Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 597 posts

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#131

Post by LudwigNagasena »

andrewstuart wrote: post #111

Home schooling is a real burden on many parents who aren't professional teachers of course and are pulled in many directions. One of the most exciting emerging trends in home schooling is to pool the resources of multiple home schooling parents. It's simply not practical for parents to commit all the hours needed for full time home schooling 9 till 3:30PM every day. So home schooling parents can team up and share the…

The biggest problem with the setup you outlined is that the central government has no say in what is being taught to kids. So no matter how similar homeschooling will look to government-controlled schooling, people with power will never stop attacking it because of that crucial nuisance.

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#132

Post by gemstones »

enkid wrote: post #78
mythrwy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument about lack of socialization from failure to attend public school might have some basis. But thinking back, I came out of the public schools with some pretty anti social behaviors and attitudes that I picked up there. Being cool is so important at that age in that setting. I often wonder what life would have been like had I been taken out say, age 12 or 13 and given a more solid education to match my natu…

There is no and has never been any true evidence that home schooled kids are worse at socialization then the ones that go to a traditional school, at least as far as I can tell. It's a meme that people propagate because it is "common sense," but none of the studies I've looked at supports it.

I was homeschooled and the anecdotal evidence is overwhelming.

Try finding adults who were homeschooled who speak fondly of the experience.

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#133

Post by tbrownaw »

Justsignedup wrote: post #70

This is giving me the worst of vibes: - options for people who don't want to expose their children to out-of-family ideas, to perpetuate family biases - a completely unregulated market for children to go to a "school" with a few other kids, giving them small classrooms, BUT, no teacher with specialization or educational background. Would be extremely hit or miss, with little resource if it isn't working out. - only f…

Problem: nobody wants what I'm selling.

Solution: do some market research and improve my stuff? Nah, just make all the alternatives illegal.

.

Also, um, "force people to be activists and help fix things" probably requires actually listening to those people. As opposed to doing things like https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_School_Boards_Assoc...

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#134

Post by hdhusiu_2 »

Justsignedup wrote: post #70

This is giving me the worst of vibes: - options for people who don't want to expose their children to out-of-family ideas, to perpetuate family biases - a completely unregulated market for children to go to a "school" with a few other kids, giving them small classrooms, BUT, no teacher with specialization or educational background. Would be extremely hit or miss, with little resource if it isn't working out. - only f…

Hmm. But why? Why do we need to have one system for everyone to make em into one acceptable mold. Why can't people pick on their own? Why is the idea that 'system is fucked so I might as well do what is best for my family' not an acceptable one?

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#135

Post by cogman10 »

goodbyesf wrote: post #121
cogman10 wrote: post #76

[flagged]

[flagged]

K.

What I want is for kids to get the best education possible and to have as many opportunities as possible to further human knowledge.

You don't become a biologist if you think evolution is a hoax. Dinosaurs are simply cool as shit and I feel bad that kids are kept from them because of "Satan". And you'll have a hard time with geology or astrophysics if you are saddled with a belief in the young earth.

I certainly don't buy the "public education is indoctrinating our kids!!!" line. Do you really think teachers in red states like Idaho are trying to turn kids into communists?

What's telling is that's where you went in this discussion. All the sudden you think politics is involved because I thought illiterate children is a bad thing? Ok buddy.

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#137

Post by convolvatron »

zerbinxx wrote: post #12
jawns wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That argument held sway with me for a long time, but not anymore. Our kids get a decent amount of socialization through all the activities they're involved in, and when other kids find out they're homeschooled, their response is more often genuine surprise rather than "Oh, that figures." The idea that kids learn social skills best by being thrown into a rigid, institutional environment surrounded by hundreds of other…

One good thing about the rigid institutional environment, for better or worse, is that having exposure to that rigidity and institutional side of things can at least give kids some skills in the long run for navigating the anti-human organizations that form so much of our public and private sectors.

I met a couple homeschooled people in college. And both of those were really well read, well spoken and creative people. But they were _not_ used to the way we all get kicked in the head all the time. they were pretty confused, hurt, and withdrawn.

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#138

Post by lo_zamoyski »

Hayvok wrote: post #122
cogman10 wrote: post #76

[flagged]

We homeschool our four children, are religious, most of our friends homeschool, and this is nonsense. We love the schedule flexibility of homeschooling, the ability to let our kids explore their own interests more, and most of all - we just love being with our kids and they get to have their siblings and parents all day. > That's because teaching kids is super hard and real easy to mess up. Forgive me, but this is ju…

[flagged]

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#139

Post by danans »

varjag wrote: post #30
foogazi wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've known homeschooled kids that are easily 2 grades ahead of where they would be at a typical public school - and with no social shortcomings whatsoever For certain kids school is holding them up But that’s the problem with a standardization. What are the odds that all kids need the same amount of time for all subjects Initially everyone was home schooled. The school system is a feature & bug of scaling up

Initially everyone was illiterate, except the lucky few in position of wealth.

Going back far enough in parts of the world, even the wealthy were illiterate, which is why they employed scribes.

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#140

Post by jquery »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #125
cogman10 wrote: post #76

[flagged]

> My main issue with homeschooling is mostly around the fact that it's generally done so parents can control and limit children's access to well accepted facts (such as evolution, age of the earth, or dinosaurs). What is the problem with that? I am not aware of anything in the daily life that is dependent on the existence of macroevolution, the age of earth, or the history of dinosaurs. So, I really deeply from my he…

I'd be a lot more worried about the lack of sex education. That's often when a child first realizes they are being sexually abused.
Post reply on HN