The following workshop was recorded live at the 2018 IAHE Home Educators' Convention.

SPEAKER BIO

I’m a homeschool mom of 24 years and a mom of 8 jewels ranging from 12 years old to 29 years old. We became grandparents in December 2017. We have graduated 5 of our 8 from our homeschool high school and our 6th graduates this spring. My passion is to encourage homeschool parents to catch the vision that they too can homeschool through high school and become the most influential person in the lives of their children.

Why are you homeschooling?

Answers vary. 

But, it is important to know why you homeschool. Do you know why you homeschool? Do you have a vision of what your family will look like when you are done? It starts with vision. Perhaps it’s as basic as “to know God,” or as specific as “create memories for a lifetime of purpose,” or perhaps it’s scriptural, “to teach my children to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.” Whatever your reason for homeschooling create a mission and a vision of where you are going before embarking on the journey. Are you on the journey already, but do not have a vision of where you want to end up? Then I encourage you to create one that will bring joy to the journey. And I pray that this will ignite some thoughts toward that end.

Our country is in trouble. We do not communicate well on media and often we communicate too much with too much emotion. We do not argue well as a society and as a result we do not think logically and do not make laws using logic. We often make laws or vote people into office based on emotion rather than logical thinking. We are lost and have misplaced our roadmap. However, when I look at the classical Christian homeschool movement I have hope. 

Should the Lord tarry, I believe it is our classical Christian homeschoolers that can reform our country and produce a platform where we can debate logically and agree to disagree. Your children and my children have this tremendous opportunity. Why do I believe that? Because when we look at God’s Word, which was written before the ancients by the way, He has shown us in His Word that we are fearfully and wonderfully made in His image and His Word outlines the way we are to learn. His Word is full of instruction. He refers to it as Knowledge, Understanding and Wisdom. As you journey in His word, I encourage you to look for those three keys to learning. All through the Scriptures you will find this. I’m paraphrasing the Word here, as He tells us to get knowledge and with knowledge get understanding and hang on to them with all your might as it leads to wisdom, which then leads to more understanding where we realize we need more knowledge. Why? Because that is how we come to know God more fully.

If we seek knowledge for knowledge sake – where does it get it us? Scripture states that it leads us to pride and pride comes before a fall. I don’t think any of us want to really pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge, but sometimes our homeschools end up looking like that. Imagine - what if … we seek knowledge to know God and His world and everything in it, now we have purpose that is not prideful, now we have knowledge that leads us to understanding and that leads to expression called wisdom, which leads us back to knowledge and no man can take it away as it stays with us forever and leads us to an intimate relationship with the creator God, where He grants more knowledge, understanding and wisdom.

Scripture tells us this through the Bible, in both the Old and the New Testaments. Today, let’s look at one passage in Proverbs 2.

You see that “receive my words,” and “hide my commandments,” are phrases that could refer to memory, keep, know and then from that you are granted wisdom, which brings more value to the knowledge. I see the understanding is the fruit of receiving your knowledge and wrestling with the reconciling of the information and that leads to wisdom.

Hear the rest of Shawna's workshop: