I've considered home schooling, but what stopped me was the fact that I suddenly realized I have no children.
On a more serious note, I like how you asked the question with "what's stopping you?".
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?
#22School 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…
As someone who was both home-schooled and went to public school, you are buying into the mythos around school too much. I had my own experiences when I was homeschooled that were far better than "enduring the horrors of PE".
Re: Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?
#23I 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.
Why is that a problem?
Re: Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?
#24School 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…
As someone who was both home-schooled and went to public school, you are buying into the mythos around school too much. I had my own experiences when I was homeschooled that were far better than "enduring the horrors of PE".
I am not "buying into" anything, I am sharing my lived experience.
And life without a little horror is not much of a life if you ask me.
Re: Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?
#25Honestly, I'm not well balanced enough to home school. I'm afraid taking on primary schooling would cause expectations for my kid to be too high. Also, I feel that socialization with other kids (learning to make/maintain friends), interaction with (other) adults and having a structured routine is more important.
Probably most importantly, I'm fairly confident in the competence in my local public elementary (great teachers and lots of parent volunteers)
I'd would consider co-op, but most groups are too small or unorganized.
Re: Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?
#26I was homeschooled in the late 80s / early 90s and I hated it. Though we were part of a homeschool group, we only got together with other families once or twice a week. It was really lonely and I never felt like a normal kid. Ultimately I convinced my parents to send me to public high school and had a great experience.
Watching my own kids thrive in school with lots of friends and social interaction has reaffirmed my thinking that building social skills is as much a part of schooling as the education itself.
Re: Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?
#27I'm too old to be homeschooled.
Re: Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?
#28The 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.
I think one of the big challenges with pandemic homeschooling is that parents were trying to help kids with school work and keeping up with school , rather then necessarily directly helping them learn. One of the cool things about homeschooling is you can choose your child’s curriculum and support them learning at their own pace. I think you may even find you spend less or equal time as your child’s teacher than you do helping them with homework. And by the way , I have often found as a tutor/teacher that homework is where a lot of the only learning takes place because kids tune out in class lectures, miss vital info and fall behind. Many homeschool families I know have 4-5 kids with radically different learning styles and personalities and still only spend 1-2 hrs on direct instruction. These kids are going on to Harvard, Stanford, getting high scores on multiple AP exams because the learning goals are clear and they are able to learn at their own pace and master info before moving on to the next problem. Because kids learn so differently, I built a curriculum planner early on at Modulo to help families find the right tool for their individual child, that engages, inspires and challenges them. Also I don’t know about the dynamic of your family but older kids can help teach younger ones and “student as teacher” is one of the best ways for someone learning to really achieve mastery and a deep understanding of the subject.
Re: Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?
#29I'm too old to be homeschooled.
Hopefully you’re still learning though ! :)
Re: Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?
#30Socialization. Going to school is not only about absorbing academical knowledge. It's about interacting with a broader group of people, learning how to behave, how to avoid common problems, etc. I would not be able to provide this to my kids.
On top of that, the language we speak at home is not the language used by the school, or the rest of the country. There are a million problems that come with this: they would force us to use our language, which they're more comfortable with, they would be learning our broken accents, we're not super familiar with the local language so our ability to teach it would be worse, etc, etc.