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Show HN: Great Books Homeschool beta program

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Re: Show HN: Great Books Homeschool beta program

#31

Post by all2 »

benatkin wrote: post #21
all2 wrote: post #12

Earlier 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 didn't say anything negative at all about religious schools! Just concern about parents deciding to go it alone! Like, there is no scheduled interaction with other people! I can already hear the indignant "none of your business". I'm just trying to help people avoid making a mistake. Sadly there are a lot of great, social, religious schools, and many of the evangelical Christians (not as varied as you suggest, but…

Oh, I didn't mean my (GP) statements to apply to what you said (GGP). I apologize if I came across that way.

I agree with you, raising children is harrowing, and doing it well is difficult. Somewhere else in this thread I mentioned home schooling co-ops as a way to spread the burden. There's a lot of benefit to having community, which is something that evangelicals often lack.

Re: Show HN: Great Books Homeschool beta program

#32

Post by yamtaddle »

antiviral wrote: post #28

Interesting idea! Anyone who likes the idea of a great books program should check out St. John's College in Annapolis MD and their curriculum: Suggested book curriculum by year: https://www.sjc.edu/academic-programs/undergraduate/great-bo... All in one PDF: https://www.sjc.edu/application/files/4115/4810/0934/St_John... There's also the old Britannica Great books printed book set. You can just look at their book list…

There's also the famous Harvard Classics, or the 5-Foot Shelf, sold as a kind of primary-sources curriculum, complete with a reading plan:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Classics

A Great List of Great Book Lists:

http://sonic.net/~rteeter/greatbks.html

[EDIT] On this:

> Also, almost all of these books are old enough that their copyrights have expired so you can download them for free from the Gutenberg e-library: https://gutenberg.org/

I'd caution readers to also evaluate in-copyright editions, especially in the case of works in translation. Used books are cheap and it's worth getting the best possible translation (however one chooses to evaluate that) if one is going to spend hours with it.

And:

> One feature I've wished for is some way to format these free books and make them more reader-friendly. That would save future readers time to do it themselves. I would pay for something like that.

Standard Ebooks?

https://standardebooks.org

Not comprehensive, but they've got a lot.

Re: Show HN: Great Books Homeschool beta program

#33

Post by lolinder »

benatkin wrote: post #27
lolinder wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sta…

> uninformed attack on homeschooling in general You can probably tell I have direct experience with it, yet you call me "uninformed". It's a pretty common tactic when defending a fringe group. However, I brought information into it. There's no mention in your comment about the reference I provided. Gee I wonder why.

I did reference your data, I just don't find it to mean what you think it means. It shows that plenty of people (68%) choose to homeschool at least in part because of "dissatisfaction with academic instruction at other schools". That those people are also worried about peer pressure doesn't make them intellectually incurious.

For a bit more nuance, see this report [0]:

> This exploratory study examines the academic outcomes of homeschooled students who enter a medium size doctoral institution located in the Midwest. Descriptive analysis reveals homeschool students possess higher ACT scores, grade point averages (GPAs) and graduation rates when compared to traditionally-educated students. In addition, multiple regression analysis results reveal that students who are homeschooled earn higher first-year and fourth-year GPAs when controlling for demographic, pre-college, engagement, and first-term academic factors.

And this one [1]:

> Consistent with the findings on socialization of homeschooling youngsters and the social and civic engagement of their parents (Lines 2000a), available research finds that homeschooled adults also participate in community-based activities at rates much higher than those found in the general population (Ray 2005). Two studies in particular open a window on this issue. In the mid-1990s, Knowles and Muchmore (1995) reported that homeschooled adults were not disengaged socially or civically. In a comprehensive analysis of the issue a decade later, Ray (2004a) documented that homeschooled adults were indeed heavily involved in community life at the local and national levels and were more civically involved than the general population of adults. He found that compared to public school graduates, homeschooled adults were more likely to (1) vote; (2) be involved in ongoing community service; (3) be part of an organization; (4) write, telephone, or sign petitions; and (5) participate in a protest or boycott.

I'm not cherry-picking here, I'm literally just going down the list of results for this Google Scholar search [3].

[0] https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ893891.pdf

[1] https://www.educacaodomiciliar.fe.unicamp.br/sites/www.educa...

[3]. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C45&q=col...

Re: Show HN: Great Books Homeschool beta program

#34

Post by benatkin »

all2 wrote: post #31
benatkin wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say anything negative at all about religious schools! Just concern about parents deciding to go it alone! Like, there is no scheduled interaction with other people! I can already hear the indignant "none of your business". I'm just trying to help people avoid making a mistake. Sadly there are a lot of great, social, religious schools, and many of the evangelical Christians (not as varied as you suggest, but…

Oh, I didn't mean my (GP) statements to apply to what you said (GGP). I apologize if I came across that way. I agree with you, raising children is harrowing, and doing it well is difficult. Somewhere else in this thread I mentioned home schooling co-ops as a way to spread the burden. There's a lot of benefit to having community , which is something that evangelicals often lack.

Yeah they should be careful not to neglect having community. Like, at least every semester, think about whether there is enough community. And don't use something they did in a past semester as an excuse for lacking community in the current semester.

Re: Show HN: Great Books Homeschool beta program

#35

Post by cjensen »

benatkin wrote: post #5

> 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…

Don't dismiss too easily the real needs to homeschool for some people.

I have a friend whose child had some learning disability. The school district's "solution" was to put them in the disabled class with an overwhelmed teacher and call it a day. Homeschooling allowed the parent to ensure their child had a full education at a pace the child could handle.

Another friend had a gifted child who was pretty bored. Homeschooling let the child plow through the material at a more challenging pace and then continue to challenge themselves with material no high school would have taught.

Homeschooling is an alternative that some people pretty much have to take for their children's sake. Homeschooling is harder for the parents than regular schooling and is not a decision taken lightly.

Re: Show HN: Great Books Homeschool beta program

#36

Post by jkurnia »

all2 wrote: post #7

From 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.…

Thanks for this detailed feedback!

Re introducing reading separately from writing, this is recommended in The Well-Trained Mind and A Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading and worked well with my two sons. Both learned to read fluently at age four, but needed a couple years beyond that to develop the fine motor skills and attention span needed to form letters well. That said, many kids are ready to write at an earlier age and we try to make it easy for parents to edit the default curriculum and do things like move the first-grade writing component to kindergarten. The main point is that learning to read doesn't need to be coupled with writing.

The typo and awkward phrasing you mentioned are fixed now. :)

Re: Show HN: Great Books Homeschool beta program

#37

Post by Ninjinka »

antiviral wrote: post #28

Interesting idea! Anyone who likes the idea of a great books program should check out St. John's College in Annapolis MD and their curriculum: Suggested book curriculum by year: https://www.sjc.edu/academic-programs/undergraduate/great-bo... All in one PDF: https://www.sjc.edu/application/files/4115/4810/0934/St_John... There's also the old Britannica Great books printed book set. You can just look at their book list…

There is also a set of study guides that go with the old Britannica Great Books set called "The Great Ideas Program"! Somewhat hard to find nowadays though.

Re: Show HN: Great Books Homeschool beta program

#39

Post by benatkin »

lolinder wrote: post #33
benatkin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> uninformed attack on homeschooling in general You can probably tell I have direct experience with it, yet you call me "uninformed". It's a pretty common tactic when defending a fringe group. However, I brought information into it. There's no mention in your comment about the reference I provided. Gee I wonder why.

I did reference your data, I just don't find it to mean what you think it means. It shows that plenty of people (68%) choose to homeschool at least in part because of "dissatisfaction with academic instruction at other schools". That those people are also worried about peer pressure doesn't make them intellectually incurious. For a bit more nuance, see this report [0]: > This exploratory study examines the academic o…

Hmm, so you did mention my data, but didn't acknowledge that I must at least be somewhat informed.

I don't think fringe is a pejorative.

---

Yes, finding issue with the schools is part of the response. However, complaining about the schools is not a great victory for those arguing for homeschooling. They would have to provide a superior alternative. And there isn't overwhelming evidence that either is better, because there are so many variables. And a good study would try to control for them, so it is good that the one you mentioned did.

Everybody knows schools have problems and many try to solve them or have their children go to other schools.

When parents say their kid can't possibly go to any school that has other kids in it, though in some cases, it is a bit like Munchausen's syndrome where the parent invents a problem wants to step in and be the hero. And that is difficult for a lot of children to handle.

Re: Show HN: Great Books Homeschool beta program

#40

Post by [deleted] »

lolinder wrote: post #33
benatkin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> uninformed attack on homeschooling in general You can probably tell I have direct experience with it, yet you call me "uninformed". It's a pretty common tactic when defending a fringe group. However, I brought information into it. There's no mention in your comment about the reference I provided. Gee I wonder why.

I did reference your data, I just don't find it to mean what you think it means. It shows that plenty of people (68%) choose to homeschool at least in part because of "dissatisfaction with academic instruction at other schools". That those people are also worried about peer pressure doesn't make them intellectually incurious. For a bit more nuance, see this report [0]: > This exploratory study examines the academic o…

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