ARTICLE

BECOME WHAT YOU ARE

By Mary Kay Clark

The Church has always been quite firm that parents are the first and primary teachers of their children.

Home schooling is perhaps the greatest modern example of the fact that anything old can become new again. And it perhaps also serves as a comforting example that the nature of human persons does not change so very much over time. Neither automobile, nor Internet, nor Horace Mann can keep parents from their appointed role as the guardians and teachers of their children.

Why have so many families turned to home schooling, abandoning the received wisdom of the last hundred and fifty years and returning to the traditions of the previous five thousand? To understand that one might look at another historical trend: childbirth.

It is now common for husbands to be with wives during childbirth, whether the birth occurs in a hospital, a birthing center, or at home. Yet, not so long ago, it was unheard of for a husband to be present. Indeed, often the wife was not even truly present, having been gently floated off to some dreamland by anesthesia, and waking to find that the baby was in the nursery but would be brought to her eventually. Not only did the anesthesia knock out the mother, it also made the baby extremely lethargic. As we now know, the baby needs to be quite active during delivery, pushing and turning to free itself from its enclosure. But with a drugged mother who couldn't push, a drugged baby who couldn't twist and turn, and a father who was sitting in the waiting room watching television, C-sections and forceps and other medical interventions became necessary and nobody was there to speak up for the victims. In other words, advances in medical technology actually were causing harm. A natural approach, one which is increasingly used today, is far better for everyone involved.

Yet, the more natural approach to childbirth did not come without a fight from doctors and nurses. Indeed, there is the story, probably apocryphal, of the husband who handcuffed himself to his wife so that the doctors could not force him to wait outside. Now that is the kind of commitment that makes people think twice about their preconceived notions.

Home schooling is to education what natural childbirth is to delivery. It is an attempt to reassert the natural order of things, it is an attempt to live life more fully by experiencing the things in life more fully. And, for the Catholic, it is an attempt more fully to live the vocation of parent.

Become What You Are

In his many travels around the globe, Pope John Paul II has challenged people to "become what they are." We are all children of God, heirs of heaven, and called to a royal priesthood. This is what we are, but we cannot be these things fully unless we cooperate with grace.

In the same way, the home is the "domestic church" - a phrase used from antiquity to portray the importance of the family within the Church and the relationship of the family to the wider Church. What the Church does in the world - teach, sanctify, and rule -the family does in the home.

Pope John Paul II writes in his Letter to Families:

The Fathers of the Church, in the Christian tradition, have spoken of the family as a "domestic church," a "little church." They thus referred to the civilization of love as a possible system of human life and coexistence: "to be together" as a family, to be for one another, to make room in a community for affirming each person as such, for affirming "this" individual person.

It is this very sense of the family as the domestic church which has brought families back into the home to teach their own children. Far more than merely rebelling against what they considered to be bad or inadequate schooling options with public or parochial schools, parents have decided that home schooling is not the option of last resort. They have decided it is the first resort. It is a way in which they express that the home is a loving and supportive bond which need not be broken each day as family members go their separate ways and only come together to sleep. It is the way in which more and more Catholic families are responding to the Pope's challenge: "Become what you are."

The Growth of Home Schooling

Home schooling is both the oldest and the newest method of schooling. Indeed, historically, for most people in most of the world it has been the only option. In a certain sense, the glory of the Christian Faith has been the emphasis it puts on education, and this was often expressed through schools. What would the world have done without the schools of Charlemagne in the 800's or without the monastery schools or the great universities of Europe?

Yet, in modern times, schools have often not been great places of learning but have turned more to warehousing. Even worse, schools are often meant precisely to save children from the bad traits of their parents. And this attitude has existed in public schools in the United States from the beginning. Indeed, much of the push for public education in places such as Boston was due to the fact that the social reformers wanted to wrest Irish children away from their parents so they could be taught in a good Protestant setting. John Swett, a California Superintendent of Schools in the 1860's, wrote with the attitude that many schools still have toward parents, "The vulgar impression that parents have a legal right to dictate to teachers is entirely erroneous. As it would be manifestly improper for the teacher to undertake to dictate to the parents in their own house, so it would be improper for the parents to dictate to him in his."

In the 1970's, parent-operated schools sprang up in many parts of the country. I was involved in one of these schools, Mater Dei Academy, in Columbus, Ohio, for many years. As one of the founders and then as principal of Mater Dei, I learned firsthand both the joys and difficulties of running a school. It is definitely not easy. It takes a lot of money and much dedication.

Mater Dei has been one of the success stories of parent schools -it is still operating and recently held its twenty-fifth year anniversary celebration. Parent schools are certainly a good thing, but the traditional model of the parent school is simply too difficult to maintain as a viable option for most families, especially in small communities.

At about the same time that the parent schools began, some educators - notably John Holt and Raymond Moore - began to talk and write about the damage that the institutional school was wreaking on children. Both men were strong advocates of a less structured approach to education, and (even more revolutionary) did not believe that children should start formal schooling until well after the age of six or seven, the usual age to start.

At this time also, many families were coming to realize that what the public schools offered was not what they wanted. On one side of the spectrum, Fundamentalist Protestants became increasingly dismayed at the anti-Christian thrust of the schools. Many Protestants had thought of the public schools over the years as "their" schools, as they were, in fact, for many years. But in the 60's and 70's the Supreme Court struck down most of the Protestant structure of the schools. In New York state, the so-called Regent's Prayer was banned by the case Engel v. Vitale, and Bible reading in schools was terminated by Abington School District v. Schempp. A new religion was coming into public schools, and it most decidedly was not Christian. Most Fundamentalists turned to founding their own schools, which grew from virtually none in 1964 to an enrollment of 611,000 students in 1993. But others turned away from schools entirely and to home schooling.

On the other side of the spectrum, the "hippie" and "back-to-nature" movements were a secular response to the growing irrationalism of society. A subculture developed which realized that whatever brought happiness in life, it was most decidedly not mere purchasing power. The hippies of the 60's sobered up, found that they had children, and knew that they wanted something entirely different for their children than the enforced conformity of the school.

You wouldn't think that counter-culture dropouts and Fundamentalist Christians would have much in common, but they did - they both detested the public schools and they started the home schooling movement.

Catholic families came later to home schooling, due to historical trends. The existence of the Catholic school system in the United States meant that far fewer Catholic children were in public schools, and hence Catholics were not as affected by the changes there. But this began to change over the years. In 1964 Catholic schools enrolled 5.7 million students. But by the 1980's this number had slipped precipitously. (Catholic schools have since grown somewhat from their lowest numbers and enrolled 2.3 million students in 1993.)

Catholic schools simply closed down all over the country. And the schools that remained were often changed in character. The army of nuns in schools broke camp and moved on, and others came in to fill their places. Parents were not always happy with the new direction of the schools. It was at this time that parents began founding their own Catholics schools. And, after a few years, many migrated from these schools into home schooling.

Seton Home Study School came into existence as an offshoot of Seton School in Manassas, Virginia, founded by Anne Carroll. In the early 1980's, as the reputation of Seton School grew, students began to come to Manassas from all over the country. Local families were pressed into service to find room in their homes for these students. But it was difficult for the students to be away from home at such a young age, and it was hard for the parents, who missed and worried about their children so far away. Parents started asking, "Is there some way we could take the Seton courses, but keep the children at home?" So Seton School began to offer courses by correspondence.

Soon, the home study division enrolled more students than the day school. From a small room in the Seton School building, the home study division moved to a small office in Front Royal, about 50 miles to the west of Manassas and 70 miles from Washington, D.C. The student enrollment expanded from about 500 in 1986 to approximately 3000 by 1990. At the beginning of 1997, enrollment stands around 8500. Seton also serves thousands more students through private parent-operated schools, Catholic schools which use Seton materials, and through book sales directly to Catholic families. We are one of the larger employers in Warren County, Virginia, with about 130 people on our payroll.

The Benefits of Home Schooling

There is really no question that home schooling improves test scores. Intensive research by Dr. Brian Ray has shown that home schoolers average one to two grade levels above public school students. There is also the anecdotal evidence of the home schoolers such as the Colfax family, several of whose home schooled children attended Harvard. Most colleges are very happy to admit home schooled students, some even going so far as to establish special scholarship programs.

Other anecdotal evidence is equally remarkable. It seems that whenever there is an essay contest, an art contest, a public speaking contest, or a spelling bee, home schoolers are usually found at the top. 'The frequency of this is rather amazing, considering that home schoolers are a relatively small percentage of the population.

We often hear from parents as well about the terrific strides their children are taking. Early reading, writing, and mathematical skills are not unusual. My granddaughter, Erin, is home schooled and began reading quite early, before the age of five. Once when Erin and her family went to the library for story hour, they found that the story hour had been canceled that day. But several families with small children had already showed up. So, Erin began reading stories to the children, at the age of only six! When others are impressed at how much children know, or how well-behaved they are, parents just say "They're home schooled!" and that is all the explanation needed.

If the only benefit of home schooling was the improved education, that would be reason enough to choose it. But that is really secondary. We often say that home schooling is really about home. One of the greatest encouragements I have at Seton is reading letters from families who write to tell about how home schooling has changed their families. We hear all the time how children who were rebellious have turned around. Or how fathers who had never shown much interest in their children have become truly involved with them for the first time.

Home schooling gives parents the chance to pass on the Faith as God intended. God says to His people, "And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thy heart; And thou shalt meditate upon them sitting in thy house, and walking on thy journey, sleeping and rising" (Dt. 6:6-7). In other words, all of life is to be lived mindful of God, not merely compartmentalized into an hour on Sunday morning, or even into a religion class. Leo XIII, in the encyclical The Militant Church wrote, "Religion must not be taught to youth only during certain hours, but the entire system of education must be permeated with the sense of Christian piety." Pope Pius XI in On Christian Education of Youth, wrote "The mere fact that a school gives some religious instruction (often extremely stinted) does not bring it into line with the rights of the Church and of the Christian family, or make it a fit place for Catholic students. To be this it is necessary that all the teaching and the whole organization of the school, its teachers, syllabus and textbooks of every kind, be regulated by the Christian spirit, under the direction and maternal supervision of the Church." This creation of the truly Catholic place of learning, totally aligned with spiritual values, is what Catholic home schooling strives to create.

The Church has always been quite firm, also, that parents are the first and primary teachers of their children. The Declaration on Christian Education of the Second Vatican Council states, "Since parents have given life to their children, they are bound by a grave obligation to educate their offspring, and so must be regarded as their primary and principal educators. Their role in education is of such importance that where it is missing. its place can scarcely be supplied." Pius XI, in On Christian Marriage directly addresses those who say that parents cannot teach: "the wise God would have failed to make sufficient provision for children that had been born ... if He had not given to those to whom He had entrusted the power and right to beget them, the power also and the right to educate them."

The Church Needs Home Schooling

Although Seton is a correspondence school, we actually see quite a few of our students. Many families visit during the summer and take a tour. But another important way that we meet our students is when our graduates enroll in Christendom College, which is just down the road from us. We recently received a letter from the admissions office at Thomas Aquinas College stating that ten percent of their student body is composed of former Seton Home Study students. The letter stated, "Since Seton students do well in our program - academically, of course, but also as members of the community itself - we wanted to extend to you our sincere thanks for the good work that you do with these young men and women." The home schooling movement is an important feeder into traditional Catholic colleges.

It is sometimes difficult to look at the modern world and have much hope for improvement. Times are bad, and things seem to get worse. But home schooling families are currently producing the next generation of priests, nuns and Catholic leaders. Home schooled students are knowledgeable about their faith, and willing to defend it. They are better educated than their public and private school counterparts, and they have more true self-esteem - that which comes from doing, knowing, and believing rather than from pretending. They are the next leaders and the hope of the future.

Mary Kay Clark is founder of Seton Home School Academy, the first Catholic home study school, and author of Catholic Home Schooling, A Handbook for Parents.