“Over Protective” Christian Home Education

We are called to be in the world but not of the world. Government school is rooted in material, earthly powers. We answer to one almighty authority and school trains children to answer to many arbitrary authorities. It is the worship of many gods.

Home education led our family to healing that opened us to accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior. I’m a new believer and I understand that Christ said we would be persecuted for following Him. Raising my sons as Christians is not over protective. “Over protection” comes from a fear mindset that believes we can find safety in the world. Trusting in God is accepting danger on Earth.

365 Devotionals: Agapē

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitide of sins.
-1 Peter 4:8 NIV

And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.
-1 Peter 4:8 KJV

When I spotted different translations using “love” or “charity,” I was drawn to dig deeper.

The Greek word for both is “agapē.”

One commentary bridged the gap between the translations reaching back to “chariot” as a root for “charity”: …transporting of God’s love in man one to another.”

I have a strong feeling that there is only one Love in the world. Like handwritten letters, we are the vehicles by which Love is experienced.

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365 Devotionals: Action

Don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.
-James 1:22

Show, don’t tell. When you love someone or something, it is obvious in your actions. Love for Jesus Christ is no different.

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365 Devotionals: Anger

Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires.
-James 1:20

Anger provides instant negative feedback: the body tenses, the mind scatters, and the soul aches.

Its abscence makes room for God. God’s love clears and focuses the mind on righteous goals.

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365 Devotionals: Doubt

The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted.
-Matthew 28:16-17 NIV

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
-Matthew 28:18-20 KJV

Jesus had just risen from the grave. He was publicly on the cross, buried, and guarded. And they doubted.

I’ve been blessed with little doubt in God since accepting Christ into my heart. My doubt lies in my ability to understand Scripture and serve the greatest good.

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Unschool and Deschool

My wife and I didn’t consider homeschooling until the summer before kindergarten.

One of the things I most regret not learning about before we started was that we had already started. The state’s calendar has nothing to do with healthy learning or development.

Academics are not primary for us. If an individual is physically secure, spiritually fulfilled, and mentally healthy, he/she will know what, when, and how to learn.

I wish I had learned about deschooling and unschooling before I started. Breaking down the assumptions of the governmental education system was critical for my personal healing and in creating a better learning environment for my children.

I post a lot about unschooling and I see it in such broad terms that I could include all of my Learning Lifestyle posts as part of that subject. At root, it is a learning environment focused on individual needs, desires, and talents. We do this as adults, whether it’s attending a voluntary training course through work, borrowing a book, or joining a gym. We take ownership of our interests and feed them. There is no reason that children shouldn’t have the same opportunity. The sooner they learn how to fuel their own growth, the sooner they become free of influences that claim authority.

I was already unschooling myself, I just needed to apply the concept to our home education lifestyle. Deschooling runs deeper. It changed my life, opened me up to faith in Christ, and has allowed for perpetual healing.

In the homeschool world, “deschooling” is the process of pulling a child from a learning institution to begin home education. It usually consists of a “break” from schoolwork and there are loose formulas for X number weeks of break to reset from Y number of years in school.

My children were never in school, so they weren’t in great need of a break from that, but I learned about this process as I was recreating MY school experience in our home. I was the one who needed to deschool after a decade and a half in educational institutions.

The start/stop bells, busy work, grades, and authoritarian rule were the easiest for me to identify and put on the chopping block. I like to follow through on ideas to the end of their logical usefulness and started analyzing the social habits, fears, and assumptions about my fellow man that I had carried from school into parenthood. I did not like much of it. I started looking closely at the programming and patterns from my youth that were not healthy. I dug deeper to find parental and multi-generational traumas that I was, and am, carrying.

There is no end to the logical usefulness of deschooling.

At a glorious point on the journey you no longer blame school, your parents, or The System. You see that everyone is broken in infinite ways. That means we each have the gift of inifinite healing in a lifetime. That means I can gift my children with an inheritance of a better way to live.

I can’t think of a better intention to have toward my role in my children’s development.

365 Devotionals: Peace

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.
-Colossians 3:15

There was a lot of chaos in my house today. I wasn’t nearly Christ-like.

Sometimes my peaceful parenting journey feels like it’s in reverse. Even so, I apologized and promised my sons that my temper is my responsibility and not theirs.

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Front Row Reading

The Zerbeys are front-row types.

I never formally taught Isaac how to read. His mother and I read aloud daily, attended storytimes multiple times a week (here we are at Brandywine River Museum of Art eight years ago), modeled a love of reading as adults, and filled our world with books.

My sons were able to develop a love of reading without authoritarian dictates. They discovered themselves in books, and continue that lifelong process.

We are born with an innate understanding that knowledge is critical to survival. The acquisition of knowledge should not be outsourced to any authority. It must be an independent endeavor that partners with sources of information to create a true and meaningful map of the world.

Knowledge means survival, but to thrive, we must extrapolate knowledge into wisdom. My sons and I gather information from books, videos, podcasts, mentors, and any variety of disseminators of information, and then we discuss the validity, interconnectivity, and usefulness of the data. I struggle with their interests in social media challenges and video games, and they struggle with my refusal to dumb down my language because I’m talking with children.

Somehow, we find enough patience to listen to each other and try to respect when the one of us isn’t up for Marvel movie theories, Minecraft hacks, or Biblical translation comparisons.

Although reading is largely a solitary excercise, we integrate it into our relationships with community, clubs, friends, and family. It is central to our learning lifestyle.