What Your Child Needs to Know

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On Sunday night while I was writing to you about the need children have for things that are real and using the example of substituting margarine for real butter, I searched for the word substitute in the Bible. I found this verse from Isaiah:

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness;
Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
Isaiah 5:20

It seems to me that the racks of reading material beside the check-out stands at grocery stores are simply filled with examples of calling evil good and good evil. Calling evil good and good evil happens in lots of other places in the world, too.

In 1984 E.D. Hirsch Jr. published Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know. Several other books followed: What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know, What your First Grader Needs to Know, etc., through What Your Sixth Grader Needs to Know. I looked at some of those when we were homeschooling and found them fascinating. In fact, if I didn’t have deadlines looming for From Adam to Us, I’d like to sit down right now and read one of them. That’s because my children have graduated. When I looked at them when I was homeschooling, it didn’t take me long to feel quite overwhelmed.

If I were writing a book about what a child of any age needs to know, I would encourage parents to teach their children God’s definitions of what is good and what is evil, what is light and what is darkness, and what is bitter and what is sweet.

The facts in the Hirsch books and in other similar books . . . .  I can look those facts up and I can teach my child how to look them up, too. But the difference between good and evil, light and darkness, and bitter and sweet . . . . we all need to know those things deeply in our hearts and souls. When the time comes to use that information, we need to be quick on the draw! We need to be ready-eddy!

I believe that some educational concepts are “better late than early” but not these things. With life and death concepts like these, it’s better early than late, because it is God Who says:

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness;
Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
Isaiah 5:20

Woe really does come to those who get those things mixed up. I’ve lived long enough to see it.

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