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Homeschooling hits record numbers

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Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#511

Post by sparrish »

meroes wrote: post #135
sparrish wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll gladly stand up my 7 homeschooled kids next to any public school kids. All tested above grade level on state mandatory testing throughout their schooling. Two graduated early (some with college credits). My adult children (4 sons, ages 19-25) have gainful employment, living on their own (2 own their own homes), and standing on their own. One is married (I got a grandkid!), all have friends, communities they're i…

You didn’t mention how many went to college

None chose to go to college so far. The kind of work they wanted to do didn't require it so they didn't. If they had wanted to be medical doctors, lawyers, or some kind of physical engineer, I'm sure they could have gotten into a good college and found a good job for that.

One is a commercial sheet metal worker and owns his own home.

Another is a Linux sysadmin and owns his own home and has a spouse and a child.

Another is a restaurant equipment repairman and rents.

Finally, my 19 year old just started his airplane mechanic apprenticeship and rents.

My other three are still in school and living in our family home.

The thought at you need college degree to find meaningful employment or to live a joyful life is simply false so I don't consider it a metric for homeschooling success.

I teach my kids how to learn and encourage them to get out there and be productive doing work they enjoy and raising their own families.

Success in my book means they can function as an adult, stand on their own financially, find a good spouse, and bring me some awesome grandkids to spoil.

I don't have a college degree but I make plenty to raise 7 kids while working from home. I got to be there for all their first steps and struggles through Algebra 2 and everything in between. I wouldn't trade working from home and homeschooling for anything. It's been very fulfilling.

Now where's my grandkids!

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#512

Post by gbacon »

usefulcat wrote: post #305
kylehotchkiss wrote: post #147

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…

There are certainly tradeoffs, but it's not all negative. In my experience, what it boils down to is that home-schooled kids tend to have more experience with adults and less experience dealing with a wide variety of other kids, particularly assholes. When I was a kid in public school, there was no shortage of assholes and I definitely would have preferred to not have to deal with them. OTOH, I don't doubt that there…

All over this discussion, the big negative has nothing to do with missing out on stellar education, skill development, or expert teachers. Instead, it’s the perpetual handwringing that homeschooled kids won’t be Properly Socialized, i.e., be exposed to and have to endure mistreatment, disruption, and sometimes assault from other maladjusted, cruel, or even mentally ill peers — because that’s “the real world.”

This is not the W for the government schools that proponents seem to think it is.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#513

Post by lurking_swe »

toasterlovin wrote: post #459
lurking_swe wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what you say is true. But consider, the “cost” of going back part time is not very big. It’s not very stressful, and _greatly_ reduces long term risk. Your take is a bit like saying in the year 2000 “i believe Apple is an amazing company, i’ll go ALL IN with my life savings”. If you’re right the you think you’re a genius. But what if you were wrong? What if apple turned out like IBM? Then you’d look back and think “h…

It's a really bad analogy. And the "cost" of working part time for someone who doesn't want or need to work is literally every single hour they spend working. If they're working 20 hours per week, that's 20 hours per week spent doing something they don't want or need to do . It's a huge cost.

and the cost IF you become a single mom at 40, and you’re unemployable? How would we quantify that cost?

We can agree to disagree. :) Hope you at least appreciated my different perspective.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#514

Post by leobg »

meheleventyone wrote: post #271
hereme888 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define "real world".

The one that exists with problem children and opinions you don’t like. As a parent I get the impulse to remove my children from any potential harm but the real world has sharp edges. They need to be confident in that world not just smothered. And really as the person who used the term it’s really up to you to define what you mean.

Can you pick even a single person that will agree with you on everything? You could be around 10 if your identical twins and there’d still be conflict.

Why is it more „natural” if the school does the picking? Besides, parents can’t command anyone to join. It’s not The Truman Show.

Is marriage not “real life” because you chose your partner? Does you choosing prevent disagreement, struggle, pain and growth? I don’t think so.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#515

Post by presentation »

parsimo2010 wrote: post #472

A lot of people are offering opinions on homeschooling. I'll throw in one anecdote from my past. I played tennis with a kid who was homeschooled through middle school but was sent to high school so he could graduate with a diploma instead of a GED, because this seems to be something that colleges care about. He was awkward for a couple weeks but basically adapted to high school and we quickly forgot he was homeschool…

My experience though is that every homeschooled kid I met in university over a decade ago was very socially awkward. Not necessarily a problem I guess, they performed fine at academics.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#516

Post by ikrenji »

andrewstuart wrote: post #67

Group home schooling in a shared building is becoming a huge new trend in home schooling, far more resource and time efficient and pools the resources of the parents and allows the group to hire someone to do the group homeschooling.

so like... a school?

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#517

Post by mmcclure »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #497
mmcclure wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was generous in my estimate for each of the line items. I chose a one room school house as an example because it's easy to grok, and anything larger would be cheaper due to economies of scale. I would argue that economies of scale don't apply to education in the same way they apply to other businesses at large. Sure, you theoretically get the benefits of scale with central organization, buildings, centralized servi…

You started this thread with average cost per student across all SF public school students, which includes special needs, high school, etc, but move to median prices for debate The reason for this is simple and not nefarious: - I don't have access to data that would allow me to apportion total SFUSD costs to individual school types - When considering schools with vastly different prices (and different scales), the me…

    My original point in this subthread was that SFUSD is NOT underfunded. Do you believe it IS underfunded?
Your original point was not that it's "not underfunded," it was that it's overfunded (and substantially so, based on other comments). Your top(ish) comment on this thread to the $28k per student average:

    I'm saying it's a lot.
My only argument here is that I don't think $28k is unreasonable, particularly when viewed against the cost of private alternatives.

    then that would rule out almost all SFUSD schools, which kind of defeats the point of the discussion!
We go to our attendance area SFUSD school and love it. There are plenty of SFUSD and private schools that would not be on our list, be it for academic reasons or logistical.

    I made a tool to do that
Cool, I dig it! Annoying, unsolicited feature request would be to allow addresses or zip codes rather than requiring geolocation :)

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#518

Post by sparrish »

Izikiel43 wrote: post #214
sparrish wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll gladly stand up my 7 homeschooled kids next to any public school kids. All tested above grade level on state mandatory testing throughout their schooling. Two graduated early (some with college credits). My adult children (4 sons, ages 19-25) have gainful employment, living on their own (2 own their own homes), and standing on their own. One is married (I got a grandkid!), all have friends, communities they're i…

> 7 homeschooled kids Wow that's a lot, how did you manage?

God provides every day and I'm very grateful.

I've been working from home for nearly 2 decades and have flexible hours.

My wife handles the majority of the grade school years (basic reading/writing/maths) and I teach most of the middle and high school.

They've always been involved in co-ops, church activities, and get plenty of socialization. They're emotionally mature, civically responsible, and others focused. We take them when we volunteer at local non-profits, whether that's sorting clothes at the local thrift store or picking up trash at a local park. An example of service becomes a lifestyle of generosity. It makes for great kids and even greater adults.

Put the time and work in to your kids. Nothing else will provide greater dividends.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#519

Post by _blk »

OneLeggedCat wrote: post #344
kylehotchkiss wrote: post #147

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…

In the rural areas that I've lived in, it's mostly about a strong desire to supplant science and history with religious ideas and principles.

I won't pretend to know where you live or what those people's desires are but I definitely started homeschooling after the last US administration took moral volatility to new standards. The principles taught in schools just did not align anymore with what was common sense when I was in school and what I believe in. Now before you judge, I'm not looking for a fight. My wife and I have both master-degree educations in CS and law and our four kids have been to public school in the US and abroad, they've been to an evangelical christian school, and now that we've decided to homeschool for two years, we're not likely to take them back. The traditional school aspects take up 2-3h per day at most, then comes the school of life: raising and caring for animals and plants, fixing the truck or other engineersy activities and of course plenty of fun activities outside of the too-busy-to-be-fun times. My kids have learned of historic events such as Jamestown, Gettysburg or Mount St. Helens at the actual site of the event, they've been to most of the national parks and the fear of being socially-disconnected is not more than a fear before you start. Heck, thanks to Starlink they can even talk to their friends while we're driving through a desert.

Now let me also say that preparing the curriculum, ordering the materials etc. takes a lot of effort and discipline. It's definitely almost a full time job and I'm blessed with an amazing wife that's gifted in all that but the reward is more than worth it. Also, if you're thinking about it, many states have home school support programs and put you in touch with other home schoolers in the area.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#520

Post by broof »

Izikiel43 wrote: post #220
AlotOfReading wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty hard to touch philosophy without covering marxism in some way. Very little of it has anything to do with the family of political ideologies despite sharing a similar name. The question of God's existence is also fundamental to the history of philosophy. It's not particularly shocking that a course might cover people like Lucretius, Bentham, or Russell. Most philosophy surveys will also include some of the…

> It's pretty hard to touch philosophy without covering marxism in some way The complaint was that the alternative wasn't discussed.

Yes that’s correct. We didn’t cover things such as Locke or Hume, Adam smith, etc…

Also we didn’t directly cover Marxism or atheist philosophy, my point was that the selected philosophies were the ones that just happened to all be related to that side of the aisle. Again, very good class, just using it as an example of hidden bias that I didn’t see until later

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