Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#601

Post by crabbone » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 2:19 PM UTC

dani__german wrote: post #589

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 d…

You missed the point: if you don't like how school work today, you need to improve the schools. If you are saving yourself, especially before helping others (because you have the means that others probably don't), you are the bad person in this situation, and you should reflect on your ethical position some time, preferably soon.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#602

Post by bryanrasmussen » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 2:20 PM UTC

arguments from article - >Pro-homeschooling: At school, you’re in danger of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.

>Anti-homeschooling: Statistically, you’re in greater danger of all those things at home.

Sure, but the parents choosing to homeschool are either the ones abusing or not (obviously they could have an abusive uncle but the parents tend not to think of this) if Not, then its not a counter-argument because they know it's not and they do not know about the school. If abusing the know it and they might prefer to homeschool for that reason.

>Pro-homeschooling: Kids learn faster one-on-one; Bloom’s 2-sigma problem is undefeated.

>Anti-homeschooling: Kids with learning disabilities and neurodivergence can fall through the cracks without professional involvement.

many kids with learning disabilities and neurodivergence need more 1 on 1, and will also be more likely to get all the other negative school interactions that are arguments against schools.

>Here’s what I think is really going on.

I heard Elon Musk homeschooled his kids, anyway if you have the money, it's a status symbol.

Also about lousy school environment anecdotes going around here - I went to high school in Utah, where I heard a teacher tell the class that A.D meant After Noah, and B.C meant Before Christ. I WIN! Oh wait...

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#603

Post by esafak » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 2:22 PM UTC

from-nibly wrote: post #595

esafak wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alas, not every parent is well educated.

So?

So they're not the most qualified person to teach children, contrary to the claim.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#604

Post by cratermoon » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 2:22 PM UTC

brightball wrote: post #169

cratermoon wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A free market fixes anything https://bitworking.org/news/2008/01/the-free-market-fairy/

Nothing magical about it. It’s pure economics and rational decision making. The institutions we complain about in this country every day are completely insulated from it. Everything else survives or fails on its own merits. Supply and demand. It’s a natural law.

According to Saint Frederick Von Hayek as popularized by J. Howard Pew and his crew. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V_AZRZfu9I

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#605

Post by froh » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 2:24 PM UTC

synecdoche wrote: post #517

froh wrote: post #351

I find looking beyond the rim of your own plate such an inspiring thing when it comes to schooling. Germany for example prohibits home schooling. don't breed detached extremists. however Germany thinks binning kids into handcrafts, simple office jobs and academia at age nine (!) is a brilliant idea o-O. but then on the upside again, you will go to school for at least 13 years if you get _any_ kind of qualified profes…

”don't breed detached extremists” This doesn’t follow. In addition, there are plenty who fit that description who did go to a state school.

well, the German constitutional court thinks it does follow, indeed, and they are much smarter than I am in their argument:

https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/entscheidungen/rk200...

In a nutshell, only schooling forces you to confront other beliefs in a way preparing you for life in a pluralistic society and thus schooling as such is a cornerstone in education.

private schools German flavor are okay because their curriculum has to comply and their final exams are state controlled.

So for example even if you went to some evangelical creationist belief system school, you'd have to understand and know evolution. And every student gets sex ed no matter if the parents think that's a bad idea, including contraceptives, abortion rights and all.

And likewise every student is confronted with the Hollerith machine planned systematic mass deportation and mass murder of 6 Mio Humans for having a "wrong" birth certificate, using scheduled, planned trains and scheduled, planned mass murder factories. And every student learns how that came to be and how a weak democracy was overturned into a mind control oppression state.

And that makes a _lot_ of sense.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#606

Post by crabbone » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 2:24 PM UTC

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…

The fact that you don't personally meet with "average" people isn't the point. The point is that they exist, and they affect your existence, and they will not and cannot be made to disappear. The "average" people have to share resources with you, and in a way the resources cannot be segregated... unless we start building colonies in space, and send "non-average" people there or some similar dystopian project.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#607

Post by froh » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 2:26 PM UTC

_petronius wrote: post #460

froh wrote: post #351

I find looking beyond the rim of your own plate such an inspiring thing when it comes to schooling. Germany for example prohibits home schooling. don't breed detached extremists. however Germany thinks binning kids into handcrafts, simple office jobs and academia at age nine (!) is a brilliant idea o-O. but then on the upside again, you will go to school for at least 13 years if you get _any_ kind of qualified profes…

On the flip side, a long history of multiple paths through public education has led to Germany being a country where there is no universal expectation that everyone should/must get at least an undergraduate degree, and so inflation (in terms of both price and dilution of value) of degrees is lower than in countries like the UK or especially the US. An acknowledged, well-designed, and state-supported path to vocationa…

oh, I agree "Länderhoheit", state level control of curricula, was one of the weaker ideas in German education. East Germany got that that much better. Finland had sent envoys to East Germany and copied their system (not the curricula, mind you), to create their Pisa winning system in the 1980s...

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#608

Post by dani__german » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 2:26 PM UTC

maxehmookau wrote: post #554

pie_flavor wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the experts say that algebra should not be taught in 8th grade, and the experts say that guessing at words instead of sounding them out is a better way to learn to read, and the experts say that calc can be replaced with 'data science' which is actually just data literacy, and so on and so forth, I'm not really interested in how the precise definition of 'experts' actually refers to something about 'growing our…

> your best options for guaranteeing that you avoid it are homeschooling Accepting your premise that "public schooling is fucked" (I disagree) there's absolutely zero guarantee that homeschooling is any better for any particular child. It's a completely random chance whether your parent, or whichever potentially untrained person, is going to provide you with an education that sets you up for society, work and the wid…

1 untrained parent teaching Public schools have terrible curricula, procedures, and accountability. Go look at any school in Detroit and see how effective schooling is. They have all the things you mention, and they are ABYSMAL. Truly a terrible option, every one of them. They are also VERY well funded.

Homeschooling doesnt have a guarantee of success. Public school does come with a guarantee of failure.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#609

Post by crabbone » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 2:26 PM UTC

matrix87 wrote: post #210

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…

> Learning how to co-exist with people who aren't like you is a universally valuable experience, especially for people who would fashion themselves as "not average." If those people have worse habits, are less motivated, less educated, less cultured, what is there to gain from it? Seems like there's only something to lose from adjusting to their shittiness. Like Harrison Bergeron And seeing the state of California tr…

> what is there to gain from it?

Humility.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#610

Post by froh » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 2:28 PM UTC

wink wrote: post #537

froh wrote: post #351

I find looking beyond the rim of your own plate such an inspiring thing when it comes to schooling. Germany for example prohibits home schooling. don't breed detached extremists. however Germany thinks binning kids into handcrafts, simple office jobs and academia at age nine (!) is a brilliant idea o-O. but then on the upside again, you will go to school for at least 13 years if you get _any_ kind of qualified profes…

Not sure inspiring is the word I would hve picked :D Overall it sounds a tad better than the US, but far from perfect. Especially not accounting for different developmental speed of kids annoys me, although from what I heard it'd a bit better these days than in the 90s - e.g. even if they sent you to the Realschule instead of Gymnasium and at age 15 you decided you wanted to go to university they wouldn't make your l…

hehe, yes I absolutely agree partitioning schooling is a bad idea. It's much smarter to have shared learning and make a difference inside a class "Binnendifferenzierung" and it's also much smarter to create GATE gifted and talented programs (Hochbegabtenförderung) as enrichment and maybe after grade 8 or 9 as dedicated boarding schools.