I took a photo of Stewart on his first day of college.  It was a beautiful sunny day and his Nan said to him as we left for the campus, “You are about to do something I never had the chance to do.  I’m very happy for you.”  I told him I would not post it anywhere, but just save it for when he graduated.

And off we went to start Stewart on his path to higher education.

14 days later I was filling out the “Drop” form.

What happened?  Well, it was called ENG 101 – English Composition, and as of day 4 they had not yet received any instruction on composing.  They’d had one assignment, but even it was changed after it was assigned.  He never got to hand it in. 

They didn’t even get their syllabus until the fourth class.  By that point we’d found an old one online, and I completely fell apart.  As a matter of fact, my first reaction was to utterly blame myself for his lack of readiness for the assignments.  I won’t actually cut-and-paste it here, because I don’t know if I am allowed to.  But it contained stuff such as, “Generate a fictional conversation with your favorite postmodern philosopher;” and other such stuff.  As a matter of fact, four of the five graded assignments deal with philosophers.  And seeing as how you can write what Stewart (and I) know about philosophy on a matchbook, he wasn’t prepared.  I’m fine with the notion of needing 9 hours out of class for a 3 credit class.  But I can’t get excited about knowing we’d need another how many hours educating ourselves on philosophy. 

It took me a solid day (and the response of a good friend) to recognize I hadn’t failed him at all.  No one would assume a knowledge of philosophy was going to be required for ENG 101.  Pft.  John and I managed to get our Masters Degree without any knowledge of philosophy, “post-modern” or otherwise. 

However, after reading the syllabus and having my come-apart, we dug into it deeper with Stewart.  What HAS the professor been teaching?  What have you been learning about in class?  MLA?  APA?  Improving unity and coherence in paragraphs?

Um.  Nope.  They’ve been reading stuff (essays, songs, etc.) in class and trying to ___________________________ ?  Again, both John and I read the papers and looked at each other like, “What in the world?”  I shared the papers with others, most of whom said things I won’t repeat here.   All but one said it was garbage.

“i couldn’t pull my kiddo out fast enough!”
”I’m sorry this happened.  In my humble opinion, I think it would be best to drop it.”
”RUN.”
”Well I don’t blame you… atheist garbage classes.”

I learned other things about the professor, and my concern grew.  Then I found the professor’s facebook page. 

At first I was Really Mad that this happened.  So many other kids in our homeschool community have had great experiences with these type classes.  I wondered how this atheist teacher was selected for a homeschool-kid class?  Is it conspiracy on the part of the college?  On the part of the professor?  WHY would it center on philosophy?  Are we really the only family in the Finger Lakes without a solid knowledge of philosophy?

Then my heart softened.  A lot.  This professor was raised by solid Christian parents whose hearts must be grated raw at what their son now espouses.  They see their grandchildren being lied to, and their son following the father of all lies. 

I’ve committed to pray for this professor and his family.  I’m very prayerful that as he is the professor of this group of kids, that maybe even one of those kids will write something that chips away at the professor’s false towers.  I am prayerful that God will use this for good.

And if not – Woe to him.  “If anyone causes one of these little ones–those who believe in me–to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea.” Mark 9:42.