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My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

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Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#101

Post by igorkraw »

chongli wrote: post #55
igorkraw wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This "envy" story is complete BS. Why should we, as a society, especially help the most privileged and gifted people even more ? It's not envy, it's regression to the mean (everything except societal rules is already going in your favour, how dare it). I also don't think you appreciate the value of instruction as a learning tool and the skills required to truly teach people - empathy, paying attention to cues to keep…

There are plenty of gifted students who are not from economically privileged backgrounds. These are kids who can easily drop out, not just from school but from society as a whole, if they’re not nurtured. I have first hand experience with this, as a former high school dropout, now close to completing a math degree just before the age of 40. The cost to the school system to keep me engaged rather than bored and ignore…

That still doesn't hold any water for the envy/spite argument I was replying to.

I'm all about making school a valuable, engaging experience for everyone, including gifted children. But it needs to scale and be progressive, not just pile more inequalities and gate keeping into the system.

And if we are talking about the lost tax revenue and the "worth" of education, having the gifted kids teach their peers for better socialisation and so increasing the floor of math and other education will have a much larger impact. Progress doesn't come from great men, it comes from the world changing.

Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#102

Post by pnathan »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #25
pnathan wrote: post #22

I was homeschooled: k-11. I have a graduate degree. My sibling has a similar path. The academics I received as a homeschooler were, frankly, probably 90th percentile, maybe more. Yet, simply going to a good school district with good teachers and supportive parents would, in all likelihood, have given me similar outcomes. And now, looking back twenty-plus years later, I don't think that it produced a materially differ…

The glaring deficiency of public school is the inability to train your child's character for most of the day. You hope that the teachers and students have similar values to you. Some do, many don't. I want my children to be honest, thoughtful, compassionate, diligent, respectful, and courageous. These aren't society's values today so I homeschool.

> I want my children to be honest, thoughtful, compassionate, diligent, respectful, and courageous. These aren't society's values today so I homeschool.

The number of people who have good values who don't homeschool demonstrates that it is not required.

Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#103

Post by pnathan »

matheweis wrote: post #36
pnathan wrote: post #22

I was homeschooled: k-11. I have a graduate degree. My sibling has a similar path. The academics I received as a homeschooler were, frankly, probably 90th percentile, maybe more. Yet, simply going to a good school district with good teachers and supportive parents would, in all likelihood, have given me similar outcomes. And now, looking back twenty-plus years later, I don't think that it produced a materially differ…

It’s rather surprising to me that, despite what was an apparently net positive outcome for you and your immediate family, you would have such a negative opinion of homeschooling. For the others reading the thread (relevant bits of which are linked in the article) consistently shows that on average homeschooled students perform several percentage points higher on academic achievement tests, and a moreover a majority o…

> apparently net positive outcome for you and your immediate family

My point is I don't think it was net positive. I'd estimate a net negative. I actually think I spent 10 years overcoming serious limits in post-homeschooling areas in social areas. Now, 20 years after I finished homeschool, I don't see any difference in the end between now-peers and myself, even comparing with the homeschool group I was involved in (as I mentioned, I'm on the upper end of "society's success" with that group... most were far less academic than my family).

Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#104

Post by pnathan »

gnicholas wrote: post #31
pnathan wrote: post #22

I was homeschooled: k-11. I have a graduate degree. My sibling has a similar path. The academics I received as a homeschooler were, frankly, probably 90th percentile, maybe more. Yet, simply going to a good school district with good teachers and supportive parents would, in all likelihood, have given me similar outcomes. And now, looking back twenty-plus years later, I don't think that it produced a materially differ…

> tl;dr: don't homeschool. take it from a former homeschooled kid. send the kid to a good public school, please. This is a bit of a false dichotomy. Wealthy people can send their kids to good public/private schools because they can afford to live places with access. But less-wealthy people may not have the option. The social interaction piece is interesting, and may be addressed by the fact that there is massive grow…

I'm keenly aware that some public school districts do really badly. E.g., Albequerque PS has 75% of kids under grade level in math - one reason why we didn't move there!

On the policy level, removing the option to legally homeschool without some sort of court order would be my choice to start improving that; to force alignment between wealthy and poor (the wealthy don't get the option to shrug and send their kid to a good charter/private school - they have to work to improve the district). There are other angles around funding that are well known to be problematic.

I don't believe that a million homeschoolers all doing things differently is the right thing for society or for learning interaction. The point I am trying to make is that "dealing with the Public is an important skill that you don't get when its just your little clan"

Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#105

Post by pnathan »

jph00 wrote: post #24
pnathan wrote: post #22

I was homeschooled: k-11. I have a graduate degree. My sibling has a similar path. The academics I received as a homeschooler were, frankly, probably 90th percentile, maybe more. Yet, simply going to a good school district with good teachers and supportive parents would, in all likelihood, have given me similar outcomes. And now, looking back twenty-plus years later, I don't think that it produced a materially differ…

Having not gone through it yourself, you may have an overly-rosy view of school. Personally, I hated school, and I think it had a strongly net negative impact on me. It's not for everyone.

In my teens, I had public school friends who succeeded, some who failed. Some who abused the system. The textbooks were lousy as a rule, stuffed with low-entropy material and images. Teachers varied, wildly. Some bad. Some good.

What I learned then and over time is the difference parents make for someone who cares. Looking back, that was a critical difference why my family had great academic success and other families - same homeschool group, my friends - struggled. My parents expected academic performance. Not just "doing ok", but "knowing". Some years ago, my dad laughed that they were "Tiger Parents", around the time Dr. Chua's book came out.

I do think that my generation - late 70s - late 80s kids - is reaching an age and life stage where we can reflect on our homeschooling and assess whether it was good or bad, not just looking at the "k-12" time but holistically and how it affected our course of life.

I actually loved _being_ homeschooled, at the time. It's only as I've aged that I've grown more and more negative about it.

anyway, peace.

Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#106

Post by BeFlatXIII »

pnathan wrote: post #22

I was homeschooled: k-11. I have a graduate degree. My sibling has a similar path. The academics I received as a homeschooler were, frankly, probably 90th percentile, maybe more. Yet, simply going to a good school district with good teachers and supportive parents would, in all likelihood, have given me similar outcomes. And now, looking back twenty-plus years later, I don't think that it produced a materially differ…

I agree about the point where most parents aren't qualified to supervise homeschooling past an elementary age, but I don't agree with the conclusion about social interactions. Traditional schooling is ineffective at teaching healthy coping mechanisms. My interactions with peers in the workplace and college were nothing like my peers in high school: perhaps filtering out the bottom 50% of the population made socializing with peers worthwhile.

Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#107

Post by scarmig »

igorkraw wrote: post #101
chongli wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of gifted students who are not from economically privileged backgrounds. These are kids who can easily drop out, not just from school but from society as a whole, if they’re not nurtured. I have first hand experience with this, as a former high school dropout, now close to completing a math degree just before the age of 40. The cost to the school system to keep me engaged rather than bored and ignore…

That still doesn't hold any water for the envy/spite argument I was replying to. I'm all about making school a valuable, engaging experience for everyone, including gifted children. But it needs to scale and be progressive, not just pile more inequalities and gate keeping into the system. And if we are talking about the lost tax revenue and the "worth" of education, having the gifted kids teach their peers for better…

It's weird that we don't think it's reasonable to expect teachers with years of postgraduate study and experience in education to get kids up to grade level algebra and at the same time think having a gifted kid tutor them will be able to improve things.

Also, if we're expecting gifted kids to work as teachers' aides at the expense of their own education, shouldn't we be compensating them for it?

Or should the gifted kids just be grateful for the opportunity? If it's actually good for them, are parents just being irrational by focusing on challenging them academically instead of enrolling them in a teacher's college for tots?

Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#108

Post by candiodari »

xyzzyz wrote: post #14
awinter-py wrote: post #2

> ... key differences: Each child could work at their own pace, largely through playing educational games and apps that adapted to where they were. There was no particular endpoint that the kids needed to get to at the end of the semester. if self-pacing is possible, not doing it seems like a huge unforced error in education policy

Only if you assume that having learn as fast as they are able to is a goal in education policy. In fact, it is not. Having some kids ahead of the others is not a desirable outcome of public education as it actually exists. Instead, it operates under assumption that all kids are interchangeable tabula rasas, and if some kids are ahead, that only means that the education is under serving those who are behind them. As a…

> This is never going to be the case, and is hurting everyone in the system.

Yeah, and changing it will cause revolt. It would be going back to saying people "just aren't equal", ie. the idea of nobility. And if there's one guarantee in life: it very quickly won't be actual achievement that determines if you get ahead in such a system.

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