Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Please try to be civil. I mentioned phonics, do you agree with what I said on it or not?
Reintroduction of phonics has been pushed - hard - by academia.
Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
501–510 of 1001 posts
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#502OK I guess I’m going to go against the deluge of comments here; And give an appreciable reason instead of denigrating those who might choose this. The context, though, I am British. I grew up in Britain. I went to British school. I can’t speak universally about my experience, (even within all of Britain), because it’s my experience which is in one small area of the country. However, school, for me, was by far the sin…
I live in the UK now, but grew up in the US. My own experience is pretty similar.
I was also a highly sensitive kid so took the abuse pretty hard. I was bullied by both other kids _and_ by teachers. I still remember one teacher openly calling me weird in class and picking on me (I was very introverted and shy due to years of bullying/anxiety, which I guess made me "weird"). Both physical and mental abuse from other kids. One "highlight" was being openly sexually assaulted in PE class and the teacher didn't even care.
I was messed up psychologically for a very long time after my school experience. Extreme social anxiety, hyper sensitivity to criticism, constant feelings of anxiety and depression. It took a failed marriage and years of therapy until I was able to overcome most of this trauma and kind of start to live normally (in my 40s).
As a result, like you, I am incredibly cynical of schooling systems. I see my kids suffering in British schools (in secondary), and it really pains me. They loved primary where there were small classes and secondary just has completely sucked out the joy of school for them. I wish I could just retire from work and full time home school them.
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#503> These tech parents are hackers by nature, and I think they’re convinced that in homeschooling they’ve happened on the ultimate life hack: just opt out of being around average people. It's difficult to feel optimistic about a society that thinks this way, much less has a cultural and economic elite that is seemingly emboldened to think this way. "Average" people are the norm, the reality that "not average" people wi…
Average people aren't the problem. It's the below average. And that low getting lower is indulged for some reason.
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#504OK I guess I’m going to go against the deluge of comments here; And give an appreciable reason instead of denigrating those who might choose this. The context, though, I am British. I grew up in Britain. I went to British school. I can’t speak universally about my experience, (even within all of Britain), because it’s my experience which is in one small area of the country. However, school, for me, was by far the sin…
I had a good experience in public K-8 (I went to a specialized STEM high school so I’ll leave that aside) but I didn’t learn anything. Public school is day care. My kids’ expensive private school is day care with better food.
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#505OK I guess I’m going to go against the deluge of comments here; And give an appreciable reason instead of denigrating those who might choose this. The context, though, I am British. I grew up in Britain. I went to British school. I can’t speak universally about my experience, (even within all of Britain), because it’s my experience which is in one small area of the country. However, school, for me, was by far the sin…
I hated school too, but I'm not sure I would have learnt much at home. My parents both lack higher education and frankly haven't been able to keep up with me past the age of 12 or so. Home schooling might work for children of smart people to be accelerated into the exact same field as them. But it won't work for kids like me or those who just aren't good at whatever their parents do.
That may be less true than it was 20 years ago. Even free resources like Khan Academy can go a long ways in helping parents educate their kids beyond what they know themselves. And for parents willing to spend even a fraction of what the public school would spent on education, they can pick and choose curriculum, tutors, or even online live classes with teachers well beyond what they would have in their local high school.
That said, parents without much of an education themselves may tend to set the bar too low for their children, but that often appears to be an issue in the public school as well.
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#506OK I guess I’m going to go against the deluge of comments here; And give an appreciable reason instead of denigrating those who might choose this. The context, though, I am British. I grew up in Britain. I went to British school. I can’t speak universally about my experience, (even within all of Britain), because it’s my experience which is in one small area of the country. However, school, for me, was by far the sin…
This does prepare you to life though. More likely than not you will go to office. You will find yourselves with bullies, and again you can become a victim. Rather than feeling sorry about yourself, school prepares you to fight with bullies, to find inmates, to find friends. I think you could have not understand the life lessons. You will also enter other communities, where again, you will find bullies. God how I hate…
So... you're either predator or prey?
In a way you're right, I worked in a consulting firm that seemed to have that mentality, and I did find bullies, and it seemed the only way to go forward was to become a bullying, lying cheat yourself.
Then I went on to work for a more civilised company that believed in people being decent and such, and discovered that you can actually coexist with people and foster growth without stepping on other people on your way.
If you think one can just "fight with bullies, find inmates, find friends" and everything will be alright, you're quite clueless to some experiences many people have gone through.
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#507Earlier quoted context omitted.
This does prepare you to life though. More likely than not you will go to office. You will find yourselves with bullies, and again you can become a victim. Rather than feeling sorry about yourself, school prepares you to fight with bullies, to find inmates, to find friends. I think you could have not understand the life lessons. You will also enter other communities, where again, you will find bullies. God how I hate…
This is completely wrong as far as I can tell. I have worked in 5 different companies, not one had any bullying. (Technically there was a one-off event involving a colleague and it was dealt with severely enough that it never happened again)
Lucky you. I've seen quite a bunch of the opposite. But then you do whatever you can to move on and find another job with a better atmosphere.
Sadly, it wasn't so easy as that with school.
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#508Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Why can't it keep going? Because an educated populace is harder for the ultrarich to control and abuse, because an educated populace with free time can revolt against those in power, and because as a consequence of those two things ultrarich conservatives have consolidated ownership of media and used it to defund education and convince the population that funding education is bad.
I agree with this and that's why I think social media, mass media and so on exist. However I'm curious as to why you attribute or limit this to 'conservatives' only. Is this really something exclusive or characteristic of the conservative side? At least where I am from it's the left that's more interventionist in regards to education rather than the right, that interventionism being used to make education more rigid…
Establishing standards for education and defunding public schools to siphon the funds to churches are not the same thing. Conservatives have been attacking and defunding educational standards and attacking the educated and the concept of education - hence the repeated claims of "liberal bias", the artificial cultural war against university, etc.
And two sides at equal levels? Are you living in 1979? Local media is nearly all Sinclair. All the cable networks are owned by conservatives. Even traditionally liberal newspapers like the Washington Post are owned by rich assholes taking over the editorial board. And social media in the US is now dominated by two literal fascists.
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#509Earlier quoted context omitted.
This does prepare you to life though. More likely than not you will go to office. You will find yourselves with bullies, and again you can become a victim. Rather than feeling sorry about yourself, school prepares you to fight with bullies, to find inmates, to find friends. I think you could have not understand the life lessons. You will also enter other communities, where again, you will find bullies. God how I hate…
This is abhorrent. The feeling of safety underpins emotional well-being. What you advocate is only the repetition of past suffering. Without safety, what is left but fear?
Reality? And those safe spaces are built upon and upheld by others - who bully the other mean bullies to keep it that way. Every part of civilization is a energetic effort and if the civilization runs low on energy/supplybribery - the space closes with a thunderclap as the structure giveth.
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#510the mandatory part of mandatory education is the very source that rots this society. what's happening in schools run by the "western enlightened democratic" powers that be is outrageous.
liberating education would be a major blow to the social engineers running the matrix -- or at least that's what i think when i'm optimistic... maybe these days they could easily compensate through the screens.
and if you have an urge to argue with this, then first read John Taylor Gatto's essays to understand what's going on. after that we can discuss the specifics.