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Homeschooling hits record numbers

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Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#501

Post by gbacon »

DennisP wrote: post #445
kylehotchkiss wrote: post #147

I can't say my public school experience was great, I was bullied and didn't really click with the popular kids, but being around a cross section of actual American kids in my age group (my school district mixed middle class with lower class neighborhoods) helped me shape my worldview and learn to deal with people who didn't look or talk like me. I frequently saw fights, so I learned that you just stay away and watch…

Paul Graham pointed out that public school is a weird and degenerate microcosm that isn't much like the real social world at all. > I think the important thing about the real world is not that it's populated by adults, but that it's very large, and the things you do have real effects. That's what school, prison, and ladies-who-lunch all lack. The inhabitants of all those worlds are trapped in little bubbles where not…

Perhaps unlike in some ways, but some aspects of school life persist in so-called adult life, e.g., jocks, nerds, freaks, party animals, slackers, and teacher’s pets are all still around — now with zeros on the end.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#502

Post by Nextgrid »

hereme888 wrote: post #234

The biggest misunderstanding I hear year-over-year is homeschoolers are "not exposed to the real world". Isolation exists for some, but my extensive interaction with homeschoolers is they are immersed in healthy communities, hand-picked by parents to keep away problem children. Who would plant a flower next to a sick or hostile one? Parents of healthy children should give 0 s*ts of societal/political pressure against…

> hand-picked by parents to keep away problem children

Unless you can magically guarantee (or have enough money to fund their whole life) your children will never have to interact with "problem" people, they will need to learn to deal with those people one way or another. And it's better to do so in a low-stakes situation like school.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#503

Post by aidenn0 »

Voultapher wrote: post #58
jmathai wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we could teach them as well as the school does. And more importantly, we can provide a better environment for them to mature socially.

> And more importantly, we can provide a better environment for them to mature socially. Citation needed. Every perspective I've heard personally - and mirrored in comments here as well - from the non parent side of things, is quite negative in terms of learning how to behave and socialize with your peers. To you the children might seem polite and servile, and you might see this as something positive - as you state i…

I know a ton of home-schooled kids and this is far from universal.

Yes, kids who were home-schooled because their parents didn't want secular society interfering with them raising their kids in a niche religion are more likely to experience this. Even in those cases, however, I found that the kids adapted rather quickly.

In most other cases[1], the parents were explicitly worried about their kids' socialization, and found many opportunities for the kids to interact with other kids their age (e.g. typical after school activities like sports or such).

Many of the kids I know who were both home-schooled and socially awkward started in public school and were pulled due to bullying &c. To say that the home-schooling stunted their social growth is a counterfactual; it's just as easy to see them ending up worse off.

For the most part, I would say that socializing in public school vs. homeschooling is a bit like communication with in-person companies versus remote; in the former it just "happens" to some degree, sometimes well, sometimes poorly; in the latter it requires intentional work to happen, but can still happen.

1: A notable exception is one person I know who was homeschooled by parents, with a father that traveled a lot for work and took his family with him. She was often in situations where she had fewer than 5 kids around close to her age who also spoke English.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#506

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #463
jfreds wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was homeschooled until high school. I couldn’t agree with you more. The value that the socialization the public school offers is underestimated. Learning activities with other homeschooled kids is ok but not enough. A tight-knit neighborhood of friends is huge, but not enough. You need to develop a thick skin and a sense of self-assurance. I have no counterfactual of course, but I think much of the social anxiety I…

[flagged]

There are some skills taught in that realm. From personal experience, I have learned to recognize trouble by gait and eyes alone. I get that people get different experiences, but I could have done without that knowledge.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#507

Post by lapcat »

alphazard wrote: post #382
OneLeggedCat wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the rural areas that I've lived in, it's mostly about a strong desire to supplant science and history with religious ideas and principles.

I hear this a lot, and it may be true, but I am very skeptical that it matters. The statistics about home-schooled children don't support the idea that they have horribly inaccurate models of the world guided mostly by religious thinking. Or if they do it doesn't seem to affect life achievement in any important way. Instead home-schooled children are typically more advanced at graduation and have higher lifetime achi…

> Especially when there is propaganda taught in the public schools that does warp the students' world views in ways that harms them and me.

This sentence caused a record needle scratch sound in my head.

I'm afraid to ask what you mean, and it seems like you might be afraid to say, because it's a bit bizarre to drop that line with no explanation.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#508

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

ecshafer wrote: post #244
kylehotchkiss wrote: post #147

I can't say my public school experience was great, I was bullied and didn't really click with the popular kids, but being around a cross section of actual American kids in my age group (my school district mixed middle class with lower class neighborhoods) helped me shape my worldview and learn to deal with people who didn't look or talk like me. I frequently saw fights, so I learned that you just stay away and watch…

My kids are not school age yet, and I am not sure on if I will home school or not. But I do think its possible to get good socialization exposure while homeschooling. There is the neighborhood kids, you have sports and clubs kids can join, religious groups. Plus not all homeschooling is just a student staying at home all day. Some people "homeschooling" I know are groups of parents getting together to educate their c…

“Good socializaron experience” is the exact opposite of “religious groups”. Said as someone who went to a private Christian school for 7 years.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#509

Post by abbycurtis33 »

voxl wrote: post #273
andrewmlevy wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of examples, gender identity and requiring ethnic studies (focusing on white male privilege, settler/colonial, putting groups into binary oppressor/oppressed). Also issues with requiring those classes vs not.

These are two indisputable facts about our world, if you disagree you are wrong and anti-science: 1. Gender is a social construct 2. Whiteness is a social construct and in particular has been used as a bludgeon against minority "non-whites" in the United States for a very long time If you do not believe these things you are the problem. You lack education. You lack critical thinking. You are brainwashed.

Gender is obvious and unchangeable. Everything else is a mental health issue, and truly sad.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#510

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

TheGRS wrote: post #385
OneLeggedCat wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the rural areas that I've lived in, it's mostly about a strong desire to supplant science and history with religious ideas and principles.

That has been the case for a long time, and I guess something about the current generation of parents has gotten them to act more on it. My dad came from a very religious family and they all did private religious schools for their early grade school years. Then they went to public for high school years. If I had to guess, its maybe something about the demise of church life that has gotten religious parents to just pu…

States are saying that schools have to post the 10 commandments and when teachers put up a poster about “everyone is welcomed here” showing kids of different colors it’s “too woke”.

Which is funny since I (a Black guy) went to a mostly White Christian school in the 80s where they sung “Jesus loves the little children - red and yellow black and white they are all precious in his site”.

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