Educational Refugees

THE PRESENT SITUATION OF JAPANESE HOMESCHOOLERS

1) Homeschooling familes are somewhat like refugees.

Quite often, they start their homeschooling because of some negative causes, such as their children getting bullied in public schools.

They are always in need of various kinds of help and encouragement from outside. Sad to say, many Japanese churches are not cooperative to the homeschoolers in Japan

Homeschoolers often do not receive cooperative or positive reactions from other church members, and this can be detrimental for their Christian life.

Even some of them are "persecuted" by other church members.

In this context, many Christian homeschoolers experience two *exoduses;" They first pull their children out of public schools, then they have to leave their churches because they receive some negative reaction or even a kind of persecution from other church members. Those people actually stumble at the local churches.

Some of these people change their churches, but some completely leave local churches and join some Christian groups such as parachurch ministries. The rest of them simply become "church hoppers" who visit different churches on each Sunday.

Some homeschoolers are exposed to a deformed view about local churches. They often might be antagonistic against local churches.

2) Church schooling

In most cases, churches which are cooperative to homeschooling tend to establish Christian schools (They call them "Church School" in Japanese) within their congregations. Some "Church Schools" are successful, but in this case, parents regard them as a kind of Christianized public school, since their view of education is not well grounded on the biblical worldview. They tend to disregard the importance of education within the family and become too dependent on the Christian schools.

Many Japanese local churches are not cooperative to the homeschooling movement in Japan. Often, they permit "Church Schooling" but not homeschooling. The idea of "church schooling" fits the Japanese group-oriented mindset.

These churches drive homeschooling families to the direction of "Church schooling." Here, the group-oriented mindset works. Quite often "Church Schooling" Christian families entrust the responsibility of their children's education to "Church Schools."

3) Unstable condition

Those who start homeschooling are often placed in an unstable condition.

Homeschooling is quite a foreign idea to the Japanese, since they define themselves according to the society, schools, and institutions to which they belong. In some cases, you see Christians who say something like "I believe what my church believes."

When Japanese people start to homeschool, this is also the great first step for establishing their identities in terms of their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. For the first time in their lives, they begin to be separated from the group-oriented mindset. But at the same time, they are placed in a temporal identity crisis. The period of this identity crisis places them in an unstable condition. Some might even lose or change their jobs. This is because they change the priorities in their lives by doing Christian education, which demands that fathers spend more time in their families .

This feeling of instability occasionally drives them to the direction of getting some extreme theological stand, especially about ecclesiology, as I have mentioned before. Those who experience persecution from people in churches might even regard local churches as their enemies.

Some local churches even regard homeschooling as a heretical movement because Japanese homeschooling families sometimes join groups which disregard or ignore the importance of local churches.

Such groups misrepresent the homeschooling movement. In other words, they do not have accountability to the local churches.

This is a vicious circle.

Hence, we see few homeschooling families well established on sound ecclesiology.

SOME HINTS

So far I have listed some challenges we have. Below are some hints for overcoming those problems.

1) Homeschooling familes should be based on sound ecclesiology so that they recognize the importance of local churches. They should belong to local churches which stand on a firm biblical foundation.

Families and churches must cooperate for the glory of God. We should encourage Christian families to serve the Lord through local churches. This is very important. Japanese homeschooling families often fail to recognize the importance of local churches mainly because of their negative experiences there.

2) Homeschooling families should be accountable to God and the church for what they do.

Accountability is the key. Parents need to realize that they are responsible for their children's education. They cannot fully entrust the parental responsibility of their children's education to "church schools" or any other institution.

3) The homeschooling movement must be carried out in a "bottom up" or "grass-roots" manner, not with a "top-down" system.

Japanese people are well accustomed to the "top-down" methodology. Their affinity to the group-oriented mindset enables them to accommodate themselves to the "top-down" type management or movement. They are always seeking strong leadership (occasional dictatorship) so that they can depend on some strong authority. In doing so they can have peace of mind, which is the typical Japanese way.

Since the Japanese homeschoolers' situation resembles that of refugees, and fathers fail to fulfill their responsibility of education in many cases, they tend to seek strong leadership outside their families, which occasionally causes in negative results.

We Japanese need to have a "bottom-up" mind-set. Each homeschooling family should recognize this. Each family is independent in educating their children. At the same time each homeschooling family is accountable to the Lord and to the church to which they belong. We need to stress the balance between independence and accountability in terms of Christian home education.

I might add that networking among homeschoolers should be established in a "bottom-up" or "grass-roots" manner.

In conclusion, Christian home education must be carried out on the basis of freedom in Christ.