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

#491

Post by rahimnathwani » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 10:07 PM UTC

xyzelement wrote: post #327

It might help to begin with the end in mind. The goal of education and the reason you send your kids to school is so that they come out with skills that enable them to succeed in society[1] and you also want them to be bolstered as moral and ethical human beings. If you trust the public school to do that - or at least do a better job of it than you could yourself - then you send them. On the other extreme, you either…

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

#492

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 10:07 PM UTC

chmod600 wrote: post #482

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What other institutions do people try to claw back money from when people decide they can do a better job?

Schools are one area where there's a lot of money involved, it's a direct service to normal people, and those people actually can do a pretty good job without the school (not saying that everyone can or that it's easy). Some communities highly dissatisfied with their police attempted to defund and/or defunded their department. That's not a great example because self-service policing doesn't work very well, but it's k…

> Some communities highly dissatisfied with their police attempted to defund and/or defunded their department. That's not a great example because self-service policing doesn't work very well, but it's kinda close.

This is a great example for what should happen - demands for systemic reform, not taking what you think is "your" money and going home.

It's one thing to opt out of a system, it's another to think you're justified to get money back for it. As someone without any children am I justified in getting 24k/year back because I'm not using the school system for my (average) 2 non-kids? Of course not, but I do pay taxes for that service.

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

#493

Post by Jensson » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 10:08 PM UTC

ARandomerDude wrote: post #353

jjav wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> indoctrination is a given. Indoctrination is not a given and should never be acceptable in education. What is indoctrination? Here's one dictionary definition: indoctrination: the process of repeating an idea or belief to someone until they accept it without criticism or question Note "accept it without criticism or question". This is the polar opposite of what education should be, which is to encourage investigati…

> what education should be…with a scientific method Does the scientific method tell you this? It couldn’t have, because this is a philosophical belief not a scientific one. Very likely, you were indoctrinated to believe this. Not all “doctrine” (teaching) is wrong and not all indoctrination is wrong. But everyone undergoes some form of indoctrination.

> Very likely, you were indoctrinated to believe this.

No, you are shown how the ancient Greeks did things, and how they had a lot of ridiculous ideas. Then they introduced Galileo Galilei that showed how experiments can rat out many bad ideas and used them to disprove many of the things written by the ancient Greeks.

That is how we know the scientific method is valuable, nobody has to indoctrinate you to it you can see it yourself. The reason the scientific method is so popular is because you don't have to get indoctrinated into it, it is so obvious that it is a great method.

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

#494

Post by bigstrat2003 » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 10:08 PM UTC

Loughla wrote: post #61

Amezarak wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How else do you think a transcript should work? What makes you think a random private school transcript has anything else backing it up? Presumably the students are also applying with ACT/SAT scores in hand, which do have an established meaning.

Because they have some kind of accreditation body that monitors and approves the schools with established standards and approved/documented practices, whereas homeschool does not? And ACT/SAT has become optional since covid for most institutions.

> And ACT/SAT has become optional since covid for most institutions.

So they should go back to requiring it. Seems pretty easy.

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

#495

Post by lolinder » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 10:10 PM UTC

Jensson wrote: post #464

verisimi wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> religious indoctrination indoctrination is a given. Do you prefer your secular type, the religious type or the government type?

> Do you prefer your secular type What is secular indoctrination? Kids who grow up without a religion doesn't get told anything, all you have to do is to not indoctrinate the kid into a religion. There is still school etc, but removing religious indoctrination doesn't add anything else, its just less indoctrination overall.

> Kids who grow up without a religion doesn't get told anything

I work in edtech with a bunch of former teachers, and this is absolutely untrue. Many elementary and middle school teachers see part of their role (regardless of the subject they're officially teaching) as being to teach morals to their students, and the morality that they choose to teach is every bit as subjective as the morality that comes out of a religion.

And if it's not their teachers teaching them morals, then it's their parents. You can't raise a child without intentionally or unintentionally instilling in them your own value system.

The biggest factor in whether someone feels that something is "indoctrination" isn't whether it originates from a religion but whether they agree with the principles being taught.

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

#496

Post by HybridCurve » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 10:10 PM UTC

jackmott42 wrote: post #466

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…

Hard to look at the current state of American Christianity and think of it as deep care.

American Evangelicals seem to gravitate toward their belief as a form of authoritarianism. It's less about compassion and more about incontestable moral authority over others.

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

#497

Post by petsfed » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 10:14 PM UTC

CaptWillard wrote: post #430

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. While this may technically fit the definition of "indoctrination", that's a pretty loaded way to describe what parents teach their own children. // they thought the public schools were too secular and were teaching "sinful" sciences like evolution. Really? In 2021, the hot-button issue among religious parents was evol…

I mean, you pick the subject, there's a hot-button issue.

Could be evolution in the science side of things, the legacy of slavery or colonization in the history side of things.

Math is generally pretty safe, although I do see a steady stream of "I'm so glad I'm homeschooling my kids, I can't believe what $currentEducationalBogeyman is trying to pass off as education" when presented with some way to understand math that I had to teach myself, in college, to do the math faster in my head.

Composition is pretty safe, but as its frequently combined with literature (that is, the study of rhetoric in other people's writing) which also has a lot of self-censorship. It's also unsteady ground, as the Bible should be study as literature as well as religious tome, but that can lead to kids thinking about the humans who wrote the bible and what rhetorical outcome they were reaching towards.

Physical education is safe so long as it limits itself to exercise, but health topics like human sexuality are obviously going to raise some hackles.

I think it really depends on the parent what is the absolute bogeyman of public schooling, but evolution has posed the most consistent existential threat to the stereotypical fundamentalist who is looking to avoid "sinful" public schools.

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

#498

Post by chmod600 » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 10:14 PM UTC

burkaman wrote: post #88

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…

> as neutral as possible on political or culture war issues I don't think it's really possible to be neutral about culture war issues, sort of by definition, especially when many of the wars are about schools themselves. A school is part of American culture, it can't somehow choose not to participate. To use a historical example, there was a culture war over teaching evolution in schools. A teacher at the time could…

Lack of perfection doesn't mean you shouldn't try to be more neutral. Trying by itself (even if failing) earns the trust of voters.

And if you live in an area where evolution is a controversial topic, then you should leave it up to the parents. You don't have a right to use their money to teach something that a lot of people don't want to be taught. Of course, there's some line where something is fringe enough and you don't have to accommodate every last person. Again, try to be neutral, don't aim for perfection.

And you know what? Evolution is a nuanced topic. The actual claims that can be backed up by first principals using the scientific method are fairly narrow. Much of the reasoning is very prone to confirmation bias and all kinds of after-the-fact fitting rather than forward-looking predictions. To stick to the science on the topic of evolution you have to be pretty careful and most teachers are not. Not saying it shouldn't be taught... I think it has a lot of explanatory power outside of pure science and represents a large body of important observations. But I don't think it's a good example of science-vs-idiots.

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

#499

Post by bigstrat2003 » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 10:14 PM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #354

ejb999 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because public school kids never kill people?

They generally aren't brainwashed to kill people. Bad apples will fall from any tree. A poisoned tree will mostly produce bad apples.

> They generally aren't brainwashed to kill people.

Nor are homeschooled kids.

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

#500

Post by lolinder » Tue, Oct 31, 2023, 10:16 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #421

rrradical wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was (non-religiously) home schooled and very much benefited from it. I was able to spend a lot more time reading books than I would have in school. I was able to learn about computers, programming, etc. I did get some socialization through other kids in my neighborhood and events with other home school families. I started in back in school around high school and, although it was a bit of a transition, I enjoyed it…

Or so you think. I don't know you, but every home school kids I've met shows the lack of meeting republicans/democrats/jews/blacks. None of them see that in themselves though.

Nearly every person I've met struggles with empathizing with people who aren't in their in-group, that's not a homeschooled-specific thing. The enormous polarization in the modern political climate is due to precisely the kind of insularism that you're calling out, and it's not because of the 1.5% of the adult population that was homeschooled.