Welcome to this special edition of the live cast. Paul Feese is not with us today, so it's just me, Glenn Scrivener, here at Speak Life. I am uh self-isolating or locking down or whatever it is. Uh I am uh uh home educating as well and uh new to it. And so uh I thought we could get a couple of people onto the show to figure out this this new normal that everybody's talking about. And uh in order to help us uh have this conversation about homeschooling, I thought I'd get some people uh who had been doing it uh from before COVID-19 hit. And uh so the first person I want to introduce to you uh is Brooke Newman. Uh she is a homeschooling mother of five children and a minister's wife just outside of Basingstoke. Uh Brooke, thank you so much for joining us on the live cast. And can you just introduce yourself a little bit further and and just uh a little bit perhaps of your homeschooling journey?
SPEAKER_00Yes, so um I have lived in England since 2010, just after my son was born, um my first son, and um yes, grew up, was home educated myself, and uh that started from yeah, the time that I was five to the time that I was 17 and took exams and went to university then. Um so I have experienced it from that side as well. So I didn't have any of the fear that a lot of people experience about going into the unknown. I knew that it was possible, I knew that I had loved it, um, that my mother had communicated a real love of learning and a love of God's world, um, and given us the tools to teach ourselves and to learn and to continue learning all our lives. So I I had that as a foundation. I also had um, I guess I've always felt that part of the Great Commission is to um raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and it's a massive part of the Great Commission and very essential, and it's a calling given to parents. So um, given that, both from you know, Ephesians 6 is a very key verse, Ephesians 6, 4, and Deuteronomy 6 talking about teaching your children as you walk along the way, as you sit down, as you eat. So that as a fundamental responsibility for parents, um, I knew that was going to be a calling for me if you know if I was able to have children and I've been blessed with five. So I knew that was going to be a central part of what I would be doing for a long time. Um and government education wasn't an option for us because I don't believe education is neutral. And um, if most of my children's day is spent, even if the subjects look quite similar, you know, teaching phonics here, teaching math, you're you're aiming at the same types of things, literacy, able to calculate, that kind of thing. But if all of the teachers in my children's life are saying, hey, Jesus is irrelevant, Jesus Christ is irrelevant to this subject, what does Jesus have to do with math? Um, I don't want my children to have a fragmented view of the world, and long term that will affect them, even if they keep their faith, that's going to impact the way they function in their work. And um, so that's why we chose to home educate. I think that's the the option that we have now. Um and if they're going really well, there are a lot of great resources. So yes.
SPEAKER_02Terrific. How old is your eldest child?
SPEAKER_00Oldest is nine. So we're not very far along, but yes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. Terrific. Well, we'll we'll get into that. Christ at the heart uh of all things, and therefore at the heart of our education. Um, we'll figure out what that means as we as we go along in this conversation. But let me bring in uh Gary Williams as well. Uh Gary is um the director of the Pastor's Academy at London Seminary, and uh he has also very recently become a tweeter and a tweeter of note who has already got a parody account. This is this is incredible to me, Gary. I've been on Twitter for 10 years now, and nobody has done a parody of me. I am eminently parodyable, and yet you you already uh have a parody account. What's what's going on with that?
SPEAKER_01And I'm entirely normal, so it's quite hard to understand, isn't it? Yeah, you know, I think my ego soared when the parody account appeared, and then when it disappeared at midday yesterday because it was in fact an April Fool. Um I've been nursing it ever since. Oh, what a shame.
SPEAKER_02I mean, there's material there. I don't I don't know why why it should just be one day a year.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you just need to know one particular person who I think likes parodying other people, and then you get one, probably. Yes.
SPEAKER_02And we're all guessing who that one person is right now.
SPEAKER_01But uh stay away from healing is my advice. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's the person I was thinking to. Yes. Um, so Gary, um you you've done some home educating um yourself, um, but but but your children currently are not being home educated, is that right?
SPEAKER_01That's right. So ours are 18, 16, 14, and 12. Um, and we began home educating um all of them. Um and at the time, so we started thinking about it because the we looked at the local school and actually initially, not for particularly theological reasons, but we just the school we would have got a place at would have been no good. You know, even the government didn't think it was any good, so we weren't particularly keen on using it. That got us thinking, and then our neighbours at the time were a homeschooling Christian family. We were living where we met at Oak Hill College in North London, and uh David Phil was uh and his family were homeschooling next door to us, and we saw their uh children and thought they're they're remarkably normal and lovely, and we like what we see. And I guess that's that got us thinking again, oh, maybe this is a real option. And then being in a college environment on a campus, we were able to team up with a bunch of other people. Um, so we began homeschooling all of them. And then when 10 years ago I moved job and we moved home, uh we then rethought and were able to move near a Christian school. Obviously, in this country there are very few genuinely Christian schools where where all the teachers have to be Bible-believing Christians, but we moved to where we are now um to be near one of them. Um I think generally speaking, I gather the in the States Um as as Brooke shows us that uh ahead of us in thinking about Christian education, there's much more of it. Um here there's I don't know, well, probably around about a hundred genuinely Christian schools in the country. So we were able to relocate in one of them. So then we shifted them into the school and have carried on with that since. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So that's that's the issue with both of you that I'm hearing. It's it's not so much you want your children around you the entire time, but you you want Christ to be at the center of the curriculum, Christ to be at the center of of what it is that they're learning, so that they have that integrated uh knowledge of the whole world. So that would Brooke, would it would it be an option for you if if there was a terrific Christian school down the road, would that be an option for the Newman?
SPEAKER_00Oh, absolutely, yes. Um I I'm not a methodological diehard in that sense. I think it's not it's not that I think any home education just because it's at home and it's some sort of education is a good idea. I think it can be it can be a rotten education at home and it can be not Christian at all, even if it has Christian parents technically doing it. So um, yes, I think it's it's the Christian education that's that's the at the heart of it for me, the discipleship of my children and as a whole person.
SPEAKER_02Great. My I mean from the outside, my impression of the homeschooling movement it is is that it is um a predominantly Christian movement, would you would you say? Or at least it's Christians are uh are more heavily um represented than than than non-Christians. Would that be would that be fair?
SPEAKER_00I think so. Um there is a bit of a sort of a natural um unschooling movement that you can run into. So I think that is more the case now than it used to be. I think it was probably more pioneered by Christians. And again, because um discipleship and keeping your children in the faith is a powerful motivator when you're gonna go against what everybody thinks is normal, when your grandparents are looking at you funny, when everybody's saying this is never gonna work, your children are not gonna be socialized, they're gonna be a bunch of weirdos, they're not gonna be able to get a normal job, you know. When people are looking at you like that, you have to have something that you that's strong enough of a principle to be able to say, actually, I'm gonna do this anyways, because this really matters.
SPEAKER_02And for you, that that kind of Deuteronomy 6, Ephesians 6, that's that it's the parents' chief responsibility to to raise up their children and in particular to raise them up in the in the training of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Yes. So it is a response we shouldn't, as Christian parents, expect that okay, it's just enough if we um bring our kids to Sunday school once a week and and leave it to the teachers. No, it's it is all of life. So um see yeah, that that is a that is the motivator for me.
SPEAKER_02And and Gary, for you, what do you what do you think is the link between um our I mean, I I love the way that Brooke framed it in terms of the Great Commission. Um, if we're going to be Great Commission people, then let's start at home. The Great Commission starts at home, and and therefore homeschooling would seem to flow from that. What what what is the link for you between your Christian discipleship and this belief in this kind of education?
SPEAKER_01Yes, I mean you can approach it from many different angles, can't you? I think it it's simply the centrality of Christ in all things. Um and if if your children are spending 10,000 hours being educated in an environment in which he can't be mentioned, um, or if he has mentioned it's only in derogatory terms, uh, that can't be good for them spiritually. Um so in terms of their spiritual nurture, um they I I want them to be educated in an environment where where the Lord Jesus is at the centre of all things. I mean you can argue that intellectually, you can say, well, how can you actually study maths or science without an underpinning conviction about the unity of all things in Christ and Colossians one kind of way? I think that's absolutely true as well. But I think fundamentally as a parent that it's that sense of the spiritual well-being of the children that's the that's at the heart of it. Um just going back a step, although we're we're using a Christian school, but the one thing in favour, perhaps, of homeschooling over Christian schooling would be outside the home, would be the the centrality of the home. I've been struck more and more thinking about um you know how how is it that teenage teenagers growing up in Christian homes get led astray? It's often because their life has become centred outside the home and the church in a secular environment. Um and to and to centralize the home in the life of children, even if they're going out to school. It's got me thinking about how we're how we're doing that with children out of the house in the Christian school. How do we centralize the home as the principal influence with the church on the on the nurture of the child? Um that's the obvious problem, I think, with with putting them in an environment where which is utterly hostile. Um especially when the younger they are, the more vulnerable they are, although arguably actually secondary school is a pretty vulnerable time as well. Um, it's all very well to say let's let's send them off to do evangelism. To to put them in that kind of environment with that kind of goal.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we tend we tend to train up our evangelists first for many, many years before sending them into the mission field, don't we?
SPEAKER_01Well, well, some do. I'm not sure that's even true of all adult evangelists or pastors either. We weren't ready to send people out, but yes, we should do, yes.
SPEAKER_02Yes, best practice. Yeah. Why why Gary, why do you think there's a there's a a difference in the Christian culture in the UK to in the state? In the in the states, it it seems to me to be um a lot more done um to be home educated. Um in in the UK, what what what are some of the cultural factors that mean that the average UK Christian might not even consider homeschooling as an option?
SPEAKER_01I I think we're probably quite reductionistic in our view of the gospel um and of what it means to be a Christian. So we we think we've prayed the prayer, we believe Jesus died for our sins and um and we're saved from hell and that's it. Um and the idea that that actually our Christian faith shapes everything, that there is a distinctively Christian way of doing education or work or of being a Christian doctor or a Christian lawyer, and that we need to think that through is alien to us. We've we've got a very I you can use the word petistic in the good sense. I'm using it here in the in the we've got a very pietistic in the negative sense, a very shrunken view of the lordship of Christ. Um and therefore we're not we're not used to thinking that way about his significance for absolutely everything we do. Whereas I think American Christianity generally well, I say American Christianity bits of it are are more historically reformed, actually in the way that you think of the Dutch Reformed and Caiprun people are thinking about um Christ's scholarship over the whole of life. That's more in the theological blood of American conservative evangelical Christians um than it is in the British realm, I think. Interestingly, the school our children are at is largely populated by families from um African backgrounds and especially Pentecostal churches. And they too think ah, there's an absolute divide between Christ and his enemies. Um and we want our children educated by the friends of Jesus. Um they they get it as well, without that kind of Chimerian background. Um, but I think I think at least the bits of of evangelicalism that some of us move in in this country are are fairly thin in their view of the implications of of the gospel.
SPEAKER_02Would you would you uh speaking as a as an American now in the UK, are you able to comment on those cultural differences? On my idealistic view of America.
SPEAKER_00I think I think it's true about what I've experienced over here. There is that reductionism, is like, well, you know, what is what does this have to do with the gospel? The gospel is just this, but the gospel is not it's it's it covers everything. Jesus Christ is not small, Jesus Christ is not just the Lord of morality. So I've seen that a lot in people thinking like not being able to connect Christ to their work other than I don't lie at work or I don't cheat at work, but not thinking in terms of um how it impacts their whole way of thinking about that particular practice. I think in America, also work we're just quite fighty right away. So I think we um American Christians began to get suspicious about secular education quite early on because we're not subtle. We don't do the kind of, I'll pretend to be your friend and then sort of undermine undermine things slowly while you don't notice. I think I think that tends to be a little more British. So I think we notice when we're at odds quite quickly and everything, and that can be a bad thing, everything can blow up quite quickly and get quite aggressive and hostile, but but you really on the bright side, you do know who's on your side and who isn't. And I think American Christians generally were quite aware that the public schools were aggressively hostile to any faith in the school, any kind of reference to Jesus Christ. So I think that has impacted it.
SPEAKER_02Let me let me be a mouthpiece for um where some fears are coming from. And let me articulate where where I think um I'm sure you've heard all these questions before. But I I can identify two major concerns that people have. When I even raise the issue of homeschooling, people think, won't that make my kids weird? Um and aren't we meant to go into all nations? So that that that that that that again is why I think, Brooke, your you're bringing the the Great Commission front and center is so so fascinating. But can you can you speak to those two fears that it will make my A, it will make my children weird, and B, it's it's an anti-evangelistic move.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so make my children weird. One now there's one sense in which I don't want my children to be weird. I don't want them to be the sort of difficult person that's always doing the thing that annoys everybody, kind of weird. Um, but there's another sense in in that are we as Christians really just called to conform to the world? Like, um, are you so concerned about your child fitting in that actually you don't want them to be able to stand up for Christ? So I think that's a real problem. Um, yeah, absolutely. I don't want my children to have weird twitches and dress like they're from the 1800s or something. And there are people out there that try and put their children in a different era and so they don't know how to relate to the world, but uh home education isn't about that, it's about equipping your children. And also you can um, I think the social aspect where people are always worried about that is that well, well, actually, as a Christian family, I would hope you're having people of all kinds and in all backgrounds into your home and that you're teaching your children how to interact, how to be gracious, how to have people around that are not like them. Um, interestingly, so I've had the school gate evangelism thing come up before, definitely. That's kind of a big what about school gate evangelism? You're missing that opportunity. You've got all these kids. And um, in the last parish that we were in, um, because we were at home, my kids were always at home. They met all the neighbors, and pretty soon our whole house was this manic hub of all the neighbors' kids because they all wanted to be at our house all the time. We were the ones that were at home, we were the ones that were there during the breaks. Um, we were the ones that were having fun together. And so I actually had an incredible opportunity without ever having gone to school. So I think it's it's like, well, what if you don't have kids? You don't have the school gate evangelism. Hopefully, you have other opportunities. Um, and then let's see, what was your other question? So weird and that was it.
SPEAKER_02Evangelism thing. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Gary, how how would you how would you answer those those two objections?
SPEAKER_01I've I've met some weird homeschooled children, um, and then I've then I've met their weird parents. Um, I think um you meet people from all sorts of backgrounds, don't you? And I think their weirdness is probably not caused by being homeschooled, but but actually that their mums and dads were pretty strange too.
SPEAKER_00And they probably would have been the odd person at school.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, indeed.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, as well. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But I th but I think the argument at that stage is they'll have their their rough edges knocked off. And really, and the subtext of that is by bullying.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I was gonna say they might have them knocked off the bits. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Um, I don't I don't think I want to send my children to school to get their rough edges knocked off in that particular way. Thank you. I think we should be correcting that. Um, I think um uh yeah, so so the weird the weirdness thing I think is is is probably not caused by the homeschooling. I think the socialization thing is, as Brooke says, not true. Um, and of course, church is a brilliant place to be socialized. And as people said, being in a school class is a strange social environment. When in the rest of your life will you be in an environment with 29 other people exactly the same age as you? Probably never. Actually, normal socialization is the kind of socialization you get in the church. We found, I think, that more of the challenge would be finding not so much socialization, but finding friends at their stage. Um, and there could be various contexts, social contexts in which that could be quite difficult of your homeschooling to get them among friends of their own, roughly their own age and stage, and other situations that might be easier. But I didn't think it's socialization that's difficult. Um, and then yeah, the Great Commission thing, exactly. Well, you you you make disciples, don't you? Um so this is this is laying foundations. We we in the same way as your analogy illustrated, Glenn. I think we don't we don't make children our pastors, um, we don't make children our evangelists. We train people up first and we strengthen and we lay the foundations. Maybe, maybe, actually, a life post-20 or post-18, the life of a homeschooled child post-18, will bear more evangelistic fruit because of the good foundations that were laid pre-18 than the evangelistic work of the pre-18 um school educated Christian child. We d we don't know the whole the in fact, that whole approach um relies on a sort of some idea of a sort of calculus that we can operate, that we can work out the best evangelistic outcome, and it is to put this child here. We have no idea, really, the Lord knows. Um, we've no idea what the best evangelistic outcome will be. You think of, you know, that random preacher through whom the spurgeon was conveyed. Or if John Owen was converted. We can't calculate how the Lord is going to work. It could be that the well-educated, Christianly educated homeschooled children will have extraordinarily fruitful evangelistic lives after they leave their homeschool.
SPEAKER_02Yes. So who knows about the far horizon? You trust the far horizon to God. You're faithful with what is close to hand. And what is close to hand? Your children, your household. Let's be faithful with who God has given us. So what what are the unique challenges? Because I I guess there's a whole nation now that is now having to adjust to having children. And of course, this is a very odd situation. And you know, in emergency circumstances, teachers grabbed a few different syllabuses or syllabi and kind of emailed them out to parents. And parents are in a flat trying to adjust to this in this emergency way. But but there's there's some other issues that are going on in terms of just structuring the day, um, in terms of in terms of children obeying their parents in a different setting to what they're used to. Um what are some of the challenges of of home educating?
SPEAKER_00Um I would say definitely there are challenges, the practical challenges for for any mother having to run a house and also home educate. And you're thinking you've got you know a million things on your mind, you've got the grocery order coming and the food and the snacks and the laundry and the children and their education. And it is difficult. Um, there is no denying that it is hard work. Anything that is worth doing is hard work. Um pretty much. And uh, but it's worth doing. Um, I would say you have to have a structure and you have to have a flexible structure. And perfectionism is really the enemy, because it leads to discouragement. So if you think it's all gonna have this ideal, I think this is what this experienced homeschooler's life looks like. It must be really perfect and smooth and everything always goes to plan. And you know, some days look really messy. Some days, some days you feel like it was just the toddler throwing pens on the floor, and and okay, that that schedule didn't work. I need to figure out a new one. So I always at the beginning of the year I sit down, um, I kind of work out what I'm going to cover for the year and um when my time is going to be best used, who needs individual time for their lessons, um, that sort of thing, and try and come up with a sensible, doable structure that's flexible, that has enough breaks, um, where I'm not going to fail every time. Because if you set yourself this crazy um complex agenda, you're just not going to get it done. And then you're going to feel like a failure every day. And that's that's just no good. So little by little, you can do a great you can give your kids a great education um without it being super crazy hard to fit it in, but you have to be flexible and and learn from your mistakes and adjust accordingly.
SPEAKER_02So we're we're recording this at 2 30 in the afternoon. Um what what what are your kids doing right now? Because I'm I'm not hearing pandemonium in the background.
SPEAKER_00My kids are off on a walk on their daily allotment of exercise with their father at the moment.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00So that that so that you don't hear pandemonium in the background. Otherwise, they'd probably be giving each other piggyback rides right outside away.
SPEAKER_02So that's in the schedule though. You've you've memorized it.
SPEAKER_00I'm not I'm I'm not a super detailed schedule. I give I give general blocks of time where I get general amounts of things done, but it's flexible, so I'm not detailing out my life. That means I can sort of, if something comes up, if it's a sunny day, I can flex, I can change. That's the that's the great thing about homeschooling is that you're not stuck, you can adjust to different things coming up.
SPEAKER_02I mean, and where do you where do you get your syllabus from? Where do you get your curriculums? Curriculum.
SPEAKER_00Um there are loads of fantastic resources, mostly in the US, although some have been um now become available on Amazon UK, which is great. Um I use The Well-Trained Mind as a reference book, which is uh Jesse Wise and her daughter Susan Bauer, I think. Anyways, it's a it's a great reference because it has lots of different curriculum. Um, and generally it's all planned out and very easy to use in a homeschooling setting. So in the in the crisis situation, it is the worst of both worlds. You're beginning given the stuff the schools have given you, that's set up for a classroom, not for individuals. You can't tailor it. And they don't know what it's like to teach at home because that's not what they've been doing. So it's just it's just not the same. So there's there's loads of resources that are really oriented toward Christian education at home.
SPEAKER_02Gary, your your household is having to adjust from uh uh at this time. Uh how how is the Williams household bearing up?
SPEAKER_01Well, so we've got having an 18 and a 16-year-old, we've lost A levels and GCSEs suddenly. Um, and we've we've had lots of lovely levers events planned that have vanished overnight for their from their school. So that's been a huge adjustment, really. And interest interestingly, not one that was welcomed by them. You might think, oh yippee, we're getting out of exams, but actually, when you've been working flat out towards something and then suddenly somebody takes it away, that's quite difficult. And obviously, with the A levels brings a degree of uncertainty about how they're going to calculate things and what happens next. So there's been some adjusting going on, and the younger two, um, yep, so the the school are sending work home on an electronic portal. And um, my wife Fiona teaches in the school anyway, which is where so so um she is both providing the teaching for the other children and also trying to supervise um our our two doing their work as well. So it's it's a steep learning cover. In fact, that's what I was going to say is um I wrote something on our blog about homeschooling, and Fiona said you need to you need to add another paragraph saying you know it's hard. Um I think actually you know the experience of lots of parents dropped into it like this um is even harder than parents planning to do it. Um and they shouldn't be put off by that. I mean, I I quite hope that this will get some parents thinking and maybe maybe this is a longer-term thing to think about seriously. Well, having it landed on you like this suddenly is not what it would be like if you spent time planning it, if you invested in the materials that Brooks mentioned. You can you know you can get a big box sent over from America that contains everything you need um to homeschool your children. Um and so with planning it's easier than it is, but doing it this way is pretty difficult. Yeah. It's it's always difficult, but this is probably a an even more difficult start.
SPEAKER_02Yes. But you you would hope that um yeah, Christian parents would perhaps get a positive experience of this or at least be forced to think um maybe maybe the state is not the chief educator of my child, and and maybe um the there are opportunities here. Um Gary, you you wrote um a very interesting uh tweet thread. Um you do know, by the way, Gary, that um Twitter is micro-blogging. You do the You were made aware of that, would you? I'm I'm I'm I'm trying to redeem Twitter from the from the superficial trying to explode Twitter. Um with 25 tweet threads.
SPEAKER_01Um 87.
SPEAKER_02It was um actually 87 tweets on this micro blogging platform. Um but uh uh Gary, uh fascinating. And you you can read it at your blog as well, is that right, Gary?
SPEAKER_01It's got a thing on it about viewing this moment of homeschooling as an opportunity to to to I suppose give an injection of Christian education to children who aren't normally getting it, and being excited about that whilst thinking it's quite tough as well, but to view it as a positive thing, not just a oh no, now we've got to do this.
SPEAKER_02Yes. And you and you start talking about the the possibilities for proclaiming Christ as central to the entire syllabus, as central to all learning, all knowledge. Um, and you start talking about various subjects. And I I I thought I could maybe uh give you a little pop quiz. And I thought it might be fun to start thinking about well, hang on, how is Jesus central to French or something? Um but you you started interestingly, when you started talking about Christ is central to every subject, I started thinking about was maths the first one that you you mentioned?
SPEAKER_01I don't remember the order, but it would have been high on the list, I think. Yes, it's where um some uh Cornelius Van Til in his book on Christian education, I think probably does most with maths. So it was that was maybe the one I went to first. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Yes. So how how do I let's say I've got a 10-year-old um and he's been learning maths at school for the last five years, numbers, and never was Christ mentioned in maths class. Um what what more could mentioning Jesus add to his mathematical knowledge, Gary?
SPEAKER_01Good question. Good question. Um well you might how could you tackle this? Presuming that he's a sort of alert, interested 10-year-old, you might you might give him some a maths exercise which you've deliberately woven mistakes into, which break the laws of mathematics, um, and get him pouring over it and puzzling over it. Um you could give him some sums that are worked out and ask him to mark them, and some of them are wrong, and you insist that they're right. Um and then you could ask, and then you could ask him why did he ever presume when he came down to home school this morning uh that the answers would be the same today as they were yesterday? On what basis does he assume that? Um and then you could get him thinking about the constancy of mathematical laws, and then you could ask him, well, so so where did they come from? Who made them? Um and so so why why why does maths work would be a good question to draw out. So it doesn't mean that I mean Brooke correct me on this, but I don't think it means that whenever you get into the details of fractions and quadratic equations and simultaneous equations and things, that you have Jesus in every sentence.
SPEAKER_02Well, calculus drives me to prayer, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00No, I think absolutely not.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so it's it's the it's the it's the whole thing in that rests upon the fact that Christ holds all things together and that they cohere only in him. And so it's drawing out more the presuppositions of the different subjects sometimes than it is actually working with the the daily material of it. But that of course we don't do, or we we we don't even ask the question normally. Um so so so posing some puzzles like that, as they get older, you could ask them. I think the other question I put on the blog was the so so uh is there number in God? Um is number something that exists outside of God? Um is it a creative thing? Um and you can get interesting discussions about the Trinity and get them talking about that. It would be a fairly high-powered ten-year-old, but um not soon after 10. You could certainly, yeah, certainly um you could you could ask those kinds of questions as well.
SPEAKER_02Brooke, studying studying maths, is that is that different the way you guys do it to the the way this the school down the road might do it?
SPEAKER_00So I think in a daily lesson, you might think, oh, well it doesn't particularly be different. This is I think it's it's about what motivates me and what the big picture is as I'm I'm going towards the the end goal. So it's not going to be mentioned in every um lesson. You know, today we did long multiplication and we learned how to do long multiplication, and that was fine. But I think um it's and some Christians think, okay, well, in order to make this Christian, I'm going to take a verse out of context from numbers, slap it on the math book, and that makes it Christian. And it's saying, no, all of these subjects, whether it's mathematics, musical notation, chemistry, um, history, you're looking at um, you know, some of these human conventions, but they're ways of looking at what is true in creation, ways of for us to be able to think God's thoughts after him, to be able to um see the intricacies of the world that he has made. And that is just amazing. So even when I'm not good at a subject, like I'm not particularly good at math, and I'm terrible at physics, and but I can still be amazed and have that sense of wonder and of the glory of God. And I think that's one way where I mean, you know, you know this that any good teacher is going to be excited, is going to love the message and love the people that you're teaching. And um I think that kind of love of God's world is really what needs to come out to make Christ central, to say that this is this is all to glorify Him. So you're learning this so that you can love Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And this is how you learn to love Him with your mind. Sometimes it's hard work, but the more you understand about something, the more you're able to give God praise. So a little child in Sunday school can say, you know, isn't it amazing God made the stars? But an astrophysicist who's a Christian should have even more praise and wonder and you know, because they know so much more about what God has done and the glory of it and of his wondrous works.
SPEAKER_02So when I consider your heavens, yeah. Okay, okay, Gary, uh let's move on in the pop quiz. What about English? How does how does putting Christ central change the way we look at English? English literature. Literature, let's talk about all language, but literature.
SPEAKER_01Um well, I think in a sense, English is one of the easier ones because English literature texts are saying something. Um, and and we don't just want to imbibe what texts are saying or telling us, we want to think about that Christianly. Now you think of the classic that all all British school children have studied for years, The Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Um actually, in some senses, a fairly helpful message about the what happens when you put total depravity boys on an island together. Um so that so texts have messages like that, and of course, other texts have really different messages, and some of them are very output messages, and they have huge agendas. And so to grow in discernment in listening to what a text is saying is is part of the skill of growing in discernment generally in life, and to understand what the messages are that we're being being bombarded with. So I would have, I mean, I think there probably are some Christian educators for whom for whom it's a way of avoiding the world and not having them read texts like that. Um, I I would disagree with that. I think, and obviously there's a there's an age appropriateness about it, but I would think that there'll be some texts which are permanent off limits for all Christians, I think. Um, but then there'll be there'll be other texts where I think no, we need we need to understand how the world thinks because this is what we're surrounded by, and and actually this text brings it out and encapsulates it in a way that ordinary conversation does. So often often the classics of modern literature reveal what's going on around us more clearly than what's going on around us does, because some brilliant author has expressed it with such extraordinary vividness. So you you want a sense of existential despair. Well, you can talk to your miserable friend who's got a bleak view of the world, or you could read a chunk of Samuel Beckett, um, and and that will help you to understand much more the roots of what you're meeting in people. Um so I think to to think theologically, Christianly about the literature that we're reading is a really important, important skill. And to learn from it both positively, therefore, in some cases, um, and negatively, um, but either way, to be to be more discerning listeners to everything that's coming at us in texts and beyond them, therefore.
SPEAKER_02So, Brooke, with with your family, you wouldn't only read Christian books.
SPEAKER_00Um no. No, we wouldn't only read Christian books. Although I do, I do have to say there uh for young children, it is fantastic when you have a Christian author writing like C.S. Lewis, where it's good literature um and it's fun, but the principles are there, it's undergirded by the things we believe. I think that shapes your idea of virtue and of what character you want to be in a story, and I think that's really important for children. I think I think stories are much more powerful. Um, but yes, I think it's really important that we read things that we disagree with. So um when my son loves reading about uh particularly biological things, anything about animals and the natural world, and of course it's just riddled with very evolutionary uh view of the world, nothing about God. And it's absolutely fine for him to be reading all that as long as he knows which bits are not true. And so we talk about that. And we talk about why that's not true and what actually the Bible says and and um put it into a framework that actually is faithful to scripture. But he needs to know what everybody else out there is saying, right because that's what he's gonna run into.
SPEAKER_02And he'll probably end up knowing neo-Dawwinian synthesis better than many in normal high schools. Um yeah, he's looking at things from from different views, you know. Um I I often find that with uh talking science with those who've been home educated, they they actually they they know the theories better than those who just, as a matter of course, you know, study them at the at the at the local comprehensive. Um Gary, okay, let's talk about history then. Final final uh final example. Um, how do how does studying history Christianly make a difference?
SPEAKER_01Well, um because because history is the history of God's world and his purpose is in it. Um and so we we we we want our history to be concerned uh with what he's been doing um and especially what he's been doing and growing his kingdom. Um and and you can't there is there's no there's no strict separation between what would traditionally be known as church history and world history, because the church exists in the world. So you know any anyone studying 16th century British history or English history is going to have to study the Reformation. Um and uh anyone studying 19th century, uh is going to be learning about uh the abolition of slavery. And and so um because God is at work in the world, uh, when we study history, we are studying in those areas where it's growing, the working of God's kingdom. Um and and that should fascinate us and grip us because this is the process of uh of Psalm 110 taking place. This is this is uh Jesus subduing his enemies and then being brought under his feet and under his rule. And so history is the is in part at least the study of that. Where it's not the study of that, and it's the study of, for example, a civilization apart from the gospel, then of course it's a study of of human nature, isn't it? And um and like studying literature, we're learning more about human nature. Um I think one of the good things about the modern uh national curriculum in this country is the is the attention to the Holocaust, which I think is is central. I think it's very interesting that we don't have a similar requirement as I understand it to study communism, which I think would be an excellent one build into it as well. Um but um but but to study what what we are like is the other thing we're studying when we're studying history. So we're either studying what God's doing or what we're like. Um and again we can we can't understand those things apart from apart from the light of Christ.
SPEAKER_02Brooke, if someone's listening in and they're thinking, okay, um if I had five children and they're not all sort of school age yet, but at some point they will be, um, does that does that mean that you have to be all over five different topics for five different students and you need to be reading ahead and mastering these topics? Like that that sounds daunting.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes, and a lot of people think that I do that and I don't. It's again, like I said, there are there are great resources where you don't have to do. I'm not like a teacher, I'm not sitting down every night frantically lesson planning and doing lots of grading. I don't have time for that, I'm not doing that. Um, I think when you get into higher level, you do need more prep, you might need tutors, you might need help there. I know that from memory, that was when it became difficult in high school because I was homeschooled all the way through. And I needed people that were more experts in those subjects. But now there are some things that you can do altogether. So, history, we do all together. We read from the book, we ask questions, sometimes we do a project. Um they're at different stages. My children are fairly close in age. Some of them are playing in the background. My daughter, who's four, probably maybe she's paying attention, maybe not. I'm not really worried about that. The others glean what they can. Glean, I have different expectations of the level of their understanding. Same with science. We're kind of we do it all together and reading their books that we read aloud as a family. So some things need to be done individually. So I have a reading hour in the morning. Um, I send my oldest off. He has a list of things he needs to do on his own. I do individual reading out loud with the younger kids who need to work on that. And then we have a break, and they might do a spelling sheet or something while the other one's reading. Um, and then we have a math hour where we're doing more tablework. But by that time, my youngest might have finished all of his table work. So we don't actually spend loads and loads of time sitting down. I know what the essentials are, and I think that's really important is that you know what is going to be a foundational skill for everything else you're going to learn later. And so to not get behind on those and make sure you spend daily small amounts of time, small lessons. But if it's regular, they pick it up. And you don't need the same amount of time as in a school.
SPEAKER_02Why do you not need as as as long?
SPEAKER_00Because in a school, you're also trying to manage um, say, 25 children, and you've got kids of all ranges of abilities. You're trying to teach to the middle group-ish, not leave the one that one too far behind to not have the smart kids getting bored. But in home education, you know where your child is, you know where their strengths and weaknesses are. You can spend the amount of time they need. If they're really quick, you do not have to take a full hour. You can take 15 minutes. You know whether they need that level of drill or repetition. And if they're really weak on something, you can spend longer.
SPEAKER_02So I do remember, I do remember in fifth grade in in Australia, I was 10 years old and we learnt fractions. That was ever everything about maths was about fractions. I I grasped fractions within the first five minutes. And and yet the entire class was going to learn fractions that year. I just remember checking out from school at 10 years. I checked out from school at 10 years old. Are we doing this again? I thought we did oh okay, never mind.
SPEAKER_00Um that is that is one way to kill a subject, is if you insist on persevering with it when everybody's got it already. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Um and just practically as well, Brooke, um, how do you stop everything just blurring into everything else? Because there's there's something very nice. We're all learning how nice it is to leave the home because we're not allowed to now. But we all we we are physical embodied creatures, and going from one space to another space and leaving the old space behind and entering into a new space has all kinds of psychological benefits. Um, how do how do you seek to maintain that when everything could just feel like it's it's home at school, it's all the same?
SPEAKER_00Yes, well, I think I think it is important that you actually set aside times that are specifically for school. Um, that we know, like we know we're starting school at nine o'clock and we get most of it done before lunch, and then we have a history of science after lunch. So we know the kids generally know about what time and about how much time they're spending on each thing. Um, it's great. Some families have for the blessing of being able to have a separate schoolroom. I would love to have a separate schoolroom because I think it's a real pain having things on the dining room table and having to remove them for lunch and then put them back. And I think it especially in in England with small houses, not a lot of storage, I think the homeschoolers that I know it's always a struggle trying to find where they put all their stuff for the homeschooling and how you kind of manage that. But it's practical and you kind of you figure out ways that work. I found when the kids were really young, it was difficult because we were at the main table and that always just reminded them of food. So they were asking me for snacks every two seconds. And I was just like, no, we're doing school, you just have breakfast. But um, you know, you make your expectations clear, kind of walk them through, you know, no, this is the time for this. If you want a snack, you do it during break time. And and you know, sometimes it's harder because you don't have the whole institution of a school behind you. But if you gradually over time make that you get that into their psyche, what times are for what? Um, when do you get to let rip? When do you do you do you get to dump all the duplos out while your siblings are studying in this room? No, you gotta go upstairs. Um so you just have to put those structures in place and and get train everybody up, really.
SPEAKER_01We had we had a we had a fun thing the day before we started homeschooling our first, uh Fiona asked her, what are you really looking forward to about starting homeschool? And she said, the uniform. So Fiona dashed out to the local supermarket to buy a school uniform. Um, and that was helpful for us. Just a a bit more school-like structure is going to be important. And that as Brooke said earlier, there are some people who are unschooling deliberately. Um, and I think that's a mistake. You need you need some sort of structural consistent um that makes it a bit more like a school, while maintaining the flexibility and freedom that you have if you're doing it yourselves. But a uniform allowed you to say, oh, at three o'clock you take that off and you can exactly this is a school day, um, and it's starting now and it's finishing, you can go and get changed. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Let's um let's conclude by thinking, um, I've I've been talking about this for the last couple of weeks. We've been doing almost a video a day interviewing different people who have been affected by uh COVID-19 in different ways, and asking them, okay, let's imagine in 18 months' time we're looking back to 2020 and saying, gosh, what was that all about? Um, what would you hope to be able to say about um yourself, your household, and what would you hope to be able to say about the church in terms of what we might have learnt from coronavirus?
SPEAKER_00I would hope that for us that we've made sure that our priorities are right, that our goals are right, that um we're making a right use and not wasting a trial like this, because all trials we know are are given to us to bring us into maturity um as Christians. It says that in James. So perseverance will finish its work so that you may be mature and complete. And and that's what we want for the church. And I, you know, when you see how God works with people, uh sending chastisements like sickness, um, or whether it's sickness or or just panic, um, you have you you pray that it leads to repentance. What is God trying to get us our attention to? Where where are our priorities wrong? Where what are our idols? Um, are our families actually beacons of the gospel? Or having been thrown together at home, are we actually suddenly aware that everything's disjointed, all our relationships are broken? And so I hope that repentance and and faith and joy will be the result.
SPEAKER_01Gary? Yeah, that's what I was going to say for the family, I think, that that would look back and see that we were bearing the fruit of the spirit. There are obvious opportunities for kindness and gentleness and self-control. Um, but also that it would be we'd look back at as a really precious time of togetherness as a family and therefore of of growing in our families' ethos of of of of seeking to live for God's glory and and that being a time of of bedding down in that and and putting deep roots into that that way of viewing life. Um for the church I'm hoping, I don't know, I'm I'm fairly pessimistic about it, but I I I hope that being deprived of meeting together might make us prize meeting together more. Um in that I think that absenteeism is a huge problem. Um and therefore it would be wonderful if actually a forced period of absenteeism might turn out to be the Lord's discipline in which he makes us look in the mirror and see that we we are maybe we're in this mess partly in his purposes um to teach us that we should prize gathering together. Um I hope that when we can gather together again and um we we find that to be a joy, we'll think, wow, we must we must stop going to play sport on Sunday instead of gathering or whatever it is that takes people away. Um and and that it would make us prize the gathered church in its life.
SPEAKER_02It feels very much like a a chastisement, doesn't it? Being handed over to the isolation you said you wanted and being told, is this what you want?
SPEAKER_01Yes. The fear, of course, is that it might turn out that people really do.
SPEAKER_02But yeah, yeah. Yes, and then I go back to John 15, and the father prunes the the vines, uh prunes the vines so that the branch branches that do bear fruit will be even more fruitful. Um so yes, those those who do love the Lord Jesus will be more fruitful. Um but yes, we will we will be pruned through this, won't we? Very good. Well, thank you so much, uh, Brooke and Gary, uh, for joining us and and uh talking through these issues. People are being forced to be home educators, but but uh yeah, I I do I do hope that people will uh start to see that um yeah, the the family is the first port of call for for how we disciple and train up our children. And um and maybe we uh maybe something else that comes out of this situation will be uh people will start considering home education, or at least start start considering how to put Christ at the center of the education of our children, um and not as a flight from the Great Commission, but as an expression of it.
SPEAKER_03So absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Awesome. Brooke, Gary, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. Okay, God bless.