The Classical Scholar

My three road maps for mastery of reading, thinking, and speaking skills are meant to provide a framework for assessing mastery of the three skills of the classical trivium.  The following checklist represents my personal homeschool curriculum goals for helping my children master writing and speaking skills.  Use this road map to assess your child’s communication abilities as you plan your own personalized strategic plan for the semester.  This road map will really help when it comes to creating your homeschool curriculum!

I believe there are five primary communication abilities, both oral and written, that every literate homeschool child needs to master: (1) how to maintain a conversation, (2) how to write a paragraph, (3) how to take notes, (4) how to write advanced compositions, and (5) how to give a speech.

Under each “how to,” I have listed some basic homeschool curriculum ideas, but the list is certainly not all-inclusive. Homeschooling gives you the freedom to customize the content and methods to your own child’s needs. Here is my complete Home School Curriculum Road Map to Mastery of Speaking Skills:

How to Maintain a Conversation

• Look at people when conversing
• Shake hands firmly and repeat their name
• Listen intently
• Answer the telephone and take a message
• Draft personal, business, and email correspondence
• Follow manners, etiquette, and protocol in social situations

How to Write a Paragraph

• Write a topic sentence
• Support the topic in remaining sentences
• Vary sentence structure
• Add stylistic elements
• Incorporate transitions
• Clinch the title from the final sentence
• Imitate classic authors by substituting words
• Practice using thesaurus

How to Take Notes

• Outline main points of text and lecture
• Annotate in book margins
• Construct an abstract or summary from notes
• Narrate understanding
• Reduce notes to main ideas

How to Write Advanced Compositions

• Develop a hook to gain attention
• Draft introductions and conclusions
• Vary paragraph style
• Learn basic three point essay
• Develop a thesis statement
• Research and gather evidence to support thesis
• Cite authorities via footnotes
• Create bibliography
• Present and defend oral dissertation
• Proofread and edit every composition

How to Give a Speech

• Memorize, recall, and recite stories, scripts, and speeches
• Punctuate points with eye contact and body language
• Gain platform experience (expository, persuasive)
• Gain interpretive experience (dramatic, humorous, duo)
• Gain limited prep experience (impromptu, apologetics, extemporaneous)
• Acquire team policy debate experience
• Analyze famous historical speeches for form and style

Please feel free to tailor my speaking skills road map to the needs of your own homeschool child. Add or subtract according to your personal homeschool curriculum objectives.  Teach out of a position of rest instead of anxiety by keeping your communication goals simple.  Remember your vision for raising excellent communicators!

Transforming the theory of authentic classical homeschooling into reality requires a pragmatic outline or a precise plan of attack.  Navigating any trip requires planning the course to reach the final destination. The following checklist represents my personal homeschool curriculum goals for helping my children master thinking skills.  Curriculum is defined as a program of study, and you can use my road map to assess your child’s abilities as you plan your own personalized course of study.

There are at least seven specific thinking abilities that every literate homeschool child needs to master: (1) how to arrange data according to systems, (2) how to solve problems, (3) how to structure and analyze arguments, (4) how to use the scientific method, (5) how to analyze literature, (6) how to research a topic, and (7) how to listen.

For those of you who want more detail on how I assess mastery of the basic skills, I have listed my minimum requirements under each “how to” skill, but the list is certainly not all-inclusive. The beauty of homeschooling lies in the fact that you get to personalize the content and methods to your own family’s needs. Here is my complete Home School Curriculum Road Map to Mastery of Thinking Skills:

How to Arrange Data According to Systems

• Classify into categories
• Describe attributes
• Recognize similarities and differences
• Recall and relate patterns
• Reorder elements in a set

How to Solve Problems

• Identify and complete sequences
• Explain steps to creation or solution
• Associate and interpret analogies
• Memorize mathematical operations
• Understand and apply mathematical concepts
• Answer puzzles, riddles, and mysteries

How to Structure and Analyze Arguments

• Identify claims and determine validity
• Distinguish difference between fact and opinion
• Build affirmative and negative positions
• Learn the deductive syllogism (if a & b, then c)
• Recognize common fallacies
• Practice inductive reasoning (observe, interpret, apply) with historical texts

How to Use the Scientific Method

• Achieve familiarity with the general laws of science
• Understand difference between theory and fact
• Perform and document experiments
• Verbalize steps to observe, predict, and conclude

How to Analyze Literature

• Discover literary elements in whole works
• Identify literary techniques in portions of the whole work
• Diagram a narrative story chart from exposition to disposition
• Compare and contrast characters
• Identify and interpret themes

How to Research a Topic

• Select debatable idea
• Learn to use the internet and other hard reference works
• Determine credibility of experts

How to Listen

• Focus on the live or recorded speaker with full attention
• Organize thoughts via outline or mental map
• Narrate understanding by asking questions or repetition
• Interpret meaning
• Answer questions precisely

Please adapt my thinking skills checklist to the needs of your own homeschool child. I have tried to condense my thoughts to the basics which may seem overly simple, I believe simple goals allow us as homeschooling parents to teach out of a position of rest instead of anxiety. Keep your eyes on the big picture and be creative in achieving the goals of your homeschool curriculum.  You want to raise a thinker!

Can you describe your Christian testimony (in general or about your homeschool journey) in under 140 words? Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows messages known as tweets, which are posts of up to 140 characters in length.   Robin Sampson, author of the Heart of Wisdom homeschool blog, has this terrific idea:  spark a testimony fire. She’s asking all Christians to add a Twitter Testimony Tweet: (TTT).

The power of this idea has to do with the number of twitter friends you have. For instance, I’ve got over 300 people following me on twitter, so that means that when I posted my TTT, every one of them saw my testimony of Jesus’ goodness!  Not all of my twitter friends are homeschool Christians, so I’m praying that the Lord touches them and draws them to Him.  Here’s my testimony tweet:

TTT B4: Alcoholic dad (I’m wounded); child dies (I’m broken)
AFTER: “Help me, Jesus” (I’m healed) – sweet relief
http://tinyurl.com/tweettt

TTT: B4: Abandoned, rejected, unloved full of anger
AFTER: Joyfully, dwelling in an intimate relationship with Jesus
http://tinyurl.com/tweettt

Will you tweet your Christian testimony on twitter?  When you are finished watching the video:

1. Wipe the tears from your eyes.
2. Write your Christian testimony below in the comments (remember 140 characters max).
3. If you have not joined twitter, you can now. It’s free ( or if you prefer, I can add your tweet for you).
4. Tweet your Twitter Testimony! Start the line with TTT and end with http://tinyurl.com/tweettt
5. Retweet this line: Christians: Tweet Your Twitter Testimony Tweet (TTT).  Please retweet and pray. http://tinyurl.com/tweettt
6. Blog about TTT to get others involved.
7. Email this link to a homeschool Christian friend so that she can also tweet her testimony on twitter.

May our Lord Jesus be exalted through your tweet, and may the Christian testimony idea go viral!  And if you want to follow me on twitter, just click on the little bluebird below.

Inspiring Homeschool Invention

I get so excited when I come across a national contest that homeschool kids can enter, and this competition inspires invention which fits right in with teaching the three skills of the classical trivium in your Christian homeschool:  language, thought, and speech.  Two winners will be selected, one from the k-8 group and one high school student, to receive a huge prize package each.  If you are creative and diligent in recording the work performed, you can incorporate the entire process from start to finish as part of your homeschool curriculum for the high school transcript.  For example, Meredith and Connor are both writing essays for the homeschool speech ISI George Washington essay contest, so I will be including that as part of their composition credit.  This particular contest involves video production and the use of software, so you could incorporate this project in any number of courses for homeschool high school credit:  composition (writing the script), information technology (using the video software and video camcorder), or even art (graphics and photos).  Here are the competition highlights:

The Advertising Council, Sony Creative Software and Discovery Education have announced the “Inspiring Invention” public service advertising (PSA) development contest to engage a new generation of children in innovation. The contest is part of the Ad Council’s “Inspiring Invention” campaign, sponsored by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the National Inventors Hall of Fame Foundation (NIHFF). The contest is open to school groups at the elementary, middle and high school levels nationwide. In addition to prizes including Sony video and audio production software and hardware, the winning entries will be distributed to media outlets throughout the country in spring of 2009.

Entrants to the Inspiring Invention PSA Contest will submit their video in either the elementary and middle school or high school categories by March 15, 2009. Contestants are encouraged, but not required, to download a demo of Sony Creative Software’s leading video editing application, Vegas Pro 8 software or Vegas Movie Studio software. Initial entries will be submitted to Sony Creative Software on DVD accompanied by a backgrounder on the production and theme. If selected as a semi-finalist, participants will then furnish broadcast-ready components for final judging.

One grand prize winner will be chosen from each of the two categories and awarded a prize package valued at more than $22,000, featuring Sony Creative Software’s professional video and audio production applications, Vegas™ Pro 8, Sound Forge™ 9, Cinescore™ and ACID™ Pro 7 software, as well as Sony Creative Software content including loop libraries, sound effects and Cinescore themes, in addition to having the PSA aired on national television. See full contest rules and regulations including a printable pdf with lots of details for your budding homeschooler videographer.

I am a firm believer in competition even if the homeschool child has little realistic hope of placing in the top finalists.  Why is that?  Well, when you give a homeschool child or teen an attainable goal with a hard deadline, they usually step up to the plate and give their best effort.  They also learn so much in the process about being organized and systematically tackling a task.  Why not incorporate this video contest into your homeschool curriculum after the holidays?  You’ve got plenty of time before the March 15, 2009 deadline, and it will look great on the high school transcript whether your homeschool teen wins or not!

Home education theory is an interesting discussion, but we need precise instructions for turning the idea of an authentic classical Christian home education into reality. Navigating any journey requires planning the course from start to finish. That’s why I have prepared my road maps for mastery of reading, thinking, and speaking skills. These checklists represent my personal goals for my children. You can use them as a springboard for developing your own homeschool curriculum goals.

In my opinion, these are the six specific language abilities that every literate homeschool child needs to master: (1) how to read, (2) how to spell, (3) how to write, (4) how to punctuate and capitalize, (5) how to use proper grammar, and (6) how to decipher unfamiliar vocabulary.

If you are one who needs more detail in achieving and assessing the skill, I have listed some basic abilities that I look for in my own children, but the list is certainly not all-inclusive. The beauty of classical education lies in the fact that you get to customize the content and methods to your own family’s needs.  Here is the complete Home School Curriculum Road Map to Mastery of Reading Skills:

How to Read

• Read aloud (from/to)
• Inflect voice
• Decipher phonetics
• Recognize sight words
• Read independently
• Narrate and predict content

How to Spell

• Apply rules in context
• Find and correct errors
• Divide syllables and hyphenate
• Record dictation and correct errors
• Play spelling games
• Participate in spelling bees

How to Write

• Learn lower and uppercase alphabet
• Create ABC book
• Refine print and cursive handwriting
• Copy classic authors
• Learn to type

How to Punctuate and Capitalize

• Learn rules of usage
• Add missing marks and capitalize
• Find and correct errors
• Learn proofreading marks

How to Use Proper Grammar

• Memorize the eight parts of speech
• Substitute eight parts in context
• Learn gender, case, and declension of nouns
• Learn comparative and superlative rules of modifiers
• Learn conjugation of verbs
• Apply syntax rules
• Diagram sentences
• Familiarize with verbals

How to Decipher Unfamiliar Vocabulary

• Interpret contextual meaning
• Practice dictionary usage

Please feel free to tailor this road map to your own needs. Simple goals allow us to teach out of a position of rest instead of anxiety. Keep your eyes on the big picture and be creative in achieving the goals of your homeschool curriculum.

Homeschool touchdown! Scoring more points than your opponent is the ultimate aim of an American football game. The team with the ball, known as the offense, strategically moves up the field in anticipation of scoring through passing, field goals, or extra points. The defending team, anticipating the offensive strategy, does their best to protect their end zone and prevent the offensive team from scoring. If the defensive team intercepts the ball, the roles are reversed.

Life as a Christian homeschooler is like football in a basic sort of way. Some days you advance at a quick pace with little interference. Other days you spend enormous amounts of time defending your position against aggressive opponents. But whether you find yourself on the offensive or the defensive your immediate call as a follower of Jesus Christ remains the same:  wait on Him to call the home school plays.

Promise

After Jesus was resurrected, He appeared to His followers for a period of forty days.  Right before He was taken up to Heaven, He shared with them two critical pieces of information for living the post-resurrection life:  (1) you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and (2) you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.  (Acts 1:8 NRSV)  This two-fold promise requires nothing of us.  Jesus shows grace to those who follow Him by abiding with us through the constant presence of His Spirit.  Secondly, simply by abiding in His Spirit, our lives will be different, and people will know it from our closest family and friends to our casual acquaintances.  We cannot DO anything to earn His Spirit, and we are not called to DO anything to be His witnesses.  God is the one acting, and all we have to do is wait for His instructions and be obedient under all circumstances whether they are tough or easy.

Wait

Before Jesus left the disciples, He told them to wait for the promise of the Father.  (Acts 1:4 NRSV)  Wait.  Expect.  Be ready and available when the gift of His Spirit comes.  Initially, every person who is called to follow receives the gift of His Spirit.  After that, we wait on Him to deliver specific directions for living in real time every day.  Our anxiety or impatience is fruitless because He is always faithful and delivers what we need at just the right moment.

Some of my kids’ home school friends like to log on to Google Talk and call each other through the computer.  The funny thing about these calls is that these teens don’t just get to the point of the call and then disconnect  like a busy adult who quickly takes care of business.  They leave the communication line open while they are working on other things so that they can talk whenever they feel led to talk.  To a pragmatic person like me, this phenomenon of open chat seemed strange at first.  Connor would be working away on home school debate research when all of a sudden one of his friends would make some comment.  Connor would respond, then it would get quiet again for a while.  Sometimes the periodic conversations are frivolous, and sometimes  the conversations are very serious, but the fact of the matter is this:  these friends are in relationship, and they are immediately available to each other.

Now I see how live chat is like our relationship with the Lord.  Because of His constantly abiding Spirit, He never disconnects from us, nor do we want to disconnect from Him.  Sometimes the chatter is relatively inconsequential, and sometimes there are urgent messages that require immediate response.  If we listen, we will hear Him leading, advising, suggesting, and requiring.  He calls the plays minute by minute, day by day, in rough times, and in easy times, whether we find ourselves on the offensive, or whether we find ourselves on the defensive.  All we have to do in our Christian homeschool is listen and obey.

Obey

In the promise of Acts, Jesus says we will “be” His witnesses.  The word witness is used as a noun and not as a verb.  We are naturally His witnesses by sheer association with His indwelling Spirit and our response to the guidance of His Spirit.  We are not called “to” witness; we “are” His witnesses.  Of course, being good witnesses requires that we respond in obedience to the daily conversation that He is having with us.  Some days are worse than others.  Some days are chaotic with seemingly endless demands.  Some days  are more relaxed and offer time for rest.  Irregardless of the nature of the day, Jesus’ Spirit is available, and He is ready to lead you.  Don’t deceive yourself into acting without consulting Him…you don’t see the entire picture so your call may not be adequate to advance or defend the play.  He is the one with all the answers.  He has already written a comprehensive playbook for the game.  He knows all the possibilities, and He wants you to succeed.  After all, you are His witness.  You represent Him to your family, your neighbor, your friends, your grocer, your dry cleaner, your hair dresser, and every other individual you encounter whether in person,  on the telephone, or in written correspondence.  Let Jesus be the Coach who calls the home school plays on a minute by minute basis.  All you have to do is wait and obey.

* * * * *

My sincere apologies to those of you who recently received two strange email from me:  one on Mark Twain and the German language and another long one on several published posts.  I did not intend to send you spam!  My internet service provider was making some technical changes to my  website and Feedburner mistakenly thought that I meant to send you email.  Thankfully, Midphase has corrected the problem.  More  exciting changes are coming soon with a brand new website design and the announcement of my new  book for the Christian homeschool, Trivium Mastery:  The Intersection of Three Roads, but I haven’t planned any more erroneous emails.  Thanks for sticking with me, and happy homeschooling!

“I believe, or at least I hope, that there is public virtue enough left among us, to deny ourselves everything but the bare necessaries of life, to accomplish our end.”
—George Washington

Here’s a great homeschooling opportunity for your rising classical scholar to validate his mastery of speaking skills (classical trivium skill number three). The Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) and the Circe Institute are co-sponsoring a national essay contest for high school homeschool students. A $1,000 scholarship will be awarded to the first place winner. Registration forms are due on November 28, 2008, and essays are due on January 23, 2009. Here are the details:

“George Washington and the Formation of the American Character”

George Washington’s leadership and legacy remain an important part of American identity. ISI is committed to keeping the vital lessons of the American Founding alive for the rising generation through this prestigious essay contest.

Focus and Format of the Essay

Charles deGaulle once scoffed at the suggestion that he was indispensible to the effort to rebuild France and Western Europe in the wake of WWII, responding that “the cemeteries are full of indispensible men.” It is tempting to believe, however, that at the time of the American founding, George Washington may well have been the exception to de Gaulle’s rule. He conspicuously stands out from among the other central figures of the founding era and earns Lighthorse Harry Lee’s encomium as having been “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen….”

The task of defining American identity is an ongoing, and seemingly endless, project—and one that each generation must take up anew. Answers to the question of what constitutes the distinctly American character range far and wide, taking on a different cast when examined through the respective disciplinary lenses of history, political science, economics, or the arts.

Careful study of the nation’s founding architects reveals a remarkably diverse and complex set of animating convictions that only compound the challenge of defining the American character. Like his renowned contemporaries, Washington’s personal narrative was hardly monochromatic. It may well be that his enduring contribution to the American personality is the imprint of both his personal and public identity upon the nation he loved and served.

Home school students participating in this essay contest are asked to consider at least two central elements of Washington’s public or private life that found expression in American identity. Essayists are encouraged to consider how those characteristics have been weakened or strengthened over the past two centuries and what this suggests about the American character.

Essays are to be between 1,200 and 1,500 words long. Printed entries should be double-spaced and printed on one side of the page only. All submissions must be postmarked or e-mailed by January 23, 2009. Essays will be judged on the basis of scholarship, imagination, and quality of writing.

Deadlines

Registration - November 28, 2008

Essay - January 23, 2009

Scholarship Awards

1st place - $1,000
2nd place -  $500
3rd Place -  $250
4th through 10th place - a set of ISI books on “Order and Liberty at the Founding”

Bonus Gift # 1

Every homeschool entrant receives a complimentary one year subscription to the Intercollegiate Review, ISI’s flagship publication which provide critical essays, reviews, and commentary on a wide variety of topics related to politics, economics, and culture. This journal retails for $13 a year.

Bonus Gift # 2

Patriot Sage, a 369 page paperback retails for $30, and every homeschooler who enters gets a free copy!  In this lavishly illustrated book, the life and legacy of America’s Founding Father is commemorated by bringing noteworthy scholars and authors together for a timely and topical consideration of Washington’s enduring importance.

* * * * *

Consult http://www.isi.org/programs/essay/index.html for complete information.

Download Registration form at:

http://www.isi.org/programs/essay/gw0809/content/george_washington_essay_contest2008-09.pdf.

Questions? Contact essaycontest@isi.org.

Intercollegiate Studies Institute

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) is a non-profit, non-partisan, tax-exempt educational organization whose purpose is to further in successive generations of college youth a better understanding of the values and institutions that sustain a free and humane society.

Founded in 1953, ISI works “to educate for liberty” — to identify the best and the brightest college students and to nurture in these future leaders the American ideal of ordered liberty. To accomplish this goal, ISI seeks to enhance the rising generation’s knowledge of our nation’s founding principles — limited government, individual liberty, personal responsibility, the rule of law, market economy, and moral norms.

Wouldn’t it be GREAT if a home school student won this year?

Forward this post to a friend today!

* * * * * *

ISI Student Guides are a favorite of mine because they are small (usually less than 100 pages), concise overviews of various subjects like American History and Philosophy. Intended as a preparatory tool for the college student, these little surveys summarize the main points of the discipline and save mom lots of research time! You can find these handy little guides at Amazon.com.  Here are two favorites we use in our home school:

Literature:

U.S. History:

Mastery of the three skills of the classical trivium is not achieved on a single day in homeschooling history. You will never be able to look back and pinpoint the day when your homeschool child “graduated”  from the trivium.  Some time during the teen years, you will realize that she has become extremely proficient in the use of language, thought, and speech. There could be some areas of the trivium that she still needs to work on, but by and large, she is ready for more. For what has the classical trivium prepared her?

The Roman Quadrivium

If this were ancient Rome, your rising scholar would progress to the remaining four liberal arts of the the quadrivium taught by a private tutor: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music theory. The pragmatic Romans took the Greek idea of paideia and decided that every free man should learn seven “arts” in order to be fully educated. Nearly three millennia later, we know that learning the four mathematically-oriented disciplines of the quadrivium is no longer sufficient. Unlike the timeless skills of the trivium, the Roman quadrivium is obsolete.

A staggering amount of discoveries have been made since then in math, science, and technology that preclude any man from being a true expert. The inherited body of knowledge accumulates at a frenzied pace as the record of human history continues. In short, the choices for learning in the 21st Century are limitless. Yet, there still remains a core set of fundamental truths with which every educated homeschool high school student should grapple.  The Roman quadrivium is not enough.

The Greek Paideia

You may recall that the Greek paideia is the foundation of a true classical education. According to Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, paideia is the:

Training of the physical and mental facilities in such a way as to produce a broad enlightened mature outlook harmoniously combined with maximum cultural development

Learning was the path to a higher nature through the exploration of abstract concepts such as truth, goodness, and beauty with the expectation that such examination would lead to noble character, gracious behavior, enlightened minds, and enriched society. Exploration of ideas between pupil and teacher usually occurred through a two-way dialogue made famous by the philosopher, Socrates.  However, the early Greek culture from which classical education arose was pagan, and as Emperor Charlemagne realized hundreds of years later, classical education would never accomplish its true objectives unless informed by relationship with the Living God. Man is limited in his knowledge. He needs inspiration. The Greek paideia is not enough.

The Christian Paideia

Most contemporary Christians cannot read Koine Greek, the language of the New Testament, unless they have been to seminary, so you might be surprised to discover that the Apostle Paul uses the word paideia at least seven times in the New Testament in his letters to the Hebrews, the Ephesians, and to his disciple Timothy. Upon reflection, this isn’t really surprising because as I discussed in the posts on rhetoric, there is quite a bit of textual evidence that Paul received a classical education with a concentration in Jewish theology.

I believe we can take the Greek idea of paideia (the search for knowledge) and look at Paul’s use of the word paideia (discipline or instruction in righteousness) to understand the next homeschooling journey for our high school age kids. Paul knew that the Greeks had a good idea, but their educational philosophy lacked one critical component:  the inspiration of the indwelling Spirit of God.  True education is a transformational process of growing in knowledge, understanding, and wisdom.

In the early section of the first letter to the Corinthians, Paul spends a lot of time developing the thought that God’s foolishness is wiser than man’s wisdom. God reveals His knowledge to those who love Him so that they can worship and serve Him in spirit and truth. Unlike the unrealized dreams of the ancient Greeks, our search for knowledge is exquisitely fulfilling as the Lord of Glory reveals little bits of truth in our daily walk with His abiding Spirit. Faithful followers use what they have learned in service to others. Enlightenment for the sake of worship and service is our final objective. In this way, we reclaim our classical inheritance and join the long line of ancestors who realized the wealth of a true classical education.

Jesus gives us the perfect example of what the this looks like in the Gospels.  He lives with his disciples (by the way, disciple is a derivative of the word discipline which is the English translation of paideia) and in the course of every day life, he conducts an ongoing dialogue about ideas:

• ideas about God
• ideas about man
• ideas about man’s relationship to God
• ideas about man’s relationship to man
• ideas about life
• ideas about death

In short, Jesus instructs his disciples by asking them questions about the fundamental realities of life.  Sometimes he provides immediate answers, but more often than not, he allows them to wrestle with the questions through life experiences, parables, and more dialogue.  Like Socrates before him, Jesus knew the value of dialogue or conversation in learning.  He has always been after relationship with us, and in that relationship, we learn more and more.

So what do the post-trivium years look like in authentic classical homeschooling?  They look like the socratic model that Jesus followed with his disciples.  As parents, we supervise the dialogue that our teens are having with the classics and with other authorities like university professors.  We narrate.  We write.  We disagree.  We agree.  We listen.  We discuss the big ideas on a daily basis.  We allow the dialogue to drive the instruction, so sometimes we end up going off on tangents, but that’s okay because we are wrestling with knowledge.  Despite the apparent sanctity of the public school formula, knowledge cannot be perfectly squeezed into discrete subjects.  Every home school minute is an opportunity for learning as parent and high school age teen engage in an ongoing dialogue about the fundamental realities of life.

father and daughter photo © Mikhail Lavrenov - Fotolia.com

A few years ago, my husband, David, occasionally traveled overseas to teach with an international organization that instructs Christian laity in leadership skills. Strategically selected leaders in Estonia, Britain, India, and Kenya were among his students. These men and women received training in leadership, evangelism, and multiplication for the purpose of spreading the Gospel to the unreached people in their respective nations. Theory and strategy were the focus of the conferences. Application of what they had learned had to wait until they got back home.

Every academic discipline is like leadership training. As home school parents, we spend the greater part of every work day teaching our children theory: grammar, spelling, punctuation, composition, logic, speech, math, and science. You might even give them periodic exams to test their knowledge, but you will never know if your home school children really understand the concepts until you see them apply that theory in real life situations.

Grammar rules are antiseptic home school facts until your child has to actually write a sentence that is structured properly like “the boy threw the ball” instead of “the ball the boy threw.” Spelling rules like “i before e except after c” are maddeningly meaningless until the child has to spell real words like “thief” and “deceit” in a written composition. Home school biology is a theoretical system of hypotheses until the high school student steps out into the natural world and proves these speculations by examining the evidence of creation.

So, too, with leadership. Your child has to step out, whether willingly or not, into a real crisis to demonstrate real knowledge. I could take a group of Christian homeschoolers and teach them all about leadership. Abraham, Joseph, and Moses could all illustrate my points on godly leaders. In a perfect situation, every home school teen would look at me with rapturous attention soaking up every morsel of precious instruction. But the truth is this: most of what kids (and adults) hear goes in one ear and out the other ear. We don’t retain most of what we hear. We have to apply knowledge right away to make it stick. That’s why I have my kids take “branch” notes while they are listening to lectures or reading nonfiction, narrate what they’ve learned, then write an abstract summary of the content immediately afterwards. The more ways that I can help them internalize the information, the more likely it is that they will remember it much later in life when they find themselves in a situation where they need to apply what they’ve learned.

My good friend, Sheri, and I are co-sponsors of a local chapter of the National Home School Honor Society. Our chapter has three objectives: academic excellence, community service (specifically in the area of justice), and leadership. Until recently, those three bylaw objectives were just abstract, theoretical ideas that the kids repeated every time a new member was inducted into the society: “I will strive to exhibit character and behavior that will naturally reflect the highest ideals of our local chapter – leadership, scholarship, and service.” Words said in a simple pledge require no immediate action.

Well, like every journey, our home school honor society chapter has hit a few bumps in the road. The most recent issue that the kids have been dealing with has to do with interpretation of our bylaws. These teens are having a rip-roaring, ongoing email discussion about the definitions and direction of our society. It reminds me of the discussion that conservatives and liberals often have over the interpretation of the U. S. Constitution or even of Scripture. Should we interpret the words literally, or should we try to determine the original intent of the writers?

What I have found really exciting and encouraging about this wrestling match is this: some of our teenagers are living out the pledge to be leaders. They are all academic scholars as proven by their GPAs and standardized test scores. They all have to log a certain number of community service hours as a requirement for continued membership. But leadership is not mandatory. Yes, we do have elected officers, but just because you are an officer doesn’t mean that you are a leader. With this recent conflict, we have seen which of the kids are leaders. Courageous in their zeal, they are learning firsthand how to lead in love and humility. They are learning that leadership is exhilarating, but often lonely. They are learning that those whom you are leading do not often appreciate your efforts to advocate on their behalf. They are learning that the Lord is at work in this discussion as He prepares them for more challenging leadership tasks in the future.

So what does this have to do with your homeschooling journey? Give your children opportunities to apply what they are learning. Don’t be surprised when unscheduled demands surface. Use these challenges for teaching. The Lord is at work in your life, too. He provides the theory and expects you to provide the action. Abraham had to embrace Sarah before he became the father of many nations. Second in command to Pharaoh, Joseph had to actively store grain before the nation escaped famine. Moses had to lift the rod that God gave him before the Red Sea swamped the Egyptian army. The potential for greatness was there all along, but each man had to act on his knowledge before theory became reality. Home school theory without application is worthless.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want leaders who don’t know the Lord. Even the most immature Christian with a tender-hearted desire to obey, is better than a stiff-necked woman who believes that she alone is sovereign.

Those of you who know my story, know that I spent the first eighteen years of my adult life as a disobedient, hard-hearted woman. Bitter over a drunken dad and perverted pastors, I renounced my childhood faith, and left the church. During those years of spiritual exile, I refused to acknowledge the Lord’s presence and authority. In fact, I pretended that He was dead. What I didn’t realize until many years later was that I was the one who was really dead.

Spiritually dead that is. Nothing satisfied. Nothing could heal my pain until the day in October 1997 when I came face-to-face with Jesus and cried out for mercy. In the midst of my heaving sobs, He quietly and gently told me all was okay now. He forgave me. Ever since that day, I have been desperate to follow Him because He is my life and my hope. His Law is no longer repulsive. Rest is possible when we obey because He has our best interests at heart. He has proven himself faithful and worthy of my total trust.

According to Richard Hays, author of The Moral Vision of the New Testament, “the great difficulty with the Law of Moses…was that it could only point to righteousness, never actually produce it. There is a powerful and inexplicable ‘law of sin’ at work in human hearts that constantly defeats our solemn intention to do the good and to obey the will of God. Consequently, even where the hearer of the Law applauds the vision of the moral life conveyed by the Torah - as indeed we should, since the commandment of the Law is ‘holy and just and good’ (Romans 7:12), the Law can produce only condemnation and frustration.” The Apostle Paul agonized in Romans 7:14-24 over this life “in Adam” under the Law but before the rebirth “in Christ”:

For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

The Apostle Paul leaves the reader feeling desperate and hopeless at the end of Romans 7:24. He outlines our basic problem and asks who will save us? In verse 25, he reveals the solution: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Paul starts chapter 8 with the exhilarating revelation that Jesus condemns sins and releases those who follow Him from deserved condemnation. We are reborn from the old “in Adam” to the new “in Christ.”

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do; by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. for those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law - indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Why does God do this? So that we, His people, can fulfill His ‘holy, just, and good’ Law. The Holy Spirit empowers us to obey, and when we walk according to the Spirit, our desires and actions are totally aligned!

Hays again: “God is present in power in His people (the church), changing lives and enabling an obedience that would otherwise be unattainable. Obedience is a consequence of salvation, not its condition. The Holy Spirit is not a theological abstraction but the manifestation of God’s presence in the community, making everything new. Those who respond to the Gospel have entered the sphere of the Spirit’s power, where they find themselves changed and empowered for obedience. Obedience is possible at all only because God has broken the power of sin and begun the work of conforming believers to the image of Jesus Christ.”

Scripture makes it clear that God establishes human government, and often as in the story of Pharoah of Egypt, God uses stiff-necked leaders to accomplish His purposes. So we cannot exclude nonbelievers from positions of authority, but we can prepare our homeschoolers for godly leadership in case the Lord calls them. How do we do this? Create an environment at home in which our children experience the love of Jesus on a daily basis. Tell them the stories of His faithfulness. Let them see His power at work in our lives. Immerse them in love and forgiveness. Perhaps one day your son or daughter will obediently lead like Moses with a heart inclined toward the Lord. Hard-hearted leaders are a curse and make foolish decisions that cause unnecessary pain. Leaders who walk with Jesus are empowered by His ever-present Spirit and end up blessing the people.