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Outschooling

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Re: Outschooling

#141

Post by jacobolus »

momokoko wrote: post #38

I think EdTech forgets that student success has much less to do with schooling(home or otherwise). This is why education has bounced from trend to trend over the last 50 years. Because we constantly think we've found a silver bullet, but then after a decade or so, we realize it was once again correlation. If you really look at the data, student outcomes essentially boil down to parents and the students themselves. We…

If by “student outcomes essentially boil down to parents and the students themselves” what you mean is “largely boil down to structural societal factors out of individuals’ hands, such as poverty, pollution, homelessness, unemployment, neighborhood crime, state-supported violence, lack of access to nutritious food, ...

Then sure.

Re: Outschooling

#142

Post by ghda »

jacobolus wrote: post #141
momokoko wrote: post #38

I think EdTech forgets that student success has much less to do with schooling(home or otherwise). This is why education has bounced from trend to trend over the last 50 years. Because we constantly think we've found a silver bullet, but then after a decade or so, we realize it was once again correlation. If you really look at the data, student outcomes essentially boil down to parents and the students themselves. We…

If by “student outcomes essentially boil down to parents and the students themselves” what you mean is “largely boil down to structural societal factors out of individuals’ hands, such as poverty, pollution, homelessness, unemployment, neighborhood crime, state-supported violence, lack of access to nutritious food, ... Then sure.

You left out the big one: genetics.

Re: Outschooling

#143

Post by jacobolus »

carlob wrote: post #76
hawkesnest wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you think that being a teacher is easier than being a medical doctor? What the hell does that matter? Look, I'm not saying there isn't value to public education. And I'm not saying that educators don't provide a valuable and important service. But forcing public education as the panacea for finding all the ways parents fail their children is sub-optimal. If you want to find abuses, diseases, malnutrition, etc, t…

> What the hell does that matter? If you think that homeschooling is fine, but homedoctoring is crazy, then you think that being a teacher is a job that any idiot can do, while being a medical doctor requires a specific set of skills. I'm not saying that all homeschooling parents are crazy and are doing a horrible job, I'm just saying that people have to study a bunch of stuff before becoming teachers, and even then…

If we spent as much societal resources on elementary education as on healthcare, and schools had teams of intensively trained specialists come in and work with students 1:1 for many hours every week in the area of their expertise, then I would concede your point.

But a single conscientious and patient parent working 1:1 with a child consistently over the course of years is going to beat out a string of generalist teachers managing a 30-student classroom almost every time.

It takes a teacher/class months of overhead at the beginning of each year just to get to know all of the students and figure out what their skills and preparation are. It takes hours of overhead every day coordinating big groups of students, some of whom don’t want to be in a setting that inherently compromises their autonomy and often disrespects them, even in the best case where the teacher is kind and progressive. Feedback on student work is delayed and sometimes mediocre because carefully examining the work of 30 students takes a huge amount of time and effort. Glaring student misconceptions and gaps in basic knowledge and skills are allowed to persist for years. Generally little support is given to help students get over psychological blocks related to particular subjects or activities. Students are frequently cruel to each-other and teachers are often unaware or don’t have the available bandwidth to deal with it.

There is a categorical difference between lecturing to a class of 30 vs. direct tutorial, and the latter is generally much, much easier and more pleasant for both teacher and pupil.

Re: Outschooling

#144

Post by ultrarunner »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #136
ultrarunner wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also anecdotal, but I suspect that the religiously motivated homeschoolers were already going to suffer socially, homeschooled or not. The only way that government schools would have altered the outcome was by providing peers to challenge their (often poorly-supported) religious positions. Assuming the methodology bordered on bullying, I'm not sure that would necessarily lead to an outcome of better socialization. I…

In my experience (from moving in religious homeschooling circles) it's more that they're doing it to "save" their children from the "world" - so having them at home is them already doing the best by their children, so having accomplished that, they're less worried about ensuring regular socialisation. And as they often have large families, their children have a large number of sibiling so aren't lonely, so they presu…

I agree with almost all of what you're saying. I'm not suggesting that a social experience outside of the purview of the insular groups this small subset of religious folks experience is not beneficial. What I'm suggesting is that the particular experience offered by public schools (especially in rural and semi-rural areas insular religious homeschoolers typically inhabit) is not particularly beneficial for the socialization of (otherwise) religious homeschoolers.

I don't know of any studies (or if any could be performed, really) that demonstrate the social impact of public schools on students like this, or at least easily-identified outgroup kids. I know from anecdotal experience that in the public schools I attended that they (the semi-cultish religious kids who were not/no longer homeschooled) were not treated well, never successfully integrated socially, and disappeared from my radar very quickly after graduation. With hindsight I feel very badly about that now, and wish there some way to impact the systemic cliquish nature of public schools, especially high school. Unfortunately I lack a time machine for the kids of the past, and simply don't have answers for those going forward.

Either way, my suspicion is that public schools specifically do not offer the best (or even a much better) experience for socializing students.

Re: Outschooling

#145

Post by watwut »

GuiA wrote: post #5
inetknght wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's concerning that those actively involved parents are removed from the public school system. As someone who was homeschooled: it's extremely scary. I've missed out on social experiences and also on actual education and consider myself generally worse-off for it. Consider: Texas permits homeschooling and has effectively zero oversight. How many homeschooling families are also anti-vaxxers or feed into anti-govern…

I can read your comment in several, slightly conflicting, ways: - homeschooling is in practice mostly undesirable, because it overwhelmingly attracts people with fringe beliefs who are not going to act in their child's best interest - homeschooling is at a systemic disadvantage because parents that care enough about their kid's education to take an active part in it have no voice in the public schooling system (my un…

> - homeschooling is in practice mostly undesirable, because it overwhelmingly attracts people with fringe beliefs who are not going to act in their child's best interest

To large extend, homeschooling movement was to large extend motivated politically and does attract fringe groups who want to avoid mainstream society. Avoidance of exposure of certain parts of history or sex ed or gender relationships or culture is strong motivation for many of those families.

It did not became popular in conservative christian male is head of household types randomly.

Re: Outschooling

#146

Post by falcor84 »

>...students in the US who need to learn things like Algebra, European History, Biology, etc...

HN, what's your take on the above? Do you believe that there is any particular curriculum of subjects that students "need" to have studied to be prepared for doing well in the world they will be living in?

Re: Outschooling

#147

Post by formalsystem »

up_and_up wrote: post #16

My wife are secular homeschoolers and have homeschooled our 3 kids: 10,8,5 for 5 years. We use outschool regularly, its a great platform to introduce random topics. I would invest in it honestly. AMA I guess

Oh man I have so many questions. I've been thinking about doing this one day myself but haven't been able to find good answers to the below.

How much time do you spend as a parent teaching or overseeing homeschooling? Are you encouraging your kids to go to college? And if they did want to go to college do they realistically have the option to pick the school they want? Any state or country requirements you need to adhere to in terms of curriculum? Have your kids ever expressed an interest in going to school? I can see homeschooling work well for disciplines like math or programming but have any of your kids expressed interest in something like medicine or law where prestige matters a lot? Are kids really self motivated to learn anything? How much structure do you impose? Do you find that they do more projects and experiments as opposed to reading theoretical stuff?

Re: Outschooling

#149

Post by HNLurker2 »

surge wrote: post #119
somethoughts wrote: post #26

The one I would be interested in would be "home-after-schooling". I would love to have more resources to help support K-8 students learn how to do original research for science fairs, MOOCs for non-math subjects and programming. Basically Khan Academy type courses that can enable teaching economics, literature, philosophy to a 12 year old. The interesting non-math stuff for Khan Academy doesn't start until 9-12th gra…

Kids are exhausted enough after 6 hours of public school, 3 hours of home work and any extra curriculars, don't screw up what little childhood freetime they have left in the current system with home after school.

>, 3 hours of home wor Should I feel guilty for doing no homework at all?

Re: Outschooling

#150

Post by HNLurker2 »

jriot wrote: post #74
notacoward wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that contradicts any of what I said. If people have a principled objection to public school, good for them. They should have the right to secure an equivalent education any other way they choose ... but it has to be equivalent. If not, too bad. Parents aren't allowed to feed their children sawdust instead of food, and they're not allowed to fill their their children's heads with religious/libertarian do…

Schools fill them with their own religious/political dogma. You just don't like it because it doesn't match your worldview.

Couldn't agree more. Here in Romania it is illegal to not put your children in school and homeschooling is basically a crime.

Also religion was obligatory up until few years ago after they changed the law that made people do extra work if they want to study religion.

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