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My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

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61–70 of 108 posts

Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#61

With everything about what I've been reading about public schools recently, no way in heck would I want my child in a public school, where instead of teaching the basics, they are more about indoctrinating children into a specific political worldview. I'm neither liberal or conservative, I'm neither. But from what I'm reading, the agenda at public schools is about as hard left, left of left-left-left, as possible. I…

> hard left, left of left-left-left, as possible

What does this even mean? Examples? Who told you this? How do you think that's maintained in opposition to whatever your local district politics is?

Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#62

With everything about what I've been reading about public schools recently, no way in heck would I want my child in a public school, where instead of teaching the basics, they are more about indoctrinating children into a specific political worldview. I'm neither liberal or conservative, I'm neither. But from what I'm reading, the agenda at public schools is about as hard left, left of left-left-left, as possible. I…

> from what I'm reading, the agenda at public schools is about as hard left, left of left-left-left, as possible.

Where are you reading this, and why do you choose to believe it?

Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#63
Myself and the wife don't have the skills, time or frankly the patience to be a teacher.

My eldest is studying to become a K12 teacher and it is a 4 year degree course so I don't think Zoom and parents are going to replace her soon.

My youngest is a "aspy" and when she went to high school it was a disaster - she ended up in a clinic for treatment of depression and one of the triggers was high school.

Square peg in a round hole.

We fortunately found a tutor that had taught kids with learning disabilities and was close to home and enrolled her in an online school platform for the materials and exams.

She had to drop Physics/Chemistry as there was no way for her to do practical lab work even at another place.

She went to the tutor's home during the day - helped other kids when not busy and completed Grade 12 over two years - she is now studying IT programming first year at a university.

It was the best decision we made ever - home schooling but letting a professional do it and for the right reasons - "We don't trust the govt" or "install my morality/belief system" is shitty reasons IMHO.

Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#64
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People, especially parents, with religious faith do not view it this way. It is not "force" to hand down our faith and inculcate our children with values based on loving God and loving neighbor. Only viewed from the outside does this appear to have some kind of coercivity or violence associated with it. On the contrary, we view this as the most precious gift we can give to a child. I endured more than my fair share o…

> People, especially parents, with religious faith do not view it this way. It is not "force" to hand down our faith and inculcate our children with values based on loving God and loving neighbor. If it involves more then negligible amount of spanking in the "how to train your baby" style or emotional manipulation, it absolutely is coercive. As in, there is such a thing as healthy amount of teaching your faith. There…

I have no idea what sort of connection can be made between spanking and the Christian faith, other than your own negative perceptions from outside.

Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#65
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People, especially parents, with religious faith do not view it this way. It is not "force" to hand down our faith and inculcate our children with values based on loving God and loving neighbor. If it involves more then negligible amount of spanking in the "how to train your baby" style or emotional manipulation, it absolutely is coercive. As in, there is such a thing as healthy amount of teaching your faith. There…

I have no idea what sort of connection can be made between spanking and the Christian faith, other than your own negative perceptions from outside.

One connection is how to train your baby books I mentioned. The foundation most popular book is named "To Train Up a Child". They are literal Christian child raising books that teach how to property spank. These and similar books/approaches are recommended inside fundamentalist circles, unknow or controversial outside them. Christians openly advocating for these approaches is just normal in more fundamental circles (by which I mean I personally knew such people and they are not even all that much fundamentalist, just tilted that way).

Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#66
post #20
post #3

Homeschooling is interesting. I like the idea, but I'd be more worried about lack of socialization with other children or any kind of group learning. Even more so if the child is slightly introverted. This is less of an issue if children are raised in the nuclear families like in the olden days, but these days what other avenues are left where children can learn something in a group and form long term friendships oth…

-Strong- introvert here, so take this with a grain of salt, but socialization is actually one of the strong points. :) My homeschool upbringing included team sports, solo sports clubs, debate leagues, sleepovers, group field trips, scouting, community college, and various co-op models over the years. Here's the difference--you're more likely to have mixed-age groups (particularly for elementary) and, critically, you'…

You seem to have described my home schooling experience to a T. It really was a wonderful way to learn and interact with expert adults in my community. I had a lot of good role models and mentors that I wouldn't have had otherwise.

Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#67

Outside of the Anglosphere homeschooling is not really a thing [1]. Coming from Europe I've personally never meet anyone. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling_international_st...

It's a thing in the UK - relatively rare, though still amounting to something like 100,000 kids across the whole UK.

Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing there's a big ick factor to separating kids into "smarter" and "not that smart" groups. It feels inequitable, undemocratic, it goes against the commonly accepted blank slate hypothesis. People will say that if kids show different outcomes, the teachers just haven't tried hard enough, or that the state hasn't spent enough on them.

I'm willing to bet most gifted kids are born in the first half of the year, and most not so smart ones in the second half. Same in sports by the way: most "gifted" players are born at the start of the year: https://www.google.com/amp/s/fivethirtyeight.com/features/wh... Conclusion: at young ages, you should be very careful what you call "gifted" when you place kids with almost 1 year difference in the same group.

Pure bullshit, I was top 1% in school and I was born in December

Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#69
post #35

Hi all. I'm Jeremy, the husband of the author of this post. We really didn't expect to see this get any particular attention -- but I'm happy to answer questions about homeschooling you might have. As my wife Rachel said in the intro, this post is really about our particular experiences. It's not an attempt to convince anyone else to do the same thing. Home-schooling is very different to what I expected. There are th…

Thanks for sharing your story! How did you find the various tutors, and what percent of the teaching do you do yourself? About how many hours a day are you actively working with your child? Do you expect to homeschool indefinitely?

We generally found our tutors via modulo.app. The percent I spend personally varies quite a bit. We'll homeschool as long as it seems the best for our child and as long as she wants to.

Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#70
post #35

Hi all. I'm Jeremy, the husband of the author of this post. We really didn't expect to see this get any particular attention -- but I'm happy to answer questions about homeschooling you might have. As my wife Rachel said in the intro, this post is really about our particular experiences. It's not an attempt to convince anyone else to do the same thing. Home-schooling is very different to what I expected. There are th…

Hey Jeremy, what sorts of apps have you found most useful with your daughter? You mention using a few math ones that you found to be a good fit for her. PS. thanks for the excellent fast.ai course!

I helped curate this list: https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/bestappsforlearning

Glad you liked course.fast.ai :D

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