Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education • Hacker News Board

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

#441

Post by r00fus » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 9:27 PM UTC

drw3 wrote: post #361

xyzelement wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

// other aspects of homeschooling were just a fig leaf over a whole lot of religious indoctrination I was raised totally secular but I now understand that religion is about fundamentally aligning yourself to the highest aspirations ("what kind of man does G-d want me to be?") and even w/o actual faith, I am starting to think that's preferable to the current mode of "anything goes, you can be whatever you feel like an…

[deleted]

If you want an example of current events as it applies to the danger of religion take a simple look at the Israel/Hamas war.

1) Hamas jihadists cultivate decades of repression of the Palestinian populace into a spectacular terrorist strike on Oct 7th.

2) Israel, an apartheid ethnostate, where Rabbis call for extermination of Palestinians in response to the Hamas strike (after decades of dehumanization), drops a nuclear payload worth of bombs on Gaza - which kills thousands of Palestinians (but only a few dozen Hamas soldiers).

3) In the US, Christianist pastors and churches back the Israeli government's push to ethnically cleanse Gaza - primarily because apocalyptic prophesy requires Jews to be in the "holy land" - all of whom are prophesied to perish.

In all of these cases, all of the involved religions make the conflict unavoidable. There were steps to peace in previous decades but religious extremists assassinated key figures to prevent peace.

This isn't exclusive to this region or these religions, of course.

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

#442

Post by autoexec » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 9:27 PM UTC

drw3 wrote: post #361

xyzelement wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

// other aspects of homeschooling were just a fig leaf over a whole lot of religious indoctrination I was raised totally secular but I now understand that religion is about fundamentally aligning yourself to the highest aspirations ("what kind of man does G-d want me to be?") and even w/o actual faith, I am starting to think that's preferable to the current mode of "anything goes, you can be whatever you feel like an…

[deleted]

> It’s slowly dying in every developed country because it doesn’t make sense when logic and science are applied.

It's not just the contradictions (with science, logic, it's own doctrine) that is hurting their numbers. Almost all the Christians I know have distanced themselves from the church and are embarrassed to be associated with the faith because of the way they see other "Christians" behave. If more Christians really lived their faith they couldn't act/vote/discriminate the way that they do. I can't blame my Christian friends and family for not wanting to be associated with that.

I suspect that the number of Christians is higher than the falling numbers suggest, because many just don't want to be grouped in with the loud people who plainly act in ways that violate the basic message of the faith.

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

#443

Post by r00fus » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 9:28 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #409

drw3 wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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As a christian I already have a region that is not debatable. That helps me be more willing to debate all the things outside. Communist, capitalist, jew, muslim, hindu, cannibal, republican, democrat, green, other sect of christian - all the same to me, something I'm not religiously attached to so I can try to understand. Some of those I understand enough to conclude they are wrong. I know some who are strongly relig…

> Some of those I understand enough to conclude they are wrong.

Sounds like you may be justifying your conclusions instead of the other way around.

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

#444

Post by mrguyorama » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 9:28 PM UTC

eutropia wrote: post #183

MadcapJake wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like people are reinventing all the same stuff schools do at scale. Can't we be more efficient as a society? Not to mention the privilege that is draped over every detail of this setup.

“I’ll intentionally disadvantage my kids in the name of the ideal of egalitarianism” said basically no parent ever.

I only exist as an educated person who can make a middle class income and live a normal life because of public education. My single mother is an experienced and gifted teacher, but would not have had the time to educate me. We could never have afforded to send me to any private school.

My only chance for a normal life and education was public school.

A huge amount of americans are poor in time and money. The only option their children have is public school. Their future is entirely dependent on a public that is willing to invest in them so that they even have a future, one that isn't just "wage slave at walmart". Sure, it often doesn't work out, it's a struggling system that has been abused and ignored for decades, and it fails millions every year.

You know what doesn't help any of those millions of kids? All the wealthy families sending their kids to private schools or homeschooling and removing their property taxes from the public school system. Society will not be a better place for your kids if they are individually 10% better but 10% of the children born in the US basically have no access to education.

The advocation of "School choice" as conservatives are currently selling it is about taking away the chance I had at a middle class life. It's about saving a few thousand dollars for already privileged individuals at the expense of swathes of people like me who were at least average intelligence who had the audacity to be born to a poor mother.

If you think public schooling in america is deficient, then let us fix it.

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

#445

Post by ksenzee » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 9:28 PM UTC

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #336

xyzelement wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

// other aspects of homeschooling were just a fig leaf over a whole lot of religious indoctrination I was raised totally secular but I now understand that religion is about fundamentally aligning yourself to the highest aspirations ("what kind of man does G-d want me to be?") and even w/o actual faith, I am starting to think that's preferable to the current mode of "anything goes, you can be whatever you feel like an…

The question ”what kind of person should I be?” could be answered by god, I guess, but the alternative would be to answer it yourself, and/or consult society, possibly friends and family. Not "anything goes". Putting it in the hands of god means anything goes, and you just say that's how you thought god wanted you to be. You'd have to trust that society encoded the proper set of values and morals into the religion. W…

Not necessarily. For me it’s a subset of “answer it yourself”: it’s a way of asking myself “what is my potential? What was I put here for? If I had a perfect parent, what would they expect of me?”

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

#446

Post by mikrotikker » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 9:29 PM UTC

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,…

At least in my country the homeschooling is ballooning as parents don't want the LGBT stuff and DQST forced on their kids but also don't want to be accussed of being a bigot when they raise issue with it.

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

#447

Post by bigstrat2003 » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 9:31 PM UTC

chaostheory wrote: post #389

xyzelement wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

// other aspects of homeschooling were just a fig leaf over a whole lot of religious indoctrination I was raised totally secular but I now understand that religion is about fundamentally aligning yourself to the highest aspirations ("what kind of man does G-d want me to be?") and even w/o actual faith, I am starting to think that's preferable to the current mode of "anything goes, you can be whatever you feel like an…

> I used to think religion was about deep fear, now I see it more as about deep care. As someone who has grown up in a religious, conservative household, I strongly disagree. Sure, there are many good values that a religious conservative household can foster such as independence and self accountability. However, you cannot its ignore downside either. The same culture promotes fear of the “other” ie different religion…

> However, you cannot its ignore downside either. The same culture promotes fear of the “other” ie different religion, different ethnicity / race, different political ideology, et al.

That has nothing to do with religion. These are facets of human nature which find a way to express themselves in all societies regardless of religion.

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

#448

Post by ARandomerDude » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 9:31 PM UTC

poorlyknit wrote: post #437

biomcgary wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you notice that the article highlights the rise of homeschooling co-ops? This is intentional on the part of the homeschooling movement. It improves both socialization and educational opportunities (e.g., shared lab equipment). Rather than pearl clutching about individual anecdotes or doubling down on government control, I think states should provide direct funding to homeschool co-ops in addition to direct fundin…

Isn't that just a private school where the parents are the teachers?

It depends on the co-op. Some meet every day, in which case yes it's effectively a private school. My kids used to attend a co-op that met once a week for hands-on, group learning activities. The rest of the time, they were doing their course work at home.

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

#449

Post by BobaFloutist » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 9:32 PM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #67

pixl97 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sure, I don't think anyone denies that there are some home schooling horror stories. But it really doesn't seem like most public schools do a great job either, so the question is if this broken system damages more people than one dominated by home schooling.

One of the biggest, most important roles of public schools is to pry children away from their parents and give them baseline floor of education and independence (as well as force them to interact with the public, giving them context for what's normal and presenting opportunities for abuse to be discovered), no matter how crazy or abusive their parents are. The education can be pretty mediocre, as long as it achieves this goal.

Letting parents opt out of public schools means that the most committed abusers get to sidestep this safety valve.

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

#450

Post by bsder » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 9:32 PM UTC

maxwelljoslyn wrote: post #300

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…

> Treating all these scenarios as a single thing that you can hold a single, consistent opinion about suggests to me a lack of familiarity with its wide spectrums along multiple dimensions. It's like passing a judgment on a person based on their race, country of origin, gender, etc. A huge +1 to this, from observing the many friends I have who do homeschooling. Judging by their results -- super-smart, super-well-beha…

> A huge +1 to this, from observing the many friends I have who do homeschooling. Judging by their results -- super-smart, super-well-behaved children

Maybe.

The primary difference between the upper classes "homeschooling" and the lower classes "homeschooling" is that the upper classes will purchase tutors/teachers and the lower classes will do it themselves.

A couple of local elementary school kids from your upper middle class housing development being put together in a pod with two teachers will blow the doors off ANY school--public, private, homeschool, whatever. Homeschoolers from lower socioeconomic classes can keep up with this, but it's a LOT more effort than they generally estimate.

The problem is the dramatic increase in sophistication required in middle school grades. Writing goes from very basic sentences to multiple paragraphs. The vast majority of people are not equipped to deal with this as they can't write well enough themselves. Math goes from multiplication tables to Algebra I. The vast majority of the population is not equipped to teach Algebra I. Science comes online as a subject in middle school--we know most people aren't equipped to teach that.

The higher socioeconomic classes will recognize that they cannot handle the teaching and purchase appropriate teachers if they are committed.

The lower socioeconomic classes cannot apply the relevant resource even if they recognize the problems. However, they are committed to homeschooling at that point and cannot back down and say that they need to put their child into public school.