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Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

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Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#271

Post by FireBeyond »

keiferski wrote: post #19
CharlesW wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many home-schooling success stories, and also many home-schooling horror stories. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/05/law-school-pr...

It seems to me that the only relevant question here is how home schooling compares to public schools when it comes to “horror stories.” And there certainly aren’t a lack of public school horror stories…

An acquaintance of mine and his wife just started an alternative, semi-home school (hybrid system). Neither of them have any education experience, just a libertarian/anti-government mindset.

They were able to franchise a school for, I believe $10-15,000 (certainly under $20K), a background check, and a 2 hour open book test for them both.

I struggle to see how this is acceptable for not just "homeschooling" your own kids, but other people's kids.

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#272

Post by jandrese »

low_common wrote: post #263
torial wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agree with this. Also, with the right community, it is possible to have plenty of "socialization" with other kids. My family participates in a parent-led co-op that allows kids to benefit from different strengths in different parents and to have lots of friends. As my kids are neurodivergent, I think this environment has been safer for them and allows them to focus on their passions. There is still some peer pre…

What the heck is neurodivergence?

It's almost anything out of the ordinary by definition, but usually refers to children somewhere on the Autism spectrum. They often struggle with being bullied in public school and depending on where they are on the spectrum can cause considerably increased workload for the school or even have outright behavioral problems complete with physical violence. That's extreme and rare thankfully, but even kids with relatively mild conditions can struggle in a chaotic public school environment.

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#273

Post by jewayne »

rcpt wrote: post #243
standardUser wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this talk about "the public education system". Every school and school district is going to be different. Some are great and others are not. I understand if you live in an area with middling-to-poor schools, but lots of people live near great public schools.

Ridiculous amounts of standardized testing and curriculums designed to optimize for that was the main thing we hated. Seems to be a thing everywhere. When I was a kid teachers had a bit more freedom to decide what to teach but now you teach to the test or lose your funding.

Teachers absolutely should teach to the test. And individual teachers really shouldn't be in the business of deciding what to teach, either.

Why is there an assumption that what is on the test is inherently worthless but every individual teacher is qualified to design an entire curriculum?

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#274

Post by KoftaBob »

SoftTalker wrote: post #218
doubled112 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dealing with bullies is something you'll definitely see later in life. I'm glad I learned how to shut it down quick or avoid it altogether earlier rather than later. Being let out into the world thinking everybody loves you sounds like a terrifying idea too.

What do you do to quickly shut down an adult bully?

Sleep with their wife

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#275

Post by orochimaaru »

ViktorV wrote: post #179
orochimaaru wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

School is parents + school. I would say about 60% parenting and 40% school. If you don’t push your kid academically nothing is going to happen. Peer groups matter. In “good” schools you’re optimizing the peer group. A good/bad school rating has little to do with teacher capability.

Just a personal anectode: I'm pretty sure that this wasn't true for me. I think some humans have an instinct for survival, maybe all of them, if a persons emotional needs are met then developing, advancing, learning is a natural byproduct without any external pressure. Just like we learn to talk and walk without someone telling us to do. All the push just hurt me in the end, I would be a lot better off without tradit…

Push for me isn’t edicts. It’s providing support and opportunity. I send my daughter to extra math lessons. She didn’t need them she was solidly an average. But getting those has really improved her level. I have to spend time with her, make learning fun, help with homework, coax reasoning out of an opinionated 12 yr old, etc, etc.

It’s not a “do this or else”. It’s basically let’s do it together.

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#276

Post by traject_ »

haizhung wrote: post #261

Am I the only one thinking that home schooling is the wrong solution to the underlying problem? The problem is that the public education sector has been - for years - continuously squeezed dry of any funding. Teachers are quitting left and right, and schools are in a terrible state. Instead of fixing THAT problem, now people homeschool. Ok; I guess. At least homeschooling is something that the individual can control,…

> But it boggles my mind how people can assume, with a straight face, that they are equipped to educate their child alone - something which is normally a profession for which you have to study O(years) (and even then most people aren’t really good at).

The key assumption here is that the expertise and years of studying translates to desirable outcomes. The large expansion of homeschooling suggesting by the article suggests a great rise in people who no longer believe that the expertise promoted by teaching schools is actually relevant to teach their children.

After all, mass public schooling is only about a century old and default human experience in many ways has always been closer to what we call homeschooling.

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#277

Post by wizofaus »

civilitty wrote: post #222
zarzavat wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People socialised for thousands, in fact hundreds of thousands of years before schools were invented. I went to school and got beat up, colour me sceptical about school as a mechanism for socialisation.

Were they actually socialized for thousands of years? The average (sub)urban school in the US teaches more kids every day than the average person would have come in contact with in their entire lives, often ten times over. Most people were subsistence farmers and didn't travel very far from their little village in their entire life.

Arguably any period of history where the majority of people lived as subsistence farmers and rarely interacted with others not part of the household was an anomaly though, and very different to how pre-agricultural societies lived.

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#278

Post by quacked »

alexvoda wrote: post #205
jawns wrote: post #150

People talk about homeschooling as if it's one single concept, but it's actually a whole bunch of very dissimilar things. There are people who homeschool because they don't agree with the government's viewpoints, people who homeschool because the public school system has failed their kids, people who homeschool because it just happens to fit their lifestyle. Those are all very different motivations. Likewise, there a…

There is a single opinion that is valid of all those different forms together: it (home schooling) will increase inequality in society in terms of amplitude, spread and flavors.

Why do you think that?

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#279

Post by FireBeyond »

pixl97 wrote: post #60
keiferski wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that the only relevant question here is how home schooling compares to public schools when it comes to “horror stories.” And there certainly aren’t a lack of public school horror stories…

There are plenty of 'public school' horror stories because these things are public and can be audited in a great number of cases. You don't get to hear the homeschooling horrors when they happen because they are private. Maybe you'll be a therapist and years later get to talk to one of these people how they are effectively crippled for the rest of their life. Or you'll be like me that grew up in a place that had a bu…

Very much so. Watching the Last Week Tonight segment (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzsZP9o7SlI) on this recently, in a startling number of states, a one time declaration that you're homeschooling effectively drops the kids out of the system with zero oversight from that point on.

You get things like a Christian family whose "curriculum" for their daughters was: listen to classical music, bible listening 20 minutes/day, handwriting, bible memorization, exercise 15/day (not great so far, but wait for it): clean room 6/week, fold laundry 5/week, clean living room 5/week, clear off bar 6/week, tidy shelves in dining room 3/week, tidy stereo cabinet 2/week, clean brown cupboard in pantry 5/week, clean storeroom 1/week, tidy blue chest, dust piano, clean and vacuum, clean hallway, make bed...

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#280

Post by zarzavat »

defgeneric wrote: post #240
zarzavat wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People socialised for thousands, in fact hundreds of thousands of years before schools were invented. I went to school and got beat up, colour me sceptical about school as a mechanism for socialisation.

Socialization is broader than just between peers. It's how the individual develops a relationship to society as a whole. The public school system is the primary way the state socializes kids. You learn the difference between the public and private spheres (the school vs the family), how the two relate, and how they relate to the broader community. Some are better served by it than others but on the whole it's a very…

Yeah I can't say I ever experienced the values of the state at school, unless the values of the state are "survival of the fittest" and "might makes right".

Actually, you might be on to something!

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