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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

#451

Post by mrguyorama »

jewayne wrote: post #273
rcpt wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

>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?

Because my mother went to school for six years for exactly that purpose? Some states have pretty high requirements for teachers, and they tend to do well.

Also, the "teach to test" BS is extremely locality dependent. There are zero things you can generalize across all public schools in the US.

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

#452

Post by Turing_Machine »

rootusrootus wrote: post #74
Turing_Machine wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Homeschooled kids frequently have to learn how to adult all at once How does sitting in a room with a bunch of kids, all of whom are within one year of you in age, with an authority figure at the front telling you exactly what to do, teach you "how to adult"? It might prepare you for Army boot camp, which is the only "adult" place you're likely to encounter that kind of environment. Even prison usually has a range…

> with an authority figure at the front telling you exactly what to do This is not an accurate description of school. Maybe, maybe in high school and college you kinda sorta get to something resembling that, but for elementary school and middle school it is nothing at all like your description. I'll grant you that 40-50 years ago it was a bit more regimented. I'm old too. But I have school age kids in both elementary…

> This is not an accurate description of school.

Hmm... so you're saying that students aren't segregated into artificial cohorts of a specific age, and there isn't an authority figure in the classroom telling them what to do?

Perhaps that's the case where you live (though I'm...skeptical), but it certainly is the case here and everywhere else I've ever lived.

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

#453

Post by robertlagrant »

mrguyorama wrote: post #400
efd6821b wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All education is intertwined with indoctrination. At least religious indoctrination is a known quantity, unlike other less self-aware forms.

In religion, they say "God made the heaven and the earth" How do you know that? "He wrote it in this book" In education: "Gravity is about 9.8m/s/s" How do you know that? "Well do this pendulum experiment with me and see for yourself."

In education also: "Go to university and do anything you like and it'll all work out. Don't worry about the debt."

Anything can be characterised well or badly.

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

#454

Post by vkou »

lapetitejort wrote: post #186
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…

I was in a home-school coop about 25 years ago. We attended it a few times, until we stopped going. I was just a kid so I have no idea why we stopped. I remember it didn't help. I didn't know how to do any of the homework they assigned so I never did any (a practice that carried into high school). Since I never had tests or grades of any sort it didn't really matter.

> Since I never had tests or grades of any sort it didn't really matter.

I was homeschooled to grade 3, and just because my parents didn't give me tests or grades, it absolutely mattered.

I had to correctly solve, both verbally and in writing, enough questions at the end of the current chapter of the textbook, to a standard that satisfied them. For every subject of study. Every single day.

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

#455

Post by chmod600 »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #289
chmod600 wrote: post #62

If you home school, you don't get the money back. Public school is something like $12k/yr. That's a lot of money that you're essentially opting out of. For parents who do so for political or culture war reasons, that must seem profoundly unfair. To be driven out of the public schools means to be denied resources. Public schools using public money should be especially sensitive and as neutral as possible on political…

> If you home school, you don't get the money back. Public school is something like $12k/yr. That's a lot of money that you're essentially opting out of. That's not money you have a right to as a parent. I don't take part in all the social programs my government offers, but I don't get all that money back.

Public schools don't have some inalienable right to that money either -- they are entrusted with the money by popular vote. If we want that to continue, then there needs to be very broad consensus that the things teachers are teaching are the right things, or at least not the wrong things.

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

#456

Post by mrguyorama »

traject_ wrote: post #276
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 su…

>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.

"Believe" is the important word there. Are these people removing children from school because they actually can do a better job, or because the TV told them a school somewhere had a litterbox for a furry student?

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

#457

Post by throwaway962237 »

robertlagrant wrote: post #419
drw3 wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

> That’s what religious people want you to believe, but if you watch how they act, how they vote, and how they discriminate it could not be farther from the truth. While your deep understanding of a few people around you is your own, Christianity alone has over a billion people from all cultures and walks of life ascribing to it. I don't think you can realistically claim to treat them as a bloc, and to attempt to mig…

But you can treat religious believers as a bloc because they hold a core set of beliefs, and those beliefs cause them to act a certain way. In fact, the whole point of a religion is to bind a "bloc" of people to a common set of beliefs.

The same way you can associate conspiracy theory nationalism with Qanon believers, you can associate supernatural supremacism (i.e. "chosen by god") with Christians, Muslims, and Jews. While these religions may promote healthy behavior for "in group" morality e.g. community, family, etc. the effects on a geopolitical scale are catastrophic.

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

#458

Post by bitlax »

watwut wrote: post #350
ejb999 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how is this worse than some schools not even requiring students to be able to read, write and do some mathematics in order to graduate with a HS diploma? https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/oregon-suspends-graduation...

Difference is thatbin one case it is a scandal that is investigated. In the other, there is no one to investigate, no rules are broken, it is just homeschooling exactly as meant to be per law.

https://nypost.com/2023/09/23/students-at-40-of-baltimore-hi...

Oh please. No one's going to jail for this.

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

#459

Post by golergka »

xyzelement wrote: post #329
jandrese wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a huge spectrum, but back when we homeschooled (my wife wasn't yet comfortable sending the kids back to the classroom in 2021) we did a few events where local homeschool kids got together for various activities. Tree identification/nature trail at the park, visits to historic sites, stuff like that. Of the parents I met there was some variety, but 9 times out of 10 it seemed like they were mostly doing it be…

// 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…

We secular Jews have completely different first-hand experience of religion than most of other people on the planet, so while I completely understand and share your perspective, I'm not in the least surprised by the reaction your comment got.

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

#460

Post by pokstad »

brightball wrote: post #7

When I moved into my current house about 10 years ago, the family next door home schooled. I'd never known any home schoolers before and definitely had some notions about how terrible it must be until I learned about it. This family was part of a home school group with other families. The kids went to different houses every day and had an instructor focus on 1 subject for half of the day, mixed in with free time, dep…

We’ve seen something similar here with co-op schools. Not done in the home, but the teaching is handled by parents of the students. They are very happy with their school.
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