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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?

#51

Post by slackware_linux »

na85 wrote: post #36
hprotagonist wrote: post #14

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.

I was a camp counselor for many years in my teens and into my twenties. We could always-- always --tell which kids were the homeschooled kids.

Can you elaborate?

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

#52

Post by jakelazaroff »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #37
rfdave wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that a problem?

It decreases the diversity of thought. If your school system is failing, the government shouldn’t imprison parents who want to do their best to try something else.

Not sure why "diversity of thought" is axiomatically a Good Thing. When extremely religious parents homeschool their children because they want to pass on those values, that's bad for society. Some things are heterodox for a reason.

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

#53

Post by Turing_Machine »

na85 wrote: post #36
hprotagonist wrote: post #14

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.

I was a camp counselor for many years in my teens and into my twenties. We could always-- always --tell which kids were the homeschooled kids.

Because they were less amenable to blindly accepting orders from arbitrary authority figures?

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

#54

Post by trendoid »

na85 wrote: post #36
hprotagonist wrote: post #14

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.

I was a camp counselor for many years in my teens and into my twenties. We could always-- always --tell which kids were the homeschooled kids.

Can you explain briefly in what way you could tell?

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

#55

Post by sbuttgereit »

Well, it's available resources about building and delivering an effective curricula across subjects and time. I have found a number of homeschooling resources, but the best organized efforts tend to be from religious perspectives (not surprising). We're not religious. My being an atheist and my wife being best described as irreligious (doesn't identify with a religion and puts approximately zero thought into the question) means much of that religious perspective is unwanted and is something I would consider detrimental. That I do seriously consider homeschooling should also make it evident that I reject public schooling as a good option; there are a number of reasons but your question implicitly assumes that to be true so I'll just restate it for others.

We do have relatives that have successfully homeschooled and I have seen groups that do their homeschooling together (homeschooling isn't necessarily about sitting at home by yourselves). So it's resources/support targeted to delivering a well-rounded homeschooled education, it's finding sufficiently like-minded others with whom to share the effort in a small group setting. With sufficient resources I could likely solve the time problem.

Absent that, we're looking at private schools for our kid. We'd probably just do this, but it's not a cheap alternative.

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

#56

Post by f154hfds »

As someone who was homeschooled through 6th grade and then private schooled and considering homeschool for early elementary (I have a 4 year old) I would say my main concern is actually in my wife's ability to maintain a parent/teacher balance right now.

What I mean by this is simply wearing two hats in the household is a tricky business and can be overwhelming especially when our young students have younger siblings that must be cared for. I have enormous respect for my wife but handling these responsibilities is no easy feat!

Of course my kids are very young. I have other concerns beyond elementary, mostly around an increasing need for expertise in sciences/math and properly rigorous testing ensuring mastery over subjects without access to a realistic grade curve.

My personal experience was very good but a bit unrealistic - I was taught to read by my mom who has taught kindergarten for decades. Not everyone has a professional educator as their homeschool teacher!

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

#57

Post by actfrench »

hprotagonist wrote: post #14

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.

It’s interesting because I actually have observed that homeschooling, especially in large urban areas, is much more social than school.

A huge number of families opt out of public school because of racism and bullying.

Just like families can design their child’s education, they can design their social experiences.

School is a socially engineered environment with little opportunity for organic play.

In traditional school, kids sit in rows or at tables in same age classrooms (often not very diverse ones since they are segregated by neighborhood in public school or parent ability to pay in private school)and they get 30 minute of highly chaotic recess a day if they’re lucky.

In homeschool , families participate in highly diverse, eclectic group of children of different ages. They engage in playgroups and community gatherings, field trips, classes, collaborative projects and have plenty of time for play.

The idea that homeschooling is less social is a myth - and as the homeschool population grows increasing opportunities for organic social interactions and true community emerge.

Here’s some more that I’ve written on this topic https://manisharoses.medium.com/highly-social-homeschooling-...

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

#58

Post by Turing_Machine »

dyingkneepad wrote: post #30

Socialization. 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 fo…

> It's about interacting with a broader group of people

A cohort within 12 months in age, typically from the same neighborhood, is not a "broader group of people".

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

#59

Post by actfrench »

pawelmurias wrote: post #50
acover wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much can a parent even affect their children? I remember studies of adopted children showing it was little. Edit: this[0] is not the study but shows something similar > Adopted children resemble their adoptive parents slightly in early childhood but not at all in middle childhood or adolescence In contrast, during childhood and adolescence, adopted children become more like their biological parents, and to the sa…

I know a lot of people that are super heavily influenced by traumas inflicted by their parents. Homeschooling someone is a lot different then your average lifestyle (that possibly wasn't that different between the adopted families)

Are they less so traumatized by their parents when they go to school ?

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

#60

Post by actfrench »

f154hfds wrote: post #56

As someone who was homeschooled through 6th grade and then private schooled and considering homeschool for early elementary (I have a 4 year old) I would say my main concern is actually in my wife's ability to maintain a parent/teacher balance right now. What I mean by this is simply wearing two hats in the household is a tricky business and can be overwhelming especially when our young students have younger siblings…

That’s a really interesting point. I imagine this could be a similar issue for stay-at-home moms who wear so many hats.
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