Outschooling • Hacker News Board

Re: Outschooling

#81

Post by surge » Wed, May 29, 2019, 9:21 PM UTC

carlob wrote: post #73

surge wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're looking at different school systems and using it to leverage criticisms of home schooling in the US. Fix public schooling in the US first, make it so it isn't so easy for home schoolers to out perform. Don't make kids guinea pigs while you figure out how to fix it. Then and only then can you level a critical eye on US home schoolers if the vast majority weren't doing a better job than public schools. I…

> Fix public schooling in the US first This is like people saying to fix the bus system before adding bus lanes that would increase congestion for cars. The system is broken because smarter kids or kids who come from more educated families are escaping it. The effect is that public schools in the US are becoming like public transportation in the US: only those who don't have any other option are using it.

Smart kids just get held back in school

It's clear to me that A) you don't have kids and don't have any experience with kids in school B) you led a very privileged life and had a better than average experience in school C) think smart kids should be held back or slowed down so the less fortunate kids can keep up and further dumb down and brain drain society because that's how it works in schools D) You're so ignorant on the subject you obviously are a victim of the public education system you're so adamant to defend.

Your analogy isn't worth addressing, its not even close to accurate. Its pointless to continue.

Re: Outschooling

#82

Post by inetknght » Wed, May 29, 2019, 9:22 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #15

inetknght wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's concerning that those actively involved parents are removed from the public school system. As someone who was homeschooled: it's extremely scary. I've missed out on social experiences and also on actual education and consider myself generally worse-off for it. Consider: Texas permits homeschooling and has effectively zero oversight. How many homeschooling families are also anti-vaxxers or feed into anti-govern…

What social experiences do you feel like you missed out on? Having teachers ignore you and spend 90% of their time dealing with problem kids? The petty drama? How many people look back fondly on K-12 and think “man, that was great?” Read Sasse’s “the vanishing American adult.” It’s got some great commentary on what’s wrong with modern school. We take kids, and instead of having them be around adults to socialize them…

> What social experiences do you feel like you missed out on?

If you're only interested in social experiences then there's all the obvious answers: girlfriends, team memberships, or even just how to discover and talk to other people my age with similar interests. Standing up for myself is hard. Simply talking to people is hard. How to filter the words I say so that people don't take offense to me expressing an opinion.

If you want to expand your question, then also: art, business, chemistry, college, even joining the military required a high school diploma.

Re: Outschooling

#83

Post by iambateman » Wed, May 29, 2019, 9:27 PM UTC

up_and_up wrote: post #24

charliesharding wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What were the primary motivations for homeschooling? Cultural? Political? Quality? Access? Also how do you go about socializing them? I've been considering it myself

My wife was from a very competitive school district which forced overachievement and I got beat up by bullies in a small town school. Besides the personal anecdotes, 1. we felt like time was passing too quickly and wanted to have them around, we wanted to be together basically. 2. with 3 kids my wife hasnt been able to work (her line of work is not well paying), so it made sense to start homeschooling vs private scho…

I was homeschooled for 8 years and this schedule sounds very familiar, except it was surfing and working a part time job for me. School does not need to take 8 hours to be effective.

As far as socialization, I’ve been asked this a hundred times: “so...like...how do you talk to people when you’re at home?” Now, I understand they mean well. But for someone who just implied their superior social capabilities, they sure seem rude and unsocialized. ;)

Re: Outschooling

#84

Post by burfog » Wed, May 29, 2019, 9:32 PM UTC

inetknght wrote: post #82

rayiner wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What social experiences do you feel like you missed out on? Having teachers ignore you and spend 90% of their time dealing with problem kids? The petty drama? How many people look back fondly on K-12 and think “man, that was great?” Read Sasse’s “the vanishing American adult.” It’s got some great commentary on what’s wrong with modern school. We take kids, and instead of having them be around adults to socialize them…

> What social experiences do you feel like you missed out on? If you're only interested in social experiences then there's all the obvious answers: girlfriends, team memberships, or even just how to discover and talk to other people my age with similar interests. Standing up for myself is hard. Simply talking to people is hard. How to filter the words I say so that people don't take offense to me expressing an opinio…

I went to a public high school and I also missed out on all those things. It sounds like you got an equivalent education!

We often mistakenly think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. I suggest to you that in the alternate history, with you in a public school, you also would not have had girlfriends. I sure didn't have any, despite being tall and slightly athletic.

The same goes for being able to filter words to not cause offense. One time, that got me fired! My public school education served me just as well as your education served you.

Re: Outschooling

#85

Post by notacoward » Wed, May 29, 2019, 9:33 PM UTC

surge wrote: post #75

notacoward wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Khan Academy and Outschooling If those allow you to outsource the entirety of your child's education, including personalization of the curriculum to individual needs, answering arbitrarily-deep questions about the subject matter, etc. then great, but I'm not sure I'd call that home schooling. That would be more like a (virtual) private school, with the same level of parental involvement. If you want to be more invo…

https://www.dailyinfographic.com/homeschooling-by-the-number...

Lots of problems with that infographic. Four sources listed, two of which are homeschooling-advocacy organizations, with no indication which numbers are drawn from which source. How were the samples selected? Are they apples to apples, or mandatory all-inclusive numbers for the public schools vs. voluntary respondents to a survey for home school? [1] is a better source for demographic information, painting a quite different picture, while [2] highlights some of the ways that advocacy groups have been caught distorting the achievement numbers in their favor.

[1] https://www.responsiblehomeschooling.org/homeschooling-101/h...

[2] https://www.parentingscience.com/homeschooling-outcomes.html

Re: Outschooling

#86

Post by inetknght » Wed, May 29, 2019, 9:33 PM UTC

camelNotation wrote: post #17

inetknght wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's concerning that those actively involved parents are removed from the public school system. As someone who was homeschooled: it's extremely scary. I've missed out on social experiences and also on actual education and consider myself generally worse-off for it. Consider: Texas permits homeschooling and has effectively zero oversight. How many homeschooling families are also anti-vaxxers or feed into anti-govern…

I don't think this is a problem with homeschooling as much as with a subset of homeschoolers - particularly religious fundamentalists and anarchist types. My wife and I homeschool, but we have our kids pushing well beyond their grade level in every subject. She had a teaching license up until a couple of years ago (they do expire after a while) and taught for several years before we had kids. Then, once they arrived,…

You present one well-honored experience. I present a stark contrast to it.

> My wife and I homeschool, but we have our kids pushing well beyond their grade level in every subject.

My parents told themselves the same thing. I apparently had top percentile test scores in several early years, particularly in math. Despite that, my parents completely failed to provide an education after choosing to homeschool.

> She had a teaching license up until a couple of years ago (they do expire after a while) and taught for several years before we had kids.

Neat! Not that it really matters, but I am curious: what did she teach?

> they're also plugged in with a local co-op with more than thirty kids that they meet up with several times a week.

That's also something my parents told themselves and others. Despite that, it wasn't exactly an honest statement. We met with other church members about once every week for about a month. Then about once every quarter of a year for about a year. Then basically never, while my parents fell deep into paranoia.

> it can also be the platform for an elite education like no other.

Yes, it can. But my experience brings with me a very skeptical mind.

> There's a reason the wealthiest families in American pay for private tutors and elite schools with tiny class sizes. Nothing beats one on one from a capable instructor.

While you're right in that there's a reason for private tutors and elite schools, I think you're wrong about your conclusion for the wealthy. I think wealthy parents don't want their children to associate with poor people who can't afford to hire their own private lessons. I think that's also a despicably-elitist action.

> They'll walk away from this better equipped than any of their peers in traditional school.

It's almost as if you're parroting the same things my parents said. Indeed, I walked away better equipped for computers than pretty much anyone I know. But that's more of a byproduct of spending years in front of a computer than anything that my parents actively tried to teach. Where I gained knowledge about computers there's also loss of other opportunities and knowledge.

> Honestly, if there is anything wrong with homeschooling itself, it's that it is only available to middle and upper class families.

You are wrong. I consider myself middle class. Almost all of my family are somewhere between poor and destitute.

Re: Outschooling

#87

Post by burfog » Wed, May 29, 2019, 9:37 PM UTC

carlob wrote: post #62

hawkesnest wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if the kids have a doctor in the family...they're being examined by a medical doctor. The idiots that don't take their kids to the doctor...are idiots. Let's NOT institute forced doctor visitations (with all the cost, overhead, bureaucracy, potential for fraud, etc) for all parents, EVEN THE EXEMPLARY ONES, to deal with that problem. Instead, let's figure out if there are better ways to ensure that parents have t…

> The idiots that don't take their kids to the doctor...are idiots. Do you think that being a teacher is easier than being a medical doctor? I know somebody who is a primary school teacher in Northern France, on the border with Belgium (a disadvantaged area for France, but no worse than some parts of the American South), every single year she has to deal with medical or social issues that would have gone otherwise un…

For my kids, contagious diseases come from the doctor's office. (there is a concentration of sick people) The most horrifying disease was hand/foot/mouth disease, which really should be called hand/foot/mouth/anus disease but that would be rude. It can cause paralysis. There is no vaccine. My kids got huge blisters, including one that fully covered the end of a thumb.

So, bear in mind, that doctor visit carries some risk and could even cause permanent damage.

Re: Outschooling

#88

Post by notacoward » Wed, May 29, 2019, 9:39 PM UTC

burfog wrote: post #77

notacoward wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that contradicts any of what I said. If people have a principled objection to public school, good for them. They should have the right to secure an equivalent education any other way they choose ... but it has to be equivalent. If not, too bad. Parents aren't allowed to feed their children sawdust instead of food, and they're not allowed to fill their their children's heads with religious/libertarian do…

The whole point is to NOT be equivalent. That is the principled objection to public school. For example: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=trump+history+school+book&t=canoni... About half the population would be offended by those textbooks. You're insisting on an equivalent education, which would mean teaching with that same bias. The whole point is to do otherwise. One can find other examples in the way books treat the Viet…

> You're insisting on an equivalent education, which would mean teaching with that same bias.

Please learn what "equivalent" means. Maybe get some help at your local public school. It doesn't mean "identical" with the same biases etc. It's entirely possible to define what would constitute an equivalent education even in a subject such as history (never mind neutral subjects such as math which you seem unwilling to talk about) without requiring the exact same interpretation. In fact, public schools try very hard to accommodate all manner of ideological biases, while home-schoolers are often very inimical to all beliefs except their own. By demonstrating that tendency, you make a good argument against unregulated home schooling.

Re: Outschooling

#89

Post by iambateman » Wed, May 29, 2019, 9:40 PM UTC

In the late 90’s my parents homeschooled me. We had a subscription to a teaching service that broadcast lessons on Satellite at 2am. My parents set the VCR to record each night and then we played the tape back for “class”. Everything was awful. To this day, my understanding of elementary science is a little worse than one would expect because my mom didn’t enjoy teaching science.

I’m so glad for advanced services making more forms of schooling possible for people.

Just to throw some ice on some of the heat in the comments...

- homeschooling isn’t for everyone, but it works wonderfully for some. My sister hated it and I loved it. People are different and need different approaches to learning.

- some people who homeschool are religious, and some of them are “fundamentalist”. But most of the people I encountered were simply “religious.” There’s a difference. ;)

Re: Outschooling

#90

Post by austhrow743 » Wed, May 29, 2019, 9:49 PM UTC

iambateman wrote: post #89

In the late 90’s my parents homeschooled me. We had a subscription to a teaching service that broadcast lessons on Satellite at 2am. My parents set the VCR to record each night and then we played the tape back for “class”. Everything was awful. To this day, my understanding of elementary science is a little worse than one would expect because my mom didn’t enjoy teaching science. I’m so glad for advanced services mak…

Are/ were you religious at the time? Any chance that you and the rest of us actually share an idea of how religious homeschool people are but just have different cut offs for when we start throwing the term "fundamentalist" around?

Anyone who genuinely believes the specifics beyond being a theist who pays lip service to Christianity is starting to head in to nut territory, personally.