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Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?
291–300 of 424 posts
Re: 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?
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
The rest sounds bad but "they have to wait for others to catch up" sounds like a win for homeschooling.
Except when they try and get a job, be part of a social group or are in any sort of leadership position. Everything in life is better when you’re a team player.
Which is why I said the rest sounds bad. But being a step ahead of your peers is something else that makes life better.
Re: Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're confused as to the point of school. We often believe the point of school is the academics, but I would argue it's the social. Studies indicate social skills are more important to future success than academics. A hurriedly-googled link: https://www.tcscholars.org/social-success/ And I would also argue you need excellent social skills to reach your potential academically. So, yes, your kids did better ac…
i can hardly think of a worse place to learn social skills than a classroom. all an intelligent kid really learns in public school is how to be cynical, detached and to maximally cheat the system. oh and also how to sell drugs. public schools are great for learning that.
> oh and also how to sell drugs. public schools are great for learning that.
total cheap shot. s/public //
drugs follow money
at private schools what do you think you see? more expensive drug habits.
Re: Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?
#295Expense. We looked into it when the kids were little but concluded we would need to hire at least one full time teacher (wife and I both work) and therefore would need to aggregate with several other families. At that point you're starting a school and we observed that we were already paying (handsomely) for the public school. That said we did supplement our kids education at the elementary level with a once-a-week science class from a retired teacher we know, and I spent quite a bit of time teaching them Mathematics "properly" up through 9th grade.
I made use of various tools for that, including the same problem setting software the professional teachers used, and of course Messrs Kahn and 3Blue.
Re: Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?
#296Expense. We looked into it when the kids were little but concluded we would need to hire at least one full time teacher (wife and I both work) and therefore would need to aggregate with several other families. At that point you're starting a school and we observed that we were already paying (handsomely) for the public school. That said we did supplement our kids education at the elementary level with a once-a-week s…
Doesn't homeschooling by definition sort of presuppose one of the parents staying home and teaching? That's the only context in which I've ever heard it discussed.
Re: Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?
#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. I was treated pretty terribly at times. I don’t think we should strive to socialize kids in school. The ones who do okay could probably still do better. Here in North America it seems like our communities are too fragmented and fractured to facilitate socializing without something like schools, though. No idea how to address and resolve this issue, but I’m not convinced our teachers and the socializing model…
> was treated pretty terribly at times. Most people were. But unfortunately you will get treated pretty terribly throughout your life. And so you need to develop those social skills at some point.
Absolutely. I grew up with a mild disability so it might have been a little worse than average, which is why I mention it. I went through most of grade 3 with a list in in the top right of the chalk board titled “Stupid List”, and for the remainder of the year after it was written, I was the only one on there. These kinds of experiences weren’t uncommon for me.
My sister is a year older and more evidently disabled, and we were obvious targets for the kids we grew up with.
You’re right though. I lived through it fine, I’ve done okay, and the experience informed me about life and people in truly useful ways that I’ve come to value.
Ideally I’d like my kids to avoid the worst of what I experienced, but I don’t want to shelter them by any means. I think there are some forms of prolonged cruelty from peers that risks being very destructive, in particular.
Re: Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except when they try and get a job, be part of a social group or are in any sort of leadership position. Everything in life is better when you’re a team player.
Which is why I said the rest sounds bad. But being a step ahead of your peers is something else that makes life better.
Try that with a romantic partner. Not attractive.
In a leadership role, being exasperated by half the team? Not motivating.
Also, the premise is that you are ahead of the bunch. It's also feasible that you are below the local average, and have no experience dealing with that situation. Takes guts to persist in that situation, but that's where you learn a lot.
Re: Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what explanation do YOU have for trans activism? It certainly isn't just "we have always had this many of them but now it's ok to acknowledge". From my experiences (which are many) it is vastly due to cultural identitarianism with a hefty side helping of physical, emotional, and psychological abuse. But I still want to hear your explanation.
Gender and sexuality have been fluid for as long as we've recorded them. It's in all the primary sources. Trans people (and gay people, and bi, and asexual..) exist and have always existed - it's only now that modern medicine is capable of and permitted to let them shape their body in the way that matches their identity. It also happens to be during a resurgence in anti-LGBT rhetoric that's part of the MAGA "we had i…
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Re: Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd rather have the median homeschool parent influencing students than the median K-8 schoolteacher. I also don't buy your notion that neuroses are directly transferable by contact. If anything, your kid will probably be so annoyed by them that they'll be exactly the opposite.
While I know some incredible public school teachers, the average homeschool parent I know is going to be much better for their kids than the average public school teacher. Fortunately if you are homeschooling you can seek out specific teachers to help expand on things and choose those that are excellent. (Many homeschooler start taking community college classes in highschool if there are good options available.)
> average homeschool parent I know is going to be much better for their kids than the average public school teacher
This is a sampling question.
Consider that you may be looking at a bunch of well-educated parents choosing homeschooling over extra income.
I bet they're not choosing to homeschool kids with whom they have a bad relationship, don't understand, can't motivate...
Increasing the sample could produce much different results.
Admittedly salaries for public school teachers are pretty bad. There's no FAANG school with tricky interview questions and starting salaries double of what other schools are paying. I wish there were. Then you might see those 10x teachers choosing "teacher" as their profession.