My dad has a Master's in Education. My mother has a Montessori certificate. They homeschooled me and my siblings for several years with the goal of providing a private-school education they could afford. They used curricula from actual private schools. It ended up being a great success in some subjects and not in others. I had no problem with college. I think this idea that home schooling is for counter-cultural loonies is unfair and needs to die, and the trend this article discusses is more evidence of that.
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
#762Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The data has been posted elsewhere in this post but here is some more below [0]. Why do you assume religious homeschoolers would perform worse than non-religious homeschoolers? Thanks for downvote :)
[0] 78% of peer-reviewed studies on academic achievement show homeschool students perform statistically significantly better than those in institutional schools (Ray, 2017). Source and lots of other good tidbits: https://www.nheri.org/research-facts-on-homeschooling/#:~:te....)
Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education
#763Earlier quoted context omitted.
Arguably any period of history where the majority of people lived as subsistence farmers and rarely interacted with others not part of the household was an anomaly though, and very different to how pre-agricultural societies lived.
It's very likely just a US thing. You go to Europe, you see villages (as in groups of houses) and agricultural fields extending out from each village. While US, I believe it's isolated houses surrounded by farmland.
Oh I suspect it was quite common in much of Europe for fairly long periods too, when there very limited options for travel for vast majority of people, who were in fact farmers. Yes, the farms were small, but most of your energy went into tending those, and interactions with those even only a km or so away was possibly often only once a week. I don't think it's an environment most people would thrive in though.
Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education
#764Earlier 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…
> Really? In 2021, the hot-button issue among religious parents was evolution?
In my area it certainly was. Vaccines were probably hotter at that time, but they tend to not be a major part of the curriculum, and transgender issues in public schools was just getting on parents radar here when COVID interrupted things.
Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education
#765Earlier quoted context omitted.
We started homeschooling by happenstance when it turned out that kindergarten was going to conflict with our son's beloved jiu-jitsu class. The class was a bit of a drive and we weren't going to be able to get there in time for his favorite part: the 30 minutes of horsing around on the mats before class started. We thought, "Well, it's only kindergarten". It worked out well enough (knock on wood) that we just kept go…
May I ask if your son is an only child? I’ve thought about online homeschooling my son when he’s old enough (he’s still a baby), but I wonder if he would be lonely if he turns out to be our one-and-done. You mentioned your son’s beloved jiu-jitsu; does he have other outlets for meeting friends and socializing?
Most only-childs wish they had siblings, and many one-of-manys wish they were only childs. My wife was raised as an only child and is stunned by how much our children fight with each other.
Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education
#766Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are many bad public schools - but it seems a bit hyperbolic to say the average public school is "horrible".
40% of American adults can't do basic arithmetic[0], which seems like a disaster to me. 88% are apparently incapable of doing things like reading a simple table or comparing two documents and identifying sentences that express the same ideas between them[1][2]. Over 50% apparently can't scroll through a list of information about books and identify the author of a specific book they're told to find. I'll never forget…
Please tell me, at least the animals were just donkeys and elephants
Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education
#767People 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…
Regardless of the form of homeschooling, It is quite clear that we are moving towards a new form of "Dark Ages", where people just try to protect themselves behind walls. The State is failing massively in security, education, infra-structure.
Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education
#768Earlier 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…
> 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 "…
Nah, normal mainline and evangelical denominations. Both "high church" and "low church" denominations. Both in the context of church organizations, para-church organizations and cross denominational christian universities + Oxford. In the US and Internationally.
Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education
#769People 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 havi…
Isn't the standard "pass the GED test"?
Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education
#770People 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…
There is a single opinion that is valid of all those different forms together: it (home schooling) will increase inequality in society in terms of amplitude, spread and flavors.
So parents aren't allowed to attempt to create the best opportunities for their children and the state needs to make sure there's forced equality?