulders above a vast majority of the rest of the world's population in what we buy for ourselves and comforts we have. In my opinion, our family is very financially conservative in most things. We've never owned a new car (our mini-van is 9 years old, my Neon is 7). Our single 25" TV will soon be obsolete with the onset of digital television. We cook most of our meals only eating out an average of once per week. I feel like we'd be hard pressed to squeeze $9,000 out of the budget when, as Sarah mentioned above, the cost of private school just doesn't seem to measure up when you weigh it against the cost and benefits of home schooling.

Anonymous said...

I am mom to two lovely daugthers who have attended public school and are currently being homeschooled.

My mom-to-mom advice is this: You know your children and you follow Christ.

There will always be someone else's opinion of how you should raise your children. Stand firm in your decision. Move as God guides and gives you the wisdom to be the mother of these beautiful children.

God bless your family.

Sarah said...

Julia,
Thank you for your encouragement. This is very true.
We will primarily seek the Lord's guidance in educating our children. We seek to do His will above all, I hope.

Anonymous said...

Brian, I'm always amazed at your mathematical logic. Good post.

I'm surprised that no one has brought up anything about our (parents) capability to teach. I would be very interested to hear from homeschool proponents how they plan to teach AP Chemistry, AP English, AP Calculus, and AP Physics. Besides teaching, how about all the cool experiments? We did some pretty cool stuff in Chemistry and Physics.

Molly, you refer to things happening on the bus or the playground. Why couldn't those same things happen when you take a trip to the park or your child goes out to play with the neighbor kids? What if one of those neighbor kids found his dad's stash of pornos and was eager to share them with all the kids in the neighborhood? What about when they get to be teenagers and have jobs, co-workers may talk about their one-night stands, ask them to smoke/drink/etc?

Molly, I'm a little bothered by your comment about wanting your kids to be better than alright. I'm not quite sure how to put my finger on it though. Don't we all want something better for our kids than what we had? Implying homeschooling is the way to make "alright" better sounds a little elitist to me. Perhaps I have misintrepreted what you said. I would appreciate it if you clarified. My perspective: I went to private school; I want something better for my kids; I can't afford the private school I went to let alone a better one; what are my options for "better" then?

Thanks everyone for your great comments!!

Beckie said...

I've changed my mind. I think I was wrong about being able to work with your children's teachers. In the context of this discussion, I would vote for home school.

The Greene's said...

I've been following the discussion and have just a few questions:
How would you plan to teach group problem solving or compensate for the benefit of learning from others? I know that you have 3 children, but they would obviously be at different levels of learning. Some of my best learning experiences came from listening to the questions/ideas of others.

I also concure with you about the benefits of teaching subjects (particularily science) from a Kingdom standpoint rather than a secular standpoint. However, I believe one of the best defenses we have is to have knowledge of the "other side" so that we can hold water in discussion. It also seems to me that a faith not tested isn't as strong as untested as it is only then that you solidfy what you believe and why. Kind of a being polished by the fire :)
Do you plan on teaching what the secular perspectives are on certain subjects (evolution, eventually homosexuality, and the like) so that your children are prepared to face these things in the "real" world?

Molly said...

I apologize for the number of days it took me to formulate a response as I have been trying to respond to several questions within the comments posted a little bit at a time (between rallying my troops and dealing with the disadvantages of early pregnancy, and there are several.)
I already mentioned that there is no evidence of causation in the statistics listed for the “socialization” of homeschoolers. The statistics, however, are clear. Homeschooled children are at least as socialized (if not more-so depending on the circumstances) as the average student in a public, or even private, institution. If one doubts the credibility of the source, I welcome you to find statistics on the contrary.
I do agree that there are several organizations doing a stellar job teaching abstinence to youth in the school system. In my opinion, however low the "percentage" is (you gave me one percent throughout all of MN when the number 8,000 only came from the number of students in the Twin Cities area so I would have to disagree with your percentage) 8,000 youth is 8,000 too many. And as I stated before, this program is already being pushed in MN legislation and could eventually be the mandated sex ed course for all public schools in the state. (Of course, parents are always given the right to “opt-out” of any sex ed program, but again, my concern is that my children’s peers would share the information they’re learning with my children before they’re ready.)
In terms of our kids being exposed to things (at the park, by the neighbors, etc.) our solution so far has been to basically not allow our children in the homes of other kids unless we are completely certain that their parents parent like we do. There was a situation not too long ago when a grandchild of our neighbor came to ask our oldest daughter to play at her grandparents' house. We simply said, "no." We invited the girl to play in our yard so that they could be monitored by us. And certainly, our kids will not roam the neighborhood with unknown children either. And of course a teenager with a job will be more equipped to deal with certain peer pressure than a young kid on the playground. Again, the idea is to prepare our children for those circumstances that will arise, but not to force them into those circumstances before they're ready.

In terms of advanced courses for high school, I can only speak for the many opportunities available in our own area. (Our county has the largest concentration of homeschoolers in the state of MN, last I heard anyway.) Firstly, homeschooled youth are allowed to attend the local school for even a single course--and some teens in our area do decide to take something like upper-level math at the high school and then do the rest of their course work at home. Also, there are incredible resources for online classes (many colleges offer “distance education”) and post secondary options which of course help students get a jump start on college credits. (Specifically, AP courses are meant for high schoolers to be exposed to the college curriculum and then have the opportunity to test out of the college course to save money and time. PSEO classes are free so this is basically the same option.) (I should mention that at our church’s homeschool graduation-there are approx 100 homeschooling families at our church- there were several high school seniors who had already completed their Associate’s degrees with the PSEO option and were moving on to other universities.) And in our case we are blessed by several local homeschooling co-ops for jr/sr high (notibly YEAH and ARCHES) that are taught by parents with expertise in particular areas. Everything from foreign languages, like Latin, to Civics and Sciences are taught at these homeschool cooperatives. I should mention that we recently received a flyer listing a company that supplies homeschoolers with science lab materials, including animals for dissection. As for math and science in our own home, I have to say it’s the least of my concerns as my husband’s degrees are in these very fields and as I am more equipped for comprehensive lower level grades, Brendan looks forward to taking over in the calculus and physics areas. I understand that this isn’t the case in every family; we’re just blessed this way. As I stated, though, there is hardly a shortage of opportunities for high schoolers.
I'm sorry that you interpreted my comment as "elitist." I will fully admit that our family has decided that the best way for our kids to have better than we did (my husband went to private military school) is to homeschool. Certainly homeschooling is not the available option for all families. I would say that an incredible option is the various charter schools that are popping up in many districts (notably Nova Academy or PACT Charter School where the classics are encouraged and the majority of the teachers and students are Christians—and it’s FREE.) (Obviously, though, your child would have to make the lottery and the waiting lists at these schools can be quite long.)
Speaking of quite long, this comment has been quite long indeed.

Sarah said...

The Greene's,
Thanks for your input. And for plowing through all this discussion. I think that learning from others is a valid point - to an extent. There are several "class debates" that stand out in my mind as I think back to my own public schooling experience, and I very much enjoyed being a part of this and sharing a godly perspective. I know that so much can be done through co-ops and even with others in our own neighborhood who also homeschool (and there are at least 2 that I know of) where there can be the occasional "classroom-type" experience. I also have to say that although my kids are of varying ages, the older two can definitely give and take in terms of sharing knowledge/opinions/thoughts.
My desire is not to shelter them at all costs from the corruption of the outside world, so to speak, but to be able to give them this knowledge when they are spiritually mature enough to handle it in a godly manner. There will be plenty of discussion on evolution (and has been already a bit) and homosexuality, but the difference is that I would get to choose when and how it is presented. This makes a world of difference!!! It is my desire to equip my kids to be salt and light, and also for them to have a genuine belief, not just a belief based on what I've fed them and because it's the only thing they've ever heard or been exposed to. They need to be aware (to a point!) of what's out there and also be trained to see the holes in those other ways of living.
An example: we are taking a trip this summer to see the new "Creation Museum" in Ohio. There, the kids will be able to get an awesome look at things that just are not in Science books today. They are getting their foundational TRUTH at a very young age. When the foundation is laid, they'll be prepared to be introduced to some of the ways the world sees things.

The Greene's said...

Please note this is an aside from the homeschool discussion:
I'm jealous of your trip to the Creation Museum! I would just love to check it out myself as I am very interested in science. I nearly suffered a crisis of self, however, when I was watching a tv program regarding the museum and one of the curators was speaking. I had always compartmentalized Dinosaurs into some category of "they must have died off before there were people". But then the man said "We have empirical proof that humans and dinosaurs existed at the same time. After all, there was no death on earth until Adam and Eve." *yikes* So after some serious conversation with myself I just had to put it in the category of "I can trust in what I DO know about God and leave this one until I get to heaven" :) Sorry for the long aside - Have fun at the museum!

Oh and I agree about having fun with discussion in class offering a godly perspective. My college ethics class just loooooved me! The ripple of grumbles went out when my hand went up hehehe.

Thanks for responding to my questions!

Anonymous said...

Two comments:

First to "Anonymous" - from May 1;

I have censored myself from responding for a few weeks while I cooled off after reading your post which I took as illogically judgmental. I think Brian already stated the financial case more clearly than I could have myself.

On principle, we live in a free country and it should matter nothing to you what kind of house anyone lives in and I ask you to please refrain from criticizing my friends - who are among some of the most generous and hospitable people I know. Their relative prosperity as perceived by you is no business of yours, and I have a hard time writing this in lowercase since you didn't have the spine to sign your name on this blog, but people ought to be able to live where they want and raise their children in the way they desire.

Typically I don't assume things but in this case you witheld your name and so I conclude that you don't really know the people to whom you're giving advice to 'downsize' their lifestyle.

My final two cents is to push for a tuiton tax credit that would allow increased school choice and competition amongst the educational institutions in this area and in the state as a whole.

And my question/comment for the Greene's blogger:
Are you affirming or denying the claim that dinosaurs never lived at the same time as humans?
What is your interpretation of Job chapters 40 and 41? Is there any animal on earth TODAY that fits this description adequately? Why would God illustrate his own greatness and power with the description of a creature that Job or his ancestors had never before witnessed?

By the way, I think Christians argue too vehemently and viciously about trivial things so I am not trying to lead you into a round of that sort of debate. I'm just curious and wanting to make sure I understood what you were saying.

You are right that we may not know this (or lots of other questions) during our journey in this world, in fact I think there is a lot that we can be wrong about and still get into heaven.

Sarah said...

Go to the Creation Museum to get more info on dinosaurs co-existing with man.

Anonymous said...

nice

Roy Cracia said...

Homeschooling is better than sending your ward to public school. We all are aware of the studies that are done in public schools. It does not have the full facilities that are required for students. Homeschooling has a lot of advantages whether it's about nurturing children with good habits while staying in home or relationships with siblings and parents. So, get your child admitted to Springs Christian Academy for the best Christian Education Winnipeg