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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

#601

Post by logicchains »

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…

That's missing the main reason for the massive increase in home schooling over the past 3 years: parents wanting to escape mandatory COVID measures in schools like masking.

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

#602

Post by injeolmi_love »

gemstones wrote: post #312
lapetitejort wrote: post #137

I 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.)

Almost everyone I knew who was homeschooled had no noticeable social problems. Most had successful careers and marriages. Of course the fact that I knew them meant their parents were allowing them into a variety of social situations.

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

#603

Post by [deleted] »

ksenzee wrote: post #408
drw3 wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

I was raised in a conservative Christian denomination and left it for a progressive one, and I’ve learned you can’t say “Christianity is ___” and be at all accurate. There are too many different Christianities. There are denominations that are pro-debate, pro-introspection, pro-logic, pro-science. They’re aiming for exactly what the GP is getting at: how best to live out the commandment to love one another, to build…

[deleted]

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

#604

Post by Ridj48dhsnsh »

tw04 wrote: post #344
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…

Sure, but ultimately when kids receive vastly different childhood educations, it will eventually fracture society because we're all starting from a completely different set of beliefs. Even if some schools are "better" or "worse" for the most part they have similar curriculum. As time goes on and that curriculum diverges, it'll make the political fractures in society today seem like a walk in the park IMO. The social…

Is diversity of thought and culture not a good thing?

Sure it could make politics more polarized, but hopefully that will result in greater diversity of governments under which one can choose to live. Anything that gets us away from a monoculture and a single world-government is a good thing in my mind.

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

#605

Post by fuzztester »

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…

And there are people who homeschool, or more often don't school, because they are cults.

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

#607

Post by sega_sai »

bloaf wrote: post #290
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,…

The evidence is weak, but currently leans towards "parents can and actually do a better job than the professionals." This includes parents with low incomes, and includes parents with low educational achievement. You categorize this as contributing to segregation, but I say that it contributes to diversity. Public school is a hugely homogenizing force and the homogeneity it targets is not necessarily good. I think it…

Thank you for providing the links, but I don't buy that. The first link cites three papers:

Almasoud, S., & Fowler, S. R. (2016). The difference in the academic achievements of homeschooled and non-homeschooled students. Home School Researcher, 32(1), 1-4.

Cogan, M. F. (2010). Exploring academic outcomes of homeschooled students. Journal of College Admission, 208, 18-25.

Coleman, R. E. (2014). The homeschool math gap: The data. Coalition for Responsible Home Education.

Two of these are journals are devoted to home education (so personally I'm not assigning much weight to that). The Cogan reference seem legit, but is based on 70 home-schooled students admitted to one specific "medium-sized private university".

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

#608

Post by iteria »

quesera wrote: post #569
BobaFloutist wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The advantage of public school isn't that the socialization is super high quality, but that it's going to be broader spectrum than pretty much any alternative. It's not about getting your kids to form the best relationships possible, it's about teaching them to be comfortable with and learn to handle a huge swathe of people that are different from themselves. And, possibly more importantly than that, it's about teach…

In my experience, socialization at school is "broader" in that you meet kids from a wider range of the population, but that breadth is destroyed by the fact that they are all exactly the same age as you are. Homeschooling brings you into contact with a self-selected subset of the population, but across much wider range of ages. This often turns out to be more broadly valuable.

I split the difference with a Montessori School. Broad range of ages in each class. The whole school interacts during the 2 hour collective lunch and recess time. It's been a good experience for my kid and the school continues in a somewhat similar way after elementary. It's more of home school cooperative than public school in style and I'm okay with that for now. I'd like my daughter to move at her own speed and get more help or more advanced work if she needs it. I just can't be the one to do it. I have no patience

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

#609

Post by peyton »

autoexec wrote: post #476
ndriscoll wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory, society should be robust to differing beliefs: allow people to segregate into communities with shared beliefs and self-govern. Use higher levels of government sparingly to resolve conflicts and where coordination is necessary and general consensus exists that the thing you are coordinating is desired. In practice, people have trouble not butting into each other's lives. If we're going to try to force a sha…

Segregating everyone into insular pockets of the like-minded just feeds ignorance, intolerance, and group-think. We shouldn't force beliefs on everyone, but we should reject ignoring facts or replacing them with beliefs. There's a lot to be said for giving all children a baseline level of education based on fact so that everyone understands the world and the large problems we have and so they will know how to work to…

If we accept that as justification, then we should actually be running re-education camps for adults.

And what if I want my kids to go to a school where they’re encouraged to think for themselves? To be interestingly wrong rather than boringly correct?

I really don’t think the facts you give as examples are that important when it comes to equipping a child with the skills they need for a lifetime. They’ll be faced with a different set of facts later in life anyways. The foundation of an education needs to be a little deeper than “not my enemy’s political views.”

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

#610

Post by jancsika »

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.

I'll give it a shot: in all these scenarios, there ought to be a minimum standard-- backed up by the state-- to ensure none of these children are being abused or neglected. Public and private schools benefit from the children having to be around many other people every day, some of whom are teachers and administrators who have a profession obligation to report such things.

AFAICT there is no common standard to enforce this across the myriad concepts of home school you mention. There obviously should be. Importantly, none of the "very dissimilar" concepts of home schooling you mention obviate this need.

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