I've been teaching science from the wrong perspective, and I just realized it. I have been approaching science from the perspective of:
-This is a school subject, I'm teacher, therefore I teach science
-Kids need to know how things work
-Kids need to know about the world around them
-Kids need to know how things are made, how to make things, and what things are made of
But I have been wrong. Science is a gift. It is a special gift from God. It is a gift to us-mankind; that we may know him and glorify his power, might, creativity, and majesty. Science should be a continual reminder that "it is he that has made us, and not we ourselves" Psalm 100. Science should expose our distinctly ordered and complex world and direct students to the God of order and the author of incomprehensible things.
To know God is to know creation, the very work of His hands which are plain for us all to see. In fact we have to work diligently, not to see them. "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse" Romans 1:19-20
Psalm 19:1 "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands".
I've been thinking a lot about what exactly I want the children to know about science at the completion of their homeschool. And one thing is certain; I want them to see science, as we call it, as God's means of revealing himself to us. I want them to understand His grace in even allowing us to understand just some of his infinte power, order, and complexity. I want them to stand in awe as they see how creation confirms the creator and the implication that has for how the must live their life.
Now I am viewing curriculum shopping differently. I want to purchase materials that will accomplish and highlight the great task of revealing God to my children through science. I've included in this post lots of books and materials that I'm looking at. I'll get to do a review of the Body of Evidence DVD's because our co-op has them and I get to teach the class in a few months to 7-12 graders!!! I'm so excited!!! Click the link to see a sample video.
I've been devouring Answers Magazine from Answers in Genesis Please visit them today!!!! And I have been rereading Already Gone: Why your kids will quit church and what you can do to stop it. It has a lot more to do with science than you think!
These are my first girly diapers. I just love them!!! I made them for a friend's baby shower this weekend.
And the fruit of the womb is His reward, or a reward from God. He gives children, not as a penalty nor as a burden, but as a favor. They are a token for good if men know how to receive them, and educate them. They are "doubtful blessings" only because we are doubtful persons.Where society is rightly ordered children are regarded, not as an encumbrance, but as an inheritance; and they are received, not with regret, but as a reward...Yet even here, with all the straits of limited incomes, our best possessions are our own dear offspring, for whom we bless God every day. Charles Spurgeon
“Those who have no children bewail the fact; those who have few children see them soon gone, and the house is silent, and their life has lost a charm; those who have many gracious children are upon the whole the happiest. Of course a large number of children means a large number of trials; but when these are met by faith in the Lord it also means a mass of love, and a multitude of joys...[Spurgeon observed] that he had seen the most frequent unhappiness in marriages which are unfruitful..He has known a family in which there were some twelve daughters and three sons, and he never expects to witness upon earth greater domestic felicity than fell to the lot of their parents, who rejoiced in all their children, as the children also rejoiced in their parents and in one another. When sons and daughters are arrows, it is well to have a quiver full of them; but if they are only sticks, knotty and useless, the fewer of them the better.” Charles Spurgeon
Begin early to teach, for children begin early to sin. Spurgeon
Not to cross our children is the way to make a cross of them. Those who never give their children the rod, must not wonder if their children become a rod to them. Spurgeon
We could well put up with the little mistakes, and petulancies, and follies, and even sins of their earliest days; but the sting is when, having left our roof, they leave our teaching; when, having gone from our trainings, they do not abide in them, but plunge into sin, and prove to us most sadly that grace does not run in the blood, but that natural depravity most certainly does. Spurgeon
If we never have headaches through rebuking our little children, we shall have plenty of heartaches when they grow up. Spurgeon
I have heard of one man who said that he did not like to prejudice his boy, so he would not say anything to him about religion. The devil, however, was quite willing to prejudice the lad, so very early in life he learnt to swear, although his father had a foolish and wicked objection to teaching him to pray. If you ever feel it incumbent upon you not to prejudice a piece of ground by sowing good seed in it, you may rest assured that the weeds will not imitate your impartiality, but they will take possession of the land in a very sad and shocking manner. Where the plough does not go, and the seed is not sown, the weeds are quite sure to multiply; and if children are left untutored and untrained, all sorts of evils will spring up in their hearts and lives. Spurggeon
We cannot impart to our children new hearts, but we can see to it that there shall be nothing within our gates that is derogatory to the religion of Jesus Christ. I charge you see to it. But you cannot control your children, you say. Then the Lord have mercy upon you! It is your business to do it, and you must do it, or else you will soon find out they will control you; and no one knows what judgment will come from God upon those who suffer sin in children and servants to go unrebuked. Spurgeon
No cross is so heavy to carry as a living cross. Next to a woman who is bound to an ungodly husband, or a man who is unequally yoked with a graceless wife, I pity the father whose children are not walking in the truth, who yet is himself an earnest Christian. Spurgeon
Proverbs 22:6 Train a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
There have been so many failures in religious training that many parents doubt whether a principle like this can be regarded as holding true in all circumstances. With such doubt we undermine God’s covenant. Instead, let us believe that the failure was man’s fault. Either the parent did not make “the way in which he should go” his one aim in the child’s training, or the training in that way was not what God’s Word had ordered it to be…Andrew Murray-"Raising Your Children for Christ"
There are many Christian parents who are anxious to see their children saved, but they do not choose this way for them. They do not decide on it distinctly as the one and only way in which they are to walk. They think it is too much to expect that their children should walk in it from their youth, and so they do not train them in that way. They are not prepared to regard the walking in this way as their primary objective. It is not their first aim to train whole-hearted devoted Christians. They will not give up their worldly interests. They are not always ready themselves to walk In that way only and completely-“the narrow way”. They have chosen it, but not exclusively and finally. Andrew Murray-"Raising Your Children for Christ"
Genesis 17:7-I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.
It is here that a difficulty arises with many people. They see that God’s promise of mercy to sinners are free and sure and find in believing them, that they come true. However, regarding their children, the promise does not appear so simple and certain. They cannot understand how one can so confidently believe for another. They know that the only sure ground for faith is God’s Word. However, they have not yet been able to realize that the Word of God really means that they are definitely to believe that He is the God of their seed. Their impressions are in accordance with views that are commonly held concerning child-rearing. They think that the salvation of their children depends upon faithful parental training. This attitude provides no absolute certainty of success. It excludes God’s promises and His sovereignty. It is evident that such a general principal, with its possible exceptions, cannot give the rest of faith the parent longs for. Faith needs the assurance that God’s purpose and promise are clear and unmistakeable. Only then can we trust completely in His faithfulness…Wherever God comes with a promise, He expects faith to accept it at once…As I stand in covenant with my God, and see how He offers to be the God of His peoples seed, I have the right in faith to claim this promise. I can be assured of my child’s salvation as firmly as my own, through faith in the God of truth. Andrew Murray-"Raising Your Children for Christ"
