Home Schooling in the Missions Context

by Paul Nelson

Few mission agencies rigidly define how the children of their missionaries are to be educated. This doesn’t mean that they don’t care about it. On the contrary, they have a growing sensitivity to the complex issues surrounding the education of MKs (missionary kids) on the field.

Few mission agencies rigidly define how the children of their missionaries are to be educated. This doesn’t mean that they don’t care about it. On the contrary, they have a growing sensitivity to the complex issues surrounding the education of MKs (missionary kids) on the field.

Perhaps the greatest burden missionaries face is the conflict between being a missionary and a parent at the same time. In the past, many missionaries thought that Jesus’ teaching in Luke 14:26, 33 meant that they should put God’s work first and trust him to take care of their children.

Today, many missionaries believe that children are their responsibility and they cannot transfer that responsibility to others. To neglect this primary responsibility to one’s family is not only unwise, but sinful.

Who is right? On the one hand, to do God’s work at the expense of the family can lead to disaster for the children. On the other hand, to place such a high priority on the family that no sacrifice to do God’s work is acceptable can lead to spiritual barrenness.

There are no easy answers. Each family must resolve the matter before God and find the balance that will enable them to carry out the ministry God has given them.

Decisions about children must always be balanced with ministry realities. The very nature of cross-cultural ministry, and the settings in which it is done, requires a variety of approaches to children’s education. To assume dogmatically that there is only one biblically mandated educational approach, regardless of the context, is to create some explosive imbalances.

Meanwhile, the "home school movement" in recent years has attracted many followers not only in North America but in many other Western countries as well. There are several reasons for its popularity: dissatisfaction with local school programs; the desire to delay formal schooling until the children are older; belief that education is the parents’ God-given duty. These are all valid concerns, but they do not automatically warrant home schooling on the mission field, where additional factors must be considered.

Missionary parents have taught their children at home for generations, but usually out of necessity rather than to fulfill a philosophical or theological mandate. Teaching children at home is a difficult task, one for which not all parents and children are well suited. Success depends far more on the temperament of the mother and the children than on high motivation and good materials. But, given a reasonably good blend of temperaments, materials, and motivation, home schooling does have some distinct advantages.

Children respond positively to the interest and concern shown by parents who place that kind of priority on their care and education. The assurance of worth and importance that comes to the children from their parents’ commitment of time and attention can have a life-long benefit for family relationships.

Contrary to common belief, children do not always do better in a group of their peers. The competitive environment can hinder socialization rather than help it. Young children generally do better with fewer children around them.

Teaching a child at home provides more opportunities for adult-to-child responses. These responses can help guide the thinking of the child into some constructive, creative directions that would not be likely without some form of adult counsel. The child taught at home tends to be more self-directed and relatively free of peer pressure.

These are some of the advantages of home schooling that parents should consider when deciding the best education option for them. They must be measured when the demands of the family and the demands of the ministry are being balanced. They should also be considered when home schooling becomes a burden, as it surely will.

Home schooling will be the best option for some parents and it must be recognized as a vital part of their task. Problems arise when missionaries see home schooling as their primary task and the only option they will consider for their children. When you hear, "I will never send my children to boarding school," or, "I will never allow anyone but my wife and me to teach our children," you know there’s an inflexibility that will cause difficulties.

Many "home schoolers" come from a defensive posture. Much of the literature and publicity from evangelical leaders puts the movement in the context of defending the family against secular humanism in local schools. Parents become activists with strong support structures rather that just practitioners. But in the diversity of the missions community, this crusading spirit tends to be disruptive.

Candidates from churches and communities that place high value on home schooling often carry this crusading spirit with them. Because they fail to see the differences between home and field, they often make inappropriate demands on the mission agency about their rights and responsibilities as parents. In response, the missions judge this inflexibility to make the candidates unsuitable for service overseas, which may or may not be valid.

If parents who feel strongly about home schooling do get through the candidate screening and are appointed, they face additional problems. Not all field settings lend themselves to home schooling. If the family lives on or near a center that has a school, it would be awkward to have the children remain apart from that program. The wife’s share in ministry would be very limited and the result most likely would be strained relationships with fellow workers.

The basic issue is not whether home schooling is the best choice, but whether or not there can be flexibility and dialogue about the balance required for a particular ministry. If there is no room for discussion and adjustments to the local context, then probably the mission field is not the right place for that family.

Parents who work in places where home schooling is practical, or necessary, do well if they accept the potential hardships honestly, rather than dive into it with the idealism of activists for a cause. Teaching one’s own children is not always the warm, rewarding experience it is said to be. Not all mothers and children can cope with the intense relationship of daily one-on-one teaching.

Often it is hard to separate the role of teacher from the role of mother, which brings conflict rather than progress. The glowing image of a mother and child sitting side by side each day, reveling in the joy of learning, begins to break down when the other children demand equal time, or when villagers come to the door asking for medical help, or something else that seems less important.

Parents should look at home schooling as a short-term option rather than as the only method they will ever use. This will them and their children to cope with it a year at a time, and to keep on evaluating other options in light of their current needs. This will also help them to consider each child individually and to evaluate his or her needs separately, rather blindly press on with what may not be the best education choice.

When parents maintain the required flexibility in a cross-cultural context, issues about home schooling fall into proper perspective. But when an idealized view of an educational method becomes the overriding issue, not only do they lose balance, but perhaps their ministry as well.

A young mother described her experience with home schooling in what I thought was a discouraging but realistic way:

Each morning seemed to be a new challenge with my son to see who would win that day. A spanking became part of our morning routine. Because I kept getting home schooling newsletters telling me how wonderful I should feel about teaching our three children, I knew I was doing something wrong. If this was God’s plan for us as a family, I wasn’t meeting his expectations as a teacher, a mother, and certainly not as a missionary.

That is a heavy burden for a family. It’s made even worse when cries for help and defeat are seen as the same thing.

Missionary families need all possible resources. Mission agencies should continue to look for acceptable education options and do everything they can to make those options available to families living in a variety of settings. Home schooling is one choice that will continue to be made. Mission administrators will support that choice when it seems to be the right one.

Parents who choose it should not promote it as more Christian than other choices. Missionaries who send their children to boarding school, or select other options, should likewise be convinced that to do so is to obey God and fulfill their parental responsibilities.

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