Why Homeschooling is Weird

When the media calls homeschooling "weird," Kevin and Danny say: guilty as charged. They discuss why loving your children, rejecting state indoctrination, and building on a biblical worldview looks strange to a culture that can't even answer basic biological questions...which worldview actually produces critical thinkers...and why God's bar for "successful" is so much different than the world's.

Download the episode MP3 here:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2520780/episodes/19502050-why-homeschooling-is-weird.mp3

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:06

Welcome to Generation's Friends, Kevin Swanson with you, and folks, homeschooling is growing in leaps and bounds. Between four and five million kids are being homeschooled in this country today. That's pushing eight, nine, ten percent. Our introductory seminar down at the Denver conference this year doubled over the previous year, and the conference busted out at 4,000 plus attending. The keynote session's also packed out. Praise God. Now I'm asking why. Well, here's one big reason. The National Assessment of Educational Progress Testing, that's a federally administered test commonly referred to as the nation's report card, indicates a national slumping in test scores, a nonstop drop in test scores for 13-year-old kids since 2012. And I'm thinking parents are sensing this. You know, there are a lot of parents who actually do love their kids and they want the best for their kids. And when they see a 13-year nonstop drop in test scores for 13-year-old kids in public schools, they're saying, we're out of here. The nine-year-old group saw a slight improvement since COVID, but 13-year-old kids performing at lower and lower levels in reading and math, nonstop drop since 2012. Nine-year-old students who read for fun, okay, have dropped off from 53% in 2012 to 37% in 2025. 13-year-old students who read for fun have dropped off from 37% to 14%. That's 14%. Only 14%, that's just dismal. Why only 14%? Well, it's the peer influence. It's the diversion to the electronic world. It's the smartphone. Why do 13-year-old kids read far less than nine-year-old kids? What's with that? Did they forget how to read? Maybe. Why are the 13-year-old kids slipping faster than the nine-year-old kids? Well, because they've attended public schools for longer. That's why. They're more committed to their peers by this time than they are to their parents. And by the way, parents that put their kids back into public school, government-funded junior high and high school, are doing the worst thing they could possibly do. Sadly, about 50% of homeschoolers quit homeschooling when their kids hit the junior high and high school years. So that's the worst mistake they can make. So three words here hang in there. Hang in there, Dad. Hang in there, mom. By faith, hang in there. Now half the homeschool movement slouches back into the conventional schools exactly when their kids hit 13 years of age. That's really sad. Bad timing, guys. Really bad timing. This is a big mistake. And here's why. Because of the turkey principle. Have you heard of the turkey principle? The turkey principle goes like this it's hard to soar like eagles when the people you hang with are turkeys. Okay. It's a covenantal concept. It's a turkey principle. It's hard to soar like eagles when the people you hang with are turkeys. Okay. So we turn into the people we hang out with. Evil companions that corrupt good morals and character. 1 Corinthians 15. Proverbs 13, 20. He who walks with the wise will become wise. But the companion of fools will be destroyed. So this month we're doing a series of critical introductory seminars on homeschooling, teaching, reading, teaching methods, etc. And if you're homeschooling or looking at starting to homeschool, or you have a friend that's interested, check out the webinar posted at generations.org slash media. That's generations.org slash media and sign up for it by our email alerts. We're showing hundreds of parents how to maximize on the rock solid, time-tested, divinely inspired principles of education. Well, you know what they are. We talk about them all the time on the program. The principle of protection, the preeminence of faith and character and the process, the principle of one-on-one instruction, absolutely incomparable, indispensable to any other form of education. It's how kings educated their children through the ages. One-on-one instruction, valuable. Can't do that. One on 30 in a public school classroom. Principle of individuality. Every child's different, and you'll have to tailor-make that education for each of your two, three, four, five, eleven, twelve, thirteen children. We we don't want to mass produce this education. We don't compare our children as if they're competing with each other. No, no, no. It's the principle of individuality and the principle of relationships. They don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Turns out you've got to love those little ones. Like Jesus loves you. That's the principle of relationships kicks in big time. It's the very heart. It's the very heart of home education. It's the heart of family decided. The whole principle of relationship. It's critical. Jesus gave us the example of it, the principle of life integration. So, so incredibly powerfully relevant, the capstone of all learning, the principle of integration of life. Also, doing the basics well. Gotta read, reading, reading, absolutely reading, gotta be able to do the basics well. The principle of enthusiasm and joy and delight and God's amazing works, the principle of wise progression, the principle of a biblical worldview, always, always, always rooted on the fear of God, the awesomeness of God, as the beginning of all learning in science, history, literature, everything, every area of life. So it turns out the enemy is more aggressive now than ever in his opposition to this incredible movement of God in the 21st century. I think homeschooling for such a time as this, I'm pretty enthusiastic about it. And certainly we've seen some amazing results. Granted, there is the normal distribution. You got the minus three standard deviations. Yeah, oh yeah. I mean, it's not, it's not the panacea, it's not the silver bullet for everything. But wow, but wow, but wow, what God is doing for such a time as this, reintroducing the family-based form of education that, by the way, has been around for 5,940 years until John Dewey showed up. So, but we are losing legislative battles in this country and around the world. The pushback is stronger than ever. So, today, homeschooling is weird. Now, here's the leftist podcaster, Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan, on homeschooling. And I want to play this clip and then comment on it with Danny Craig in studio today. Listen to this.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

I just think homeschooling is a bad idea from soup to nuts. I don't care if you're a nuclear physicist. I think it's just weird as that you want your kids around you all day, every day, and all night. And just the socialization. For me personally, it was that I would have gotten up on my hands and knees and strapped them to my back and crumbled to get them to school every day, just to get them where I wasn't. So I don't trust somebody that wants to be with their kids 24-7. I think a lot of dumb people do it because it's just easier. And that's a concern.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

I think that these people that do the homeschooling, these are the same people that grow up to be on unjuced.net. There is a through line on all of this, right? The ducker booklets that you're referring to teach that like dinosaur and man lived on earth at the same time. These are people that fear critical thinking more than anything on the planet, that have to be taught a script of reality and that they're incapable of critically thinking. They're incapable of deduction skills. And what me off about this the most is how many parents project a script onto their kids.

SPEAKER_03 7:49

Well, Danny, I think that's the first I've heard something quite like that. I think they're desperate. I think they're grasping for straws on this. I mean, you know, there's been attempts to undermine home education. I've never heard that criticism before. I haven't heard that. Dumb people are doing it because it's easier. Well, you tell that to the average homeschooling mom. It's easier and it's free.

SPEAKER_04 8:08

That's I'm gonna go home tonight. I'm gonna go to my wife and say, honey, I I I finally figured out why you're doing this weird homeschooling thing. Why you want to spend all day with all five kids and teach them yourself? You're just doing this because it's easier. You're taking the shortcut.

SPEAKER_03 8:25

Why are you taking the easy road? This is probably one of the most significant slams. This is insults. Obviously, they're not thinking rationally, and they haven't run into any here at serious homeschooling, uh, unless this is just you know an attempt to straw man the whole argument. But uh, I I want to I want to talk about this issue, why homeschooling is weird today. Now, I I think what tends to happen is that people use anecdotal evidence. They'll say something like, I know a homeschooler and they're really weird. It's a little bit like me saying, I know a public schooler and they're really weird. In fact, they came into Columbine High School and they shot up 17 people. That's just weird. Right. And therefore, therefore, Ergo, my conclusion is all public schoolers are weird. I mean, that's everybody knows that anecdotal evidence it amounts to nothing. It's you know, ultimately the sample sizes of 16,000 homeschoolers who took nationally standardized tests who proved to be uh in the 80th to 89th percentile in reading and the math and all the rest that makes all the difference. So, you know, we we we don't want to be arguing anecdotal evidence. We want to look at the socialization studies, uh, we want to look at the academic studies as well as the homeschooling grows up studies that Dr. Brian Ray and others have done over a period of 45 years. We've got studies like you would not believe. We've even done studies on percentage of public school kids who have been sexually abused versus homeschooling kids, and find that homeschooling kids were like one-third or 30 percent uh off the the public school uh ratio of those who have been abused. So, you know, we've we've done the studies, we we've we've looked at uh these these numbers and we found that homeschoolers are on average 35 to 40 percentile points above the nationally average on nationally standardized tests. Okay, so we've got the evidence, they don't, um, and they're throwing these accusations against homeschools. And by the way, it's working because Connecticut and Nebraska have cinched up their homeschool laws for the first time in 40 years of home education battles for the liberties that we have appreciated over these many years. So uh so why are home schools or homeschoolers perceived to be weird? And I think we should go through the list. Yeah, but you've got a list there, Danny, on reasons why they're weird. Well, the first the first one, I just want to throw it out. Homeschoolers are weird because they love their children.

SPEAKER_04 10:56

That's just strange.

SPEAKER_03 10:57

That's just weird.

SPEAKER_04 10:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:58

I mean, and and and you know what, there's an argument to be made there.

SPEAKER_04 11:01

I don't trust somebody that wants to be with their kids 24-7 was the line.

SPEAKER_03 11:05

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I would strap my kids to my back, crawl to the school every day. It's just get rid of them. To where I wasn't. To get them where I wasn't. Yeah. So, but this makes perfect sense because we live in a world in which the love of many has grown cold. They kill two-thirds of their babies by the use of abortion abortifacient. Um, a a nation that slices up their babies and and throws them into acid baths by the millions. Of course they're gonna talk that way. Right. Of course they don't love their children. Of course we live in a world where the love of so many has grown just stark, raving, cold, and it's just it's overwhelming. But but then the the the few that love their children they come across as strange. Now, uh apparently leftists like this don't love their kids. Loving children, liking your children, actually enjoying being around your children is just strange to liberal leftists. Just is. Well, they're also very much in favor of slaughtering children, you know, and cutting off their arms and legs and bathing them in acid baths until they die. This is what leftists do best. Um, it's interesting also that the American Culture Project senior fellow and education policy advocate, Corey Dangelus, was interviewed by Fox News Digital. And this is what he said. I thought I thought he nailed it. Listen to what he said. It's not weird to love your children and want them around. It's weird to outsource them to strangers employed by the government while pretending it's for their own good. The government school systems filled with documented abuse, bullying, fights, drugs, gangs, violence, and relentless socialist indoctrination. That's the socialization these hosts are defending. You've made a good point there.

SPEAKER_04 12:54

Yeah, you know what? There is some truth here, and that is that loving your children isn't weird, but it is supernatural. And I think we need to acknowledge that. Exactly. Um, that the desire to be around your children 24-7, to actually bring them into your life, it increases the inconvenience. It increases the dying to self. Um, so there is something, it's not weird, but it is supernatural.

SPEAKER_03 13:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:17

But you know what? By the grace of God, he actually transforms our hearts to love this process of being with difficult or selfish or naughty or disobedient children. And he brings something beautiful out of it. Psalm 127 is the is the is the vision here. Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward. What kind of what kind of reward would Jesus give? What kind of reward would God give to parents? He gave them kids. That's the kind of blessing. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. Happy is the man. Happy, happy, Kevin. Yeah, happy is the man who has his quiver full of them. They shall not be ashamed, but shall speak of their enemies in the gates. That's not weird, but it is supernatural.

SPEAKER_03 14:02

It is supernatural. It's the work of the amazing uh power of the redemptive work of Jesus. And of course, we've got to be we've got to be uh cultivating these relationships under the cross of Jesus Christ, where you know, we we sin against our kids, they sin against us. Uh one way to keep the barns clean, as we like to say, is to keep the cows out of it. Uh that's a a proverb. And uh and so you know, one of the w best ways to keep your life clean is to keep your kids clean out of it. Uh because you bring your kids into your home, take the the plastic off the sofas and begin to interact with your children and have relationships with your kids, you're gonna see that there are you know there's there's some droppings about and uh it's a messy barn. But thank God the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sins. And uh so I think you know the though though derelationalized life, the modern has pretty much given up on the possibility of family relationships. Uh but it's possible by the blood of Christ, it's it's possible by the redemptive work of Jesus applied to each of us in in the sanctified home. Now, of course, we we do sin against each other, but then again, there's forgiveness, there's God's forgiveness, and then we forgive each other and we restore relationship, and typically relationships are even better afterwards.

SPEAKER_04 15:18

Yeah, yeah. I think this interview, uh this podcast is helpful because it does really set the lines. Uh, first of all, the idea that we love our kids. Secondly, um, this idea that homeschools are indoctrination factories teaching kids a script of reality, whereas public school is true education. Um, you know, what do you what do you think about that? Actually, indoctrination factory. I mean, I might prefer the term discipleship center, but we are definitely teaching them a script of reality. It's called um the Bible.

SPEAKER_03 15:51

The Bible, the revelation of God Himself versus the revelation of Charles Darwin or the revel or whatever revelation they're choosing. And they obviously favor the evolutionary belief that uh we're just cosmic dust that have evolved over the centuries out of the cosmic slime, and there's absolutely no meaning to this universe, no purpose in life, and no possibility of defining absolute right and wrong. That's their worldview. And apparently that's the most rational worldview. But here's what I would say is yes, you pick your indoctrination factory. I mean, as this guy, DeAngelis said, he says it's just weird uh to put them into this uh socialist indoctrination center, you know, which is what the government is presenting. It's their worldview. It's a naturalistic, anti-supernaturalistic, materialistic, evolutionary type of worldview, and that's apparently where we're all supposed to be indoctrinated. But if we're putting them into a different worldview, that's a problem. Now, here's what I would like to throw out here. Which worldview allows for better critical thinking? And I think the answer is in these questions. Which worldview allows for the most robust testing of a worldview for internal coherence? In other words, uh, which worldview is most afraid of testing uh for the internal coherence or the possibility of internal contradictions? You know, those who maintain a naturalistic, materialistic worldview where there is no God and no possibility for absolutes, uh they they act, they live out the the idea that there are absolutes, that there is such a thing as predication or thought that occurs in a purely naturalistic world where the brain operates like grass growing in the backyard, like a chemical reaction. But why should we believe the propositions that have somehow been manufactured by a chemical reaction like grass growing in the backyard? Or how in the world do we get to the point where you know killing Jews is a sin? Or where you know genocide is off the table, or where we can say definitively that uh stealing my car stereo or me stealing your car stereo is essentially a bad thing, a wrong thing to do. Um they act like they'll live out a worldview that assumes it's wrong for somebody to steal their car stereo, while at the same time maintaining this position that uh there is no possibility of an ethic in a world where we are nothing but chemical processes, nothing but accidents. Right. And so there's you know, the idea that there's meaning and purpose, the idea that there's ethics, the idea that there can be ideas in a world where uh there's nothing but natural processes operating is an internal contradiction in their worldview. So my point is, you know, I'm thinking more critically right now than they are. So they're they're they're arguing that uh a biblical worldview is incapable of critical thinking. Oh no, it's quite capable of critical thinking. We're just asking the question which worldview allows for the most robust testing of a worldview for internal coherence. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_04 18:57

And again, this is why this discussion is so helpful to understand where the lines of antithesis actually lie. And we should ask ourselves, what what actually makes for critical thinking? In their definition, the idea of critical thinking is that you question absolutely everything.

unknown 19:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:12

And but if you're questioning absolutely everything, then you have no possibility for truth and no basis for anything that you're teaching.

SPEAKER_04 19:19

Exactly. So let's let's let's stand on the ground of no, the actual absolute truth of the word of God, which we don't question. We submit to in faith and humility before the the sovereign authority of the great God of the universe who reveals truth to us. That's the foundation. We hand that foundation by God's grace to our kids, and that gives them a true foundation for critical thinking. Here's what happens if you leave that foundation. And I thought this was really interesting that these two clips came out at the same time. Yesterday I saw this clip of a homeschool mom uh who happens to be a U.S. representative from the state of Illinois, Mary Miller, is uh in a committee hearing on the presence of DEI in medical schools, is uh having this exchange with Dr. Stephen Dubinet, the dean of the medical school at UCLA.

SPEAKER_03 20:14

This is a top-notch guy. I mean, he's the dean medical school for UCLA. Right.

SPEAKER_04 20:20

All right, here's this clip.

SPEAKER_05 20:22

Can someone have a uterus but not be a woman? Because it seems like your school is promoting that ridiculous idea.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

I think again, as Dr. Hoggett has described, uh we're uh treating uh transgender uh people. Um but we're doing that in compliance with state and federal law.

SPEAKER_05 21:24

And you do teach biology?

SPEAKER_00 21:26

Yes, we do.

SPEAKER_05 21:27

Yes, this is curious. So you I I'm gonna ask you again, can someone have a uterus and not be a woman? Just say yes or no. Can they?

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Um Again, I would have I would need to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_05 21:41

That's what your medical school is promoting.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

The general ladies' children. Mr.

SPEAKER_05 21:43

Chairman, it's clear these medical schools are hiding DEI curriculum under the guise of medical access.

SPEAKER_03 21:49

Okay, that's one homeschooling mom against the dean of one of the most profound and prominent medical schools in the country. And uh he can't say. He can't say. He cannot answer that question.

SPEAKER_04 22:00

And that's what happens when you don't give your kids the foundation of the word of God. And I think this is sh should be really encouraging to the moms and dads listening. Because you know, when when you teach your children something as simple as two plus two equals four on the basis of the Christian worldview, you are actually giving them the foundation of objective truth that the world does not have.

SPEAKER_03 22:22

And I think what's happened is is that the the highest academics of the land who have been carefully uh educated, indoctrinated in the other indoctrination center, has finally come to the point at which he is entirely irrational. He has become been given up to an insane mind, as Romans 1 says. Tells us. And uh a question for us is whether or not we want to put our kids into those indoctrination centers so that if they're very carefully indoctrinated into this system over a period of the next 16 to 18 years, they'll talk like that guy.

SPEAKER_04 22:56

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 22:57

Versus the homeschooling mom, Mary Miller, who's still got common sense, still sane. There's somebody sane in the world. Yeah. Thankfully. So, so, you know, at the end of the day, what we want is the right worldview, the right indoctrination center, the right foundation for learning, which turns out to be a biblical worldview. And that's what we've been doing with this broadcast, Danny, for 22 years. People have asked us why a daily program. And indeed, this has been one of the biggest challenges of my life, because you have to understand that, you know, I travel the world on missions, trips, and and uh, by the way, on our own dime for the most part. And we we're away for two, three weeks at a time, and uh we try to do 20, 30, 40 conferences per year as much as we possibly can, as well as the other responsibilities. And yet we've we've seen a r necessity to keep uh a worldview program on the air because we're competing with uh uh uh a media system and all these inputs, whether it's social media or any other form of input, that really conveys 99.999% wrong worldviews, bombarding us by all these forms of media. And I I believe that a daily program is essential to to give our young people an answer uh for the the faith that they believe against all of these false worldviews. And we we are commanded to take down every bad idea, every worldview that uh raises itself up against the knowledge of Christ, take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Uh and so how do we do this? And is there somebody out there who is doing this consistently on a daily basis for 22 years? And that's what we've attempted to do to equip the man, the woman of God for every good work. So, Danny, uh, we'd like to keep this going. We would like support from our listening audience this month. And if there are those who are listening who haven't really supported the program, but you've been interacting somewhat with the program for the last oh, five, ten, fifteen, twenty years, uh please consider supporting our program uh this month.

SPEAKER_04 25:01

Generations uh produces fourteen different episodes of Family Discipleship media and content and worldview resource every week. And you can access those at generations.org forward slash media. Uh and and uh these resources are all free for the families who are blessed by them, but they're not free to produce.

SPEAKER_03 25:20

That's right. That's right. So we were encouraging for folks to partner with us this summer in the generations vision. And uh just go to generations.org slash give uh and designate to this program that is the Generations Radio program or the Worldview News Update, which we started about, I'm gonna say, twelve years ago. And uh it's been a daily news update from a distinctively biblical perspective. And Danny, I think that program is essential. Uh, I don't know anybody else who presents, you know, a news program that attaches two Bible verses to it uh that are hopefully, generally speaking, relevant to the subject that we're bringing out. Again, it it ties into our approach to education, and that is be sure, be sure, be sure that the word of God is as a front lip before your eyes, that we are constantly looking through the eyeglasses of special revelation of God's word in order to understand history, science, et cetera, certainly news, in order to examine news, understand the biblical ethical uh application to the news item at hand, uh, or to to prioritize the issues that are important to God. And uh that's that's why the Worldview News program that we have aired for the last 11, 12 years, also don't forget the homeschool summits that have reached hundreds of thousands of families around the world. I have been to South Africa, I've been to the Philippines, I've been to Nepal, I've been to uh Australia, New Zealand, uh uh Brazil, all over the world, and I run into people all over the world, all over the United States. And I would say their biggest uh contact point with the generations ministry, bar none, has been the homeschool summits, which bring a homeschool vision, the vision we talk about on this program to hundreds of thousands of families. And I don't know how many families have been equipped to start homeschooling or inspired to start homeschooling uh from that program. It'd be interesting. We'll find out in heaven, I guess. If we found out too much of what we're accomplishing, you know, fat head syndrome. Don't want that, right, Danny. Um but let's encourage folks to come beside us. Friends, we we're at this point absolutely need your help. We need your prayers, we need your support. Go to generations.org slash give uh to participate in this uh in this fundraising program.

SPEAKER_04 27:31

Back on this uh podcast rant, uh, the other line of antithesis, Kevin, that I think we want to draw out here is whose child is it? And one of the things that makes homeschooling weird is that we actually believe that these children belong to parents and not the state. Yeah. Um the line is it's selfish and even child abuse to raise a child in a one-faith environment before they'd be old enough to decide for themselves. And we utterly reject that because we believe these children not not only belong to us, but ultimately to God.

SPEAKER_03 28:04

And that's even more weird. That's even more weird. For these people. Like what? We thought our children belong to the society. We thought they belonged to the state. We thought the state had the obligation to impose a one-size-fits-all worldview and indoctrinate them into that socialist Marxist worldview, instead of, you know, raising your children in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord Jesus for the Lord Jesus. Yes, these children don't belong to us ultimately, they belong to God. He has given them to parents as stewards to raise them for Jesus. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_04 28:36

And that's what makes this uh discipleship effort that parents are engaged in such a critical gospel effort. Because state education is the whole point of that is it's a false gospel. It's it's education controlled by the state is going to save man from all of his problems. That's a false gospel. Homeschool parents utterly reject that false gospel. And they believe, no, the Lord Jesus Christ will save his people from their sins. And home education, parents discipling their children is one of the primary means that that gospel message is passed on generation after generation. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 29:10

And Danny, one more reason why homeschooling is weird in the good sense of the word is that uh we believe that that children belong in families and that they are best discipled in the context of adults and and parents. And uh, you know, uh people used to ask me, what about socialization? Uh I went off into, you know, the public college after being homeschooled for K-12, and and I'd I ran for student body president and and won, by the way. And so people would say, You're student body president, but you were homeschooled. How's that? What about socialization? I thought that was a crazy question. Uh I just won the presidency in you know, 70,000 students that ran against four candidates. I was into you know every different club on campus uh campaigning for my position, and I just won, and some geek comes up to me and asks me, you're homeschooled, what about socialization? Back to the turkey prince. My response was, wow, that's really strange. Now it is true that I was raised in a household in which I interacted with people who are just not just my age. Uh I was raised by parents, not by my peer group. And I interacted with other cultural groups, in that I was raised on the mission field, et cetera, et cetera. So I typically present that kind of thing as, you know, a pretty decent raising to be able to interact with people who don't think and act just like me. Okay, so so but but put that aside for a second. The question, what about socialization, is not a stupid question. It's actually a very intelligent question. Because homeschooling makes a decision to raise your children in a social context, which by the way was the social context for 5,900 years of world history, but it's a very different social context than tossing your kids into a school with a bunch of 13-year-old turkeys. Can I say that? But you know, moving them into a different social group in which they will be largely raised by the social group, by peer culture and pop culture. So so when you make the decision that we're not doing that, we're raising our children in a distinctively different culture, and that is the family-based culture, that's quite different than what you get in a public school. And I think people need to realize that. They also need to realize how much pop culture and peer culture has influenced our children to the point where what, only 14%, only 14% of 13-year-olds read for fun, down from 38%, you know, and and it was 53% for nine-year-olds in 2012. I mean, what in the world is going on? That means the the primary social influence that is setting up the social and cultural experience for the average young 13-year-old kid is uh doesn't involve reading. It doesn't involve anything that's really that intelligent, et cetera, but a terrible, absolutely terrible use of electronic mediums. And uh that, my friends, is uh, I think destroying the next generation far more than we've seen before. The what's happening between 2012 and 2025 to bring about that severe drop-off of reading for fun? And the answer is the iPhone. I mean, let's face it, personal media devices have been absolutely devastating to academics and to the social and to the spiritual and to every aspect of the raising of a child in the 21st century. I think it's time for parents to wake up and smell the napalm in this war of worldviews and this cultural bat battle for the hearts and the souls and the minds of our kids. Uh, this is all at war. Yeah. And parents need to understand that choosing the right social context may be weird from the perspective of leftist socialist commentators like we've just heard. But uh, but wow, it seems like it's exactly the way God wants it.

SPEAKER_04 33:05

And that's why we're not that afraid when there's not a building involved in educating our kids. We don't get creeped out when there's not a big school institution involved. Because we believe that there's a normal social context, and that is a real family, a real mom and dad doing real life, educating and discipling their children as they walk by the way, as they rise up, as they lie down. I think Kevin, the the the the place to land this thing is really the the the last thing that makes homeschooling weird is that we just have different definitions of success than the world. Um the caller that kicked off this discussion in this podcast, uh the rant goes something like this homeschool parents are unqualified morons with a competence to confidence ratio off the charts, coasters and D students passing on ignorance, kids who shouldn't have even had children. And of course, the the the premise behind that criticism is well, what is the definition of success? What determines if these homeschool parents are actually worth their salt? What results are we trying to produce in the first place?

SPEAKER_03 34:19

For the leftists, the definition of success is that by the time your child has made it through medical school and has become the dean of the medical school, they are incapable of determining whether a man or a woman can have a baby. That's the goal. I'm I'm and I'm not just joking here. I'm saying that is the goal. The goal is insanity, the goal is irrationality. That's the leftist goal. Now, I'm also saying the the the conservative goal is often to become the better citizen or to become the wealthy and uh successful person in the workplace. But we don't say that. We say success is to glorify God and to enjoy God in all aspects of his creation and history and in uh church and relationships and uh and to build those relationships and to build the kingdom of God and to seek his righteousness in every aspect of life and to be faithful as stewards to the good things that God has given to us in our family life. And that's that's our goal. That's what we want to do in raising our children. And I'm sorry, but the secular schools don't share those goals and those objectives. Hence you wind up with the dean of UCLA Medical School simply cannot say women have uteruses. Uh that, my friends, is where we're headed. Um, unless we begin with what? Well, unless we begin with the fear of God, the acknowledgement of the existence of God as the beginning of all wisdom and knowledge. Unless we begin there, unless we begin with the goal is to raise our children to worship God, to glorify God, to enjoy God, to love him, and to serve him, to seek him. Unless we raise him for that purpose, uh, we're gonna find ourselves uh in absurdity, in ignorance. The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. That's the direction that American education has gone since the 1960s.

SPEAKER_04 36:04

Kevin, we're just a few weeks away from the kickoff of the new school year. And for the last 10, 15 years, I don't know how long you've been at this. You've been writing a homeschool curriculum that's designed specifically to address these five points of antithesis. Children belong to God. Relationships are important, there is no neutrality. A biblical worldview is central to every single subject, and success is serving and glorifying God. These dividing lines have formed the basis of the generation's homeschool curriculum. And so, friends, uh, we just want to encourage you that if you want to implement this kind of a homeschool philosophy in your homeschool this year, we just kicked off our big 2026 homeschool kickoff curriculum sale. It's running uh for the next four weeks, and every week we're highlighting a special sale on a category, math, science, English history. But it's running over the next four weeks. And our goal here is just to help you get equipped with some really outstanding, beautiful, engaging, God-centered, Bible-saturated, life-integrated resources that will help you do this at home. You can do this at home. It is actually safe to do this at home. And the curriculum is an affordable way to help you do that. Um, and and it's even more affordable right now with our sale, which is up to 40% off of all our curriculum, especially if you have an order over 199 or more. So you can go to generations.org forward slash sale to see everything that's on sale. And it's pretty much everything.

SPEAKER_03 37:40

And folks, if you want to get back to some of the basic philosophies we've been talking of, I just encourage you to upgrade the 10 secrets to the best education for your child. Uh, a book that now we just released in the 20th anniversary edition, available at generations.org. And don't forget the sale, generations.org slash sale. This is Kevin Swanson and Danny Craig. We want to invite you back again next time as we continue to lay down a vision for the next generation. This has been a production of the Generations Media Network. For more information, go to generations.org/slash media.