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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?

#11

Post by actfrench »

runjake wrote: post #2

The amount of effort it would take and the quality of that effort, when I already have a full-time job. Edit: I have 3 kids, and they all learn in quite different ways. I can't really give one presentation to all 3 on something. The pandemic gave me a little glimpse into what home schooling would be like.

A lot of families thinks this would mean sitting at the kitchen table at their kids from 9-3 but actually homeschool does not need to look like school in order to be effective academically. with mastery learning and 1-1 instruction, kids learn way faster than in a classroom setting , so often parents spend max 1-2 hours guiding their kids through math and ELA with many of the great secular homeschool curriculums available and then cobble together a bunch of afterschool activities /skill shares , social activities and pareht swaps. Sometimes more affluent parents hire tutors but it’s not necessary. And there are some great digital tools kids csn use to largely teach themselves like khan academy - not to mention good old-fashioned books !

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

#12

Post by kennywinker »

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 of much more time spent together.

If you’re going to do it, i would strongly encourage you to start therapy asap. Because the more of those things you crack open and deal with, the less your child will have to deal with the consequences of them.

The school system has a ton of problems. So does home schooling. There is no magic bullet. Just choices.

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

#13

Post by actfrench »

bckr wrote: post #9
actfrench wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you’re looking for ways to reduce the effort …at not too high a cost I imagine ?

I encourage you to read "The Mom Test". It is a book about how to ask questions such that you do not mislead yourself while doing market research.

Thanks !

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

#14

Post by hprotagonist »

What stops me is that the socialization and peer-group relationship skills that are obtained rapidly in a public school context are not replicatable at home. Neither are the skills learned in dealing with non-family adults, independence of task skills away from home, and much else besides in that vein.

I would rather -- and do -- support the public school system in my (medium sized) city.

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

#16

Post by actfrench »

dotdi wrote: post #10

I get this is targeted at the US, still I'm throwing this out there: my wife and I (with combined degrees in literature, molecular biology and computer science) would have seriously considered homeschooling. But we live in Germany, and it is absolutely illegal here.

That’s definitely a problem. And even in the US families can face problems. I know great homeschool families in nys who had social services called on them by a neighbor. And many of the African American teens in our community have been stopped on the streets for “truancy” when they’d legally registered to homeschool.

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

#17

Post by mcone »

Our kids are 11 and 6 and we've always homeschooled them. As a secular homeschooling family, our headaches aren't related to curriculums or anything academic-related (there are lots of good options and resources out there) but rather the lack of socialization options outside of the home. If your experience is like ours, you'll quickly discover is that most homeschooling families are very religious or pulled their children out of school due to some kind of behavioral issue.

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

#18

Post by actfrench »

bell-cot wrote: post #4

My sister-in-law homeschooled most of her kids. OTOH, she left her full-time job as an elementary school teacher to do that. Right after my kid brother got a new, far -better-paid job, which made that a viable option. She's still kinda involved with homeschooling. From various comments on what that is like these days (post-1990's), there are a huge number of resources already on the web to support homeschooling.

Getting the right job to homeschool is important

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

#19

Post by standardUser »

School is great. Not all of it obviously, and more for some people than others, but overall the pain and stresses of going to school were hugely outweighed by the fun and adventure of navigating through that system and interacting with all of those different peers and teachers. I wouldn't want to deny any kid those adventures and relationships and that exposure to our culture (for better and for worse). To be fair, I also grew up in a pretty great school system.

I feel the same way about college. I understand the arguments that college is not often worth the excessive cost if you look at it in terms of financial outcomes. But I didn't go to college for financial outcomes. I went because it was going to be (and was) a uniquely amazing adventure that I could never replicate at any other time in my life. I think going to grade school is the same thing.

Nothing can replace acting awkward around your crush in the hall, learning to navigate around the bully, bonding after class with a favorite teacher, enduring the horrors of PE or the excitement of a bomb threat, to name a few nostalgic examples.

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

#20

Post by actfrench »

superb-owl wrote: post #3

I'm curious if there are legal hurdles to doing something between homeschooling and private schooling. E.g. is it possible for me and a few other neighborhood families hire a private tutor for our kids?

This blog I wrote about how to start a microschool /learning pod/hybrid school might be helpful to you . Please let me know if you’ve got any specific questions I can be of support with

https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/learningpod

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