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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?

#411

Post by xpe »

wyager wrote: post #376
xpe wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is deeply ironic, although I don't expect you to be able to notice why. Are you trying to insult me? If not, I'd suggest leaving out "although I don't expect you to be able to notice why."

No. That comment isn't really addressed at you; it's addressed at our readers. It's just that people with your parochial (in the literal sense) educational background (which I can infer clearly from your comments) habitually accuse others of ignorance, from a position of relative ignorance. I don't think this is a moral failing on your part or anything; it's just something we see all the time, and eventually you kind…

Please define how you are using "parochial (in the literal sense)". Here's a common definition:

  pa·ro·chi·al | pəˈrōkēəl | adjective
  relating to a church parish: the parochial church council.
  • having a limited or narrow outlook or scope: this worldview seems incredibly naive and parochial.

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

#412

Post by xpe »

wyager wrote: post #376
xpe wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is deeply ironic, although I don't expect you to be able to notice why. Are you trying to insult me? If not, I'd suggest leaving out "although I don't expect you to be able to notice why."

No. That comment isn't really addressed at you; it's addressed at our readers. It's just that people with your parochial (in the literal sense) educational background (which I can infer clearly from your comments) habitually accuse others of ignorance, from a position of relative ignorance. I don't think this is a moral failing on your part or anything; it's just something we see all the time, and eventually you kind…

> ... habitually accuse others of ignorance, from a position of relative ignorance

Yes, ignorant people do sometimes accuse others of ignorance.

Consider this: If I tell someone their shoe is untied, even though my shoe was untied sometime last week, does that make me a hypocrite? No.

It is also true that people can be ignorant about different things. Minh might tell Alex he is ignorant about some topic. Alex might tell Minh she is ignorant about some other topic. No problem there. Neither is being hypocritical.

P.S. Telling someone else they are ignorant tends to not go well, but if it is done carefully and kindly, it doesn't have to be a bad thing.

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

#413

Post by lern_too_spel »

bitlax wrote: post #308
lern_too_spel wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Do you seriously think those same students would do better if they were homeschooled without supervision?

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

#414

Post by davidmbesonen »

dotdi wrote: post #10

I 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.

> we live in Germany, and it is absolutely illegal here

Why is it illegal?

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

#415

Post by corrral »

kleiba wrote: post #238
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…

my wife didn't feel like she had the skills to homeschool. She's not a teacher and feels she doesn't have the patience for it Since you were homeschooled yourself, wouldn't you have been the better parent for the job anyway?

Probably have very unequal income. That's why we don't homeschool—I'd like to, but make 3x what my spouse does, and my spouse doesn't want to, so we don't.

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

#416

Post by judah »

kleiba wrote: post #238
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…

my wife didn't feel like she had the skills to homeschool. She's not a teacher and feels she doesn't have the patience for it Since you were homeschooled yourself, wouldn't you have been the better parent for the job anyway?

Yes, and if I wasn't working my career, I could probably homeschool.

When my wife and I had kids, she wanted to quit her job as a nurse and be a stay-at-home mom. We agreed this was a good solution, even though she's not cut out to homeschool them.

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

#417

Post by judah »

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.

Author here. I'll do my best to charitably respond, even though your reply was less than charitable.

It's true there is some sheltering with homeschooling. But it's not airtight or longlasting. Homeschooled kids, especially teens, will get exposed to outside influences.

I'm nearly 40 years old now, and I can look back confidently and say that homeschooling helped create the environment in which I could critically evaluate ideas, including secular and liberal ones.

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

#418

Post by xpe »

wyager wrote: post #377
xpe wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> western state-secular religion We have not using the word religion in the same way. But I know what you mean.

I think we actually are. The main difference between the current state-secular religion and, say, progressive quakerism, is that state-secularism doesn't have an identifiable God. But this is, it turns out, a pretty minor difference in practice (and it's state-secularism's primary competitive advantage in the modern legal environment).

You can define it that way, but I do not. I go with a more widely recognized definition; e.g. via M-W or Wikipedia.

I can appreciate a similarity, of course. But a person can hold a belief / value a worldview (e.g. representative democracy) without believing in a supernatural power.

Conflating similar words is often an intentional rhetorical strategy. Perhaps you are trying it because you hope to conflate political philosophy with religion? But to do so glosses over key differences between them ... e.g Which are descriptive? Which are normative? What is the nature of truth? How does one seek, find, and assess truth?

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

#419

Post by actfrench »

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…

Hi Judah, I wrote a blog about parents being teachers, largely inspired by your comment. I hope that it's helpful to you.

https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/parentsarethebestteache...

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

#420

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…

Thank you again for sharing these questions about me about wearing two hats in the family and the parent/teacher balance.

I thought about what you said quite a bit and wrote a blog about why I feel that parents are the best teachers for their child.

We are teaching our kids many "non-academic" skills all the time but don't see that as stepping into a specific role. I don't think that this needs to be the case either in homeschooling.

I've also included some resources which I think will address your concerns about expertise in certain speciality areas like math/science.

I didn't directly address assessment here, but there are some great ones you can use such as mobymax, cogat and others - as well as mastery-based digital learning apps that have built in assessment.

Here is the blog: https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/parentsarethebestteache...

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