In Dennis Phelps' recent letter he made the following statement concerning the public school: "The school and the church are the places where all young people can begin on an equal footing. They are places to be preserved as models of how we as a society can work together to achieve our goals."
A few years ago when our daughters were in public school, one of them came home with a book that her teacher had recommended for her to read. She asked me to look at the book. The book was loaded with such vulgar and filthy language, taking God's name in vain, that I wrote a letter to the teacher telling him that I forbid my daughter to read it. I still have a copy of the letter in my file; the teacher's name was Dennis Phelps. That book was totally against what we are taught in our church.
The public school's teaching of the hypothesis of evolution in place of intelligent design is also against what our church believes. Mr. Phelps' statement that "... home schooling will only lead to the thither fragmentation of society" is totally absurd. If we let it, the public school system can fragment our society; they are forbidden to teach Christian ethics and morals, teachers aren't allowed to read the Bible to students or pray out loud.
I realize there were, and are, some very good teachers in the public school. Miss Erpstad and Mrs. Harbo got our girls off to a very good start. Our girls are good cooks and homemakers. They took Home Ec. from Janice Wiggins. All four of our girls tested out of freshman college English (in three different colleges) thanks to Inez Timmerman, Mrs. Wicks and Miss Johnson.
We are also thankful for many other God-honoring teachers.
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Our oldest granddaughter recently graduated from college. She was home-schooled in Philadelphia, grades 1-12. She took the four-year college course in three years and was valedictorian. She is now married, employed full time at a nursing home, and teaches Sunday school in their church.
Mr. Phelps also makes this statement in his letter: "Home schooling seems to be just another method of sticking one's head in the sand." Someone's head may be in the sand, but it's not the home schoolers.
