Outschooling • Hacker News Board

Re: Outschooling

#151

Post by carlob » Thu, May 30, 2019, 8:42 AM UTC

killjoywashere wrote: post #140

Unless this results in better education outcomes spread across the entire population in the red states, this is effectively a bid to support the Republican agenda. This will follow the same pattern as standardized testing: those with the means will pursue the best investments. Those without will be left behind. And so the cycle of inequality worsens. This is "greed is good" politics. Think about it. If they were seri…

Thanks for pointing this out. I, too have the impression that most of the commenters here are completely oblivious to the effects of their choices on society at large. The fact that I have been accused multiple times of not having children is evidence of an appeal to emotion: "You can only understand this if you think about your own family".

Re: Outschooling

#152

Post by burfog » Thu, May 30, 2019, 9:17 AM UTC

carlob wrote: post #151

killjoywashere wrote: post #140

Unless this results in better education outcomes spread across the entire population in the red states, this is effectively a bid to support the Republican agenda. This will follow the same pattern as standardized testing: those with the means will pursue the best investments. Those without will be left behind. And so the cycle of inequality worsens. This is "greed is good" politics. Think about it. If they were seri…

Thanks for pointing this out. I, too have the impression that most of the commenters here are completely oblivious to the effects of their choices on society at large. The fact that I have been accused multiple times of not having children is evidence of an appeal to emotion: "You can only understand this if you think about your own family".

The accusation of not having children is the polite one, assuming no malice. The worse ones are that you would exempt your own children (the rest of us get to sacrifice ours), or that you wouldn't exempt your children (due to not caring about them).

Re: Outschooling

#153

Post by burfog » Thu, May 30, 2019, 9:25 AM UTC

ultrarunner wrote: post #118

EdwardDiego wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations on doing it right with regards to socialisation. Sadly, many homeschoolers (in my anecdotal experience) do it wrong - they tend to be the same ones who homeschool for religious reasons.

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…

An interesting example is the Westboro Baptist children. They are sent to public school in order to learn about how rotten the sinners are. The bullying they receive helps to drive home that lesson.

Re: Outschooling

#154

Post by badpun » Thu, May 30, 2019, 10:26 AM UTC

winchling wrote: post #102

iambateman wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was homeschooled for 8 years and this schedule sounds very familiar, except it was surfing and working a part time job for me. School does not need to take 8 hours to be effective. As far as socialization, I’ve been asked this a hundred times: “so...like...how do you talk to people when you’re at home?” Now, I understand they mean well. But for someone who just implied their superior social capabilities, they sure…

It's also worth pointing out that the social environment within most schools is far from ideal.

Social environment _anywhere_ is far from ideal. I've felt that school gave me great training at recognizing and dealing with assholes. I was more of a sensitive kid and if I was isolated from school (and the playground), I may not be able to join the society later on - the state of it it would've been too much of a shock.

Re: Outschooling

#155

Post by up_and_up » Thu, May 30, 2019, 11:03 AM UTC

formalsystem wrote: post #147

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 ad…

> How much time do you spend as a parent teaching or overseeing homeschooling?

Its a busy schedule for my wife, granted we have 3 kids. She also works part-time at their nature camp

> Are you encouraging your kids to go to college?

Depends. I plan on enrolling them at the local community college by age 14-15.

> And if they did want to go to college do they realistically have the option to pick the school they want?

I want them to attend community college then transfer, which is what I did and I transfered to a public ivy school

> Any state or country requirements you need to adhere to in terms of curriculum?

No requirements here in MI, depends on your state.

> Have your kids ever expressed an interest in going to school?

Nope.

> 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?

Why would that matter? Top tier colleges are looking for/encouraging homeschool applicants because they are generally very independent thinkers and self-directed.

> Are kids really self motivated to learn anything?

Definitely. For example, my one daughter loves birds and is studying everything she can find about the local bird population. Kids are naturally very curious.

> How much structure do you impose?

This depends on the homeschooling family. We have a decent structure now but other families use no structure.

> Do you find that they do more projects and experiments as opposed to reading theoretical stuff?

50/50 I would say. They are still young so the reading is not like deep theory on anything yet.

Re: Outschooling

#156

Post by notacoward » Thu, May 30, 2019, 11:34 AM UTC

barry-cotter wrote: post #124

notacoward wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Professional educators really only need the training and certification because they are dealing with students at scale. Untrue. Any teacher must be familiar with both the subject matter and basic pedagogy, regardless of whether they're teaching one student or many. Yes, there are additional skills necessary when teaching a larger class, but I think you drastically exaggerate how much of a teacher's job that is.

I taught kindergarten for five years and teach small groups and individuals at various levels now. Basic pedagogy is really, incredibly basic and the kind of stuff you pick up by experience relatively quickly even without formal instruction in it. More generally the economics of education literature shows that the only reliable determinants of teacher quality are subject matter expertise and teaching experience. Subj…

Since you're sharing your experience, would you like to address the original claim that "professional educators really only need the training and certification because they are dealing with students at scale"? Or would that not suit the preferred narrative?

Re: Outschooling

#157

Post by winchling » Thu, May 30, 2019, 11:48 AM UTC

badpun wrote: post #154

winchling wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also worth pointing out that the social environment within most schools is far from ideal.

Social environment _anywhere_ is far from ideal. I've felt that school gave me great training at recognizing and dealing with assholes. I was more of a sensitive kid and if I was isolated from school (and the playground), I may not be able to join the society later on - the state of it it would've been too much of a shock.

Yes, we don't really know what a good social environment for children looks like.

But it does seem obvious that being forced to associate with brutes is unpleasant, demoralising and inconducive to academic learning. By the same token why not teach people to deal with pain by tapping them daily with hammers?

We also have to factor in also that many people will become brutes as a result of this forced association, like the way criminality incubates in prisons.

Re: Outschooling

#158

Post by barry-cotter » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:01 PM UTC

notacoward wrote: post #156

barry-cotter wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I taught kindergarten for five years and teach small groups and individuals at various levels now. Basic pedagogy is really, incredibly basic and the kind of stuff you pick up by experience relatively quickly even without formal instruction in it. More generally the economics of education literature shows that the only reliable determinants of teacher quality are subject matter expertise and teaching experience. Subj…

Since you're sharing your experience, would you like to address the original claim that "professional educators really only need the training and certification because they are dealing with students at scale"? Or would that not suit the preferred narrative?

I think that’s actually too kind to training and certification since it implies that they’re useful when dealing with students at scale. The main benefit from learning about pedagogy was not in the application, it was in knowing the jargon for talking to other teachers and sounding like a professional. What’s annoying is that the jargon U.K. and US trained teachers use differs slightly.

You get better at teaching by teaching, same way you get better at painting by painting or playing music by playing music. You’ll get better faster if you’re paying closer attention to your students and what you’re doing and things like having someone watch your lessons and critique them or reviewing video of your lessons yourself afterwards helps enormously. If you want to be play violin an encyclopaedic grasp of music theory is less useful than another hundred hours playing until you get over 1,000 hours at minimum. Ed school lecturers and professors are not noted for their excellent teaching despite their presumably excellent grasp of theory.

My experience could be unusual, obviously, but what’s very unlikely to be wrong is the literature on the determinants of teacher quality which does not reliably find any effect distinguishable from zero for teacher training or for experience over six years.

Re: Outschooling

#159

Post by badpun » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:06 PM UTC

winchling wrote: post #157

badpun wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social environment _anywhere_ is far from ideal. I've felt that school gave me great training at recognizing and dealing with assholes. I was more of a sensitive kid and if I was isolated from school (and the playground), I may not be able to join the society later on - the state of it it would've been too much of a shock.

Yes, we don't really know what a good social environment for children looks like. But it does seem obvious that being forced to associate with brutes is unpleasant, demoralising and inconducive to academic learning. By the same token why not teach people to deal with pain by tapping them daily with hammers? We also have to factor in also that many people will become brutes as a result of this forced association, like…

Academic learning is not nearly as important as good socialisation (dealing with brutes etc.) IMO. For most people who are not smart enough to get a good, competitive office job (like software engineer, doctor etc.), those years in school seem largely pointless, apart from learning basics like literacy, algebra etc. And even for academically gifted, life without social skills must be worse than being an under-performer in a sub-optimal job. Hell is other people, and social skills is how you deal with them.

Re: Outschooling

#160

Post by momokoko » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:56 PM UTC

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.

I do. But those are all things still end up with parents and the students.

If you have a single mother that works odd hours and can't do basic algebra, it's very unlikely you'll excel as a student. That isn't a judgement of anyone, that is just a fact based on the data we have.

How to prevent that situation is a different discussion, but does illustrate that resources may be better used fixing the root of the problem as opposed to putting all the effort and responsibility on education.