Yuval Noah Harari is Great Books?
Show HN: Great Books Homeschool beta program
11–20 of 75 posts
Re: Show HN: Great Books Homeschool beta program
#12> It's designed especially for intellectually curious kids who love to read. What does "intellectually curious" mean here exactly? The reasons people homeschool mostly seem to be about being (over)protective, which goes against it: "Parents were asked which of the reasons they homeschooled was the most important reason. Figure 2 and table 4 show the most important reasons students were being homeschooled in 2003, as…
"Mostly" is not everyone, and frankly I tend to forget the religious weirdos even exist. All the homeschooling families I knew were doing it because the local schools sucked; even those with "gifted and talented" programs couldn't keep up. If this scratches an itch for some homeschoolers, it's valid and useful. There will always be others for whom it is not interesting, but so what?
> religious weirdos
I fall into that category in that I find the public education system extremely lacking in terms of (and especially) moral development. I don't appreciate the characterization of "weirdo", though you are welcome to it.
Just know that the majority of the people in the space you aspire to serve are fundamental Christians of various stripes and colors and you will lose that segment of business very quickly if you continue to demean them publicly.
Re: Show HN: Great Books Homeschool beta program
#13$40/month for a list of books to check out at the library seems a bit much. Transcripts aren't difficult so what additional value do you offer for that price?
Thanks, this is helpful to hear. It's interesting that one of the main pieces of feedback we get is about pricing. Some people say that it is overpriced, others that we should be charging more.
To answer your question, we have quite a bit of original content and functionality beyond the book lists and transcripts. And based on my experience assembling customized homeschooling curricula for my kids, the book curation in itself is a major value add. If it saves the parent just a few hours of research time, or connects the student with just a few resources beyond what parents could find on their own, it would be worth the cost for many families.
The main differentiator in a homeschooling curriculum is what the student will spend his/her time doing and reading, and optimizing this seems like it would be worth paying for a service rather than relying on free book lists from the internet. That's our hypothesis, anyway.
Re: Show HN: Great Books Homeschool beta program
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Mostly" is not everyone, and frankly I tend to forget the religious weirdos even exist. All the homeschooling families I knew were doing it because the local schools sucked; even those with "gifted and talented" programs couldn't keep up. If this scratches an itch for some homeschoolers, it's valid and useful. There will always be others for whom it is not interesting, but so what?
> religious weirdos I fall into that category in that I find the public education system extremely lacking in terms of (and especially) moral development. I don't appreciate the characterization of "weirdo", though you are welcome to it. Just know that the majority of the people in the space you aspire to serve are fundamental Christians of various stripes and colors and you will lose that segment of business very qu…
I think the guy you're responding to isn't the one developing the system.
Re: Show HN: Great Books Homeschool beta program
#15> It's designed especially for intellectually curious kids who love to read. What does "intellectually curious" mean here exactly? The reasons people homeschool mostly seem to be about being (over)protective, which goes against it: "Parents were asked which of the reasons they homeschooled was the most important reason. Figure 2 and table 4 show the most important reasons students were being homeschooled in 2003, as…
This feels less like an sincere question for OP than it does an uninformed attack on homeschooling in general. You start with a phrase OP used to describe their target audience, imply that there is no such homeschool family, and then tangent off into unrelated attacks that show a strong lack of nuance.
Yes, there are families that homeschool for the wrong reasons. But there are plenty of others (as your own cited stats show) who choose to homeschool because the public education system kinda sucks. Those families (my own included) are very conscientious about addressing the known weaknesses of homeschooling through co-ops and other tools.
Re: Show HN: Great Books Homeschool beta program
#16> It's designed especially for intellectually curious kids who love to read. What does "intellectually curious" mean here exactly? The reasons people homeschool mostly seem to be about being (over)protective, which goes against it: "Parents were asked which of the reasons they homeschooled was the most important reason. Figure 2 and table 4 show the most important reasons students were being homeschooled in 2003, as…
> and no social connection
I've seen great benefits come out of home schooling co-ops. You get the ability to have your child learn at their pace and study subjects they find interesting (to a certain extent, obviously), the added benefit of a little less labor on the part of individual parents, and a social group of kiddos that are following a similar path.
Re: Show HN: Great Books Homeschool beta program
#17$40/month for a list of books to check out at the library seems a bit much. Transcripts aren't difficult so what additional value do you offer for that price?
I looked for a sample unit and couldn't find one. Does indeed seem expensive, even if it's pretty good by the standards of such things.
Re: Show HN: Great Books Homeschool beta program
#18From the overview by grade page [0] > Note that the curriculum does not introduce writing this year. [...] I find this strange. I have a lot of penmanship homework from my two years (!!) of kindergarten and first grade. It seems odd to me to not include it in kindergarten. Your reasoning seems to make sense to me, but I'd be tempted to teach in the way I was taught because it worked -- for better or worse -- for me.…
> I find this strange. I have a lot of penmanship homework from my two years (!!) of kindergarten and first grade.
I'll have to see if I can find the studies, but a lot of researchers have been finding that rushing to introduce kids to things doesn't make a great impact and in fact sometimes holds them back from lifetime achievement. (This does not apply to true prodigies.) Off the top of my head, some researchers have found that penmanship isn't that useful at an age where fine motor skills still need a lot of development, and the Soviet union found that waiting an extra 2-3 years to introduce children to math resulted in better, faster, more confident math students.
Re: Show HN: Great Books Homeschool beta program
#19I like the idea. I'm having a bit of trouble picturing exactly what I'd be getting though – what format are the book lists presented in, and what sorts of materials do you include with them?
A page with a couple sample emails that I could read without having to create an account would help me. Maybe there is one somewhere, but I couldn't find it.
Re: Show HN: Great Books Homeschool beta program
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
> religious weirdos I fall into that category in that I find the public education system extremely lacking in terms of (and especially) moral development. I don't appreciate the characterization of "weirdo", though you are welcome to it. Just know that the majority of the people in the space you aspire to serve are fundamental Christians of various stripes and colors and you will lose that segment of business very qu…
I think the guy you're responding to isn't the one developing the system.
Oh, oops. He's not. @jkurnia is the creator of the linked site. Thank you for pointing this out.