Earlier quoted context omitted.
[deleted]
We should start a new, more useful religion
19th century Germany was way ahead of you. We're still arguing about their usefulness today.
Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education
581–590 of 1001 posts
Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education
#582Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the current mode of "anything goes, you can be whatever you feel like and there's no judgement of any of your actions." That doesn't match reality. Do you have kids in public school? Of course they judge actions—especially those that harm others. Sometimes that's called social-emotional learning, one of the things that Florida politicians have tried to make a boogeyman. We're certainly willing to punish kids based…
I meant something different by "anything goes." I am ~40 and was born in Eastern Europe -- but even in the US, back then there was still a strong value that a good life a combination of having a family and raising the next generation, ability to work to support your family and contribution to society through your work. Whereas even in "my time" these values would have resonated with the tone in a public school, I am…
This is a very typical opinion that many religious people have about non-religious people, but I think it betrays a fundamental misunderstanding. You get your values from religion but this is not the only source of values. People readily receive values via tradition, culture, example, etc. And then there are those thoughtful (and often somewhat tortured, like myself) people who engage in a lot of soul-searching in order to develop their own set of values. A lack of religion does not mean a lack of values. In fact, judging by the behaviour of many religious people, it often seems to be the opposite.
In terms of the values you cited, such as raising the next generation and contributing to society, these are extremely common values found in a wide spectrum of society and indeed, are heavily emphasized in virtually any education system you care to examine!
Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education
#583My personal observation, having homeschooled my junior and senior year, the level of wasted time (i.e. not adding value) at public school is incredible.
While it wouldn’t work at all age levels, the program I used was incredibly flexible and really encouraged curiosity.
This isn’t to say I didn’t benefit from attending public schools. There were programs and experiences there that would be difficult to impossible to replicate.
However, overall, I’d guess that at least 50% of time in public schooling is baby sitting and crowd control.
Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education
#584I was home-schooled until high school. Long story short, it was a disaster. I bordered on having no education at all, on top of no socialization. I'm so fortunate I got at least four years of public school. I still think I suffer to this day. For parents who are thinking of home schooling your kids: best of luck to you. If you succeed, maybe your kids will be smarter. If you fail, you could be setting your kids up fo…
For real. It's telling that the kids don't jump in here to defend the practice, hardly ever (also homeschooled, education was great, socialization was absolutely problematic despite doing all the homeschool group things.)
That's BS. I was unschooled (except for paying my way for my associate's degree when I was 13), and I wouldn't put a kid through school. The freedom let me get my first coding job at 17, and I was freelancing well before that. I got to do what I wanted, and I would be crippled if I was stuck in the thought patterns that public school entails.
Socialization was hard, mostly because the other kids my age were really, well, dumb. I am still friends with every good friend I had back then. I noticed plenty of problems with other homeschoolers, but nowhere near as bad as the school kids I knew. They were growing up either stressed beyond belief, addicted to drugs, or promiscuous. Occasionally all three. Compared to my religious fundamentalist friend who is now a happily married mechanical engineer, their "enhanced socialization" is worthless.
It's not like kids learn anything in school anymore. Our test scores are nationally tanking, the only reason to get good grades is to get into a better school which will probably not teach you anything valuable, and real knowledge is increasingly devalued. I was raised and taught that knowledge is its own reward, and if you're smart and good at learning, you can do anything you put your mind to.
Guess what? It's true.
Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education
#585Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the current mode of "anything goes, you can be whatever you feel like and there's no judgement of any of your actions." That doesn't match reality. Do you have kids in public school? Of course they judge actions—especially those that harm others. Sometimes that's called social-emotional learning, one of the things that Florida politicians have tried to make a boogeyman. We're certainly willing to punish kids based…
I meant something different by "anything goes." I am ~40 and was born in Eastern Europe -- but even in the US, back then there was still a strong value that a good life a combination of having a family and raising the next generation, ability to work to support your family and contribution to society through your work. Whereas even in "my time" these values would have resonated with the tone in a public school, I am…
> A religious school that frames these values along the lines of "what G-d expects of me" would totally work for me
As a gay man who grew up religious (in public schools), “what god expects of me” was not only oppressing but also the source of a lot of self-doubt, self-hate, depression, and anxiety. (Thankfully I quickly ditched the religion and paved my own path - very content with life now!)
> I don't want my kids to "not see it"
I get where you’re coming from. But also, you can’t force kids to see things a certain way. There’s no amount of schooling or indoctrination that can force them to adopt the outcome you’re expecting of them.
Setting a good example yourself by how and with whom you parent is probably 10x more impactful than the school you sent them to.
Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education
#586Earlier quoted context omitted.
You must be skipping over all of the comments on this thread where homeschooled kids do exactly that. Hi. I was homeschooled. I graduated university top of my class, have a high-skill high-paying job, think more critically (about everything including religion) than most people that I know, and overall I enjoy my life very much. I'm homeschooling my kids.
Pretty similar background here. Maybe successfully homeschooled adults are just hesitant to dive into this sort of discussion anecdote first?
Given the stigma that many people still associate, we probably learned not to talk about it, maybe even subconsciously.
Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education
#587Earlier 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…
>it is possible to have plenty of "socialization" with other kids. I agree. Public school is not a great place for socialization, and it's not hard to create something better. Nothing socializes kids like sitting next to each other motionless in silence for several hours lol
I got really into fencing as a kid, which for whatever reason attracted a lot of private school and homeschooled kids, so I got to interact with the whole spectrum. I'm in an affluent, highly secular area, so this was basically the best case scenario for those homeschooled, and they were still definitely weird.
No amount of artificially constructed socialization immersion is going to beat the organic development of spending several hours, every day, surrounded by a ton of other kids.
What you end up with is a kid who has marginal experience with conflict resolution, communication skills, and any degree of independence. Which in turn, makes them perceived as weird, meaning that when they do have social interactions with others, they get marginalized, and further deprived of social development.
Public schools definitely have a misalignment of interests problem, but private schools solve that problem without stunting your child's charisma.
Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education
#588Earlier quoted context omitted.
Religion and its associated anti-science (etc) is the majority reason for home schooling. The groups in highly-skilled co-ops are a small minority and are not what the word normally invokes.
Poor people do homeschooling : Yeck gross bleck! Religious zealots! Rich people do homeschooling : Oh how jealous I am Bartholomew, I wish I could have a private tutor like yours to teach my kid all of the great languages, and look the Au Pair is bringing in the lunch!
Well, yeah.
If somebody's rich enough to provide a better education to their child despite the economy of scale advantage public/private schools have, then homeschooling can be advantageous. If somebody can't do that, then they're just abusing their kid.
Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education
#589Growing up, I had friends from 3 different families of kids that were homeschooled. The first was my neighbor. I’m not really sure why his parents homeschooled him. He was an only child, and strikingly similar to the character of Cartman from Southpark. Him mom was also strikingly similar to Cartman’s mom. He didn’t learn anything, as his mom was not very strict about making sure he did his lessons. He had terrible s…
That’s a pretty wide range of outcomes but is it materially different than what happens to kids in average public schools? There are also factors like social class and resources that make judging outcomes pretty tough. Most people that homeschool kids due to religion aren’t going to be well off.
Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education
#590Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
American Evangelical political influence has greatly waned in recent years and very little of our political discourse is now explicitly religious, yet our discourse is every bit as full of moralizing and condemnation as it ever was. I would suggest that strongly held moral beliefs always tend towards authoritarianism. Things we consider to be truly wrong we don't want being done, even when we aren't personally involved.