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My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

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Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#71

Post by koonsolo »

wooque wrote: post #68
koonsolo wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

A single case doesn't invalidate the statistics of a larger group. You being top 1% should know that.

Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#72

Post by YesWeWill »

koonsolo wrote: post #71
wooque wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

A single case doesn't invalidate the statistics of a larger group. You being top 1% should know that.

No post body was provided.

Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#73

Post by amanaplanacanal »

As_You_Wish wrote: post #57

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…

I suspect the people telling you this are doing so for their own political purposes.

Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#74

Post by dekleinewolf »

koonsolo wrote: post #59
chongli wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not great. The smartest kids could be learning calculus in elementary school. Having them teach arithmetic to their struggling peers is just going to add frustration onto boredom. It also turns out that the smartest kids don’t even need that much attention. They just need access to resources and challenging material and a supervisor to help them set and achieve goals. It really doesn’t cost much to society to…

One of my daughters is 8, and she scores very high in school. Relative to my other kids way better at that age, and relative to the other kids in school too. You might call that gifted. Surprisingly she is also taller than most kids in her class. Minor detail that you can totally ignore: she was born 2nd of January.

I assume that wherever you are has the cut off that determines in which school year a kid is sorted is on January 1st (which is not a universal truth), and your point is that she's also older than her class mates?

Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#75

Post by dekleinewolf »

koonsolo wrote: post #60
8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #52

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.

My n=1 is that I was always both the youngest and the smartest.

Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#76

Post by dekleinewolf »

igorkraw wrote: post #53
chongli wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not great. The smartest kids could be learning calculus in elementary school. Having them teach arithmetic to their struggling peers is just going to add frustration onto boredom. It also turns out that the smartest kids don’t even need that much attention. They just need access to resources and challenging material and a supervisor to help them set and achieve goals. It really doesn’t cost much to society to…

This "envy" story is complete BS. Why should we, as a society, especially help the most privileged and gifted people even more ? It's not envy, it's regression to the mean (everything except societal rules is already going in your favour, how dare it). I also don't think you appreciate the value of instruction as a learning tool and the skills required to truly teach people - empathy, paying attention to cues to keep…

My kids (Montessori) school has horizontal classes (3 age groups in one class) for exactly this reason. From ages 3-12 they go through the cycle of being youngest, middle and oldest 3 times, teaching them valuable 'soft skills' such as you described.

Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#77

Post by dekleinewolf »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #54
ido wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not about the cognitive elite. The mass-education public school system is designed for an average with very little deviation that doesn’t actually fit that many pupils - it’s not a single int stat like in d&d, kids have different capabilities & interests and aiming for some sort of generalized lowest common denominator is going to be a bad experience for pretty much everyone. The only solution IMO is the expensi…

I've said it before, but I think software could do a lot to customize curriculum for students without disrupting the the traditional classroom too much. The kids could be tested with games, then presented new stuff or roll back to some older stuff based on how well they are progressing.

In my country many many schools switch to tablet based math lessons that adjust based on the students level.

Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#78

Post by boh »

chongli wrote: post #51
koonsolo wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is another way, and I know they sometimes use it in Belgium: let the smarter kids help out the ones that still struggle with the material. That way they learn how to properly explain things, teach others. Maybe they don't see more material than the other kids, but they sure learn other usefull skills.

That’s not great. The smartest kids could be learning calculus in elementary school. Having them teach arithmetic to their struggling peers is just going to add frustration onto boredom. It also turns out that the smartest kids don’t even need that much attention. They just need access to resources and challenging material and a supervisor to help them set and achieve goals. It really doesn’t cost much to society to…

This is essentially the cult of the individual in a nutshell. A well functioning society with a higher overall competence is more capable than one whose education system caters to a small minority of people who did calculus in elementary school.

Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#79

Post by seanhunter »

j7ake wrote: post #16

Historically the upper class in places like UK had private tutors. This individualised form of education may be making a return over the next years as apps and material become more personalised.

> Historically the upper class in places like UK had private tutors.

Yes. As a fun aside, my understanding is that is the reason for a baffling (to people outside the UK) anomaly.

In the UK, if you there is a school you have to pay for (ie not a government school) that is called a public school. Everywhere else in the world that would be called a private school - a much more logical-sounding name.

The reason is that if in say the 15th century you were well off but weren't quite rich enough to pay for tutors for your children you might be able to send them to a public school (eg Eton college) instead. There were no government schools at the time, so schools that were open to the public were called public schools to differentiate from private tuition.

Re: My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

#80

Post by YesWeWill »

bearmode wrote: post #47
lax4ever wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homeschooling is not the isolation that most people think it is. In fact, the vast majority of parents who homeschool (myself included) join forces with other parents who homeschool for events, activities, and learning opportunities, all of which bring with them natural socialization while still allowing for a far more tailored learning experience than you can get in any classroom. In addition, homeschool kids typica…

In school we were socialising for 6+ hours a day, every day, plus any time after school or on weekends, alongside our school work. We also had hundreds of peers that we could make friends with if we wanted to. Compared to that I'd absolutely say homeschooling (even with occasional events and activities) is quite isolating.

Why is it so great to force children to socialize for 6+ hours with people they might hate and who might hate them? Especially in an environment where the adults are so undernumbered they can't possibly keep track of what's happening - and sometimes they participate in the hate towards specific children too?

With homeschooling, the parent sees what's happening and can protect their child. Nobody will protect them at school - especially if the school lies to the parents to save face/protect teachers. And nobody will ever pay for the destroyed family relationships this produces.

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