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Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

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Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#402

Earlier 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.

Over a 100 year old grind, schooling fixed all that. Why can't it keep going? Schooling didn’t fix all that. There have been major advances throughout society in every area: medicine, nutrition, sanitation, manufacturing, electricity, refrigeration, printing, computing, telecommunications… the list goes on and on and on. Some of these things contributed major improvements to the average person. Advances in medicine a…

> There have been major advances throughout society in every area: medicine, nutrition, sanitation, manufacturing, electricity, refrigeration, printing, computing, telecommunications…

You might say that's also a success of the schooling (and higher education) system - unless the people who produced these advances were all home schooled, which I somehow doubt...

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#403
post #389

OK 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…

> forced internment for children

Where I live (U.S.), new schools are literally built like prisons... each wing is laid out from a central "observation area" for the administrators. It's just a panopticon design modeled after penitentiaries.

I was with my family in our new local high school. My dad and I were the only two who noticed the layout.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#404

> 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…

[deleted]

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#405
post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's only recently that the average people have had the chance to become elites, rather than be born into it. It still mostly depends on being born into it. In the US your odds of going from impoverished to wealthy are extremely slim and socioeconomic mobility is among the worst compared to other developed countries. The US falls behind South Korea, Lithuania, Estonia, Singapore, Malta, and Slovenia, while the Nord…

I know an extended family of third world impoverished immigrants who became middle class by basically all going to nursing school. It is almost a joke that all Filipinos become nurses, it's almost fool proof way to have at least a car, shitty apartment and decent food to eat. It's worth looking into for anyone who is stuck, none of it is particularly difficult to learn although it is hard work.

some days i get sad and then i log into HN to read about their take on eugenics and history and that cheers me up

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to reflect a lot of what I hear about as well. Everything is too entrenched from a decision making standpoint for any one person to make a difference in reforms. A free market fixes anything where people have the ability to "vote with their wallet" and simply stop paying for services which aren't meeting expectations when they find another that does. Things like employer sponsored health insurance are insu…

Even if there were more ways to "vote with your wallet" is abundantly clear that a lot of parents, respectively, (a) couldn't care less anyway, and (b) can't actually tell a good charter or voucher school from a bad one. When the purpose of schooling is ensuring a civic floor amongst citizens the effectiveness of things like the home school co-ops mentioned can't come at the expense of population at large unless we w…

You need to contrast suggested ideas to the current systems, not an idealized standard that the current system is nowhere near achieving.

For instance NAEP scores consistently demonstrate only about 25% of students achieve "basic" proficiency in math, reading is even worse. Its going to be difficult to do worse.

And I mean that very literally - some percent of people would become competent in e.g. basic math with 0 public education due to family or personal interests. I can't imagine it's "that" far from 25%.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#407
post #351

I 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.

They're talking about the division between Gymnasium, Realschule, and Hauptschule. It's actually state to state nowadays whether they have separate schools or Gesamtschulen, but I understand even in Gesamtschulen, in many Bundesländer there's some internal separation.

Where are you in DE, that this is unknown to you? In Köln just 15 years ago I knew parents who had the horror scenario: a 4th grade teacher who quietly believed that girls shouldn't go to university. They switched their daughter schools that year.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#408

> 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…

Thoroughly disagree, and I can draw on my experience of meeting average people to know that it wasn’t a universally valuable experience and I much prefer spending time around people that are more like myself. Perhaps that is what you meant by the valuable experience, to be disabused of my illusion that meeting average people was a good idea. Having learned that lesson I shouldn’t have to repeat it. Also, I don’t have…

people pretend to be this welcoming learned creatures but in reality it's still referral by people, who you know, like working with people that look like us etc

no better place to see that than in tech and HN

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#409

> 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…

Exposure to Diverse Perspectives: Diverse classrooms can expose students to different viewpoints, problem-solving approaches, and ways of thinking. 1 This can broaden their understanding and enhance their critical thinking skills. 2 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262420245_Effects_o... Gurin (1999,college is significantly linked to

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#410
post #393
post #389

OK 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 34, grew up in London, went to state primary school and private secondary school. dijit's account of schooling ressonates strongly with me.
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