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Homeschooling hits record numbers

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Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#871
post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do 3rd grade math Teachers' Edition books have an answer key in them, I asked a 3rd grade teacher. She replied that many of the teachers couldn't do arithmetic.

It's a funny joke, but I'd be very surprised if that held at any grade school math level. Someone would have to be numerically illiterate (with a college degree!) to be unable to do grade school math they've been teaching for multiple years. Year 1, possible. But eventually it rubs off on even the teacher.

Sadly it's not a joke.

Most people suck at math. Those who don't suck usually have many well-paying jobs available for them. There are lots of schools, so many math teachers are needed.

Put these numbers together, and you realize that there is no way to have math teachers who are actually good at math. The numbers just don't add up.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#872

I can't say my public school experience was great, I was bullied and didn't really click with the popular kids, but being around a cross section of actual American kids in my age group (my school district mixed middle class with lower class neighborhoods) helped me shape my worldview and learn to deal with people who didn't look or talk like me. I frequently saw fights, so I learned that you just stay away and watch…

In my opinion you are just more likely to run into bad influences that not only won't bring value but might as well send you a pretty bad path. The socialisation aspect of school is very largely bullshit, just like the diversity propaganda nonsense. There are actually studies on this is you want to look it up. Homeschooled children, do better in social settings later in life, not worse.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#873

I was homeschooled as a child, from 1st through 12th grade, in a large homeschooling community from the late 1980s through the 1990s. I started college in 2000. I heard all the stories about how homeschooled kids get better standardized test scores and generally enter college with fewer remedial courses, better academic outcomes, etc. I heard all the arguments that "actually, we do socialize, because we can still do…

I very much disagree with your point of view. If you have authoritarian parents with narrow world views, being exposed to other ways of thinking/living in school will only raise your expectations and create resentment against the parents which will generally make things worse for you. And if you are a slacker (and the parents lets you slack) being in class isn't that useful. If you are smart enough you'll get by, doing nothing. But the moment you'll be required to actually put some effort the lack of work will show up and by then it will be too late. On the other hand you could get an early warning if you avoid the hard stuff being homeschooled and it's generally more effective when you figure out stuff yourself, not being spoon fed in a lecture.

And by being at home, time can at least be used for self-guided exploration that are likely to be more useful than whatever they decided to teach in the current era at school (outside of language/math/science later on it's all thinly disguised propaganda anyway). If you are focused on the same things as everyone else at the same time you are not actually building strength around your interests/characters, the only purpose is to make you fit a basic template so you can be "useful" in the labor market. The idea of public school is to make a tool out of you, before anything else.

What you are complaining about is having shitty parents, which is a problem with bad outcomes, regardless if you go to public school or not. And even if you are successful at public school, there is little chance those parents will pay for later studies, so you are mostly setting yourself up for disappointment. You might as well learn to figure out stuff on you own, because you'll need that skill more than anything else when it will be time to leave your shitty parents.

I understand the frustration that comes from the feeling of having "missed something" but I can assure you that unless you were leaving in a very good school district (aka rich, which doesn't seem the case) you really didn't miss anything. Most of the real learning is done outside of school, inside school is mostly endoctrinement.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#874

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They shouldn't have to suffer just because poor, violent, should-have-been-aborteds are legally required to go to public schools. Yikes! Good thing these people, whom you so clearly despise, will cease to exist after school and will never have to be dealt with in regular life. I guess the rise in homeschooling is not surprising when we openly view our fellow civilians as inherently poor/violent and shouldn't exist.

They can be avoided later in life just like they can be avoided in public schools. Freedom to choose was established 50 years ago, sorry if you dislike it.

No need for the apology, as I never said I disliked anything and you certainly don't seem sorry.

I'm not sure how you are avoiding all of the people working at or frequenting coffee shops, the DMV, car mechanics, the grocery store, airports, or any other scary place where you might be forced to interact with real people. Not to mention co-workers, school parents, sports parents, family members, in-laws, and more whom you may have to spend your valuable time around.

Enjoy the life of avoidance.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#876

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world is messy for all sorts of reasons, that may not be the way anyone would like it to be but it's the way it is, and imo it's best to learn it when the stakes are low rather than when they're later voting against other classes because they were never exposed to people from them early on, or they're being taken advantage of at work or in an adult relationship. I wouldn't fault someone for wanting to situate the…

> when they're later voting against other classes because they were never exposed to people from them early on If you think homeschooling makes kids grow up to be prejudiced, you should just say that, instead of insinuating it.

> If you think homeschooling makes kids grow up to be prejudiced, you should just say that, instead of insinuating it.

Absolutely not what I was insinuating.

I was suggesting that explicit isolation from potential peers that come from different levels of wealth or backgrounds based on pre-existing prejudice has the potential to reinforce those prejudices. I'd wager this would overwhelmingly come from private schools and suburbs, not homeschooling, but it's more of a matter of where the desire to control the exposure comes from if that's part of the reason.

So no, I was making no direct association between homeschooling and prejudice.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#877

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most times I look this up, I see stuff like "[t]he home-educated typically score 15 to 25 percentile points above public-school students on standardized academic achievement tests". https://nheri.org/research-facts-on-homeschooling/#Academic

Yeah, that study has been debunked or countered by "... among home-educated students applying for college ", and the proportion of home schooled kids who apply for college versus those in the traditional education system is far lower, i.e. this is very self-selecting.

Where was it debunked?

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#878
post #873

I was homeschooled as a child, from 1st through 12th grade, in a large homeschooling community from the late 1980s through the 1990s. I started college in 2000. I heard all the stories about how homeschooled kids get better standardized test scores and generally enter college with fewer remedial courses, better academic outcomes, etc. I heard all the arguments that "actually, we do socialize, because we can still do…

I very much disagree with your point of view. If you have authoritarian parents with narrow world views, being exposed to other ways of thinking/living in school will only raise your expectations and create resentment against the parents which will generally make things worse for you. And if you are a slacker (and the parents lets you slack) being in class isn't that useful. If you are smart enough you'll get by, doi…

Everything you've said regarding self-directed study is completely possible for children attending p the institutional education system. Nothing is stopping parents from supplementally teaching their children. Any effort a parent is willing to put into teaching their own children is effort that can be exerted regardless of participation in institutional education. If you choose to homeschool your children, you are discarding that floor. The only reason people choose to discard that floor is because they see that floor as actively harmful. We do not need to labor under any pretention that their evaluation of that harm is correct.

You do your children no favors teaching them they exist outside of the greater social dynamic. You teach them that the society in which they live, which they cannot escape and they must deal with for the majority of their lives without their parents, is not good enough for them. That might be fine for the rich and famous who have a completely different society they can count on to provide opportunity and support for their children, but it doesn't work for the rest of us who have to scrape a living together on our own ability to communicate our value.

You speak of indoctrination. Homeschooling is nothing but indoctrination to the parents ideology. If your ideology is so great, you shouldn't need to sequester your children away from society to convince them it is right. Children are born without prejudice. If they are receiving bad information in public school, it is trivial to teach them otherwise because children inherently trust their parents. Even children who grow up in the most abusive of homes have a hard time coming to terms with the abuse and discarding what their parents did to them. Homeschooling exploits that inherent trust to swing the indoctrination pendulum in the opposite direction.

You say that my experience was due to having abusive parents. Yes. Yes, that is absolutely correct. It takes abusive parents to choose to homeschool their children. By choosing to homeschool your children, you prove yourself an arrogant, self-centered person. Everything that follows thereafter is an extension of that.

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