Monday, February 1, 2010

Colliding worldviews

This is a persuasive speech that I gave when I was 12 years old. I know it is long, but I would really like it if your read it. I was looking back through some stuff and read it. I was AMAZED! So please take to time to read it and, don't forget the pictures at the bottom if it. ;-p
Thanks!

Colliding world views
The case against public education for our daughters

On a beautiful farm lived a home-schooled family of 8 kids. The oldest was 19 years old. She was very respectful to her father and mother; she loved her siblings and was very obedient. One day her father decided that he wanted her to go to college to learn advanced math, history, and teaching skills so that she would be able to teach her children she would one day have. A few fast years went by and she learned things she had never heard before about history and science. The day came for her to go home and things had changed. She had lost all respect for her father, had become indifferent to her siblings, and had rejected the worldviews she was raised with. How her father pleaded for her to reconsider, and come to her senses, but alas, it seemed too late. Grief and heartache were all her parents had left. In repentance, they fell to their knees and asked GOD for his mercy, and the return of their daughter’s heart.

Modern philosophy of education has introduced itself even in home schooling circles. This has rendered our arguments inconsistent, our witness ineffective, and our daughters unprotected.
Today, I will be dealing with the pagan college in my speech. These same ideas however could be applied to Christian colleges as well. My outline will have 3 basic points. Headship, philosophy, and peer group influence.
FIRST IS HEADSHIP.
Fathers are casting their daughters to the wolves when they send them out of the house to the pagan world. It is impossible for the father to protect the daughter if they are away at college. Headship is effectively transferred to the educrat’s, who are invested with most of the daughter’s time. Fathers must take seriously this responsibility and jealously guard their daughter’s heart.
NEXT IS PHILOSOPHY.
Homeschoolers argue that the pagan cannot correctly understand or think about anything. Colossians 2:2-3 says, “my purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have fill riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of GOD, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Apart from Christ, wisdom and knowledge are meaningless.” In addition, the Bible makes it clear that the student will become like the teacher. This is a fact that we too often overlook. Homeschoolers again make the point that after trained their daughters in their younger years, they are now ready to face the world and its institutions. How is it that when a daughter reaches a certain age the pagan suddenly has something to teach them? What has changed our philosophy from 17 to 18 or 19 years old? Something that was once heinous to us is now embraced as necessary. We have bought into the myth of quote/un-quote “Higher education” for the price of our daughter’s hearts. The early church recognized this same problem as many began sending their children out of the home to Greek schools for their education. This drove Tertullian to ask the question, “What does Jerusalem have to do with Athens?” the idea being that they had it backwards. Those who were entrusted with the truth should have been teaching those blinded in darkness, not the other way around. We need to be once again reminded of the myth of neutrality. Education is not neutral. Basic ideas and assumptions are being implanted and it is inescapable that the student will be affected.
THEN THERE IS PEER GROUP INFLUENCE.
Another reason given by homeschoolers for home educating their children is that we don’t want to send our most precious possession to be ravaged by the vile and prophane. As proverbs put it, “Bad Company corrupts good morals.” Again, what has changed from 17 to 18 or 19 years of age? Had the pagan suddenly found morality? Is he now the influence that we desire for those under our protection? The standard of GOD’s word points us to the fact that the dog returns to its vomit, that the pagan does only evil continually and that he has changed the truth for a lie.
I want to close with a quote from Martin Luther.
“I am very much afraid that the schools will prove the very gates of hell, unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy scriptures, and engraving them in the hearts of youth. I will advise no one to place his child where the scriptures do not reign paramount. Every institution in which men are not unceasingly occupies with the word of GOD must be corrupt.”

I LOVE it! <3
Tell me what you think!
~Jessica

1 comment:

Josh V. said...

Well, you definitely got your point across. Amazing what a 12 year old can do if their homeschooled. :D