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Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

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Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#521

Post by rayiner »

Arainach wrote: post #274
pj_mukh wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a better question is: How did the median get so much better over 150 years, and why can't it keep getting better? 150 years ago, the average person was illiterate, poorer (in all senses of the word) and less connected to the world around them. Over a 100 year old grind, schooling fixed all that. Why can't it keep going? So the outlier, super special "phenom" today is the median of tomorrow.

>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.

The irony of saying that while being uneducated enough to think anyone ever “defunded education.” https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/02/do-we-shortch...

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#522

Post by synecdoche »

tetris11 wrote: post #488
ripped_britches wrote: post #278

This piece makes a lot of unsubstantiated claims. Just because you are putting a child in a siloed environment doesn’t mean you’re teaching them that everyone else is beneath them. If you are homeschooling and not teaching humility, kindness, etc then you’re doing it wrong. - parent of 6 homeschooled kids

There is still an implicit "othering" of other children. They are in one camp and yours are in another. If they have any semblance of imagination as kids do, they will dream up reasons beyond the one you gave them

In what way is the ”othering” different than what children otherwise do, apart from being in different kind of schools? As you wrote children (or more generally) people can make up all sorts of reasons for that.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#523

Post by greentxt »

lyu07282 wrote: post #493
20after4 wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Missouri, high-school buildings use the same blueprints as state prisons. Why bother designing something custom? They serve the same purpose. They literally are prisons. If a teenager fails to show up for school, a police officer will eventually show up to arrest their parents and place the teenager in the custody of a "foster family." Now both parent and teenager are imprisoned. And we are told this is freedom. T…

> And we are told this is freedom. I think we pretty much universally agree that mandatory schooling is preferable to the alternative, do you really think an illiterate populous is preferable? So yes actually that is freedom. Society guarantees that you will not be illiterate just because your parents were crack addicts, I think that's a good thing.

I don't think an illiterate populous is the alternative unless you think most people lack intrinsic motivation and also have families that don't value education. Seems extremely unlikely. Maybe you wouldn't have gone to school if you had a choice but most people would, if nothing else for free childcare.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#524

Post by zozbot234 »

wccrawford wrote: post #495
dijit wrote: post #389

OK 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 went to a school that had a lot of good teachers, and I learned a lot from them. But when it came to bullies, the school was just as you described. Worse, the punishment for being in a fight was the same whether you started it or you were just beaten up. If you made the fight get noticed, you got punished. It was quite clear that they had no interest in stopping the fights, just in making sure they didn't get repor…

> Worse, the punishment for being in a fight was the same whether you started it or you were just beaten up. If you made the fight get noticed, you got punished.

I'm not saying that this is anything close to optimal, but it should be noted that under this system (which is reminiscent of the way ancient Chinese criminal law worked, per Legal Systems Very Different from Ours[0]) people who get beat up should still report and take the punishment. Sure, you'll get punished for it once but you'll also build a solid reputation for not letting things slide, so it's highly unlikely that anyone will want to beat you up again.

[0] Except that the punishment back then for being involved in a crime (generally a theft or a swindle of some sort) was, guess what-- you got beat up.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#525

Post by scotty79 »

syndicatedjelly wrote: post #197
bdangubic wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Average" people are the norm, the reality that "not average" people will have to deal with for the rest of their lives. if by “deal with” you mean serving them fries on their way to a ski trip, perhaps :)

I like to think you mean that the so-called “elites” end up studying some useless degree and only can get jobs as trust-fund burger stand employees, serving fries to the “dummies” who chose to work hard and become wealthy the old-fashioned way

> who chose to work hard and become wealthy the old-fashioned way

That's so last century. Now about as real as Santa. Now you can only get wealthy by inheritance or gambling. Even if it means gambling with you health you still need to win for it to amount to anything. There's absolutely no way to earn wealth now. I'm not sure if there ever was.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#526

Post by Beijinger »

Many reasons.

Bad influence from other students

Bad policies for phone use

Bad teachers

Strange curricula influenced by ideology

Aggressive low performing immigrants from other cultures (Europe)

The last point will get me downvoted from people who can not handle the truth.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#527

Post by csande17 »

squigz wrote: post #237
PaulHoule wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My son's district has a black superintendent and at least one black principal but otherwise black (and other) kids don't get to see the example of black teachers (and learn school is a "white thing you wouldn't understand" the same way that boys come to the conclusion that school is for girls when they don't see any male teachers -- the problem here is representation-ism that stops at the very top, if they do get a b…

> Today he struggles to talk to girls not because he's afraid of being rejected but because he's afraid of being reported. Why would anyone be reported to any authority figure for speaking to girls?

It's pretty standard for middle schools to hold assemblies discussing sexual harassment and healthy relationships, but they don't always do a great job communicating those concepts.

Back when I was in middle school about a decade ago, the principal got up on stage with a police officer and explained that sexual harassment is when you talk to a girl and she feels uncomfortable. He then went on to assert that the school had zero tolerance for sexual harassment, describe various authorities to whom victims could report instances of sexual harassment, and implore students not to risk their future by engaging in sexual harassment.

If you weren't super confident in your ability to predict or control other people's feelings, probably your takeaway from that assembly was that talking to girls was a risky thing to do.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#528

Post by bell-cot »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #482
dijit wrote: post #389

OK 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 grew up in the US, we're about the same age, and I went to a public school where I had a similar experience. More than anything else, I remember the crushing boredom and the feeling that time had slowed to a crawl. I wasn't beaten or abused, but I felt trapped in amber, and the school really was prison-like, just as you describe it. I've never hated anything so much in my life as I hated school. So I escaped the pr…

> Everybody was screaming about how much I'd regret it, but ...

In a really healthy society, with really good schools, dropping out would (99%) be quite regrettable.

Some of those screaming people probably cared about you and your future. Most of them just resented you, for highlighting the actual state of their society and schools. And perhaps making them doubt their own choices.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#529

Post by lelanthran »

karles wrote: post #442
gadders wrote: post #441

I think a lot of home schooling is a culture war issue as well. A quick look at Libs of TikTok will show some of the teachers that some parents would like to avoid.

Do you think Tiktok reflect reality? Then we need to ban social media altogether...

I think it reflects the reality that specific groupthink is both tolerated and encouraged in school while other groupthink is harshly penalised.

When the allowed groupthink in question only has support among a minority of the population you can't be too surprised when the rest try to avoid it.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#530

Post by wink »

dijit wrote: post #389

OK 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…

That sucks and I really don't mean to well actually here.. but in that scenario - which doesn't sound like the default outcome of going to a public school anywhere - would this not be "just" a reason to go for homeschooling later, only after the system has provably failed (long-term).

Also maybe I have a false impression but I always thought people decided about homeschooling long before the kid(s) get to normal school age.

That said, I don't have a strong opinion here and I can see how it's useful in certain situations, but I guess might have hated it even more than I hated school (after a certain age, I liked it when I was little) - but also none of my parents went to university or something, so I was on my own in math etc after a certain point, so not sure how they would have even managed to get me to finishing.

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