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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?

#301

Post by jonemi »

wussboy wrote: post #169
idle_zealot wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 lib…

I'd be interested in reading more about this study. Are you able to find a link to it?

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

#302

Post by kube-system »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #279
kube-system wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of child comments are pointing out that school kids are often terrible peers and experiences there are not great, and I have had my share of similar experiences, but.. that is part of social growth too. Making social mistakes, learning the consequences of those mistakes, and experiencing hurt when others make mistakes in interacting with you are all important life lessons. Part of the reason “the real world” af…

If you jump off a building you’ll learn not to do that again, but there’s easier and safer ways to learn.

I know not to jump off a building because I’ve fallen smaller distances as a child and I understand the consequences.

You would be negligent to let a child experience their first steps on the roof of a building.

A couple of hurt feelings in elementary school is likewise a low risk introduction to the world of social interaction.

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

#303

Post by throwwouq »

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…

As a person who was homeschooled until age 13, I couldn't agree with you more.

This is what I tell friends thinking they'll take their kids out of school to give them a better education: they'll be socially unprepared in life.

Even if their social needs are supplemented, other kids will ask: what school do you go to school? And not having an answer can cause great embarrassment (I know, I've felt it myself).

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

#304

Post by ShadowBear »

notch656a wrote: post #239
monk_e_boy wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in educating young men and women, ages 16 up to around 60. Homeschooled kids almost never make a year in "normal" education. They fail to adjust to a small college, they are no longer the center of attention. They have to wait for others to catch up. They are not team players. It's really hard to watch.

The world needs lots of corporate cogs who fall in line with the team. Personally I wasn't home-schooled but I can see the upside of being raised in an environment where you're not taught to be subservient to the authority of a school system, nor forced into a system where you're taught physical self defense is to be punished. Sounds like the home-schooled may have a leg up for some tasks that require ignoring the tr…

Most of the "homeschool" kids I've met were definitely taught to fall in line, just with their family leaders and not with their peers. Subservience to religious or parental authority is a big reason why kids end up in those kinds of situations.

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

#305

Post by throwawaymaths »

hgomersall wrote: post #179
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…

This so much. I've met quite a few homeschooled children and almost without fail they lack some pretty fundamental social skills. Things like an apparent inability to interact with children of their own age, or behaving obnoxiously to others in ways that would be rapidly stamped out by peers.

I have the opposite experience. I've met a ton of homeschooled kids (also, I seem to attract them in the dating scene) and by and large I've found they have very sophisticated and healthy social skills, and it's "normally schooled" kids that have very twisted and often destructive social skills, probably derived from mostly interacting in the artificial social environment of "everyone is +/- 1 year from your age". Admittedly it's likely that I am suffering from selection bias based on my own social circles.

(I was traditionally schooled)

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

#306

Post by ComradePhil »

kennywinker wrote: post #138
ComradePhil wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

That is an insane thing to say. Qanon level insanity. Trans activism is big pharma selling HRT to kids? First off, HRT is expensive, but not that expensive. Whatever made up narrative you have for them convincing kids to support trans people would be entirely too expensive to justify. Second, trans people have existed for MUCH MUCH longer than pharmaceutical companies have existed. Edit: oh, this poster thinks hitler…

No post body was provided.

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

#307

Post by LudwigNagasena »

xpe wrote: post #140
_dain_ wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or equivalently, state-run schooling successfully alienated you from these important values.

No, these two views are not even close to equivalent. Why? Liberalism and pluralism do not attempt to deny other ways of life or philosophies. (They may criticize them, but they do not claim to have absolute truth.) On the other hand, many dogmatic religions want to protect children from influences they cannot control or understand. Studying many different philosophies leads some to conclude relativism is correct. Bu…

> Liberalism and pluralism do not attempt to deny other ways of life or philosophies.

Isn’t that what you just did?

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

#308

Post by bitlax »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #227
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…

Homeschooling itself is intentional. The only problem is when the intention is bad. It should be possible to regulate homeschooling properly to account for the bad apples.

Honestly, when they get their own house in order I'll start to care what these "regulators" think.

https://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/13-baltimore...

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

#309

Post by Barrin92 »

JJMcJ wrote: post #192
scifibestfi wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to public school and would argue it's a terrible place to be socialized. You are socialized by kids your age in an environment that's more akin to prison than the real world.

Public school socialization. Humiliated by teachers. Bullied by some people. Small circle of friends. Adults as the enemy. All the homeschooled kids I've met seem pleasant, polite, comfortable around other kids and around adults. Of course this is Northern California so elsewhere the story may be different. Oh, and homeschooling is forbidden in Germany, under a 1938 law. 1938. Get it? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, elbow…

I'm German and I'm glad it's forbidden, and not since 1938 but since 1919, and it has its roots not in the Nazi era but in the Prussian system and the European humanist tradition of education which emphasized that education is not just about acquisition of skills, but about civic education, teaching students not just to be pupils but to be democratic citizens and active participants in public life.

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

#310

Post by [deleted] »

standardUser wrote: post #19

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…

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