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

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

#501

Post by bandyaboot »

klooney wrote: post #354
bandyaboot wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this literally about states that have poor math achievement, or is it along the lines of some states aren’t teaching math because ? It’s become difficult to tell when a good faith discussion on public education is happening.

California is considering copying San Francisco's ban on teaching Algebra to 8th graders. So maybe more imagined than real, but real for a small number of people.

Interesting, I hadn’t read about that before. Luckily I didn’t have any trouble finding some seemingly balanced background info.

For those interested: https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/san-francisco-insis...

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

#502

Post by SamBam »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #475
SamBam wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This "couldn't there exist..." is doing a lot of work that I don't understand. "Couldn't there exist different laws of gravity for big things like planets and small things like rocks, which explains why I've never seen rocks attracted to each other?" Yes, there could in some alternative universe, but not in this one that we know of, and it's not necessary to explain why you don't notice rocks being attracted to each…

> "Couldn't there exist different laws of gravity for big things like planets and small things like rocks, which explains why I've never seen rocks attracted to each other?" Something very related is a topic that is seriously discussed among physicists: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_Newtonian_dynamics The problem with the existing theories of gravitation which seem to work quite well on the scale of solar…

That's why I deliberately said "planets" vs "small rocks," for which this does not apply.

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

#503

Post by hedora »

sintaxi wrote: post #323
hedora wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article spends a long time on the fact that the “teachers” are not professionals and do not claim to be. Most of the controversy would probably go away if there were accreditation boards for these courses, but there are not. Also, much of the coursework is being offered by unregulated, gray market, for-profit platforms, and if you read HN at all, you already know this will end in enshitification.

What makes you think the free market doesn't regulate?

There is a ton of information asymmetry in education. (The parents don’t sit through the classes, and the kids have no reference points), which means it will devolve into a “market for lemons” in the absent of regulation.

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

#504

Post by gemstones »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #467
watwut wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "your choice to homeschool me harmed me" is point of contention and literally the conflict in some cases.

If your idea of homeschooling is to sequester a child away from all human contact to try and indoctrinate them in some crazy belief, maybe. Plenty of homeschooled kids have homeschool play groups, athletics lessons and other non-compulsory classes which they're free to leave at any time if they don't like their peer group.

I heard this “but we have homeschool play groups! It’s different!” in the 2000s from every single one of the parents for whom homeschool was a disaster. It’s funny hearing it fresh here.

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

#505

Post by Spooky23 »

whatshisface wrote: post #390
whynotminot wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point is that there’s no reasonable - folks doing this have deeply expressed beliefs and if you disagree you’re evil. They only sound reasonable when speaking in general terms. This is such good point about why this conversation is so frustrating. Because in the abstract, if good faith could be assumed, there's a discussion to be had here. GP responded to me here being like "well what if they were Russian or Ch…

I will give you a concrete example if you want one. By focusing exclusively on the "great people" of the civil rights movement, the education most kids in the US are getting does not mention the roles in future movements which they are most likely to play. You get an "it's MLK and a handful of main characters, and thousands of extras in the crowd scenes" message from every textbook I've ever seen. No mention of the f…

That’s definitely a downside of K-12 education.

I always found it depressing that you learned the survey level of US History a half dozen times, each time noticing the inconvenient details filtered out. My favorite whipping boy for this is the Pilgrims, who transition from guys with funny hats who liked turkey and wrapped dead fish around corn to… something else.

One thing to keep in mind is that you don’t know what people actually know, and if they’ve been lured into nostalgia for some wonderful past that doesn’t exist, they get angry. The 1619 project controversy was a great example of that. The notion that people managed their human property like property and that people who escaped that system intermarried with runaway or released indentured servants is a “duh” concept.

All of this underscores why education is important, and why academic freedom is a critical component of it.

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

#506

Post by ethbr1 »

Aeolun wrote: post #376
silverpepsi wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something I heard a few years back put my life experience as a kid in perspective. At least for me, in the most important way possible, it doesn't sound like regular school at all. The main deep life impacting characteristic of standard public schools is coerced unwelcome company. You're forced by law to be around the same bullies for 5, 10, even 12 years. The natural order with organic friendships (and indeed probab…

That just sounds like your schools suck. While I was _forced_ to be around the bullies. I was at the same time _forced_ to be around my friends.

And I think most importantly, forced to make friends. An invaluable life skill.

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

#507

Post by gemstones »

bequanna wrote: post #473
gemstones wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the exact same also homeschooled. It’s also interesting being in this thread with homeschooling parents - I remember hearing about how “homeschool groups provide the same level of socialization” back then, and it wasn’t any more true then than it is today. Schooled kids get 8 hours a day with peers and you get 1 if you’re lucky. Not the same.

> Schooled kids get 8 hours a day with peers As a parent, I have no say over who these “peers” are, how they treat my child, or what BS they try to push on them. As someone who was surrounded by some pretty bad kids during High School I am very comfortable with my children not getting that experience.

    As someone who was surrounded by some pretty bad kids during High School I am very comfortable with my children not getting that experience.
Hey, that’s what all the other homeschool moms whose children don’t speak to them say too!

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

#508

Post by CuriouslyC »

andrepd wrote: post #498
CuriouslyC wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because you can point to cases of homeschooling that's 10x worse than the average public school doesn't mean there aren't homeschooling environments that aren't much better, and public school environments that aren't MUCH MUCH worse.

What a fundamental misunderstanding of statistics. Were you homeschooled? /s

If you think you made a meaningful statistical statement, your fundamental misunderstanding of language is a strike against any public school that graduated you.

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

#509

Post by nickthegreek »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #463
gemstones wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do the tears eventually end without permanently destroying the child/parent relationship? If so, you might actually be describing something better!

The tears eventually end with your child bringing a weapon to school or going hulk and slamming another kid's head on concrete like that viral meme you probably can remember, then getting suspended, getting put in Juvi, and having their life fucked up even worse.

Statistically? No they do not.

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

#510

Post by CuriouslyC »

gemstones wrote: post #504
CuriouslyC wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your idea of homeschooling is to sequester a child away from all human contact to try and indoctrinate them in some crazy belief, maybe. Plenty of homeschooled kids have homeschool play groups, athletics lessons and other non-compulsory classes which they're free to leave at any time if they don't like their peer group.

I heard this “but we have homeschool play groups! It’s different!” in the 2000s from every single one of the parents for whom homeschool was a disaster. It’s funny hearing it fresh here.

I suspect this has more to do with your social circle, which given the density of homeschoolers is probably either hyper-religious, doomsday preppers or some other dysfunctional subculture, and I'm not surprised those children would grow up to hate their parents.

To be fair though, I'd imagine an hour or two a week of socialization is still quite insufficient. On the flip side, 10+ hours a day of socialization is unquestionably unnecessary, and forcing your kids to become conformists or get beat up/bullied/etc (which is the reality in public schools unless you live in a really rich neighborhood) in order to get a little more socialization time isn't a good tradeoff. There are a lot of non-school activities children can engage in to get peer socialization where the type of bullshit that occurs in public school doesn't fly, due to the adults that run those activities losing customers and having their livelihood threatened if they let kids be little cunts, unlike public schools.

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