Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you? • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by wussboy » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 8:29 PM UTC

david927 wrote: post #112

ElijahLynn wrote: post #108

Social needs. Children need to learn how to be in relationship with others, it is the most fundamental need we have and is so important for the future of our planet. If I were to homeschool, it isn't about the learning, that is easy, it is about providing an environment where children can learn to co-exist with others. That can still be done with homeschool, but it will need to be intentional with daily activities th…

Please remember that not everyone has the same experiences, socially, in school and that for some, homeschooling is the vastly better option in that regard.

I would disagree with this. Those who do best on their own (let's imagine the stereo-typical nerd) are those who most need the social training of school to succeed in life.

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

#162

Post by jimhefferon » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 8:29 PM UTC

biomcgary wrote: post #125

kitsunesoba wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who was homeschooled for the majority of my childhood, I fully agree. I was able to somewhat overcome the resulting lack of social development in late high school (which wasn’t at home) and uni, but it wouldn’t be until some time between my mid 20s and early 30s that I felt like a mostly socially functional adult, and I still feel inadequacies in that department even now. Additionally, I don’t know that I’…

My wife and I were both homeschooled (I also attended private and public schools at various times). With homeschooling, we had a lot of positive social interactions (4-H, history club, co-operative classes with other families, neighborhood kids) and essentially no negative ones. My experience in public schools was quite negative (as well as being educationally weak). Our third son is autistic (probably my genetics) a…

> essentially no negative ones

Negative interactions can sometimes be a help, or a part of life, or whatever is the right phrase. In Jr High one day after school some kids beat me and a friend up (for no reason that I could figure out). Of course, I won't say "it made me who I am today" or any baloney like that but it certainly helped cement a resolve to not be them.

> nearly non-verbal

Yes, for sure the individual kid is the prime thing a person worries about. I am glad to hear he does well.

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

#163

Post by jpgvm » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 8:32 PM UTC

Nothing.

If I have children and they are like me (i.e on the spectrum) then I will homeschool them.

School was by far the worst time of my life and also contributed the least to my success. I succeeded in spite of traditional schooling, mostly due to the great nature of my parents (who unfortunately just didn't have the capacity or economical means to homeschool me.) Enduring my schooling years didn't make me stronger it just left me with deep emotional scars that took years to come to terms with.

My partner has early age teaching experience and we are equipped to school our children if that is how things turn out.

Socialization is definitely a concern but I think it can be adequately addressed through sports, activity groups and extended family.

Of course if my children are normal then maybe none of this will be necessary and a normal school will be what is best for them.

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

#164

Post by colinmhayes » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 8:33 PM UTC

voisin wrote: post #94

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…

Socialization is important, on that we agree. Socialization at school is not always positive or even effective. There are many ways to socialize and jamming people of the same age in a room for 6-7 hours at a time is far less effective, in my opinion, than being part of extracurricular programs, clubs, etc that often mingle kids of different ages, backgrounds, neighbourhoods, and cultures far better than any school.…

I don’t really agree. An important part of school is learning to overcome obstacles. Forcing the children to be together for 6 hours everyday inevitably leads to conflict that needs to be resolved. Just doing extracurriculars doesn’t give children the multi year time horizon they need to truly bond with their peers, and they can convince their parents to let them do something else if they don’t like the kids. Dealing with people you don’t get along with is an extremely important skill.

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

#165

Post by Mc91 » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 8:33 PM UTC

cowmix wrote: post #143

I'm 50, live in AZ (where home schooling is very popular) -- I didn't homeschool my kids but many of my friends did. Here's what I have seen: 1) If you are non-religious, the canned curriculum, trade shows, support groups are very few and far between. You will be much more lonely than your religious home-schooling counterparts. 2) As your kids get older, it is harder and harder to give them a proper education. By the…

> As your kids get older, it is harder and harder to give them a proper education. By the time your kids are in middle-school, subjects get harder for a parent (or pairs of parents) to cover in a way that does each subject justice.

I agree. My cousin's daughter was not home-schooled, but she was having trouble with high school math so I tutored her. At the time I was going to college for computer science. We did algebra for a year and that went fine. I still remembered it from high school. Then we got to trigonometry. The year I was supposed to learn trigonometry in high school was disruptive so I never learned it properly. So I studied the lesson and learn it myself before I would go see her. I'm supposed to be the math/CS guy too. It worked out and she passed trigonometry too - I did have to spend much more time preparing to teach trigonometry than algebra as I had never learned trigonometry. I can imagine one parent having to teach trigonometry, biology, physics, chemistry, the themes of the Scarlet Letter, French, Medieval history etc.

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

#166

Post by duckmysick » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 8:33 PM UTC

poulsbohemian wrote: post #120

_dain_ wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now do this for the influence of the state's pathologies on public schoolkids.

>Now do this for the influence of the state's pathologies on public schoolkids. Such as?

Zero-tolerance policies could be one example.

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

#167

Post by baby » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 8:34 PM UTC

disclaimer: I think school is mostly inefficient and a waste of time in terms of education.

Yet, I wouldn't take my kids away from school, basically because I remember when I was a kid and meeting kids that had been homeschooled (either later in school, or in activity centers) and they were always weird. I'm wondering how they grew up, and if it was much more difficult for them to acclimate after that, or if it was actually fine. But I feel like the world is a hard place, and the more you delay the reality the harder it'll be for kids. I'd be interested in stats like, for example, rate of suicide amongst homeschooled kids vs non-homeschooled kids.

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

#168

Post by wyager » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 8:34 PM UTC

ElijahLynn wrote: post #108

Social needs. Children need to learn how to be in relationship with others, it is the most fundamental need we have and is so important for the future of our planet. If I were to homeschool, it isn't about the learning, that is easy, it is about providing an environment where children can learn to co-exist with others. That can still be done with homeschool, but it will need to be intentional with daily activities th…

Public school (at least as I experienced it) is the worst possible place to learn social skills, unless you're hoping to pick up social skills for living in prison.

It's age-segregated, usually monitored by adults, extremely regimented, and often very hostile.

There are a million different contexts where kids can learn better, more useful social skills, like at church events, youth athletics, with kids in the neighborhood, etc.

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

#169

Post by wussboy » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 8:35 PM UTC

idle_zealot wrote: post #110

judah wrote: post #66

I was homeschooled and I credit much of my success in life to it. It taught me to think logically, taught me to honor my parents, taught me the value of tradition, morality, spirituality. It taught me the value of hard work, of loyalty, of kindness. It kept me out of vices that many of my public-schooled friends and peers got pulled into. In my experience, homeschooling can create well-rounded, upright people at a ra…

> taught me to honor my parents, taught me the value of tradition, morality, spirituality Those do not sound positive at all. It sounds like you were successfully sheltered from secular and liberal ideas by traditional and conservative parents, which matches with my preconceptions of homeschooling.

I'm as atheist as they come, and I value liberalism and secularism extremely.

But I also acknowledge that not all humans are like me and that not everyone has a liberal mindset. They did a study once and when conservatives were asked to think like liberals they were able to do so quite effectively. Unfortunately, liberals were not able to think like conservatives at all. This makes me cautious before recommending liberalism and secularism to all.

May I recommend Haidt's The Righteous Mind? It snapped me out of my "only liberalism/secularism is right" mindset.

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

#170

Post by bko » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 8:37 PM UTC

ElijahLynn wrote: post #108

Social needs. Children need to learn how to be in relationship with others, it is the most fundamental need we have and is so important for the future of our planet. If I were to homeschool, it isn't about the learning, that is easy, it is about providing an environment where children can learn to co-exist with others. That can still be done with homeschool, but it will need to be intentional with daily activities th…

> providing an environment where children can learn to co-exist with others

Do most schools do this effectively? Kids are pretty terrible to each other and abuse is pretty much the norm from my experience. Of course its not crippling for most kids, but I remember getting made fun of, and making fun of other kids and everything in between. School is also one of the only places in life where you're likely to experience violence. It's basically a daycare.

I don't know if there's an alternative. Maybe play dates in small groups?