I don't have kids, but if I did, there's not a snowball's chance in hell I'd let a state educate them, with the possible exception of the Nordic countries.
Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
371–380 of 1001 posts
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#372I 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…
After spending some time on the teachers subreddit I completely understand why so many people are choosing to homeschool. The amount of in-classroom abuse -- verbal and physical -- in addition to the entitled parents is shocking.
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#373One 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.
I'm generally not a fan of home schooling in a lot of cases, part of what school does is expose you to a vertical slice of humanity, and you will almost certainly be dealing with that for the rest of your life. HOWEVER... remember that "home schooled" doesn't mean "as a parent you are the only teacher" right? You can hire tutors, you can form teaching groups with other parents, you can use online resources, etc. If d…
> part of what school does is expose you to a vertical slice of humanity
I love that phrasing! I think I'm going to use it – thank you.
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#374It's true that there has always been a sizeable chunk of religion motivated home schoolers, historically there was a long tail with motivations and efficacy that was all over the map. One thing that's really common is for parents to try it when they feel that the local system is failing their kids in some way and the family economics supporting are acceptable. There are also many permutations - it wasn't uncommon whe…
>despite there being little to no evidence that they generate any broad improvements in the base level of education in the population at large?
You don't find the experience of New Orleans following their conversion to a complete charter system in 2005 (10 percentage point gain in college acceptance rates, improvements on standardized tests by about a third of a standard deviation) to be meaningful evidence?
https://news.tulane.edu/news/new-orleans-reforms-boost-stude...
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#375I 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.
> Kids are throwing chairs at teachers. I don’t know where you live, but kids (plural!) assaulting teachers like that would be very unusual. I have a lot of family and friends in elementary education and management. Stories like that are the kind of thing that get talked about for years if they happen, not something that happens enough to be referred to in the plural.
Room destroyers are pretty common, but they usually have IEPs.
TBH there's no good choices for many - big mental health issues and trauma, no home or family support, and no real options: kids have to go somewhere, self contained classrooms are at capacity, there are worse kids in line to get put in facilities, and often you can't really do that unless parents push for it anyway.
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#376I find looking beyond the rim of your own plate such an inspiring thing when it comes to schooling. Germany for example prohibits home schooling. don't breed detached extremists. however Germany thinks binning kids into handcrafts, simple office jobs and academia at age nine (!) is a brilliant idea o-O. but then on the upside again, you will go to school for at least 13 years if you get _any_ kind of qualified profes…
>however Germany thinks binning kids into handcrafts, simple office jobs and academia at age nine (!) is a brilliant idea o-O As a German that's the first time I hear that. Do you mean Schülerpraktikum? That's usually at age 14. Never heard anyone doing that at age 9.
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Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#377My 9 y/o getting shot at school isnt something I want on my risk register.
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#378Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
"Expulsion works." There really seems to be two kinds of public schools. One is willing to expel students who are violent and disruptive and this allows the students who are willing and able to learn to do so. The other refuses to expel violent and disruptive students and they make it nearly impossible for the willing and motivated students to actually learn.
Why would a school expel students? They get money for each person sitting in the desk.
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
The way this is written seems to imply that religious people don't have similar (or the same) reasons as secular people.
I suppose from their perspective they do but from my perspective they are just going to raise scientifically ignorant people. I was raised young earth creationist Lutheran and understand this world quite well.
To be fair most high school graduates might recite the “right scientific facts” while having no basis for supporting them.
The earth is 4 billion years old. Survival of the fittest drives evolution. Why? How do you know?
Basically just another form of indoctrination. Children are not taught science so much as science appreciation.
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#380One 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.
The average public school teacher is somewhere in the average top 40-30% in intelligence/academic achievement. Anyone who's a top performer academically is going to be much more competent than the average public school teacher.