[HN Gopher] Homeschooling hits record numbers
___________________________________________________________________
Homeschooling hits record numbers
Author : bilsbie
Score : 149 points
Date : 2025-11-21 00:31 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (reason.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (reason.com)
| cc-d wrote:
| Fantastic.
|
| LLM's have revolutionized the way people learn and utilize what
| they have learned. The future is 8 year old material science lads
| doing chemistry in their step-mother's RV
| deadbolt wrote:
| More likely the future is a bunch of children not knowing jack
| shit and suffering other abuse.
| nvahalik wrote:
| I've had to re-learn math skills long forgotten to help my
| kids with their school work. It's been an interesting
| experience.
|
| The expectations for home schooling are different and are, in
| some ways, aimed more towards reality. My son finishes the
| bulk of his work in an hour most days and then has time for 2
| instruments, learning C++, Rust, and Python, community/church
| participation and more.
| johnneville wrote:
| is "time for 2 instruments, learning C++, Rust, and Python"
| not schooling ?
| nvahalik wrote:
| He's still learning. Driven by what he loves. And this is
| on top of the "standard" stuff.
| JohnHaugeland wrote:
| You might be surprised. The studies say it's a primarily
| negative impact, especially in math and college attendance.
|
| https://responsiblehomeschooling.org/research/the-test-score...
| jmathai wrote:
| I do think Covid forced people to ask questions they hadn't
| before.
|
| We have sent our kids to private, poor quality and top rated
| schools.
|
| We saw a stark difference between the poor quality and higher
| cost options. No surprise.
|
| But the reason we are considering home schooling our younger kids
| _was_ surprising. It says something about a system dedicated to
| teaching children when parents think they can do as well or
| better.
|
| That's just education. The social situation in schools is
| ludicrous. Phones, social media, etc. what a terrible environment
| we adults have created for kids to learn both educationally and
| socially.
|
| Home schooling has answers for ALL of that.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| > But the reason we are considering home schooling our younger
| kids was surprising. It says something about a system dedicated
| to teaching children when parents think they can do as well or
| better.
|
| What's the reason?
| jmathai wrote:
| I think we could teach them as well as the school does. And
| more importantly, we can provide a better environment for
| them to mature socially.
| Aboutplants wrote:
| "And more importantly, we can provide a better environment
| for them to mature socially."
|
| Take it from someone who was homeschooled from pre-k
| through high school, you will absolutely not provide a
| better social environment. I was so unprepared to handle
| the social dynamics in casual, educational or professional
| that it took years and years of active work to put myself
| in a position where it wasn't an absolute detriment to my
| success. I have no doubt you can educate your children
| well, it's every other aspect of humanity that is typically
| missed out on and can lead to unintended consequences.
| Freedom2 wrote:
| One could say this is where the free market of schooling
| comes into play. Does it make more economic sense for
| businesses to choose those with social skills learnt from
| home schooling, or ones who have not been home schooled?
| Definitely curious to see where this goes.
| sanktanglia wrote:
| If only it was actually a free market. Republicans are
| actively kneecapping public education so they can pump
| money to the schools that are free to to discriminate and
| kick out underperforming kids
| jmathai wrote:
| Sounds like you had a hard time transitioning. Sorry for
| that.
|
| I don't believe it's a magic pill by any means. But I've
| known many recently home schooled kids and they seem a
| lot more mature than their public school peers. So I
| think we have a decent shot at having similar results.
| Voultapher wrote:
| Seeming mature to an adult isn't the thing in question
| though, is it? Not feeling or appearing awkward when
| interacting on their own in their 20s is what is being
| criticized. The anecdotal evidence you present doesn't
| include home schooled children in their 20s as far as I
| can tell.
| jmathai wrote:
| It doesn't but they seem on a trajectory for adulthood
| that appears just fine compared to to others.
| QuercusMax wrote:
| Homeschooled kids have much more flexible schedules which
| can allow them to do things in the community during the
| daytime that are not available to kids who have to go to
| school in-person full time.
|
| This can include volunteer work or part time jobs working
| with the public and interacting with people of all ages.
|
| Why do you think you being forced into a monoculture of
| only kids your own age would help your interaction with
| others when you're in your 20s? 25 year olds don't behave
| anything like teenagers.
| Voultapher wrote:
| Because I've met several homeschooled adults over the
| years, and talking to them that's something most of them
| had in common when explaining the impact it had on their
| life. Looking for more objective data I found this one
| source that seems to be written by people not already
| convinced of the desirability of homescooling [1],
| forgive me for being skeptical of the objectivity of
| places called "national home education research
| institute". Overall it paints a more positive picture
| than I had expected, but also highlights it's
| limitations.
|
| [1] http://hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/Taubman/PE
| PG/conf...
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| It is weird how adults are looking at children and
| assessing their social abilities. You would need to ask
| the children's peers what they think.
| AlchemistCamp wrote:
| Of my closest friends when I was in high school, the one
| with the best social skills had been home schooling since
| I met him when he was 10. However, he did participate in
| extracurricular activities at the local public school,
| like a computer club in middle school and then theater in
| high school. The only area he was really lagging at age
| 18 was in math, but that reversed a few years later and
| now he has a STEM PhD and has been teaching at a large
| state school for the past decade and a half.
|
| I'd say a lot depends on both the quality of the
| schooling and maybe even more depends on the person's
| natural inclinations. He wouldn't have had time for all
| the reading he did as a teenager if he weren't home
| schooled, but he'd probably still have been in theater
| and still have been very open and curious life-long
| learner as an adult.
| Brendinooo wrote:
| I dunno. I think I could spin a narrative where public
| middle school dynamics (that is, bullied quite a bit)
| created issues for me that hampered my ability to succeed
| in social settings.
|
| I don't really think that way in general, but I guess I'd
| just want to point out that the spectrum isn't "good
| socialization in public school" to "bad/no socialization
| in homeschooling".
| QuercusMax wrote:
| I had the opposite experience. I was home schooled from
| 2nd grade through high school, but I didn't just spend
| all my time alone with parents. My family was part of a
| home-school co-op, I played in the local youth symphony,
| and I had a job working at the local university when I
| was 16 and taking college classes there. I also have a
| large extended family.
|
| I didn't really have much trouble adjusting to living on
| campus at college, and I've never had issues with
| interpersonal stuff at work or school.
|
| Your anecdote is not universal; neither is mine.
| Voultapher wrote:
| > And more importantly, we can provide a better environment
| for them to mature socially.
|
| Citation needed.
|
| Every perspective I've heard personally - and mirrored in
| comments here as well - from the non parent side of things,
| is quite negative in terms of learning how to behave and
| socialize with your peers. To you the children might seem
| polite and servile, and you might see this as something
| positive - as you state in another comment - but you are
| likely setting them up for life of social awkwardness and
| ostracization.
| indecisive_user wrote:
| >but you are likely setting them up for life of social
| awkwardness and ostracization.
|
| Citation needed.
|
| If you put your kids in homeschooling and provide no
| other outlet for socialization then sure, they'll be
| socially awkward.
|
| My brother and I were homeschooled, but we were also
| heavily involved in our community. We were at the local
| park playing sports 3-4 times per week, we did various
| summer camps, we had a few other homeschool families that
| we'd setup playdates with. Our parents would sometimes
| joke that we barely ever home! And, unsurprisingly, we
| had no problems with socializing or making friends later
| in life.
|
| Was it the same kind of socialization you get from going
| to public school? No, but I consider that a feature :)
| standardUser wrote:
| That's probably true in a lot of cases for K-5. But I don't
| think any two people could teach a child with the same
| robustness as a the ~15 teachers most kids have during
| middle school/junior high, let alone provide things like
| labs, workshops, extracurriculars, etc. With high school
| that gap goes from big to enormous.
| SauntSolaire wrote:
| This just assumes the median education for 6-12 is any
| good. Also, a lot of labs, workshops, and
| extracurriculars can be easily found elsewhere - a lot of
| these have groups specifically for homeschoolers.
| Esophagus4 wrote:
| How are you thinking about the socialization aspects of
| homeschooling vs not?
|
| I imagine part of the benefit of schooling is to socialize
| children with their peers so I'm curious how you thought about
| it.
| jmathai wrote:
| Having put 2 kids (10th and 8th grade now) through a couple
| school options...the socialization in schools is pretty bad.
|
| Kids from home schooling families we know are as polite or
| substantially more polite than those in the school system.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| I've always thought that learning how to deal with people
| who are not as polite, and even kids that are downright
| scary, is an important aspect of socialization. They'll
| have to deal with those folks when they hit the real world
| too.
| SauntSolaire wrote:
| Hopefully they learn how to deal with them instead of
| picking up their communication style.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > I've always thought that learning how to deal with
| people who are not as polite, and even kids that are
| downright scary, is an important aspect of socialization.
|
| It is, but do we have any studies showing how well school
| kids are at this? From what I've seen, most kids in
| school do not learn those skills.
| variadix wrote:
| I.e. disassociating from those people? Isn't that what
| homeschooling does inherently? It's more likely that kids
| will pick up bad behaviors than they will learn to "deal
| with" those kinds of people.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| We homeschooled. When we wanted to socialize our kids, we
| shoved them into the restroom and beat them up for their
| lunch money.
|
| I kid, but there's a real point: So much of the socialization
| is _bad_.
|
| More: Kids aren't going to be kids forever. Does
| socialization with a bunch of other kids prepare them for the
| adult society that they're going to go into?
| estearum wrote:
| Well it should, yes, given that socialization is the result
| of shared social experiences.
|
| Experiencing bullying is (unironically) one of those shared
| social experiences that create bonds with people (whether
| as victim, perpetrator, or witness)
|
| These are real social dynamics that actually exist in adult
| life, and I suspect people who are totally blindsided by
| them are maladapted
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Experiencing bullying is (unironically) one of those
| shared social experiences_
|
| It also teaches you to deal with bullies. That said, we
| had homeschooled kids in my Boy Scouts troop. They
| learned how to deal with bullies just fine.
| somanyphotons wrote:
| Kids (and teachers) generally don't deal with bullies
| well.
|
| It really just results in them _continuing_ to being
| bullied, or reacting badly and getting blamed themselves.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Kids (and teachers) generally don 't deal with bullies
| well_
|
| Are there studies on whether bullying is higher in
| lightly supervised versus moderately supervised groups?
| Or mixed-age versus single-age groups?
|
| Scouting is lightly-supervised mixed-age groups. If an
| older kid bullied a younger kid, that resulted in adults
| reading them the riot act. But if a younger kid bullied a
| younger kid, the two sort of wound up sorting it out
| until someone threw a punch or pissed off an older kid.
| (For being annoying.) That second dynamic was, to my
| memory, unique to mixed-age groups.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| Why would you need to learn to deal with bullies?
|
| If you try that the modern world as an adult you get
| charged with aggravated assault, pick up a criminal
| record and then are weeded out from polite society.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Why would you need to learn to deal with bullies?_
|
| Because bullying is an extreme example of a common human
| power dynamic.
|
| > _If you try that the modern world as an adult you get
| charged with aggravated assault, pick up a criminal
| record and then are weeded out from polite society_
|
| Fair enough. I was thinking exclusively of non-violent
| bullying. (It may get physical. But in a roughhousing
| way. Not one intended to cause pain or injury.)
| balamatom wrote:
| >(whether as victim, perpetrator, or witness)
|
| Watch it, you almost said "rescuer" there.
| missedthecue wrote:
| This is my perspective too. A bunch of 11 year olds raising
| your 11 year old doesn't always result in preferable
| outcomes. I think the other part of it is that a lot of
| people have this sort of idea that homeschooling means
| sitting in your kid in the basement in front of their
| homework and never seeing the light of day. Obviously
| that's not accurate.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| As a parent, your view of socialization being "good" or
| "bad" is heavily distorted. I think of socialization (I am
| a parent) as a neutral activity, sometimes a skill,
| although I really don't think it's needed as we live in a
| mostly secluded society in the US, and verbal communication
| has been supplanted by electronic means.
| anon291 wrote:
| My kids get more socialization than me. Our parish homeschool
| group has daily activities. Monday is two hour playgroup.
| Tuesday is extracurricular classes at the parish. Wednesday
| is catechesis and play time. Thursday is free. Friday she
| does a day long camp with an outdoor education program (not
| parish based). All added up, she spends more time with kids
| than I did and doing more interesting things
| Esophagus4 wrote:
| Oh I see - I guess I hadn't thought of homeschooling that
| way (in a group with extracurriculars).
|
| I always thought of it as parent / tutor + kid = almost all
| interactions.
|
| Thanks.
| pacomerh wrote:
| Homeschooling doesn't mean the kid stays at home all the
| time. We homeschool and my kid has classes and different
| activities all week, interacts with friends and teams. It has
| worked very well for us given our lifestyle. I would
| understand it's not for everyone.
| jerf wrote:
| This argument has not kept up with the reality of the public
| school system. The homeschooled cohort my children are
| associated with have problems associating with public school
| children of the same age... but the problem doesn't lie on
| the homeschooler's side, it lies 100% on the publicly-
| schooled children's side! The public school attendees are
| noticeably less mature for the same age and less able to deal
| with anything other than the highly-specific and unrealistic
| environment of public schools rather than the rest of the
| world. The homeschoolers have trouble stepping down their
| social expectations to levels the public school attendees can
| meet.
|
| We have a few reasons unrelated to socialization [1] to do
| home schooling but one of the reasons I don't want to send
| them back is _precisely_ the regression in "socialization" I
| would expect.
|
| 30 years ago, this probably was a decent argument, but the
| bar of "at least as socialized as a public school attendee"
| has gone _way_ down in the meantime.
|
| [1]: I guess before anyone asks, one of my children is deaf-
| blind and while the people in the system did their best and I
| have not much criticism of the people, the reality is still
| that I was able to more precisely accommodate that child than
| the system was able to. This ends up being a pretty big
| stopper for a return to the public school system for that
| child.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| Who's to say that they wouldn't be more socialized, not less?
|
| It used to be folk wisdom that beating your kids built
| character, teachers would even slap kids with a ruler back in
| the 1950s. Could you say the same about bullies, cliques,
| popularity contests, and all the other performative nonsense
| that goes on in public schools?
|
| Maybe it's all bullshit and giving kids a safe environment to
| learn at their own pace without all these distractions makes
| them better equipped for the modern world?
| mikece wrote:
| Homeschooled does not mean "completely isolated." My kids are
| in bands, sports teams, and numerous extracurricular
| activities both with other home schoolers as well as with
| public schoolers. Also, homeschooled kids are far less
| reliant on their same-aged peer group for socialization; my
| kids talk with people in public regardless of their age
| (something which surprises some adults).
| mcphage wrote:
| > It says something about a system dedicated to teaching
| children when parents think they can do as well or better.
|
| 6% of American think they can beat a grizzly bear in a fight.
| That says absolutely nothing about the bear, and says a lot
| about how misinformed people are.
| jmathai wrote:
| That's not a great example though, is it?
|
| I've seen many kids, including my own older ones, who have
| gone through the school system and others who haven't.
| mcphage wrote:
| I've watched people on YouTube make all sorts of amazing
| things, and they make it look easy. Which leads to thoughts
| of "hey, that's easy, I could do that".
| Brendinooo wrote:
| This is why it's useful to look up stats when we have them.
|
| For example, homeschooled students do better on the ACT than
| public school kids.
|
| https://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/Info.
| ..
|
| Obviously the schooling venue itself isn't the only factor
| here, but if you think homeschooling a kid is worth an
| analogy to fighting grizzlies, might be worth a reframe.
| albedoa wrote:
| This is some fascinating insight. Do you think that the
| things being compared are [homeschooling] and [fighting
| grizzlies]?
| missedthecue wrote:
| I would say the interesting thing is the sudden increase
| over the last 5 years. Presumably, the number of
| Americans who think they can KO a grizzly bear is a
| lizardman constant situation in the surveys over time.
| But the number of people homeschooling is recently
| skyrocketing.
| Brendinooo wrote:
| Given the subject of the thread and the comment I replied
| to: yes?
| buellerbueller wrote:
| I suspect there is a lot of selection bias in that data. My
| hypothesis is that the homeschooled folks who take the ACT
| are more likely to do well on the ACT than the homeschooled
| folks who don't.
| Brendinooo wrote:
| Isn't that true of public school kids who do/don't take
| the ACT as well?
| brewdad wrote:
| My Title 1 school made the ACT available to all students
| for free (on one specific date). A lot of kids who were
| unprepared for the ACT took it because, why not?
| SauntSolaire wrote:
| We didn't have that at my school. Unless it's super
| widespread, it's probably not what's behind the different
| test results.
| BJones12 wrote:
| An acquaintance of mine fought (got mauled by) a grizzly bear
| a month ago. He went to the ICU (since released), but the
| bear got shot and died. It was a pyrric victory, but he did
| win the fight.
| sanktanglia wrote:
| What a horrible story to share.
| buellerbueller wrote:
| I didn't see it as horrible. I saw it as a story of human
| triumph. And good fortune.
| dooglius wrote:
| I think the implication of the question is that one doesn't
| have a firearm
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| One of the key issues in school is classroom size. A teacher
| with 30 kids is handicapped as a teacher compared to one with a
| smaller class.
|
| Let's say your family has four kids. As a family, that's large.
| But as a classroom size, it's _really small_. That gives you an
| advantage as a homeschooler over a public school teacher.
| 5f3cfa1a wrote:
| Grade retention ('holding kids back') has additionally
| dropped significantly since the average HNer has gone to
| school. I remember going to school where one of my peers went
| to sixth grade with his brother two years older than him. But
| now, we give out social promotions.
|
| That might've worked if we funded schools & gave students who
| fell behind significant interventions & 1x1 attention, but
| that's not what happened. One of my friends has a very bright
| and talented fifth grader in a class with multiple students
| who can barely read or write. Guess who gets the most
| attention from educators? Which group the teachers structure
| the class for?
| BeetleB wrote:
| I used to think this way, but some experiences made me
| realize it's not so cut and dry.
|
| When you have a class size over 20, teachers are forced to be
| a lot more systematic, which can improve the effectiveness of
| their teaching. Good teachers make heavy use of social proof.
| When I tried to teach my kid at home, it was a struggle. But
| when the kid is around his peers in a classroom, and they are
| going along with the teacher, he naturally falls in line with
| no cajoling, etc.
|
| If there were only 5 students, the likelihood he'll just go
| along with things is much lower.
| svieira wrote:
| Yep, that's definitely true. That being said, figuring out
| which approach to take requires _paying attention_ (which
| you did), there 's no guarantee that any two people (or any
| one person at two times) will be in the same cohort.
| jancsika wrote:
| Did you make a schedule of regularly switching off with other
| families of four? In other words, those parents teach your
| kids and you teach their kids? Otherwise I'm not sure how
| you'd tackle confirmation bias creeping up in all kinds of
| ways.
| kevstev wrote:
| That's also 4 entirely different curriculums which need to be
| taught. I volunteer taught CS for about 10 years, and the
| first year I taught a new class- and this was a single class
| for high school kids- I always found I was much better at it
| the second and third time around. I taught about 4 different
| courses, of varying difficulty- intro to programming with
| SNAP, "CS Principles" which had a little bit of everything
| from (very) basic networking to html and a bit of javascript,
| Javascript/Python, and then the final boss... AP CS in Java,
| which is a very difficult class.
|
| I find it difficult to wrap my head around you can make it
| work teaching the entire curriculum for 4 different grades
| encompassing reading/writing, math, history, science, art,
| music, etc... I guess its potentially compensated for by the
| fact that they are all getting very individualized attention,
| but thats spreading a parent very thin.
|
| Especially when we are talking about high school levels,
| where you can even potentially go into AP courses- no way a
| single parent can teach college level calculus, History, CS,
| etc... effectively.
|
| For all the flaws of our public education system, I don't see
| how this can work better.
| Atotalnoob wrote:
| I was homeschooled and it affected me terribly. Please don't do
| it.
| anon7000 wrote:
| I was homeschooled and I got a fairly strong education.
|
| What matters is your parents and how you nurture your kids
| and provide opportunities for them. It's easy for
| homeschooling to be bad... if you don't give a shit about
| your kids.
|
| For socializing, the key part is making sure kids are
| involved in a lot of social activities. I never went to
| public school, but found my groove socially pretty quickly in
| college, because I had a lot of opportunities for strong
| friendships. I was working part time in high school too, so
| got some exposure to pop culture.
| pacomerh wrote:
| What works for one might not work for another one. Can't
| generalize.
| Yizahi wrote:
| We can actually. It's called theory of probability and
| statistics, which is probably "forgotten" by these amazing
| self-appointed homeschoolers. A few rare successes of
| homeschoolers doesn't mean this practice is good on
| average, and vice versa the rare failures of the public
| education system doesn't mean that it is bad on average.
| Brendinooo wrote:
| Most times I look this up, I see stuff like "[t]he home-
| educated typically score 15 to 25 percentile points above
| public-school students on standardized academic
| achievement tests".
|
| https://nheri.org/research-facts-on-
| homeschooling/#Academic
| ribosometronome wrote:
| Looking at the replies, I do not think the general
| complaint is that homeschooling is bad for test scores
| but social development and preparing kids for society
| outside the house. It definitely requires considerably
| more, active attention from parents. Perhaps some of
| these people here have both the time to be hold down a
| decent career and also tutor their child in multiple
| curricula that haven't been important to them in decades
| and ensure that they're maintaining an active social life
| but I think the difficulty of nailing that as you go-
| your-own-way is apparent.
| Brendinooo wrote:
| >I do not think the general complaint is that
| homeschooling is bad for test scores
|
| >Perhaps some of these people here have both the time to
| be hold down a decent career and also tutor their child
| in multiple curricula that haven't been important to them
| in decades
|
| This reads as an inconsistency.
|
| As for the social stuff - as I commented elsewhere, it's
| not hard to make a case that public school is bad for
| socialization as well. Which isn't to say that public
| school isn't irredeemable in that way, just that it's not
| like one or the other is an obviously correct choice.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Yeah, that study has been debunked or countered by "...
| among home-educated students _applying for college_", and
| the proportion of home schooled kids who apply for
| college versus those in the traditional education system
| is far lower, i.e. this is _very_ self-selecting.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| If you've got the statistics to validate your point, show
| them. If not... pot, meet kettle.
| negzero7 wrote:
| This comment is so disingenuous. Few and rare?? Why would
| you frame it like this? Homeschoolers are better
| educated, more likely to get into college, and have
| better socialization skills than their publicly educated
| peers.
|
| https://nheri.org/research-facts-on-
| homeschooling/#:~:text=r...
|
| https://chewv.org/college-preparation/college-
| admissions/?ut...
|
| https://nheri.org/research-facts-on-
| homeschooling/?utm_sourc...
| FireBeyond wrote:
| They're not more likely to get into college as a whole.
| In fact, they apply to college a lot _less_. But in that
| subset, against public education as a whole, then yes,
| they do better.
|
| You may want to look wider afield than homeschooling
| advocacy and lobbyist groups for your stats.
| PKop wrote:
| How so?
| BeetleB wrote:
| > I was homeschooled and it affected me terribly. Please
| don't do it.
|
| Any idea how many were affected terribly in school? I'm in
| touch with my high school classmates. Almost half of them
| blame the school experience to lifelong problems.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Everyone from my public high school class is now rich and
| happy. My anecdote is just as good as yours.
| BeetleB wrote:
| And just as good/bad as the top level comment, which is
| my point.
| ecshafer wrote:
| > Everyone
|
| Did you grow up in Scarsdale or Palo Alto?
| rich_sasha wrote:
| I suppose there are few talented, hard working people who want
| to teach, and they command a premium. Education is expensive
| and underfunded.
|
| As a parent/carer you probably are much more motivated than an
| underpaid teacher who wanted to do something else anyway, and
| you don't have to motivate yourself with money.
|
| By extension, IME, motivated and talented teachers in any
| school (good or bad) can do wonders. There just aren't that
| many. And as you say, school environment tends to be a race to
| the bottom - if Johnny can watch Tiktok during maths, I'll do
| the same.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| Education is expensive and underfunded.
|
| Expensive yes. Underfunded depends on where you are.
|
| San Francisco's school district has an annual operating
| budget that equates to $28k per student.
|
| I've heard people in San Francisco say that schools here are
| underfunded. When I ask them how much we spend per student
| per year, their guess is usually less than half of the actual
| amount.
| triceratops wrote:
| $28k doesn't go as far in San Francisco because of the
| insane cost of housing and everything else.
| SauntSolaire wrote:
| How does housing cost affect the cost for a school to
| educate a student? Are you saying it's the cost of paying
| for the school's real-estate?
| ToValueFunfetti wrote:
| High housing cost means teachers need higher salaries to
| account for either their higher cost of living or the
| extra commute
| connicpu wrote:
| It affects the minimum viable salary for a teacher to
| even be able to live in the city where you want to hire
| them to work, same for all the other support staff that
| make a school function.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| I don't buy that argument, there's no reason a teacher in
| San Francisco can't live in Oakland or Berkeley, or a
| teacher in NYC couldn't live in NJ. You don't have a
| human right to live in the most expensive real estate on
| Earth.
| mynameisash wrote:
| GP didn't say anything about it being a human right. You
| seem to be strawmanning their argument.
|
| I think it's a reasonable expectation that even in HCOL
| places like SF or NYC, people in careers important to
| society should be able to live in the communities they
| serve.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| The price of SF real estate affects the price of real
| estate in Oakland and Berkeley. So it's still a relevant
| input variable.
| joshstrange wrote:
| Yeah, screw the teachers, they should just have a longer
| commute, who cares about them? /s
|
| I always want to laugh when I hear people complain about
| finding near-minimum-wage workers in a HCOL area. They
| can't seem to grasp that commuting is not free, it may
| feel free to them at their income level but
| transportation costs money (gas, car maintenance,
| insurance or bus, etc) and time. I'm not saying teaching
| is a minimum wage job but it's not a high earning one
| either, paying them as low as we do _and_ also asking
| them to have a longer commute is just absurd.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Keep that argument going.
|
| Jackson Hole residents complaining about "poor service"
| in stores and restaurants in town, because shocker,
| servers can't afford to live in Jackson Hole. And unlike
| even SF or NY (which may not be perfect but have at least
| functional transport), there's no easy way to travel from
| the next town, an hour away or more.
|
| Residents have started banding together to rent coaches
| to bus people in, which seems the most reasonable
| solution, after all, no poors in town, still, and it
| doesn't hurt the residents that service industry
| employees in their town have a three hour commute. /s
|
| It got so bad in Atherton, CA, that the school had to
| build accommodation for teachers in the school itself.
| Next step, they can do janitorial work for extra money!
| michaelt wrote:
| With a budget of $28k per student, and 21 students per
| classroom, that's $588k per classroom.
|
| Now, granted, some of that goes on building upkeep,
| cleaning, supplies, heating, pensions, managers etc - but
| if $588k per classroom doesn't let you pay enough to
| attract teachers there's something very suspicious going
| on.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| there's something very suspicious going on
|
| Yup! SFUSD has ~9,000 government employees, and only
| ~50,000 kids.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| San Francisco schooling district spends upwards of $1B a
| year to educate 55k students. About 85% of the budget
| goes to salary and benefits (excluding pensions). Of
| that, 75% goes to educators and the rest for other staff.
|
| Cost of living is the primary driver for cost of
| education everywhere.
| bluecalm wrote:
| If an average class has 20 students it's $560k per year.
| If an average student gets 1000 hours of schooling per
| year you can pay 200$/hour and you have spent only just
| above 1/3 of your budget.
|
| It feels like there is more to the story that "$28k
| doesn't go as far in San Francisco".
| triceratops wrote:
| Very possibly. All I'm saying is you can't just compare
| dollar figures per student without considering where the
| dollars are spent.
| a2tech wrote:
| It's because this is a very simplified view of a
| classroom. What is presented above is the best case
| scenario, not a realistic one. For example, there's no
| consideration of costs associated with any sort of
| handicapped student, or student with special education
| needs.
|
| Real world costs completely spiral out of control when
| you look at the actual system--for example, the buildings
| are all built during the rapid expansion of the country
| so are now old enough to need expensive maintenance, and
| there isn't money or interest from the community to tear
| them down and build new ones.
|
| Also something else that isn't being covered is that
| involved parents are pulling their kids out for home
| schooling, and well behaved kids are increasingly being
| pulled out and put in charter sschools. This is leading
| to a rapid collapse of the school system. Public school
| is being left as a place for students who's parents don't
| care enough to do anything with them, or with enough
| behavioral or special needs that charter schools won't
| handle them.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> the buildings are all built during the rapid expansion
| of the country so are now old enough to need expensive
| maintenance_
|
| What kind of maintenance do you think is expensive
| compared to a budget of $560k per room, per year?
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| there isn't money or interest from the community to tear
| them down and build new ones
|
| San Francisco voters have repeatedly voted to borrow
| massive sums of money to fund SFUSD capital improvements:
| https://www.sfusd.edu/bond/overview
|
| The most recent $790,000,000 in 2024.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| $28k per student is more than enough to run a school in
| San Francisco. Let's assume we cannot take advantage of
| the economies of scale available to SFUSD, and we're
| running a school with just one classroom: 22 7th graders.
| That would cost SFUSD $616k ($28k x 22). What would it
| cost us? Teacher (all-in cost):
| $150k Teaching assistant:
| $100k Rent for commercial space in SF (~1,200 sq
| ft): $60k Curriculum, books, supplies:
| $23k Technology (22 Chromebooks, projector,
| software): $18k Field trips and enrichment:
| $10k Utilities, internet, insurance:
| $27k Furniture and equipment:
| $20k Admin/legal/accounting:
| $8k Total:
| $416k
|
| That leaves $200k unspent.
|
| AND ... these numbers are deliberately conservative.
| Teachers work ~40 weeks per year, not 52, so the $150k
| all-in is really $3,750/week - very competitive for SF.
| The $18k technology budget assumes replacing every
| Chromebook annually, but they last 3-5 years, so
| amortized cost is more like $5k/year. The rent estimate
| of $5k/month assumes market-rate commercial space, but
| you could find cheaper options in underutilized buildings
| or negotiate with a church/community center. Furniture
| lasts decades, not one year. The $1k per student for
| curriculum and supplies is also high - you're not buying
| new textbooks every year, and open-source curricula
| exist.
|
| If you were trying to minimize costs rather than be
| conservative, you could probably run this one room school
| house for $350k/year ($16k/student/year).
| jorts wrote:
| As the son of a teacher and a friend of several teachers,
| you're way underestimating their workload.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| I estimated that a class of 22 children would require one
| full time teacher and one full time teaching assistant.
|
| What am I missing? My table has $200k left over so we
| could add another full time teacher at $150k?
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Any specialized teaching: art, languages, in high school
| I understand they have a different teacher for each
| subject, a librarian, a substitute teacher on sick days,
| an individual aide for one of the kids to represent the
| special education budget...
|
| But I remember you previously and you appear to want a
| school system that spends money on exactly what your
| child needs and nothing else.
| brettcvz wrote:
| The big thing you're missing is special education, and to
| a lesser extent English Language Learners. School
| districts are obligated to teach every student, some of
| whom cost the district dramatically more than they
| receive from the state.
|
| Your admin costs are also low - you need to account for
| each teacher being coached and managed, running school
| operations and front desk, facilities management,
| finance, IT, etc.
| brettcvz wrote:
| Also this is an area where first principles analysis is
| likely to lead you astray - I'd recommend starting with
| SFUSD's public budget to understand what their cost
| structure is.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| You're recommending I look at SFUSD's public budget when:
|
| - that budget is how I was able to calculate per-pupil
| spend
|
| - in another comment you admitted to having 'no idea'
| where the $28k/year number came from, suggesting to me
| that you haven't looked at the budget yourself
|
| The granularity in SFUSD's published budget is not
| sufficient to analyze what is useful and what is waste.
| brettcvz wrote:
| Finally, I have no idea where people are getting
| $28k/year; most schools in CA operate on closer to
| $14k-$16k per pupil
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| To get the number, you just need to divide two numbers:
| SFUSD's budget and the number of students.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41711345
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| In WA the state spends around 20k$ per student, people
| still say it's underfunded.
| mmcclure wrote:
| Are you saying that's a lot or a little? Tuition for most
| (non-religious) competitive private schools in San
| Francisco is easily twice that amount.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| I'm saying it's a lot. See my other comment here for my
| reasoning:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46008035
| mmcclure wrote:
| I think your reasoning is flawed, but fine...if the goal
| is to try and have the cheapest possible one room school
| house. That $200k gets eaten up pretty quick by things
| like security, janitorial, building maintenance, support
| staff like principals, librarians, guidance counselors
| etc etc. If you're meaning to include total cost for the
| full time employees (the teachers) in the list, then the
| salaries are a lot less attractive once you're done
| covering benefits, etc.
|
| I've got multiple kids, so I'll admit I think about
| schools here a lot. The absolute cheapest private schools
| I've seen in San Francisco are subsidized by religious
| institutions. The tuition for those schools per child is
| roughly $28k. Non religious private schools usually start
| in the $40k range and can easily get into the $50s and
| _well_ beyond.
|
| My point is that it's hard to point at some issue of
| inefficient public bureaucracy, because clearly private
| institutions aren't able to do it any cheaper. I would
| also argue they wouldn't _try_ , because their goal is a
| good education, or at least better than the public
| alternative (that only spends $28k per kid).
| zaphar wrote:
| If the religious institution does a better job at roughly
| the same cost-point then it's probably not the money that
| is making the difference.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| No, it's the selection process of parents and children.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| "I think your reasoning is flawed, but fine...if the goal
| is to try and have the cheapest possible one room school
| house."
|
| I was generous in my estimate for each of the line items.
| I chose a one room school house as an example because
| it's easy to grok, and anything larger would be cheaper
| due to economies of scale. "I've got
| multiple kids, so I'll admit I think about schools here a
| lot."
|
| Although I have only one child (in 4th grade), I think
| about schools a lot, too. "The absolute
| cheapest private schools I've seen in San Francisco are
| subsidized by religious institutions. The tuition for
| those schools per child is roughly $28k."
|
| This $28k number is false. Most parochial schools charge
| about $12k. Here is a breakdown by grade level of the
| number of parochial schools in SF that serve that grade
| level, and the median tuition among those schools for
| that grade: # Median sticker
| price Pre-K 7 $16,610 K 29
| $11,530 1 29 $11,530 2 29
| $11,175 3 29 $11,175 4 29
| $11,175 5 29 $11,175 6 30
| $11,519 7 30 $11,519 8 30
| $11,519 9 4 $31,725 10 4
| $31,725 11 4 $31,725 12 4
| $31,725 "Non religious private schools usually
| start in the $40k range and can easily get into the $50s
| and well beyond."
|
| This 'usually start in the $40k range' is also false. For
| each of the grades K-5, 33-39% of non-parochial schools
| in SF charge less than $40k. For each of the grades 6-8,
| 30% of non-parochial schools in SF charge less than $40k.
| "because clearly private institutions aren't able to do
| it any cheaper"
|
| Non-parochial private schools don't typically price based
| on cost. The schools that have high demand (due to
| parents and student population) can charge more. So they
| don't need to manage their costs tightly. And they can
| spend lots of money on marketing.
|
| Moreover, not all students pay sticker price. So looking
| at the sticker prices (which I've listed above) may give
| an inflated view of total income.
| "because their goal is a good education"
|
| Their goal is happy customers (parents). Different
| schools achieve this in different ways. Some parents
| choose a school not based on the expected quality of
| education but based on the expected networking
| opportunities for themselves and for their child.
| zaphar wrote:
| Nearly every time we try to fix this problem with money
| it fails. The problem is not money. All else being equal
| there is little to no correlation between spend and
| outcome. Money get's touted by schools and politicatians
| as a way of pretending to care but not actually do any of
| the work to improve outcomes.
|
| What does tend to correlate with money and also
| correlates with outcomes is parental involvement. Solving
| that problem requires societal and economic change in a
| district though not giving the school more money.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| "Tuition for most (non-religious) competitive private
| schools in San Francisco is easily twice that amount."
|
| No it's not 'easily twice that amount'.
|
| For each of the grades K-12, here is the % of non-
| religious private schools in San Francisco that charge
| $56k or more: K: 0% 1: 0%
| 2: 0% 3: 0% 4: 0% 5: 0%
| 6: 3% 7: 3% 8: 3% 9: 71%
| 10: 71% 11: 71% 12: 71%
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| cost per student is higher for high school students. So
| if you take an average across all grades for public
| schools and then compare that to specific cost per grade
| at private schools, of course private schools are going
| to look relatively cheaper for younger students.
| nradov wrote:
| Education should be well funded but in many school districts
| the problem is waste and inefficiency rather than lack of
| funding. Huge amounts are paid to administrators and
| consultants who do nothing to improve student outcomes, or
| even make them worse. Generally there is little correlation
| between funding per student and results.
| joshstrange wrote:
| > Education is expensive and underfunded.
|
| Always makes me think of The West Wing scene:
|
| > Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We
| don't need little changes, we need gigantic, monumental
| changes. Schools should be palaces. The competition for the
| best teachers should be fierce. They should be making six-
| figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for
| government and absolutely free of charge to its citizens,
| just like national defense. That's my position. I just
| haven't figured out how to do it yet.
|
| Video (sorry for the burned in subs, should be queued up):
| https://youtu.be/IzV09gESyh0?t=39
| Yizahi wrote:
| Poor kids :( . Hope the damage won't be lasting for them, at
| least they did went to proper schools previously and have some
| basics taught.
| sparrish wrote:
| I'll gladly stand up my 7 homeschooled kids next to any
| public school kids.
|
| All tested above grade level on state mandatory testing
| throughout their schooling.
|
| Two graduated early (some with college credits).
|
| My adult children (4 sons, ages 19-25) have gainful
| employment, living on their own (2 own their own homes), and
| standing on their own. One is married (I got a grandkid!),
| all have friends, communities they're involved in, and are
| healthy (physically and mentally).
|
| None take prescription meds nor struggle with anxiety or
| depression.
|
| Poor public school kids... I hope they can find help for the
| damage they suffered. <grin>
| meroes wrote:
| You didn't mention how many went to college
| missedthecue wrote:
| Given they are sufficiently successful to be living on
| their own, married, and some with their own homes,
| whether they went to college is probably an inappropriate
| yardstick of success. I mean, be real. If a 25 year old
| is married and owns a home, but doesn't have a BSc are
| they a failure? What are we doing here.
| meroes wrote:
| OP is free to chose their metrics. I wouldn't trade
| education for a home personally. I think it's interesting
| how they chose their metrics.
| buellerbueller wrote:
| we are discussing on HN. The population of commenters here
| is likely very different than the homeschooling population.
| mikece wrote:
| And yet there are many homeschooling parents in this
| discussion thread (including a single-income dad of 9
| whose kids are homeschooled). But I'm quite aware that
| I'm the exception on HN.
| yanslookup wrote:
| Assuming you are Mormon, is home schooling sort of another
| form of virtue signaling Mormon families employ or is it
| more of a way to ensure your families don't get excluded?
| Like, did you really have a choice in the matter once you
| realized you either go full Mormon or leave the church
| entirely?
| mikece wrote:
| Mormons aren't the only people with large families.
| Ultra-conservative Jews, Muslims, and many Christians
| have large families. What I don't think I've ever seen is
| a couple who is non-religious or atheist and has a large
| family.
| yanslookup wrote:
| Not sure if you are disputing something I didn't say but
| yes, you are correct.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Catholics aren't so much anymore but used to be the same.
| My parents both had 5 siblings growing up.
| mikece wrote:
| Not all Catholics, just the ones who go to the
| traditional Latin Mass. :-)
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| > 7 homeschooled kids
|
| Wow that's a lot, how did you manage?
| mikece wrote:
| Only seven? :-)
|
| (My wife and I have had 9.)
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Is there an answer for athletics, music, robotics, and all the
| other after school teams? How does that work?
| chasd00 wrote:
| i'm sure many others will reply as well but there's lots of
| extracurricular options for homeschoolers as well as social
| engagements. It's kind of like a shadow school system,
| there's associations and groups and other organizations built
| around home schooled children. My wife and I considered it
| but we have managed to navigate our public school situation
| well enough without me, or my wife, having to quit working.
| dkhenry wrote:
| Depending on where you live there are many options. In my
| school district home school kids can join any club or team
| offered by the public school system where you reside.
| Additionally there are numerous non-school related clubs and
| activities all over the place. My kids could play music with
| the local school district, with a musical education non-
| profit that is prolific in our area, or ( where they do play
| music ) with private lessons that have group classes, bands,
| and performance opportunities.
| in_cahoots wrote:
| Of that list my kids' top-rated K-8 public school only offers
| music. Everything else is done privately.
| 5f3cfa1a wrote:
| Of these, most are easily handled. I am in a midsized city
| and there are plenty of groups that offer music, robotics &
| engineering, speech & drama, etc. focused towards
| homeschooled students. That, plus the rise in homeschool
| "pods"/co-ops means socialization and activities are very
| available to students & parents who want them.
|
| Sports might be the challenge. Many US states have athletic
| associations that handle most K-12 sports, and they require
| enrollment in an accredited member school. I am aware of
| several homeschool specific athletic associations in my area,
| but all are targeted towards religious homeschoolers. Not
| certain what secular alternatives would exist, but soccer is
| very popular & there are plenty of competitive academies that
| operate outside the school ecosystem.
| dmoy wrote:
| Besides big ones like soccer that you mention, more niche
| sports are often partially or totally outside of school
| systems.
|
| Fencing for example, is _usually_ clustered around external
| clubs. Very few high schools will have fencing teams, and
| in a lot of cities even the high schools that do have
| fencing teams will be kind of a joke compared to the club
| teams.
| 5f3cfa1a wrote:
| This comment made me curious so I did some research. Of
| the sports offered by my local school district (in the
| top 30 for enrollment in the country), I can find an
| alternative for homeschoolers that offer competitive
| opportunities for every sport but bowling and football.
|
| Of the others, there are either homeschool alternatives
| that are explicitly secular or at least not overtly
| religious, or there are competitive clubs. All the
| schools have track & field, but there is a large
| homeschool league. And the district has a few schools
| with pools and a few more with swim teams that practice
| at the city pools, but the local swim club is the one
| turning out the Olympians - but even then, it also seems
| to have plenty of offerings for kids who won't set a
| world butterfly record. Football, I imagine, is just so
| popular that the private/public schools take all the
| players.
| Starman_Jones wrote:
| I know several homeschooled students who played varsity
| sports for their local high school (the one that they would
| have been attending). I'm not sure about the universality
| of that, but that's an option for at least some people.
| 5f3cfa1a wrote:
| I think it's patchwork & has changed over time. When I
| was at high school one of my friends who was homeschooled
| competed with me on our academic team. His older (and far
| more athletically gifted brother ;-)) lettered in several
| varsity sports. But now that state's athletic association
| explicitly says no to homeschool students.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Often, yes. Where I live, home-schooled kids can participate
| in extracurriculars offered by the public schools.
| logical_proof wrote:
| My kids do Taekwondo and church youth groups. My eldest did
| not want to do robotics but he does run the Dungeons and
| Dragons group at our library. We do music as a family. My
| daughter does choir. My son has done drama but declined to
| participate this year. They have been homeschooled their
| entire lives. All three of them received something I did not,
| the ability to converse with adults from a young age. This is
| of course anecdotal so YMMV but I would love to see a study
| on the conversational skills of homeschooled students.
| SamPatt wrote:
| Anecdotally, homeschooled children often speak and behave
| more like adults.
|
| Whether this is a positive or negative thing depends on the
| situation. Being precocious is something adults might think
| positively about (though not in all situations) but it's
| not something other kids usually admire.
| logical_proof wrote:
| I think you are right that this is situational. I can
| understand it potentially hindering relationships with
| other like aged children who are traditionally educated.
| I can only say that I like my kids a lot, which is nice
| as a parent.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| I went to public schools but still did that sort of thing
| through the YMCA and our church. At the middle school level
| and lower, most of those types of activities are community
| based rather than centered around the school, though that
| varies by area.
| deltarholamda wrote:
| Homeschoolers form co-ops. A local one here does ballroom
| dance, tennis, basketball. There is often a youth symphony
| option in mid- to large-sized cities.
|
| For STEM-type stuff, see if there's a nearby Civil Air Patrol
| squadron. That alone has tons of extracurricular stuff:
| search and rescue, help with earning a pilot license,
| robotics, drill and ceremony.
|
| Homeschooling is not for everybody, but if you go down that
| route there's a lot of support.
| mikece wrote:
| There are tons of clubs for such things. My kids are in a
| homeschool music program (and learning piano and, until
| recently, bagpipes); half of my kids are playing competitive
| sports via homeschool programs that compete with other high
| schools; one is getting his certification as a welder (as
| part of a State program that pays for it if one is still in
| high school). Because class times and locations are more
| flexible this opens up far more possibilities for extra
| curricular activities.
| BeetleB wrote:
| To me, this question highlights the whole problem: This is
| not what schools are for.
|
| Yes, it's great if they provide these things, but it's a
| distant secondary concern. I'd rather my kid get a great
| education and miss out on these things, than get a poor
| education but have access to all these.
|
| But of course, as others have pointed out, it's a false
| dichotomy. You can have both.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Covid showed me that on the average home schooling (or at least
| remote learning) leaves kids extremely under developed.
|
| The stunted social and academic skills were pretty apparent in
| retrospect once the schools reopened.
| BJones12 wrote:
| Remote learning. You didn't see homeschooling, which is a
| very different thing, you saw remote learning.
|
| The homeschooling crowd has developed methods over the years
| to compensate. The COVID remote learning cohort did not, and
| suffered for it.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Remote learning has also built many methods for success,
| and absolutely nobody even consulted them before
| implementing their ad hoc systems for Covid. There are
| entire online public schools and their staff were just
| ignored.
| Redster wrote:
| What happened to students who were in schools that closed
| _was_ terrible. But it wasn 't anything close to
| homeschooling.
| wtallis wrote:
| COVID forced remote learning to be adopted very broadly,
| without the usual self-selection effect of families that
| choose to homeschool when they have a choice. So the
| observations from COVID don't really support any stronger
| claim than saying that homeschooling _can_ be done badly.
| danesparza wrote:
| It also has its own problems that haven't even been quantified
| yet.
|
| If you think that homeschooling is a panacea, I guess we're all
| about to f*ck around and find out...
| thewebguyd wrote:
| > Phones, social media, etc. what a terrible environment we
| adults have created for kids to learn both educationally and
| socially.
|
| And this is only just now being investigated as a cause of
| harm. When I went to public high school, the bullying happened
| at school and stayed there. Kids now, their bullies follow them
| home, and since most of the social interaction now happens
| online instead of in-person, it's way more damaging to mental
| health than the classic caricature of a schoolyard bully. The
| most I had to compare myself to were my peers in my school, not
| the entire globe of influencers and fake instagram.
|
| There has been a complete erosion of boundaries. The threat is
| constant, you can't escape it, and kids are in a state of
| hyper-vigilance, always online or else they miss a crucial
| social interaction in group chat, or need to constantly check
| if a damaging photo, post, or rumor gets _publicly_ posted to
| the internet while they were asleep.
|
| Not only that, teens are losing the ability to read human
| emotion, so misunderstandings escalate rapidly. In person
| communication now becomes too intense, and only increases
| anxiety and isolation, despite being hyperconnected.
|
| And that's just barely touching the surface.
| 5upplied_demand wrote:
| ==It says something about a system dedicated to teaching
| children when parents think they can do as well or better.==
|
| I think it also says something about the parents who think they
| can do as well or better.
| seneca wrote:
| Well, they tend to be right. Outcomes for homeschooled
| children are broadly significantly better than government
| schooled children.
|
| Also, just FYI, to quote someone you prefix the text with
| ">".
| csense wrote:
| Anecdotally, two factors at work here:
|
| - Schools have stopped educating in favor of test metrics, making
| sure the worst students pass, and pushing borderline
| indoctrination of controversial, left-ish values.
|
| - With remote education during the pandemic, people have more
| visibility into their school's day-to-day teaching.
|
| It's hard to fix the US education system by political means. If
| you have the ability to do so, it's comparatively much easier to
| pull your kids out and homeschool them.
| mcphage wrote:
| > pushing borderline indoctrination of controversial, left-ish
| values
|
| I wonder what sort of values they're indoctrinating their kids
| with instead.
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| I expected this comment coming into the thread. I would just
| like to point out that there is a huge range of options
| between those two extremes!
|
| If is entirely possible to teach up a child to be curious AND
| well rounded in the basics (see also concepts of Trivarium
| and Quadrivium, sorry can't link the references atm).
| mcphage wrote:
| > there is a huge range of options between those two
| extremes!
|
| Which two extremes would those be?
| echelon_musk wrote:
| Presumably the extremes of left and right?
| jen20 wrote:
| (Which are, of course, far more similar than people that
| identify with either extreme would ever admit).
| binary132 wrote:
| yeah, it would be crazy if people were allowed to raise their
| own children with their own values. we can't have that.
| patall wrote:
| Did anyone argue that you are not allowed to teach your
| kids your own values? It seems to me, the question is more:
| do you want to raise your kids without ever exposing them
| to values that are not your own? Opinion Bubbles have been
| increasing for a long time, do we really want to grow them
| even more? Social media is full of people left and right
| that seem to have no idea about the opinions and realities
| at the other end of the spectrum.
| llbeansandrice wrote:
| Is this not possible while exposing children to a variety
| of view points from different sources or does it require
| that children are not exposed to certain perspectives at
| all?
|
| The original comment makes a very bold claim of
| "indoctrination" of an entirely undefined set of values.
|
| There has been no evidence that exposing children to this
| (undefined and buzzwordy) set of values means that they
| can't be raised according to other values.
|
| I find this idea pretty wild to encounter on HN which is
| generally focused on open source and widely available
| information so that people can educate themselves is
| suddenly gone in a puff of smoke and some buzzwords when
| talking about educating the most curious minds in the
| world.
|
| Define the values. Cite sources that this is
| "indoctrination" and not simply exposing viewpoints. Then
| maybe we can have a productive discussion.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > Define the values. Cite sources that this is
| "indoctrination" and not simply exposing viewpoints. Then
| maybe we can have a productive discussion.
|
| They're never going to do this, because it's not actually
| happening, at least not to a significant degree. They
| will keep their wording vague, not show examples, and
| basically just repeat variations of "Trust me, bro.. this
| indoctrination is happening. It's clear as day. You need
| to see the real world, bro."
| biophysboy wrote:
| Parents side with their kids all the time in pass/fail battles;
| they're not objective.
|
| Name the left values; don't beat around the bush.
|
| Observing remote education is not good visibility into pre-
| covid teaching.
|
| I think we have a responsibility to have educated citizens.
| broof wrote:
| One example is in high school I had an excellent literature
| class that also covered a lot of philosophy. It wasn't until
| later that I realized that the various philosophies we
| studied were the philosophies that are often foundational for
| Marxism, atheism, and general left of center academia.
| Probably the best class I had in high school but I wish it
| had also covered things on both sides, or been more
| transparent that it was in fact biased.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| It's pretty hard to touch philosophy without covering
| marxism in some way. Very little of it has anything to do
| with the family of political ideologies despite sharing a
| similar name. The question of God's existence is also
| fundamental to the history of philosophy. It's not
| particularly shocking that a course might cover people like
| Lucretius, Bentham, or Russell.
|
| Most philosophy surveys will also include some of the other
| sides, which you might not even recognize as such.
| Descartes and Aquinas are fixtures, and Heidegger
| (notoriously conservative and also a literal Nazi) often
| features in university level classes. The point isn't to
| indoctrinate you with any of these viewpoints, it's to
| teach you how to analyze their arguments and think for
| yourself.
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| > It's pretty hard to touch philosophy without covering
| marxism in some way
|
| The complaint was that the alternative wasn't discussed.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| I read the parent as saying that the course covered these
| at all, not as complaining that nothing else was
| presented.
|
| But continuing on that train, what would you want from
| mentioning alternatives to a theoretical framework? A
| framework is just a different way to look at the world
| that you can discard if it's not useful.
|
| To give a programming analogy, if a course does a module
| on JavaScript exclusively with react, they're not
| teaching that vue, angular, or svelte don't exist and you
| should only use react. It's much more likely a statement
| that react is common and useful for people to be familiar
| with when they go into the outside world. Covering the
| long list of alternate frameworks, many of which the
| teacher will have never actually used in a serious way,
| is both difficult to do in a useful manner and takes away
| from the limited time available to cover what they can
| with sufficient depth.
| floren wrote:
| It's philosophy, not catechism, you're not expected to
| leave the class _believing_ everything you read.
| patall wrote:
| I have had more teachers actively advocating voting for
| right wing parties than left wing parties. And once had
| someone in biology class tell me that he thinks that
| evolution and creation by god are equal and we should try
| to merge those theories. And I live in a very secular part
| of Europe.
|
| But hey, both you and I are telling anecdotes. The only
| conclusion for me is that public school exposes you to
| people that do not think like you or your parents.
| Something, we are less and less exposed to. If that is
| good, anyone has to answer for themselves.
| biophysboy wrote:
| Don't agree with this. Marx's Capital is filled with basic
| mathematical analyses. I don't agree with his labor theory
| of value, but I do think algebra is good.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| "Both" sides? If you suggest Marxism is one side, what is
| the other? Also, it's hard to take such a vague comment at
| face value when you consider the long list of Marx's
| influences. For example, there are right and young
| Hegelians...
| ecshafer wrote:
| I do think there is too much politicization in education,
| but this also stuck out to me. Marx was a synthesis of
| Hegel with Adam Smith (And a lot of Ricardo) You
| absolutely have many people taking those same ideas and
| going right. Even Das Kapital isn't really "Left Wing"
| _per se_ as it is more trying to explain how labor is
| treated in an industrialized economies, its the communist
| manifesto where Marx takes those ideas and starts
| synthesizing with Hegel and making ideas of what should
| happen.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > Parents side with their kids all the time in pass/fail
| battles; they're not objective.
|
| I'm thinking this is fairly new. When I was in school, if I
| got bad grades or got in trouble at school, I got in trouble
| at home too. My parents were absolutely not calling the
| teachers complaining about grades. When I had trouble
| learning multiplication facts, they sat me down with flash
| cards every night until I had learned them, they didn't blame
| the teacher. This was in the 1970s/80s. This seemed pretty
| normal based on what I remember. When/why did it change?
| biophysboy wrote:
| I think parents are trying to maximize the perceived value
| of their child at the expense of their real value. I also
| think various media (especially the internet) have lowered
| trust in primary/secondary education, leading to more
| parents feeling justified in "taking matters into their own
| hands". You kind of see that attitude in this thread (its
| not wholly unjustified).
| ponooqjoqo wrote:
| > pushing borderline indoctrination of controversial, left-ish
| values
|
| Which values? I haven't gone to school in a long time.
| squigz wrote:
| I'm very curious about this as well, GP, please.
| VohuMana wrote:
| I am very curious too, I've asked this to other friends who
| have mentioned the same thing and the only concrete answer I
| have got so far was teaching the theory of evolution and
| climate change.
| andrewmlevy wrote:
| Lots of examples, gender identity and requiring ethnic
| studies (focusing on white male privilege, settler/colonial,
| putting groups into binary oppressor/oppressed). Also issues
| with requiring those classes vs not.
| voxl wrote:
| These are two indisputable facts about our world, if you
| disagree you are wrong and anti-science:
|
| 1. Gender is a social construct
|
| 2. Whiteness is a social construct and in particular has
| been used as a bludgeon against minority "non-whites" in
| the United States for a very long time
|
| If you do not believe these things you are the problem. You
| lack education. You lack critical thinking. You are
| brainwashed.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| You've identified examples of values, but you have
| forgotten to link them to the left, forgotten to show if
| they are controversial and, probably most importantly,
| forgotten to show how schools are borderline pushing
| indoctrination of them.
| abbycurtis33 wrote:
| Each of those is well within public knowledge.
| ryandrake wrote:
| In other words, "Trust me, bro!"
| throwaway-11-1 wrote:
| Literally nobody forces groups into a good/bad binary more
| than conservatives. What an embarrassing lack of self
| awareness
|
| (source: I went to a conservative christian school)
| obscurette wrote:
| Not a GP and I don't know if any of these qualifies as "left-
| ish" (which is very US specific IMHO), but as I understand,
| the education all over the western culture is destroyed by
| few really simple and really crazy (for me) ideas:
|
| - Kids are never responsible for anything.
|
| - Teachers are responsible for everything.
| ilikecakeandpie wrote:
| That's a parenting problem though, not an education
| problem, right?
| obscurette wrote:
| Actually no. The problem comes from society. If you think
| that kids should be responsible for anything, you are a
| bad person. If you think that kids should be punished if
| they do something really bad, you are a monster.
|
| Here we had a case teenagers bullying their teacher -
| abused her verbally during school, posted deepfake
| revenge porn into internet, stole stuff from her garden
| etc. She cried for help and the case was investigated by
| commission that included people from people from ministry
| of education, police and psychologists. But the
| commission concluded that she was the problem - she
| lacked the skills to build a trusting relationship with
| kids.
| o11c wrote:
| From the Conservative part of my social group, the main one
| applicable here is pushing elementary school kids to identify
| as trans. Because young children are _very_ impressionable,
| and it is forbidden for staff to push back on on it at all,
| despite the science saying "there is absolutely no such
| thing as trans before age 12, and much possibility of social
| trauma from attempting it".
|
| Left-ish people tend to say "this doesn't happen in the real
| world, it's made up for internet arguments" - and I even said
| that for a while on this and a few other subjects - but that
| denial cannot survive extensive contact with the real world.
| squigz wrote:
| Why age 12?
| o11c wrote:
| Age 12 happens to be the cutoff used in the scientific
| studies.
| squigz wrote:
| And the conclusion to draw from that is that one
| absolutely cannot be trans under the age of 12?
| ryandrake wrote:
| Name some examples of school systems "pushing" kids to
| identify as trans. The name of the school and individual
| teacher, plus the wording that counts as "pushing" would be
| fine. You say this is happening in the real world, so
| surely you can point to a few examples.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| > With remote education during the pandemic, people have more
| visibility into their school's day-to-day teaching
|
| I'm not sure remote schooling during the pandemic is very
| representative of day to day teaching in school. At least
| that's the impression I got from my teacher friends back then.
| csb6 wrote:
| > Schools have stopped educating in favor of test metrics,
| making sure the worst students pass, and pushing borderline
| indoctrination of controversial, left-ish values.
|
| As someone who was in public education less than 10 years ago,
| the last part plainly untrue. In fact, several states will soon
| require displaying the 10 commandments in public school
| classrooms, which seems pretty "right-ish" to me.
|
| Homeschooling is a symptom of the atomization of American
| society - affluent people are retreating into their bunkers in
| suburbia and withdrawing from civil society based on a shared
| psychosis regarding "critical race theory" and "wokeness",
| neither of which are taught in public schools.
| SauntSolaire wrote:
| > In fact, several states will soon require displaying the 10
| commandments in public school classrooms, which seems pretty
| "right-ish" to me.
|
| That tells you way more about the (current) politics of the
| local government than it does about the politics of the
| median teacher. It might actually indicate the opposite - no
| one would go to the effort of mandating pride flags at the
| school I went to, seeing as they were already hung in every
| single classroom.
| csb6 wrote:
| Why would hanging pride flags in every room be comparable
| to showing the ten commandments in every room? A poster of
| the commandments is promoting religion in a secular school,
| and the flag promotes human rights for queer people. Why
| would a pride flag be controversial to anyone who isn't a
| religious zealot?
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| Do privilege walks count? Which seem to foster victim
| mentality?
| ilikecakeandpie wrote:
| This is very anecdotal. Here in the south, the "controversial,
| left-ish values" would be a breath of fresh air vs what is
| being taught here
|
| > Schools have stopped educating in favor of test metrics,
| making sure the worst students pass
|
| This is no child left behind in action, which was implemented
| during W's term
|
| > With remote education during the pandemic, people have more
| visibility into their school's day-to-day teaching
|
| ^ This is the micromanagement that a ton of people claim to
| hate and get in their way on this site when folks are
| complaining about daily standups.
|
| IMO, if you're worried about the quality of your kid's
| education then you'll either need to send them to a private or
| home school, which will stunt them socially because life isn't
| just one big private school or home, or encourage curiosity and
| learning at home to supplement their rote learning from school
| jrm4 wrote:
| I'm not sure how your first thing much factors in? I haven't
| seen any data but I'd be VERY surprised if e.g. a survey of
| homeschoolers would cite to a lot of "making bad students pass"
| and "lefty indoctrination."
| jrm4 wrote:
| Another nebulous but I think VERY observable factor would be
| the extent to which "parents are, and expected to be, involved
| in their kids school stuff."
|
| Anecdotally, but I bet you see a lot of it, I can count on one,
| maybe two hands the number of times my parents went to anything
| at the school to see me do a thing. And for my kids, there's
| something just about every other week.
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| The other factor is not removing the bottom _% of hugely
| disruptive and violent children from schools.
| deepfriedchokes wrote:
| This is how a significant portion of the population gets
| radicalized by their parents. It needs to be shut down.
| nvahalik wrote:
| All kids are indoctrinated. As parents do you want to have
| control of that or not?
|
| With that attitude you might as well just tell parents that
| they shouldn't participate in society!
| bdangubic wrote:
| the purpose of education is largely opposite of indocrination
| (plus few other things). if your kid is being educated is
| such an environment you should move (or pay for private
| education).
| kochikame wrote:
| I get where you're coming from but I think your statement
| is a bit naive.
|
| Education systems as we know them today are absolutely
| about indoctrination in so many ways. Capitalism, love of
| country, views on family units, beauty and aaesthetics,
| what has cultural value and what does not etc etc. Not to
| mention many school systems just straight up having classes
| on religion, allowing armed forces into schools to recruit
| and the like.
|
| Whether you're worried about left wing or right wing
| indoctrination, it still holds true. All kids are being
| indoctrinated every time they go to school same as every
| time they watch TV.
| bdangubic wrote:
| I pay _a lot_ of money for my 12-year to not be in the
| system you are describing and am grateful I can provide
| this for her more than I am grateful for just about
| anything else
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| Exactly. Which history lessons get taught, which books
| get assigned as reading, which clubs are available, etc.
| Even if they are taught to be critical of the assignments
| they get, if the selection is limited enough, kids will
| not have the breadth of knowledge to even see the
| alternatives.
| kochikame wrote:
| I think the point is that part of having a functioning
| society (civic life, engagement, tolerance of others) is
| having people mix together. School is one of the prime places
| where that happens.
|
| If you allow a lot of people to pull away from that "forced"
| engagement with others then you start to stress a lot of
| societal bonds.
| nvahalik wrote:
| You're right. It's _one_ of the prime places.
|
| I don't know a single homeschooler that sits at home all
| day long. They work in family businesses, participate in
| bands, sports, and co-ops. Many belong to churches where
| families come from all different strata: our church has
| surgeons, line cooks, programmers, self-employed handymen,
| disabled vets. They interact with everyone--including kids.
| They do things like "kid markets" where they have a
| business. They watch their parents learn how the house
| works and how to manage finances.
|
| There is no forced engagement--in fact the peer pressure is
| often completely gone. They are in an environment (their
| family) where they are much freer to be themselves.
| cyclotron3k wrote:
| > I don't know a single homeschooler that sits at home
| all day long.
|
| Well, you wouldn't, would you?
|
| Sorry, not to detract from your other points, but I
| thought it was funny.
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| All of our planes came back with the wings shot up!
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| It's also how some of the population escapes getting broken by
| a one-size-fits-all education system. People need options.
| SabrinaJewson wrote:
| 100%. The school and the Internet are the two places children
| can encounter opinions different from their parents' for the
| first time. With an increase in homeschooling and recent pushes
| to ban social media for children, it's clear that critical
| thinking is going to suffer most. I still have not met someone
| who was homeschooled who was remotely thankful for it.
|
| Honestly, support for these policies that benefit, more than
| anyone else, abusive parents, makes me suspicious of people's
| motives.
| GaryBluto wrote:
| One could also say banning homeschooling is how a significant
| portion of the population gets indoctrinated by the state.
| netsharc wrote:
| If the article was about how Muslim families home-school their
| kids, your comment would not be so greyed out...
|
| (I'm not saying it's true for 1 religion and false for the
| other, but I'm betting a lot of people would think so...).
| JSR_FDED wrote:
| Timmy's job will be done by AI when he grows up, but at least
| he'll have fun a social skills
| ec2y wrote:
| Lemme just question how home schooling is at all possible without
| one parent (statically more likely to be a woman) staying home to
| supervise the learning. I don't think we're talking about remote
| ranch situations where you either do online school or have to
| send them to boarding school.
|
| So I'm genuinely wondering if there's a corresponding exit from
| the workplace or other demographic trends allowing/pushing this
| boom in home schooling to happen?
| stockresearcher wrote:
| We've homeschooled all our kids up to 8th grade. Our oldest is
| now a sophomore at the public high school but will start
| attending community college next year, paid for by the school
| district.
|
| Most of the adults you see at the various group things are
| stay-at-home moms. Most. Some stay-at-home dads. Some of the
| moms have part-time jobs. I don't recall any dads with part-
| time jobs. But many dads are present while also working full-
| time. You get into a rhythm, have a schedule, etc. and you can
| work it out. My wife is fairly unusual in that she runs her own
| full-time business. Many moms don't like her, presumably
| because they gave up their careers to do this and are jealous
| that she does both.
| toasterlovin wrote:
| > My wife is fairly unusual in that she runs her own full-
| time business. Many moms don't like her, presumably because
| they gave up their careers to do this and are jealous that
| she does both.
|
| FWIW, my experience is that the dynamic at play in these
| situations is that women who run their own businesses or
| otherwise have high-powered careers tend to have a
| constellation of personality traits that is significantly
| shifted vs. those of stay at home moms, plus their daily
| lives are very different, so they don't really fit in. Saying
| that without value judgement, just an observation.
| mikece wrote:
| Wait... you homeschool your kids and yet you write "...and
| [they] are jealous that she does both." No, they are ENVIOUS:
| one envies what they don't have and are jealous of what they
| have.
|
| Sorry, couldn't let that one slide! :-)
| istjohn wrote:
| That's not true. Who told you that?
| streb-lo wrote:
| Product of homeschooling no doubt. Technically correct, but
| missing the forest for the trees re: colloquial usage.
| tylervigen wrote:
| It only requires that one parent has enough free hours to
| assign coursework. They don't have to exit the workforce, and
| don't necessarily need to directly supervise learning (but of
| course some of this is necessary for K-5).
|
| I think a lot of how homeschooling can work, along with much of
| median/lower household income life in general, is
| misunderstood.
|
| Source: Was homeschooled by a mom who worked.
| csa wrote:
| > Lemme just question how home schooling is at all possible
| without one parent (statically more likely to be a woman)
| staying home to supervise the learning.
|
| There are at least two good answers to this:
|
| 1. The first is a via a home-schooling collective. With as few
| as 5 families, one can easily do a once-per-week rotation of
| home schooling responsibilities. Also note that the formal
| education part of this can be done fairly comfortably in 4
| hours (even down to 2 hours with 1-1 instruction). As such, all
| that is needed is a 4-day a week job, or a job with a flex
| schedule who can do work on the weekend. I know one family that
| does something like this.
|
| 2. The second is to have a tutor do the instruction. For folks
| who are high earners, paying a tutor who can come in for 2-3
| hours a day costs about the same as a mid-tier private school.
| Child care would still need to be covered, but that's usually
| cheaper than a tutor.
|
| So it's doable, but either time or money will need to be
| sacrificed. I don't think that's a surprise.
|
| That said, below are some things about home schooling that I've
| learned over the years from people who have done it:
|
| - When done well, it's probably close to an ideal education.
| When done poorly, it can mess up the kid, and many of these
| kids are very vocal about how bad it can be. Obviously there
| will be a whole range of outcomes between these extremes. Just
| be aware that it's not necessarily a panacea, and it's not
| necessarily an ideological cesspit.
|
| - There is a ton of support for home schoolers in some
| communities, especially for socialization and specialization.
| Many people do not realize this.
|
| - That said, some (perhaps many) home school parents are just
| ideological extremists -- extreme beliefs, extreme (sometimes
| illegal) lifestyles, etc.
|
| - A good litmus test of where a home school parent is on the
| thoughtful-extremist continuum is to ask them why they
| homeschool their kids. The thoughtful parents can rattle off
| dozens of learning opportunities that their kids have had that
| don't exist or barely exist at normal schools. The less of
| these types of specifics they talk about, the more likely they
| are to have ideological reasons that they may or may not openly
| discuss.
|
| - For folks who want a good learning environment for their kid,
| I strongly recommend a _good_ Montessori school. I emphasize
| "good", because some of them stray far from the Montessori
| ideals. This just requires a small amount of research and some
| observation. All that said, a good Montessori school almost
| always sets up a kid to be a solid person and life-long
| learner. Note that some kids absolutely hate the Montessori
| style, and you will know this in about a day or two. I will go
| out on a limb and say most of these kids will need special
| attention in home school contexts as well (imho).
|
| > So I'm genuinely wondering if there's a corresponding exit
| from the workplace or other demographic trends allowing/pushing
| this boom in home schooling to happen?
|
| I don't think so.
|
| Most of the people I know who home school are already stay at
| home parents (mostly mothers, but one dad), or they have plenty
| of disposable income to throw at the problem via tutors and
| home school support services.
|
| I will also say that some parents absolutely punt on the
| education part, and they can do their part (often negligently)
| while doing a full time work-from-home job -- think handing out
| some work sheets and pointing their kid(s) to an online
| learning environment with very little scaffolding. There are
| some kids who respond well to this, but most don't.
| paulddraper wrote:
| Yes, it (effectively) requires a parent to stay home, at least
| 90% of the time.
|
| But that has happened for a long time, at a rate high enough
| that you wouldn't need to see resignations to increase
| homeschooling.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Interesting point. I know of one home-schooling family--and the
| wife quit her career to homeschool.
|
| Is this family well off financially? Of course they are. I
| suspect the data on homeschoolers is going to reflect a
| generally affluent slant.
| gred wrote:
| Anecdotally, I know of one child who was homeschooled
| recently. The mother is a single mother, of modest middle-
| class means. There was a homeschooling group nearby with a
| few volunteer mothers handling most of the logistics and
| teaching. This particular mother did not have to give up her
| job. It does stretch the definition of "homeschooling" a bit
| when it's a neighbor teaching in a neighbor's home, but they
| made it work.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Yea, that does stretch it. At some point, it becomes less
| "homeschooling" and more "an unlicensed private school."
| Uber for Schools?
| vivzkestrel wrote:
| homeschooled kids are literally competing against kids from other
| countries that are being schooled on calculus, geometry,
| statistics, algebra with practical chemistry, physics and biology
| lessons. This is not going to end well 15 yrs down the line
| stockresearcher wrote:
| Lots of colleges offer laboratory science classes for
| homeschooled children. AOPS wipes the floor with any math
| education you'd get at a public school. Most US national
| laboratories have on-site programs for school-aged kids and
| homeschoolers have equal standing for attending.
|
| Anyone who takes it seriously gives up nothing.
| sbuttgereit wrote:
| You think avoiding these things are why people are thinking
| about homeschooling?!
|
| In San Francisco where I live the public school system made the
| decision to not offer algebra until later for egalitarian
| reasons. Basically since they couldn't bring up the students
| that faired poorly in math, they delayed the subject for
| everybody. Along the same lines, they took the one high school
| dedicated to the highest achieving students and turned it into
| a lottery system rather than something earned.
|
| Yes, of course you're right, kids will be competing on all
| those subjects. But the idea that public institutions are
| somehow the safeguards of fundamental academic achievement is
| just out of touch.
|
| Of course, San Francisco public school's embrace of
| socialist/egalitarian drive identity politics is just one
| example of public education failure. Elsewhere in the US in
| these times, other school districts are being turned
| effectively into seminaries because the other political side
| has other doctrinal objectives. In neither case is learning how
| to think or how the world really works is important.
| biophysboy wrote:
| > When asked if they are satisfied with their children's
| education, public school parents consistently rank last after
| parents who choose private schools, homeschooling, and charter
| schools. Importantly, among all parents of school-age children,
| homeschooling enjoys a 70 percent favorability rating.
|
| This is not surprising: homeschoolers are extremely confident in
| their own teaching abilities and extremely cynical about the
| abilities of others.
|
| > Closures also gave parents a chance to experience public
| schools' competence with remote learning, and many were
| unimpressed. They have also been unhappy with the poor quality
| and often politicized lessons taught to their children that
| infuriatingly blend declining learning outcomes with
| indoctrination.
|
| Why would a parent compare a novel learning environment to the
| pre-covid experience? Why would a parent think that their kid
| will never encounter political topics if they stay at home - do
| they use the internet at all?
| jen20 wrote:
| > Why would a parent think that their kid will never encounter
| political topics if they stay at home
|
| They probably imagine they'll never encounter political topics
| from a perspective of which said parents do not approve. And
| they're probably not wrong to believe that.
| biophysboy wrote:
| Yes, but then their kid will become an adult and feel like
| they were kept in a snow globe. Even if the parents are
| right, its a foolish strategy!
| Scottn1 wrote:
| Homeschooling is becoming an epidemic and a major reason is ---
| SPORTS. From my experience, it is growing for all the wrong
| reasons and I have not come across ONE family doing it properly
| and in a matter I would consider better for the kid.
|
| I have a 15yo son who plays sports and for the past 5 years,
| homeschooling has been a way to "red-shirt" kids - hold them back
| a year or two then re-entering them into public schools into
| grades behind their age. Literally purposely holding back their
| kids so they can be older as freshman.
|
| A major problem with boys because of puberty, size etc around
| this age. The difference between a 14yo and a 16yo, or 16/18yo
| can be quite large at times. My son had a freshman on his team
| last year that could drive and had a mustache playing vs these
| tiny incoming freshman, it was so comical. He was 16 1/2 as a
| freshman. And the parents were on the sideline acting like their
| kid was the next coming of Aaron Judge. It REALLY hurts the rest
| of us playing the rules and taking education seriously when our
| kids are trying to make a team.
|
| I've known several of these parents and they all are the same.
| They haphazardly put them into the bare min online courses, still
| go to work all day and stick them in front of computers to expect
| them to self teach for a few years. The moms would be stay-home
| types that didn't seem much educated themselves. The kids are
| spoiled entitled types who think they are top athletes already
| and would jokingly be calling my son at 11a telling him they are
| done already for the day and headed to the gym and playing
| Fortnite.
|
| Now this is just MY circle, I am not saying there aren't very
| serious and capable parents out there really homeschooling and
| giving their kids a better education than public school, but I
| haven't met any in maybe roughly 10 I know. Most of them seemed
| to also be MAGA types poo-pooing public education and how they
| are brainwashing kids. It is really despicable that this is most
| likely happening ALL across America.
|
| Education and manipulation aside, I would also think this isn't
| good the kids mental and social health as well. They already are
| on devices doom-scrolling enough nowadays, do we really want them
| hermits too now?
|
| I applaud anyone putting in huge effort to home school a kid
| properly and with true care and teaching. But the image of them
| at a desk being taught by a real smart/educated parent following
| a true curriculum all day and on a schedule I imagine is ultra
| rare. And we are going to pay a price for this in the long run.
| Or not, GPT will just help them along to properly write that
| email for them when they are adults in a corporate world.
| mikece wrote:
| I thought you were going to go in a different direction with
| that: recruiting. In States where home schoolers can play on
| public school sports teams there are cases where the family
| gets an apartment and one parent and the kid establishes
| residency for the purpose of being in a particular school
| district. A notable case in recent-ish history was someone
| called Tim Tebow in Jacksonville, FLA. It's not a common thing
| though, far less of a complaint-magnet than the Catholic
| schools who "recruit" players from all over a city or even
| region to come be a starter on their football/basketball
| team...
| spwa4 wrote:
| Well here is what the result was of public school for my 3 kids:
|
| 1 kid: one year behind but doing very well
|
| 1 kid: two years behind and not doing so well (in fact can't
| continue to academia unless things change drastically, in other
| words, will lose at least 1-2 more years if she does go to
| academia)
|
| 1 kid: two years behind and doing pretty well
|
| This is the result of 9-11 years of public schooling. I feel like
| all 3 have very suboptimal outcomes, including the one doing very
| well.
|
| I must say I am also getting very irritated by the
| "indoctrination". That was fine, if occasionally crazy, during
| the COVID years when the indoctrination was pretty progressive.
| Sometimes batshit insane, but let's say "well intentioned". Pro-
| climate claims ... that were bullshit, but at least pro-climate
| and generally positive and pro-humanity. Now one of their
| teachers is openly racist (in a class with 33% immigrants), and
| even though most keep it more subtle than him, this is a general
| trend.
|
| So if someone can please suggest what is the suggestion here?
| Keep working with public school? To be honest, the damage was
| done by their previous public school where the situation
| deteriorated to the point I had a fight with the principal, and
| their current school (since 1.5 years) is actually undoing part
| of the damage done there.
|
| Keep them going to public school and give up?
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| I know a teacher who said one of their colleagues adamantly
| believes the moon landing was faked.
|
| >So if someone can please suggest what is the suggestion here?
| Keep working with public school? To be honest, the damage was
| done by their previous public school where the situation
| deteriorated to the point I had a fight with the principal, and
| their current school (since 1.5 years) is actually undoing part
| of the damage done there.
|
| Look up school ratings in your area and move is by far your
| best bet if you wish to continue public school. There is also
| the difficult truth that maybe your kids are the problem, but
| again school shopping could help with that depending on what
| programs they have.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| Group home schooling in a shared building is becoming a huge new
| trend in home schooling, far more resource and time efficient and
| pools the resources of the parents and allows the group to hire
| someone to do the group homeschooling.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| This sounds like a private school (probably with less
| oversight/regulation). What are the key differences?
| PKop wrote:
| Control over what happens there
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| I really enjoyed teaching my kids during covid, and they got a
| bug jump ahead compared to the kids who just played video games
| while the schools were closed. We only did 3-4 hours a day but
| it was fun, and I could really see the changes.
|
| I don't mind the idea of teaching 10 kids, my way, and in and
| environment I can control. The thought of teaching 35 kids,
| mired in bureaucracy, is a nightmare.
| nxm wrote:
| At the end of the day, it's a form of school-choice where parents
| decide what's best for their kids which I strongly support.
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| Too bad for the kids though. You'd think their welfare would
| matter more than the parents having control.
| russdill wrote:
| Only parents of privilege are given choice though. Parents who
| are struggling are not. And then when it comes to vote on
| fixing classrooms, paying teachers what they are worth, etc,
| there's a great bulk of people who would rather just not
| because it doesn't effect them.
| gtirloni wrote:
| I don't feel better prepared to teach at home than someone who
| actually went to college for the various topics covered in high
| school. How can I know all I need to teach about math, chemistry,
| english, physics, etc, etc, etc when I already have to learn so
| much for my own work? I think parents that think they can do a
| better job are delusional.
|
| Maybe the school _environment_ that a child has access isn't
| great, right? But I don't think that says anything about
| teachers.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| In California, a teacher without a chemistry degree can teach
| high school chemistry after passing the CSET Chemistry subtest.
| This requires less depth of knowledge than AP Chemistry.
| jeffbee wrote:
| You do not need to know anything about the subject to teach
| high school subjects. You need to know stuff about
| _teaching_.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| At school, one teacher lectures to maybe 30 students. If all
| they did was give individual attention student by student, each
| would get maybe 10 minutes a day.
|
| The first 10 minutes of your home-school day you've beat that
| statistic. After two or three hours, you're up to a month of
| class time.
|
| Of course they don't do that; they just lecture. Which is
| something you can get online (Khan Academy).
|
| It's all about the homework and tutoring, baby.
|
| All you have to do is learn along with your home student, and
| validate their learning experience. Helps if you catch on
| quicker, but not even necessary.
| dkhenry wrote:
| When I recently switched jobs, one of my requirements was I had
| to remain remote, for at least the next few years, so I could
| remain at home and help with my children's education. I don't
| think there is enough money in the world to convince me to change
| back to public education. Aside from the benefits everyone
| mentions like a much better education, having so much extra time
| with my children is a priceless gift that I wish we as a society
| could give everyone.
|
| Also its given me the chance to learn things that I missed during
| my primary and secondary educations. Going through each proof in
| Euclid's Elements again has been a lot of fun, and its been long
| enough that I have forgotten most of them, so the thrill of
| discovery is real for me too.
|
| If you can make it work, you should make it work, even if that
| means moving to a lower CoL area, there are a lot of small towns
| in the US that have excellent amenities, and are great places to
| raise a family.
| kulahan wrote:
| How do you make up for the resulting drop in interaction with
| other kids? I had a boss who did this with his children as well
| - it seemed as though his solution was to use PE credits to
| have his kids attend sports with other kids.
| dkhenry wrote:
| My kids are part of a co-op where they meet once a week and
| in this co-op they share some elements of their curriculum
| with everyone else, they spend one day going over the weeks
| assignments along with 8-10 classmates, and then during the
| week they are at home doing their work. As they have aged
| their school work now has a lot of collaborative elements, so
| my oldest is actually meeting with kids from his co-op almost
| daily to go over group projects and assignments.
|
| Additionally they have a lot of extra curricular activities
| they participate in ( sports, music, church youth group),
| that also gives them a lot of socialization time with others.
| kulahan wrote:
| Sounds like a wonderful setup. Have the kids ever shown a
| desire for public school? My brother is homeschooling his
| kids to start, but the oldest just asked to start going to
| public, so he sent her.
| dkhenry wrote:
| No, my wife and I discussed putting them into traditional
| school as they got older, but now that they are older,
| they have all strongly requested to remain in their
| homeschool co-op. I think the biggest reason is they have
| a good group of friends that they connect with, and have
| been their class mates for multiple years. So there is a
| strong desire to continue in the program with people they
| know.
| lapcat wrote:
| > Recent estimates put the total homeschooling population at
| about 6 percent of students across the United States, compared to
| about 3 percent pre-pandemic.
|
| One thing that concerns me about many pro-homeschooling comments
| is a kind of tear-down-the-schools attitude, as if schools were
| hopeless and irredeemable, despite the fact they're still
| educating 94% of students even at today's elevated homeschooling
| rate. Of course there are problems with schools, but on the other
| hand there are countless success stories, or at least countless
| non-failure stories, and educational outcomes tend to depend
| crucially on local factors, the location of the school and its
| socioeconomic environment.
|
| I suspect that the vast majority of parents have neither the
| desire nor the capability to homeschool their kids. I certainly
| can't imagine my own parents doing it. In a sense, homeschooling
| is a luxury of the few. The absolute numbers can increase, but I
| don't think homeschooling can scale to the entire population. So
| whatever problems may exist in the schools, we have to confront
| and solve them, not just abandon them and pretend homeschooling
| is a societal solution. You might claim that hundreds of years
| ago, everyone was homeschooled, but I don't want to turn back the
| societal clock hundreds of years.
|
| Another concern I have is the religious and/or political
| motivation of many homeschoolers. If homeschooling were _just_
| about educational outcomes for children, then we shouldn 't
| expect homeschoolers to be disproportionately conservative in
| religious and/or political beliefs, yet my impression is that
| they are. It's certainly suspicious to me. And though I've had no
| involvement with K-12 education since I was in school myself,
| I've had a lot of involvement in higher education, first as an
| undergrad, then as a PhD student and lecturer. Frankly, the
| horror stories and conspiracy theories about left-wing
| indoctrination at universities are ridiculous and not based on
| fact or experience. So I'm quite skeptical of similar claims
| about K-12, especially since I saw none of that in my own
| childhood. (I recall being forced to say the Pledge of Allegiance
| every day, for all the good that did.) There's a type of person
| who's set off if you say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry
| Christmas" and consider that to be an act of war against them.
| There are still a lot of parents in the United States who reject
| biological evolution and would prefer that it not be taught in
| schools at all, or at least to be taught as "controversial."
| account1984 wrote:
| I hear your viewpoint, but parents do have a right to teach
| their religious beliefs to their children. There is no law or
| social imperative that children must be taught a secular view
| point. At the end of the day, there are over 7 billion people
| in the world, it's okay if some of them believe differently.
| Honestly, I am more concerned that in the last 20 years we've
| progressed to the point where secularism has for some become as
| militantly evangelized as any religion. It has become a belief
| system of it's own, and I for one fear the coming crusades :)
|
| I say live and let live, parents should be free to teach their
| kids whatever belief system they want without political
| interference. Much to the dismay of the left (and I say this,
| being a left leaning moderate... I know, bad word today), kids
| are not the communities children, they are their parents
| children, full stop. The shift towards enforced collectivism,
| away from individualism, is only putting fuel to the fire in
| this surge in global fascism. At the risk of sounding too
| kumbaya'ish, we all just need to accept each other and
| recognize the real enemies to society is a global loss of
| empathy and the rise of transactionalism. Now that is something
| I could really get behind, forced empathy courses! :)
| lapcat wrote:
| > I hear your viewpoint, but parents do have a right to teach
| their religious beliefs to their children.
|
| I didn't claim that they don't have a right. I just claimed
| to be skeptical of the idea that the primary motivation for
| homeschooling was educational outcomes rather than
| ideological outcomes.
|
| > At the end of the day, there are over 7 billion people in
| the world, it's okay if some of them believe differently.
|
| If only they believed differently. ;-) It's no coincidence
| that children tend to adopt the same beliefs as their
| parents, no matter the country or region.
|
| > I am more concerned that in the last 20 years we've
| progressed to the point where secularism has for some become
| as militantly evangelized as any religion.
|
| The last 20 years? The First Amendment of the US Constitution
| begins, "Congress shall make no law respecting an
| establishment of religion". The principle of separation of
| church and state is more than 200 years old.
|
| > kids are not the communities children, they are their
| parents children
|
| I don't know what label you'd want to put on me, but I would
| say that kids do not belong to anyone. I find the notion of
| ownership to be noxious, practically slavery. We have a
| responsibility to take care of those who cannot take care of
| themselves (yet), but that doesn't mean children are simply
| the personal property and playthings of the parents. I think
| it's a disservice to a child to place them in a bubble and
| shield them from anything the parents don't happen to like.
|
| > The shift towards enforced collectivism, away from
| individualism
|
| "they are their parents children" is not individualism, or
| certainly not individualism from the child's perspective.
|
| Morover, from what I've seen and heard from homeschoolers
| themselves, they do tend to form, or indeed come from,
| specific communitites, and are not simply "lone wolf"
| homeschooling parents.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| My daughter is in college now, but we used a variety of private,
| part-time, and homeschooling approaches prior to that. One thing
| is that there are a lot of resources (e.g. independent teachers
| for subjects you don't know, co-ops for socializing, etc.), and
| the more people are doing it, the more true that becomes. My
| parents were both public school teachers, and yet we found
| ourselves home- and alternative-schooling our daughter. Public
| schools don't really seem to have a strategy for dealing with the
| situation, other than complaining about it.
|
| If you are offering a free service, that is quite time-intensive,
| and increasing numbers of people choose to not use it, then there
| should be more introspection going on. If it's happening in
| public education, I'm not able to see evidence of it.
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| Seattle schools have that issue. After covid a bunch of kids
| were moved to private schools, and SPS (the organism in charge
| of school) complained and blamed parents on having money and
| not wanting to mix with the riff raff and other bs. When they
| actually asked the parents why their children weren't returning
| after covid, it was because SPS decided to axe the
| advance/gifted programs they had for kids, among other
| educational quality things. The children that never came back
| were children who would have taken advantage of those programs,
| and parents decided to go pay to win instead to get those
| programs back in private schools, as it becomes a compounding
| advantage in today's competitive world. SPS is still using the
| stupid hippie approach about children magically learning how to
| read with pictures and guesses, instead of phonics, and some
| numbers for reading are worst than Mississippi, which went hard
| into phonics and overwhelmingly improved their numbers. WA is a
| clear example that spending a ton of money doesn't improve
| educational outcomes, you also have to do things that work.
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| This is exactly right. I had a kid in Seattle schools during
| this time and this is exactly how I saw it happen and and
| Seattle schools were a major reason I left Seattle.
| ryandrake wrote:
| This might have been our experience from our bubble, but
| are these examples representative of the overall pattern? I
| suspect for every 1 kid pulled out of public school because
| of academic reasons like gifted programs, there are 10
| pulled out due to religious reasons or vaccines or the
| gamut of anti-government reasons.
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| People are allowed to pull their kids out for religious
| reasons.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Nobody's saying they shouldn't be allowed to. We're just
| speculating about the reasons and I don't know if there's
| really any hard data showing which reasons are more
| prevalent.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| This is why I didn't move back to Seattle, but stayed in the
| nearby communities.
| bluesummers5651 wrote:
| I feel this pain. I grew up in what I thought were great
| public schools and am a big believer that public school is a
| fundamental institution that should raise the floor for
| society. Now I'm raising kids in Seattle and it's a constant
| struggle to get the kinds of educational programs and
| opportunities for my kids that I took for granted when I was
| in public school and just assumed would still be around when
| I was an adult. For lack of a better way to phrase it, I feel
| like I am exactly the kind of parent SPS _should_ want to
| keep in its system - a strong believer in public education
| with the means to support the schools, yet sometimes I feel
| like they are actively driving families like mine out of
| school system with their decisions.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > then there should be more introspection going on
|
| This assumes that the blame obviously lies with the schools.
| Basically everyone I know that homeschools does it because they
| disapprove of tolerance. Should the introspection lead schools
| to embrace segregation again? It is going to be hard to bring
| people with such wildly different viewpoints together in
| harmony.
| dclaw wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Joshua
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| I can't say my public school experience was great, I was bullied
| and didn't really click with the popular kids, but being around a
| cross section of actual American kids in my age group (my school
| district mixed middle class with lower class neighborhoods)
| helped me shape my worldview and learn to deal with people who
| didn't look or talk like me. I frequently saw fights, so I
| learned that you just stay away and watch your mouth around
| specific people. I learned that the BS American value of
| "popularity" doesn't translate into successful futures.
|
| I worry this move to homeschooling and micromanaging children's
| social lives just creates bubbles and makes children incapable of
| interacting with those outside of them.
| gred wrote:
| > I learned that the BS American value of "popularity" doesn't
| translate into successful futures.
|
| Popularity is not an exclusively American concept. Just as
| public school broadened your horizons, so will traveling (or
| living) abroad.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Too many CO2 emissions for that to be practical for the
| billions of people who don't have public transit access to
| another nation.
| beeflet wrote:
| not if you send em by boat
| Redster wrote:
| The positives you experienced are very possible for a
| homeschooled student as well, and this seems to be a common
| boogieman. Other factors seem to play a much larger factor in
| the things you are (rightfully!) concerned about. As long as
| the parents have "the will to have nice things" (to refer to
| Patrick McKenzie's concept), then these are very surmountable
| problems.
|
| Respectfully, A grateful dad who was homeschooled and who will
| homeschool.
|
| P.S. Of course I will do some things differently than my
| parents, but it was an amazing gift and I had an extremely
| vibrant and stimulating time, including with peers (and
| adults!) outside of my parents' network who pushed me,
| challenged me, thought very differently than me, etc.
| valar_m wrote:
| >The positives you experienced are very possible for a
| homeschooled student as well, and this seems to be a common
| boogieman.
|
| How do you do that? Seems like it would be impossible to
| replicate the experience of learning to navigate daily social
| interactions in a mixed group of people, especially when it
| comes to dealing with conflict.
| simeonf wrote:
| Easy - homeschooling may include but does not require "in
| the home" any more than "homework" is required to be done
| in your house.
|
| I was homeschooled and have homeschooled my three kids.
| Never has that meant "only at home and only with my
| family". My kids have been in co-op classes, taken classes
| from Art or Technical instruction centers (piano lessons,
| voice classes, programming, robotics), enrolled in
| community classes via private institutions and the local JC
| (cooking classes, performing arts) and been enrolled in
| independent study charter public schools which have some
| in-person classes. And in high school they start taking in-
| person JC courses.
|
| There is lots of regular exposure to a variety of other
| people in all of that!
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Just redefine homeschooling to include enrollment at
| schools and community colleges, tada.
| swannodette wrote:
| If you can afford it! "Grass-roots segregation hits records
| numbers" would be an equally fitting title.
| nlavezzo wrote:
| What leads you to believe the reason parents are willing to
| dedicate huge amounts of their time and money to homeschool
| their children is racism?
|
| Maybe it's: - the terrible educational state
| of the school system? - the fact that device and
| social media addiction is a prevalent and growing problem
| that they don't want their kids brains rotted by?
| - they want to provide their kids an education based on
| experiential and project based learning rather than filling
| out worksheets? - they don't want their kids to
| be forced to wait for the slowest / least interested kids in
| class to catch up before moving on to more challenging
| material?
| verdverm wrote:
| Are they going to spend huge amounts of time & money?
|
| I'd be willing to bet that we'll hear some stories about
| how they outsourced the effort to AI
| 7thaccount wrote:
| Not sure why you're being down voted. I'm sure there are
| some folks homeschooling because of things like racism, but
| that has always existed just like evangelical christians
| have always been big into homeschooling.
|
| If there is a big uptake, it's likely due to the ever
| present threat of school shootings coupled with all the
| things you said above. I have to teach my kid a lot outside
| of school and they go to what is considered a good one. The
| only reason I send them is my spouse and I work and my kid
| needs to learn social skills. If I won the lottery, I'd
| homeschool them myself and do it for a few other families
| as well so that my kid can get the social aspect too.
| sevensor wrote:
| I'm sure these motivations do play out in some circles.
| However, every single homeschooler I know personally, and I
| know quite a few, does so because they want their children
| to have a very specific kind of religious education. Often
| the way this plays out is that they homeschool for a while,
| transition to a denominational school, and then depending
| on the family they may stay there or make a second
| transition to public school around 9th grade.
|
| I think this tendency is heavily dependent on where you
| live. We have great public schools that will track advanced
| children aggressively if the parents push for it, so the
| motivations you list are unusual in my area.
| BrenBarn wrote:
| Religion is definitely a big motivator. My perception
| though is other motivations have been on the increase,
| especially since the pandemic. One other group attracted
| to homeschooling is the hippie-type who thinks school is
| some kind of diabolical machine designed to crush kids'
| souls. Since the pandemic there's also been a big surge
| in the "I don't trust vaccines" group (which already had
| a good deal of overlap with the hippie group).
| ryandrake wrote:
| I have a feeling a really large percentage of
| homeschooling is about religious separatism and political
| separatism, and not about academic performance. Yes,
| you'll hear HN commenters sing the praises of
| homeschooling because this site is going to be
| disproportionately represented by the group doing it for
| actual educational reasons.
| BrenBarn wrote:
| That may be so, especially if you add a sort of "cultural
| separatism" (a la the hippies I mentioned). An odd thing
| I see recently too is people who seem to believe they're
| making various choices for educational reasons, but it's
| not clear if the education they're moving to is any
| better. They just do it because they perceive their child
| as being unhappy or stifled somehow. There seem to be,
| for instance, more and more parents who believe their kid
| is unusually smart and should be on some kind of fast
| track or not have to do certain things, even when there's
| little objective evidence of the kid's abilities.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Vague "educational reasons" is always the noble-sounding
| excuse they use, but often if you dig deeper they'll
| admit it's more about the various forms of separatism.
|
| Sometimes you don't have to dig. A ton of moms in my
| wife's church group permanently pulled their kids out of
| public school in recent years, and they will openly admit
| that it's about keeping their kids away from "those"
| people, where the definition of "those" runs the gamut.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| Both were certainly major motivating factors for my
| parents' choice to homeschool me in the 90s. Quality of
| education was a concern too, but it very much took a back
| seat to the other two.
|
| The overwhelming majority of other homeschooling parents
| they had contact with also held separatist motivations.
| jandrese wrote:
| We did the homeschool thing for one year after most kids
| went back to school after COVID. My wife has underlying
| medical conditions that made her quite concerned about
| catching it before the vaccine rollout. We did a few of
| the homeschool group organized field trips and I got to
| briefly meet some of the parents. Overall I can't say
| much about the kids, they seemed fine. The parents were
| friendly, but when I asked about the curriculum they
| almost invariably suggested PragerU material, which makes
| me concerned for their children's future.
| 5upplied_demand wrote:
| It's insightful how they said segregation and financial
| means and you immediately went to racism.
|
| There is certainly some level of segregating the children
| from families who have the means to "dedicate huge amounts
| of their time and money to homeschool their children" and
| children from families that don't have those means.
| totallykvothe wrote:
| You can't use the word segregation wrt people and then
| pretend it's surprising or unreasonable when someone
| assumes you're talking about racism.
| vel0city wrote:
| > What leads you to believe the reason parents are willing
| to dedicate huge amounts of their time and money to
| homeschool their children is racism?
|
| A lot of the people I know who do homeschool (the extreme
| majority of families I know) have openly said the reasons
| why they're choosing to homeschool is because they don't
| want their kids exposed to the other "cultures" in their
| area whether that be immigrants, other religions, or LGBT
| people.
|
| One family I know was thinking about pulling their kids out
| of public school because the choir was going to sing
| "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel" and was worried this was
| indoctrinating their child into another religion. Forget
| the fact the rest of that holiday choir event was filled
| with Christian holiday tunes and what that means for the
| non-Christians that have a right to go to the school, that
| wasn't a concern at all.
|
| Not all families, I agree. I've known a few outliers who
| actually are exceptional teachers and think they'll do a
| better job teaching the kids than the local schools (and
| they're probably right). But they're definitely the
| outliers around me. Most that I've personally known are not
| like that, and rely on just giving their kids workbooks
| with extreme religious bent to figure things out on their
| own.
| noboostforyou wrote:
| As the parent of a small child, there is a very noticeable
| difference in social skills that develop immediately as a
| result of my child being in a daycare interacting with other
| children of a similar age. Compared to my friends' same age
| children who are mostly staying at home and babysat by a
| grandparent.
|
| (as a disclaimer, the daycare has very good teachers/caregivers
| from what I can tell so I'm sure that's part of it as well)
| mtrovo wrote:
| Daycare quality is a spectrum, the same way as babysitting at
| home. My smaller one just started daycare, and we settled for
| one that actually does stuff with the kids (forest school
| style). But I can tell you, we've visited lots of places that
| are basically just making sure the kids are not dead by the
| time you pick them up. Same for babysitting with
| grandparents; there's the hyper-social grandpa style that's
| always doing something, and the couchpotato with +10k hours
| on Cocomelon.
| noboostforyou wrote:
| Yes, I'll admit that my sample size for comparison is
| relatively small so I'm mostly offering anecdotal evidence.
| And I totally agree on the quality of daycares being a
| spectrum. Just like how one single, good teacher who
| actually cares can really change a student's school
| experience (even if the school itself is not that great).
| mordnis wrote:
| In my opinion, grandparents are the worst. They completely
| spoil them.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Or have bad habits like playing shovelware games on their
| phones.
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| >cross section of actual American kids
|
| So many factors have led this to be a major liability for young
| people now. School is not what it was 20 years ago.
| ecshafer wrote:
| My kids are not school age yet, and I am not sure on if I will
| home school or not. But I do think its possible to get good
| socialization exposure while homeschooling. There is the
| neighborhood kids, you have sports and clubs kids can join,
| religious groups.
|
| Plus not all homeschooling is just a student staying at home
| all day. Some people "homeschooling" I know are groups of
| parents getting together to educate their children together in
| small groups of ~5 kids to share the responsibility, and hiring
| a tutor to fill in the gaps. Monday they go John's house, his
| mom has a philosophy degree and teaches them. tuesday they go
| to Janes house, her dad is a Mathematician and teaches them.
| etc.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| It's going to depend greatly on your geo location and
| socioeconomic circumstances, but a homeschooled kid who
| interacts a lot in the neighbourhood (big "if", IME; those
| kids all have a lot of school friends) is still going to miss
| out on broader social, cultural, racial and financial
| exposure. Example: my white, middle-class kids have a lot of
| people exactly like them in community groups and sports
| clubs, but lots of eastern european & asian immigrants in
| their school classes. This is super-important in elementary
| school when they're far less aware and insular about
| interacting with people who are "different" IMO
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| Having a degree in philosophy or mathematics or whatever does
| not automatically make someone a good teacher. Teaching -
| particularly with young children - is a skill that is almost
| orthogonal to subject knowledge.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| I think what makes you a good teacher is mostly a
| personality trait.
|
| Prior knowledge of the subject is just a cherry on top.
| sejje wrote:
| I used to work at a YMCA, and the local homeschool group
| asked us to do a PE class, which I taught.
|
| I had the kids doing swimming, rock climbing, and all kinds
| of traditional PE games.
|
| I worked with "normal" kids most of the time, and I will say
| the homeschool kids stuck out. They're more awkward around
| kids their age, but far less awkward around adults. They know
| how to speak and act, in large part. And they were
| disproportionately ahead of their peers academically--though
| I think that's probably a selection bias for the parents
| seeking out homeschool PE classes.
|
| This was in the early 2000s, before Facebook. I'm sure the
| avenues to connect have only grown with social media.
| wildzzz wrote:
| You don't need a degree in math to teach children age-
| appropriate math topics. Teachers don't become teachers just
| because they have a degree in that subject, they have been
| taught the methods on how to teach. Having prior knowledge of
| the subject is almost irrelevant. Teaching is really just
| applying solid methods on how to build knowledge from the
| most basic concepts as well as having the patience in dealing
| with humans who are not fully formed in their emotions.
| TaupeRanger wrote:
| 15+ years ago, that might have been the case. Now, you might
| find some friends in the 3-8 year old range, but then the
| kids just...don't do things anymore. In both suburban
| neighborhoods I've lived in the past 10 years, there are
| basically zero middle school or high school kids doing
| anything except playing video games and messing around on
| their phones from the comfort of home. School is quite
| literally the only social interaction most of these kids get
| aside from their parents, and if they didn't go to school,
| they'd just spend more time playing video games or on their
| phones.
|
| Outside of the coasts or university towns, there aren't any
| "mathematicians" with kids just waiting around to form
| homeschooling groups with you.
| Telemakhos wrote:
| My cousin homeschooled her kids, who are now finished with
| college. I know they're capable of using phones (one's a
| programmer), but I've never seen them pull one out. They're
| social and love playing board games, and I suspect that
| comes from their parents. They also socialized with other
| homeschooled kids, because they were part of lots of
| homeschooling groups.
|
| The kids in public school are there by default; the
| homeschooling parents are actively choosing to raise their
| kids differently, and, from what I've seen, they're more
| likely to interact with their kids instead of letting them
| go terminally online or play video games.
| drivebyhooting wrote:
| John Jane Mary set up is incredibly idealized. In a big city
| I have not been able to find anyone willing to commit to
| anything except one off play dates in a museum which has
| nothing to do with actual education.
| bena wrote:
| It sounds like school with extra steps.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| And control over who else is in it.
| MarkMarine wrote:
| There is no such thing as "the neighborhood kids" anymore.
| Having any kind of social circle for your children is going
| to require your facilitation and effort... a lot of it. It'll
| be extra hard without the common bond of shared activity.
|
| Not knocking what sounds like your choice to homeschool, just
| sharing something that has changed from my youth.
| j45 wrote:
| There is some realy valid things to consider here.
|
| The thing it leaves me wondering is how many kids from
| elementary through high school a child really keeps in touch
| with, and if college is currently the place where many students
| finally get to start to be themselves.
| usefulcat wrote:
| There are certainly tradeoffs, but it's not all negative. In my
| experience, what it boils down to is that home-schooled kids
| tend to have more experience with adults and less experience
| dealing with a wide variety of other kids, particularly
| assholes.
|
| When I was a kid in public school, there was no shortage of
| assholes and I definitely would have preferred to not have to
| deal with them. OTOH, I don't doubt that there is also some
| value in that experience, not to mention interacting with all
| the other people. Also, we didn't have social media or semi-
| regular school shootings when I was a kid. So yeah.. to me,
| it's not at all obvious which set of tradeoffs is preferable
| nowadays.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| You're forgetting that public school also exposes you to more
| adult assholes, including ones with direct power over you
| that can screw you over for no reason.
|
| It's important to know how and when to advocate for yourself
| and others, when to escalate through proper channels and when
| to escalate outside of proper channels, and when to back down
| and let them be an asshole because they're frankly not worth
| your time.
| ghssds wrote:
| What happens to asshole kids? Do they become regular adults
| or asshole adults? Do they become soldiers or prisonners
| never to be seen again by normies? Do they even reach
| adulthood? Are they even a stable group or were we all
| asshole kids to some other kids?
| ksclarke wrote:
| Some become President of the United States. Others probably
| grow out of it?
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| I think it's an important development milestone to learn
| that people don't want to be their friends, and the longing
| for human connection might be a good moderating force in
| their life. I was a really pessimistic teenager, which I
| received plenty of feedback on, and have worked against my
| own nature to become a more positive and cheery adult.
| arevno wrote:
| This is a strange claim.
|
| In my personal experience, the asshole kids overlapped
| greatly with the popular kids in a Venn diagram sense.
| People, in general, _did_ want to be their friends.
| Matticus_Rex wrote:
| Looking back at the assholes of my youth, they run the
| gamut. Some seem like lovely adults, and are very
| successful. Some are just like they were and are very
| successful. Some others crashed out completely. The more
| brash, upfront assholes and the clever assholes seem to
| have done better than the sneering, malicious assholes.
|
| And we were (almost) all assholes sometimes, but there's
| definitely a class of kids who were assholes most of the
| time.
| usefulcat wrote:
| Dunno, maybe all of the above? Believe it or not, I didn't
| really keep in touch with them.
|
| My point was that kids are disproportionately likely to
| treat other kids badly, especially when adults aren't
| around. That kind of situation is common at school, but
| much less common at home, unless the parents choose to
| allow it.
| OneLeggedCat wrote:
| In the rural areas that I've lived in, it's mostly about a
| strong desire to supplant science and history with religious
| ideas and principles.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| That is exactly what I've seen, to keep kids in their
| brainwashing bubble.
| TaupeRanger wrote:
| Where I live in the Midwest that is absolutely the case.
| The homeschool "groups" are almost all religiously oriented
| in some way.
| alphazard wrote:
| I hear this a lot, and it may be true, but I am very
| skeptical that it matters. The statistics about home-schooled
| children don't support the idea that they have horribly
| inaccurate models of the world guided mostly by religious
| thinking. Or if they do it doesn't seem to affect life
| achievement in any important way. Instead home-schooled
| children are typically more advanced at graduation and have
| higher lifetime achievement metrics than their public school
| counterparts.
|
| As an athiest, and a bayesian, it's difficult for me to worry
| about other peoples religious beliefs that don't seem to
| negatively affect them or me. Especially when there is
| propaganda taught in the public schools that does warp the
| students' world views in ways that harms them and me.
| TheGRS wrote:
| That has been the case for a long time, and I guess something
| about the current generation of parents has gotten them to
| act more on it. My dad came from a very religious family and
| they all did private religious schools for their early grade
| school years. Then they went to public for high school years.
|
| If I had to guess, its maybe something about the demise of
| church life that has gotten religious parents to just pull
| back entirely. It wasn't that uncommon for public schools to
| make nods toward Christian ideals/lifestyles before like the
| 90s, but now that stuff just doesn't happen anymore.
| alphazard wrote:
| > I worry this move to homeschooling and micromanaging
| children's social lives just creates bubbles and makes children
| incapable of interacting with those outside of them.
|
| The older I get, the more I think that helping your kids avoid
| interactions with others who aren't _with the program_ is for
| the best. Ideally your children 's friends should be people
| that you think are good kids, kids that you would go to bat
| for. Then when you are teaching your kids to compromise and
| play nice and forgive, you can legitimately feel good about it.
| I think my default assumption about a negative interaction with
| a public school random would be that they are basically a wild
| animal to be avoided.
| jfreds wrote:
| I was homeschooled until high school. I couldn't agree with you
| more. The value that the socialization the public school offers
| is underestimated.
|
| Learning activities with other homeschooled kids is ok but not
| enough. A tight-knit neighborhood of friends is huge, but not
| enough. You need to develop a thick skin and a sense of self-
| assurance.
|
| I have no counterfactual of course, but I think much of the
| social anxiety I've had to unlearn as a young adult came from
| homeschooling. And I had great circumstances
| pyuser583 wrote:
| I was horribly bullied in high school. It was really bad.
|
| The worst part was being ostracized. The school had anti-
| bullying policies, but they don't force anyone to be your
| friend.
|
| Strangely, I was elected to lots of student government
| office, and held leadership in lots of clubs.
|
| Maybe my memory is just off, but I don't think so.
|
| I think I was really good connecting with the grownups who
| ran the school, so they made sure I got leadership positions.
|
| I was always much better at being the kid in class the
| teacher liked - same with principals, etc.
|
| Probably one of the reasons the other kids didn't like me -
| but that went over my head.
|
| I think it's really easy to overestimate how important the
| socialization in public schools is. We go to so many movies
| where the plot is based on the dynamics of public high
| school, we assume it's normal.
|
| We see so much of terrible stuff downplaid like it doesn't
| matter. Just rewatched Back to the Future which laughingly
| brushes off every kind of violence as long as it's done at
| the prom.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| As someone else who was homeschooled except the last three
| grades, I also agree. Additionally, the effect is multiplied
| if the kid in question lives in a rural or semi-rural area
| rather than a suburb or city.
|
| For the majority of my adult life I've been playing catchup.
| Even now, barreling towards 40, there's aspects of social
| interaction where I come up quite short relative to my peers.
|
| If I'm ever to be a parent, I won't homeschool. Depending the
| circumstances I might not send my kids to public school, but
| their schooling situation will at minimum involve social
| exposure comparable to that of public school.
| DennisP wrote:
| And I've always felt that most of my social anxiety came from
| public school. Maybe we were both just prone to it.
|
| (I unlearned it too, but it took quite a while.)
| inetknght wrote:
| > _I frequently saw fights, so I learned that you just stay
| away and watch your mouth around specific people._
|
| Unfortunately this encourages people to have a blind eye
| regarding bullying.
|
| I would be much more happy if more people intervened against
| bullies and liars. Maybe we'd have better people in politics
| today if 40 years ago schools punished bullies and liars and
| sent them to have their behavioral problems addressed.
| DennisP wrote:
| Paul Graham pointed out that public school is a weird and
| degenerate microcosm that isn't much like the real social world
| at all.
|
| > I think the important thing about the real world is not that
| it's populated by adults, but that it's very large, and the
| things you do have real effects. That's what school, prison,
| and ladies-who-lunch all lack. The inhabitants of all those
| worlds are trapped in little bubbles where nothing they do can
| have more than a local effect. Naturally these societies
| degenerate into savagery. They have no function for their form
| to follow.
|
| > When the things you do have real effects, it's no longer
| enough just to be pleasing. It starts to be important to get
| the right answers, and that's where nerds show to advantage.
|
| > ...If I could go back and give my thirteen year old self some
| advice, the main thing I'd tell him would be to stick his head
| up and look around. I didn't really grasp it at the time, but
| the whole world we lived in was as fake as a Twinkie...Life in
| this twisted world is stressful for the kids. And not just for
| the nerds. Like any war, it's damaging even to the winners.
|
| https://paulgraham.com/nerds.html?viewfullsite=1
| perrygeo wrote:
| Fully agree. The foundation of education is learning how the
| world actually is, not how we wish it would be.
| homeonthemtn wrote:
| Buddy of mine put it really well:
|
| "I got to spend time with my kids when they still wanted to spend
| time with me. Now as teenagers in no longer cool, but that's ok.
| I got my time with them and that makes me happy"
| GaryBluto wrote:
| Nice to see Reason posted here.
| righthand wrote:
| NY state just signed a bill to include ChatGPT in their learning
| and planning. Previously there were deals to bring in Google
| hardware for students.
|
| Of course people are fleeing public schooling when we're selling
| the kids to big tech for laptops and services that require
| network connection to write a word document, enable cheating, and
| their data sold for profit without consent.
| jimmar wrote:
| People might be fleeing public schooling because lawmakers are
| dictating what happens in the classroom. There are lots of good
| teachers who struggle with the resources given to them and the
| constraints imposed on them.
|
| At home, parents can be flexible. They can let their kids use
| AI when appropriate or discourage its use. They don't have to
| wait for legislators to get involved. If there is a great math
| book, parents can just buy it instead of waiting for some
| committee to evaluate it.
| righthand wrote:
| > If there is a great math book, parents can just buy it
|
| How do you know if the math book is great if there hasn't
| been consensus about it. The problem isn't the committee that
| will always be there in some form. The problem is the
| politics the committee is used for. If the committee were to
| prioritize and offload their specific requirements for review
| instead of requiring substantial analysis twice then the
| school system would be just as quick.
| dmje wrote:
| Obviously there is some serious nuance here - there are of course
| edge cases and serious reasons for considering home schooling.
|
| But as a general principle, encouraging kids further and further
| out of (group) human contact seems like an obviously terrible
| idea to me. We're already doing it with (lack of) play spaces,
| "no ball games", insane screen times (which equates to less
| "real" face to face time) amongst teens, awkward kids who can't
| even engage with a stranger under any circumstances - and
| meanwhile isolation and loneliness is on the increase, fear
| continues to rise about even letting your kid walk down the
| street to the shops, etc...
|
| School is hard, as are parts of life. It's uncomfortable, it's
| difficult, it's not always what you want it to be, you get
| shouted at sometimes and big kids get their way and you don't get
| asked on the football team. Honestly, and sorry, but - a big part
| of growing up is learning how to deal with things. If kids don't,
| and you as a parent don't help them deal with the bumps, you and
| they will be building unrealistic expectations about how good
| this life is going to be, and they'll spend all their time sad or
| "triggered" or afraid, or isolated, or unable to join in. They'll
| get more scared, more isolated, more depressed. This is not what
| any parent wants.
|
| This - of course and x1000 - need to be done with massive
| quantities of love and compassion. This isn't some Victorian
| hellscape I'm advocating here. Real bullying is real. Sometimes
| adults need to weigh in. Kids will find school hard.
|
| But loving your kids is NOT giving them everything they want.
| It's teaching them how to navigate things that are difficult and
| awkward and - ultimately - helping them become robust adults.
| iambateman wrote:
| I was homeschooled and my son is homeschooled.
|
| I disagree with your premise that homeschooling pushes kids out
| of group human contact. People who attend public school often
| assume that kids who attend homeschool literally sit at home
| all day...which is just not...real?
| snerbles wrote:
| It was the predominant notion when I was a homeschooled kid
| 30 years ago, and for most of them there is no argument or
| evidence that will convince them otherwise.
|
| State-run education is their orthodoxy, and anything that
| challenges that is tantamount to heresy.
| ecshafer wrote:
| The most common form of homeschooling is, I believe, in the
| form of co-ops. Where groups of parents get their kids together
| in class room like settings to teach them together. They don't
| go to school, they might meet at a church, or library or a
| home, but they are socializing. I know people who homeschool
| and between church, youth fellowship, co-op classes, fencing,
| swimming, basketball, neighborhood kids, family, etc. they have
| extremely active social lives.
| hereme888 wrote:
| The biggest misunderstanding I hear year-over-year is
| homeschoolers are "not exposed to the real world". Isolation
| exists for some, but my extensive interaction with homeschoolers
| is they are immersed in healthy communities, hand-picked by
| parents to keep away problem children. Who would plant a flower
| next to a sick or hostile one? Parents of healthy children should
| give 0 s*ts of societal/political pressure against this concept.
| Your kids are a bad influence for whatever reason? Not my problem
| to fix.
|
| Homeschoolers are some of the most resilient and well-behaved
| people I know.
|
| Modern academic life is only well suited to a small percent of
| the population. Those children who are truly happy and excelling
| in that setting.
|
| So much time and resources, to produce what exactly? A piece of
| paper and fancy picture to stare at? Forced mass education was a
| good idea for developing societies, but personalized education
| has been possible for at least a decade now, at a fraction of the
| cost. And to add insult to injury, there's an increasing torrent
| of deranged ideologies teachers and professors share with
| students.
|
| Here's a famous song on the topic for those who know how to "chew
| the meat from the cud":
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xe6nLVXEC0&list=RD8xe6nLVXE...
|
| * It's fascinating to watch the points on my comment go up and
| down a ton. Very controversial issue. I believe it highlights
| pressure from social and political structures in society, and/or
| personal experiences. They vary so much.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| I mean you're literally explaining how your home schooled kids
| are separated from the real world.
| hereme888 wrote:
| Define "real world".
| meheleventyone wrote:
| The one that exists with problem children and opinions you
| don't like.
|
| As a parent I get the impulse to remove my children from
| any potential harm but the real world has sharp edges. They
| need to be confident in that world not just smothered.
|
| And really as the person who used the term it's really up
| to you to define what you mean.
| seneca wrote:
| > The one that exists with problem children and opinions
| you don't like.
|
| That's just not true though. Your job isn't going to
| force you to interact with people who disrupt the
| environment constantly. Those people are fired and
| removed from the group.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| My job isn't the totality of my life and you have very
| strange ideas about how quickly disruptive people
| actually get fired. You get plenty of unfiltered
| interaction in life. If anything I'd say the sort of
| thing you describe sounds more like an insular cult.
| Although even there you get misanthropic people, abuse
| and so on.
| seneca wrote:
| > My job isn't the totality of my life and you have very
| strange ideas about how quickly disruptive people
| actually get fired. You get plenty of unfiltered
| interaction in life.
|
| In what environment are you, as an adult, forced to
| interact with everyone who happens to show up? The only
| instances I can think of are other government-run
| institutions like the military or prison, and I don't
| think anyone would argue those are standard modes of
| "real life".
|
| > If anything I'd say the sort of thing you describe
| sounds more like an insular cult.
|
| Name calling isn't an argument.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| Anywhere you happen to be in public essentially.
|
| I also didn't call you names just stated that your
| description sounded cult like.
|
| If your environment is so controlled to not have a good
| mix of people in it then that sounds even more cult like!
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > In what environment are you, as an adult, forced to
| interact with everyone who happens to show up?
|
| I was a paramedic. Every single day.
| BrenBarn wrote:
| > In what environment are you, as an adult, forced to
| interact with everyone who happens to show up?
|
| Have you heard of customer service?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| In functional workplaces, yes. In dysfunctional ones,
| sometimes you have to leave.
|
| In the military, say, you don't get that option.
|
| In your neighborhood, you can move, but that's a fairly
| difficult and expensive step. When someone moves in whose
| kids want to be gang members, or who wants to verbally
| abuse people out jogging, or whatever other antisocial
| behavior, you have to deal with it, at least for a while.
|
| So you can't completely avoid the brokenness of the real
| world. (Note well: I am _not_ saying that throwing a six
| year old into the deep end is the best way to prepare
| kids for this.)
| seneca wrote:
| > In functional workplaces, yes. In dysfunctional ones,
| sometimes you have to leave.
|
| Agreed! And that is exactly what home-schooling families
| are doing. Choosing to leave a dysfunctional environment.
|
| > In the military, say, you don't get that option.
|
| Yep, and other government institutions, like prison. I
| don't think those are what anyone would call a typical
| life environment though.
|
| > In your neighborhood, you can move, but that's a fairly
| difficult and expensive step. When someone moves in whose
| kids want to be gang members, or who wants to verbally
| abuse people out jogging, or whatever other antisocial
| behavior, you have to deal with it, at least for a while.
|
| That's another dysfunctional environment, and also what
| the police are for.
|
| > So you can't completely avoid the brokenness of the
| real world. (Note well: I am not saying that throwing a
| six year old into the deep end is the best way to prepare
| kids for this.)
|
| You're right, you can't. The world has a lot of
| dysfunctional environments, and I agree that people need
| to learn how to deal with them. Knowingly forcing your
| child to be in one of those environments full-time for
| many years seems like a pretty horrible way to teach them
| that though, bordering on abusive.
| array_key_first wrote:
| Public school is not dysfunctional, per se.
|
| And, to be clear, EVERY workplace will have people you
| don't like. Every. Single. One. No exceptions.
|
| Kids needs to be taught resiliency and healthy mindsets,
| to a degree. They need to learn to live and let go, to
| learn their value isn't derived from what people think of
| them, to learn that embarrassment is self inflicted.
|
| You just can't do that if you're only around people who
| don't challenge you. If you're in a nice, cushy, social
| bubble, you will develop self esteem and confidence
| issues.
| hereme888 wrote:
| Exactly. Adults don't tolerate the same B.S. children are
| forced into.
| afavour wrote:
| > homeschoolers are "not exposed to the real world". Isolation
| exists for some, but my extensive interaction with
| homeschoolers is they are immersed in healthy communities,
| hand-picked by parents to keep away problem children. Who would
| plant a flower next to a sick or hostile one?
|
| ...a healthy community hand-picked by parents _is not_ "the
| real world" though, is it?
|
| I think your view is a very black and white one. Kids in public
| school are exposed to society at large, in both good _and_ bad
| ways. My kids are in class with others of different cultures
| and lived experience and I believe that enriches their lives.
| Despite, yes, there being some problematic kids in there.
|
| The sad reality of parenting is that you're never going to be
| able to hand-pick your child's experience all the way through
| life. Sooner or later they're going to be exposed to the
| "hostile flowers" you describe. Personally I think learning to
| be around those people and still thrive is a part of childhood
| that prepares you well for adulthood. It may be more valuable
| than some of the academic work kids do.
| hereme888 wrote:
| I think your reading is very black and white. Add some leeway
| to what I say. Hand-picked obviously doesn't mean all friends
| go through a psych screening on a daily basis, or that you
| have to helicopter-parent and tell your kids who to be
| friends with...
| afavour wrote:
| > or you have to helicopter-parent and tell your kids who
| to be friends with...
|
| Isn't that essentially what you're describing, though? You
| literally talked about "healthy communities, hand-picked by
| parents to keep away problem children". No, you don't have
| to _tell_ them who to be friends with... but you 've pre-
| selected the pool of potential friends, so there's no
| instruction necessary.
| seneca wrote:
| > ...a healthy community hand-picked by parents is not "the
| real world" though, is it?
|
| It very much is. No where else in life are people forced to
| mixed with the general unfiltered public. "The real world" is
| highly filtered social circles and freedom of association.
| The idea that it's somehow an automatic good to force healthy
| kids to mix with everyone who happens to show up, regardless
| of whether they have severe behavioral or social issues, is
| pretty questionable.
|
| > My kids are in class with others of different cultures and
| lived experience and I believe that enriches their lives.
| Despite, yes, there being some problematic kids in there.
|
| You can expose your kids to different cultures without
| leaving them wide open to everything else. It's not a binary.
| The point is that home schooling lets you pick and choose.
| afavour wrote:
| > No where else in life are people forced to mixed with the
| general unfiltered public
|
| I think "forced" is doing a lot of work there. No, you're
| not _forced_ to work alongside someone problematic. But
| quitting your job is quite an escalation to deal with the
| issue. Same with a troublesome neighbor. To say nothing of
| public transit, taking flights, interacting with other
| drivers on the road...
| pdabbadabba wrote:
| > It very much is. No where else in life are people forced
| to mixed with the general unfiltered public.
|
| I'm baffled by this. Many workplaces? Mass transit? Walking
| down the sidewalk? At a concert? Buying groceries? True,
| there don't all expose you to the full sweep of human
| existence at once but, in aggregate, it seems pretty
| similar to what you'd encounter at most public schools.
| What if they want a career in a hospital, or law
| enforcement, or social services, ... the list goes on.
|
| You might hope that your child will live a privileged
| existence unbothered by the rabble, but it seems to me they
| need to be prepared for a future where they encounter all
| kinds of people. I'm sure this can be compatible with
| homeschooling but I can't see how it's not generally a
| disadvantage. (Though perhaps onerous clearly outweighed by
| other advantages, depending on the situation.)
| antonymoose wrote:
| You don't have to sit side-by-side rubbing shoulders and
| squabbling with rabble for 12 years in order to
| understand and deal with it, just like you don't have to
| wrestle with gators for 12 years to learn respect for
| nature.
| moduspol wrote:
| The closest social equivalency to public school
| socialization I can think of is prison. You're stuck
| there for N hours per day with limited or zero control
| over what other people you're around. Maybe parts of
| military training might also be similar.
|
| That's the kind of thing that is very much not like the
| "real world." It's more than just being "exposed" to less
| optimal peers (like you would on a bus), it's an entirely
| different social experience.
| WrongAssumption wrote:
| Home schooled kids walk down sidewalks, go to concerts,
| go grocery shopping.
|
| Most workplaces are highly filtered. The whole interview
| process is specifically geared towards filtering out
| undesirable people.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| > You might hope that your child will live a privileged
| existence unbothered by the rabble
|
| I think it's telling that the other responses seem to
| focus on exactly this; the idea that their child will
| exist in a class apart from the rabble, and will not have
| to interact with them.
|
| It seems to speak to two very different views of
| community. On the one hand, there is community as a
| collection of all the people in a space: people who share
| local resources, frequent the same local businesses, and
| have the same local concerns. On the other, there is a
| community of choice: people who share the same social
| class, and possibly the same religion or cultural
| beliefs. I think it's fair to say that you can have both,
| but trying to say that you can belong _solely_ to the
| communities you choose and treat everyone else as beneath
| notice sounds quite problematic, and it will absolutely
| _not_ give children a correct or complete view of the
| world.
| billy99k wrote:
| "..a healthy community hand-picked by parents is not "the
| real world" though, is it?"
|
| School isn't their only exposure to life. You will get
| exposure to other people and non-healthy people outside of
| school.
|
| "Kids in public school are exposed to society at large, in
| both good and bad ways. My kids are in class with others of
| different cultures and lived experience and I believe that
| enriches their lives. Despite, yes, there being some
| problematic kids in th"
|
| When I was a kid, I was exposed to kids that should have been
| in prison..and many of them ended up there. My life probably
| would have been better if they weren't there.
|
| "My kids are in class with others of different cultures and
| lived experience and I believe that enriches their lives.
| Despite, yes, there being some problematic kids in there."
|
| This can still be done with home schooling.
|
| "The sad reality of parenting is that you're never going to
| be able to hand-pick your child's experience all the way
| through life. Sooner or later they're going to be exposed to
| the "hostile flowers" you describe."
|
| I disagree. If someone is hostile and aggressive all the
| time, I wouldn't be around them as an adult. I hand pick my
| friends, and you probably do too. I also still get exposed to
| the assholes of the world.
|
| "Personally I think learning to be around those people and
| still thrive is a part of childhood that prepares you well
| for adulthood. It may be more valuable than some of the
| academic work kids do."
|
| If you are at work and someone is sexually harassing all of
| the women there or generally causing issues for everyone
| around them (preventing most other people from getting their
| work done). Do you think they should stay, so everyone can
| learn to be around them?
|
| You seem to think everyone is a reasonable person that might
| just have a few issues. This is far from the truth and many
| times, public schools will just keep these kids there,
| preventing everyone around them from learning.
|
| It's also a burden to the teachers and staff.
| MrDrMcCoy wrote:
| Counterpoint from my own experience having been previously
| homeschooled all the way to college: My parents went the
| extra mile to ensure I was constantly immersed in large group
| settings with other homeschoolers. Field trips, co-op
| classes, sports, and general high-quality social time. There
| were of course bad eggs as in any group setting, but with an
| important difference: if it ever got bad, it was possible to
| leave, and we did on occasion. In my mind, that's far more in
| keeping with the "real world" than the seeming entrapment of
| public schooling that offers little recourse for when social
| experiences sour. In the real world, you have the freedom to
| leave a toxic job or social group far more so than public
| school.
|
| In addition to peer socialization and mobility, the
| flexibility in scheduling allowed me to work a day job
| through my high school years, exposing me to yet more real-
| world experience. The constant interaction with adults and
| folks from other walks of life was a huge boon that allowed
| me to function as a well-adjusted adult right out of the
| gate. The high-school drama that people suffer and then bring
| with them into adulthood is very disappointing and seemingly
| unnecessary.
| hereme888 wrote:
| ^^^ That's my experience interacting with healthily
| homeschooled children-now-adults. On average they seemed to
| have so much less trauma than me and my peers, and less
| "subconscious" issues to deal as adults.
| zaphar wrote:
| I can not conceive of a worse way to teach a kid how to
| behave in Adult social settings than to throw them into a
| group of other kids who have just as little experience as
| they do and then expect the group to "figure it out". This is
| not to say that there aren't some homeschooling parents who
| practice a form of extreme isolation which produces what I
| would regard as an equally bad outcome as public school. But
| by the numbers from people who have studied this the evidence
| indicates homeschooling produces the best outcomes for social
| adjustment in Adulthood.
|
| Probably because well run homeschooling groups tend to have
| high parental involvement which means the child learns how to
| socialize not from other children but from watching how the
| adults they are around handle interactions.
|
| [Edited for clarity in some sentences]
| afavour wrote:
| > I can not conceive of a worse way to teach a kid how to
| behave in Adult social settings than to throw them into a
| group of other kids who have just as little experience as
| they do and then expect the group to "figure it out".
|
| You are aware of teachers, yes?
|
| > Probably because well run homeschooling groups tend to
| have high parental involvement
|
| Everything I've read shows that putting absolutely all else
| aside, parental involvement is key to a child's success. So
| perhaps the reason your by the numbers evidence shows home
| schooling to be better is simply because it's a self-
| selecting group of involved parents.
| emtel wrote:
| It absolutely is. If you are well equipped to navigate the
| adult world, you place yourself in hand-picked groups of
| people. I do not work with, socialize with, or live near a
| random sample of the population, and I highly doubt most
| people reading this thread do either!
| HaZeust wrote:
| Yeah but how do you LEARN the ability to do that? To keep
| that practice always in your mental backburner, and
| remembering how important it is? Why, you learn it by
| seeing the impacts from those succumbed to negative
| influences they surrounded themselves with!
|
| You can't learn the application of hand-picking your people
| and environments if you don't first see the outcomes when
| such application is neglected, and understanding its
| importance from there. If you have the hand-picking done
| for you as well, you risk not learning the ability to do it
| yourself. Or how to handle the situations where you can't.
| dzonga wrote:
| there's was a famous paper written by a former school teacher
| which advocated for home schooling ? I been trying to find it
| ever since
| hereme888 wrote:
| I don't agree with all of Piotr's writings, but here's an
| extensive list of famous educators, maybe yours is among
| them.
|
| John Locke, John Holt, Peter Green, and:
|
| https://supermemo.guru/wiki/The_Greatest_Minds_in_History_Op.
| ..
|
| https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Tom_Durrie
| joshstrange wrote:
| > Homeschoolers are some of the most resilient and well-behaved
| people I know.
|
| I'm sure they exist, they may even exist as the majority, I
| will say for my part the homeschooled kids I knew through my
| church growing up were not any of these things. I would quite
| literally use the opposite of both those to describe them.
|
| I'm not saying they represent the majority but they do exist
| and they were not well adjusted IMHO.
|
| As with many topics I feel like "Yes, if you want to devote
| yourself fully to X thing you can do much better than Y
| professional", the problem is, again from my own experience,
| the people I knew who homeschooled their children were not
| professionals, they were not capable, and their children
| suffered for it. I want to stress, I fully believe it is
| possible for certain people with certain mentors/teachers to do
| better outside of the public (or private) school system. I just
| also believe that the odds of most people (making that decision
| for their children) to meet that bar are low. I also think that
| some of the better homeschooled experiences that I've seen are
| simply a super-private school by another name (various parents
| being or being subject experts and taking turns teaching
| coupled with many "field trip"-type trips with other
| homeschooled kids).
|
| > there's an increasing torrent of deranged ideologies teachers
| and professors share with students.
|
| Wait till you hear what the parents believe... I don't agree
| with everything taught or the way it's taught but being exposed
| to other types of people and ways of thinking is critical. I
| can guarantee you that had my parents been able to, they would
| have shielded me from a great number of ways of thinking. I
| worry that many homeschooled children grow up in a small echo
| chamber (we all live in echo chambers of difference sizes).
|
| Can public school suck? Absolutely and I acknowledge that
| homeschooling might be the answer for some people, but only if
| you can afford to pay (with time or money) to educate your
| children completely which is almost certainly going to require
| working with other homeschooler parents to, essentially, build
| your own school. If you can bring in tutors/mentors/teachers
| that you vet and agree with and expose them to the world and
| new ideas/experiences then yeah, you are probably going to have
| good outcomes. If you plop them in front of a computer to
| follow a curriculum just to shield them from the "evils" of the
| world, well, I think you are going to have a bad time.
| Obviously there is a whole range of people in between those 2
| extremes, I just feel that, on average, people trend towards
| the lower end of that spectrum.
|
| >
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xe6nLVXEC0&list=RD8xe6nLVXE...
|
| Interesting song and I do agree with many points. For many
| years I've complained about lack of teaching basic skills
| (everything from home ec to budgeting and more), many of which
| I heard in this song. I think there was a little of the baby
| going out with the bathwater but overall I enjoyed it.
| hereme888 wrote:
| > song
|
| Yea, the guy later made a video clarifying he never meant to
| throw the baby out, just the bathwater.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| I get that on one hand, such regulation is one of the reasons
| some parents do so, but the wide diversity of "oversight" is
| challenging.
|
| In Washington, homeschooled students still have to occasionally
| connect at an actual school, or do some baseline testing.
|
| In Louisiana, you just tell the state "we're homeschooling" and
| the state is "have fun with that" and the child is essentially
| off the grid.
|
| Not for nothing, instances of child abuse/CSA in many
| correlates with the laxness of educational oversight in home
| schooling.
|
| > And to add insult to injury, there's an increasing torrent of
| deranged ideologies teachers and professors share with
| students.
|
| Ahh, this chestnut. A short jump to "teachers are training
| preschoolers to be furries and LGBT" and litterboxes in the
| classroom/bathroom.
|
| For all your anecdotes my step daughter has plenty too. 10th
| graders who are barely literate, cannot do elementary math. Who
| when asked about their homeschool regime talk of waking at 10,
| 10.30, playing Fortnite or going on Tiktok for a few hours, and
| occasionally logging into some website to pretend like they've
| been working, or doing some mind numbingly simple exercise to
| show "participation".
| ryandrake wrote:
| > Ahh, this chestnut. A short jump to "teachers are training
| preschoolers to be furries and LGBT" and litterboxes in the
| classroom/bathroom.
|
| Exactly. Notice how, when people complain about the "deranged
| ideologies" that teachers are teaching their kids, they
| either 1. stop short of actually naming those ideologies or
| 2. spout fever dreams that are statistically vanishingly
| rare.
| bgnn wrote:
| What you define here is isolation from the real world. There
| seems to be a misunderstanding of your understanding of
| misunderstanding.
| aeturnum wrote:
| > _Your kids are a bad influence for whatever reason? Not my
| problem to fix._
|
| Not your problem to fix for sure - but it is your problem to
| equip your child to comfortably weather. There are bad
| influences out in the world and they generally have outsized
| effects on their social and professional scenes. In fact, the
| kind of curated, limited community you're advocating for is one
| where bad influences thrive.
|
| > _So much time and resources, to produce what exactly? A piece
| of paper and fancy picture to stare at?_
|
| I certainly agree the degree is whatever - but I think you're
| really under-valuing the social-gauntlet aspect of school. You
| will have classmates who kind of (or really) suck. You will
| need to do your work anyway. You will be incentivized to learn
| perseverance and a self-centered locus of control. These are
| valuable skills that only come from actual exposure to bad
| influences.
|
| Someone who's perfect in perfect conditions is going to
| struggle because the world is not perfect. The aims you
| highlight here make me think less of homeschooling than I did
| before.
| array_key_first wrote:
| My general experience is that homeschool children have self
| esteem and confidence issues precisely because they've been
| around 'hand picked' people... forever.
|
| They've never experienced assholes, or people who think their
| personality is grating, or whatever. Thick skin needs to be
| built up, to a degree. I'm not saying bullying is good, but
| being exposed to the unwashed masses definitely can be.
| codingdave wrote:
| > increasing torrent of deranged ideologies teachers and
| professors share with students.
|
| You really might want to explain that further. At face value,
| that sounds like parroted right-wing rhetoric.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| The problem is that what constitutes "healthy" varies so
| greatly between individuals (especially these days) that it
| barely carries any objective meaning, and the odds are heavily
| against any one person's definition being correct.
|
| If I put myself in the shoes of a parent, I wouldn't trust
| myself on the matter enough that I'd feel good shaping my
| childrens' entire world to match it. It's such a wildly
| difficult thing to get right, and I'd rather they get a glimpse
| of the world through wide variety of viewpoints and hope
| they'll use the values I've instilled in them to construct
| their own view.
| jcpst wrote:
| We tried homeschooling a few times. We were honest with ourselves
| and determined we were not that great at it. Sure, we could
| improve. But one of the primary factors in where we chose to live
| was the school district. Fortunately it has worked out well. Of
| course there's always something to deal with- you have to
| advocate for your kids.
|
| It's basically public daycare for a lot of people. Including us.
|
| The social aspect is important for us. The idea of having to find
| other people with kids for activities sounds exhausting. We're a
| gang of neuro-spicy introverts. My social circle is comprised of
| people I've been friends with for 25+ years. All from my school
| days.
|
| I dealt with a lot of bullshit at school. But overall a net gain.
| tristor wrote:
| As somebody that suffered through public school as a gifted kid,
| I wish I had been homeschooled. Almost everything positive that
| happened in my education was because of family, not due to the
| school. School was hell on earth for me, and I imagine it's the
| same for most other "neurodivergent" kids who are high IQ. Given
| what I know from my own kid, there's no surprise to me why more
| people are opting to home school. For my daughter we kept her in
| public school because the district we moved to had magnet
| programs, and that's what she wanted so she could be with her
| friends from the neighborhood, but not every school district
| cares about gifted kids and will happily put a child with a 150
| IQ trying to read 6-8 grade levels above their peers in the same
| room with a child with an 80 IQ child who has a violence problem
| and consider that an acceptable outcome as long as nobody calls
| the police.
| iambateman wrote:
| When a social failure happens at a public school - a child fails
| a class, drugs are found, a teenager gets pregnant, there's a
| fight - most people don't question the public school system
| itself. But when a social failure happens to a homeschooler, we
| wonder if the system of _homeschooling_ is broken.
|
| In reality, stories of homeschooling failure are probably no more
| common than stories of failure in public high school, they're
| simply more attention-grabbing.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| The adults I know who are most against homeschooling today are
| the ones who were homeschooled themselves. Maybe it's just a
| pendulum.
| gallamine wrote:
| I was homeschooled. I'm doing the same with my children.
| mmustapic wrote:
| The person who you are replying to is stating a different
| implication: hates homeschooling -> was homeschooled
|
| You are saying: was homeschooled -> likes it and will do
| the same with his/her kids
| pyuser583 wrote:
| The adults I know who are most against public school went to
| public schools themselves.
|
| The adults I know most against college went to college
| themselves.
|
| The adults I know most against private high schools went to
| private high schools themselves.
|
| Being really negative about your own education is an American
| tradition!
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| I think this is likely because people (accurately, in my
| opinion) attribute behavioral problems with kids to the level
| and quality of involvement of the parents at home, so it would
| be bizarre to attribute a child getting caught with drugs at
| school to the public school system itself.
| mikece wrote:
| Interesting to see this topic being discussed on HN; I'm curious
| if any homeschooling parents here have kids who WANT to learn
| computer programming. I haven't pushed my kids to do any of the
| things that I loved doing growing up (or what I do now). If any
| homeschooled kids are getting into programming was it as a result
| of playing with something like Scratch or did they dive directly
| into writing Python or JavaScript?
| hamdingers wrote:
| Unsurprisingly this thread has become a battleground on the
| merits of homeschooling.
|
| Something to keep in mind: "Homeschool" is a useless descriptor.
| It covers a spectrum from complete educational neglect to world
| class private tutoring. It includes cohorts almost
| indistinguishable from school, and cohorts that engage in cultish
| indoctrination.
|
| Any criticism you might have for your idea of homeschool, there
| exists a type of homeschooling that addresses that criticism, and
| there will be _someone_ in the replies ready to tell you about
| it.
| jordanpg wrote:
| > Once an alternative way to educate children, homeschooling is
| now an increasingly popular and mainstream option.
|
| TFA does not even begin to grapple with the single most important
| issue, which is _who is actually doing the homeschooling._
|
| This is only an option for certain families, with parents with
| enough bandwidth and knowhow to do this effectively. That
| excludes many tens of millions of Americans.
|
| I think this is really about class, race, and religious
| segregation. Families can do what they want, of course, but this
| framing makes it sound like failing schools are the whole problem
| and I don't think that's the whole story.
| eagsalazar2 wrote:
| Starve the beast, vilify it for being weak, then kill it.
| 4fterd4rk wrote:
| Every normal school kid who interacted with a home school kid
| will recall what the problem is with homeschooling. I would never
| want to raise a little weirdo like the weirdo home schoolers I
| knew.
| totallykvothe wrote:
| The most popular argument against homeschooling appears to be
| "the world sucks, so we should make kids worlds suck so they're
| prepared for it", which is absolutely an abusive way to think and
| those who use this argument need to sit and think about what it
| means, then be ashamed.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| How many are now home schooled for religious reasons? It seems
| like many are pulling their kids out of public schools, for
| "woke" reasons rather than for a deep pedagogical pursuit, and I
| worry these kids aren't actually learning at the level they
| should be.
| Kuyawa wrote:
| I am an advocate of homeschooling but also know the importance of
| social contact for kids, so always wondering how hard would it be
| to create local clubs for kids where they learn mainly about
| economy, liberty and social relations sprinkled with some
| astronomy, history, biology, math and whatever personal interest
| of their parents like sports or arts? I'd be happy to pay for a
| private institution like that
| incognito124 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure you just described a public school
| ryandrake wrote:
| I was going to say! Dude just re-invented "school."
| ranbato wrote:
| Didn't homeschool here but started a charter school instead. Some
| of our neighbors did homeschool and I have mixed feelings about
| it. Some did very well, some not so well; but of course the same
| can be said of all of the kids in the area no matter which way
| they went.
|
| A few things I'll note: - educational spending
| has almost zero correlation with outcomes - the number one
| indicator of educational success is parental involvement -
| homeschooling and charter schools tend to attract the outliers
| from both ends. The smart who are underserved where they are and
| the kids with problems whose parents are involved enough to
| search for solutions. - the real losers are those whose
| parents can't or won't get involved and who aren't succeeding on
| their own
|
| In the current educational environment, teachers are often viewed
| as babysitters whose job is to educate children "correctly" and
| parents are only there to ensure that "correctly" matches their
| expectations. In the "good old days" when parents and teachers
| beat children regularly, at least they were unified in their
| expectations that children would listen to and obey teachers and
| not disrupt class. Now it is more common to see underpaid
| teachers without any support confronted by angry parents when
| their children misbehave and fail to actually learn.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| I used to teach high school. The amount of time I spent doing
| crap work was insane. It was necessary. If you don't remind
| students 100 times what the assignments are, they won't do them.
|
| You also have to spend an insane amount of time with the lowest
| performers, because with enough attention, they can improve
| dramatically.
|
| But this creates tradeoffs. Should I neglect the students doing
| best?
|
| One on one instruction is the best kind. It's generally reserved
| for doctoral students.
|
| I also tried homeschooling by eldest. It didn't work.
|
| Its insane more parents don't homeschool.
| kachapopopow wrote:
| well if we just apply the bell curve here, on average children
| will be pretty average (shocker) so those should be left on
| their own and discover their own niche while bad performers
| should get extra attention so they can keep up with the rest
| and with the gifted (if they actually want to) given the
| opportunity to explore higher level subjects.
|
| so in the end we give attention to gifted and the struggling
| since there's very little you can do to children who are
| already decent and are capable of keeping up at most they lack
| discipline or motivation.
| whatsupdog wrote:
| This is the result of more propaganda and brainwashing than
| education in schools. We should have left the politics out of the
| schools, after we got the prayers banned. But I guess some people
| will stop at nothing.
| russdill wrote:
| When the hell did praying get banned?
| bgnn wrote:
| Asking as an non-US person: Is there mandatory education for
| children in the US?
|
| I guess homeschooling fits well with extreme individualistic
| American culture, no surprises there.
| rimbo789 wrote:
| This is another item high on the "in the future we will all have
| been against this" list.
|
| Well funded public education is a bedrock of fair equal society
| (which is why the right attacks it ever since its invention).
|
| Public education isn't perfect but it is far better for
| individual and society than any alternative (including any
| religious run schools)
| jedberg wrote:
| I went to college with a few homeschooled kids. They were by far
| the least capable of "normal" social interaction. Some were quite
| book smart, but they had trouble communicating with others, so
| they couldn't demonstrate it.
|
| Also a fun side effect, they mispronounced a lot of words that
| they had only ever seen in books but never heard out loud. One of
| them was self-aware enough to ask us to correct him.
| kachapopopow wrote:
| home schooling is a very very priviledged concept to begin with
| so it's not surprising that there is quite a lot of hate for it.
|
| as a former child I think home schooling is better in every way
| if there is a supporting environment built around it, but I also
| think public schooling introduces a lot of variety that is not
| seen in private or home schooling be it for better or worse,
| although my time in public school was rough and failed me in many
| ways I still wouldn't have it any other way.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| This topic is such a basket case. "Homeschooling" in the US is a
| word that has come to mean "not enrolled in an accredited school"
| and can mean anything from being the Duggars to "my 4yo audits
| classes at MIT" or "we have an unaccredited private school that
| is identical to any other private school except for not being
| subject to laws".
|
| Advocating for homeschooling is simply advocating for absolutely
| no regulation on schooling, which is fine for the Zuckerbergs and
| will condemn children like the Duggars.
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