Christian homeschooling: Why school is not necessary for optimal development

Many parents think it is necessary to send children to a school building. This is a common attitude amongst American parents. Most American parents support sending their children to school. I oppose sending children to school, and instead support homeschooling. The form of Christian homeschooling I support is unschooling. Unschooling is encouraging the natural curiosity of children. 

In the Early Church, children in the church were unschooled entirely, with children first learning to decode words on an Aramaic copy of the Hebrew Bible. Schools did exist in the broader Greco-Roman world, but school corporal punishment was a thing in Hellenistic schools. Schoolchildren in Ancient Greece and Rome were given the scourge of cords when they acted up.

The Bible, however, prohibits the punishment of children entirely, as well as anything that offends the child stemming from entitlement, endorsing homeschooling as a means of education instead of sending your child to school. See Ephesians 6:4 KJV:

And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

The Greek root word translated "provoke...to wrath" is παροργίζο (Latin: parorgizo) and refers to damages or offenses, namely the slightest of personal offense perceived by a child, including, but not limited to, the slightest of offensive touch or speech perceived by a child, stemming from entitlement. This commandment was intended by the Apostle Paul, and understood in its original context, as a moral statute prohibiting all forms of punitive parenting, including, but not limited to, any punishments, reprimands, or other controlling demeanor towards children. In the Old Testament, punitive parents were put to death by way of bloodletting, after punishing their children one last time. Parents who punished their children were charged with kidnapping, with "kidnapping" being defined as the slightest of damages or offenses stemming from hostage-taking - child punishment was seen as holding your child hostage merely for things that they did wrong, thereby treating them as a quartered slave. Paul here was lifting up the Law in order to convict a group of Greek Christian parents in the parish at Ephesus who brought their pagan custom of spanking and punishing children into the church. Paul, contrary to popular legend, was anti-spanking, and opposed any and all punishment of a child. Paul may not have gotten along with the women of the church, but he sure loved children, and even took in a few orphaned children in his time. Indeed, Greco-Roman teachers used the scourge of cords in order to punish their children, but the Christians of the Greco-Roman world kept their children home to protect them from being whipped in school.

Children were not schooled in biblical times like they are today. School did exist, but only for the upper classes of Greco-Roman society, with even the upper classes of Christendom not sending their children to school, as school wasn't a mandate in biblical times. Christian parents homeschooled their children. The Greek root word translated "admonition" is νουθεσία (Latin: nouthesia) and refers to the instruction of the Lord. Parents, when children were around age 6, left out a Bible for a child to page through and explore, with most children in the Early Church learning to read on that very Bible. Children can teach themselves how to read. I taught myself at an early age how to read. Most children learn how to read naturally at by age 6, though actual ages differ from child to child. Children, when finding the Bible, were praised and encouraged for studying the Bible. From there, educational topics came in question and answer format, with the natural curiosity of the child being encouraged instead of discouraged through grades and tests.

The main argument against homeschooling is that it gives parents immunity in child abuse cases. However, the police patrol even in the privacy of your own home - police do wiretap electronics in a given home, going from home to home. I support the police wiretapping my home, even if I wasn't under investigation (which I am under investigation as a victim). I support the right of the police to wiretap, as if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about.

As a child, I wanted to be homeschooled by my mother. I was the type of child to tell off the teachers, and even tell them "you're fired". Certain teachers were helpful, but even they failed to protect me from being suspended from school or being detained in the form of false imprisonment tactics. School protocol allows for the suspension or expulsion of any student, depending on the infraction. I was also, in an alternative school setting, was placed in an isolation room in a way that did violate the law, and was even deprived of lunch until I got all my work done. Some schoolchildren have it worse - they might be paddled by a school principal. I was never paddled at all by a school official, but paddling is only one form of school "discipline" that has got to go. 

Anything that offends or damages a child, stemming from entitlement, should be erased from codes of conduct in schools. Any time you try to control a schoolchild, that is entitlement, as control is a form of imposed want. And that's the problem with school - it is so steeped in controlling children. If you send your child to school, it is good idea to be a source of comfort and reassurance when children get home. Not everyone can unschool or homeschool their children, and that is a complete and total shame.

The depraved and entitled adults who provoke children to anger in a school setting will not inherit the Kingdom of God! Let them be cast forever into the lake of fire and burning sulfur, which is the second death prepared for Satan and his accomplices! Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!