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Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

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Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#571

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 »

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…

Thank you. I get irrationally angry, when I hear the 'socialization' argument, precisely because of the experience you described. To be fair, it does, in a weird way, prepare you for some areas of adulthood, but I think those areas are thankfully somewhat avoidable.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#572

Post by tomp »

woodruffw wrote: post #164

> 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 are the norm, the reality that "not average" people will have to deal with for the rest of their lives.

What are you talking about?!

I'm a highly educated, "high class" (professional career) person, and I've been socially segregated from "average" people since high school (so, since I was 15). Literally primary school was the last time I ever interacted with "average" people in a meaningful way (beyond "hi, thanks" to the supermarket cashier/bank teller).

Society truly does segregate you by social class, and unless you truly seek different classes (which I don't really, I'm a geek so my interests are quite niche) you don't "normally" interact.

No wonder that "elitist" politicians are so removed from the "average" people (hint: Brexit, Trunmp). Thank god for Twitter, allowing to break social bubbles at least a little bit!

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#573

Post by 63stack »

zozbot234 wrote: post #524
wccrawford wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 re…

Let's call this what this is, it is "below terrible" instead of "anything close to optimal". It's an interesting tidbit from a game theory perspective, but telling your child who is getting beaten up to not worry and play the long game is 1) horrible, 2) only works if everyone else in the game is rational. I don't remember bullies getting into trouble and stopping.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#574

Post by philipwhiuk »

tomp wrote: post #572
woodruffw wrote: post #164

> 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 are the norm, the reality that "not average" people will have to deal with for the rest of their lives. What are you talking about?! I'm a highly educated, "high class" (professional career) person, and I've been socially segregated from "average" people since high school (so, since I was 15). Literally primary school was the last time I ever interacted with "average" people in a meaningful way (be…

Trump isn't in any way "average". He's been more separated from "average" people than you have.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#575

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 »

renegat0x0 wrote: post #436
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…

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…

While I hate to admit that you are not inaccurate, we are humans and should be able to find a way to raise the youth without resorting to storing them in prisons while they explore how to physically and emotionally torture one another. The fact that we accept this as a mere expression of nature is beyond horrifying, because schools are anything, but nature. I would sooner accept gangs of free roaming kids across the neighborhood, but you can't have that, because that would impede private property and businesses.

It is not a question of safe space. It is a question of what you are teaching. Because of the people like you, who think it is perfectly fine education, I can accurately pinpoint 'troublemakers' and 'danger' as I walk down the street and avoid the place. That is explicitly NOT what early education should be.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#576

Post by tomp »

philipwhiuk wrote: post #574
tomp wrote: post #572

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. What are you talking about?! I'm a highly educated, "high class" (professional career) person, and I've been socially segregated from "average" people since high school (so, since I was 15). Literally primary school was the last time I ever interacted with "average" people in a meaningful way (be…

Trump isn't in any way "average". He's been more separated from "average" people than you have.

No, the point is that the preferences of "average" people (Brexit, Trump) are surprising for the "elites".

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#577

Post by philipwhiuk »

r3trohack3r wrote: post #254
woodruffw wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If those people have worse habits, are less motivated, less educated, less cultured, what is there to gain from it? This is prejudice in the most basic sense: you literally don't know any of these things about the people you're surrounded by in a society. The person who rides the bus next to you could be a couch potato, or a talented artist, or something entirely different that simply isn't legible to you . I don't…

I feel like you and the parents post are compatible views of the world that could be simultaneously held in the same brain without dissonance. Reading your comment, it seems to focus on the individual. “The person” you know nothing about. The parent comment seems to be Bayesian, the probability of “the person” being something. I do think it’s possible to simultaneously believe that: * every single person you meet in…

> you can optimize for that

I think that this is the core problem - you can't.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#578

Post by physicsguy »

Simplex66 wrote: post #461
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 state school in the North of England with a GCSE pass rate between 30-40% and this is a fair description of what it was like. At the time the performance of all schools was based on the percentage of students achieving at least a C including Maths and English, and as Goodhart’s law suggests this inevitably meant the school’s resources were optimised for getting students around the C grade borderline to pa…

Frustratingly, under pressure, Bridget Phillipson looks set to roll back most of those reforms.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#579

Post by purplethinking »

vodou wrote: post #40

One thing I've never understood with homeschooling: How come parents think they have the competence to be a teacher? Just because you are educated doesn't mean you are a good (pedagogical) educator.

Teachers in most countries are, at best, mid-wits with no practical or real world experience. I know teachers who barely passed math in high school who are now match teachers. It's like a basketball teacher who went to "Basketball Teaching School", who's never played basketball in his life, teaching kids how to play basketball.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#580

Post by philipwhiuk »

r3trohack3r wrote: post #254
woodruffw wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If those people have worse habits, are less motivated, less educated, less cultured, what is there to gain from it? This is prejudice in the most basic sense: you literally don't know any of these things about the people you're surrounded by in a society. The person who rides the bus next to you could be a couch potato, or a talented artist, or something entirely different that simply isn't legible to you . I don't…

I feel like you and the parents post are compatible views of the world that could be simultaneously held in the same brain without dissonance. Reading your comment, it seems to focus on the individual. “The person” you know nothing about. The parent comment seems to be Bayesian, the probability of “the person” being something. I do think it’s possible to simultaneously believe that: * every single person you meet in…

> But if you want to live around people who know how to code, you don’t move to Springfield Illinois.

And if you want to find the best mathematician you stay in academic circles. But the best mathematician of your era might be in a random district in India. So you shouldn't immediately exclude everywhere else, or your 'optimisation' may be a relatively low local maximum.

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