481–490 of 878 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the religious institution does a better job at roughly the same cost-point then it's probably not the money that is making the difference.
No, it’s the selection process of parents and children.
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…
> I worry this move to homeschooling and micromanaging children's social lives just creates bubbles and makes children incapable of interacting with those outside of them. The older I get, the more I think that helping your kids avoid interactions with others who aren't with the program is for the best. Ideally your children's friends should be people that you think are good kids, kids that you would go to bat for. T…
I wouldn't fault someone for wanting to situate their kids among peers and adults that help them grow at a similar level rather than hinder it, but I think it's also best to be a guiding hand rather than a applicant tracking system when it comes to the non-academic side
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can not conceive of a worse way to teach a kid how to behave in Adult social settings than to throw them into a group of other kids who have just as little experience as they do and then expect the group to "figure it out". This is not to say that there aren't some homeschooling parents who practice a form of extreme isolation which produces what I would regard as an equally bad outcome as public school. But by the…
> I can not conceive of a worse way to teach a kid how to behave in Adult social settings than to throw them into a group of other kids who have just as little experience as they do and then expect the group to "figure it out". You are aware of teachers, yes? > Probably because well run homeschooling groups tend to have high parental involvement Everything I've read shows that putting absolutely all else aside, paren…
I went to college with a few homeschooled kids. They were by far the least capable of "normal" social interaction. Some were quite book smart, but they had trouble communicating with others, so they couldn't demonstrate it. Also a fun side effect, they mispronounced a lot of words that they had only ever seen in books but never heard out loud. One of them was self-aware enough to ask us to correct him.
I did that as a kid. Still do. I read more than I talk. Nothing wrong with that.
The flip side would be people who misspell words or get phrases wrong because they've never seen them in books, they've only heard them out loud. They talk more than they read. Nothing wrong with that.
Although both of those might be a clue as to what type of vocations would make someone happy.
Asking as an non-US person: Is there mandatory education for children in the US? I guess homeschooling fits well with extreme individualistic American culture, no surprises there.
Education in the US is a complicated subject given the "extreme individualistic American culture" as you say. That will be present in the teachers and school districts, and the lesson plans can/will differ greatly between teachers and school districts for getting students to the general standard.
The biggest misunderstanding I hear year-over-year is 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? Parents of healthy children should give 0 s*ts of societal/political pressure against…
I’d pull our child out of school if the standards dropped but I think the majority of homeschoolers align with out of the mainstream poltical / religious views.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think your reading is very black and white. Add some leeway to what I say. Hand-picked obviously doesn't mean all friends go through a psych screening on a daily basis, or that you have to helicopter-parent and tell your kids who to be friends with...
> or you have to helicopter-parent and tell your kids who to be friends with... Isn't that essentially what you're describing, though? You literally talked about "healthy communities, hand-picked by parents to keep away problem children". No, you don't have to tell them who to be friends with... but you've pre-selected the pool of potential friends, so there's no instruction necessary.
Do not be deceived, bad company corrupts good morals.The most popular argument against homeschooling appears to be "the world sucks, so we should make kids worlds suck so they're prepared for it", which is absolutely an abusive way to think and those who use this argument need to sit and think about what it means, then be ashamed.
No one should be ashamed for teaching their kids to exist in a world that isn't always as loving as we all wish it was.
Happy to share more anecdotes if people have questions.
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…