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Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

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Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#581

Post by _Algernon_ »

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…

Agreed. If I ever have kids, I'm signing them up for MMA classes from the second they have to step onto school grounds.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#582

Post by mattgreenrocks »

A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote: post #571
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.

It prepares you as much as it desensitizes you to accept bad environments because that's all the "adults" can do for you.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#583

Post by physicsguy »

rgblambda wrote: post #481
globalise83 wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kind of school you went to sounds very different from the grammar school that my working-class father went to in the 1960s and that helped him escape a life of asbestos-breathing drudgery in moribund shipyards.

There were problems with the grammar school system as well. They were created to provide a pathway to the middle class for bright children from working class families. But the entrance exam was heavily biased in favour of children from middle class backgrounds. Famously the first 11+ tests had questions like "Name the various types of servants in a household and what they do". In later years, getting out of school tu…

> In later years, getting out of school tuition was the main way to prep for the 11+, which put grammar schools financially out of reach for a lot of working class families. It had basically become a parallel state funded education system for the middle class.

But given most schools now in the country (given only a small subset still have grammar schools) are done by catchment area, much of this still exists in comprehensive education too. Now, if you're well off you just buy a house in the right area so your kids get in to the good school.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#584

Post by infecto »

I did not catch any data that quantified if this is truly becoming fashionable. From what I know in US stats, homeschooling definitely had a run during covid but its already going down and even at its peak was barely measurable compared to students in public/private. It would be nice if he quantified where this idea comes from before going into the rant.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#585

Post by philipwhiuk »

Most parents are worse teachers than the average teacher. Most parents can't afford the time/money to teach their kids. This is a passion project for the 1%.

And no, educational videos on YouTube are not a replacement for a curriculum. We saw that during COVID where the attainment of children worsened.

There are bad schools and bad teachers. The solution is not bulldozing the entire system and replacing it with something worse.

This is like saying people should self-diagnose and medicate because there's a few dodgy hospitals and doctors.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#586

Post by habosa »

Educational merits aside, this is part of a broader trend of losing or dismantling the few “public” parts of our society we have left. People simply don’t want to be forced to interact with others in the physical world, especially others not like them. They certainly don’t want to be asked to trust a stranger for any reason, unless there’s an app to mediate the trust.

The bad news is that there are 8 billion of us and more every day. There’s not enough space or resources for us to isolate ourselves. It can’t end well.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#587

Post by AnimalMuppet »

rgblambda wrote: post #481
globalise83 wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kind of school you went to sounds very different from the grammar school that my working-class father went to in the 1960s and that helped him escape a life of asbestos-breathing drudgery in moribund shipyards.

There were problems with the grammar school system as well. They were created to provide a pathway to the middle class for bright children from working class families. But the entrance exam was heavily biased in favour of children from middle class backgrounds. Famously the first 11+ tests had questions like "Name the various types of servants in a household and what they do". In later years, getting out of school tu…

> But the entrance exam was heavily biased in favour of children from middle class backgrounds.

> Famously the first 11+ tests had questions like "Name the various types of servants in a household and what they do".

That doesn't sound like a question a middle class kid would know anything about - not unless your definition of "middle class" is far different from mine.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#588

Post by lordnacho »

rgblambda wrote: post #481
globalise83 wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kind of school you went to sounds very different from the grammar school that my working-class father went to in the 1960s and that helped him escape a life of asbestos-breathing drudgery in moribund shipyards.

There were problems with the grammar school system as well. They were created to provide a pathway to the middle class for bright children from working class families. But the entrance exam was heavily biased in favour of children from middle class backgrounds. Famously the first 11+ tests had questions like "Name the various types of servants in a household and what they do". In later years, getting out of school tu…

Can confirm.

My kid got in, and it turns out everyone else used a tutor (I stupidly took the advice not to do so from his teacher, who thought he'd get in just fine). This is in fact why playdates seemed to die out in the year or two before the test, the kids were being tutored but for some reason nobody would admit it.

When I went for the intro evening, the parents were simply the same kinds of people (often the same actual people) as the private primary where my kid went. Essentially, it is a private school where you don't pay fees. Same parents, with £30K more in the bank each year. The kids get into the top unis at a similar rate to the local fancy private school, which takes in all the classmates who didn't get in.

I have to say, they are a good bunch of kids. There's none of the bullying problems that everyone else is reporting in my kid's year. They have an environment where they have other quite nerdy kids doing nerdy kid stuff, without judgement.

But they are not a socially diverse bunch of kids. I'm not seeing any social mobility at all. Where are the kids whose parents are in the trades? Parents who aren't working? How come everyone I meet works in finance, law, accounting, medicine, or other white collar work?

I think it's the tutoring. It lets the marginal white collar kids win over the marginal "other social class" kids.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#589

Post by dani__german »

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…

Exclusion of "average people" is fundamentally required for private property to exist, one of Humanity's best inventions. Few people enjoy private aspects of their life out in public. It is a completely natural and morally good thing to want your own space and to raise your kids your own way.

Your kids don't need to be exposed to the often violent whims of society's bottom quartile for 8 hours a day for more than a decade. It doesn't need to happen. It would be better if it did not. It is a net negative experience, whose main lesson is: avoid these people. That can be taught pretty quickly by a parent.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#590

Post by Argonaut998 »

Thankfully I live in a country with one of the best public school systems in the world leveraging its Catholic history, but it is something I have looked into, mainly because I think children are capable of so much more than what they learn in school and also the 'conditioning' aspect of schooling.

From what I know of the USA, all students are placed together in classrooms. Now I'm not sure if that's on the federal level or state level, but I cannot imagine the brightest students being held back by the weakest/misbehaving ones. Where I live we are placed into different grades, where students are grouped by their academic performance. There is no prejudice or superiority/inferiority associated with it and it just works.

I've only heard anecdotes from the Teachers sub on Reddit, but if that was my child in the USA I would homeschool 100%.

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