My 9 y/o getting shot at school isnt something I want on my risk register.
that's the primary reason you homeschool? isn't there easier ways to manage this particular risk?
Suggest some?
Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
391–400 of 1001 posts
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#392Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could literally live next to a school and there’s a chance your kids can’t go there. There are many kids from low income, broken families who are just really bad students. Bullies. Disruptive. Disrespectful to teachers. It was hell going through public schools in SF.
So it's "opt out of being around average people", then?
If the average student is a bully, disruptive, and disrespectful to teachers then I think I might actually opt out of being around average people if possible.
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#393OK I guess I’m going to go against the deluge of comments here; And give an appreciable reason instead of denigrating those who might choose this. The context, though, I am British. I grew up in Britain. I went to British school. I can’t speak universally about my experience, (even within all of Britain), because it’s my experience which is in one small area of the country. However, school, for me, was by far the sin…
I think you're right to start by saying this isn't universal worldwide, or even within Britain.
You describe hell. But I don't believe that your experience is dominant or even that common in the UK. Which generation are you from?
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#394> These tech parents are hackers by nature, and I think they’re convinced that in homeschooling they’ve happened on the ultimate life hack: just opt out of being around average people. It's difficult to feel optimistic about a society that thinks this way, much less has a cultural and economic elite that is seemingly emboldened to think this way. "Average" people are the norm, the reality that "not average" people wi…
> These tech parents are hackers by nature Why? Being in tech doesn't make you a hacker. Most people, even very talented engineers, are still happy to follow boss, do a 9 to 5, and don't really bend or break the rules... they don't go against the elite. They see themselves as the elite.
> Being in tech doesn't make you a hacker.
Agreed. "Tech" includes a lot of people who are not hackers.
It's worth pointing out though that the "hacker" types who go with the flow are in many cases doing so motivated by pragmatism and cynicism. They don't really believe in management or in the company or the product, but they gotta stick around until their shares vest or whatever.
Speaking for a friend.
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#395Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think a better question is: How did the median get so much better over 150 years, and why can't it keep getting better? 150 years ago, the average person was illiterate, poorer (in all senses of the word) and less connected to the world around them. Over a 100 year old grind, schooling fixed all that. Why can't it keep going? So the outlier, super special "phenom" today is the median of tomorrow.
> 150 years ago, the average person was illiterate Not true in the case of the US, which famously adopted a culture of universal literacy earlier than the rest of the world. By the mid-19th century, literacy rates among whites were not much different than they are today. It is one of the bright spots of American history; they took literacy very seriously for complicated historical reasons. Their book consumption per…
No offence, but your comment is quite racist.
> literacy rates among whites were not much different than they are today. It is one of the bright spots of American history;
The rates only looked okay if you cut out at least 20% of thr population?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic...
Yeah, it was okay in New England but many states had laws preventing slave education.
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#396Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could literally live next to a school and there’s a chance your kids can’t go there. There are many kids from low income, broken families who are just really bad students. Bullies. Disruptive. Disrespectful to teachers. It was hell going through public schools in SF.
So it's "opt out of being around average people", then?
And what's so bad about it? Mind you, it's not just 'being around', but "being stuck with them for 30% of your life for years in a situation out of your control".
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#397> These tech parents are hackers by nature, and I think they’re convinced that in homeschooling they’ve happened on the ultimate life hack: just opt out of being around average people. It's difficult to feel optimistic about a society that thinks this way, much less has a cultural and economic elite that is seemingly emboldened to think this way. "Average" people are the norm, the reality that "not average" people wi…
> Learning how to co-exist with people who aren't like you is a universally valuable experience, especially for people who would fashion themselves as "not average." If those people have worse habits, are less motivated, less educated, less cultured, what is there to gain from it? Seems like there's only something to lose from adjusting to their shittiness. Like Harrison Bergeron And seeing the state of California tr…
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Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#398Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think a better question is: How did the median get so much better over 150 years, and why can't it keep getting better? 150 years ago, the average person was illiterate, poorer (in all senses of the word) and less connected to the world around them. Over a 100 year old grind, schooling fixed all that. Why can't it keep going? So the outlier, super special "phenom" today is the median of tomorrow.
>Why can't it keep going? Because an educated populace is harder for the ultrarich to control and abuse, because an educated populace with free time can revolt against those in power, and because as a consequence of those two things ultrarich conservatives have consolidated ownership of media and used it to defund education and convince the population that funding education is bad.
>Because an educated populace is harder for the ultrarich to control and abuse,
This is the bottom line; this right here.
We're being led to a second dark age ON PURPOSE.
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#399OK I guess I’m going to go against the deluge of comments here; And give an appreciable reason instead of denigrating those who might choose this. The context, though, I am British. I grew up in Britain. I went to British school. I can’t speak universally about my experience, (even within all of Britain), because it’s my experience which is in one small area of the country. However, school, for me, was by far the sin…
I think you're right to start by saying this isn't universal worldwide, or even within Britain. You describe hell. But I don't believe that your experience is dominant or even that common in the UK. Which generation are you from?
I’m 35 now, so, millennial; for additional context I was brought up in a city called Coventry which is a city that was in decline during that period. (just like most of the north of the UK following Thatcher’s closing of the mines).
As a consequence of this experience, though, I saw that I wasn’t exactly entirely unique either, as there were other children treated as I was and we sought each other out. So I know that while my experience is not universal: that it is at least shared by a handful of people within my schools alone. - I would hazard to guess more outside of my school have these experiences too.
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, one reason is that your assumption that they are all or mostly inferior is wrong.
Suppose you have a kid that you have reason to believe is at the 90th percentile. This isn't uncommon; it's one in ten kids. The average kid at the average school is at the 50th percentile. Moreover, the speed of the class isn't even the speed of the average kid because then the 40th and 20th percentile kids would get left behind. To get out of this you'd need a school with a gifted program and enough 90th percentile…
Which seems to be an argument to move the child to a school with a gifted program rather than homeschool.
Many homes also lack numerous gifted children and specialist programs.