Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#761

Post by dmonitor » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 5:53 PM UTC

brightball wrote: post #429

elcritch wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly a biased view of religious home schoolers. Most of my religious friends who homeschool are college educated and many have postgraduate degrees. Some do disbelieve evolution, or at least disdain it a bit. Pretty much all of them are motivated people however. Of course that's just my little bubble.

The hard thing for a lot of people to accept is that belief or lack thereof of evolution has no impact on daily life at all. It always comes up in these discussions as a boogeyman anyway.

It’s directly correlated with young earth creationism and climate change denial. A significant portion of the population being taught "don’t trust scientists they’re lying on behalf of the literal devil" has done terrible things to American politics.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#762

Post by seitgeist » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 5:54 PM UTC

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.

I agree in part and disagree in part:

Agree - they're absolutely "hacking" education for their kids. The 1:1 student/teacher ratio and the ability to custom tailor almost every part of the curriculum are the biggest selling points--and that's true whether it comes from a desire to give their kids the best they can, or a desire to micromanage and control every aspect of their lives.

Disagree - I think it's less about "average people" overall and more about opting out of learning from and being trained by what can feel like a gachapon of teachers and administrators in public (and to a lesser extent, private) schools. It probably seems to them like, "If I wouldn't hire this person to work at my company, why would I 'hire' them to do the much more critical task of preparing my child for their future?"

None of the arguments convince anyone. Homeschooling remains what it was in the creationism-and-spelling-bee days: an ideological choice.

In other words...

  Windows = public school
  Mac     = private school
  Linux   = homeschool

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#763

Post by swiftcoder » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 5:54 PM UTC

The problem with homeschooling is it's pretty much a crapshoot whether you end up in a weird religious environment or an abusive environment, with a long-shot chance of ending up in a fun constructive environment with lots of personalised attention and the opportunity to travel the world.

Of course, this is pretty much the same set of dice you roll when you spawn into a traditional school system, except you roll with disadvantage when it comes to the long-shot.

I don't know, I was fortunate enough to roll the long shot, and it worked out pretty well for me. Though I will echo the article's note that forming emotional attachments continues to be a bitch if you didn't have a large peer group at a young age...

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#764

Post by nyarlathotep_ » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 5:55 PM UTC

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #482

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…

I grew up in the US, we're about the same age, and I went to a public school where I had a similar experience. More than anything else, I remember the crushing boredom and the feeling that time had slowed to a crawl. I wasn't beaten or abused, but I felt trapped in amber, and the school really was prison-like, just as you describe it. I've never hated anything so much in my life as I hated school. So I escaped the pr…

It also says something about the quality of the "education" that you were able to (presumably) manage some sort of technical aspirations and career without the "required education".

I know the feeling.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#765

Post by froh » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 5:59 PM UTC

geye1234 wrote: post #703

froh wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

Two points here: 1. Government schooling won't force you to confront other beliefs: it will deliver you a particular set of beliefs. Example: sex ed (which must, logically, be delivered from one or another moral perspective; there is no neutrality). Or history, which in many Anglo countries used to whitewash 19th-century crimes, and now goes to the other extreme of ignoring anything good. Empirically, it is pretty cl…

do you see the difference of "government schools" in contrast to curricula elaborated by democratically elected boards? especially in a country with proportional representation, which reflects into said boards?

also the controversy is built into the curricula. "these are the positions, discuss"

and yes my top comment is exactly addressing the top point. and how it may be a good idea to think about how other cultures approach education and why.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#766

Post by froh » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 6:00 PM UTC

qdl wrote: post #366

notTooFarGone wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>however Germany thinks binning kids into handcrafts, simple office jobs and academia at age nine (!) is a brilliant idea o-O As a German that's the first time I hear that. Do you mean Schülerpraktikum? That's usually at age 14. Never heard anyone doing that at age 9.

I guess he is talking about the three school types you can go to after elementary

or four (adding Gesamtschule) but yes, the what she's talking about.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#767

Post by rmk » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 6:01 PM UTC

spiderfarmer wrote: post #66

vodou wrote: post #40

One thing I've never understood with homeschooling: How come parents think they have the competence to be a teacher? Just because you are educated doesn't mean you are a good (pedagogical) educator.

The USA hasn’t had a healthy education system for decades, so parents who have gone through that system are a) not very well educated and b) think they can do better.

This is a weak argument. The US has a patchy K-12 system whose quality varies from abysmal to world-beating, depending on many factors. It has, indisputably, one of the world's best universities. Lots of people who have gone through the former but are also products of the latter. They can be very well educated, and do better than credentialed teachers (let's face it, the only difference is that; also a known fact that brighter, higher-IQ people do not gravitate toward K-12 teaching).

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#768

Post by kajumix » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 6:01 PM UTC

swiftcoder wrote: post #763

The problem with homeschooling is it's pretty much a crapshoot whether you end up in a weird religious environment or an abusive environment, with a long-shot chance of ending up in a fun constructive environment with lots of personalised attention and the opportunity to travel the world. Of course, this is pretty much the same set of dice you roll when you spawn into a traditional school system, except you roll with…

Why do you imply that the fun, constructive environment for homeschooling a long shot, but the weird religious or abusive environment is more of the norm?

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#769

Post by cryptonector » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 6:08 PM UTC

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…

> too slow for four year election cycles.

Maybe that's the problem: that education is so politicized. Yet another reason people opt to homeschool.

(For those of you who object so strenuously here to homeschooling, suppose MAGA were to remake public education they way they want it to be. Would you then not seriously consider homeschooling? I bet y'all would.)

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#770

Post by volkk » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 6:08 PM UTC

arccy wrote: post #735

volkk wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

yeah i see the argument, and its an important skillset to be able to deal with chaos/bullies but this other part of me wonders whether dealing with bullying early on is healthy at all?

to be clear, i do believe that tough personalities that aren't straight up bullying can still happen inside of a group homeschooled environment.