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Your family is in for a treat in this eNewsletter!

Laurie and I have invited our friend, Bruce Shortt, to share with all of our eNewsletter friends by way of an interview.

Some of you might know that Bruce has been involved in the ongoing challenge within the Southern Baptist Convention and the Presbyterian Church of America, two of the largest Christian denominations in America, over what to do to protect our children academically, morally, spiritually, and physically from the effects of bad education in America's public schools.

Being public school teachers now, we know first-hand of the problems. We can verify a lot of what Bruce has researched in personal ways.

His recent book, THE HARSH TRUTH ABOUT THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS, published by Chalcedon Publishers has raised quite a stir among Christians and non-Christians alike.

It is a very compelling exposé that uncovers the damage being done to our children attending public schools across America, but that remains generally unnoticed by the majority of American parents, unfortunately even CHRISTIAN parents, until now.

We thought that it would be great to visit with Bruce to help all of you get acquainted with him as an author, homeschooling dad, Christian parent, and concerned parent-directed educator. We hope you will be encouraged from this dialogue.

Knowledge is power. Hopefully what you will learn from this discussion will help you to better educate your own children with confidence.

Most of you are already convinced that homeschooling is right. This will give you more reasons to be assured in your resolve. We also hope it will assure you that educating your children as the LORD has directed you is truly the best decision you could have made.

So enjoy the interview . . . Here it is:

[This interview was done through email in early July, 2005.]

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David: Bruce, thank you for taking some time from your very busy life to share within our homeschooling eNewsletter. We appreciate the opportunity very much.

Bruce: Thank you, David. I've been looking forward to sharing with you and your readers.

David: I recently completed reading your insightful and very comprehensive book, THE HARSH TRUTH ABOUT THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

Wow! It definitely challenges American parents to examine first-hand what is being done to our children in public schools. Some of what you have exposed is downright scarey!

If even a fraction of what you have uncovered is taking place, it is enough to get all reasonable parents very alarmed!

Your exposé is indicting. Isn't it true that there are more than just a few problems with public education?

Bruce: How children are educated is the most fundamental force that shapes individuals, families, and cultures. Unfortunately, most of us tend to think of education in purely instrumental terms; that is, as simply a matter of acquiring skills that enable us to do things.

When we say we want a "good education" for our children, all too often what we are thinking is that we want our children to acquire a set of skills that will lead to a good job.

Although acquiring skills is certainly an important part of an education, we are making an enormous mistake if we think of education in primarily these terms.

There is no such thing as a religiously "neutral" education.

All education is religious in that it explicitly and implicitly transmits a worldview. That worldview shapes our characters and understanding of life in profound ways. The same point is made much more compactly by Proverbs 23:7 - "For as a man thinks, so he is."

Parents need to understand that the government's schools are not religiously neutral - in fact, they are awash in theologies. The problem is that those theologies are mostly secular and New Age, not Christian.

This is why study after study shows that evangelical children educated in the government's schools simply don't have a Christian worldview. The consequences of this are profound. As I point out in detail in THE HARSH TRUTH ABOUT PUBLIC SCHOOLS, the government's schools are destroying our children spiritually, morally, and intellectually, not to mention in some cases, physically.

David: Before we get into the book's importance, Bruce. Please share a bit about yourself personally. You are a homeschooling dad. Can you share with us about yourself and your family?

Bruce: I am best described as just a homeschooling dad from fly-over country.

Like many homeschooling parents, I have to juggle work - in my case practicing law with my wife - with homeschooling our three sons. Consequently, most of the homeschooling in our home goes on between 8 pm and midnight. During the day, the boys' grandmother is with us and the boys work on foreign language and some piano.

This is obviously an unusual schedule, but I feel fortunate that we are able to make it work. She only speaks Vietnamese, so she doesn't do any of the academic teaching. However, just by being present, she is improving our sons' Vietnamese a little.

David: That's great that your sons' grandmother is involved in your homeschool.

Bruce: Yes. Many families aren't so blessed.

David: But that's interesting that you do a lot of the academic homeschooling in the evenings. It seems that the benefit of flexibility is a plus for many families. Do you find that this is one of the key reasons that homeschooled children are being successful?

Bruce: Flexibility, coupled with parents being intimately familiar with their children's strengths and weaknesses, is certainly one key to homeschooling's success. Just like any homeschooling mom or dad, I know when something is working well with my sons, and I also know when I need to try something different.

Most of the time, when there is a problem with a subject - math or grammar, for example - you can solve it by just changing your approach. One advantage of being part of a homeschooling community is that other homeschoolers have a wealth of experience, and when you have a problem you often discover that many of them have faced the same thing.

David: What other reasons do you think makes homeschooling "work?"

Bruce: There are many reasons homeschooling works. For one thing, children, especially young children, like to learn with their parents. It is part of the natural bond God has built into the relationship. Where there is resistance it is usually with children who have been in public schools for many years and who have been socialized to the values of popular culture. Weak parents are also sometimes a problem.

Another reason homeschooling works is that homeschooled children receive much more one-on-one tutorial attention than children in public school. This is why homeschooling typically requires so much less time. Homeschooled children may do most of their work on their own, but they also often get an hour to an hour and a half of one-on-one attention. No child can get that on a daily basis in a public school.

Finally, homeschooling allows children to pursue their own interests. It is amazing how much a child can learn when he is pursuing something that he really enjoys. Homeschooling is perfectly suited for allowing that to happen.

David: What would you say the main benefit of homeschooling is?

Bruce: As homeschoolers, we know that the most important benefits of homeschooling are not academic blessings, although those are certainly abundant. Rather, homeschooling blesses us most profoundly by reuniting our families and helping us understand that Christianity is a faith for all of life – something that is relevant to every minute of every day. We know that homeschooling allows us to raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and strengthens our families and our churches.

David: Let's get right to the subject of your book, and your recent involvement with getting some major denominations to line up with its message. Can you share with us the point of your book? Why did you write it? What are you trying to get people to see?

Bruce: The point of the book is to show Christians why we cannot educate our children in the government's schools.

Other books have touched on this general theme, but they have often approached the subject from an abstract theological perspective. This is valuable, but the Bible also calls us to be empirical. As Christ tells us, good trees bear good fruit, and bad trees bear bad fruit.

THE HARSH TRUTH examines THAT fruit and demonstrates that the fruit of our government school habit isn't just bad, it's rotten.

This is why THE HARSH TRUTH has nearly 100 pages of endnotes. I didn't start with the intention of writing a book with endnotes, but as my research progressed it became apparent that the situation was much worse than even I had suspected. So, I felt that people simply wouldn't believe the truth unless I could point them to sources they could check themselves.

I also didn't start with the notion of writing something that touched on virtually every major problem within the government's schools, but once I started it simply wasn't possible to limit myself to a few key issues.

Consequently, THE HARSH TRUTH discusses in some depth just about any concern about the government's schools that a parent, grandparent, or pastor might have. I often tell people that you don't have to read the book from the beginning to the end - just pick something that is of immediate interest and read that. I know that if someone does that the whole book will get read, just not in the order of the chapters. But that doesn't matter because each chapter - even the subparts of chapters - are pretty much self-contained essays.

One obvious use for the book is to provide Christian parents with the facts so that they can make an informed decision on how they will educate their children. The book is also a highly effective antidote for "homeschooling fatigue" and "Christian school tuition fatigue."

Beyond this, however, I hope that Christians, and especially Christian homeschoolers, will read THE HARSH TRUTH so that they can become effective evangelists for Christian education. In reality, THE HARSH TRUTH is a complete and compact course in apologetics for Christian education.

David: Obviously the title says a lot! In a paragraph or two, what is the "harsh truth?"

Bruce: The harsh truth is that the government's schools are killing our children spiritually, morally, and intellectually.

I often tell pastors and parents with children in the government's schools that they need to decide just how "dead" they want their children to be.

The comment about "killing our children" is only partly hyperbolic. The government’s schools have in fact become a physical threat to children, not just because of the proliferation of violent crimes, sexual abuse, and homosexual activism within those schools, but also because the “little red schoolhouse” has become the nation’s preeminent drug pusher as psychotropic drugs are increasingly substituted for discipline.

A further aspect of the harsh truth is that the government school establishment lies - they lie about academic achievement; they lie about drop-out rates; they lie about the level of crime and violence in the schools; in fact, they will lie about anything that they think might threaten their ability to obtain ever greater amounts of the taxpayers' money.

One of the hardest things for Christian parents to understand is that an institution that has attractive buildings, presentable staff, and enormous social power and prestige can actually be utterly corrupt, but there is no other way to describe the institution.

This, of course, is not to say that all teachers, administrators, and other employees are like this,

[Editor's Note: Thank you, Bruce, for giving us an out!]

but the statement is true of the government school enterprise as a whole. Interestingly, many teachers and administrators understand the corruption and are often the "whistleblowers."

David: And what led you to approach major denominations like the Presbyterians and Southern Baptists?

Bruce: David, you have to begin somewhere. The SBC is clearly both the largest Protestant denomination and the denomination historically most strongly associated with the government's schools. In retrospect, I believe Providence has guided us.

Bear in mind that 18 months ago people not so subtlely told me that trying to change the thinking about education within the SBC was a fool's errand. We had an idea, no money, and faced enormous opposition. Today, not only has the SBC passed a very strong resolution warning of homosexual activism within the government's schools, calling for investigations of school districts, and laying down some strong standards to guide parents in their decision regarding how they will educate their children.

The leading theologian within the SBC and president of their leading theological seminary, Dr. Albert Mohler, has publicly stated that it is time for responsible Baptists to develop an exit strategy from the public schools.

A resolution introduced at the PCA's General Assembly this year called for removing all of their children from public schools. Although it didn't pass it, was co-sponsored by Dr. D. James Kennedy and Joel Belz, among others.

We never imagined that so much could be accomplished in such a short time with a small group of people that spent under $2,000, but with God all things are indeed possible.

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[Editor's Note: If you enjoyed this interview and found it to be provcative for you in your thinking about where the public schools are today, please get a copy of Bruce's book. We believe it is a "must-read" for homeschooling parents. It will reinforce your convictions and provides the evidence to justify your position regarding why you are a better, more responsible parents for educating our children at home or in a Christian school, at the very least (though we believe there are problems in that approach as well--but that's a future issue.)

We plan to have Bruce share more with us again soon.]

Be encouraged in your homeschooling efforts. Bruce has just provided some great help in giving confidence to those who are following their heart in educating at home rather than in other ways!

May the LORD richly bless your homeschool!

Regards,

David and Laurie Callihan
www.davidandlaurie.com
http://www.thechristianinstitute.com, .net, .org
david@davidandlaurie.com

P.S. Here is where you can acquire a copy of Bruce's book,

http://www.exodusmandate.org/info_books.htm

We hope you have been blessed by this interview. We'll share another interview with Bruce in the near future. We believe he has a lot to say. Please also feel free to share this interview with others that you know!

In fact, would you please forward a copy of this interview to those who are in your support group? We need to spread this message to encourage EVERY homeschooling parent!

Do your part and share this wonderful interview with your homeschooling friends. I am grateful that Bruce was more than willing to take the time to visit with us!

Just so you might realize the quality of this man's life, not only is Bruce a strong Christian and homeschooling dad, which makes him immediately impressive, but his secular credentials are impressive too. He's a graduate of Harvard Law School (and is still a conservative, biblical Christian), a Fulbright Scholar, and holds a law practice along with his wife in Houston, Texas.)

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With all of the work we are doing behind the scenes at this time to prepare for the launch of THE CHRISTIAN INSTITUTE, we just want to connect and then get back to work.

Please pray for us. We are being challenged in many ways as we set up our new college ministry in the middle of our other responsibilities of teaching, coaching (yes, David is still coaching in the off-season to give Arcadia kids a new YMCA program), writing, and speaking.

Let us know how we can help you by sending us an email, letter, or calling us. We want to be of assistance to you! Let us know what we can do to help you as you provide your children the best possible education in the place it should be happening--your home!

Home-based learning (now moving into the college level) . . . what a concept!

Warm regards,

David and Laurie Callihan
http://www.davidandlaurie.com
http://www.thechristianinstitute.com
david@thechristianinstitute.com

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To send an email to David or Laurie, just write us at david@davidandlaurie.com or laurie@davidandlaurie.com

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Lots of great homeschooling ideas and products with your children's future in mind at
http://www.davidandlaurie.com

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Learn about THE CHRISTIAN INSTITUTE today:
http://www.thechristianinstitute.com

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We now have a BLOG on "Parent-directed Education." This is a new adventure for us. We have no idea where it's going. If you want to check it out, just click here: http://parent-directed.blogspot.com/. Or type in the blogsite in your browser.