Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify | Watch the Video

Does it matter to teach kids about God’s role within every subject, or should education be looked at as morally neutral? Today we discuss this and so much more about the importance of parents playing an active role in their children’s education with our special guest from Australia, Rebecca Devitt of the blog and YouTube channel, How Do I Homeschool?

Episode Transcription

Note: This transcription may vary from the words used in the original episode for better readability.

Marlin Detweiler:

Hello again. Welcome to another episode of Veritas Vox As you can see, I have Laurie, my wife, with me today, and we have Rebecca DeVitt from near Sydney, Australia. Welcome.

Rebecca DeVitt:

Thank you.

Marlin Detweiler:

It's really exciting to us is you're in tomorrow and so we're learning about the future from you. Thanks for being here. Rebecca, before we get into talking about your work and encouraging homeschooling, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, your personal circumstances?

Rebecca DeVitt:

Yeah, so I'm a Christian first and foremost. I very much love Jesus and I love to promote the gospel. So that's probably the first way I'd like to describe myself. Secondly, I'm a wife and a mum in Australia, and so my husband usually goes off to work and I stay home with the kids and homeschool them.

I've got an almost seven-year-old and a three-year-old, so I haven't been formally homeschooling long – we started early at age four because I was so super excited about homeschooling. I'm also a second-generation homeschool graduate, so I was homeschooled myself and I went to a Christian school for the first three years of my life, and Australia has far more private Christian schools.

My understanding is in America public schools are much more common, but in Australia private schools are more common. So I went there and I just found myself really walking away from God. And then my parents decided to homeschool me primarily because they're like, “We just don't care if she's a dropkick. We just need her to know about Jesus.”

And that's funny, coming from a Christian school, and it felt like stepping from a dark tunnel into a really light place. I feel so blessed that they homeschooled me and for wonderful.

Marlin Detweiler:

What did you go to school?

Rebecca DeVitt:

I went to a school in the Southern Highlands, got a really good reputation. I've got some beautiful friends who came out of there. But yeah, it just wasn't for me.

Marlin Detweiler:

You've gotten real involved in – you homeschool your children, but what many people know about you is how much you've posted about various things related to homeschooling. Tell us how that started and tell us what you really try to accomplish with what you do and do. Do feel free to give websites. We're happy for people to be able to follow you.

Rebecca DeVitt:

Yes. So it originally started with – I have a friend who wanted to homeschool her children and she wasn't sure about it. She married a homeschooler. And so I wrote this really long document, a 16-page document on all the reasons she should homeschool. I was a terrible writer back in those days. This is like 15 years ago.

It was absolutely awful. But I was just super passionate. I've always been super passionate about homeschooling. And then anyway, that 16-page document turned into a book called Why on Earth Homeschool? The Case for Christian Homeschooling. It's an okay book. I wouldn't run out and buy it, but it was all the reasons. I was like, I think people need to know.

And so it's got something like 300 references. And if you like that sort of detailed stuff, then it can be cool. But I think a lot of people are like, yes, it just be dry and academic. And anyway, I kind of went into going, “Well, how do I promote the book?” You know, like do a website?

And so I started another website which I shut down and then I then turned it into How do I Homeschool, which is my big website now. And then I was looking at how I make my web pages popular and they’re like, “Do videos!” And so I started my YouTube channel, which is where I get a lot of people interacting with me, which is just beautiful because the website can be quite dry and there's not a lot of interaction.

And I love being able to personally encourage parents and they ask me questions and I love being able to just slow down and write them answers and bless them and yeah, chat to them.

Laurie Detweiler:

That's great!

Marlin Detweiler:

Why don't you talk to her about homeschooling in Australia?

Laurie Detweiler:

Oh yeah! Tell us like we always get this question because of our Diploma Program and people want to know what's different in each country. Tell us a little bit about I mean, I know you're familiar with things in the United States. How is homeschooling different in Australia?

Rebecca DeVitt:

I mean, the biggest thing is there's far fewer homeschoolers in Australia. I think there's possibly less than half a percent here, whereas what is it in America?

Marlin Detweiler:

Well, it was 3 to 4% before COVID. My understanding is it grew to about 11% during COVID.

Rebecca DeVitt:

Wow!

Marlin Detweiler:

And then came back and I think it settled around 8%.

Laurie Detweiler:

And now we're seeing more – I don't know if you have this, but we're seeing more hybrid things. So, you know, hybrid schools that are really –

Marlin Detweiler:

University models.

Laurie Detweiler:

Two or three days a week. So there's some hybrid things that are happening in the States. But tell us yeah, tell us about Australia.

Rebecca DeVitt:

Yeah. So Australia is, I was really interested because I visited South Carolina in last February and people in America are really passionate. Now that can be good and bad. Because I'm really passionate person myself, so I really love it. But my husband, he would probably find a lot of that confronting. And so in Australia we have very much a go-with-the-flow and of course the quintessential statement, “She'll be ‘right, mate.”

So you hear that one all the time and “She'll be right, mate,” is great if it's something that doesn't matter. But if it's something like the gospel, if it's something about bringing our children up to truly know and worship Jesus as being a fulfillment of who they were meant to be as individuals, then no, it will not be right.

And unfortunately, I think that's why a lot of Australians don't really value homeschooling as much. So we've got that kind of a lot of really solid Christians who say “I don't have enough patience to homeschool” or all these kind of cop-out statements and they don't realize it's just bigger than like we're talking about. If you believe in heaven and hell and all that.

Laurie Detweiler:

It's not just the academics.

Marlin Detweiler:

No, we're shaping the next generation.

Rebecca DeVitt:

Right. Yeah, exactly. So there's a lot there's a lot at stake here. Okay. So in terms of – so there's a lot of ambivalence. I think what we're trying to say, there's not as much support from anyone here, like I tried to Google “homeschool conventions” here, they don't really exist. There’s an online one, but I haven't really heard of people going to that.

There's little ones here and there, but they're not big like in America. There are homeschooling groups, there's homeschool co-ops. There's not many here. There's this one in my area because a lot of homeschooling is here, but that's not run by Christians. So yeah, it's a very kind of non-Christian group. So we don't we don't go to that one. So there's just not as much support.

Marlin Detweiler:

Would you say that a sizable percentage of Australian homeschooling is non-Christian?

Rebecca DeVitt:

Yes. And that's the other probably difference is in America I think you've got the majority of Christians homeschooling.

Marlin Detweiler:

My sense is that today 80% of the homeschooling population is Protestant Christian.

Rebecca DeVitt:

Right. Yeah. Okay. Whereas here what you're going to find is at least 50% are non-Christian. And there's a lot of people who just want to kind of get away from. They can see the government isn't doing right things in the schools and it's a lot of like that kind of weird sex ed sort of stuff is happening in here as well.

And I think they know enough about morality to go, “That's weird, we want our kids away from that.” And so they might homeschool. But then we've just got a lot of people who are like witches and people like that. People who are really nature based who kind of want to get away from the system.

Marlin Detweiler:

They want to be off the grid, so to speak.

Rebecca DeVitt:

Yeah. Yeah. And so it's really interesting, the makeup here. I remember there was a parliamentary inquiry into homeschooling and they did the breakout and I think it was about maybe half of Christians in homeschooling. So that is very different and that is reflected in the support you get. The groups around here, the co-ops.

Laurie Detweiler:

So I’m assuming that you're accessing mainly curriculum and things that are being done in the United States?

Rebecca DeVitt:

That's right. Yeah. All of my curriculum is from the United States and I choose stuff that's really gospel centered.

Laurie Detweiler:

And was that the way it was for you growing up?

Rebecca DeVitt:

Yeah. We used Abeka, Rod & Staff. I can't remember any other ones, but yeah, they were kind of the big ones that we used.

Laurie Detweiler:

That was what was big at that time period for sure!

Rebecca DeVitt:

Yeah, yeah.

Laurie Detweiler:

How did you get introduced to classical Christian education?

Rebecca DeVitt:

Yeah, good question. So I did when I was blogging, I did. I was like, okay, what foundational articles should I put on my website? And I was like, I should research the homeschool methods. And so I started researching them, and I love the idea of classical Christian education. So I like when I researched it, that was when I found out about it.

And then I read Dorothy Sayers Lost Tools of Learning, which is the foundational piece on Christian classical education. And I really loved the way that she said, you know, we're bringing up a generation of children who can read and when we're leaving them at the mercy of newspaper media people, and we need to teach them to think, we need to teach them to graciously argue so they don't scare away their opponents and get their point across. And I just thought that was right. And it wasn't a concept I came across. And when I was at university, I learned to debate and I loved debating and I thought, this is great for teaching a child to really actively learn the pros and cons of both sides. And I love that about classical ed. So that probably answers your question.

Laurie Detweiler:

And I'm curious, how did you find Veritas Press?

Rebecca DeVitt:

I like it. So Luke, he's been studying particularly lately Phonics Museum and yeah, so before that we were doing Reading Eggs, which is –

Marlin Detweiler:

I'm sorry we can’t provide an Aussie accent for your children to emulate. I'd hate for them to come up sounding like Americans!

Rebecca DeVitt:

There's been a few times, I think. You all say are and we say aye in the Phonics Museum. And its like, don't say it like this, say it like that. And I'm like, no, you do say it like that in Australia.

Laurie Detweiler:

Great. I love that.

Rebecca DeVitt:

So yes, before that we were doing Reading Eggs, but one of my other friends, Abby, she's from Family Style Learning, so if you want a solid YouTube channel, she does a great job as well. But she did an exposé on Reading Eggs, and it had all these, let's just say, interesting books.

Laurie Detweiler:

That’s a nice way to put it.

Rebecca DeVitt:

Yeah, I'm just. I'm trying to be sensible about the algorithm and not saying things these days, but so she didn an exposé on that and I'm like, I can't use this anymore. And so I really, I tried it and I loved that there was history and there's just so many things incorporated, whereas Reading Eggs is just kind of animated, learn to read sort of stuff. And so I do like that about Veritas Press.

Laurie Detweiler:

We do try. I will say I think we try to integrate obviously a biblical worldview in absolutely everything that we do. But then history and, you know, it's so important for children just to grow up knowing particularly that history in the Bible. They're not two separate things. You know, if you go ask people on the street when– you know, when Jesus was walking the streets, people think that the Bible happened and then somehow the rest of the world went on and they don't see them as entwined.

Marlin Detweiler:

Tell us about what you do now. You've got a YouTube channel you have been prolific in your video work. How many videos do you produce a week and what do you choose to do? What causes you to say, “I need to do a video on that”?

Rebecca DeVitt:

Yeah. So I am prolific. I think I've always, I think my brain had always has always. But I went to I studied medical school and then I start I got really sick. I'm so thankful I didn't continue, but I got really sick and I had to just sit in a bed, which is where the book writing started. So I was like, you know, like I can only write, but my brain's really active.

And so regarding the videos, I just now when I have ideas, I just shoot a little short of them. I've been doing loads of shorts lately, so I shoot a short short of them, but also I kind of look up phrases that people are searching for and I'm like, okay, let's try and answer that one intelligently. And so my channel, it's called the How to Homeschool channel.

So it's very easy to remember. It's mostly about homeschool curriculum, but also just starting homeschooling, easy tips because I was homeschooled and I saw my mum and dad did things in a really good way and some things didn't work. And then I'm homeschooling my own child now, so I'm getting a really good understanding of homeschooling from both sides.

Marlin Detweiler:

Do you find to be the most commonly asked questions or concerns that are expressed as people start the homeschooling journey? Take us at the baseline when people are starting and what you really find that you deal with mostly.

Rebecca DeVitt:

I think as my channels about homeschooling people ask me about, particularly because of my video that you were talking about earlier of about The Good and the Beautiful where I basically say it's presented as a Christian perspective, but it's not. And so I had a lady this morning saying, you know, is this program solid? Is it gospel centered?

And a lot of them are a little bit concerned, I think, because I've I've raised that, you know, we should be getting curriculum that is gospel-centered. And a lot of people say, “Well, we don't, we can just get a secular curriculum and supplement with Bible studies.” But I'm like, why would you take those beautiful opportunities out of a curriculum to teach the gospel in science and math and history and art when you can just be like, because we're stupid as people, we're stiff necked, we need to be reminded of it. Certainly I need to be reminded all the time.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah, I was, you know, when our kids were born, we thought education was a morally neutral exercise and something happened. This is a well-worn story on our on our website and otherwise. And something happened at the school that we had our kids at to make me realize I needed to do some research and reading. And I did.

And that's what I ran into Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning. And it was at that moment that I realized that education is not a morally neutral activity.

Laurie Detweiler:

What does Chris Schelct say?

Marlin Detweiler:

Well, Chris Schlect, who is a college professor at New St. Andrew's College, says that the thing he learned most from his public school education was that the world works fine without God.

Laurie Detweiler:

And that is so much so that when I look at what you're talking about, like using secular curriculum, it's just teaching children that they don't need to have the Lord in everything when we can't exist. Nothing we do doesn't have his hand upon it. So why do we want them thinking that way?

Rebecca DeVitt:

Uh huh.

Marlin Detweiler:

You can pretty easily say, you know, I can see that it matters in science. You know, creation involves God, but then we have to ask the question, not just is there a God, but what is He like? How does the providentially superintend what He’s created? That impacts the science. But then when we talk about math, we think, well, math is just learning numbers. No, it's not. Because math is possible because God is immutable. That doesn't change. So we can trust mathematics because God doesn't change.

Rebecca DeVitt:

Absolutely. I think another point is, I very much view, which is very different to a lot of people, but I view myself as teaching my child and bringing them up so they can be a servant of God and can powerfully impact the world around them for the good. And so in the mornings, I pray every day that my son Luke will have an impact that he will be able to tell the gospel to billions of people.

And that is my prayer for him. And I see myself raising a little boy now to become a great man who can be a servant and worker of God. And that's if you look in the Bible, that's what we should be doing. And we we lose focus. And we just a lot of the time we just think, let's just bring them up to be morally decent sort of average people.

But I'm like, why not shoot for the stars, so to speak? You know, God has said, Pray! You do not have because you do not ask. Why don't we start praying for what you might need and pray every day?

Marlin Detweiler:

It was really clear in the videos that I watched of yours, and there were many that I could have watched. I didn't watch all of them.

That you are very gifted in researching and discerning and communicating that discernment, and I want our audience to know that. Because I think they'll benefit from watching your videos. But I also want you to tell us why you think that is where does that research come from and what is it you really try to do for the homeschool families?

Rebecca DeVitt:

Yeah, to be honest, I think I've tried to steer them away from secular curriculum towards Christian curriculum.

Marlin Detweiler:

That's a good thing!

Rebecca DeVitt:

Yeah, I think that's my main nugget because I want them to train beautiful children, servants for the Lord and I want it to have a massive impact. And so what I do is I have researched hundreds of curriculum and a lot of the time a mother will say, “What do you think of this curriculum?”

And I'll say yes or no or this is why and this is why not. I think I had a mum yesterday saying, this morning actually just saying she said, isn't that Gather Round Homeschool written by a mormon? And I'm like no that's written by the woman who was the first one to denounce The Good and the Beautiful for not being Christian, not being gospel-centered. So it's good to kind of clarify these thought bubbles in people's minds.

Laurie Detweiler:

I thought you took a really good job when you went through the classical curriculum providers, so to speak. I told Marlin, I said the thing that got me because obviously I'm real familiar with everybody's curriculum, right? A lot of it we incorporate into our curriculum. And so I know what's different about it and from what we write and you really got a handle on different curriculum and how literally how I think about them.

And so it resonates with me because one of the reasons that Veritas has, you know, different ways of teaching is because I believe God has made children all very different. Right? And what works for one does not necessarily mean that it's going to work for another child. So I was on the phone the other day with a mom and, you know, she was really struggling because she had two children going to Saxon and her family consultant was advising her to put the third child into Math-U-See, and it was hard for her. But as I found out more, it got sent to me because it was a learning disabilities situation. And so my background is special ed. So as it got sent to me and I just said, you know, this curriculum was written by someone who really, really, really, really understood the need for children to do hands-on and is perfect curriculum for this child.

Marlin Detweiler

So you had a real gift in being able to fairly quickly review curriculum because I've seen how much you've gone through and I know how many hours there are in the day. To what do you attribute your research abilities and what you're able to communicate so articulately, as Laurie said?

Rebecca DeVitt:

I think honestly it started especially the last couple of years I've started before I start work. I just sit and pray and ask God to make me really productive and understand what I'm reading. So I attribute it completely to God. Yeah, just being able to even put the thought bubbles into my head to say things, to think in a way that will be helpful to people.

Laurie Detweiler:

Do you think any of it has to do with your being homeschooled? I just find that as I'm working with second-generation home schoolers, one of the things that I'm finding is they all – people that we have on our staff and that sort of thing, they all research better because they learned to ask questions and not just have things thrown to them like, memorize this, go do this.

They're inquisitive. They know how to ask questions about the world around them. And I'm just seeing that in second gen, you know, as they're coming up now. They were homeschooled, they're homeschooling their own children. I just see an ability that's different for people who have come up outside of the traditional school environment.

Rebecca DeVitt:

And I think what you're putting your hand on, putting your finger on is that homeschooling is for lifelong learners. A lot of the time they haven't been burnt out by the time they get into high school, and they don't just go, okay, we're finished now. Let's not learn anything. Yeah homeschoolers are also good at interest-based learning and so I think that they will always continue to do that because I know a few homeschoolers as well and they've just gone on to do amazing things. And you think to yourself, “I don't think these children would be any smarter than the normal population.” It's just that unfortunately, I think public school does a really good job of squashing our interest in things. And I think one of them. How many more amazing minds could we have created if we hadn't just smushed them in public school?

Laurie Detweiler:

That's true. I'm curious, was your husband homeschooled also?

Rebecca DeVitt:

My husband went to probably one of the most prestigious private schools in the whole area, cost a mini fortune and I think he he really enjoyed his education, private school education. But he wasn't a Christian growing up. So that was the first time he heard the gospel. But he said, you know, we just we just didn't have much of a Christian input.

So in terms of a wonderful secular education, even though it was an Anglican school, he's like, you know, like we went to chapel, but it was really boring. And yeah, but I think he's starting to very much see the value of homeschooling. And one day a fortnight he homeschools the kids, so I think he's starting to enjoy it.

Marlin Detweiler:

That's great. Well, we joked at the beginning about the fact that you were talking to us from tomorrow, but let's talk about tomorrow. What does tomorrow look like in homeschooling from your vantage point? It seems like you have an incredible foundation. I'm guessing that's giving you a sense of trajectory and what people can look forward to.

Rebecca DeVitt:

Great question. So like I said, I'm training a little boy to do amazing things. And part of that will look like we're probably going to set up a succulent sale just outside our front gate, which is on a busy road. And he he literally set up a sign out there which says Succulents $5-$10, and he sits out there and wait for sales and he does really well.

So I am training a man of God, but I'm also training a little entrepreneur who can work for himself. And I hope one day he’ll be a wonderful boss.

Laurie Detweiler:

Wonderful! We did that with four of them.

Rebecca DeVitt:

Did you!? You know, it's about facilitating it, isn't it?

Laurie Detweiler:
Absolutely. Yeah.

Rebecca Devitt:
And I love – I've got on the shelf, he's got a gift jar, a spend jar, and a save jar. So a third is to give, a third to spend, and a third to save and he's saving up for an $8,000 ewe next year. And I'm like, yeah. Why not?

Because he is only six or seven shortly, but I'm like, you should save up for that. And then spend is just money he can blow and he's so beautiful. He’ll buy things for his little sister when he has money, and we try to encourage it. I'm trying to bring up a little entrepreneur, but yeah, I just hope he’ll really bless other people.

Marlin Detweiler:

Do you think that as you observe and as you get interaction, do you think that the homeschooling percentage of the population is likely to grow rapidly or about the pace it has? How do you see how do you see things changing? I'm asking the question really worldwide. Because she's dealing with a worldwide population.

Rebecca DeVitt:

I think as Christianity is further thrown out of schools, which in Australia that is happening very much. I just got a letter from the Australian Christian Lobby yesterday saying that Christian schools will very soon probably not have the protections they need to be able to hire Christians. Which means at that point a lot of people, and I've heard a lot of my friends who have their children in Christian schools say if the teachers are not Christian, we're going to start homeschooling.

And I think in terms of worldwide, I think if that starts happening a lot more people will start taking the education of their children.

Laurie Detweiler:

We see it in China.

Rebecca DeVitt:

Yeah, yeah. That's right. And that's so sad. Yeah. And I think, in Germany too, because I think we know that the way to train a future population is to get them when they're young. And I think it was Plato. He said, “Give me a child up to age seven and I'll turn him into whatever you want.” And I think we as homeschool parents need to keep that in mind and we need to get to our kids first. A lot of people say that home homeschooling is brainwashing. And I'm like, yeah, but so is school, that's the whole point.We need to get to them first.

Marlin Detweiler:

That's great. That's well, we've enjoyed having you. Rebecca DeVitt from near Sydney, thank you so much for joining us. And folks, thanks for being with us on this episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian Education. Bye bye.