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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

#691
post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was raised very Catholic (and decided by my early teens that I didn't believe in any of it), and I completely disagree with your conclusion. Organized religion (at least Christianity) absolutely is about deep fear. "Do this or you'll go to hell!" "Believe this or you'll go to hell!" Repeat ad infinitum. I won't deny that some churches (as in, specific people, not the system as a whole) can do good in the world; one…

Well I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic school all the way up and through high school, decided I was a hardcore atheist around 8th grade (long since pure agnostic btw), butted heads and debated constantly in Theology class, and I disagree with you. Very few of my Catholic friends and family seem to be motivated by fear, and even at my most annoying and confrontational no one ever tried to “scare” me back into…

Every single Catholic I know is religiously motivated by fear, and I know literally hundreds. And the older they get, the worse it gets, especially after they lose a parent.

All trying to buy that time away from hell and purgatory and flooding the living crap out of my social media feeds with nonsensical prayers to saints and statues. And they are utterly hypocritical with their proselytizing too. They want to be free to spam that nonsense but post something critical or contradictory and they lose their fucking minds.

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

#692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who was raised in religious communities, that "higher aspirations" is only the position "in principle" in reality working with people in the religious community was just scams and moral self justification of despicable behavior hidden behind soft language and terrible behavior. So much contention, so much gossip, so much backbiting behavior and hidden evils against children so that communities wouldn't "lo…

This is not isolated, my parents were involved in the church in many states and internationally, it was everywhere. Which church?

This was my immediate thought. "The church" sounds like a specific cult, sect, or denomination. There's a wide spectrum of beliefs across these and one cannot act like they've been to them all

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

#693

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…

but they are talk about some parents makesure their kids never learn evolution and other science/history fact. this is a very very small subset of religion people. I don't think these opinion conflict with your experience.

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

#694

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…

> I was raised totally secular

How come your comment history says otherwise (Judaism). I'm perplexed that the new approach to selling religion is pretending to be raised secular and or have others perceive oneself to once be an atheist but then later found the truth in life. Religion was the worst, the worst thing for me to experience in life, and I wish everyone could've experienced similar to me. Since religious people tend to not care about people that have been greatly harmed in life by what they continue to practice, keeping it alive to harm more people. A lot of members of LGBTQ+ classification know what the harm is truly like.

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

#695

I see all this comments about how the homeschooled kids fail academically, and I cannot help but wonder if the people parroting this have any idea of the current state of public schools in the US. Homeschooled kids are subject to the very strict scrutiny of the court of public opinion (and ironically some of the most academically sound kids I have seen were homeschooled...) while public school kids can finish high sc…

Yes or many people here went to good or elite public schools and assume their school is what the average high school experience is like.

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

#696

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,…

How good were you at your profession when you got your bachelor's?

How good were your "average" classmates?

I can teach my (hypothetical) child better than the "average" teaching-degree graduate. You're selling yourself short if you don't think you can, too, with a focused effort.

My friend group is like 20ish elementary school teachers (US). They are all great people, but they are quite variable in competence. Some are very good, and some can't move beyond the basics in Kindergarten.

What I'm saying is, you're placing way too much faith in the teachers.

Last I heard, in Florida, they were accepting "spouses of active duty military" for teaching positions without further qualification because they're so hard up.

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

#697
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This too is my experience. I grew up in a place with a large number of religious organizations and outcome of this is what I would consider abuse in a huge number of cases. Would the children themselves think so at the time, kinda hard when you're taught "spare the rod, spoil the child" and "Of course the Earth is only 6000 years old" daily.

I guarantee you (and the data backs this up) that the home schooled religious kids that are taught the earth is 6,000 years old and were spanked can run circles academically around the average public school kid.

You didn’t provide “the data” - and I doubt it backs up your specific claim here.

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

#698
post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anything goes, you can be whatever you feel like and there's no judgement of any of your actions Wow, what a terrible take. If anyone needs religion to live a moral life, I'm glad they have found it and hope they never lose it. I'm judged by my peers, my family, my community, and my country. But even if I wasn't, I would know what's right and what's wrong. Moreover, I guess it's good that amoral people can find eth…

No one needs religion to lead a moral life. That's not the argument. But without the transcendent, without a higher power, we have no grounding for our morality. Everything becomes subjective and "post-modern". Actions then become "justifiable" - if there is such a thing - by whatever criteria suits us: the greater good, the good of the nation, whatever. But essentially self-interest takes over completely. The more w…

> But essentially self-interest takes over completely.

Orrrrrrrr... maybe... it doesn't? Maybe even when we're all alone and have to figure things out for ourselves we can come to understand ourselves in genuine relation to those around us and discover a kind and empathetic morality built from logical first principles? Even without the fear of the judgement of almighty sky daddy?

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

#700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Your children's future classmates wish you wouldn't keep your children from enriching their shared classroom. You might be just the kind of parent that the school needs to maintain a critical mass of involved parents.

Or, the teachers will thank you for keeping the teacher:child ratio lower so that they can focus on kids needing more attention.
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