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Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

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Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Covid and the school shutdowns, did create a real boost in the homeschooling. Exacerbated by the particularly draconian shutdowns and masking in areas where there are a lot of tech workers like the Bay Area.

I think it merely made parents aware of what was already happening. My nephew texted my brother during his lunch break to ask for more credits for his switch account. My brother asked why play games instead of talking or hanging out with others. My nephew sent back a video of the lunch room: every single student had their eyes glued to a digital device of some sort. The experience kids have in schools isn't what we a…

> My nephew sent back a video of the lunch room: every single student had their eyes glued to a digital device of some sort.

Wow, this just makes me intensely sad. We are ruining a generation of humans with these digital narcotics. Say what you want about being a Chicken Little, or that every generation looks at the next generation's behavior with some amount of trepidation ("MTV will corrupt your mind!"), but this feels pretty different to me. Humans are social creatures, and human children need lots of unstructured social play, and they need to be allowed to get bored, and we're killing all that.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#122
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voucher programs are just going to flood the "education market" with substandard schools teaching things like humans walked with dinosaurs a few thousand years ago before the great flood. They're going to extract profits from our tax dollars to give us a worse quality service. We'll see a lot of new schools open up, spend a few years collecting profits, then get shut down for substandard quality after effectively fai…

Come on, be serious. In a huge country with 50M students attending primary/secondary school you can always dredge up a few horror stories but those are far from the typical case. On the scale of ways that schools damage kids, teaching them the unscientific mythology of certain Christian sects is hardly the worst. The Catholic church, which is one of the largest private school operators, has no official position on pa…

I am serious. If you're thinking most of the families are chomping at the bit to repurpose tax dollars to Catholic schools you've clearly never interviewed the average homeschool family South of the Mason-Dixon. They don't even think Catholics are Christian; many would align a priest with Satan!

Most families I know who currently home school do so so to avoid vaccine requirements because germ theory/biology is a lie or because they're worried their kids will be exposed to the idea of the fossil record or that gay people exist in the world or put thoughts like dinosaurs died before humans into kids heads.

You're delusional if you think of these aren't major homeschooling points in the US. Willingly holding your nose to ignore the extreme stench of the anti-intellectualism the rest of the movement massively embodies.

This will be the outcome in an extreme majority of school districts. If anything, this recent election shows fundies vote. To them it's even more than life or death, it's eternal death to miss voting.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#123
post #92

No one seems to have mentioned AI/LLMs yet. Between Khan Academy, Wikipedia, and LLMs, if your child has curiosity, the resources to tutor have never been better.

interesting take. Heard of Synthesis? (hint: DARPA funded).

At the local elementary school, we are told the kids are being kept safer now thanks to being tracked by AI cameras.

Some parents, maybe especially those with insight into tech fact vs. tech marketing, may have reservations about "tutors" whose services (perhaps for free) come with the stipulation that they are free to record every bit of data about your kid and do with it as they please.

The're being silly, right? Because?

As everyone on HN knows: software is super safe, and the entities/corps controlling it, so, so benign. Data doubly so -- hacks basically never happen, am I right? No one cares about your kid?

Or?

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem with homeschooling is that rarely is someone so well rounded that they can supply the full spectrum of education that a child needs. Blackbody vs an RGB source emulating a full spectrum. We all have cognitive blindspots. While this is true, it's not like schools are teaching kids a full spectrum of knowledge either. In particular, a lot of practical skills are often not taught in modern schools - person…

I agree with this, but IMO the more correct solution is to look for the gaps in learning from all sources and look to fill those instead of removing a massive chunk of education assuming one can do all of it better.

Well said. Heavy aside coming.

I think is another example of monotheistic cultures favoring linear narratives, rigid taxonomies and 1 to 1 causal chains. This is the world that we live, that we seek The Reason (singular) that something is the way it is. And if it isn't it the way we want, what ever is closer to the root of the taxonomy needs to get replaced.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#125
This "shouldn't" be surprising. Smart people seeing a wider perspective, seeing the limits of mass-schooling and top-down curricula, seeing other social challenges, and seeing a better option? I live in Seattle; there's a reason it's one of the top metros with per capita private school enrollment and if it weren't for tech incomes, I'd expect homeschooling and homeschooling collectives to thrive. Comments here about neurodiversity needs are also on point.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public school education is a shit show in many western countries. I'm not in the USA but all the talk about private schools and lotteries is very real. The only thing we don't have is charter schools leaching public funds.

The USA is ranked below most other western public school systems so I don’t think you can conclude “the US are doing bad because all western countries are”. It’s just a matter of priorities and the US prioritizes defense over education.

Are those education metrics even measuring the correct things? Many other countries have higher scores of educational achievement, and yet on average we ignorant Americans go on to be more productive and more innovative than any other major developed country. Just to pick one example, the USA develops about 80% of the new prescription drugs every year. Does it really matter if we can't integrate a function or remember when the Civil War started?

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same logic applies to teachers, and can be applied against your own question. As an example i once lost a mark on a math test because when rounding to the nearest whole number, i put 3.0 as the answer. Wrong. 3 is a whole number, 3.0 is not i was told, and threatened with suspension on protest. That kind of thing sticks with you. I agree with your sentiment however, i just dont think its a powerful retort.

>>> a = 3.0 >>> b = 3 >>> type(a) == type(b) False The right answer they were looking for was 3, not 3.0. Adding that .0 implies a precision which is not correct. They weren't looking to see if you knew the arithmetic with that question, they wanted you to show you understood what they meant by "whole number" and understand you can't just leave arbitrary precision after rounding. You didn't give the right answer and…

> adding that .0 implies a precision which is not correct. They weren't looking to see if you knew the arithmetic with that question, they wanted you to show you understood what they meant by "whole number" and understand you can't just leave arbitrary precision after rounding.

If you round 3.05 down to 3, 3.00 is not arbitrary precision, its explicit precision that's reflective of the rounding operation you did. I wasn't claiming that `type(3.0) == type(3)`. I was claiming that:

    >>> round(3.0) == 3
    True

And that such a representation was valid within the context of the question. This was long before I was wise enough to understand that sir, this is a public school, just do what the book says and don't make me talk with the students more than I need do.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> a = 3.0 >>> b = 3 >>> type(a) == type(b) False The right answer they were looking for was 3, not 3.0. Adding that .0 implies a precision which is not correct. They weren't looking to see if you knew the arithmetic with that question, they wanted you to show you understood what they meant by "whole number" and understand you can't just leave arbitrary precision after rounding. You didn't give the right answer and…

> adding that .0 implies a precision which is not correct. They weren't looking to see if you knew the arithmetic with that question, they wanted you to show you understood what they meant by "whole number" and understand you can't just leave arbitrary precision after rounding. If you round 3.05 down to 3, 3.00 is not arbitrary precision, its explicit precision that's reflective of the rounding operation you did. I w…

It's incredible despite multiple additional individuals telling you that you're wrong you continue doubling down on it.

10 / 3 != 3.000000000000000000000000 no matter how many times you refute it. You should really learn to accept it and continue on and look deeper inside yourself into this. It's sad you still haven't learned this lesson from elementary education. Maybe they should have suspended you.

In no world does 10 / 3 = 3.0. This is just a falsehood as much as 2 + 2. = 5. I don't care about your large values of 2.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#129
post #40

One thing I've never understood with homeschooling: How come parents think they have the competence to be a teacher? Just because you are educated doesn't mean you are a good (pedagogical) educator.

We haven't really decided what we're going to do with our kids. I personally think I'd enjoy homeschooling them, but I don't know what their preferences will be. Their mom would appreciate the break. That said,

1. Teachers develop skills in managing rooms of ~30 kids. I believe this is completely different from tutoring someone 1:1 and likely has very little overlap.

2. Part of my day job is already mentoring/teaching. I enjoy that part of my work. I've received feedback that I'm good at it. Actually when I was younger I thought I'd switch into teaching after building up some savings with programming. I've since heard/read enough about the realities of being a teacher that I can't imagine doing that job (especially with public school). Homeschooling or teaching a homeschool pod seems like the best way to actually be able to teach if that's your inclination.

3. The k-12 curriculum is not really much to cover. Schools move at a pace appropriate for the slower kids in the room. It doesn't seem like a high bar to beat, and most of what I've found looking into it indicates that homeschool parents generally do outperform schools with a fraction of the time spent.

3a. I've already been teaching my 3 year old phonics and reading when she's in the mood. She doesn't really have the attention to sit and focus for more than ~5 minutes, but that's okay, and it's still going alright. I expect she'll already be years ahead of the school curriculum before it's even time to start. So initial results have been promising and suggest I am indeed capable of teaching a child.

4. When it comes to more advanced/in-depth understanding, I don't expect teachers to have the background. Like just looking at the math education program at my alma mater, there's no requirement for real analysis or algebra. There's no requirement for science courses (physics, chemistry, etc.). All of the options in the math department except education require at least a minor in another STEM subject. It's no surprise that a common trope is that teachers (particularly math) don't know how to answer how something gets used in the real world, but that's insane to me as a status quo. There are tons of applications of pretty much any math you might learn before graduate level in pretty much any field you examine (conic sections stand out to me as a niche thing that we covered in high school. Not that they don't have applications to e.g. orbits, but they don't seem to apply to other fields, and I don't believe the connection to physics was made in my high school class anyway (presumably because math teachers where I grew up aren't required to learn physics)).

Honestly I think school is mostly more useful for socializing and something like arts/crafts that entail mess and require a bunch of energy to do at home, especially before high school/AP classes. The academic part seems trivial. Once you've reached that conclusion, it makes sense to ask whether there are alternatives that are better suited/are more aware of and aligned to their purpose as enrichment.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#130
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are all symptoms of ADHD. I am reluctant to point that out, but I see this a lot. I'd like to respond with a small footnote. Or wait until the comment drops below the fold. Alas, I cannot. :)

Also schizotypy which maybe 5% of people have and gets DXed basically 0% of the time. It's a developmental disability which will make you a target for relentless bullying which will screw you up much more than you need to be screwed up. You should be reluctant to DX ADHD, everybody seems to have it because it's promoted by an addictive pill industry, it's almost as fashionable as gluten intolerance used to be or auti…

Interesting. I read the wiki article and the mayo clinic page on it. School uniforms are not uniformly a bad idea I think. We as a civilization should really focus on removing bullying as memetic virus. It has knock on effects that are larger than we realize, like most forms of harm.

I think most people seem to have it, because I think most people do to some degree, most things are a spectrum. We simply aren't prepared for the world we have accidentally created for ourselves. I personally don't find the pills addictive. Speaking of which, this quite long video, "Dopamine Expert: " is quite good, esp if you are a fan of neurology and neuropsychology. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6xbXOp7wDA

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