Outschooling • Hacker News Board

Re: Outschooling

#171

Post by burfog » Fri, May 31, 2019, 5:24 AM UTC

falcor84 wrote: post #146

>...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?

economics, law, financial planning, accounting, cooking, how to repair things, business writing, estimation

That's all. No, we mostly don't teach this stuff anymore.

For those going the college route, obviously the STEM prerequisites must be satisfied. This means AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP Physics C (both halves), and AP Calculus BC.

Re: Outschooling

#172

Post by falcor84 » Fri, May 31, 2019, 10:01 AM UTC

burfog wrote: post #171

falcor84 wrote: post #146

>...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?

economics, law, financial planning, accounting, cooking, how to repair things, business writing, estimation That's all. No, we mostly don't teach this stuff anymore. For those going the college route, obviously the STEM prerequisites must be satisfied. This means AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP Physics C (both halves), and AP Calculus BC.

Thanks for responding. I wanted to contest the word "need" - given that the best majority of students aren't taught (in a schooling setting) even 1 of the subjects you mentioned, and we still live in an arguably quite civilized modern society, would you agree that they don't actually "need" to be taught?

Re: Outschooling

#173

Post by toasterlovin » Fri, May 31, 2019, 1:39 PM UTC

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…

The hard part of being a teacher isn’t teaching the material, it’s managing 20-30 kids. Homeschoolers don’t have to deal with that.