This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program originally aired on 5/18/20. To listen to the program, please click HERE.
Sam Rohrer: Well, hello and welcome to another week right here on Stand in the Gap today. I trust that you had a restful weekend and that you’re ready for a new week. An eventful week, seems like every week of late has been eventful. And as best as possible that you will factor us and plan this program into your daily program as you laid out there, as we here try to bring headline news of importance as we regularly do to Christians and all freedom-loving Americans, wherever they may be across the country on these 400 and some stations that carry this program and reach literally every one of the 50 states.
So I hope that wherever you are, you will be with us on a regular basis. I’m Sam Rohrer and I’m going to be joined today by pastor Gary Dull. As we engage a subject of, I think, peculiar interest to, and an impact on parents and educators all across America. All who are listening to me right now are well aware that schools on all of our 50 states closed weeks ago, and frankly, most places around the world is too, as far as that goes, due to the COVID-19 policies. But the only schooling, put this way, in a positive sense, there was one segment of schooling in America that didn’t close.
Didn’t miss a beat with students who showed up for class, just like they always did. And that was home schoolers. It’s interesting. The next are some private and the Christian schools who then, when the schools were closed, jumped into gear quickly with some type of online learning. But I’m going to say for most government schools, too controlled by politically correct regulations and slow in response as the nature is, millions of students missed weeks of instruction and some have missed it pretty much all together.
Yet in the midst of this plague, some amazing things have happened. And that’s the focus of today’s program. The theme I’ve chosen for today is this: the meteoric rise of homeschooling in America. Another unintended consequence of COVID-19 policies. Our special guests for segments, two, three, and four is Mike Smith. He’s the co founder and the president of Homeschool Legal Defense Association. But before I bring in Mike, we ask him to frankly, to have some fairly amazing information, I think, as we discuss very significant implications, I want to invite in right now Zan Tyler. She’s a consultant to BJU Press, the largest producer of fully integrated biblical worldview, K to 12 curriculum. She’s a liaison to the homeschool community. She’s a speaker, she’s an author and she’s a veteran homeschool mom. And with that, Zan, let me welcome you to the program here first off.
Zan Tyler: Well, thank you so much, Sam. It’s a real pleasure to be here with you today.
Sam Rohrer: Zan, you’ve been involved in Christian education and homeschooling for a long time on numerous levels. You’re now working, as I mentioned, a consultant to BJU Press, who is a multi-year faithful sponsor of Stand in the Gap Today and Stand in the Gap Weekend, in particular, and who like you, they like you and us here at Stand in the Gap Today and the American Pastors Network, we’re all committed to true Christian education. And I say that true because true Christian education, that’s not just education with a prayer tacked on the end of the day, it’s fully integrated. And I’m just curious, from a first perspective here with you Zan, since you’re in that space of working with the press and you’re working in area of homeschooling, what have you noticed from your perspective during this COVID-19 plague and the policies and so forth that’s really disturbed education broadly? Are more parents and others looking, for instance, at BJU Press materials and homeschooling now than perhaps before all this began?
Zan Tyler: Oh my goodness. Let me address the homeschooling issue first and then we’ll talk about our absolutely incredible curriculum. I can remember. I coauthored my first book in 1996 and we called it Anyone Can Homeschool. And that title was so offensive to people. Who knew that in 2020, we’d be saying everyone must homeschool. So there are several things, I think, going on. You have parents who are just trying to hold on by the skin of their teeth to when schools open. But there are a lot of parents now who are being energized and empowered, I think, and understanding they truly can teach their children at home. A lot of them are simply finishing out the curriculum they’ve been given at their institutional schools, whether government or private, but they’re also beginning to see, “I like being with my kids. I can teach my children. I’m not particularly thrilled with this curriculum I’m seeing.” So we are really seeing, I think, this amazing rise in people who want to homeschool after the COVID regulations pass.
Gary Dull: Zan, you know what the rise of homeschooling in America today is the result of COVID-19, could you share with our audience how BJU Press curriculum and the instructional aides that are associated with that are very appropriate in developing the biblical worldview in the home teaching situation these days?
Zan Tyler: Absolutely. First of all, BJU Press material has been around for so long. When I began homeschooling in 1984, I actually began homeschooling with BJU Press in 1985. And they have stood by my side in different ways ever since. So this is a name that is trusted, that has been in the curriculum business for a long, long time. This is not a stop gap measure for COVID-19. It’s an excellent curriculum, college prep, world-class. I’d put it up against anything on the market. But the main thing is what you say. It not only has an underpinning of biblical foundations in every subject it teaches, it now has a component they call biblical worldview shaping, where in math, we’re teaching children, how can you incorporate a biblical worldview in math to serve your neighbor or to share the gospel? It’s really cutting edge stuff. And it’s so exciting, especially when we see the rise of secularization in our culture, to have a curriculum that has stood the test of time, but also has that strong, strong, strong, biblical worldview component. I couldn’t be more excited about it.
Sam Rohrer: And Zan, I can tell that, and we’re just about up, we’re almost done with this segment here. If people are listening right now, I mean, I know those folks are maybe using the curriculum BJU Press, they hear the ads on here a lot, or the announcements, but if they have not, or maybe they’re in the space for the first time, and they say, “Hey, I have not reached out and contacted.” Can you give a website that they can go to?
Zan Tyler: Absolutely. They can go to homeschoolhelp.com. And if they will go to homeschoolhelp.com/map, they will actually be able to get in touch with one of their consultants in their area. We’ve got 200 consultants around the country who are veteran homeschool moms, who will pray with them, help them choose curriculum and help them learn the process of homeschooling.
Sam Rohrer: Zan Tyler, thank you for being with us today. And we’re going to say goodbye to you right now. God bless you and keep up the good work. When we come back, ladies and gentlemen, we are going to bring in Mike Smith. He’s a co founder, now the president of homeschool Legal Defense Association. We’re going to share some really exciting information, what’s happening in homeschooling.
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Well, welcome back to Stand in the Gap Today. I’m Sam Rohrer, accompanied today by Gary Dull. And our theme is this, the meteoric rise of homeschooling in America: another unintended consequence of COVID-19 policies. And our special guest, who I’m going introduce in just a moment, is Mike Smith. He’s the original co founder of HSLDA. And he’s now the president of that great organization that is lead in the space for a long time in defending and pursuing the rights of parents to educate their children. You know, education at home and by parents has always been the most fundamental biblical form of education that I can point to.
Why? Because it rises right out of Deuteronomy chapter six, where parents were given, and by extension, we are today as well, not only the right, but the duty by God himself to oversee the direct instruction and teach that commands and the ways of God as Deuteronomy six talks about, to diligently to their children, when they sit down, when they walk, when they go to sleep and when they rise up. And what became better known as homeschooling in the 1970s here in the United States, at that point, I would say more of a fringe effort, as the culture referred to it, long ago, became mainstream.
And while regularly resisted by the educational establishment, homeschooling’s grown, become a central and a recognized form of excellence in education. It’s a financial benefit, as far as that goes, to taxpayers and predictable source of significant leadership as homeschooling tends to turn out students who are excelling in the fields of academics, politics, arts, science, or culture. Now, the last I looked, over 2 million students involved in homeschooling in America. Then enters COVID-19 policies, which shuts the door for all of the classroom styled education across the country. The result? Millions of parents automatically overnight thrust into an arena of having to assist their students in academic instruction at home. And while not officially homeschooling per se, they are participating, for the first time, in schooling at home, and hence the meteoric rise in homeschooling in America. And with that, I want to welcome right now to the program, Mike Smith. You were with us months ago, Mike, and it’s great to have you back now.
Mike Smith: Well, thank you, Sam and Gary. Great to be with you guys.
Sam Rohrer: It’s great to have you on as board. And we’re so thankful that you are continuing in that space of defending the rights of parents in regard to education, so very critically important. Mike, as an original co founder of Homeschool Legal Defense Association, you and Mike Farris, who happens to be now president of Alliance Defending Freedom, you’re there as president of the organization. And so you’re sitting on top of a lot of information. Just curious. I’d like to know if you can share some statistics and comment, if you can, on the impact on what we are generally terming the homeschool movement, both in America and worldwide, as a result of these COVID-19 policies of the last two months.
Mike Smith: Sam, three months ago, three or four months ago, there were over two million, maybe two and a half million children, maybe a million families, a little over a million families, that were homeschooling. In other words, teaching their kids at home by choice. They made a decision. They didn’t want to send their kids to a private or public school for various reasons. We’re talking to the Christian audience, but that Christian audience decided they wanted to train their children up just like you’ve indicated in Deuteronomy. And that’s actually where HSLDA came in many years ago, because as they were trying to do that in 1981, ’82, ’83 and on up, in many states, they were told, “No, we’re not going to allow you to do that. We’re not going to allow you to train your children up as you want to in the admonition of the Lord.” So if they have the duty, Sam, let’s think about this.
So God gives them the duty, the parents, to train their children up, teach them in the morning, the noon and night, the truth of God and his word. And they have the duty, but they can’t do it. They got to have the right to do it. And that’s where HSLDA came in many years ago, 1983, and almost 40 years later, we’re still defending that right for parents, and actually all parents, because we truly believe here at HSLDA that this is a God given thing, whether you’re a Christian or what you are, that God gave you the duty to train your children and teach them. And there’s nobody more qualified to do that than a parent. So that’s the basis for HSLDA. Now, let’s get to where we are today, because this is exciting.
So three months ago, three or four months ago, most parents had their children in public schools. As a matter of fact, 47.8 million children, three months ago, were enrolled in public school in America. Charter schools, Sam, three million children were enrolled in charter schools three months ago. And Sam, you probably know this already, but private school enrollment, at that time, was 5.8 million students. So almost double, yes, actually double the homeschooled number of students. So a total of 56 million point six, 56.6 million children, were receiving their instruction outside their home three months ago. Those 56.6 million are now at home, and we’re presuming that they’re actually getting schooling at home. That is a major change. And get this one though, Sam. Worldwide, they are 1.5 billion children at home that weren’t home three months ago.
Sam Rohrer: That’s astounding.
Mike Smith: Is that exciting or not?
Sam Rohrer: Astounding.
Mike Smith: I mean, that’s, only a God, you’re calling it a plague. And I tend to agree with you, but only God could do this, right? Nothing else could have caused 56 million children in America to be at home, because three months ago they were in school. And 1.5 billion children be at home when they were in school three months ago. That’s a God thing.
Gary Dull: You know, I think it is, Mike, and I never really thought of it as that. I know when we went into this COVID-19, I said to the people around me, and I think we’ve even said it on this program, that it will be important for us to watch what God is doing during these days, and what may seem to be a trial, or a different way to do things that could be difficult may end up being the blessing of God in the long run. And so I appreciate that. And you know, when all of these children who are in school started to remain home, I remember parents saying, “We don’t know how to take care of our children. We don’t know how to teach them.” And I thought it’s kind of sad that a lot of parents, even Christian parents, didn’t know how to do it.
Didn’t know what to do and had to learn or read up on how to parent their children, how even to teach their children. So it’s just interesting to see how this is developing. But by virtue of the fact that most of our schools across the country and around the world are closed down, and even as it relates to higher education, the brick and mortar teaching, it’s not going on. What you find is the basic attitude of people across the country now, as it relates to homeschooling? Is it improving? Is it increasing? Are they fearful? What kind of an attitude that most people have?
Mike Smith: Excellent question, Gary. And we’ve been trying to look at that. We want to do some research and study on it, but there have been some researchers out there that have been trying to find out what is your view of homeschooling? So I’m looking at two different research, I can’t give you the names cause they can’t pull it up right now. But these are legitimate folks who do education research. One of them is Cato, Cato Institute. And so they’re asking public school parents, that is, they’re homeschooling now, but they were public school parents three months ago, what’s your attitude toward homeschooling? And in these two specific research projects that have been done, I think Cato was the one that came up with 40% of the public and charter school parents said, “You know what? After this experience, we would strongly consider homeschooling.”
And the other came up with 10%, we would strongly consider homeschooling. So, Gary, by that, I’m thinking that there’s a very positive view of homeschooling from these parents. They didn’t have a negative view of homeschooling. Now they’re in, “What are we going to do next?” I was talking to my neighbor, who’s well-educated, and his wife both highly educated. She’s a stay at home mom. They have four little kids of starting with six on down. And I said, “What are you going to do when the kids go back to school? Are you going to send them back?” And he said, “Mike, I got to tell you that if they put my children in a mask, if they make my son,” who’s their first grader, okay, he’s in first grade. Yeah. “If they put him in a mask, we’re going to homeschool.” So that’s what I’m hearing from folks anecdotally, and the surveys are saying the same thing, that these parents are not negative toward homeschooling.
It’s not their first choice. Let’s be honest. They didn’t make this choice. They would not have chosen this for themselves. But necessity is the mother of invention. And I think more and more of these parents are going to decide, “Hey, I’m going to give it a try.” And it’s not just because they don’t have any other choice. They’re seeing things in their children, in their families. They’re seeing things in the curriculum that was sent home to them that are causing them to be alarmed. And so now they’re kind of understanding what kind of education their kids were getting. Can you imagine some of these parents are saying, “My child doesn’t even know how to read. My child can’t do two plus two and they’re supposed to be doing this.” They’re finding this out. And so now they’re going to have to make a decision what’s best for the child. And I think there’s going to be a significant percentage of them saying, “I’m going to give homeschooling a try.”
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Sam Rohrer: We’re going to continue now on our theme today, our focus, which is this, the meteoric rise of homeschooling in America, another unintended consequence of COVID-19 policies. We’ve talked a lot on this program over the last weeks about the impacts from policies that are arising out of this plague pandemic, a lot of names for it. Biblically, we think it falls into the category of plagues. That’s how we’re going to term it. But policies coming out of Washington, policies coming out of the various states, all of them impacting the way we worship, the way we do life, frankly. And there have been a lot of direct impacts, but there’s also been a lot of unintended consequences. And one of those, as we’re speaking today, has been in the area of education. And we’ve talked about some of that, but some of these policy implications, they range in part from government schools, the educational establishment at large, which has historically, as we’re focusing then homeschooling, resistant homeschooling, resisted it as a competitive threat, some have thought, or a funding threat that they thought would siphon away money from the government schools.
But now, we are finding that really, because of all of these policies, that parents, as we’ve talked to have been thrust right smack into the middle of the educational instructional mode for their children. They haven’t asked for it, as we talked about in the last segment, but they are there. And so now, even government schools and private schools have been forced to experiment with some type of cyber or online instruction, and are having to be far more creative than what they’ve had to do before. But there are a lot of implications that are rising out of that, such as can some form of online instruction become mainstream? Not relegated, perhaps, to homeschooling, which has done pieces of that for a long time, or charter schools, for instance, that kind of thing, but other things. Can we eliminate, for instance, some of the massive public school buildings or maybe the buses that consumes so much cost and so forth, getting kids to and from school. Is that a potential for changing education?
Some are saying, “Well, if the kids aren’t sitting in school, well then do I need to pay my property taxes for education?” Lots of implications. And we can’t deal with them all, but we’re going to try and touch on a couple. Mike, again, you are at Homeschool Legal Defense Association. You’re there in that space for a long time, having done a remarkable job in advancing the interest of parents that we established biblically is where, if you get the closest to the education of children, it is parent to child, and then it can be extended to some other teacher to child or whatever, but it’s really there biblically with parent to child. And you’ve been in that space for a long time.
And it was my privilege when I was in the Pennsylvania House to work closely with you all, as we were doing laws here in Pennsylvania. But to that degree, my question to you right now is that some are raising questions regarding education, homeschooling. How do you envision these policies, COVID-19 policies as we’re seeing them, impacting homeschooling specifically, and the traditional government educational model, as we’ve talked about, and perhaps even put into that, do you see these policies perhaps shaping in a different way, the national approach to education that we’ve seen for so long? Just give me your thoughts on where you see policy changes going educationally as a result of what we’re seeing now.
Mike Smith: Sam, thank you for that. Let’s start first with the government schools. So this would be a real twist if they actually started doing virtual schools, but that’s what they’re talking about doing. And the governor of New York indicated we need to start thinking, we need to start changing our thinking about how we do schooling. Because of the way we’re doing it this looks to be an efficient way to do it. We don’t have to spend all our money on buildings and that sort of thing. Well, that’s interesting, but let’s look at this, what’s happening right now. Public charter schools, many of them are what we would call actual brick and mortar schools. In other words, it’s the parents that are taking the public money, the taxpayer money, and they’re starting the schools and running the schools themselves, and giving those numbers, there are three million children versus 47.8 other public school children.
So that’s very small, correct? But out of that public school charter, there are what we call virtual charter schools. So it’s probably making up half. So 1.5 million children are already receiving a virtual education. They’re receiving it online. And those typically are high schoolers or middle schoolers. And so there is some of that going on right now, then I can tell you that’s opposed by the NEA and the public school establishment, even that small amount. So you can imagine, Sam, if they start talking about putting half of the kids into a program like that, that’s a lot less teachers. It’s no bus drivers, very few bus drivers, that sort of thing. There’s going to be a tremendous opposition to that. So the issue is going to be what’s the legislators going to do? Who are they going to listen to? Are they going to listen to the public says, this could reduce our property tax drastically, and yet we could get good education with it?
Are they going to listen to the NEA? You’ve heard this. The NEA has their lobbyists. They’re the strongest lobbying group around any state capitol. They have the biggest building and they’re closest to the capitol. They know how to lobby. They know how to get the legislators. That’s going to be the battle. But I think there’s another one within that that we need to recognize. So who can do this virtual learning sitting in front of a computer? It’s going to be older kids. Sam, I cannot imagine that they’re going to be able to do this with kids kindergarten through fifth grade or sixth grade. Parents are not going to put up with that. In other words, they can’t put their child in front of a screen and allow them to be educated that way. They won’t be educated. And they know that. So I don’t think we will see the school building go away.
I think we’ll see, at a minimum, we’re going to have little kids are going to be bused to school. They’re going to continue doing what they’ve been doing, but I do believe there’s going to be a strong public debate on that, whether we continue to have schools the way we’re doing them today, and can we take a segment, maybe high school, and make that a virtual school and cut down on our expenses? So that’s going to be the real battle.
So the next question is, what impact is that going to have on homeschooling? Well, we talked about that earlier. I do believe that, certainly, at the younger ages, if they start pressing toward virtual schooling for younger children, I don’t think parents will go for that. And I think private and home schools, they’re going to flourish. I think parents are going to choose those options for their kids. So it’s going to be a dichotomy, how it’s approached, and it’s going to be a very, very interesting issue. And the legislature is going to determine this.
Gary Dull: Mike, you mentioned the NEA being one of the largest, if not the largest, lobbying groups around the state capitols. And they’ve got the largest building near the capitol and so forth and so on. Not only that, but I think that they are probably one of the most liberal groups that are lobbying legislators, and I’ve never been a fan of the NEA. And I wouldn’t mind if COVID would shut them down personally, to be honest with you.
And if parents started to educate their children at home, certainly, where you’ve got good solid Bible-believing parents, then we would see that there would be good, solid Bible believing teaching, or at least theoretically, that would be the case. But my question to you is are there really enough parents there right now who have the discipline and the motivation, as well as the ability, to begin to get involved with homeschooling? Now I can understand that there may be more parents at home now due to the loss of jobs, et cetera, relative to COVID-19, but is the motivation and the discipline there to be the kind of a parent to properly teach and train their children educationally?
Mike Smith: Gary, I think the jury is still out. I don’t know the answer to that, but I would like to ask you guys a question. What percentage of the population are born again Christians in America? Do we know anymore? I don’t know the answer to that, but do you guys know?
Sam Rohrer: Well, according to George Barney surveys, Mike, the real number, 30% in America say they are Christian, say they’re born again. Of those who manifest a true relationship with the Lord, probably less than 10%.
Mike Smith: Okay. So let me ask you this then. Where do they currently have their children? These are folks that are going to church. They proclaim to be Christians. Where are their children now? 90% of them are in public schools.
Gary Dull: That’s right.
Mike Smith: So, Gary asks a very important question. Are these parents going to have the fortitude, the faith, that they can do this, knowing now that they’re going to have to pay for their child’s education. Knowing now that some parent probably will have to remain home, knowing now that their textbooks and all of that are not going to be paid for. Knowing now that they’re stuck at home with their children 24/7. That’s quite a question. I don’t know the answer to that, but I do believe this. I do believe in parents. I do believe parents love their children. So I think there will be a percentage. I hope it gets to be a rep. If it’s only 2% or 3%, God bless it. It’s a good move toward parents realizing their responsibility to take care of their child’s education and upbringing.
And look at the family benefit of this. We know what homeschooling does. Is this not about education? It’s about family and family getting together. And actually the parents being the role model, the most important person in their children’s life, rather than somebody at school or a school teacher or somebody in the media, or maybe in entertainment. So I think this is a tremendous opportunity for God to look into the hearts and speak to the hearts of parents and convict them, if you will. That’s a strong word. Convict them this is the time to do it.
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Sam Rohrer: As we now move into our final segment here, our guest again today has been Mike Smith. If you just happened to be joining us here in the last moment, he’s the president of the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, also the original co-founder, him and Mike Farris, who’s now the president of Alliance Defending Freedom were the two co founders, fathers, homeschool fathers, attorneys, and they were early on in that space and said this whole concept of parents taking a primary lead in the education of their students, biblically based as we talked about earlier in the program, needed some help. And they have provided that. And Mike, I’m just so glad that you were still in that space, has helped made such a difference in this country to so many parents and God has blessed it. And last segment we were talking about some parental impacts. And Gary asked you the question of whether or not you believed that there were sufficient parents who have the discipline and the passion and all of that in order to make homeschooling possible.
If, perhaps, because of COVID-19 policies, school does not meet again this fall. And I put that out there as a thought, because it was only just a week ago that Tony Fauci from the White House COVID-19 came testified before the Senate. And he made a statement, which got a lot of attention. And he said, “You’ll still be homeschooling your kids this fall,” Dr. Pauci says. Interesting. Well, schools across the country, ladies and gentlemen don’t really know what they are going to be doing this fall. And in my opinion, I’m not too sure that they’re going to get a whole lot of definitive information as we go forward. So they’ve got to be considering different options. And some of that includes an increasing role for technology, online instruction. And as Mike has said, millions of parents across the country now have their children at home for the first time.
And they’re having to decide, do I like this? Do I don’t like this, but they have t do it. Maybe want to do this ongoing. And so the impacts on the delivery of education to millions of students across America and the world, it has been literally extraordinary.
And it’s not been a good experience for many students who’ve come out of government schools who went into situations where they had nothing set up, for instance, at the moment. For home schoolers, they didn’t miss a beat. For a lot of Christian schools and some others that were already doing some things on online, it required a change, but they have gotten by.
So is this perhaps a perfect time for parents to back up and consider what should we do now in regard to education. Mike, I want to know from your perspective, in regard to that, when it comes to the education of children, and specifically the interaction of parents directly with their children’s education, this COVID-19 plague, we’ve talked about, it has been disruptive for sure, but not necessarily bad as you were talking about it. Can you already share, for instance, some of the benefits that you’ve seen or heard from parents who’ve contacted HSLDA? I’m sure they have, looking for input for this time. What have you seen already, perhaps, as some benefits that might help some parents right now, or even grandparents, thinking about what to do for their children or their grandchildren, and how to encourage or think about a more direct involvement with their children going forward?
Mike Smith: Well, I guess the main thing that I’ve heard is a good thing that parents have said, “I didn’t know it could be this cool to be with my kids and spend all this time. I’m really enjoying this. I’m getting to know my kids.” This is interesting, especially with the older children. They spend so much time out of the home, don’t they? They’re in school and then they don’t come home and they have all these friends and this and that. I have parents saying, “I’m getting to know my children, and it’s a challenge, but I’m liking it. I’m actually liking the opportunity to sit down and talk face to face, to have time, to have our meals together, to actually spend time together, to focus on things together, to find out who we really are and how we can develop relationships with one another.”
I think a lot of parents are really enjoying the relationship they’re finally having with their child on a consistent basis. They’re seeing them regularly, rather than they’re going off in five and six hours every day. I think some parents that are not working, yeah, they’ve lost their jobs or whatever, and that’s scary. But they’re finding this bonding time with their children as a good thing. They’re really finding out what God designed in a family. That’s the parents and the children’s spending time together. And I think that’s a positive. I think number two is I think parents that are actually trying to do the schooling at home are finding, “Hey, I can, you know what? I can do this. I can actually teach my children’s stuff.” And by the way, this is what I’m also hearing. I’m learning stuff myself. Sam, I don’t recall whether you guys homeschooled. Did you homeschool, you and your wife?
Sam Rohrer: Yeah, we did all six children.
Mike Smith: So I’m going to ask you this question. Did your wife learn more than your kids or did your kids learn more than your wife?
Sam Rohrer: Boy, I tell you what. We’ve often talked about that It’s just like if you’re like Gary and we’ve talked about that. When you preach, as an example, you probably learn more in the preparation than do people do when they hear you, but it is a shared experience and it’s a wonderful one.
Mike Smith: It’s shared, isn’t it? And mom learns a ton. Let’s face it. A lot of us went to school, when we were going to school, we weren’t interested in school. We didn’t learn a lot. We just learned what we had to do to get through and make the grades, right? We didn’t enjoy learning. What moms are learning now, through this experience, they’re enjoying learning. Isn’t that great? They’re actually learning along with their children.
And as you know, when you prepare something, you learn more. The teacher learns more than the student. We’re seeing some moms and dads now saying, “I sort of like this. I’m learning stuff that I really enjoy learning.” That’s number two. Number three, we’re hearing some parents say, “You know what? We’re seeing some gaps in the education of our children. I mean, this is alarming. This is scary.” But thank God they’re seeing it because now they’re going to have to make a decision. Am I going to send them back into a situation where they’re not going to get any better? I mean, they’ve had five, six, seven years to do something with my kids and they haven’t done it. I got to do something because I believe in my kids. I love my kids and I want them to be educated. I don’t want them to go out into the world unprepared. I want them to go to college. My goodness. They’re not prepared for anything right now. So those are three things we’re hearing, Sam. Do you find those as positive?
Sam Rohrer: I do find those extremely positive. And I think, ladies and gentlemen, I was going to go to Gary for a question, but he doesn’t have time to answer. And I almost had put before him, but I will say this, ladies and gentlemen, as you’re thinking about this, God brings challenges. And we’ve talked about on his program a lot. What should we be learning? Well as a nation, as God’s people, we should be running towards a God with a fear of God. Re embracing the authority of scripture as an example, and thinking about how well we are being salt and light in this time.
But as parents with children and grandchildren, as we’ve been talking, is this not perhaps a really wonderful time to say, “Boy, oh boy, what is my relationship directly with my children?” And as Mike said, what a privilege to be more with your children. What a wonderful thing to learn together with them. It really is a great thing. I can tell you. Testify to that. And then the other is that many, I know, I’ve heard this. I have seen, “Well, my kids really didn’t know as much as I thought they did. And therefore, maybe I ought to take a greater role.” All of those reasons, a great opportunity for parents to say, “Can I do more like Deuteronomy chapter six says?”
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