[HN Gopher] Ask HN: If you've considered homeschooling, what's s...
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Ask HN: If you've considered homeschooling, what's stopping you?
Hi all, I'm a teacher and startup founder building a platform to
support families homeschooling. I'm curious to know for those of
you who have considered this approach, but not taken the leap yet,
what's stopping you and what kind of tools would make it a no-
brainer/easier for you to adopt.
Author : actfrench
Score : 83 points
Date : 2022-07-01 15:35 UTC (7 hours ago)
| wanderr wrote:
| I was homeschooled from 5th grade on. The reasons people have for
| homeschooling their kids varies widely, from hyper-religious to
| anti-establishmentism to the-schools-here-suck. The types of kids
| people have also vary widely. So my experience is not necessarily
| reflective of what your kids' experience might be. That said,
| here's my story:
|
| My options were home schooling or a Christian school affiliated
| with my parents' church. I chose to be home schooled. My mother
| is high school educated, not a teacher, and frankly weak on most
| subjects. But she loves to dig in and research options, so she
| did a reasonable job of finding curriculums for standard things
| like math. I always had a strong thirst for knowledge of certain
| subjects, so she left me to my own devices on those things (this
| was pre-internet so I think this was an especially bad strategy.
| How's a kid with no money going to find the best resources to
| learn about these things that would normally be classes?). In
| general, I have always loved learning, so I was relatively easy
| to homeschool. By 8th grade I was scoring at the 12th grade
| level, 99th percentile on the CAT across the board. I had more
| free time than my peers and more flexibility in my schedule.
| Field trips were a breeze. By high school I was taking community
| college classes and tutoring the adults, which was extremely
| helpful to have those credits when I went to college - I got to
| skip some intro courses and had the flexibility to take a year
| off of school when financial hardship hit.
|
| So far it sounds great, but I would not really recommend it. If
| you don't have access to quality schools for your kid, you should
| move if you can afford it at all. There were a few major issues:
| - Social isolation. I had little access to kids my own age,
| mostly my parents' friends' kids, who were, frankly, shitheads.
| (Not that the Christian school was better. All but one girl in
| what would have been my class graduated pregnant or with a child,
| and therefore married or engaged to be, shotgun style) - College
| Admissions. I was enrolled in an online high school program at an
| accredited school (the first one!), but even with the transcript
| + 4.0 GPA in a year's worth of community college credits,
| colleges were deeply skeptical about homeschooling and made me
| jump through extra hoops. I'm fairly certain my top choice
| rejected me because of this. - Misinformation & bias. I know this
| is an issue in school too, and my alternative option of a
| religious school would not have been much better, but I had to
| unlearn so so much of what I was taught - Extracurriculars.
| Opportunities to participate in extracurricular activities are
| extremely limited. Many things are associated with a school and
| not open to non-students.
|
| It's also worth noting that while I did relatively well in this
| setup, I have siblings who were also home schooled and never
| finished high school or got their GED.
|
| If you do go down this path: - Have a strategy for how to
| socialize your kids beyond "well, some of my friends have kids" -
| Find good curriculum - Have a strategy ready for when a kid does
| not want to learn something - Make sure you or your spouse will
| have a lot of free time to supervise - Enroll them in a program
| that will get them a HS transcript from an accredited school. -
| Find ways to expose them to extracurricular activities of their
| choosing, beyond your own interests.
| ShadowBear wrote:
| It's so interesting hearing from someone with a similar
| experience, thanks for sharing.
|
| The CAT exams were the same for me, always scored really high
| and above my grade level. I aced the 12th grade one by age 14.
| My parents took that as evidence that I was doing well, and I
| didn't trust them enough to confide just how desperately lonely
| I was. The CAT (and SAT) ended up being incredibly poor
| indicators of preparation for college level courses, many of
| which I failed my first semester despite also being a self-
| starter who reads voraciously. It was just too much of a jump
| for me from the unstructured way I'd been teaching myself
| previously, and I was missing too much background knowledge.
|
| Even with my high SAT scores it was really hard to get into
| college. I ended up at a tiny private religious school (I'm not
| religious) because they were the only one that accepted me, and
| one of the few I was even able to complete the application for
| because many admissions offices didn't make allowances for
| homeschooling in their application process (this was around
| 2001). After a few years there I managed to bring my GPA up
| high enough to transfer to a state school.
|
| In retrospect, I believe things could have been really
| different if I'd had access to a councilor with academic
| experience to explain how the system worked and tell me what
| paperwork I would need for college applications or what
| subjects would be necessary for the program I wanted to do.
| Even in 2001 with internet access I just wasn't able to
| navigate that on my own and ended up making a lot of costly
| (time, money, embarrassment) mistakes. And I was a pretty smart
| kid, I taught myself to code for one. It turns out being smart
| didn't make up for that much of a knowledge gap.
| standardUser wrote:
| School is great. Not all of it obviously, and more for some
| people than others, but overall the pain and stresses of going to
| school were hugely outweighed by the fun and adventure of
| navigating through that system and interacting with all of those
| different peers and teachers. I wouldn't want to deny any kid
| those adventures and relationships and that exposure to our
| culture (for better _and_ for worse). To be fair, I also grew up
| in a pretty great school system.
|
| I feel the same way about college. I understand the arguments
| that college is not often worth the excessive cost if you look at
| it in terms of financial outcomes. But I didn't go to college for
| financial outcomes. I went because it was going to be (and was) a
| uniquely amazing adventure that I could never replicate at any
| other time in my life. I think going to grade school is the same
| thing.
|
| Nothing can replace acting awkward around your crush in the hall,
| learning to navigate around the bully, bonding after class with a
| favorite teacher, enduring the horrors of PE or the excitement of
| a bomb threat, to name a few nostalgic examples.
| vitno wrote:
| As someone who was both home-schooled and went to public
| school, you are buying into the mythos around school too much.
| I had my own experiences when I was homeschooled that were far
| better than "enduring the horrors of PE".
| standardUser wrote:
| I am not "buying into" anything, I am sharing my lived
| experience.
|
| And life without a little horror is not much of a life if you
| ask me.
| isleyaardvark wrote:
| Integrated public schools are now generally recognized as having
| the biggest impact in reducing racism. Plus the lack of support
| for public schools would increasingly leave kids with
| disabilities out of luck. So there's a moral angle. I'd rather my
| kid grow up to be non-racist and I could fix any deficiencies in
| their schooling
| troupe wrote:
| > are now generally recognized as having the biggest impact in
| reducing racism.
|
| Do you have a source for that statement or is it just "common
| knowledge?" There seems to be at least some evidence that
| homeschooling produces children who are more tolerant of other
| views.
|
| While one study does not prove anything, it is slightly
| stronger than "general recognition" without a source.
|
| https://reason.com/2019/01/22/homeschooling-produces-better-...
|
| On the other hand if your local public school will get your
| kids to whatever academic level you feel they are capable of,
| it is great you have a local school that meets your particular
| needs.
| cassac wrote:
| If the goal of public schools is now to create non-racists at
| the cost of academics then I would rather homeschool. I can
| teach my kids to not be [race/sex/able]ists, and I do, because
| I treat people with respect.
|
| The schools should have a moral obligation to teach everyone
| academics first and say everyone deserves to be treated with
| respect. There doesn't need to be a big agenda about
| racism/sexism/ableism. Trump? Treat with respect. Hilary? Treat
| with respect. Homeless? Treat with respect. Former criminals?
| Treat with respect. Anybody who's different than you? Treat
| with respect. Now let's get back to math.
|
| I don't want to hear any individual teachers opinion on
| anything other than academics. If they want to give their
| opinion it should be leveled and end with treating all people
| with respect. If they did this maybe less people would
| homeschool and go to private school and then schools could
| continue to have their much needed funding.
| runjake wrote:
| The amount of effort it would take and the quality of that
| effort, when I already have a full-time job.
|
| Edit: I have 3 kids, and they all learn in quite different ways.
| I can't really give one presentation to all 3 on something. The
| pandemic gave me a little glimpse into what home schooling would
| be like.
| actfrench wrote:
| So you're looking for ways to reduce the effort ...at not too
| high a cost I imagine ?
| bckr wrote:
| I encourage you to read "The Mom Test". It is a book about
| how to ask questions such that you do not mislead yourself
| while doing market research.
| actfrench wrote:
| Thanks !
| actfrench wrote:
| I think one of the big challenges with pandemic homeschooling
| is that parents were trying to help kids with school work and
| keeping up with school , rather then necessarily directly
| helping them learn. One of the cool things about homeschooling
| is you can choose your child's curriculum and support them
| learning at their own pace. I think you may even find you spend
| less or equal time as your child's teacher than you do helping
| them with homework. And by the way , I have often found as a
| tutor/teacher that homework is where a lot of the only learning
| takes place because kids tune out in class lectures, miss vital
| info and fall behind. Many homeschool families I know have 4-5
| kids with radically different learning styles and personalities
| and still only spend 1-2 hrs on direct instruction. These kids
| are going on to Harvard, Stanford, getting high scores on
| multiple AP exams because the learning goals are clear and they
| are able to learn at their own pace and master info before
| moving on to the next problem. Because kids learn so
| differently, I built a curriculum planner early on at Modulo to
| help families find the right tool for their individual child,
| that engages, inspires and challenges them. Also I don't know
| about the dynamic of your family but older kids can help teach
| younger ones and "student as teacher" is one of the best ways
| for someone learning to really achieve mastery and a deep
| understanding of the subject.
| actfrench wrote:
| A lot of families thinks this would mean sitting at the kitchen
| table at their kids from 9-3 but actually homeschool does not
| need to look like school in order to be effective academically.
| with mastery learning and 1-1 instruction, kids learn way
| faster than in a classroom setting , so often parents spend max
| 1-2 hours guiding their kids through math and ELA with many of
| the great secular homeschool curriculums available and then
| cobble together a bunch of afterschool activities /skill shares
| , social activities and pareht swaps. Sometimes more affluent
| parents hire tutors but it's not necessary. And there are some
| great digital tools kids csn use to largely teach themselves
| like khan academy - not to mention good old-fashioned books !
| subpixel wrote:
| It takes two incomes to survive, that's why.
| andsoitis wrote:
| Educating someone requires expertise.
|
| Being exposed to different education styles is far better than
| just having one teacher (the parent).
|
| There's no way for a parent to have sufficient breadth and depth
| across a range of topics, never mind generic pedagogical
| expertise.
| judah wrote:
| I was homeschooled and I credit much of my success in life to it.
| It taught me to think logically, taught me to honor my parents,
| taught me the value of tradition, morality, spirituality. It
| taught me the value of hard work, of loyalty, of kindness. It
| kept me out of vices that many of my public-schooled friends and
| peers got pulled into.
|
| In my experience, homeschooling can create well-rounded, upright
| people at a ratio above traditional schooling. It insulates kids
| from many of the extreme elements and moores of society.
| Homeschooling is an excellent tool to pass on values from one
| generation to the next.
|
| Lack of socialization is indeed a problem. Homeschooling parents
| need to make a big effort to get their kids in homeschooling
| groups and co-ops, youth sports, etc.
|
| I have three kids myself now, but we send our them to private
| school rather than homeschool. What stops us from homeschooling
| is, my wife didn't feel like she had the skills to homeschool.
| She's not a teacher and feels she doesn't have the patience for
| it.
| swatcoder wrote:
| > In my experience, homeschooling can create well-rounded,
| upright people at a ratio above traditional schooling.
|
| Sorry, you talk about your own positive experience with
| homeschooling (which is great!), but that's clearly not an
| experience that would give insight into predicting aggregate
| outcomes more generally.
|
| What experience are you referring to here? Did you end pursuing
| a career studying it or something?
| actfrench wrote:
| It's hard. I think a lot of parents see teachers in school and
| think they have to imitate that - behavioral management and
| direct instruction. At the best, good teachers are guides for
| self-directed learning and don't need to push much at all. I
| wish you luck ! Let me know if you want me to talk to your wife
| sometime more about this :) manisha[at]modulo[dot]app
| kleiba wrote:
| _my wife didn 't feel like she had the skills to homeschool.
| She's not a teacher and feels she doesn't have the patience for
| it_
|
| Since you were homeschooled yourself, wouldn't you have been
| the better parent for the job anyway?
| idle_zealot wrote:
| > taught me to honor my parents, taught me the value of
| tradition, morality, spirituality
|
| Those do not sound positive at all. It sounds like you were
| successfully sheltered from secular and liberal ideas by
| traditional and conservative parents, which matches with my
| preconceptions of homeschooling.
| wussboy wrote:
| I'm as atheist as they come, and I value liberalism and
| secularism extremely.
|
| But I also acknowledge that not all humans are like me and
| that not everyone has a liberal mindset. They did a study
| once and when conservatives were asked to think like liberals
| they were able to do so quite effectively. Unfortunately,
| liberals were not able to think like conservatives at all.
| This makes me cautious before recommending liberalism and
| secularism to all.
|
| May I recommend Haidt's The Righteous Mind? It snapped me out
| of my "only liberalism/secularism is right" mindset.
| wyager wrote:
| > It sounds like you were successfully sheltered from secular
| and liberal ideas
|
| If your utility function is "optimize for the life outcomes
| of my children", experimental evidence suggests this is a
| good thing. If your utility function is "optimize for
| outcomes that are in accord with my state-secular religious
| beliefs at the expense of my child's life outcomes", it's
| not.
| anon291 wrote:
| One can say the same thing about public and private
| schooled kids -- sheltered from traditional and
| conservative ideas.
| xpe wrote:
| This is a false claim of equivalence: very different
| things are happening. A liberal education does not
| 'shelter' students from religion -- instead, they are
| more likely to learn about it critically, perhaps in
| comparison with various faiths and histories.
|
| Personally I can say that I've learned a much greater
| depth about religion and spirituality outside of formal
| religious contacts.
|
| Perhaps something about the organizational setup of
| religious-based and funded programs is counterproductive
| for skeptical minds who might otherwise be curious.
| OJFord wrote:
| I'm very confused about the meaning of 'liberal' in this
| thread - it's quite overloaded anyway, but is it also
| like 'conservative' in having quite a different (or at
| least more specific) meaning in the US vs. UK (and
| especially vs. capital-C 'Conservative' party)?
|
| But also it seems to be assumed contradictorily to imply
| each secular and not?
| anon291 wrote:
| Yeah, he brought up religion for no particular reason. To
| be clear, when I say 'traditional' ideas, I mean those
| ideas that have captured the secular zeitgeist of
| generations before us. For example, the idea that the
| family is the foundational element of society today has
| religious connotations, but only because it is carried
| over from Roman times. The Romans achieved this
| conclusion through secular means. It's now associated
| with religion because the Catholic church basically is
| the current implementation of the late Roman empire's
| value system.
| anon291 wrote:
| But that's my point... I went to a normal school. Even
| though it was religious, I wasn't exposed to any
| conservative ideas (religious != political conservatism).
| The school kinda went along with the general zeitgeist.
| Perhaps your experience is different. We did a cursory
| (and I mean extremely cursory) view of all world
| religions, as I think many schools may offer, but we
| never went in depth.
|
| But again, religion is not conservatism, whether
| political or even social (Stoicism is a 'conservative'
| philosophy, despite not being religious and perhaps even
| anti-religious).
|
| It wasn't until I was older that I began studying these
| topics in any great detail.
|
| > Personally I can say that I've learned a much greater
| depth about religion and spirituality outside of formal
| religious contacts.
|
| That's not really germaine. Did you learn it in a public
| school? Because if not, I think my point stands.
| triyambakam wrote:
| So you're saying that it's bad to have morals and a religion?
| That sounds very dogmatic.
| xpe wrote:
| No, the commenter is not saying that. And you probably know
| that?
|
| The context is right there in the comment:
|
| > It sounds like you were successfully sheltered from
| secular and liberal ideas by traditional and conservative
| parents
|
| It is better to read the whole comment in context and reply
| charitably. See HN guidelines.
| zdragnar wrote:
| That comment blatantly implies that secularl and liberal
| ideas are incompatible with valuing tradition, morality
| and spirituality. It makes unquantified assumptions about
| how the person was raised and their life experiences.
|
| There's nothing charitable about it at all.
| gjs278 wrote:
| _dain_ wrote:
| Or equivalently, state-run schooling successfully alienated
| you from these important values.
| xpe wrote:
| No, these two views are not even close to equivalent. Why?
| Liberalism and pluralism do not attempt to deny other ways
| of life or philosophies. (They may criticize them, but they
| do not claim to have absolute truth.)
|
| On the other hand, many dogmatic religions want to protect
| children from influences they cannot control or understand.
|
| Studying many different philosophies leads some to conclude
| relativism is correct. But I disagree, as do many
| philosophers and ethicists. Why? There is a simple answer
| that captures the essence of it: start by letting in all
| ways of life and worldviews into a pluralistic society.
| Treat this as an experiment and see which philosophies do
| not respect the others. It is abundantly clear that some
| ways of life are incompatible with pluralism -- e.g. some
| are authoritarian, some are unnecessarily violent, some
| restrict freedom of thought, etc.
|
| P.S. Homeschooling has a demonstrated connection to
| religious conservatives.
| wyager wrote:
| > many dogmatic religions want to protect children from
| influences they cannot control or understand.
|
| Yes, for example, the state-secular religion of the US,
| which is enforced in public schools, wants to protect
| children from influences it cannot control, such as
| homeschooling.
| xpe wrote:
| > Yes, for example, the state-secular religion of the US,
| which is enforced in public schools, wants to protect
| children from influences it cannot control, such as
| homeschooling.
|
| No.
|
| This seems like an attempt at a wise phrase unfortunately
| mechanistically generated from some recursion and word
| substitution.
|
| Please try to support the claim if you actually believe
| it.
|
| Research classical liberalism, the scientific method,
| liberal arts, music, pedagogy, statistics, almost any
| field of study; they are not dogmatic in the same way
| that religion is.
|
| You should read about the history of the homeschooling
| movement especially in the American south such as
| Georgia. It has been a sustained effort by conservatives
| to opt out of the educational system.
|
| Perhaps you have some interesting angle on how state
| education is somehow parallel? But I highly doubt it. I
| see a computer scientist's mind at work trying to find a
| pattern -- a meta pattern perhaps -- to claim
| understanding. The problem is that I don't see any
| evidence that the claim has been examined up close. I
| don't see awareness of historical or educational context.
|
| Tell me if I'm wrong. I see it very often here:
| Overconfidence without a grounded understanding.
|
| Consider a simpler and rational explanation (for the USA
| at least): State-based education is funded largely
| because it is in the interest of the state to educate
| citizens to participate in government and exist in a
| pluralistic society. An effective education in democracy
| does not shelter people from the idea of religion but
| instead puts it in a context so that we can live together
| even though we may not have the same fundamental beliefs.
| swatcoder wrote:
| I think what they're railing against is an actual truth:
| an important role of education has always been inducting
| kids into a common understanding of the society they'll
| be navigating as a adults.
|
| For modern western nations, that _does_ means encouraging
| kids to think in terms of specific liberal, secular
| humanist values like universal human rights, pluralist
| nation-states, global interdependency, democratic
| government, capitalist economics, etc -- and there _are_
| many communities throughout the world and throughout the
| US who have not actually bought into those values and
| instead value other, sometimes incompatible things.
|
| There is a real and legitimate tension between state
| education vs homeschooling (regardless of the particular
| politics/culture at home).
|
| I _personally_ think too much such value fragmentation
| will damn us all and that a common education is necessary
| to keep a relatively peaceful order in what's a
| constitutionally and inescapably diverse nation, but I
| get the complaint and worry that these other commenters
| are airing.
| [deleted]
| dsr_ wrote:
| We could start with: it's incredibly expensive.
|
| Kids need time and attention and space. Teaching is not
| compatible with holding down a full-time job, because it _is_ a
| full-time job. Teaching one or two or three kids is not
| significantly less work than teaching 20.
| actfrench wrote:
| Actually homeschoolers are on average the same or lower than
| the median in terms of household income. Families who go to
| public school have to pay a ton on childcare, summer camp and
| after school classes, whereas homeschoolers often choose
| flexible work and develop creative solutions like skill shares
| and childcare shares. Fostering independent learners also
| certainly helps.
|
| Here's some more I wrote on the topic of homeschooling on a
| budget https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/budget
| rambambram wrote:
| I've considered home schooling, but what stopped me was the fact
| that I suddenly realized I have no children.
|
| On a more serious note, I like how you asked the question with
| "what's stopping you?".
| actfrench wrote:
| Lol. Thanks for the compliment and making me laugh.
|
| That would probably be a good reason not to homeschool ! Though
| you could certainly mentor your friends' kids! I believe we can
| all take part in educating the next generation whether we are
| parents or not !
| troupe wrote:
| Khan Academy started out as a way to help his niece...so
| mentoring others is absolutely a reasonable thing to
| consider. :)
| elil17 wrote:
| I've never met someone who was homeschooled past elementary
| school and thought it was a good idea.
|
| I think homeschooling is often cruel to children. However I think
| tools to help make it better for those who will choose it anyway
| are a good thing. Best of luck to you.
| jpgvm wrote:
| Nothing.
|
| If I have children and they are like me (i.e on the spectrum)
| then I will homeschool them.
|
| School was by far the worst time of my life and also contributed
| the least to my success. I succeeded in spite of traditional
| schooling, mostly due to the great nature of my parents (who
| unfortunately just didn't have the capacity or economical means
| to homeschool me.) Enduring my schooling years didn't make me
| stronger it just left me with deep emotional scars that took
| years to come to terms with.
|
| My partner has early age teaching experience and we are equipped
| to school our children if that is how things turn out.
|
| Socialization is definitely a concern but I think it can be
| adequately addressed through sports, activity groups and extended
| family.
|
| Of course if my children are normal then maybe none of this will
| be necessary and a normal school will be what is best for them.
| anon291 wrote:
| Same. My parents both worked, but they were so shocked by how
| little we learned in schools that they'd spend the evenings
| tutoring my brother and I, such that, by the time we learned
| anything in school, we had already learned it. Ultimately, we
| were homeschooled, and school was daycare.
| somethoughts wrote:
| I'd welcome more tools to enable home _after_ -schooling and home
| _summer_ schooling.
|
| A lot of the after school/summer school in person offerings are
| pretty expensive and usually pretty sports centric.
|
| Full home schooling I feel could easily burn out even the most
| hard working parent - as there's little time for getting
| groceries, etc. done. And lack of socialization in the childs
| cohort is an issue.
|
| I think more online tools for prepping for science fairs and
| other academic competitions would be great.
|
| More tools like Khan academy would be great - I'd love it if
| there were resources that were able to introduce real biology,
| chemistry, physics prior to high school.
| actfrench wrote:
| Thank you for these great thoughts and questions somethoughts.
| Awesome handle, btw
|
| Actually I think about homeschooling more as a movement and
| ideology of greater involvement in education than a replacement
| to school. In fact, I call it "modular learning" where families
| can choose a variety of modules to compose their child's
| education including school !
|
| The burnout factor is real but I think that when you give
| yourself freedom to optimize on academics , social and
| childcare, you might find it's lesss of a burnout than the
| grind of early morning wake-up's, after school pickups ,
| homework and pta meetings.
|
| I've written a lot about curriculum tools to support learning
| at home.
|
| With regards to physics and chemistry, it depends on your kid's
| ages ... some of my favorites off the top of my head are
| mystery science, blossom and roots science curriculum, quantum
| camp , mel science, Steve Spangler science
| somethoughts wrote:
| As some one interested in the space - I definitely feel
| providing tools to parents for home _after_ schooling is a
| much, much larger total addressable market size and likely
| more profitable.
|
| The average after school math tutor probably nets $90-$120
| per hour, where the average school teacher probably nets $50
| per hour.
| troupe wrote:
| If you are willing to do stuff online, the cost for a math
| tutor is only a fraction of what you described.
| itronitron wrote:
| I'm currently homeschooling three teenagers (since the start of
| Covid), although one just recently graduated and will be
| attending University this fall. Ultimately we decided to take the
| leap to homeschooling because the quality of instruction and
| curriculum available to us through local or online schools was
| either not good or not a good fit.
|
| Prior to that the two biggest things stopping us were the
| assumption that children have to go to an 'official' school in
| order to get a diploma and go to college, and the challenge in
| finding good curriculum.
|
| In my opinion, the good resources include Khan Academy, IXL, and
| Well Trained Mind, or at least that is what has worked for us.
|
| Tools that would make homeschooling easier would be an assignment
| tracker by class/subject that was easy to use. Khan supports
| assigning work but it's rather labor intensive to administer. For
| example if I have assigned tasks in a class for the next eight
| weeks and the schedule slides by one week then it would be nice
| to be able to just move all the assignments in that class back
| one week instead of changing every individual assigned date
| separately (as Khan Academy currently requires). This could even
| be something as simple as making a list of assignments available
| as a spreadsheet.
|
| Logical progression across the units in a class is important. The
| Khan Academy AP Physics curriculum is a good example of what not
| to do in that respect.
|
| Any attempt by the instructor/course material at getting the
| student excited about learning should be avoided/removed.
|
| Grammatical errors, typos, and misspellings should never be
| present in anything your company makes available to students or
| parents.
| OJFord wrote:
| > one just recently graduated
|
| That's quite funny if you don't immediately recall that North
| Americans talk of 'graduating' school...
|
| Anyway, do you fit this in alongside working (not as a home-
| teacher I mean) through some combination of relatively hands-
| off assignments etc. and evenings/weekends, or does it only
| work because you don't?
| gnicholas wrote:
| Glad to see people building in this space! One thing that would
| make us more likely to take the leap is a popular online
| community where 'everyone' goes to organize in-person events and
| meet kids with similar interests. I think there are enough
| similar homeschooling-curious families where I live (Silicon
| Valley), but I just don't know enough of them. If I knew 3x as
| many interested families, there's a good chance I'd have given
| homeschooling a try.
|
| It would also be great to have some knowledge base-style articles
| about how to navigate the bureaucracy, how to get whatever
| funding is available, etc. I know this varies by jurisdiction,
| but presumably this could be crowdsourced and validated for many
| areas.
| importantbrian wrote:
| The main thing stopping us is that we both enjoy our careers and
| neither of us wants to teach. I think if there was strong
| evidence that homeschooling conferred significant benefits we
| would probably make the sacrifice to do it, but based on my
| research it seems like a wash.
|
| The added factor is that my wife was home schooled, and my view
| of homeschooling is somewhat tainted by that. The homeschooling
| community she came from isn't exactly a strong advertisement for
| homeschooling, but I recognize there are also bad schools out
| there.
|
| The strongest part of her education seems to have been the co-op
| classes, but those classes are really just like sending your kids
| to a private school. At that point I'm not sure why you wouldn't
| just send your kids to school outside of an ideological
| commitment to homeschooling.
| jameskraus wrote:
| I was homeschooled and it was an isolating experience that set me
| back socially until I finally pleaded with my parents to let me
| go to public school. It took me a _while_ to catch up to my peers
| socially and it caused me a least a year of being a social
| outcast until I learned how to act "normal". Did I learn some
| topics ahead of other kids? Sure. Was it at all good for my
| development as a person? Oh god no. 0/10, would not recommend
| homeschooling.
| promhize wrote:
| I wonder if growing up in an environment with a lot of other
| kids might have changed your experience.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| I don't want my child to have zero social skills or experience
| with the opposite sex. That's literally why I don't do it.
| baby wrote:
| disclaimer: I think school is mostly inefficient and a waste of
| time in terms of education.
|
| Yet, I wouldn't take my kids away from school, basically because
| I remember when I was a kid and meeting kids that had been
| homeschooled (either later in school, or in activity centers) and
| they were always weird. I'm wondering how they grew up, and if it
| was much more difficult for them to acclimate after that, or if
| it was actually fine. But I feel like the world is a hard place,
| and the more you delay the reality the harder it'll be for kids.
| I'd be interested in stats like, for example, rate of suicide
| amongst homeschooled kids vs non-homeschooled kids.
| wussboy wrote:
| I grew up at a small college, and you could always pick the
| home-schooled kids out of the crowd.
|
| I said this in an earlier reply, but I agree that school is
| inefficient at education, but I'd argue that's not what the
| benefit of school is. School is about learning the social
| skills to succeed in life as an independent adult. That skill
| helps with learning later. Unfortunately, the reverse is not
| true: Intelligence is no guarantee to cross the social bridge.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| The law: it cannot be done legally in my country.
| xpe wrote:
| My advice? Read the book titled "Homeschooling the Right: How
| Conservative Education Activism Erodes the State" by Heath Brown
| so you realize what you're jumping into, eyes open. It probably
| isn't what you think it is. And it has tremendous regional
| variation. In particular, get ready for parents who want to very
| carefully control what their kids are exposed to.
| anon291 wrote:
| My wife and I were thinking of homeschooling. Socializing kept us
| back.
|
| Then we joined a church with an active homeschooling group. The
| kids meet up multiple times a week, with and without parents.
| They even take classes together (parents hire tutors for a group
| of kids, or one parent takes a group of kids for a class).
|
| This has alleviated our fears. I think our daughter will get more
| socializing here and not just in the classroom. The group
| regularly (>1 / month) takes field trips, goes on outings, and
| we're even going camping with them this summer.
|
| So anything you can do to replicate that... would be great
| turtlebits wrote:
| Honestly, I'm not well balanced enough to home school. I'm afraid
| taking on primary schooling would cause expectations for my kid
| to be too high. Also, I feel that socialization with other kids
| (learning to make/maintain friends), interaction with (other)
| adults and having a structured routine is more important.
|
| Probably most importantly, I'm fairly confident in the competence
| in my local public elementary (great teachers and lots of parent
| volunteers)
|
| I'd would consider co-op, but most groups are too small or
| unorganized.
| actfrench wrote:
| Very helpful . The Je so much for sharing your experience ! I'm
| curious to know what area you live in where the co-ops are
| poorly organized ? Many thanks !
| thescriptkiddie wrote:
| I know you asked for responses from people who are interested in
| homeschooling and this comment is going to come across as
| unnecessarily adversarial, but...
|
| Homeschooling is very bad and should be banned in the US, as it
| already is in many other countries.
| jelled wrote:
| I was homeschooled in the late 80s / early 90s and I hated it.
| Though we were part of a homeschool group, we only got together
| with other families once or twice a week. It was really lonely
| and I never felt like a normal kid. Ultimately I convinced my
| parents to send me to public high school and had a great
| experience.
|
| Watching my own kids thrive in school with lots of friends and
| social interaction has reaffirmed my thinking that building
| social skills is as much a part of schooling as the education
| itself.
| [deleted]
| rmbeard wrote:
| I'm too old to be homeschooled.
| actfrench wrote:
| Hopefully you're still learning though ! :)
| muzani wrote:
| We did remote schooling during covid. Kids don't actually like
| it. I never thought I'd see the day when my child would wail
| about not being able to go to school, but that's it.
|
| Also as bad as kids are with learning with teachers, it's usually
| a lot worse with parents. It's very stressful to, say, teach a
| child math. I think being in a group of others doing it gives
| them a little more grit.
| jhawk28 wrote:
| Remote schooling is not the same as homeschooling. When the
| children are young, it is a lot of couch learning. You sit down
| with the child on the couch and go through a lesson per day of
| reading. You have "manipulatives" like blocks to show patterns
| and counting. Books are often scripted so that you can just
| read the lesson to the child. As the children get older and
| more independent, the child can read the lesson themselves and
| answer the questions. The parents role is then to grade the
| work and make sure their children are doing the work.
| Homeschooling is not easy. It can be stressful, but it gives
| you the freedom to teach your kids in the best or worst way.
| sbuttgereit wrote:
| Well, it's available resources about building and delivering an
| effective curricula across subjects and time. I have found a
| number of homeschooling resources, but the best organized efforts
| tend to be from religious perspectives (not surprising). We're
| not religious. My being an atheist and my wife being best
| described as irreligious (doesn't identify with a religion and
| puts approximately zero thought into the question) means much of
| that religious perspective is unwanted and is something I would
| consider detrimental. That I do seriously consider homeschooling
| should also make it evident that I reject public schooling as a
| good option; there are a number of reasons but your question
| implicitly assumes that to be true so I'll just restate it for
| others.
|
| We do have relatives that have successfully homeschooled and I
| have seen groups that do their homeschooling together
| (homeschooling isn't necessarily about sitting at home by
| yourselves). So it's resources/support targeted to delivering a
| well-rounded homeschooled education, it's finding sufficiently
| like-minded others with whom to share the effort in a small group
| setting. With sufficient resources I could likely solve the time
| problem.
|
| Absent that, we're looking at private schools for our kid. We'd
| probably just do this, but it's not a cheap alternative.
| actfrench wrote:
| I actually think I may have a potential solution for you on
| this one. It was clear to me when I started that sifting
| through religious curriculum to find secular stuff and making
| sure it was accurate and mastery-based was very hard and time-
| consuming for parehts.
|
| Over the past three years, I've poured over thousands of
| resources in 50 different subjects to help families learn at
| home with kids. From these, I selected the best resources that
| were secular, accurate and mastery-based. I've also conducted
| dozens of intake interviews with parents helping them choose
| the best digital app, workbook, or nature-based curriculum for
| learning at home, that their child would love and fit their
| family's needs. With our curriculum planner, you can answer a
| few questions about your child's interests and your preferences
| around screen time, budget, etc and it will recommend core
| curriculum, math and literacy tools to support your child's
| education
|
| I've been iterating on it and find most people find it to be a
| helpful starting place
|
| https://modulolearning.typeform.com/to/VBJmkLTu
| f154hfds wrote:
| As someone who was homeschooled through 6th grade and then
| private schooled and considering homeschool for early elementary
| (I have a 4 year old) I would say my main concern is actually in
| my wife's ability to maintain a parent/teacher balance right now.
|
| What I mean by this is simply wearing two hats in the household
| is a tricky business and can be overwhelming especially when our
| young students have younger siblings that must be cared for. I
| have enormous respect for my wife but handling these
| responsibilities is no easy feat!
|
| Of course my kids are very young. I have other concerns beyond
| elementary, mostly around an increasing need for expertise in
| sciences/math and properly rigorous testing ensuring mastery over
| subjects without access to a realistic grade curve.
|
| My personal experience was very good but a bit unrealistic - I
| was taught to read by my mom who has taught kindergarten for
| decades. Not everyone has a professional educator as their
| homeschool teacher!
| actfrench wrote:
| That's a really interesting point. I imagine this could be a
| similar issue for stay-at-home moms who wear so many hats.
| troupe wrote:
| There are a number of curriculums designed to help when you
| have multiple kids. It is challenging, but amazing to see how
| well it can work. Regarding expertise in particular areas,
| there are many options for that including taking a few online
| classes for particular subjects. If you think working through
| Algebra II might be a bit challenging, find an awesome teacher
| teaching an online class for it and sign them up. You can still
| help them study, bit it gives your child some interaction with
| another teacher (and in the better online classes) other
| students.
|
| While I'm sure you mom had a lot of experience she brought to
| the table, it isn't uncommon to have kids reading at 3 or 4
| taught by parents who didn't have a background in education and
| simply did some research to find the best way to do it. True it
| might be harder than it was for your mom, but it isn't like a
| parent has to just guess. There are plenty of people like your
| mom making information available about what seems to work and
| what doesn't so you can find the best thing for your kids.
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| Social needs. Children need to learn how to be in relationship
| with others, it is the most fundamental need we have and is so
| important for the future of our planet.
|
| If I were to homeschool, it isn't about the learning, that is
| easy, it is about providing an environment where children can
| learn to co-exist with others. That can still be done with
| homeschool, but it will need to be intentional with daily
| activities that involve being in relationship with others, in
| physical form.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Homeschooling itself is intentional. The only problem is when
| the intention is bad. It should be possible to regulate
| homeschooling properly to account for the bad apples.
| usrn wrote:
| I mostly socialized at church, there are also homeschool co-
| ops.
| tomohawk wrote:
| If you're concerned about this, you're not the only one, and
| the good news is that there are many solutions for this.
|
| It is quite common for home schooled kids to be part of co-ops
| and other groups, where they may take classes together or have
| other activities together.
|
| In addition, don't underestimate how important it is for
| children to socialize with trusted adults. Many children don't
| get adequate socialization even from their parents.
| david927 wrote:
| Please remember that not everyone has the same experiences,
| socially, in school and that for some, homeschooling is the
| vastly better option in that regard.
| wussboy wrote:
| I would disagree with this. Those who do best on their own
| (let's imagine the stereo-typical nerd) are those who most
| need the social training of school to succeed in life.
| progman32 wrote:
| Schooling only drove me further and further into hiding who
| I was, to great detriment. It was only upon leaving school
| that I got the "social training" I needed to succeed.
|
| > Those who do best on their own
|
| With respect, you said it yourself.
| throwawayf37jg wrote:
| Those are also the most likely to face abuse like bullying
| in a school environment.
| wyager wrote:
| Public school (at least as I experienced it) is the worst
| possible place to learn social skills, unless you're hoping to
| pick up social skills for living in prison.
|
| It's age-segregated, usually monitored by adults, extremely
| regimented, and often very hostile.
|
| There are a million different contexts where kids can learn
| better, more useful social skills, like at church events, youth
| athletics, with kids in the neighborhood, etc.
| anon291 wrote:
| Yeah I totally agree. The social skills I learned at my
| parochial school were none of the social needs I needed to
| succeed in silicon valley, for example.
|
| My parochial school was poor working class. I learned how to
| talk crassly, 'shoot the shit', be prematurely sexual, to
| accept fate, etc. I did not learn how to speak properly, be
| diplomatic, set goals for life, better myself. Those I
| learned in college when I went to school with much better off
| kids and realized that all these things were things I could
| deliberately aim for and accomplish.
|
| So, while attending school gave me a leg up in understanding
| the typical American 'everyman' (a skill which is severely
| lacking in silicon valley and in 'elite' circles in society),
| it did absolutely nothing to help me achieve becoming part of
| that elite. In many ways it hindered me. It taught me a
| worldview where everyone was coming to get me, to put me in
| my place, etc.
| lambdaphagy wrote:
| Imagine that there were a government program that taught
| infants how to walk: the infants enter the program unable to
| walk, and a year later just about all of them can.
|
| Now imagine trying to kill that program, or even taking your
| own children out unilaterally: "But walking is so important!
| How could you be opposed to children learning how to walk?"
|
| Your reaction to that is my reaction to the idea that a state
| apparatus is necessary for children to learn how to make
| friends and play.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| As someone who was homeschooled for the majority of my
| childhood, I fully agree. I was able to somewhat overcome the
| resulting lack of social development in late high school (which
| wasn't at home) and uni, but it wouldn't be until some time
| between my mid 20s and early 30s that I felt like a mostly
| socially functional adult, and I still feel inadequacies in
| that department even now.
|
| Additionally, I don't know that I'd ever feel qualified to act
| as a teacher in as wide of a range of subjects as a child needs
| education in.
| wcarss wrote:
| > but it wouldn't be until some time between my mid 20s and
| early 30s that I felt like a mostly socially functional adult
|
| Just for the record, it's also common for people who attended
| school to not be really socially functional adults until
| their 20s-30s (hi!), and many people also never really even
| manage to realize this about themselves, so you're not
| necessarily worse off than an average non-homeschooled kid
| here.
| andresgaitan wrote:
| I went to normal school and university, and despite this I
| still feel socially ackward.
|
| I always blamed my dad, and my raising for my problems. My
| problems started being solved when I forgave my dad, and all
| the people that hurt me in the past.
|
| I had to take responsibility and stop blaming others for my
| problems.
|
| For homeschooled people I believe it is very tempting to
| blame homeschooling for their problems. It is too convenient.
| I don't know how to speak to women, homeschool problem. I
| don't know how to socialize, homeschool problem. I am alone,
| homeschool problem. Beware its not your case. Regards.
| aszantu wrote:
| what's your process for forgiving someone?
| anon291 wrote:
| I think everyone takes until mid 20s/early 30s to become
| socially functional. I went to normal school, and even day
| care (parents both worked), and I didn't totally overcome my
| social anxiety until I was 30 and had kids of my own. I still
| feel like I could do better.
|
| Of course, I'm slightly biased, as we're probably going to
| end up going the homeschooling route. We were 50/50 before,
| but with COVID, we joined our church's homeschool coop, and
| because of that both our daughters are better socialized than
| peers their age. They meet every day. Older kids even meet up
| without their parents there (although there's always someone
| watching). Parents also hire tutors as groups, more like a
| 'pod' than traditional homeschooling. I think it'll work for
| us
| biomcgary wrote:
| My wife and I were both homeschooled (I also attended private
| and public schools at various times). With homeschooling, we
| had a lot of positive social interactions (4-H, history club,
| co-operative classes with other families, neighborhood kids)
| and essentially no negative ones. My experience in public
| schools was quite negative (as well as being educationally
| weak). Our third son is autistic (probably my genetics) and
| does very well being homeschooled. Since he is nearly non-
| verbal, the likelihood that he would encounter abuse in a
| traditional setting that he could not report is quite high.
| Of course, having siblings contributes to socialization.
| jimhefferon wrote:
| > essentially no negative ones
|
| Negative interactions can sometimes be a help, or a part of
| life, or whatever is the right phrase. In Jr High one day
| after school some kids beat me and a friend up (for no
| reason that I could figure out). Of course, I won't say "it
| made me who I am today" or any baloney like that but it
| certainly helped cement a resolve to not be them.
|
| > nearly non-verbal
|
| Yes, for sure the individual kid is the prime thing a
| person worries about. I am glad to hear he does well.
| wccrawford wrote:
| I still hate bullies to this day, but there's no denying
| that they made me tougher.
| JackFr wrote:
| All my life I had been taught that bullies were dumb.
| Imagine my surprise when I arrived at college and came
| across the first bully I met who was smarter than me.
| Much smarter than me. Didn't make me tougher, but it made
| me realize even as you become an adult there are simply
| people to be avoided.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Yeah, I won't deny that it can work well and produce well-
| rounded, socially capable adults, but it's dependent on the
| parent(s) getting a lot right in doing it, which is
| anything but a given. Homeschooling isn't a decision that
| should be taken lightly, and I think that parent(s)
| considering it should be honest with themselves in
| evaluating their ability to pull it off well.
| biomcgary wrote:
| Homeschooling does require a lot of commitment and
| consideration of your limitations as a parent. For
| example, I think there is value to cooperative
| homeschooling for some subjects (e.g., science, which
| requires equipment). Trying to "go it alone" for
| everything can be a bad idea. In addition, most states
| don't provide funding to school at home, so homeschooling
| parents also face an economic disadvantage.
| medion wrote:
| The social needs argument is always made by those who went to
| traditional schools. Always. It's a kind of 'mesearch'
| argument.
| bko wrote:
| > providing an environment where children can learn to co-exist
| with others
|
| Do most schools do this effectively? Kids are pretty terrible
| to each other and abuse is pretty much the norm from my
| experience. Of course its not crippling for most kids, but I
| remember getting made fun of, and making fun of other kids and
| everything in between. School is also one of the only places in
| life where you're likely to experience violence. It's basically
| a daycare.
|
| I don't know if there's an alternative. Maybe play dates in
| small groups?
| ComradePhil wrote:
| They need to learn how to be in relation to people who know and
| care about them, not other random kids (some of whom will be
| abused at home and hence abusive at school) and the teachers,
| some of whom will be extremely incompetent, emotionally
| abusive, pedophiles or all of that.
|
| There's absolutely no way sending a kid to school is better for
| their social life in any way.
| anon291 wrote:
| 100% agree. I am in touch with exactly 1 (yes 1) friend from
| elementary / middle school. If I stretch, I can say that
| there are 3 that I would actually want to talk to beyond this
| guy.
|
| I am a silicon valley executive making mid six figures.
| They're ... not, and not because they didn't have the same
| opportunities. Because of terrible life choices that I could
| easily have made myself, but, by the grace of God, did not.
| Amongst my classmates there's premarital pregnancies,
| domestic violence, lots of unemployment, prison time, etc.
|
| The same is true of my brother and sister-in-law. She comes
| from an extremely poor family, but managed to make something
| of herself by going into accounting. Yet, her family is
| filled with pre-marital pregnancy, deadbeat men, and even
| some violence. This stuff also existed in her schools. She
| managed to escape by keeping her head down and avoiding
| trouble.
|
| Honestly, any of us could have ended up in this 'socialized'
| group, but didn't. That was because we resisted peer
| pressure. All of us were extremely awkward kids. You'd
| consider us poorly socialized. Yet, we've 'made it', and the
| popular kids didn't.
|
| Of course, then I think of my now-wife, who grew up in much
| more privilege than we did. Her parents were highly educated
| (post-graduate) and were extremely deliberate in her
| schooling, her peer group, etc. While not technically
| homeschooling, my mother in law carefully crafted my wife's
| friend group and even took her out of classes if she didn't
| like the kids or thought the teacher was bad. She didn't have
| to put up with half the crap my brother, myself, or my
| sister-in-law had to put up with.
|
| I'm choosing the latter method for our kids, even if that
| means homeschooling them and using the public schools as a
| backup.
|
| EDIT: since I've seen religion come up here. My mother-in-law
| was and is a staunch atheist. My parents and sister-in-laws
| family are devoutly religious. Not all homeschoolers are
| religious. While I am religious, that is not the reason we
| are considering home schooling our daughters
| itronitron wrote:
| That triggers two memories for me, 1) having a classmate in
| middle school that would regularly boast about drinking a
| 'rum and coke' on his way to school in order to start the day
| off right, and 2) hearing that my child's school was having
| the 3rd grade GT class (which my child was in) teach the
| second graders how to read, and of course several of those
| second graders were older than my third grader.
| bequanna wrote:
| Bingo. It seems like people ignore the huge social risks that
| sending kinds to public entails and write it off as something
| children should "learn to deal with".
|
| Do you know who your child is spending time with at school? I
| hope so, because they will likely have more influence over
| your child's development than you.
|
| If your children aren't going to a highly selective, highly
| supervised school, good luck. It's a crapshoot. Maybe they
| befriend "good" kids...maybe not.
|
| For example, my nephew is 6 and was playing with a female
| classmate who (for whatever reason) is already using sexual
| language and her play is inappropriate. Should my young
| nephew just "learn to deal" with that?
| devwastaken wrote:
| This is unfortunately all too true. I have relatives that like
| to think they're exempt from society (witnesses) and pushed
| that onto their kids, those kids are almost 18 and cannot carry
| out basic conversations. They are socially about 12 or less.
| They will never be able to leave home nor persue their own
| interests.
|
| Home schooling works better when kids have at least had
| elementary schooling. High school I would argue is where things
| break down a lot, and for some students there isn't a social
| experience outside of constant bullying and stress over things
| that don't matter.
| scifibestfi wrote:
| I went to public school and would argue it's a terrible place
| to be socialized. You are socialized by kids your age in an
| environment that's more akin to prison than the real world.
| missedthecue wrote:
| In public school you get in trouble for socializing
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I agree. I was treated pretty terribly at times.
|
| I don't think we should strive to socialize kids in school.
| The ones who do okay could probably still do better.
|
| Here in North America it seems like our communities are too
| fragmented and fractured to facilitate socializing without
| something like schools, though. No idea how to address and
| resolve this issue, but I'm not convinced our teachers and
| the socializing model are anything like ideal for kids.
|
| Not bashing teachers here either. I think they're often doing
| their best but are working in the confines of a non-ideal
| system with limited resources.
|
| I was very keen to get my kids into a private school which
| had an education model and teachers I was impressed by, but
| it's incredibly hard to get in. My kids are eligible to
| enter, but there's no space for years. No idea what to do.
| I'm happy to spend a lot to address this, but even private
| tutors don't seem like a viable option here.
|
| I'm just venting at this point. This is a hard problem. My
| kids are getting a bad education here in Canada and it's
| upsetting. I try to do what I can to get them ahead, but I'm
| a nerd, not a teacher.
| lijogdfljk wrote:
| Yea, i'd have to agree with you.
|
| What i learned in school was how awful people can be. The
| extremes where we humiliate and torment others. The mindless
| churn to be in a clique and simply fly under the radar.
|
| Slight tangent, but: In my view a parents jobs is to let
| children fail with a safety net. To be there and help them
| recover after failures are experienced together, to grow from
| them.
|
| Public School, in my view, does none of this. It attempts to
| educate, sure, but not in socialization. Likewise parents,
| even the well executing ones (by my definition) cannot share
| the experiences. Parents can only see the aftermath and try
| to mend some wounds.. but the growth is up to the child, in
| isolation.
|
| I don't know the better solution. I don't have the answer.
| All i know is that in the context of how i judge parenting,
| school fails entirely on. School is lord of the flies. Many
| prosper. Many drown. Many could grow, if only a guiding hand
| existed.
|
| Clearly i'm a pessimist here. I'm also not having children,
| which may not surprise you. Hah.
| willnz wrote:
| Yep, high school socialisation is so far removed from real
| life socialisation it's funny. When I look back at my public
| school years I laugh to think we were supposedly learning
| vital social skills!
|
| What other part of life do you interact with only people who
| were born in the same year as you were (and, in the case of
| some schools, only your sex)?
|
| Homeschooled children (in my experience) learn to make
| friends with kids a lot older and younger than they are. They
| also learn to look after and teach younger ones, and learn
| from older ones.
|
| I went to public school myself, my wife was homeschooled (for
| all but two high school years), and we homeschool our five
| kids. There's pretty much no reason I'd consider sending them
| to school, unless they want to in their high school years (so
| far our oldest doesn't).
| sharadov wrote:
| I had friends from other grades when I was in middle school
| - was part of sports teams and I trained for an entire
| summer with kids who were 2 years older than me. Initially
| they bossed me, but over time they really took me under
| their wing.
|
| In the neighborhood I lived - had some friends who were 3-4
| years older. Maybe my experience is unusual, but those were
| great times!
| viach wrote:
| The "real world" view pretty much depends on the glasses you
| wear and the observation point.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Don't worry, for most people, their workplace will feel like
| a prison as well.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Don't you think having those skills are important for when
| you are working and also forced to be around people?
| JJMcJ wrote:
| Public school socialization.
|
| Humiliated by teachers.
|
| Bullied by some people.
|
| Small circle of friends.
|
| Adults as the enemy.
|
| All the homeschooled kids I've met seem pleasant, polite,
| comfortable around other kids and around adults. Of course
| this is Northern California so elsewhere the story may be
| different.
|
| Oh, and homeschooling is forbidden in Germany, under a 1938
| law.
|
| 1938. Get it? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, elbow in the ribs.
|
| Just to see who doesn't like homeschooling.
| [deleted]
| hnhg wrote:
| If we're going with full anecdotes, all the homeschooled
| folks I've had to deal with have had major issues
| integrating with wider society. I felt a bit sorry for
| them, even if they weren't always the nicest or well-
| meaning people to actually be around. But by the time
| they're a bit older, I guess it's too late.
| virissimo wrote:
| How do you know whether people you've "had to deal with"
| were homeschooled or not? Might that method result in
| selection effects?
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Germany banned homeschooling in 1919. The 1938 law simply
| standardized the start date and penalties and excluded the
| disabled. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulpflicht
| kube-system wrote:
| A lot of child comments are pointing out that school kids are
| often terrible peers and experiences there are not great, and
| I have had my share of similar experiences, but.. that is
| part of social growth too.
|
| Making social mistakes, learning the consequences of those
| mistakes, and experiencing hurt when others make mistakes in
| interacting with you are all important life lessons.
|
| Part of the reason "the real world" after school is so much
| better is because those people have already made mistakes and
| learned their lessons earlier in life. Of course, school
| isn't the only way to learn these lessons, and many well
| adjusted homeschooled kids are those who are exposed to
| social situations in other ways.
|
| There are many social situations that would never happen in
| the home, and kids have to learn about them somehow. i.e
| developing new relationships, dealing with unexpected
| conflict, meeting someone new, romance, etc.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > Social needs. Children need to learn how to be in
| relationship with others, it is the most fundamental need we
| have and is so important for the future of our planet.
|
| Funny how this argument always comes out wrt. voluntary
| homeschooling, and not about shelter-in-place policies
| impacting K-12 and college students...
| simonw wrote:
| I heard this argument non-stop from the very start of
| shelter-in-place.
| rayiner wrote:
| The socialization of modern schooling is terrible and
| artificial. Children are age segregated and managed by a
| handful of adults. Which means they learn mainly from each
| other, instead of from older kids and adults. It's the factory
| farm equivalent of raising children.
|
| Homeschooled kids, of course, can learn social skills because
| they exist in societies and communities. Our neighbor's kids
| are homeschooled. They're over at our house right now. They
| play with the neighborhood kids, go to church, and engage in
| other social activities in mixed-age groups of kids.
| hgomersall wrote:
| This so much. I've met quite a few homeschooled children and
| almost without fail they lack some pretty fundamental social
| skills. Things like an apparent inability to interact with
| children of their own age, or behaving obnoxiously to others in
| ways that would be rapidly stamped out by peers.
| 99_00 wrote:
| How do you know that the parents didn't pull the kids out of
| school because lack of social skills and unusual but
| unctronable behavior resulted in peer bullying.
| monk_e_boy wrote:
| I work in educating young men and women, ages 16 up to around
| 60. Homeschooled kids almost never make a year in "normal"
| education. They fail to adjust to a small college, they are
| no longer the center of attention. They have to wait for
| others to catch up. They are not team players. It's really
| hard to watch.
| DennisP wrote:
| The rest sounds bad but "they have to wait for others to
| catch up" sounds like a win for homeschooling.
| ok_dad wrote:
| Have you ever heard of the fable about the tortoise and
| the hare? Sometimes speed isn't the most important.
| patrick451 wrote:
| It would be interesting to see actual statistics on this,
| because that doesn't match my experience at all. I was
| homeschooled, and went to a D1 state university, as did my
| siblings and numerous friends who were homeschooled. Both
| myself and one sibling finished with a 4.0 in dual majors.
| That same sibling went on to a masters program. I went on
| to an engineering Phd. The transition from grad school to
| corporate life was a bigger adjustment than high school at
| home to university. It just wasn't a big deal despite all
| the FUD.
| notch656a wrote:
| The world needs lots of corporate cogs who fall in line
| with the team. Personally I wasn't home-schooled but I can
| see the upside of being raised in an environment where
| you're not taught to be subservient to the authority of a
| school system, nor forced into a system where you're taught
| physical self defense is to be punished.
|
| Sounds like the home-schooled may have a leg up for some
| tasks that require ignoring the training to fall in line
| with the team or authority. Their niche in life may simply
| be different.
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| We probably agree more than we disagree, but I'll just add my
| own daughters as data points. When they stayed home during
| covid, the oldest (not a good student) did better academically
| with the lack of peer / social pressures. My youngest (an
| exceptional student) did better academically too, which has
| since allowed her to jump way ahead in her studies and finally
| be recognized by teachers as an academic prodigy, whereas
| before they saw her as a social misfit.
|
| So - I agree that it is good for kids to learn how to coexist
| with others, I also think there are lots of ways to accomplish
| that and that we might all give school credit for social
| outcomes that aren't a reality.
| wussboy wrote:
| I think you're confused as to the point of school. We often
| believe the point of school is the academics, but I would
| argue it's the social. Studies indicate social skills are
| more important to future success than academics.
|
| A hurriedly-googled link: https://www.tcscholars.org/social-
| success/
|
| And I would also argue you need excellent social skills to
| reach your potential academically.
|
| So, yes, your kids did better academically when they were at
| home, and that's great. But that's not the point of school.
| troupe wrote:
| I would argue that it is a lot easier to give a kid who is
| doing well academically some social interaction much better
| than they will get at the average public school than to
| take a child who is doing poorly at the public school and
| make them successful academically.
|
| I would agree though that most school districts do not
| spend money with academics as the priority.
| kanzure wrote:
| > We often believe the point of school is the academics,
| but I would argue it's the social. Studies indicate social
| skills are more important to future success than academics.
|
| How much socialization do kids really get in school anyway?
|
| They get 5 minute hallway breaks (if they are lucky)
| between 7 to 9 periods of classes per day. Maybe the bus
| ride in/out for 20-30 minutes. Lunch or recess. So how much
| time is that, again?
|
| Maybe 2-3 hours/day?
| secludedrelish wrote:
| I'd say group projects and class group activities with a
| goal are far more important forms of socialization than
| free time socialization.
| odessacubbage wrote:
| i can hardly think of a worse place to learn social skills
| than a classroom. all an intelligent kid really learns in
| public school is how to be cynical, detached and to
| maximally cheat the system.
|
| oh and also how to sell drugs. public schools are great for
| learning that.
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| >I think you're confused as to the point of school
|
| Actually, I think we're both wrong. During the time in my
| local PTA what stood out to me was the amount of time and
| money we spent on providing basic social services to kids -
| think providing meals, clothes, filtering for home and
| family problems etc. I would argue that in modern America,
| public schools are there to provide day care for working
| parents and to provide a modicum of social services, with
| education being an overarching hope and dream.
| ksplicer wrote:
| I don't think it's just an American thing that schools
| aren't that useful. Studies such the one linked below
| indicate that school choice has little impact on
| educational outcomes. Education is important, but I don't
| think anyone is particularly better at providing it in
| classrooms. Private tutoring and small group studies show
| much more impact. You could argue that is evidence that
| homeschooling is better, but I think that would only
| apply if you have subject matter experts teaching topics.
| Personally I think parents should focus on sending kids
| to schools that don't overburden children with homework
| and instead provide many opportunities for
| extracurriculars.
|
| https://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/schoolchoi
| cel...
| ivolimmen wrote:
| Well since I am not an American it's not really that common in
| the Netherlands. Plus as @ElijahLynn mentions: Scocial needs. I
| read "The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They
| Do" by Judith Rich Harris (highly recommend doing so before
| starting with kids). And it contains a nice example of a boy that
| is home-schooled by two teachers. The kids is brilliant and and
| 21 becomes the youngest University teacher. He writes a book on
| model trains that is considered to be the most boring book that
| exists and he offs himself. At least this is what I remember of
| the book. I think the example says it all... Edit: I do
| understand the need for home-schooling with the school shootings
| and all. Maybe that is why it is not that common in other
| countries?
| dotdi wrote:
| I get this is targeted at the US, still I'm throwing this out
| there:
|
| my wife and I (with combined degrees in literature, molecular
| biology and computer science) would have seriously considered
| homeschooling. But we live in Germany, and it is absolutely
| illegal here.
| david927 wrote:
| My wife and I have one child and she requested homeschooling
| for high school.
|
| So we moved from Europe to Idaho, where it's supported. (I'm
| American.) She's been doing a hybrid model of two classes a day
| at the local school and the rest on her own, and it's been
| incredibly successful. She's going into her senior year now and
| is looking at top universities like Harvard, Oxford and Yale.
| We couldn't be happier with the experience.
| actfrench wrote:
| That's definitely a problem. And even in the US families can
| face problems. I know great homeschool families in nys who had
| social services called on them by a neighbor. And many of the
| African American teens in our community have been stopped on
| the streets for "truancy" when they'd legally registered to
| homeschool.
| rfdave wrote:
| Why is that a problem?
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| It decreases the diversity of thought. If your school
| system is failing, the government shouldn't imprison
| parents who want to do their best to try something else.
| sofixa wrote:
| There are always private schools you can send your kids
| to _if_ you really think the public school system is
| failing.
| anon291 wrote:
| Private schools often start out as homeschooling coops.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Not sure why "diversity of thought" is axiomatically a
| Good Thing. When extremely religious parents homeschool
| their children because they want to pass on those values,
| that's bad for society. Some things are heterodox for a
| reason.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Diversity of thought is important for creating a robust
| problem-solving framework. Once a monoculture forms it
| becomes easy to subvert it because people tend to be
| vulnerable in the same way.
|
| e.g. a monoculture is easier to abuse by corrupt leaders.
| Increased diversity of thought may have prevented Germany
| from systematically becoming entirely reliant on Russia.
| potta_coffee wrote:
| You don't get to decide that religious values are good or
| bad.
| rfdave wrote:
| I'm going to go out on a limb and claim that human
| sacrifice is bad.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| I do, actually.
| sofixa wrote:
| As a citizen in a country, you get to decide on allowing
| religious fundamentalists to indoctrinate their children.
| I choose _hell no_ , keep religion out of schools and out
| of public life.
| potta_coffee wrote:
| You're using a lot of loaded language in your response.
| What is a "religious fundamentalist" to you? Also you're
| missing the point, because the topic of discussion is
| religious people educating their own kids, not religion
| in public schools.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| This is an authoritarian mindset common on the left but
| is antithetical to liberal values. Having a desire to
| control how other people prefer to care for their
| children usually doesn't end well historically.
| rfdave wrote:
| You're assuming that parents who are homeschooling intend
| to provide their children with a good education. However,
| what about people who claim to "homeschool" their
| children but don't actually follow through, leading to
| uneducated adults who can't support themselves. I think
| that assuming good intentions for everyone is a
| problematic assumption, and you need to manage policies
| for bad actors as well.
| a-user-you-like wrote:
| I've heard from some that it's Multifaceted:
|
| * To ensure their values live on
|
| * To take their kids out of a racist environment
|
| * To protect their kids from the high number of sexual assaults
| from government teachers
|
| * To protect their kids from bullying
|
| * To spend more time with their kids
|
| * Flexibility in scheduling and curriculum
| outside1234 wrote:
| Your kids need more than your life experience. They also need to
| learn how to get along with other kids.
| dyingkneepad wrote:
| Socialization. Going to school is not only about absorbing
| academical knowledge. It's about interacting with a broader group
| of people, learning how to behave, how to avoid common problems,
| etc. I would not be able to provide this to my kids.
|
| On top of that, the language we speak at home is not the language
| used by the school, or the rest of the country. There are a
| million problems that come with this: they would force us to use
| our language, which they're more comfortable with, they would be
| learning our broken accents, we're not super familiar with the
| local language so our ability to teach it would be worse, etc,
| etc.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| I would go further. Education is a secondary concern for grade
| school children. The main point of elementary school is 1.
| Figuring how to socialize/interact with peers 2. Starting to
| prepare children for responsibilities/solving problems without
| parental guidance. Education is important, but it's mainly a
| way to give children these skills.
| [deleted]
| unity1001 wrote:
| This. Not only what you said, but also even being the part of a
| certain generation as that generation grows up and creates a
| shared culture enables one to socialize much later. Having
| played similar games that a generation played, having listened
| to same songs, having played with the same toys etc.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| > It's about interacting with a broader group of people
|
| A cohort within 12 months in age, typically from the same
| neighborhood, is not a "broader group of people".
| verisimilidude wrote:
| It's much broader than none.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| Because home schooled children never see anyone else at
| all?
|
| I think you'll find that is not _actually_ the case.
|
| Also, I would argue that the distorted "society" produced
| by public schools is more harmful than beneficial.
| verisimilidude wrote:
| Tell us where homeschooled kids get their socialization.
|
| Church? That's a bit like the pot calling the kettle
| black when it comes to social distortion.
|
| Homeschooled peer groups? There's no way that's a broader
| population than the school in 99.9% of homeschooling
| scenarios.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| > Tell us where homeschooled kids get their
| socialization.
|
| Out in the real world, as opposed to an artificial
| environment designed to produce obedient factory workers.
| kennywinker wrote:
| I can answer this. Being from a non-religious family, it
| was the latter. Peer groups.
|
| I can't speak for everywhere or every time, but in the
| 90s in my city, those groups were diverse in some
| dimensions (age, economic, political beliefs,
| homeschooling method, schooling exposure, weird parents)
| and un-diverse in some dimensions (race, immigrants and
| 1st generation children of immigrants).
|
| It's important to note that I don't think every school
| would get a checkmark on all of those boxes either. But
| where it differs the most would probably be numbers.
| Small schools exist in rural settings, but a peer group
| of 40 kids only about 5-10 of similar age to you is
| pretty different from most people's school experience.
| voisin wrote:
| Swim lessons, camp, girl guides, soccer, art class, music
| lessons, part time jobs, church, etc etc etc etc etc. are
| you really so unimaginative as to believe that only
| school provides access to non-family members? Give your
| head a shake.
| verisimilidude wrote:
| Swim lessons? Get out of here. Church? I did imagine
| that. Try reading.
|
| And anyway, schooled kids do all of those things as well.
| Where's the advantage?
|
| There's a reason I don't consider those activities when
| talking about school socialization. All of the activities
| you mentioned are part-time and/or self-selected. School
| is full-time and you don't get to choose your kids'
| peers. You can't pull them out easily if you don't like
| the other kids. Like the rest of the world, kids will
| need to learn how to deal with it, away from you, all
| day, every day. They will need to learn how to deal with
| bullies and spurned crushes and tribal politics and bad
| teachers and all the rest. And yes, that can be harsh.
| Yes, some kids will have a difficult time. Most will
| learn invaluable social skills about how to integrate
| themselves into society, and they will be practicing
| those social skills _full-time_ at school.
| voisin wrote:
| > Swim lessons? Get out of here.
|
| Spanish class? Get out of here.
|
| Seriously dude, what's the difference? What do you think
| "socialization" means? It is about being exposed to
| others, interacting with them, and learning social norms.
| Sitting quietly at desks listening to a teacher is
| objectively less effective than something like swimming
| lessons, or really anything I mentioned in my list, and
| that description describes the bulk of time at school.
|
| Everything else you described makes me wonder why you
| think those things are essential to the human experience.
| Are you regularly bullied as an adult, because if so I
| suggest you make some life changes. Bad teachers are
| different from bad managers - you can't easily quit and
| go elsewhere, or complain to HR.
|
| Also, spurned crushes exist well beyond education for
| many people! Not sure why you suggest education is a key
| component of this.
|
| > Where's the advantage?
|
| I am not saying there is an advantage in these elements.
| I am saying socialization is not a disadvantage to
| homeschoolers and this is really a myth.
| [deleted]
| tomtheelder wrote:
| > Swim lessons? Get out of here. Church? I did imagine
| that. Try reading.
|
| I think we agree on this subject, but as a 3rd party in
| this back and forth I have to say that this is not
| appropriate discourse for this site. Please try to
| interpret others comments as charitably as possible.
| There is never a justification for saying something
| snarky and rude like "Get out of here" or "Try reading".
| _dain_ wrote:
| Where do state-schooled kids get their socialization?
| They are corralled into tightly age-bound groups, rarely
| befriending kids much older or younger than them. That's
| a very artificial and unnatural environment.
| anon291 wrote:
| > Church? That's a bit like the pot calling the kettle
| black when it comes to social distortion.
|
| Can't you say the same thing of parochial schools? Given
| the general success of parochial schools, I would find it
| difficult to imagine how one would argue against their
| model.
| voisin wrote:
| Socialization is important, on that we agree. Socialization at
| school is not always positive or even effective. There are many
| ways to socialize and jamming people of the same age in a room
| for 6-7 hours at a time is far less effective, in my opinion,
| than being part of extracurricular programs, clubs, etc that
| often mingle kids of different ages, backgrounds,
| neighbourhoods, and cultures far better than any school.
|
| I found that school is an effective way for people to be
| pigeonholed with labels and expectations that make it more
| difficult for people to explore and change. Once labelled the
| class clown, or the athlete, or the brainiac, or whatever, it
| is very hard to do or try other things so long as you are in a
| fixed environment. This is why, in my opinion, going to college
| or university is such a profound life event for people -
| suddenly new environments and opportunities to explore being
| something other than your fixed adolescent self.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| I don't really agree. An important part of school is learning
| to overcome obstacles. Forcing the children to be together
| for 6 hours everyday inevitably leads to conflict that needs
| to be resolved. Just doing extracurriculars doesn't give
| children the multi year time horizon they need to truly bond
| with their peers, and they can convince their parents to let
| them do something else if they don't like the kids. Dealing
| with people you don't get along with is an extremely
| important skill.
| VictorPath wrote:
| > jamming people of the same age in a room for 6-7 hours at a
| time is far less effective...
|
| This may be true, if one is raising a philosopher-king or
| something. In life I'm thrown into situations where I'm
| jammed together with people in an "ineffective" manner all
| the time. If extra-curricular programs are more effective
| they can deal with both environments. Personally I had some
| effective, good teachers in school as well as some
| ineffective team coaches.
| superb-owl wrote:
| I'm curious if there are legal hurdles to doing something between
| homeschooling and private schooling.
|
| E.g. is it possible for me and a few other neighborhood families
| hire a private tutor for our kids?
| PhaedrusV wrote:
| Check the homeschooling laws in your state; as a homeschooler
| your can hire whatever tutors you want.
|
| HSLDA.org has the state legal summaries
| actfrench wrote:
| This blog I wrote about how to start a microschool /learning
| pod/hybrid school might be helpful to you . Please let me know
| if you've got any specific questions I can be of support with
|
| https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/learningpod
| actfrench wrote:
| It depends on your state and the ages of the children involved.
| Sometimes it can get more tricky if kids are younger than five
| because that triggers DOH laws as well as DOE laws.
| anon291 wrote:
| I don't think so. My wife was 'homeschooled'. Her mother didn't
| like some of her classes in public school so pulled her out of
| them, such that she wasn't spending the required amount of time
| in the public school. Thus, my mother registered her as a
| homeschooler, so my wife didn't need to be in the classroom.
|
| Of course, the public schools here have to take your child if
| you drop them off.
|
| My wife is well-socialized, extremely well-educated, and way
| better off than her peers, so it worked.
| abnry wrote:
| That's probably just called homeschooling. The way I described
| how my parents' homeschooled me in highschool is that they were
| a general contractor for my education. Writing classes were
| online, history classes were from the local community college,
| other activities from the co-op, calculus was from a textbook
| supervised from my engineer dad, etc.
| kennywinker wrote:
| In my experience, both direct and indirect, homeschooling has the
| effect of concentrating a parent's influence on their children's
| lives / brain development / psychology, etc.
|
| Take that, and think about it, before you start. If you have
| unexamined issues like anger problems, fixations, avoidances,
| fears - those will have an impact on your child, and a bigger
| impact if you homeschool your child - purely on the basis of much
| more time spent together.
|
| If you're going to do it, i would _strongly_ encourage you to
| start therapy asap. Because the more of those things you crack
| open and deal with, the less your child will have to deal with
| the consequences of them.
|
| The school system has a ton of problems. So does home schooling.
| There is no magic bullet. Just choices.
| actfrench wrote:
| I think that in general parents concentrating brainpower on
| their kids would be a good thing ! And there are few things
| more enriching for your child (and their school or homeschool
| community) then getting involved in their education. A lot of
| research supports that parent involvement in education makes a
| bigger impact in a child's education and the health of their
| school then any other factor.
|
| https://www.modulo.app/learning/parent-engagement
|
| With regards to therapy - wholeheartedly agree. We've got to
| put on those oxygen masks before we assist our kids! A parent
| who practices self-care, is grounded and calm will be a better
| parent for sure hands down
| kennywinker wrote:
| > And there are few things more enriching for your child then
| getting involved in their education
|
| That's a pleasing statement that _seems_ true, but ignores
| the millions of ways that parents can be a bad influence.
| Over pressuring, taking away agency, just being bad study
| partners, biasing data as it arrives, etc etc etc.
|
| Everyone wants to believe they will be a good parent. But
| everyone will fuck it up in some way. One of the *good*
| things about traditional schooling is exposure to a lot of
| different influences. Bad and good. The bad teaches you to
| value the good, the good teaches you all the different ways
| that you can learn.
| anon291 wrote:
| Meh... teachers can do all those things as well.
| f154hfds wrote:
| This is a signal vs. noise issue. Quite simply if you think
| your values are better than the average (and believe me -
| you do think this) then it makes sense to inculcate your
| values into your children as much as possible. A decision
| to not home educate your children is usually because of
| other considerations, usually financial, sometimes
| cultural, etc.
|
| I don't want to minimize your point about mental health
| though. If you're struggling you have to help yourself
| before you can pour into your children.
| muffinman26 wrote:
| This is why I have an initial distrust for home schooling
| parents. Most of the home schooling parents I've
| personally encountered were members of various
| manipulative cults. They home-schooled their children
| because they wanted to control their child's world view
| as much as possible - make sure they never heard about
| scientific studies that would challenge their unfounded
| beliefs or encountered people who believed differently.
|
| If you actually believe that your values and world view
| are correct, then you shouldn't be worried about your
| child encountering other world views. As long as you
| teach your child to think for themself, they should
| ultimately recognize your values are better.
|
| Personally, I want my child to think I'm a terrible
| person, because I want them to be better than me. Our
| ancestors made loads of mistakes, and I want my children
| to recognize mine.
| wanderr wrote:
| I think there is a big difference between supplementing
| and replacing. Near total control leaves them sheltered,
| naive, and probably more rebellious, and of course it's
| silly to think that you can do a better job across the
| board than a bunch of professionals.
|
| If you have the time, getting involved in your child's
| education is probably a huge win. Fill in some gaps you
| see, correct some biases. Help them get ahead in areas
| they are doing well in, help them catch up in areas they
| are not doing so well in. But just because those things
| are helpful doesn't mean that replacing their education
| entirely is going to be an improvement.
| mikkergp wrote:
| If you think your values are the only ones your kids
| should absorb, I think that is a big red flag. <-- This
| may have been a bit harsh, I invite further response to
| the below, as I'd like to understand what you mean.
|
| edit: Upon further reflection, I disagree with the
| premise. I'm a product of the decade and environment I
| grew up in. Alot of my values probably aren't relevant to
| growing up today, and the types of experiences kids will
| be exposed to. Some things I just haven't had exposure
| to. Kids should be a combination of their parents values
| and have the opportunity to experience life such that
| they can develop their own values. My values are very
| different from that of my parents, and I suspect will be
| different from that of my children.
| kennywinker wrote:
| > If you're struggling you have to help yourself before
| you can pour into your children.
|
| To be clear I think this applies to people who aren't
| struggling, or don't believe they are struggling. We all
| have a lifetime of accumulated damage. I hate the
| "therapy is for people with problems" idea. It's not
| about struggling or not, it's about repeating unhealthy
| patterns to a next generation - or the swinging pendulum
| of overcorrecting our parents mistakes. If you have or
| are going to have kids, please, do at least 6 sessions
| with a therapist you like. Worst case it does nothing,
| best case you save your self and your kids a lot of pain.
| concinds wrote:
| While more self-awareness and self-knowledge is always better,
| I think the main test for this should be "Ainsworth's Strange
| Situation". It's a test of your child's attachment style is;
| which is a good reflection of the child's (and your) emotional
| health.
|
| For homeschoolers, it's probably a good idea to check if your
| child displays secure attachment first (since insecure
| attachment in the child is generally caused by the parents, and
| schooling your child at home might just make it worse).
|
| And on a final note: why the hell don't we systematically test
| all children for attachment styles? They: a) can be detected
| very early, b) are much easier to correct when caught early,
| and c) have vast impacts for the child's whole life. You don't
| need any equipment except a trained psychologist!
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Do we have enough psychologists in the US to systematically
| test all children? And does insurance cover it?
| concinds wrote:
| No you don't; but it would be a worthwhile investment due
| to the incredibly positive repercussions. See this:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory#Crime
|
| See also a link between insecure attachment and addiction:
| https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.007
| 2...
|
| This policy would have incredibly positive repercussions
| throughout society; in that sense, it would be very cheap.
| kennywinker wrote:
| I've got nothing against attachment theory - but there is
| absolutely no amount of attachment theory treatment that
| can solve the american system. Poverty is baked into the
| system - it has never existed without it and it can't
| exist without it. Poverty will beget harmful upbringings
| and damaged attachment.
| wyager wrote:
| I'd rather have the median homeschool parent influencing
| students than the median K-8 schoolteacher.
|
| I also don't buy your notion that neuroses are directly
| transferable by contact. If anything, your kid will probably be
| so annoyed by them that they'll be exactly the opposite.
| troupe wrote:
| While I know some incredible public school teachers, the
| average homeschool parent I know is going to be much better
| for their kids than the average public school teacher.
|
| Fortunately if you are homeschooling you can seek out
| specific teachers to help expand on things and choose those
| that are excellent. (Many homeschooler start taking community
| college classes in highschool if there are good options
| available.)
| _dain_ wrote:
| Now do this for the influence of the state's pathologies on
| public schoolkids.
| kennywinker wrote:
| Im focusing on the problems with homeschooling because I
| believe that if you're considering homeschooling, you are
| probably _well_ aware of those pathologies. You probably have
| lived experience of them, since odds are you went to school.
|
| The other reason is I don't have direct experience of the
| pathologies of the school system - so if someone is going to
| speak about them it shouldn't be me.
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| >Now do this for the influence of the state's pathologies on
| public schoolkids.
|
| Such as?
| duckmysick wrote:
| Zero-tolerance policies could be one example.
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| What's a "zero-tolerance" policy? I've only ever heard
| this term used in the context of guns on school campuses.
| Does it have some other meaning?
| anon291 wrote:
| Suppose you are a kid who's getting bullied by a larger
| kid. Every day the kid takes your stuff and messes with
| it or something. You (maybe) complain to the teacher, but
| really you're scared that if the teacher leaks that you
| complained, the kid will beat you.
|
| So eventually you grow tired of it, you've worked out a
| bit, and now you beat the kid up. Now... _you_ get
| suspended /expelled, instead of the bully. That's a zero-
| tolerance policy.
|
| My wife's cousin was suspended for a few weeks for
| standing up to her bully. My in-laws and her family
| decided to reward her and she got two weeks of a fun
| family vacation. But the school was trying to punish her,
| and if her parents and grandparents weren't more
| sensible, perhaps they would have succeeded.
| ComradePhil wrote:
| And corporate pathologies which make it into the state via
| lobbies and praganda. Example: trans activism, the only
| reason for it's existence is that pharmaceuticals make
| millions from medications and medical procedures.
| kennywinker wrote:
| That is an insane thing to say. Qanon level insanity. Trans
| activism is big pharma selling HRT to kids? First off, HRT
| is expensive, but not that expensive. Whatever made up
| narrative you have for them convincing kids to support
| trans people would be entirely too expensive to justify.
| Second, trans people have existed for MUCH MUCH longer than
| pharmaceutical companies have existed.
|
| Edit: oh, this poster thinks hitler was an admirable
| figure. Ok, nevermind, no need to entertain their words
| anymore: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31722179
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| So what explanation do YOU have for trans activism? It
| certainly isn't just "we have always had this many of
| them but now it's ok to acknowledge". From my experiences
| (which are many) it is vastly due to cultural
| identitarianism with a hefty side helping of physical,
| emotional, and psychological abuse. But I still want to
| hear your explanation.
| kennywinker wrote:
| People have always been this way. Some points in history
| culture has crushed it out of almost everyone, sometimes
| in history culture has encouraged it to flourish. We're
| in a time when culture is doing both.
|
| Your assertion that it is certainly not aways been here,
| is wrong. Examples in history are plentiful. From
| shakepearean actors, to two-spirit people in the
| americas. Gender is somewhere between 50% and 100% a
| social construct. We construct it differently in
| different times, but the desire to construct it both as a
| binary and as a fluid spectrum are as human as breathing.
| acover wrote:
| How much can a parent even affect their children? I remember
| studies of adopted children showing it was little.
|
| Edit: this[0] is not the study but shows something similar
|
| > Adopted children resemble their adoptive parents slightly in
| early childhood but not at all in middle childhood or
| adolescence In contrast, during childhood and adolescence,
| adopted children become more like their biological parents, and
| to the same degree as children and parents in control families
|
| [0]
| https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9280.199...
| cm2012 wrote:
| The studies are mixed!
|
| Twin studies show that nurture has little impact on
| personality or IQ, excepting things like serious abuse.
|
| But, they do show huge correlation between parental income
| and child income.
|
| So it seems nurture can affect life outcomes a lot but not
| much intrinsic to who you are.
| tomtheelder wrote:
| > Twin studies show that nurture has little impact on
| personality or IQ, excepting things like serious abuse.
|
| I don't know anything about personality, but I do know that
| for IQ this is an _awfully_ contentious topic, for a
| multitude of reasons. Whether that 's ignoring maternal
| effects, the implicit assumption of independence between
| genetics and environment in twins reared apart, or just
| plain old questioning of how to interpret heritability as a
| statistic, it's REALLY unclear what to think. You will find
| serious academics in field with vastly different beliefs.
|
| I spent an inappropriately large amount of time researching
| this recently, and my conclusion is that it's a lot harder
| to measure than people think, and that the commonly cited
| numbers of 0.7-0.8 for heritability should be viewed with a
| significant deal of skepticism. It might be right, but it's
| a number that I have very low confidence in. I would also
| say that even if those numbers are correct, that does imply
| a very substantial effect due to environment.
|
| What I will say is that you have to more or less ignore the
| Wikipedia article on the subject. It's too political a
| topic for Wikipedia to perform well.
| concinds wrote:
| Be extremely careful believing in the "it's mostly genetics,
| nurture is a minor factor" stuff. Most of these studies have
| surprisingly bad (or at least naive) methodologies, of the
| "we don't know what we don't know (but people like Taleb do)"
| kind (!).
|
| See e.g. this study: https://elifesciences.org/articles/39725
| (and that's for height, which is vastly lower-dimensional
| than emotional health or IQ)
|
| Or an easier to read article:
| https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-turmoil-over-
| predicting-t...
|
| Can also see this thread:
| https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1163435285193076737 and
| this tweet:
| https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1476173796323246082.
| Nature-uber-alles studies rely on relatively basic
| misunderstandings of the required math.
|
| Of course if you want to read studies by biologists too,
| there's quite a few addressing the problems with twin studies
| (especially with high-dimensional outcomes like intelligence
| and emotional health). But to be clear, the problem with the
| nature-matters-a-lot studies isn't a biology problem; it's a
| math problem.
|
| And the wider problem is that the "mostly nature not nurture"
| idea disincentivizes conscientious, careful parenting (since
| "it doesn't matter in the long run anyway").
| jerf wrote:
| This is one of those places in science where you can defend
| almost any arbitrary combination of nature vs. nuture not
| just with a paper here and a paper there, but with a _slew_
| of papers supporting your chosen position. It 's just there's
| a slew of papers supporting all the other positions, too.
|
| At this point, about all I'd say based on the science is that
| it clearly isn't 0% or 100% of either, but the data to make
| any grand pronouncements based on science beyond that in any
| direction just isn't solid enough. I'd be comfortable saying
| "it's more complicated" but I'm not convinced enough of any
| particular summary of the "more complicated" to bank on it.
| pawelmurias wrote:
| I know a lot of people that are super heavily influenced by
| traumas inflicted by their parents. Homeschooling someone is
| a lot different then your average lifestyle (that possibly
| wasn't that different between the adopted families)
| actfrench wrote:
| Are they less so traumatized by their parents when they go
| to school ?
| swatcoder wrote:
| Sure.
|
| Along with respite, school gave me access to countless
| alternatives perspectives, influences, and people that
| would become part of my coping strategies.
|
| I'm absolutely certain that home schooling is great for
| certain parents and certain children, but some kids are
| better off not being around their parents quite so much.
| kennywinker wrote:
| That's a pretty deeply unquantifiable thing. How do you
| measure trauma at the scale we're talking about? Self
| reporting will only reflect the trauma people are aware
| of, and mental health diagnosis are basically just self
| reporting one-step removed.
|
| As far as I know we're stuck in anecdote and personal
| opinion territory, until we have a better way of
| quantifying the kind of low-level trauma of a non-
| abusive-but-still-damaging childhood.
| elil17 wrote:
| Twin adoption studies often show that effects of parenting
| are present but smaller than effects of genetics. However
| those don't typically look at abnormal cases like
| homeschooling.
| dash2 wrote:
| Very much this. Effects of current levels of variation in
| parenting practice [?] effects of potential variation.
| Here's the argument in full:
| https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/no-wait-stop-parents-
| do-m...
| rolfea wrote:
| I'd expand that even more broadly to say, if you are going to
| raise children at all, I would strongly encourage you to start
| therapy asap.
|
| Some of the best parenting advice I ever got was, before you
| try to raise a kid, you need to get your own shit together.
| vyrotek wrote:
| Time.
|
| I also think our 3 kids would struggle with the lack of
| separation between Teacher and Parent. Similar to how some adults
| struggle with working at home and separating work and home life
| appropriately. I know several folks who do it well and love the
| freedom and flexibility. But I feel it would take a lot of effort
| to really stay on top of it and not let things slide when it gets
| tough.
|
| Not going to lie, the "babysitting" aspect of school is very nice
| too.
| actfrench wrote:
| Childcare is a really big deal. One of the nice things about
| homeschool though is you can customize childcare for when you
| need it, not just 9-3
| aaronchall wrote:
| I homeschooled in 8th grade and I loved it.
|
| - No commute to middle school, which returned me an hour of my
| day right there.
|
| - No bullying from the soon-to-be dropouts.
|
| - No gross school lunches or having to tote around a smelly
| lunchbag/box/cooler.
|
| - No carrying a pile of books everywhere because the
| administration banned bookbags (drugs or weapons or something
| like that...), and no dealing with the worst students who always
| had their hands free because they didn't care if they had their
| books.
|
| - I went as fast as I wanted through my Algebra textbook (doing
| up to 8 lessons a day.)
|
| - Went to a science class taught every Friday in the next city
| over with demonstrations of chemistry and physics.
|
| - Played my trombone the homeschool band, we performed at Disney
| World and local recitals too.
|
| - Made some friends in the homeschool group.
|
| - I disliked the English and History exercises but I did them in
| weekly batches to get them done. And I read lots of books from
| the big city's library which was far superior to the school or
| local city's library that I would have to use later when high
| school let out.
|
| If I had stuck with the homeschooling system I could have
| finished my BS at the same time I finished high school by taking
| all my classes at the local university - but I would have
| probably not double-majored.
|
| My experience with home-schooling gave me a big insight to my
| high school experience. I asked for privileges such as staying in
| classrooms during lunch or pep-rallies to play chess or read, and
| I usually got them because I was well-behaved, respectful, and
| demonstrated I could be trusted.
|
| But I also resented the arbitrariness and capriciousness of the
| public school administration's dictates built around maintaining
| order due to worst behaving students (for example, I couldn't
| wear a ball-cap on a bad hair day because the resource officer
| caught kids hiding drugs in caps - knocking a cap off would start
| brutal fighting). Compared to that system, homeschooling was a
| kind of utopia to me.
|
| The only downside was not being around the friends that I grew up
| with. Fewer birthday parties and such. But there was more hanging
| out with a much smaller set of friends who were all
| homeschooling, and making new friends in the local homeschool
| resource group. I went back to high school in 9th grade on the
| theory that I missed my friends and wanted to be involved in
| student government and other clubs. But they weren't as friendly
| as I remembered, and student government and the other clubs did
| basically nothing. So I spent my 12th grade year at the local
| university full time, which gave me the freedom I sorely missed
| from 8th grade. My only regret was not doing it sooner.
| JJMcJ wrote:
| > finished my BS at the same time I finished high school
|
| I suspect a high %age of people here on HN could say the same
| thing.
|
| There's the Big Bang Theory effect, to portray all
| intellectually gifted people as neurotic social basket cases. I
| think that's done in many schools as well.
| ShadowBear wrote:
| Homeschooling was detrimental to my own social development as a
| child, and that of my (many) siblings. Adjusting to college life
| made me nearly suicidal with hopelessness that I'd ever catch up
| either academically or socially, and none of my other siblings
| managed to successfully complete it. We're all doing much better
| now, but none of us would ever consider putting our own children
| through that kind of isolation long-term.
|
| Now I'm part of an ex-homeschooler support group where most of us
| had a similar story. In my own case, the "homeschooling" was a
| political choice by parents who were deeply paranoid about the US
| government. They lacked the education to even understand what all
| we were missing and relied on a popular curriculum program to
| guide them without any supplemental counseling or outside
| tutoring.
|
| Academically I'm sure some more educated parents could do better
| and understand they need to get information from a variety of
| sources, but socially it would be very difficult to replicate the
| opportunities that school provides most kids.
| [deleted]
| actfrench wrote:
| Thank you much for sharing this experience. I'm really sorry
| this was the case for you and your siblings. I myself was e
| trembly lonely as a child despite trying public and private
| schools. I ended up cooped up all the time doing homework and
| not much time to interact in school. It wasn't really until I
| went to an acting school in Paris in my twenties that I made
| really close friends. It was it's a different culture that felt
| more conducive to socializing and community - and in my
| experience more inclusive of a weirdo like myself :) since then
| I've found my friends working on collaborative projects (tech
| accelerators) or spiritual communities (zen center, yoga)
| ShadowBear wrote:
| One important thing about child development in isolated
| environments is that academically: you can catch up later. You
| might be older than the other students when you finally get
| there, but you can do it and end up doing just as well as the
| children who had a head start. But socially that's a very long,
| lonely road I wouldn't wish on anyone.
|
| The only situation in which I'd consider homeschooling my child
| is if it was in the daily, sustained company of other families
| and involved parents. Skill-building aside: seeing other kids
| at the playground once a week doesn't even begin to take the
| edge off the loneliness.
| cowmix wrote:
| I'm 50, live in AZ (where home schooling is very popular) -- I
| didn't homeschool my kids but many of my friends did. Here's what
| I have seen:
|
| 1) If you are non-religious, the canned curriculum, trade shows,
| support groups are very few and far between. You will be much
| more lonely than your religious home-schooling counterparts.
|
| 2) As your kids get older, it is harder and harder to give them a
| proper education. By the time your kids are in middle-school,
| subjects get harder for a parent (or pairs of parents) to cover
| in a way that does each subject justice.
|
| In the end, most of my friends who home-schooled eventually sent
| their kids to middle-school and or high-school... and that timing
| seemed about right.
| virissimo wrote:
| > As your kids get older, it is harder and harder to give them
| a proper education. By the time your kids are in middle-school,
| subjects get harder for a parent (or pairs of parents) to cover
| in a way that does each subject justice.
|
| As a kid, I attended mostly private school, but when public
| school-educated parents express concern that they wouldn't be
| able to competently teach standard middle school subjects, that
| sounds much more like an indictment of public schooling than of
| the at-home variety.
| Mc91 wrote:
| > As your kids get older, it is harder and harder to give them
| a proper education. By the time your kids are in middle-school,
| subjects get harder for a parent (or pairs of parents) to cover
| in a way that does each subject justice.
|
| I agree. My cousin's daughter was not home-schooled, but she
| was having trouble with high school math so I tutored her. At
| the time I was going to college for computer science. We did
| algebra for a year and that went fine. I still remembered it
| from high school. Then we got to trigonometry. The year I was
| supposed to learn trigonometry in high school was disruptive so
| I never learned it properly. So I studied the lesson and learn
| it myself before I would go see her. I'm supposed to be the
| math/CS guy too. It worked out and she passed trigonometry too
| - I did have to spend much more time preparing to teach
| trigonometry than algebra as I had never learned trigonometry.
| I can imagine one parent having to teach trigonometry, biology,
| physics, chemistry, the themes of the Scarlet Letter, French,
| Medieval history etc.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| What stops me is that the socialization and peer-group
| relationship skills that are obtained _rapidly_ in a public
| school context are not replicatable at home. Neither are the
| skills learned in dealing with non-family adults, independence of
| task skills away from home, and much else besides in that vein.
|
| I would rather -- and do -- support the public school system in
| my (medium sized) city.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| I personally have never found the "socialization" argument
| persuasive. Public school is, in fact, a highly artificial and
| non-representative environment. You have a group of kids, all
| within 12 months of the same age, and an authority figure to
| boss them around.
|
| As far as I know, that kind of "society" is not replicated
| _anywhere_ , with the possible exception of military boot camp.
|
| Real societies have a mixture of people from infancy to old
| age. Real workplaces have a mixture of people from entry level
| to retirement age. Even prison has a mixture of ages!
|
| The model of education used in most of the United States was
| designed in the 19th century with the purpose of cranking out
| factory workers who would remain on-task until a bell rang --
| so even its original purpose is largely obsolete.
| tomtheelder wrote:
| I broadly agree that it's a bit of an odd environment, and
| definitely not one that is optimized for socialization, but
| there are two reasons I feel that it "works."
|
| Firstly I think that simple exposure is very important. Going
| to school tends to just force you to interact with a lot of
| different people. That could probably be replicated in other
| environments, just with more difficulty.
|
| Second, I think that one of _the_ most important facets of
| socialization is shared experience. Even if traditional
| schooling isn 't an ideal setting for socialization, it is
| still what most experience. I think removing a child from
| that sets them up for a significantly more challenging time
| when it comes to relating to others.
|
| So yeah I think I agree that school isn't really ideal for
| socialization, but I'm not sure there is a better option out
| there at the moment.
| actfrench wrote:
| Exactly this. Better have custom socialization, custom
| academics and custom childcare
| giaour wrote:
| A military boot camp is also an educational institution, so
| the similarity to a school is hardly accidental.
| canjobear wrote:
| What about this is specific to public as opposed to private
| schools?
| actfrench wrote:
| It's interesting because I actually have observed that
| homeschooling, especially in large urban areas, is much more
| social than school.
|
| A huge number of families opt out of public school because of
| racism and bullying.
|
| Just like families can design their child's education, they can
| design their social experiences.
|
| School is a socially engineered environment with little
| opportunity for organic play.
|
| In traditional school, kids sit in rows or at tables in same
| age classrooms (often not very diverse ones since they are
| segregated by neighborhood in public school or parent ability
| to pay in private school)and they get 30 minute of highly
| chaotic recess a day if they're lucky.
|
| In homeschool , families participate in highly diverse,
| eclectic group of children of different ages. They engage in
| playgroups and community gatherings, field trips, classes,
| collaborative projects and have plenty of time for play.
|
| The idea that homeschooling is less social is a myth - and as
| the homeschool population grows increasing opportunities for
| organic social interactions and true community emerge.
|
| Here's some more that I've written on this topic
| https://manisharoses.medium.com/highly-social-homeschooling-...
| hnhg wrote:
| I'm wondering about the economics of a household that can
| afford to have at least one non-working parent in San
| Francisco, and can maintain all those activities for their
| children. To me, this reads like a schedule for the children
| of the particularly wealthy. No one that I know who lives
| with kids in the vicinity could afford this.
| na85 wrote:
| I was a camp counselor for many years in my teens and into my
| twenties.
|
| We could always-- _always_ --tell which kids were the
| homeschooled kids.
| wngr wrote:
| Would appreciate an anecdote.
| slackware_linux wrote:
| Can you elaborate?
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| Because they were less amenable to blindly accepting orders
| from arbitrary authority figures?
| Shared404 wrote:
| In my experience s/less/more/ .
|
| I was homeschooled for several years, and have known a
| variety of other homeschooled people.
|
| For me personally, I was impacted in my ability to
| socialize with people in my own group, and did not develop
| any rebellious tendencies until I re-entered public school
| and realized there were other options.
|
| For some homeschooled people I know, they can't read at
| above a first grade level.
|
| Others can read/write at a higher than average level, may
| be average or better at math, and have little capability to
| interact with others.
|
| Still others are some of the smartest, most well rounded
| people I know.
|
| Unfortunately, most homeschooled people in my experience
| sit somewhere between the first and second groups - which
| then means that gatherings of home-schooled families will
| also tend that direction.
| trendoid wrote:
| Can you explain briefly in what way you could tell?
| giaour wrote:
| There could be a selection effect at play. When I was growing
| up (the nineties), there was a social stigma around
| homeschooling due to its association with creationism. I went
| to Christian summer camps until I was a teenager, and the
| homeschooled kids stood out even in that environment as by
| far the more religious among us. Whether they were awkward
| because their religious practices shielded them from normal
| life or because they were raised by naturally awkward parents
| that self-selected into a highly regimented lifestyle is a
| mystery.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Whatever selection biases there may have been in the past,
| homeschooling is becoming much more popular now. COVID and
| remote school pulled back the curtain on the type and amount
| of learning that is happening in public schools, and parents
| of all types are opting out of the system.
|
| What we are seeing now is a seismic shift that will result in
| a much more mainstream population of homeschooled kids. I
| doubt it will be as easy to tell which kids were homeschooled
| in a decade.
| juve1996 wrote:
| Can you provide data to back this claim?
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _James Dwyer, a professor at William and Mary Law
| School and co-author of "Homeschooling: The History and
| Philosophy of a Controversial Practice," told me: a
| growing segment of "the mainstream middle class, well-
| educated and not on either political extreme, has been
| very disenchanted with public schools' response to the
| pandemic."_
|
| from https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2022-0
| 1-24/8-t...
|
| There are many other articles about the growth of
| homeschooling during the pandemic, and the likely causes.
| As the author of the LA Times article notes, the data is
| still being gathered so experts' theories have yet to be
| validated with certainty.
|
| But I've not seen anyone question the notion that the
| people who have recently started homeschooling are not
| demographically the same as those who homeschooled pre-
| pandemic. If you have seen such claims, I would be
| interested to see them!
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > We could always--always--tell which kids were the
| homeschooled kids.
|
| With 100% accuracy in which direction? You noticed every
| homeschooled kid, or every kid you thought was homeschooled
| was actually homeschooled? Because those have very different
| implications.
| mahogany wrote:
| > the skills learned in dealing with non-family adults
|
| In my experience, the relationship developed with non-family
| adults at school is a narrow, one-sided relationship, where
| non-family adults are authority figures, rather than say,
| mentors, strangers, or even friends. Having this skill is still
| important but the one-sidedness can warp a kid's perception of
| what adults "are", so it's important to develop adult
| relationships outside of the school setting.
|
| Also, your first sentence seems true to me, but I assume home-
| schoolers aren't always at home -- they can meet with other
| groups of home-schooled kids, or join groups related to sports,
| activities, etc. This, of course, largely depends on the
| parents.
| techabby25 wrote:
| Yes correct
| noufalibrahim wrote:
| I used to do it for my kids and wrote some articles on why and
| how on my blog here
| http://nibrahim.net.in/2011/09/06/homeschooling_in_india_par...
|
| I moved towns and my main issues were 1. Lack of a like minded
| community who were willing to invest time and energy like I was.
| It's a demanding journey and not one that's easy (or even
| possible) to do alone. 2. Lack of insight into what the future
| holds esp. from the POV of higher studies. I can experiment with
| my own life but was scared of doing it with my kids'.
| actfrench wrote:
| Cool! Thanks so much for sharing ! Looking forward to poring
| through these entries!
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| We home schooled our 4th grade daughter during the pandemic. Was
| very fun, she was easily able to memorize the periodic table
| through song, made lots of progress in understanding operators in
| mathematics, wrote weekly letters to family for class...
|
| She is back in school now because it's a great school, but if we
| didn't have options we would definitely teach at home, there has
| never been more tools available to make it easy.
|
| Truth is the U.S. economy is entirely built around the assumption
| that both parents are working full time now so there is less time
| to be at home to help kids learn, so we send them off to giant
| prison-looking buildings and hope for the best.
| TimPC wrote:
| Needing to work mostly. I have the skill set to teach and
| considered becoming an elementary school teacher at one point in
| my life. I know socialization is a big factor but I feel like
| that can be accounted for with lots of extra curricular group
| programs and an active effort to introduce them to kids their own
| age to make social plans with.
|
| I'm mostly interested because of the fact that private tutoring
| performs at roughly the 98th percentile compared to classroom
| teaching. I think that's a big enough gap that I consider
| education an unsolved problem. Plenty of kids would be capable of
| going to university at sixteen instead of nineteen if they got an
| individually tailored education instead of being put through one-
| size fits all programs.
| optemization wrote:
| I don't know much about the space but if you're just starting
| out, I'd pay attention to two interesting companies: 1.
| https://www.synthesis.com (productizing Elon Musk school) 2.
| https://primer.com (community for home schooled kids)
| mcone wrote:
| Our kids are 11 and 6 and we've always homeschooled them. As a
| secular homeschooling family, our headaches aren't related to
| curriculums or anything academic-related (there are lots of good
| options and resources out there) but rather the lack of
| socialization options outside of the home. If your experience is
| like ours, you'll quickly discover is that most homeschooling
| families are very religious or pulled their children out of
| school due to some kind of behavioral issue.
| actfrench wrote:
| That's tough . Do you live in a rural area ? I find this is a
| lot easier in a place like San Francisco and NYC where there
| are more secular homeschoolers and more techies and teachers
| educating their kids at home for a better education /more
| mastery learning . Hopefully this will change for you as the
| population grows.
|
| Have you considered reaching out to SEA homeschoolers for
| connecting w families near you ?
|
| https://m.facebook.com/seahomeschoolers
|
| I know a bunch of secular homeschoolers around the world and am
| happy to help you forge connections if you like :)
| TaupeRanger wrote:
| Need for daycare (with busy parents) and socialization (in the
| absence of neighborhood friends).
|
| When working from home, it is difficult to do serious, thoughtful
| work when your young children are running and playing around the
| house.
| copperx wrote:
| Getting buy-in from your own parents is a giant hurdle, because
| they need to dedicate a huge portion of their personal time to
| schooling you. That's not an easy undertaking.
|
| I have not seen any efforts in developing materials that
| children, once they've decided they want to be homeschooled, can
| give to their parents to convince them that homeschooling is a
| good idea.
| codingdave wrote:
| I have one child who thrived learning remotely during the
| pandemic, and two who did not. No matter what platforms are set
| up, there are simply some people who work well
| independently/remotely and some who do not. Same as the rest of
| us - some of us love remote work, some never want to do it again.
|
| My recommendation is to put some focus into helping parents
| identify which camp their children fall into before trying it
| out, to avoid kids crashing and burning as they discover it is
| not for them.
| bell-cot wrote:
| My sister-in-law homeschooled most of her kids. OTOH, she left
| her full-time job as an elementary school teacher to do that.
| Right after my kid brother got a new, _far_ -better-paid job,
| which made that a viable option.
|
| She's still kinda involved with homeschooling. From various
| comments on what that is like these days (post-1990's), there are
| a huge number of resources already on the web to support
| homeschooling.
| actfrench wrote:
| Definitely a lot of resources are emerging though I've heard
| many parents have challenges sifting through them all
| actfrench wrote:
| Getting the right job to homeschool is important
| triyambakam wrote:
| Consider reading "Dumbing Us Down" by John Gatto for anyone who
| isn't yet convinced about the benefits of homeschooling.
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