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Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

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Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#871

Post by polski-g »

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…

Youth polling consistently ranks public schooling middle-high school as the literal worst time in their life. However, I still think they should do it as it gives them exposure to the bottom quartile of the population. It gives them motivation and reason to structure the rest of their life to do anything and everything to never have to interact said population group again.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#872

Post by ACow_Adonis »

conductr wrote: post #738
ravenstine wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 di…

I attended a private school for a couple of years, and I have to say it was worse than the public ones.

Now obviously this is going to be neighbourhood, country, and community specific, but the problem I had with observing private schools was that now the school had an additional incentive not to expel students, rich and influential parents had extra influence over whether their child could be disciplined and how the school should do things, and half of the time the problematic behaved people were... the rich people and their children. Having and paying money isn't exactly a free ticket to well-adjusted children especially if the children are mimicking the culture they see at home and the society awards bullying and various behaviours with more money... Which most of ours do.

And this was on top of the downsides of private schools: being image obsessed over academics and intellectual investigation, surrounded by non egalitarian private school twats, and bunches of arbitrary private school rules. Now obviously this is not all private schools, but in the same way it's not all public schools either.

I think in this system it's a roll of the die. In my country, neighbourhood and in my life, my kid is currently going to public school and, touch wood... thriving for now. The other private schools around here have too much woo like Waldorf and Steiner and they steer away from evidence based methods in literacy and numeracy.

But I don't know if that's going to hold off into the older ages, and I can't promise, much to my wife's chagrin, not to consider homeschooling considering my own experience of high school also approaching that of a dysfunctional prison and a poor educational environment.

PS: there was plenty of interpersonal violence at the private schools when I grew up.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#873

Post by cryptonector »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #390
cryptonector wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Masking children was fucking cruel.

Not really. If you've grown up in Asia you're used to wearing a mask whenever you are feeling unwell or have a cold. We do that out of courtesy to others, and it makes a lot of sense (which is why the practice has continued at hospitals since COVID). My kids were both in elementary school during COVID and got used to it quickly and were just fine.

Many American parents did not consider masking their children to be OK. If you want to know one reason many more are homeschooling now: that's one reason. There's other related reasons too. All the covid reasons to homeschool:

  - schools were closed for too long
  - remote learning wasn't working
  - forced masking of children when
    schools reopened, both against
    the children's and parents' will
  - politicization of all things health

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#874

Post by temptemptemp111 »

anovikov wrote: post #325

Homeschooling doesn't scale, this is why it's not a solution for everyone. I can't see a fundamental drawback to it, like there are none in say, private jets: only problem is that neither can be applied to any sizeable minority, let alone not to the majority, of people. But if you can do it, do it. The need for socialisation and being able to get along with the average had any meaning for as long as we had any hope f…

[dead]

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#875

Post by potato3732842 »

huehehue wrote: post #736
Scubabear68 wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

My best history teacher was the gym teacher who was really hired as loophole because they couldn't hire a basketball coach which is what he really was.

Anyway, he didn't give a crap about teaching to the curriculum and he taught us how to think critically and read between the lines of history.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#876

Post by gabruoy »

teeray wrote: post #699
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. There’s so many classes that I want a refund on my wasted childhood time. Reading the “classics” in English, studying foreign language, Theology (Catholic schools), History (yes, History). I hated all these classes, didn’t learn much from them beyond what it took to pass the tests, then quickly forgot what…

I never read pretty much any book written before 1970, never learned a foreign language beyond a single semester of Spanish, and certainly had no Theology in a US Public school. Now as an adult, I do want to learn all those things (to some degree) and feel like I missed out on it; “If only I had a better education.” But I probably would have been more like you, uninterested and equally as dismissive of my childhood education if I were forced to learn all of those things at that age. Is it a problem with educators, families, or just the children themselves that they will grow up and realize the opportunities they’ve lost?

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#877

Post by WesleyJohnson »

xnx wrote: post #219
WesleyJohnson wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs hallucinate and often provide incorrect answers. They're a fabulous tool if you're not necessarily looking a specific, correct, answer. But I'm not sure I would want my kids to use them as a tutor, without someone to vet the output.

That's a very good concern to have. Grounding[0] helps a lot with this and will continue to improve. I'll also add that I've had human teachers who were confidently wrong about things. [0] https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/facts-grounding-a-new-...

Nice, thanks for sharing. I wasn't aware of this, but certainly anticipated we'd continue to see improvement in this area. And I completely agree on teachers being wrong, usually without realizing it, but not always. :)

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#878

Post by FlyingAvatar »

jcarrano wrote: post #859
conductr wrote: post #738

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 di…

I find it appalling that parent who can afford a private school, even with much sacrifice, would instead send their children to a a public school. It is the equivalent of eating soup at a homeless shelter when you can go to the store and buy something better, made worse by the fact that you are making the decision for someone else that cannot decide on their own.

You have a choice of what public school your child goes to based on where you live. Many parents “shop” for their schools in this way.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#879

Post by rstuart4133 »

nosefurhairdo wrote: post #23

I live in a good area and have friends who work in a few different schools out here. Kids are throwing chairs at teachers. There are elementary school classrooms where ~1/4 students don't speak English. The reading/math skills are so dismal, any student who learns at home is bored as hell. Private schools are outrageously expensive. Homeschooling is becoming the pragmatic choice.

A slightly different perspective: schools are mass produced education. Mass produced in the sense that they are the lower cost in terms of person hours to produce an educated child. Like all mass produced products, it's better than 1/2 hearted solo attempts to do the same thing, but a parent that can afford to put a huge amount of time into it can do better job as lots of comments here attest.

If true, that also provides an explanation for the rise home schooling: more people can afford to do it.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#880

Post by dyauspitr »

alxjrvs wrote: post #864
dyauspitr wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The support of trans ideology is destroying the progressive movement. What a shame because they’re driving people straight into the arms of fascists.

If support of trans folk is "Too far" for someone, they were already running towards fascism. There's nothing progressive about denying folks their gender identity, and to the extent that "Progressivism" is a force in America, it is better off without the Anti-trans contingent.

No it isn’t. The vast majority of progressive people don’t buy into any of the gender/trans discussion. It’s definitely not a core tenet of being a progressive, but a very vocal minority is definitely trying to make it so.
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