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For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

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Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#301

Post by dboreham »

justin_kempton wrote: post #253
LudwigNagasena wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest problem with the setup you outlined is that the central government has no say in what is being taught to kids. So no matter how similar homeschooling will look to government-controlled schooling, people with power will never stop attacking it because of that crucial nuisance.

We were forced to homeschool our child due to Pandemic, and later, from desire for him to actually learn. It was eye opening! Schools are chaotic, and one of the biggest take aways for the child is conformity. In fact, I believe the entire institution of age based grades started in the militaristic state of Prussia. From the point of view of a state that needs soldiers, having standards and consistency is important.…

Scotland

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#302

Post by hedora »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #255

What did you all think was happening? Parents chose to hold their children back in subject areas they were weak in? Of course we delegate teaching certain topics to professionals. The thing about those professionals, they know their continued employment is based on the merit of their work. You can fire your children's teacher(s) and hire better ones.

The article spends a long time on the fact that the “teachers” are not professionals and do not claim to be.

Most of the controversy would probably go away if there were accreditation boards for these courses, but there are not.

Also, much of the coursework is being offered by unregulated, gray market, for-profit platforms, and if you read HN at all, you already know this will end in enshitification.

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#303

Post by cogman10 »

Hayvok wrote: post #122
cogman10 wrote: post #76

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We homeschool our four children, are religious, most of our friends homeschool, and this is nonsense. We love the schedule flexibility of homeschooling, the ability to let our kids explore their own interests more, and most of all - we just love being with our kids and they get to have their siblings and parents all day. > That's because teaching kids is super hard and real easy to mess up. Forgive me, but this is ju…

My concern is primarily around standards of education.

If you gave your kids wonderful educations with excellent curriculum, more power to you.

The issue I have is that's not universal. It's that I've seen far too many examples of children that are illiterate. Examples of lazy parents doing things like taking a walk in the park and saying "see, we did biology today!". Examples of parents that "oops, forgot to do school this week/month".

And, in the extreme, "girls don't need eduction, that's for boys".

Perhaps for you, education is not hard and that's wonderful. Truly. But what about for the parents and kids where it is hard?

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#304

Post by rayiner »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #147
rayiner wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a lazy take. It's not the facts, it's the worldview. Socializing children into your moral and religious worldview is something that's widely recognized as a human right: https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/... ("The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to have respect for the liberty of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to ensure the religious and moral e…

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Of course. I don’t begrudge mainstream Americans for socializing their kids (and school is a huge part of socialization) to follow their dreams and express their inner selves and not worry about what anyone else thinks. But that’s also not how many people want to raise their kid. So if you’re talking about why say a family might want to home school their kids, it’s not because “school might teach kids that dinosaurs existed,” as OP stated above.

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#305

Post by Spooky23 »

whynotminot wrote: post #226
Spooky23 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that there’s no reasonable - folks doing this have deeply expressed beliefs and if you disagree you’re evil. They only sound reasonable when speaking in general terms. I was a school board president of a catholic school that for the most part aligns with state and professional standards and added faith and cultural material not appropriate in a secular school. The kids get a solid education - We got “inv…

> The point is that there’s no reasonable - folks doing this have deeply expressed beliefs and if you disagree you’re evil. They only sound reasonable when speaking in general terms. This is such good point about why this conversation is so frustrating. Because in the abstract, if good faith could be assumed, there's a discussion to be had here. GP responded to me here being like "well what if they were Russian or Ch…

You’re right. Right wing mass movements are never about high minded anything. It’s all lizard brain stuff.

Get people angry about blather and they don’t notice their pockets getting picked.

The good news is that there’s a history of these type of trends through history, and these movements burn out.

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#306

Post by dj_mc_merlin »

silverpepsi wrote: post #297
dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm unsure if you're saying that coerced unwelcome company is a good or a bad thing. While kids can be mean, it's just a reflection of humans in general and this kind of behaviour doesn't go away when you block it out. People get more mature but there's a lot of similarity between how people act in high school and in the work place, it's just a lot more skillfully and subtly done. Exposing kids to this reality doesn'…

I really disagree with all the comments that make reference to reality - no that is not at all what "reality" is. The fact of the matter is that as an adult, I can draw a line in the sand and either leave a job or report someone who is making the workplace hostile. I can have arguments with friends, but I can also decide certain friendships are over because they've passed a reasonable max threshold for toxicity. As a…

> I can draw a line in the sand and either leave a job or report someone who is making the workplace hostile

Because you have the money and possibility of acquiring another job relatively quickly (I suppose, otherwise you would not give up your survival means for such a reason). Not an option for everyone.

> They incentivize victims sucking it up, because if you get punched in the face at school, both parties involved will be suspended.

This part is stupid, I agree. When I got beaten up at school, I punched back and explained it after. The perpetrator ended up going to juvenile prison at some point (for unrelated charges). I wasn't punished in any way since that was seen as an appropriate response. So we had different experiences.

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#307

Post by ethbr1 »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #285
vasco wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Learning how to deal with adversity and dumb people was school's greatest gift. The world is full of both.

Maybe your public school experience was mostly decent, but for a lot of people it's hell and it actively breeds misanthropy. You can learn to deal with stupid and difficult people without being exposed to soul poisoning doses of both.

Can you? Because I don't think recent child development trends bear out children learning things in spite of being exposed to less of it.

If it sucked, and the requirement for it to happen is removed, it simply doesn't happen.

And the lessons that it taught remain unlearned.

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#308

Post by hedora »

twodave wrote: post #242

If my wife and I were to put our 4 special needs kids into public school it would result in them having a bunch of unbelievably negative experiences: - they would NOT receive a quality education or be taught to be self-learners. - they would be passed along, even with failing grades, putting them further behind their peers, highlighted their differences and denying them their dignity. - they would all end up in socia…

I don’t know where you are, but this wasn’t true decades ago when I grew up, and doesn’t seem to be true at my kids school.

For one thing, our school pretty aggressively tries to find and obtain diagnosis for kids with learning/behavioral issues.

I know “just move” isn’t really actionable advice, but if you have the means to home school, maybe you could?

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#309

Post by user3939382 »

anon84873628 wrote: post #236
mvnuweucxqokii wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a strawman. The steelman version is something like the following chain of reasoning: (a) gender identity is something that everyone has that is distinct from sex, (b) with enough introspection, everyone can discover their true gender identity, (c) if you don't have a strongly felt gender identity, you need to introspect, (d) if introspection does not yield certainty then this suggests genderfluidity, or even w…

That's not the steel man, that's a straw man where you just flipped the politics of the scenario. Letting kids feel safe to introspect and question their gender expression is a good thing. The implication that kids will be _systematically_ forced to delay puberty or undergo a transition they don't want is absurd and not a valid "chain of reasoning". Yes, I'm sure it has happened and could continue in rare instances b…

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Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#310

Post by suzzer99 »

“Eventually, something horrific is going to happen in one of these situations,” said Jen Garrison Stuber, advocacy chair the Washington Homeschool Organization. “A kid’s going to get killed, a kid’s going to get seriously injured or molested, because the safeguards that you have at a private school aren’t happening.”

Uhh, not that I'm a big homeschool advocate, but kids get molested and (now) killed all the time at public and private schools.

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