In conversations like this, I often find it clarifying to ask if your interlocutors have children. Nothing strips away ideology like a screaming baby.
Underrated comment here
Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
731–740 of 1001 posts
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#732> 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…
I hate this fucking site lol
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#733OK 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…
This shows how vastly different people's experiences are with their school system at their location. It's probably either extremes we hear most about.
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#734Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Teachers can't be expected to help 30+ children work through that. The big mystery is: how did teachers manage this miracle 50 or 80 years ago?
If you read something like Annie Dillard's An American Childhood, you realize that teachers didn't. In the middle+ class at least, the children's parents did that work by organizing specific extra-curriculars, such as dances, from a very young age. These ensured that the children learned manners, dated people of acceptable character or class, etc. That social infra is simply gone today. Parents don't have much of an…
> That social infra is simply gone today. Parents don't have much of an interest, or are erroneously(!) assuming that teachers are supposed to do it, or used to do it.
You might be missing the fact that back in the day there often used to be one parent working and one parent staying at home. Nowadays both parents need at least one job. Wealth inequality at it again.
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#735Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Learning how to co-exist with people who aren't like you A billion times this. School is not to train you on Math, English or Science. It's also to teach you how to cooperate, how to reach consensus, how to make decisions as a group, and so on. These soft skills are absolutely critical to maintain a properly functioning society.
why can't homeschooling involve the same attributes? genuine question. from what i've been seeing in modern trends, homeschooling doesn't literally mean you sit and your mother teaches you all day and then you "go home" by migrating to your bedroom. you're still in a small group with other children, all of whom likely still share characteristics where disagreements will naturally happen, and cooperation will need to…
they risk being totally unprepared for less controlled environments later in life when it's harder to change habits, like in uni or in the workplace.
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#736Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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?
In NJ, the School Superintendent is effectively the CEO of the district. Many of them had advanced degrees in education, management, and finance. They control tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. Ours has a BA in health, was a gym teacher then an admin person, eventually a principal and then we hired him out of desperation when covid hit and our superintendent was retiring. He has been a total disaster because he…
My old gym teacher also taught science because we just couldn't find another teacher, and was genuinely surprised to learn there were forms of matter smaller than atoms.
My health teacher was a "permanent substitute" situation where we just watched movies the whole semester and got A's.
One of my math teachers died and we just...never hired a replacement, so nobody learned anything that semester.
Bonus: my driver's education teacher was arrested for a DUI (but not terminated)
These situations were all in different schools in different US states, so the lack of quality control in admin that you describe definitely resonates.
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#737I can't really know nor do I care to speculate on why it's becoming fashionable. But I'm a successful, well adjusted, homeschooled child from when it wasn't fashionable. This comment stood out to me: "Opt out of interacting with average people." And my immediate thought was: "I can't imagine a less effective or worse way teach kids how to deal with people, average or not, than to throw them into a pool of similarly u…
This doesn't make sense to me. We all get better at a talent by practicing it. We make mistake. We watch others. We determine our own preferences for what we like/don't like. We learn, grow. Kids figure it out. How does staying at home with just your sibs fair better? You wouldn't get same exposure to the buttload of social interaction and scenarios in a closed system like that.
> How does staying at home with just your sibs fair better?
This is a very reductionist view of homeschooling.
While some folks certainly do have this experience when homeschooled, a well-designed home schooling experience will have an abundance of social interactions with non-family members.
Sports is an obvious one, but there are also many homeschool groups that engage in learning activities together.
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#738OK 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…
I'm both glad and dismayed to hear that I'm not the only one who likens public school to prison. I went to school in California, and I would say my school experience became prison-like between grades 4 and 11. In fairness, I can now look back at my child self and realize that I was delayed in terms of emotional maturity, which contributed to my social problems, but the kind of environment I was in was the wrong one f…
We pay for a private school, it's expensive yes and I know not accessible for all, but it's kind of the best of both worlds. You get to choose the school and it's a community vibe. It helps when the other kids, potential bullies, know your kid and know their parents talk to your parents. It also helps as the staff is acutely tuned in to things like this, and they have amazing ways of conflict resolutions. It's not difficult, it just requires some attention and thought. They reinforce golden rule type actions/behaviors/leading by example/etc. As an example, if one kid picks on another one, instead of detention - they will both be given a 'private talk' and then paired up on some activity. The result is, they were constructively scolded then had a chance to bond and become friends - and it works. It's never going to be fully eradicated, but it's amazing just how little there is and how supportive everyone is in trying to develop good humans.
They also assess the kids emotional maturity early on. Those that they feel are not ready to go from Kinder to 1st get a 'Primer' year. It's basically holding them back in Kinder but with a positive twist.
Tons of other benefits as the parents hold a lot of power (since we pay). But also, the quality of staff/teachers, and low ratios are quite a perk compared to our area's public schools which are poorly rated.
I went to public school myself, and while I was never bullied, I do think I was a target of bullies at some time. Any time I felt like someone was bullying me, I fought back and would often be disciplined under zero tolerance rules. That's how my parents taught me to deal with it, 'stand up for yourself boy' kind of thing. We've taught our kid not to hit and to be kind and he is, but that's exactly what I think would make him a huge target in a public school environment.
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#739Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, one reason is that your assumption that they are all or mostly inferior is wrong.
Suppose you have a kid that you have reason to believe is at the 90th percentile. This isn't uncommon; it's one in ten kids. The average kid at the average school is at the 50th percentile. Moreover, the speed of the class isn't even the speed of the average kid because then the 40th and 20th percentile kids would get left behind. To get out of this you'd need a school with a gifted program and enough 90th percentile…
I find your statistic mistake rather amusing in light of the point you are making. :D
Distributions aren't all normal, for one. And skill levels are often quantized in a way that majority of people will be above a 50% level on it.
Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?
#740> 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…
> Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.