In my experience, some home schoolers tend to come from fairly "traditional" Christian backgrounds. It seems that many who choose to home school their children do so because they can openly teach (my girlfriend would argue "indoctrinate" or "brainwash") them about the Christian faith.
Although this was not my main motivation for home schooling Alex and Simon this year, it is definitely a contributing factor in my openness to explore home schooling for a year.
My main concern with this aspect of home schooling is that I don't want my children to be "sheltered" from the world around them. I strongly believe that children should be raised in a loving, faith-filled family, but that they should be encouraged to live their faith in the world... to "shine their light", so to speak, and to develop and strengthen their faith in the context of the many challenges the "real world" will present them with. But by promoting their attendance in a public school most of the time, I feel like we are meeting this goal. And I think it will be nice to be able to openly and intentionally explore Scripture and various facets of our faith life as a family this coming year.
Since I myself came to faith well beyond childhood (I was baptized when I was 21 years old), my sense of what "faith education" or children's church looks like in the home school context is based largely on stereo-typed media images. I therefore set out to explore various resources.
Recently, two faith resources have been shared with me, that I would like to learn more about. They are this website on Religious Tolerance, shared with me by a writer and retired high school teacher I recently met online, and "Godly Play", recommended to me by one of the Sunday School teachers at the church in PEI, where we spend our summers.
I am looking for something that would address the unique needs of children, while at the same time mirroring my desire for my children to explore what it means to develop a welcoming, open-minded faith, rather than a rigid, fear-based indoctrination based on a bunch of "old, dead, white guys' " interpretations.
At first glance, both the above resources seem like a decent fit.
Although this was not my main motivation for home schooling Alex and Simon this year, it is definitely a contributing factor in my openness to explore home schooling for a year.
My main concern with this aspect of home schooling is that I don't want my children to be "sheltered" from the world around them. I strongly believe that children should be raised in a loving, faith-filled family, but that they should be encouraged to live their faith in the world... to "shine their light", so to speak, and to develop and strengthen their faith in the context of the many challenges the "real world" will present them with. But by promoting their attendance in a public school most of the time, I feel like we are meeting this goal. And I think it will be nice to be able to openly and intentionally explore Scripture and various facets of our faith life as a family this coming year.
Since I myself came to faith well beyond childhood (I was baptized when I was 21 years old), my sense of what "faith education" or children's church looks like in the home school context is based largely on stereo-typed media images. I therefore set out to explore various resources.
Recently, two faith resources have been shared with me, that I would like to learn more about. They are this website on Religious Tolerance, shared with me by a writer and retired high school teacher I recently met online, and "Godly Play", recommended to me by one of the Sunday School teachers at the church in PEI, where we spend our summers.
I am looking for something that would address the unique needs of children, while at the same time mirroring my desire for my children to explore what it means to develop a welcoming, open-minded faith, rather than a rigid, fear-based indoctrination based on a bunch of "old, dead, white guys' " interpretations.
At first glance, both the above resources seem like a decent fit.