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Outschooling

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Re: Outschooling

#51

Post by carlob »

surge wrote: post #48
carlob wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure your kids are great, as you are probably well educated and wealthier than the average. Have you ever asked yourself what is the effect of removing your kids for public schools on the less fortunate? Let me put it another way: most children who have some medical doctor in their extended family don't really need to be visited regularly by a pediatrician. That doesn't really imply that most people who refuse to…

The less fortunate are the ones bullying other children, holding back the curriculum so that no child is left behind, putting someone else's child in harms way because of some undefined benefit to other's with worse parents isn't a fix. Fix the socio economic problems first so those kids have better parents. Don't put my kid in with them thinking its going to socialize other kids better rather than what normally happ…

Except that most of the research that has been done on this subject shows exactly the opposite: social mixing in schools has a great positive effect on the less fortunate and almost negligible effect on the more fortunate (we're talking here about a situation where the composition of a class reflects that of society as a whole, not some extreme example like throwing a wealthy kid in a inner city class).

Also societies that have good public schools (that are universally attended) like Finland, tend to have much less socioeconomic inequality in the following generations. That is: school is the solution to social inequality, not viceversa.

Re: Outschooling

#52

Post by surge »

carlob wrote: post #49
camelNotation wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> School is far too important as a social mixer and a way to educate well-rounded citizens to leave it to the whims of parents. Literally zero evidence for this. On average, kids that are homeschooled walk away with higher levels achievement and fewer psychological issues than their traditionally schooled peers. They integrate just fine into society. > I also strongly believe that parents whose beliefs prevent their…

> Literally zero evidence for this. On average, kids that are homeschooled walk away with higher levels achievement and fewer psychological issues than their traditionally schooled peers. They integrate just fine into society. There is plenty of evidence of the contrary though, that kids born in families with low income and educational achievement do much much better when they are in a socially diverse school as oppo…

> There is plenty of evidence of the contrary though, that kids born in families with low income and educational achievement do much much better when they are in a socially diverse school as opposed to a ghetto. Sure maybe homeschooled kids are slightly better off, but that comes at a huge cost for all the kids who have a single parent who works three jobs that will never be able to afford to homeschool them.

I was that kid, and putting other well off kids in my school did nothing to fix those issues. You're running on a theory with no evidence. Putting kids in a school just brings the kid down to the lowest common denominator, it doesn't have the opposite effect. High performing kids are likely to be picked on, even minority kids will get called out for "acting ". It's works like cancer, not like vitamins. The negativity of the kids from horrible homes effects everyone, the positivity gets squashed by the system and social ostracization.

>If you don't like the distinction between secular and religious, you can take any other strong belief. What if my parents are flat earthers? What if they are holocaust deniers? What if they hold some very strong political opinion? Or even what if they are some staunch atheists? They will just create a bubble around their kids.

What if schools teach other misconceptions that get corrected in college. Like brontosauruses are a thing, or T-Rex's hunt prey. That the founding father's are practical holy figures and did no wrong. What if its a religious school district and they're the ones skirting past evolution, teaching bad concepts and you want to homeschool to correct it. What if you teach the kids secular stuff and the kid gets the politics and beliefs at home anyway and believes it because that's what their parents believe and have more influence over the values and beliefs that kid carries into life than a teacher ever can. You're running on a lot of assumptions that doesn't negate that fact that public schools largely suck, and even a half hearted attempt at home schooling has kids performing on average better than public schools because they suck so very much.

Re: Outschooling

#53

Post by camelNotation »

carlob wrote: post #49
camelNotation wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> School is far too important as a social mixer and a way to educate well-rounded citizens to leave it to the whims of parents. Literally zero evidence for this. On average, kids that are homeschooled walk away with higher levels achievement and fewer psychological issues than their traditionally schooled peers. They integrate just fine into society. > I also strongly believe that parents whose beliefs prevent their…

> Literally zero evidence for this. On average, kids that are homeschooled walk away with higher levels achievement and fewer psychological issues than their traditionally schooled peers. They integrate just fine into society. There is plenty of evidence of the contrary though, that kids born in families with low income and educational achievement do much much better when they are in a socially diverse school as oppo…

> Sure maybe homeschooled kids are slightly better off, but that comes at a huge cost for all the kids who have a single parent who works three jobs that will never be able to afford to homeschool them.

You are proposing to offset economic inequality by degrading the education of the privileged. Your goal should be improve the education of the disadvantaged instead. Raise all boats, don't drain the lake. It's obvious that the United States could spend much more on education and do a much better job with the schools they have. Pinning any significant portion of the "huge cost" of the current system on middle class homeschoolers seems like sophistry intended to avoid the abuses of the hyper-capitalist, atomized system and ignores the actual problem.

> Every day hundreds of thousands of parents "break down" and government takes over for them. Government breaking down is a much rarer event.

This doesn't address the issue at hand. If a parent breaks down and the government steps in, that isn't incompatible with permitting homeschooling in non-abusive contexts.

> If you don't like the distinction between secular and religious, you can take any other strong belief. What if my parents are flat earthers? What if they are holocaust deniers? What if they hold some very strong political opinion? Or even what if they are some staunch atheists? They will just create a bubble around their kids.

If your parents are extremists of any sort, you're not going to mitigate their toxic influence or prevent them from harming a child by eliminating homeschooling. Most bad parents still send their kids to public school. Public school is not a remedy for abuse.

Re: Outschooling

#54

Post by [deleted] »

somethoughts wrote: post #26

The one I would be interested in would be "home-after-schooling". I would love to have more resources to help support K-8 students learn how to do original research for science fairs, MOOCs for non-math subjects and programming. Basically Khan Academy type courses that can enable teaching economics, literature, philosophy to a 12 year old. The interesting non-math stuff for Khan Academy doesn't start until 9-12th gra…

[deleted]

Re: Outschooling

#55

Post by hawkesnest »

carlob wrote: post #45
hawkesnest wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My children receive a secular homeschool education. They score well on standardized tests, interact well with their peers in extracurricular activities, and have healthy and meaningful relationships with other children and adults in their lives. I recognize that there are some in the homeschool "community" who are ruining their children (imho). For the sake of freedom, I accept that there are terrible people in the w…

I'm sure your kids are great, as you are probably well educated and wealthier than the average. Have you ever asked yourself what is the effect of removing your kids for public schools on the less fortunate? Let me put it another way: most children who have some medical doctor in their extended family don't really need to be visited regularly by a pediatrician. That doesn't really imply that most people who refuse to…

But if the kids have a doctor in the family...they're being examined by a medical doctor. The idiots that don't take their kids to the doctor...are idiots.

Let's NOT institute forced doctor visitations (with all the cost, overhead, bureaucracy, potential for fraud, etc) for all parents, EVEN THE EXEMPLARY ONES, to deal with that problem.

Instead, let's figure out if there are better ways to ensure that parents have the ability/means/understanding necessary to get their kids to checkups.

Re: Outschooling

#56

Post by up_and_up »

ced wrote: post #46
up_and_up wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! Yeah we feel lucky to have local groups and resources to make this happen. Granted we have also worked hard to get there!

Where are you from? If you mind sharing, could you tell us at least country, and urban/suburban/rural?

USA, MI, peri-urban

Re: Outschooling

#57

Post by carlob »

surge wrote: post #52
carlob wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Literally zero evidence for this. On average, kids that are homeschooled walk away with higher levels achievement and fewer psychological issues than their traditionally schooled peers. They integrate just fine into society. There is plenty of evidence of the contrary though, that kids born in families with low income and educational achievement do much much better when they are in a socially diverse school as oppo…

> There is plenty of evidence of the contrary though, that kids born in families with low income and educational achievement do much much better when they are in a socially diverse school as opposed to a ghetto. Sure maybe homeschooled kids are slightly better off, but that comes at a huge cost for all the kids who have a single parent who works three jobs that will never be able to afford to homeschool them. I was t…

> I was that kid

anecdata

> You're running on a theory with no evidence

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/apr/19/increa...

Here an article reporting on a study by the OECD, but I'm sure you'll be able to find more scholarly sources if you just took the time to research it.

The truth is homeschooling is almost exclusively an American (maybe I should say anglophone) phenomenon, in most of Western Europe homeschooling is just illegal or allowed in extreme cases and under very high scrutiny from the public school system, because data has shown that it does more harm than good.

Re: Outschooling

#58

Post by notacoward »

camelNotation wrote: post #47
notacoward wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Professional educators really only need the training and certification because they are dealing with students at scale. Untrue. Any teacher must be familiar with both the subject matter and basic pedagogy, regardless of whether they're teaching one student or many. Yes, there are additional skills necessary when teaching a larger class, but I think you drastically exaggerate how much of a teacher's job that is.

> Any teacher must be familiar with both the subject matter and basic pedagogy, regardless of whether they're teaching one student or many I think you are imagining a homeschool from the 1980s. My kids learn many aspects of the subject matter from sources like Khan Academy and Outschooling. The idea that the teacher needs to know the subject matter deeply in order to manage the child's education is obsolete.

> Khan Academy and Outschooling

If those allow you to outsource the entirety of your child's education, including personalization of the curriculum to individual needs, answering arbitrarily-deep questions about the subject matter, etc. then great, but I'm not sure I'd call that home schooling. That would be more like a (virtual) private school, with the same level of parental involvement. If you want to be more involved you need more training, simple as that, and the fact is that a lot of home-school parents don't even have an average education themselves.

Also remember, you're not the sample. You claim to have some expertise in data science. What do the data suggest, for a typical home-schooler and not just for you or the non-random sample of others in your neighborhood.

Re: Outschooling

#59

Post by surge »

notacoward wrote: post #41
camelNotation wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Professional educators really only need the training and certification because they are dealing with students at scale. One on one teaching is not remotely the same as teaching in a classroom setting where you have to adapt to multiple learning styles and multiple achievement levels all while using standardized assessment techniques, detailed lesson planning, and classroom management skills. The vast majority of what…

> Professional educators really only need the training and certification because they are dealing with students at scale. Untrue. Any teacher must be familiar with both the subject matter and basic pedagogy, regardless of whether they're teaching one student or many. Yes, there are additional skills necessary when teaching a larger class, but I think you drastically exaggerate how much of a teacher's job that is.

The Pedogogy doesn't matter as much as you think it does, because you learn it from your kid what works pretty fast. Most of the pedogogy is crap and outdated and you have to choose one and stick with it for the class where with homeschooling you can try many different teaching methods without having to get approval from the school board, and even then you have the pick the one that works for most students but leaves out others.

People put a lot of stock in the intelligence of teachers, but consider it this way, most teachers choose a career that requires a 4 year degree plus certification that won't make enough to live comfortably or earn them over what a standard retail job makes much less pay their loans, this is something they think long and hard on (which is probably not much more than "I really like working with children") and make their decision on. It attracts the kind of people who think that's a good idea. Anyone more intelligent that wants to teach runs the numbers and decides against it except in rare cases. Any pedogogy those kinds of people learn isn't that advanced and can be picked up by most by reading a book on it over a month. These "professional" educators isn't exactly an advanced profession like that of a medical professional or a scientist, most of those people would struggle or fail out of such programs. The alternatives for most teachers is a communications degree, or sports/massage therapy. Altruism doesn't equate to being good at something, the proof is in the quality of education offered today.

Edit: They don't deserve contempt, but I'm saying if you increased teacher's salaries, the competition would be such the people that go for it now would simply unable to compete with the sudden competition based the altruistic motives plus pay. Altrustism only motivates you so much, doesn't last long when you're over worked and under paid and dealing with 30+ class sizes. Pedogogy be damned, you'd get people who would be able to actually teach kids on an individual level and demand more from administrators or have the conviction to walk out and move on to something else if they didn't.

Re: Outschooling

#60

Post by notacoward »

surge wrote: post #59
notacoward wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Professional educators really only need the training and certification because they are dealing with students at scale. Untrue. Any teacher must be familiar with both the subject matter and basic pedagogy, regardless of whether they're teaching one student or many. Yes, there are additional skills necessary when teaching a larger class, but I think you drastically exaggerate how much of a teacher's job that is.

The Pedogogy doesn't matter as much as you think it does, because you learn it from your kid what works pretty fast. Most of the pedogogy is crap and outdated and you have to choose one and stick with it for the class where with homeschooling you can try many different teaching methods without having to get approval from the school board, and even then you have the pick the one that works for most students but leaves…

> most teachers choose a career that requires a 4 year degree plus certification that won't make enough to live comfortably or earn them over what a standard retail job makes

Yeah, I know, it's not a "rational" choice by Randian standards. To some, that means they deserve contempt. To me, it suggests that they have other motivations that might deserve some respect.

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