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Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

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Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#711

Post by dkhenry »

I don't think this article is a good faith analysis of Homeschooling. Clearly the author was home schooled and had some concerns with how they were instructed. With that in mind the arguments that are brought up are very much ignoring the breath of options that are all covered under "homeschool". There is far more diversity in the home school world beyond academic overachiever and religious fundamentalist.

Fundamentally home school allows children to be taught in a way that is appropriate for them, and with the speed and oversight they require. Something that you can't really do in a corporate school setting. All three of my children learn at different paces, and require different amounts of involvement. They all require much more involvement then they ever got at traditional schools, and they have at times progressed through their coursework much faster or much slower then the "average" pace.

It is true that if you have a child that is a academic prodigy they will greatly benefit from homeschooling, and its true that keeping your children in your home can allow you to be the greatest influence in their moral and social instruction, but its also true that even "average" students will probably do better with 1-1 instruction from a parent who is well equipped then they will with a teacher who might be better trained, but is ill equipped to actually instruct each individual pupil.

As for the main point that somehow this is some form of elitism where homeschool families don't want their kids around the common rabble. The homeschool families I know range from households where both parents hold post secondary degree's, to ones where the parents got GED's, and the career expectations are suitably broad for the kids being schooled. This stands in stark contrast to traditional school which ranks its self on how many kids go to 4 year colleges, and looks down on anyone who would join a trade, or be a home maker. This is literally my biggest complaint with school in the Bay Area. If your kid didn't get into Berkeley or Stanford your household was perceived to be a failure, and if they had any desire to do something other then be a Product Manager at a FAANG then they were going to be forced to live at home forever or move to another state.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#712

Post by geye1234 »

ravenstine wrote: post #669
geye1234 wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to grammar school (UK) in the 1990s, and also absolutely loathed it. I think it set me up horribly for life and (especially) for my career. People use the phrase "PTSD" too lightly, but I think it gave me something like it that I often feel in an office full of people, and especially during in-person meetings. Years of CBT and ERP have helped a lot, and now I'm middle-aged I think I've put the worst of it behi…

PTSD is misapplied quite a bit these days, though CPTSD (the C stands for complex) seems to be the most appropriate clinical definition for the kind of scattered traumatic damage people experience, especially from childhood. Glad to know you've received the help that you needed and have been able to move on. I compartmentalized and put off working on my traumas for far longer than I should have. People underestimate…

Thanks. Yes, CPTSD would be more accurate -- the result of a state of near-constant low-level fear. I had, and continue to have, massive trust issues, particularly at work. I struggle to think everyone doesn't secretly hate me and that I'm not constantly on the verge of getting fired, even though I can see it's not logical. Steadily getting better now thanks to CBT and similar techniques.

But I have lost many friends and career opportunities as a result of my time at school. I had a basically healthy and happy home environment, but as you say, school can still screw you up badly.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#713

Post by geye1234 »

honzabe wrote: post #704
geye1234 wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a major reason (but far from the only reason) that we homeschool. Knowing what I know about the school system, about my own experience thereof, and about my kids' personalities, it would be grossly immoral for me to put them through it. The risk of long-term trauma would be too high. There is some risk of their being isolated (but very low, since they are with other kids three days a week), and a slightly hig…

> I'd rather my kids have a few gaps in their knowledge than be traumatized by the school system I went through a normal school system (the first 8 years still during the communist regime in my country, so take that "normal" with a grain of salt), and the gaps in my knowledge are enormous, in some cases subject-wide. I know literally nothing about chemistry, except the bits you learn here and there from TV shows and…

Agree, there are plenty of kids who go to government schools and have enormous gaps in their knowledge, in the west as well.

I'm saying that, all things being equal, I'd rather my kids be homeschooled with a few gaps, than go to a government school (and be traumatized) and have no gaps.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#714

Post by nprateem »

elpatokamo wrote: post #674
tetris11 wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is still an implicit "othering" of other children. They are in one camp and yours are in another. If they have any semblance of imagination as kids do, they will dream up reasons beyond the one you gave them

Our two kids are homeschooled and are generally equally excited to play with all their friends (some homeschooled, some in regular public school, some in private school). I have yet to see or hear any "othering" of their friends. In fact, I'd say the breadth of different social situations they are exposed to makes the "othering" less likely.

Ever thought it might be the other way round?

I'd send my kids private, but no way would I isolate them with home schooling. You're meant to do that on evenings and weekends anyway.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#715

Post by shw1n »

As someone who had both good and really bad times in schools, works in tech, and is considering it for our kids, some thoughts:

Never once did I want my kid to “not be around mediocre”, it’s the extremes I want to filter.

Part of the reason we’re considering private school is to avoid the bullies/wannabe gangbangers who don’t care if they end up in jail that made my own life miserable.

Similarly, our concern is with the other extreme, anxiety-ridden, high-expectations “has to change the world” is not what we want his social culture to be.

A group of kids that enjoy learning, understand the employee/entrepreneurial trade-off but may still opt for a 9-5 is what we’re after.

A friend of mine half-jokingly suggested “the cheapest private school” to balance this out, and actually seems like a half-decent solution.

Like with general life consequences, we want them to experience as much variance on their own while avoiding extreme swings with long-term negative repercussions (horrific injury, jail, dangerous drugs). This is just one facet among many for us.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#716

Post by kerkeslager »

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…

> Education? You probably mean repeating exercises in rote? You likely mean memorisation? That’s not education.

I hear your overall point, but treating this issue as a dichotomy undermines your point. Critics of homeschooling aren't claiming that schools are perfect, or that schools educate ideally. The claim is that, as poorly as our teachers are equipped to educate students, parents are, on average, worse equipped.

You're insinuating here that you were not educated in school. You're making that claim in a text-based format. How did you learn to read and write? Are you making the claim that your mother taught you how to read and write, and the school had nothing to do with it?

Here's the problem with what you're saying: a lot of homeschooled children don't know how to read and write. Or add, subtract, multiply, and divide. And contrary to your theory of education, memorisation is useful in learning these skills. A kid who has memorized how to do addition and subtraction can make change at a cash register, and a lot of homeschooled adults can't do that.

There are outliers in both schoolchild and homeschooled child experiences. I am one myself: my mom homeschooled me for kindergarten and first grade, and did a great job, but she had the advantage that she was a schoolteacher. And maybe your experience was an outlier in that you really did learn nothing in school. But the averages, at a systemic level, are that homeschooled children are at a large disadvantage compared to children educated in a school.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#717

Post by PittleyDunkin »

robertlagrant wrote: post #449
endofreach wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These tech parents are hackers by nature Why? Being in tech doesn't make you a hacker. Most people, even very talented engineers, are still happy to follow boss, do a 9 to 5, and don't really bend or break the rules... they don't go against the elite. They see themselves as the elite.

> they don't go against the elite. They see themselves as the elite. These are not the only two options. Deciding some people are "the elite" and defining people as being either part of that group or in opposition to it is your choice, but it is not the only choice.

[flagged]

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#718

Post by geye1234 »

zaphar wrote: post #675
deltarholamda wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't just stay home with your siblings. A major factor of how homeschooling works is homeschoolers have local organizations or co-ops where they do things together. And, yes, this is just reinventing some aspects of the public school system in the private sphere. But that is because parents, rightly or wrongly, feel they have zero influence over how the public school works, so they just sideload their own versio…

The big difference about that reinvention is that there are way more parents present in those environments than the typical public school variant. So both good behaviors to observe are more visible and also interventions are significantly more frequent.

There's also a variety of kids' ages at these events, so the younger can learn from the older (and parents can easily intervene if this isn't going well). And you know who your kids are interacting with: you know something about the families, or at least know someone who knows them, so the odds of malign influences are much lower.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#719

Post by Wowfunhappy »

shw1n wrote: post #715

As someone who had both good and really bad times in schools, works in tech, and is considering it for our kids, some thoughts: Never once did I want my kid to “not be around mediocre”, it’s the extremes I want to filter. Part of the reason we’re considering private school is to avoid the bullies/wannabe gangbangers who don’t care if they end up in jail that made my own life miserable. Similarly, our concern is with…

There are private schools which have more and less competitive environments, it just depends. I'm not convinced that filtering by tuition cost will necessarily get you what you want, you'd want to research the individual school and talk to families and so on.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#720

Post by e12e »

Scubabear68 wrote: post #623

So we chose private school over home schooling, for both time reasons, educational reasons, and social reasons. But the important thing is we choose to take our kids out of public school. The trigger was Covid, but what really happened was suddenly millions of parents could directly see what their schools and teachers were like because we watched our kids work remotely all day for a year. We did not like what we saw.…

> give them to largely incompetent people (to whit, our school superintendent started his career as a gym teacher), who unsurprisingly waste a lot of it.

Seems like a bit of a non sequitur? If anything one could hope that a gym teacher would value play and movement over chaining kids to a desk all day?

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