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Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?

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Re: Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?

#171

Post by wyager »

kennywinker wrote: post #12

In my experience, both direct and indirect, homeschooling has the effect of concentrating a parent’s influence on their children’s lives / brain development / psychology, etc. Take that, and think about it, before you start. If you have unexamined issues like anger problems, fixations, avoidances, fears - those will have an impact on your child, and a bigger impact if you homeschool your child - purely on the basis o…

I'd rather have the median homeschool parent influencing students than the median K-8 schoolteacher.

I also don't buy your notion that neuroses are directly transferable by contact. If anything, your kid will probably be so annoyed by them that they'll be exactly the opposite.

Re: Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?

#172

Post by cassac »

isleyaardvark wrote: post #111

Integrated public schools are now generally recognized as having the biggest impact in reducing racism. Plus the lack of support for public schools would increasingly leave kids with disabilities out of luck. So there’s a moral angle. I’d rather my kid grow up to be non-racist and I could fix any deficiencies in their schooling

If the goal of public schools is now to create non-racists at the cost of academics then I would rather homeschool. I can teach my kids to not be [race/sex/able]ists, and I do, because I treat people with respect.

The schools should have a moral obligation to teach everyone academics first and say everyone deserves to be treated with respect. There doesn’t need to be a big agenda about racism/sexism/ableism. Trump? Treat with respect. Hilary? Treat with respect. Homeless? Treat with respect. Former criminals? Treat with respect. Anybody who’s different than you? Treat with respect. Now let’s get back to math.

I don’t want to hear any individual teachers opinion on anything other than academics. If they want to give their opinion it should be leveled and end with treating all people with respect. If they did this maybe less people would homeschool and go to private school and then schools could continue to have their much needed funding.

Re: Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?

#173

Post by wussboy »

baby wrote: post #167

disclaimer: I think school is mostly inefficient and a waste of time in terms of education. Yet, I wouldn't take my kids away from school, basically because I remember when I was a kid and meeting kids that had been homeschooled (either later in school, or in activity centers) and they were always weird. I'm wondering how they grew up, and if it was much more difficult for them to acclimate after that, or if it was a…

I grew up at a small college, and you could always pick the home-schooled kids out of the crowd.

I said this in an earlier reply, but I agree that school is inefficient at education, but I'd argue that's not what the benefit of school is. School is about learning the social skills to succeed in life as an independent adult. That skill helps with learning later. Unfortunately, the reverse is not true: Intelligence is no guarantee to cross the social bridge.

Re: Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?

#174

Post by anon291 »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #113
ElijahLynn wrote: post #108

Social needs. Children need to learn how to be in relationship with others, it is the most fundamental need we have and is so important for the future of our planet. If I were to homeschool, it isn't about the learning, that is easy, it is about providing an environment where children can learn to co-exist with others. That can still be done with homeschool, but it will need to be intentional with daily activities th…

As someone who was homeschooled for the majority of my childhood, I fully agree. I was able to somewhat overcome the resulting lack of social development in late high school (which wasn’t at home) and uni, but it wouldn’t be until some time between my mid 20s and early 30s that I felt like a mostly socially functional adult, and I still feel inadequacies in that department even now. Additionally, I don’t know that I’…

I think everyone takes until mid 20s/early 30s to become socially functional. I went to normal school, and even day care (parents both worked), and I didn't totally overcome my social anxiety until I was 30 and had kids of my own. I still feel like I could do better.

Of course, I'm slightly biased, as we're probably going to end up going the homeschooling route. We were 50/50 before, but with COVID, we joined our church's homeschool coop, and because of that both our daughters are better socialized than peers their age. They meet every day. Older kids even meet up without their parents there (although there's always someone watching). Parents also hire tutors as groups, more like a 'pod' than traditional homeschooling. I think it'll work for us

Re: Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?

#175

Post by wyager »

idle_zealot wrote: post #110
judah wrote: post #66

I was homeschooled and I credit much of my success in life to it. It taught me to think logically, taught me to honor my parents, taught me the value of tradition, morality, spirituality. It taught me the value of hard work, of loyalty, of kindness. It kept me out of vices that many of my public-schooled friends and peers got pulled into. In my experience, homeschooling can create well-rounded, upright people at a ra…

> taught me to honor my parents, taught me the value of tradition, morality, spirituality Those do not sound positive at all. It sounds like you were successfully sheltered from secular and liberal ideas by traditional and conservative parents, which matches with my preconceptions of homeschooling.

> It sounds like you were successfully sheltered from secular and liberal ideas

If your utility function is "optimize for the life outcomes of my children", experimental evidence suggests this is a good thing. If your utility function is "optimize for outcomes that are in accord with my state-secular religious beliefs at the expense of my child's life outcomes", it's not.

Re: Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?

#176

Post by wyager »

xpe wrote: post #140
_dain_ wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or equivalently, state-run schooling successfully alienated you from these important values.

No, these two views are not even close to equivalent. Why? Liberalism and pluralism do not attempt to deny other ways of life or philosophies. (They may criticize them, but they do not claim to have absolute truth.) On the other hand, many dogmatic religions want to protect children from influences they cannot control or understand. Studying many different philosophies leads some to conclude relativism is correct. Bu…

> many dogmatic religions want to protect children from influences they cannot control or understand.

Yes, for example, the state-secular religion of the US, which is enforced in public schools, wants to protect children from influences it cannot control, such as homeschooling.

Re: Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?

#177

Post by wccrawford »

jimhefferon wrote: post #162
biomcgary wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife and I were both homeschooled (I also attended private and public schools at various times). With homeschooling, we had a lot of positive social interactions (4-H, history club, co-operative classes with other families, neighborhood kids) and essentially no negative ones. My experience in public schools was quite negative (as well as being educationally weak). Our third son is autistic (probably my genetics) a…

> essentially no negative ones Negative interactions can sometimes be a help, or a part of life, or whatever is the right phrase. In Jr High one day after school some kids beat me and a friend up (for no reason that I could figure out). Of course, I won't say "it made me who I am today" or any baloney like that but it certainly helped cement a resolve to not be them. > nearly non-verbal Yes, for sure the individual k…

I still hate bullies to this day, but there's no denying that they made me tougher.

Re: Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?

#178

Post by anon291 »

wyager wrote: post #168
ElijahLynn wrote: post #108

Social needs. Children need to learn how to be in relationship with others, it is the most fundamental need we have and is so important for the future of our planet. If I were to homeschool, it isn't about the learning, that is easy, it is about providing an environment where children can learn to co-exist with others. That can still be done with homeschool, but it will need to be intentional with daily activities th…

Public school (at least as I experienced it) is the worst possible place to learn social skills, unless you're hoping to pick up social skills for living in prison. It's age-segregated, usually monitored by adults, extremely regimented, and often very hostile. There are a million different contexts where kids can learn better, more useful social skills, like at church events, youth athletics, with kids in the neighbo…

Yeah I totally agree. The social skills I learned at my parochial school were none of the social needs I needed to succeed in silicon valley, for example.

My parochial school was poor working class. I learned how to talk crassly, 'shoot the shit', be prematurely sexual, to accept fate, etc. I did not learn how to speak properly, be diplomatic, set goals for life, better myself. Those I learned in college when I went to school with much better off kids and realized that all these things were things I could deliberately aim for and accomplish.

So, while attending school gave me a leg up in understanding the typical American 'everyman' (a skill which is severely lacking in silicon valley and in 'elite' circles in society), it did absolutely nothing to help me achieve becoming part of that elite. In many ways it hindered me. It taught me a worldview where everyone was coming to get me, to put me in my place, etc.

Re: Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?

#179

Post by hgomersall »

ElijahLynn wrote: post #108

Social needs. Children need to learn how to be in relationship with others, it is the most fundamental need we have and is so important for the future of our planet. If I were to homeschool, it isn't about the learning, that is easy, it is about providing an environment where children can learn to co-exist with others. That can still be done with homeschool, but it will need to be intentional with daily activities th…

This so much. I've met quite a few homeschooled children and almost without fail they lack some pretty fundamental social skills. Things like an apparent inability to interact with children of their own age, or behaving obnoxiously to others in ways that would be rapidly stamped out by peers.

Re: Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?

#180

Post by throwawayf37jg »

wussboy wrote: post #161
david927 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please remember that not everyone has the same experiences, socially, in school and that for some, homeschooling is the vastly better option in that regard.

I would disagree with this. Those who do best on their own (let's imagine the stereo-typical nerd) are those who most need the social training of school to succeed in life.

Those are also the most likely to face abuse like bullying in a school environment.
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