Growing up in Christian circles there always seemed to be a certain stigma about kids going to public school (It's still there). When I was in high school (*public*high school), I remember hearing from the pulpit about how evil public schools were. How they were just a breeding ground for sex, drugs and ungodly music. How if your kids went there, they would be barraged with offers of drugs and/or cigarettes. Every kid was in a gang and Evolution was taught in every class.
This view does not seem to have changed in the fourteen years since I graduated from high school. (You didn't know I was that old did you... ;) ) Just last year I sat in the nursery at my church while two ladies (who had no idea that I went to public school) discussed at length how they would never send their kids to public school because they wanted them to have a "real" education, where they wouldn't be confronted by worldly temptations. (On a side note, one of these same ladies had previously told me about her sister doing marijuana with kids from their Christian school, so take that for what you will). I just sat there quietly, not partaking in the conversation because I knew these ladies would be embarrassed if I spoke up that *I* was a product of this institution of the devil... Awkward.
I just want to state something here and that is this: I was never offered drugs. I was never even offered a cigarette. No one ever made inappropriate advances at me or tried to get me to join a gang. And no, no one was having sex in the hallways... (Sorry, couldn't resist a little inside joke haha) The truth is I could have been involved in some of these things if I had wanted to. But my parents raised me better than that. Those things and people are there if you look for them but I *chose* to surround myself with people who weren't involved in those things.
I *loved* high school. I was in the choir, and guess what... We sang secular music, but we also sang Christian music and music by classical composers like Vivaldi. And guess what else... Our school had a Bible study. Yep, that's right and you know what, even now at some school functions, they pray.
My parents were (and are, yes my brother is still in high school) very involved in everything we did. They looked over our schoolwork and there were times that my parents were uncomfortable with something and they would arrange with the teacher for me to do something else. I wasn't forced to do something that my family wasn't comfortable with.
Maybe there are some schools out there that are all the things the fundamentalist preachers like to harp on, but my school wasn't one of them. Was it perfect? No, of course not. There were (and are) issues that arise from time to time. But that can be said of anyplace.
So you can say that I'm a horrible person or that my parents didn't care about me because they didn't send me to a Christian school, but the truth is my parents did the best that they could for me and I love them for that and when it's all said and done, I'm very grateful for the quality of education that I received.
