Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 597 posts

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#51

Post by BeetleB »

ryandrake wrote: post #38
homeskool111 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This being HN, a site full of mostly successful folks, we are likely to only hear the anecdotal success stories of homeschooling posted here, and not the failure stories. For every gushing "I was homeschooled and I now run my own $50M company!" story, how many are not getting posted that amount to "I was homeschooled and the only book I read was the bible. I don't know 4th grade math, am unemployable and trapped as s…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling#Research

There is some good research, but be wary. A lot of the research is done by pro-homeschooling institutions.

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#52

Post by BeetleB »

mikhmha wrote: post #50
zarzavat wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think we should do the same with adults? Many of these arguments are also used by proponents of military service. The funny thing about school is that almost no adults would be willing to be subjected to it. Confined to a building every day for the best years of your life, required to study what the government decides should fill your head, and a persistent risk of being beaten up. Delightful. Ultimately the m…

>Do you think we should do the same with adults? Many of these arguments are also used by proponents of military service. I'm well aware. There is an irony to the arguments I make, because I also detest the idea of forced erasure of identity. Military service? No. I would be in favor of some 1-yr mandatory civil service. I believe its important to interact with all classes of the society you inhabit. How else can you…

> How else can you gain true perspective if you only live in a bubble? Life is about being uncomfortable.

95% of the country has to deal with being uncomfortable, without any mandatory civil service. What privileged background do you come from where you do not realize this?

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#53

Post by mikhmha »

sfRattan wrote: post #44
mikhmha wrote: post #17

Why are people in the US so against public schools? I am someone who did not really enjoy “school” and found it anxiety inducing but I still see the benefits of it. In public school you are forced to mingle with the people of your generation. The ones who will inevitably go on to run the country in whatever big or small way. The objective of public school is to break down the regional identities of old and assimilate…

> The objective of public school is to break down the regional identities of old and assimilate the youth into the “new” national identity. Having read a bit of history about how many modern national identities were constructed over the last three centuries, that's a disturbing sentence to see written so casually. Phrases like 'breaking down regional identities' and 'assimilating the youth into the "new" national ide…

I say it so casually because I also find it disturbing. Don't worry, we share similar views.

And yet, I went through public schooling, learned the "national" identity but I still retained my own unique identity and cultural practices taught at home by parents. And in the process, I forged a new identity, much like the settlers who immigrated to this country before me.

Is it because my parents did not embed the great insecurity into me? To reject everything taught from the onset because it may lead me astray? They did nothing like that. They told me to attend school, make friends, and learn new things. I learned both the good and the bad of the dominant society I lived in, simply by observing it for myself. And I became familiar with the archetypes of the elites and the poor.

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#54

Post by jkestner »

The reason we moved our kids from Montessori to public school is to throw our lot in with the majority of society. It’s made me active in the PTA and school library because up close it’s hard to ignore the challenges staff deal with, and with skin in the game, I don’t have the time to wait for someone else to do it.

Hopefully the work we put into the shared system raises the tide for all families, so my children grow up within a healthier community. (It already feels great working with other parents on it.) I recognize that it may not be academically ideal for my own kids, but studies (no time to cite) have noted that socioeconomic status is a top indicator of academic success. They’ll be fine.

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#55

Post by rolisz »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #39
jimmytucson wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much time does homeschooling take for you? Does it roughly equate to one full-time job? I have wanted to homeschool my kids but I am afraid I would have to quit my job or downshift to part-time. And since they are different ages, I worry that if I taught them all at the same time, the curriculum would average into something too challenging for the younger and not challenging enough for the elder. How do you manag…

Motivated children can easily outpace public-schooled children with 3 or 4 days a week at 3 hours a day. They can be very self-directed, but the trouble with it is they go down rabbit holes and they'll excel at one or two subjects to the detriment of others. My daughter would want to spend 6-10 hours a day on art, but wouldn't want to do her French or math homework. My son just told me that alef (in the Hebrew alphab…

> If there is a subject where that is the case, I do not know what it would be. Once they're past the age of 7 or 8, most or all children are capable of what they would be at older ages. I don't think, for instance, that an 8 yr old learning to read is slower at it than one learning that for the first time at age 14.

From personal experience: I first encountered differential equations in highschool, while preparing for physics Olympiad. I could solve basic equations, but I didn't understand what I was doing and for example the damped oscillator equation was mistifying. Fast forward to university, in the first diffential equation class, everything made perfect sense and I found it super easy. There was probably at least two years between the two stories.

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#56

Post by tomp »

rolisz wrote: post #55
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Motivated children can easily outpace public-schooled children with 3 or 4 days a week at 3 hours a day. They can be very self-directed, but the trouble with it is they go down rabbit holes and they'll excel at one or two subjects to the detriment of others. My daughter would want to spend 6-10 hours a day on art, but wouldn't want to do her French or math homework. My son just told me that alef (in the Hebrew alphab…

> If there is a subject where that is the case, I do not know what it would be. Once they're past the age of 7 or 8, most or all children are capable of what they would be at older ages. I don't think, for instance, that an 8 yr old learning to read is slower at it than one learning that for the first time at age 14. From personal experience: I first encountered differential equations in highschool, while preparing f…

It was the same for me with stochastic processes.

Most likely has nothing to do with age, but simply the fact that it was the second time you’ve encountered it. Your brain spent 2 years subconsciously processing it.

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#57

Post by sfRattan »

mikhmha wrote: post #53
sfRattan wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The objective of public school is to break down the regional identities of old and assimilate the youth into the “new” national identity. Having read a bit of history about how many modern national identities were constructed over the last three centuries, that's a disturbing sentence to see written so casually. Phrases like 'breaking down regional identities' and 'assimilating the youth into the "new" national ide…

I say it so casually because I also find it disturbing. Don't worry, we share similar views. And yet, I went through public schooling, learned the "national" identity but I still retained my own unique identity and cultural practices taught at home by parents. And in the process, I forged a new identity, much like the settlers who immigrated to this country before me. Is it because my parents did not embed the great…

> Why are people in the US so against public schools?

> Don't worry, we share similar views.

No, we clearly do not. If you held similar views to mine, you would not have posed the question, nor followed it with a false dilemma between breaking down regional identities and, "everything sucks. And there is no cohesion between peoples."

> And yet, I went through public schooling, learned the "national" identity but I still retained my own unique identity and cultural practices taught at home by parents.

To the extent that an American national identity exists, it is rooted in shared ideals and beliefs. Those ideals predate the system of public schooling devised by Prussian officer-aristocrats in the mid nineteenth century. Our ideals have certainly taken a beating under that system. Hopefully, they will also postdate it.

Given that you believe you learned the American national identity in a public school, I do wonder a bit about how well you understand that identity. Especially in light of your initial question, which implies a lack of understanding of why Americans might oppose a major institution.

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#58

Post by tomp »

zerbinxx wrote: post #12
jawns wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That argument held sway with me for a long time, but not anymore. Our kids get a decent amount of socialization through all the activities they're involved in, and when other kids find out they're homeschooled, their response is more often genuine surprise rather than "Oh, that figures." The idea that kids learn social skills best by being thrown into a rigid, institutional environment surrounded by hundreds of other…

One good thing about the rigid institutional environment, for better or worse, is that having exposure to that rigidity and institutional side of things can at least give kids some skills in the long run for navigating the anti-human organizations that form so much of our public and private sectors.

Almost all other societal structures are way less rigid and tyrannical.

Name another institution where inmates have to ask for permission to go to the toilet, besides school and jail.

Edit: or another institution where people can attack you and you can’t call police to help you.

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#59

Post by throw9away6 »

zerbinxx wrote: post #12
jawns wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That argument held sway with me for a long time, but not anymore. Our kids get a decent amount of socialization through all the activities they're involved in, and when other kids find out they're homeschooled, their response is more often genuine surprise rather than "Oh, that figures." The idea that kids learn social skills best by being thrown into a rigid, institutional environment surrounded by hundreds of other…

One good thing about the rigid institutional environment, for better or worse, is that having exposure to that rigidity and institutional side of things can at least give kids some skills in the long run for navigating the anti-human organizations that form so much of our public and private sectors.

I think that’s the primary benefit of the school system

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#60

Post by acka »

tomp wrote: post #58
zerbinxx wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One good thing about the rigid institutional environment, for better or worse, is that having exposure to that rigidity and institutional side of things can at least give kids some skills in the long run for navigating the anti-human organizations that form so much of our public and private sectors.

Almost all other societal structures are way less rigid and tyrannical. Name another institution where inmates have to ask for permission to go to the toilet, besides school and jail . Edit: or another institution where people can attack you and you can’t call police to help you.

> Name another institution where inmates have to ask for permission to go to the toilet, besides school and jail.

Busy call centers, fast food restaurants. Factories: assembly line workers. Chemical plants: process operators.

I don't mean to be snarky but I think you would be surprised at the percentage of the population working jobs where they cannot simply leave their station without permission.

> Edit: or another institution where people can attack you and you can’t call police to help you.

The military: active duty personnel deployed to war zones.

Post reply on HN