Home schooling seems so harmful to socialization and such a vehicle for teaching ridiculous nonsense (or just not really teaching much of anything at all) that I think the countries that make it illegal have the right idea. It's even more egregious that some states are, apparently, actually throwing money at completely unregulated "micro-schools" where you are taught by someone with no qualifications whatsoever.
For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching
441–450 of 597 posts
Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching
#442I was told thought public school was invented, not to instruct, not to educate but to emancipate kids. Giving them a chance to see the world from a different perspective from their family. One might call it endoctrinement, yes, but if you are confronted to two concurrent belief systems, you are more likely to see them for what they are.
No argument there!
https://www.mrctv.org/blog/not-single-student-proficient-mat...
Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching
#443Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If a kid is a bully then the parents organizing the group can kick that kid out Or they can approve of the bullying. Or they can do nothing because they don’t care, or because they’re socially subservient to the bully’s parents. It’s simpler to handle personal problems in a small group, it’s also easier for them to fester in a closed group.
It’s not a closed group. You can pull your kid out and put them in a different group. It’s not like public school where your kid is forced to go to the one school in your catchment area. The parents also have the option of reorganizing the group to kick the bully’s parents out, along with the bully.
Private schools achieve that and have more ability to do so than homeschooling teacher as a service does.
This model isn't new and had problems before.
Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching
#444Earlier 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…
It's less rare than you might think, here are some statistics from US insurance claims, which is a lower bound as the wealthier may choose to pay privately:
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-tran...
Note this includes surgery on girls as young as 13 years old, to remove their breasts.
Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching
#445Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching
#446Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a homeschooled kid: Be warned that I heard “homeschooling has changed since we were in school” in the early 2000s, from multiple parents who are now estranged from their adult children. It hasn’t really changed that much - it’s just something parents like to tell themselves to avoid thinking about the experiences their children are missing.
Can’t both statements be true? If I had to guess, most of the original homeschoolers did it because they had strong, fringe religious beliefs. Then in your generations more secular parents started homeschooling but it was still a pretty highly self-selective group (a stay at home parent who didn’t mind staying at home most of the day teaching their kids, a belief they could do better at educating their kids even with…
Tbh I still associate homeschooling with conservative christianity. They have a much stronger incentive to homeschool than others by a large margin.
Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching
#447Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The sorts of harrassment that school bullies inflict on their victims is, to put it simply, not tolerated anywhere else. Workplace bullying is fairly common too, it just follows the corporate hierarchy.
If my co-worker gave me a wedgie or beat me up during our lunch break I would have them arrested.
Seems like a rather puerile form of bullying, no? With adults it looks much different. Mockery in front of peers, openly manipulative behavior, talking shit behind peoples' backs, etc etc
Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching
#448Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is laughably naïve. Plenty of parents think their little angel can do no wrong and will at best ignore evidence to the contrary.
While I do agree with you here, I do think the OP has a point. Homeschool parents are _involved_. Its a small, close community. Word gets around.
Small, close communities are communities where the bonds between each participant is much stronger, making it costlier - both in terms of immediately broken relationships, and of backlash from the rest of the group - for people to sever it.
Word gets around, but not necessarily from the right people, and - if bad outcomes are not guaranteed - there is nevertheless a strong incentive for it to fall on deaf ears, stronger than it would be in a less tight-knit community.
Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching
#449I think what a lot of people are missing about school alternatives is that, while public school has a lot of failings (I had a pretty miserable religious and public school experience myself), it's pretty clear that none of the proposed alternatives work at scale. Charter schools aren't equipped for 1/4 of their kids to be totally impoverished. Micro schools aren't equipped for kids with wheelchairs, or the 20% of kids who learn reading in a totally weird way, etc.
Selection benefits these organizations tremendously (i.e. you can say "there's no ramp into my house, I'm sorry your kid in a wheelchair can't attend), but that clearly doesn't scale and worse, it leaves out all kinds of kids. It also deprives the attending kids of diversity.
It probably also dooms kids whose parents think benefit from this system to a substandard education. There's a quote in TFA from the proprietor of a micro school that's something like "[a child] wants to learn about the US and the constitution; who am I to tell her she has to learn about ancient Egypt?" Well don't ask me, ask Library for Kids [0] (TL;DR their phonetic alphabet prompted Greece to make their own, and the works written in Greek are the basis for western civilization).
The Netherlands established childrens' right to an education, which means that no matter what their parents think or believe, children will be educated in a way largely determined by professionals, but also subject to the democratic process. Why is this important? Because there are a lot of nuts parents out there who want their kids to learn pretty weird stuff, and in the aggregate that weirds society literally for generations, and at the individual can abuse kids in truly horrible ways (think about young girls born into cults).
I get that public school is lord of the flies and fails lots of kids, but this stuff isn't the answer. Education is massive and hard. We're not gonna fix it by subsidizing amateurs.
[0]: https://libraryforkids.com/why-do-we-care-about-ancient-egyp...
Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching
#450Earlier quoted context omitted.
Explain this more to me. Presumably something so insidious you need to remove your child from even the possibility of being exposed to it. Perhaps, the existence of gay people?
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…
Would you please explain the math example? I was in school until last year (Germany tho) but I don't get it (the 4chan argument about percentages and races?)