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Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

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Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#221

Post by Validark »

AlexandrB wrote: post #44
x187463 wrote: post #22

Anecdotally, those around me that are homeschooling are doing it for one of two reasons: 1) Right-wing disgust over woke issues. 2) Fear of school shootings. That's coming from a non-tech middle/lower-middle class setting. 20-30 years ago, when I was in school, most of the homeschoolers seemed (again anecdotally) to be based on religion or some other idiosyncratic reasoning rather than the reasons I cited above.

> 2) Fear of school shootings. I would add: 3) Fear of fear of school shootings. The active shooter drills and other security measures that American kids go through in some schools are positively dystopian. Even if the chances of a school shooting are statistically very low, the measures put in place to prevent them are probably not good for kids' psychological well being.

Honestly a school shooting drill was probably near the bottom of the causes of psychological problems when I was in school.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#222

Post by testbjjl »

windexh8er wrote: post #192
nosefurhairdo wrote: post #23

I live in a good area and have friends who work in a few different schools out here. Kids are throwing chairs at teachers. There are elementary school classrooms where ~1/4 students don't speak English. The reading/math skills are so dismal, any student who learns at home is bored as hell. Private schools are outrageously expensive. Homeschooling is becoming the pragmatic choice.

I'm curious where you live. My spouse and I selected the area we live in based on the school district when our kids were around pre-K age. We live in a district that isn't overly expensive to live, but has the best public schools in the state and are some of the top in the nation. Throwing chairs? That's a parent problem. Not sure why the district would put up with that. Expulsion works. I've never heard a story like…

[flagged]

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#223

Post by s0kr8s »

bjt wrote: post #218
s0kr8s wrote: post #213

The author's thesis is that the rise in home-schooling is driven by a desire to "opt out of being around average people," and he implies that he is not home-schooling his own children in part because he himself was home-schooled and believes that may have contributed to his own struggles with social stress. However, given his self-description, it seems there is a decent chance he would have struggled with social stre…

Judging by the name and picture, I'm pretty sure Forrest Brazeal is a he.

Excellent point. Comment updated for accuracy.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#224

Post by tombert »

abtinf wrote: post #183
tombert wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a saying that if you gave a scientist the job of designing a system to completely derail an ADHD brain, they'd come back with the typical public school classroom. Doctors aren't sure if I have ADHD or Major Depression or Bipolar II (I've been diagnosed and attempted to be treated for all three), but this fits into my experience. I was consistently frustrating to my high school teachers, because I was clearl…

> Western Governors University (WGU), which feels almost tailor-made for the ADHD-brained people I would very much appreciate it if you could expand on this point a bit. What makes WGU particularly suited for folks with ADHD?

You pay per-term, not per class, and you can take as many classes as you'd like per term. You take one class at a time, and many classes can be finished after taking a test and/or completing a project.

I say it feels tailor-made for ADHD because it feels almost "gamified". It's addictive to see how many classes you can knock out in a week, and you can work at whatever pace you'd like.

Part of the reason I always did poorly in school is that I didn't like how slow everything went, but with WGU I can go whatever pace I want, and the faster I go, the more money I save. Since I'm an extremely impatient person, the fact that I was able to quickly go through the material while only having to focus on one course at a time was kind of game-changing to me.

I already had a decade of software engineering experience when I did WGU, so when I did the Computer Science degree on there I finished the entirety of it (having to start from scratch) in six months, for a grand total cost of around ~$4600.

WGU is hardly the fanciest school, but it's good enough, inexpensive, and most importantly it is fully accredited. If you always struggled with traditional universities, I recommend giving it a look.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#226

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

hokumguru wrote: post #199
thinkingtoilet wrote: post #34

We are in an age where people who watch a youtube video think they know more than the experts. Being a good teacher is a skill and understanding childhood development is something that requires proper education. I'm not saying there is never a good reason to home-school your kid, but most people who do it are unqualified and from my limited experience the kids who are home schooled have huge holes in their education.…

I'm so worried for those parents raising children outside of school without degrees in childhood development! Think of all the unqualified parenting time happening without skilled teachers to supervise!

Teachers are mostly very uneducated and ineffective at teaching itself and the subjects they teach. I don’t think spending time to get an education degree or certification means much. Parents care for their children more than any random teacher, especially ones that resist performance measurements to judge their effectiveness. I would expect the average parent to be FAR more effective just based on that care.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#227

Post by randerson »

UltraSane wrote: post #201
nosefurhairdo wrote: post #23

I live in a good area and have friends who work in a few different schools out here. Kids are throwing chairs at teachers. There are elementary school classrooms where ~1/4 students don't speak English. The reading/math skills are so dismal, any student who learns at home is bored as hell. Private schools are outrageously expensive. Homeschooling is becoming the pragmatic choice.

Homeschooling parents are divided into two separate groups. One is secular with college degrees who really want to give their children a better education than they could get in a school AND are able to do so. The other group are very religious who don't want their children learning about evolution or many other secular things. The only real issue I have with homeschooling in the US is that regulations vary wildly by…

I'd add at least a 3rd group: Parents of kids with sensory (e.g. autism) or behavioral issues that are incompatible with learning at a school.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#228

Post by 23B1 »

aappleby wrote: post #191
23B1 wrote: post #170

Because public education has become a vector for propaganda. Because we spend more per student but with awful results. Because our brightest don't become schoolteachers. Because education is years if not decades behind the skills curve. Because big, powerful teachers unions make change impossible. Because parents have spared the rod and spoiled the child.

I don't think I've ever heard "big powerful unions" and "teachers" in the same sentence before.

The NEA is the largest union in the United States.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#229

Post by vel0city »

JohnHaugeland wrote: post #143
vel0city wrote: post #106

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…

"Whole number" means that the mantissa is 0, and is not related to what some random programming language asserts in its representational type system. Math terms like "whole number" are not defined in terms of the behavior of computer programming languages. In math, not only are 3.0 and 3 the same thing, but also, so is 2.9999999... . > They weren't looking to see if you knew the arithmetic with that question, they wa…

> Can you show any math reference that supports this viewpoint? This goes against my college mathematics training.

> The word integer comes from the Latin integer meaning "whole" or (literally) "untouched", from in ("not") plus tangere ("to touch"). "Entire" derives from the same origin via the French word entier, which means both entire and integer.[9] Historically the term was used for a number that was a multiple of 1,[10][11] or to the whole part of a mixed number.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integer

The question was to understand the idea of a "whole number" aka an integer.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#230

Post by poulsbohemian »

TheFreim wrote: post #153
vodou wrote: 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.

> Just because you are educated doesn't mean you are a good (pedagogical) educator. This applies equally to paid teachers, along with numerous downsides that don't apply to parents (i.e. being able to tailor education to a single individual, developing a relationship that lasts close to two decades, ability to slow down and speed up course material where necessary, and more). Paid teachers, contrary to semi-popular m…

Great, I'm sure you'll have no problem using the services of a self-taught doctor, lawyer, or engineer then. After all, why would they need to be taught by a professional?

Go spend some time in a classroom and get a fucking clue how much more there is to teaching than what your layman's view entails. You, and this disrespect for our educators and the potential of what we could be offering in our public schools is why we are the laughing stock of the developed world.

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