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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?

#321
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.

I'm atheist and I value those things as well. I plan to die without ever making my beliefs public for fear of upsetting my religious family. Atheism does seem to come with a built-in rebellious "Fuck God, Fuck Jesus, Fuck Mohamed... Neither A King Nor A God" initial phase. But as that cools down a bit, you realize that religion is really optimal on many many things. Even if it got those things purely by chance or by stealing them from older traditions (because hey, every religion was once the edgy new heresy on the block that simultaneously invalidates older wisdom while secretly stealing the best parts), and even if it got a lot of other things wrong, horribly wrong.

Secularism is good for politics, because religions are a dime a dozen and any choice of which one should be the dominant is irrational and arbitrary. It was never meant to be a catch all "No religion plz" rule. Liberalism, unless you define it as anything other than the good old "Live And Let Live" of Mill and Locke, is not in obvious contradiction with any of the traditional values GP states.

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Most importantly, Tradition is about Family. Family is important. This is the single biggest understatement I made in a long long time. The cheapness of the Fast-and-Furious style "muh family" sentiments hides the radicalism of this shattering realization : the only force in this entire universe that is invested in your success without any direct expectation of something in return is your family.

I'm a techno-primitivist, I believe political units should be extremely small, extremely numerous, with an emphasis on blood ties as the ultimate guarantee of group cohesion and loyalty. I have a burning hatred for and deep distrust of any political unit with more than 1000 persons. There is no way to make a social organization of >1000 persons consistently fair, the rules are always arbitrary and ad hoc, a few assholes always play the meta-game and find ways around them, and somebody is always oppressed and bullied and consistently given the shorter end without a way to be heard.

Family is different, affinity for genetic similarity is deeply hardwired into your lowest level circuits, very few assholes can find their way around the rules evolution built. Every single social organization is a prisoner's dilemma come alive, why cooperate with that stranger you're never going to see again? The answers are always arbitrary and subject to abuse and evasion : Because God, Because Emperor, Because CEO, Because General. Family is the only social unit where the rules stem from your very being : Because Evolution, the very factory that built you, that encoded your love and respect for your own flesh and blood as deep inside as it encoded your liver and kidneys.

In another, and better, universe, we never built nations or states or parliaments or public school systems, every family is an autonomous unit under the leadership of its bread winner, and federations of families handle cross-cutting concerns in a way that leaves as much power to the families as possible.

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

#322
post #272
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, for example, the state-secular religion of the US, which is enforced in public schools, wants to protect children from influences it cannot control, such as homeschooling. No. This seems like an attempt at a wise phrase unfortunately mechanistically generated from some recursion and word substitution. Please try to support the claim if you actually believe it. Research classical liberalism, the scientific meth…

Why are you talking about > classical liberalism, the scientific method, liberal arts, music, pedagogy, statistics when our conversation was about > Liberalism and pluralism (your words)? > State-based education is funded largely because it is in the interest of the state to educate citizens to participate in government and exist in a pluralistic society This is not an even approximately correct model for why the sta…

> Why are you talking about

>> classical liberalism, the scientific method, liberal arts, music, pedagogy, statistics

> when our conversation was about

>> Liberalism and pluralism > (your words)?

I'm going to make a few points in different threads to ease replies.

First, let's step back. We are different people having a conversation. I often see people claiming the other person is off topic. Such a claim assumes that one person gets to define what on topic is. One person is not granted that power here. Not you, not me.

I have hope that better discussion is possible with a better tone. I'll do what I can to help.

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

#323
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, for example, the state-secular religion of the US, which is enforced in public schools, wants to protect children from influences it cannot control, such as homeschooling. No. This seems like an attempt at a wise phrase unfortunately mechanistically generated from some recursion and word substitution. Please try to support the claim if you actually believe it. Research classical liberalism, the scientific meth…

I think what they’re railing against is an actual truth: an important role of education has always been inducting kids into a common understanding of the society they’ll be navigating as a adults. For modern western nations, that does means encouraging kids to think in terms of specific liberal, secular humanist values like universal human rights, pluralist nation-states, global interdependency, democratic government…

> I think what they’re railing against is an actual truth: an important role of education has always been inducting kids into a common understanding of the society they’ll be navigating as a adults.

I don't know you mean by they, but I agree that a role of education is a kind of induction.

Thank you for your comment. I would like to see more people building bridges of understanding.

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

#324
post #272
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, for example, the state-secular religion of the US, which is enforced in public schools, wants to protect children from influences it cannot control, such as homeschooling. No. This seems like an attempt at a wise phrase unfortunately mechanistically generated from some recursion and word substitution. Please try to support the claim if you actually believe it. Research classical liberalism, the scientific meth…

Why are you talking about > classical liberalism, the scientific method, liberal arts, music, pedagogy, statistics when our conversation was about > Liberalism and pluralism (your words)? > State-based education is funded largely because it is in the interest of the state to educate citizens to participate in government and exist in a pluralistic society This is not an even approximately correct model for why the sta…

>> State-based education is funded largely because it is in the interest of the state to educate citizens to participate in government and exist in a pluralistic society

> This is not an even approximately correct model for why the state bankrolls public education in the US.

I'd be interested to hear about your model. Please tell me what kind of model you mean.

Are you familiar with the phrase: "All models are wrong, but some are useful?" In what ways is your model useful? In what ways is my model useful?

Are you irritated? What are some ways to make this a kinder discussion? I'm sorry if I insulted you somehow.

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

#325
post #272
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, for example, the state-secular religion of the US, which is enforced in public schools, wants to protect children from influences it cannot control, such as homeschooling. No. This seems like an attempt at a wise phrase unfortunately mechanistically generated from some recursion and word substitution. Please try to support the claim if you actually believe it. Research classical liberalism, the scientific meth…

Why are you talking about > classical liberalism, the scientific method, liberal arts, music, pedagogy, statistics when our conversation was about > Liberalism and pluralism (your words)? > State-based education is funded largely because it is in the interest of the state to educate citizens to participate in government and exist in a pluralistic society This is not an even approximately correct model for why the sta…

> Not trying to diss you here, but you very clearly have the fully-indoctrinated understanding of someone who's been inducted into the western state-secular religion and isn't even aware of it (same as most of its adherents).

Don't worry, I'm not insulted.

In any case, your assessment of me -- which you talk about as if it is binary (i.e. pass/fail) -- is way off the mark.

Let me suggest a productive direction. How about you tell me in more detail what this kind of indoctrination means to you. If you make a list of sub-points (perhaps questions) that roll up into some kind of indoctrination score, I'll take a look.

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

#326
post #171

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.

I didn’t say directly transferred. Just that they have an effect and it’s usually not a positive one.

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

#327
Neither one of us can afford to stay at home and earn no income, or are temperamentally suited to such a life even if practical. I would be happy to work from home indefinitely, but I can't interrupt my coding every 20 minutes to answer questions and still get anything done. Town layout as such that even teenagers need parents to drive them everywhere, at least high school campus has library/gym/pool/various clubs.

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

#328
post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Liberalism and pluralism do not attempt to deny other ways of life or philosophies. Isn’t that what you just did?

>> Liberalism and pluralism do not attempt to deny other ways of life or philosophies. > Isn’t that what you just did? The key is understanding what I mean by "deny". First, I'll define liberalism and pluralism as I'm using them (from Wikipedia): > Pluralism as a political philosophy is the recognition and affirmation of diversity within a political body, which is seen to permit the peaceful coexistence of different…

No post body was provided.

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

#329
post #272
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, for example, the state-secular religion of the US, which is enforced in public schools, wants to protect children from influences it cannot control, such as homeschooling. No. This seems like an attempt at a wise phrase unfortunately mechanistically generated from some recursion and word substitution. Please try to support the claim if you actually believe it. Research classical liberalism, the scientific meth…

Why are you talking about > classical liberalism, the scientific method, liberal arts, music, pedagogy, statistics when our conversation was about > Liberalism and pluralism (your words)? > State-based education is funded largely because it is in the interest of the state to educate citizens to participate in government and exist in a pluralistic society This is not an even approximately correct model for why the sta…

> western state-secular religion

We have not using the word religion in the same way. But I know what you mean.

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

#330
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public school socialization. Humiliated by teachers. Bullied by some people. Small circle of friends. Adults as the enemy. All the homeschooled kids I've met seem pleasant, polite, comfortable around other kids and around adults. Of course this is Northern California so elsewhere the story may be different. Oh, and homeschooling is forbidden in Germany, under a 1938 law. 1938. Get it? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, elbow…

I'm German and I'm glad it's forbidden, and not since 1938 but since 1919, and it has its roots not in the Nazi era but in the Prussian system and the European humanist tradition of education which emphasized that education is not just about acquisition of skills, but about civic education, teaching students not just to be pupils but to be democratic citizens and active participants in public life.

> but about civic education, teaching students not just to be pupils but to be democratic citizens and active participants in public life.

As if that happens in American public schools lol.

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