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Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

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Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#741

Post by Kim_Bruning »

dxd wrote: post #671
pkulak wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anything goes, you can be whatever you feel like and there's no judgement of any of your actions Wow, what a terrible take. If anyone needs religion to live a moral life, I'm glad they have found it and hope they never lose it. I'm judged by my peers, my family, my community, and my country. But even if I wasn't, I would know what's right and what's wrong. Moreover, I guess it's good that amoral people can find eth…

Ah, moral relativism. I believe there is no way around the idea that without religion, there is no such thing as morality. It all comes down to the question: how do you know what's right and wrong? If you don't have an external moral code, that is, you decide what is right and wrong, then the odds are stacked against you, 1 out of every individual with a unique opinion to ever exist; it is conceited for anyone to bel…

Would you say that you behave in a moral way because you fear the threat of hell (extrinsic, negative motivation), or because you follow the example of Jesus Christ in your heart (intrinsic, positive motivation)?

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#742

Post by xyzelement »

somenameforme wrote: post #739
xyzelement wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

// other aspects of homeschooling were just a fig leaf over a whole lot of religious indoctrination I was raised totally secular but I now understand that religion is about fundamentally aligning yourself to the highest aspirations ("what kind of man does G-d want me to be?") and even w/o actual faith, I am starting to think that's preferable to the current mode of "anything goes, you can be whatever you feel like an…

The one thing I'd observe about near to all religions is that the values suggested tend to be about optimizing the overall outcome of a society. The most controversial topics are ones related to sexuality. But there's an utterly trivial, and even perfectly reasonable, explanation for why so many different religions look down on any form of sex except man+woman+babies. As one looks back in the past, the 'effective fer…

I glazed over on the math but I agree with your statement. And I think the cause and effect are enmeshed... Do religious people have more kids? Yes. Do the kinds of people who are willing to take on the serious work of having many kids more likely to also take on other responsibility (ie be religious)? I think also yes.

And on the flip side, secular society prides itself on how smart, objective, no "sky daddy" fantasies, etc it is as it marches towards self-selected extinction.

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#743

Post by [deleted] »

jstarfish wrote: post #724
fellowniusmonk wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who was raised in religious communities, that "higher aspirations" is only the position "in principle" in reality working with people in the religious community was just scams and moral self justification of despicable behavior hidden behind soft language and terrible behavior. So much contention, so much gossip, so much backbiting behavior and hidden evils against children so that communities wouldn't "lo…

> As someone who was raised in religious communities, that "higher aspirations" is only the position "in principle" in reality working with people in the religious community was just scams and moral self justification of despicable behavior hidden behind soft language and terrible behavior. So much contention, so much gossip, so much backbiting behavior and hidden evils against children so that communities wouldn't "…

[deleted]

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#744

Post by qup »

rpmisms wrote: post #714
qup wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can say it until you're blue in the face, point out how obviously true it is, and they can't see it. They'll invent excuses why you're wrong. What are you working on?

Was in e-commerce, got burned out doing meaningless work, so now I'm working at a pro-farm non-profit. I get to be self-directed and smart.

Tech for ag? I think that's an underserved market, although not totally neglected, of course.

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#745

Post by alphanullmeric »

Turns out that English teachers doing nothing but discussing their politics in class, addition of more and more breadth requirements and dumbing down stem courses to appease the lowest common denominator makes public high schools unappealing for many parents.

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#746

Post by ReptileMan »

jawns wrote: post #150

People talk about homeschooling as if it's one single concept, but it's actually a whole bunch of very dissimilar things. There are people who homeschool because they don't agree with the government's viewpoints, people who homeschool because the public school system has failed their kids, people who homeschool because it just happens to fit their lifestyle. Those are all very different motivations. Likewise, there a…

>Thirteen Baltimore City high schools don't have a single student who has achieved grade-level proficiency in math. A recent news headline.

The system is failing those students in such complete ways that I can't see any way in which homeschooling could be worse than that. Those kids could probably learn better math by sleeping with a textbook under their pillow and relying on osmosis.

A kid could probably get better education just by being bored and left in a room with books and select access to educational YouTube videos than what parts of the educational system offer.

Btw there was a epic tweek lately along the lines of: I pay my son 10$ for every book he reads. It's my best deal ever and he thinks he is ripping me off.

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#747

Post by dheerajvs »

alistairSH wrote: post #219
edgyquant wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> underlying problem is the completely unregulated nature No that’s literally the main benefit. People actually get to teach their own kids without state indoctrination (either left or right.)

I love that when a parent tells a kid that Jesus rode a velociraptor it's "teaching" but when a school tells a kid the universe probably started with a big bang, it's "indoctrination".

India is facing a different kind of indoctrination by state education — masquerading mythology as science:

https://www.deccanherald.com/india/scientists-flag-ncerts-mi...

I definitely wouldn't want this kind of "regulated" education for children.

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#748

Post by m463 »

303uru wrote: post #17
brightball wrote: post #7

When I moved into my current house about 10 years ago, the family next door home schooled. I'd never known any home schoolers before and definitely had some notions about how terrible it must be until I learned about it. This family was part of a home school group with other families. The kids went to different houses every day and had an instructor focus on 1 subject for half of the day, mixed in with free time, dep…

Sure, that's one model. The underlying problem is the completely unregulated nature. Similarly, there is household in my neighborhood that home schools. The kids (all 8 of them) never leave the house. They have a 8ft. fence and 1 acre yard where I assume they get some outside time. No one visits. Only dad is allowed to talk to anyone and when he does it's extraordinarily weird.

> completely unregulated nature.

From what I can tell, homeschooled kids are given a curriculum with books/workbooks for both the student and the teacher. They are also tested by the state and must meet certain criteria.

so there seems to be guidance and verification.

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#749

Post by pstuart »

dxd wrote: post #671
pkulak wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anything goes, you can be whatever you feel like and there's no judgement of any of your actions Wow, what a terrible take. If anyone needs religion to live a moral life, I'm glad they have found it and hope they never lose it. I'm judged by my peers, my family, my community, and my country. But even if I wasn't, I would know what's right and what's wrong. Moreover, I guess it's good that amoral people can find eth…

Ah, moral relativism. I believe there is no way around the idea that without religion, there is no such thing as morality. It all comes down to the question: how do you know what's right and wrong? If you don't have an external moral code, that is, you decide what is right and wrong, then the odds are stacked against you, 1 out of every individual with a unique opinion to ever exist; it is conceited for anyone to bel…

That take presumes that the morals you've been taught came directly from the lips of God. Otherwise, it's other people making stuff up.

The Golden Rule is pretty self-explanatory and is a solid foundation for moral behavior. I don't rape, murder, steal, etc., not because I'm afraid of God's wrath, or that of the police -- it's because I wouldn't want those things to happen to me or my loved ones and am able to understand that others feel this way too.

Meanwhile, that moral absolutism give license to kill people for blasphemy. And there's plenty more horrible things that are done to others because God said so.

Everybody's entitled to have their own relationship with God (even as an atheist I do in my own way), and I acknowledge that there's plenty of good that comes from people practicing their faith, but that is easily countered by very bad stuff that is morally justified by their interpretations of scripture.

And this concern is everybody's -- because there's ongoing efforts to make the US into a theocracy and that would be a very bad thing.

Re: Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

#750

Post by StillBored »

jawns wrote: post #150

People talk about homeschooling as if it's one single concept, but it's actually a whole bunch of very dissimilar things. There are people who homeschool because they don't agree with the government's viewpoints, people who homeschool because the public school system has failed their kids, people who homeschool because it just happens to fit their lifestyle. Those are all very different motivations. Likewise, there a…

Right, a family member of mine was recently home schooled after their freshman year of high school. For a long list of reasons which can be summarized as the local public school was absolute garbage small town meth capital level of schooling. (Think no AP/etc classes) and a local district unwilling to provide an alternative school.

Home schooling in this case was basically 70 something credits from the local community college, a handful of CLEP exams, and a bunch of highschool credits from the state online highschool system. The result was a diploma from said local highschool and an AA from the community college and acceptance to a college in the top 50 nationally.

So, its not all dumb parents doing dumb things, but sometimes parents making the best out of a poor set of circumstances.

And AFAIK the diploma from the crappy HS was just a rubber stamp to check the "graduated from HS" for the community college to grant the AA, and the public Uni to take them as a junior (at age 18 no less).

edit: And I should point out the local HS itself apparently had some decent teachers/etc, its just the administration was catering to a conservative community largely disinterested in public education made worse by the fact that the top 10% or so of economically advantaged students had already left the district for a fancy private school or some kind of early college classes similar to my family member. Its the white version of the inner city failing school story, except there wasn't a better highschool on the other side of town for the motivated kids/parents to transfer to unless you also had 15k/year to spend.

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