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Homeschooling hits record numbers

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Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#531
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One example is in high school I had an excellent literature class that also covered a lot of philosophy. It wasn’t until later that I realized that the various philosophies we studied were the philosophies that are often foundational for Marxism, atheism, and general left of center academia. Probably the best class I had in high school but I wish it had also covered things on both sides, or been more transparent that…

It's pretty hard to touch philosophy without covering marxism in some way. Very little of it has anything to do with the family of political ideologies despite sharing a similar name. The question of God's existence is also fundamental to the history of philosophy. It's not particularly shocking that a course might cover people like Lucretius, Bentham, or Russell. Most philosophy surveys will also include some of the…

All of continental philosophy since at least Hegel is intellectual bankrupt and it is a miscarriage of education to seriously teach it as anything more than a footnote that needs to be left in the dustbin of history.

Dialectical Materialism is literally brainrot and the damage it has done to human history is unfathomable.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#533

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…

Popular misconception of homeschooling. At least in my experience. We homeschool our children. We do a couple of hours a day of curriculum. The rest is being a member of a few homeschool coops. Parents are close, yet it's big enough that there are still "groups". Kids are making friends and socializing in a much more fruitful way than the chambers of public school. There's play, then there's exploration. We go on nature walks and clean ups, the theater, the naval base, we have soccer, gymnastics, and jiu jitsu, we go to the museums, libraries, and recycling plant.

Our kids have friends. We have made friends (tough at our age). And our kids are 1-2 years above their peers on diagnostics.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#534

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.

Childhood and youth are anything but “low‐stakes.” The social experiences I faced in public school were far worse than even the worst parts of my adult life. The direction I was headed was one of dark cynicism and misanthropy thanks to the bullying I faced and the lack of care from the adults in the system. When I switched to homeschooling, I began interacting with rational adults (my parents’ friends) and in turn learned what functioning human relationships look like. My ability to weather the difficult storms of adulthood in a healthy way came from the social growth I gained through homeschooling, not the regressive “socialization” that public school inflicted on me.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#535

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…

> increasing torrent of deranged ideologies teachers and professors share with students. You really might want to explain that further. At face value, that sounds like parroted right-wing rhetoric.

[dead]

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. I'd be surprised if any such statistics exist. I've seen studies about the reasons parents choose to homeschool, and various outcomes of homeschooled kids versus public school kids, but none about what particular beliefs homeschooled kids have regarding, say,…

Homeschoolers tend to outperform their regular school peers. But I think parental involvement is a significant differential and is probably contributing to the outcomes.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#537
post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's pretty hard to touch philosophy without covering marxism in some way The complaint was that the alternative wasn't discussed.

Yes that’s correct. We didn’t cover things such as Locke or Hume, Adam smith, etc… Also we didn’t directly cover Marxism or atheist philosophy, my point was that the selected philosophies were the ones that just happened to all be related to that side of the aisle. Again, very good class, just using it as an example of hidden bias that I didn’t see until later

Bit of a shame that it didn't directly cover Marx. Many of Marx's works are reactions to and critiques of people like Adam Smith. I think Marx even calls him delusional at one point.

Locke probably wouldn't have come up, but 19th century European philosophers were all influenced massively by Locke and Marx is extremely European. Marx isn't on a different side from them, just a large part of an even larger conversation.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#538
This is totally unsurprising, given that, in some parts of the country, public schools teach controversial ideas about gender.

Also, I see a lot of people arguing that exposure to “bad” kids is a point in favor of public schools, which seems insane to me. Growing up with a friend group of good kids is probably the biggest predictor of what a child’s adult life will look like.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#539
post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Propaganda being the incorporation of political ideology into much of the lesson plan - even when banned.

Whatever it is, public schools are an absolute failure. But that could be attributed to the immigration in the US over the last half decade. North Carolina lost like 20% of their student base following mass ICE raids.

Many teachers around me have mentioned how the portion of non-English speakers has dramatically increased and is causing significant degradation to their effectiveness in the classroom and the outcomes.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#540

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…

> I learned that the BS American value of "popularity" doesn't translate into successful futures.

This is generally not true, as far as popularity correlates to having better social skills and a better understanding of social dynamics. Not saying income is the sole definition of success, but here is one study that found that teenagers with more friends earned more as adults: https://www.nber.org/papers/w27337

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