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Homeschooling hits record numbers

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Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#341

Post by BrenBarn »

seneca wrote: post #304
meheleventyone wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My job isn’t the totality of my life and you have very strange ideas about how quickly disruptive people actually get fired. You get plenty of unfiltered interaction in life. If anything I’d say the sort of thing you describe sounds more like an insular cult. Although even there you get misanthropic people, abuse and so on.

> My job isn’t the totality of my life and you have very strange ideas about how quickly disruptive people actually get fired. You get plenty of unfiltered interaction in life. In what environment are you, as an adult, forced to interact with everyone who happens to show up? The only instances I can think of are other government-run institutions like the military or prison, and I don't think anyone would argue those…

> In what environment are you, as an adult, forced to interact with everyone who happens to show up?

Have you heard of customer service?

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#342

Post by Voultapher »

QuercusMax wrote: post #124
Voultapher wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeming mature to an adult isn't the thing in question though, is it? Not feeling or appearing awkward when interacting on their own in their 20s is what is being criticized. The anecdotal evidence you present doesn't include home schooled children in their 20s as far as I can tell.

Homeschooled kids have much more flexible schedules which can allow them to do things in the community during the daytime that are not available to kids who have to go to school in-person full time. This can include volunteer work or part time jobs working with the public and interacting with people of all ages. Why do you think you being forced into a monoculture of only kids your own age would help your interaction…

Because I've met several homeschooled adults over the years, and talking to them that's something most of them had in common when explaining the impact it had on their life. Looking for more objective data I found this one source that seems to be written by people not already convinced of the desirability of homescooling [1], forgive me for being skeptical of the objectivity of places called "national home education research institute". Overall it paints a more positive picture than I had expected, but also highlights it's limitations.

[1] http://hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/Taubman/PEPG/conf...

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#343

Post by pdabbadabba »

seneca wrote: post #279
afavour wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> homeschoolers are "not exposed to the real world". Isolation exists for some, but my extensive interaction with homeschoolers is they are immersed in healthy communities, hand-picked by parents to keep away problem children. Who would plant a flower next to a sick or hostile one? ...a healthy community hand-picked by parents is not "the real world" though, is it? I think your view is a very black and white one. Kid…

> ...a healthy community hand-picked by parents is not "the real world" though, is it? It very much is. No where else in life are people forced to mixed with the general unfiltered public. "The real world" is highly filtered social circles and freedom of association. The idea that it's somehow an automatic good to force healthy kids to mix with everyone who happens to show up, regardless of whether they have severe b…

> It very much is. No where else in life are people forced to mixed with the general unfiltered public.

I'm baffled by this. Many workplaces? Mass transit? Walking down the sidewalk? At a concert? Buying groceries? True, there don't all expose you to the full sweep of human existence at once but, in aggregate, it seems pretty similar to what you'd encounter at most public schools. What if they want a career in a hospital, or law enforcement, or social services, ... the list goes on.

You might hope that your child will live a privileged existence unbothered by the rabble, but it seems to me they need to be prepared for a future where they encounter all kinds of people. I'm sure this can be compatible with homeschooling but I can't see how it's not generally a disadvantage. (Though perhaps onerous clearly outweighed by other advantages, depending on the situation.)

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#344

Post by OneLeggedCat »

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #147

I can't say my public school experience was great, I was bullied and didn't really click with the popular kids, but being around a cross section of actual American kids in my age group (my school district mixed middle class with lower class neighborhoods) helped me shape my worldview and learn to deal with people who didn't look or talk like me. I frequently saw fights, so I learned that you just stay away and watch…

In the rural areas that I've lived in, it's mostly about a strong desire to supplant science and history with religious ideas and principles.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#345

Post by snerbles »

iambateman wrote: post #275
dmje wrote: post #216

Obviously there is some serious nuance here - there are of course edge cases and serious reasons for considering home schooling. But as a general principle, encouraging kids further and further out of (group) human contact seems like an obviously terrible idea to me. We're already doing it with (lack of) play spaces, "no ball games", insane screen times (which equates to less "real" face to face time) amongst teens,…

I was homeschooled and my son is homeschooled. I disagree with your premise that homeschooling pushes kids out of group human contact. People who attend public school often assume that kids who attend homeschool literally sit at home all day...which is just not...real?

It was the predominant notion when I was a homeschooled kid 30 years ago, and for most of them there is no argument or evidence that will convince them otherwise.

State-run education is their orthodoxy, and anything that challenges that is tantamount to heresy.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#346

Post by squigz »

o11c wrote: post #302
ponooqjoqo wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pushing borderline indoctrination of controversial, left-ish values Which values? I haven't gone to school in a long time.

From the Conservative part of my social group, the main one applicable here is pushing elementary school kids to identify as trans. Because young children are very impressionable, and it is forbidden for staff to push back on on it at all, despite the science saying "there is absolutely no such thing as trans before age 12, and much possibility of social trauma from attempting it". Left-ish people tend to say "this d…

Why age 12?

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#347

Post by satvikpendem »

How many are now home schooled for religious reasons? It seems like many are pulling their kids out of public schools, for "woke" reasons rather than for a deep pedagogical pursuit, and I worry these kids aren't actually learning at the level they should be.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#348

Post by gallamine »

rootusrootus wrote: post #328
iambateman wrote: post #283

When a social failure happens at a public school - a child fails a class, drugs are found, a teenager gets pregnant, there’s a fight - most people don't question the public school system itself. But when a social failure happens to a homeschooler, we wonder if the system of _homeschooling_ is broken. In reality, stories of homeschooling failure are probably no more common than stories of failure in public high school…

The adults I know who are most against homeschooling today are the ones who were homeschooled themselves. Maybe it's just a pendulum.

I was homeschooled. I'm doing the same with my children.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#349

Post by joshstrange »

oceanplexian wrote: post #172
connicpu wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It affects the minimum viable salary for a teacher to even be able to live in the city where you want to hire them to work, same for all the other support staff that make a school function.

I don’t buy that argument, there’s no reason a teacher in San Francisco can’t live in Oakland or Berkeley, or a teacher in NYC couldn’t live in NJ. You don’t have a human right to live in the most expensive real estate on Earth.

Yeah, screw the teachers, they should just have a longer commute, who cares about them? /s

I always want to laugh when I hear people complain about finding near-minimum-wage workers in a HCOL area. They can't seem to grasp that commuting is not free, it may feel free to them at their income level but transportation costs money (gas, car maintenance, insurance or bus, etc) and time. I'm not saying teaching is a minimum wage job but it's not a high earning one either, paying them as low as we do _and_ also asking them to have a longer commute is just absurd.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#350

Post by satvikpendem »

OneLeggedCat wrote: post #344
kylehotchkiss wrote: post #147

I can't say my public school experience was great, I was bullied and didn't really click with the popular kids, but being around a cross section of actual American kids in my age group (my school district mixed middle class with lower class neighborhoods) helped me shape my worldview and learn to deal with people who didn't look or talk like me. I frequently saw fights, so I learned that you just stay away and watch…

In the rural areas that I've lived in, it's mostly about a strong desire to supplant science and history with religious ideas and principles.

That is exactly what I've seen, to keep kids in their brainwashing bubble.
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