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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

#921
post #913

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest US public school horror story is how we have taken a great instrument of social progress and decimated it. Public schools in countries where schools are treated well have phenomenal success. US schooling has been taken over (at the level of the state legislatures; blame goes to state Congress not to the schools) by companies selling "achievement" test. And also by charter schools whose success is based on…

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"Excuse me for not wanting middle schoolers taught how to use gay hookup apps."

Just the gay ones?

I don't want kids using either hookup or dating apps. But the UI's are are very simple so I don't see why removing a book from a library would prevent this?

You can google app tutorials if "swipe left, swipe right" is too complicated for you.

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

#922
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many behaviours which were common throughout human history which would now be fringe movements. Human and/or animal sacrifices, for instance.

> There are many behaviours which were common throughout human history which would now be fringe movements. Human and/or animal sacrifices, for instance. I better example might be freedom from surveillance. It's a totally fringe lifestyle to not be tracked everywhere you go, at least in a developed country. But your rhetoric might be useful for shooting down privacy advocates during the next dust-up. Privacy may have…

>It's a totally fringe lifestyle to not be tracked everywhere you go, at least in a developed country.

You're proving GP's point, that was the norm in developed countries 100 years ago and to a relative degree 50 years ago. The organs of the state and of capital which effected surveillance or tracking were tiny and isolated compared to what they are now.

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

#923

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint - why don't we see defense of homeschooling at the same rate of attacks? Even if they are rare, there are several posters here that have experienced bad home schools. If they are at least 50:50, shouldn't we expect the same rate of defense? That we don't see that is telling. Being bullied sucks and has huge negative impacts. I am glad though, that I have the tools and experience to identify that happenin…

Since we're simply in speculation land, perhaps happy homeschooled adults are less screen-obsessed than those who went to 'normal' school or those poorly homeschooled and thus have better things to do with their life? > Negative interactions are something kids have to learn to deal with. It's not pretty or fair or even safe, but neither is the world. Completely agree. If someone assaults you in real life, you should…

> Completely agree. If someone assaults you in real life, you should learn that you need to file charges to ensure your assaulter goes to jail. Not sit quietly in the corner while your abuser gets a talking to.

Filing charges to make sure your assaulter goes to jail is a fantasy for many people and situations. Just like in school, justice is not always going to happen. Sorry.

Also, should we through 10 year old bullies in jail? 15? What’s the line?

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

#924

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint - why don't we see defense of homeschooling at the same rate of attacks? Even if they are rare, there are several posters here that have experienced bad home schools. If they are at least 50:50, shouldn't we expect the same rate of defense? That we don't see that is telling. Being bullied sucks and has huge negative impacts. I am glad though, that I have the tools and experience to identify that happenin…

Since we're simply in speculation land, perhaps happy homeschooled adults are less screen-obsessed than those who went to 'normal' school or those poorly homeschooled and thus have better things to do with their life? > Negative interactions are something kids have to learn to deal with. It's not pretty or fair or even safe, but neither is the world. Completely agree. If someone assaults you in real life, you should…

> If someone assaults you in real life, you should learn that you need to file charges to ensure your assaulter goes to jail.

If someone assaults me I have to become a public prosecutor?

Victims, qua victims, can file a police report. But only the state can file criminal charges, and whether they will or won't depends on, well, lots of things outside of the control of thr victim.

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

#925

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already pay more per student than literally any other socialist country. More so in the "bad schools". Money isn't the problem, it's "da culture".

What do you mean by “da culture”

Every time this line of thought comes up, I wonder where these people think the money is going. Perhaps to teacher salaries in very high cost-of-living areas? Perhaps to providing basic services to students (like breakfast and basic therapy) that their parents can't because, as a society, we've deemed the latter unworthy of a decent income, for whatever reason? Perhaps to maintaining failing infrastructure that was purposely neglected for decades?

I feel like they think that the money is given to the kids directly, who waste it on weed and the hippity hop albums or whatever. Call it what it is: racism and classism destroys their critical thinking capacity.

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

#926

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have got bad news about that, the majority of abusive households send the kids to school and scare them into silence. Regulations against abusive households do exist but enforcing them completely would require a degree of inescapable surveillance that cannot exist.

That may be true, but way more kids get sent to school then are home schooled, so that doesn't mean much on its own. The issue is that when a kid's at school, there are many people who may notice something's wrong. From teachers, school nurses, school administrators, and even other kids. This is by no means perfect, and many, many cases of abuse slip through the cracks. But it is something, which is more then many ho…

When I read these kinds of comments, I can't help but wonder: did you attend a US public school? I went to probably an above average number of public schools growing up since my parents moved around a lot. There were differences between the big city and small town ones but there was one constant: violence and abuse. How should I expect teachers to notice a child being abused by parents when they turn the other way to abuse by other children happening, daily, right in front of them (sometimes even egged on by the teachers themselves).

If you adjust for scale, I would be utterly flabbergasted if home schooling had a higher per capita rate of abuse than actual public schools unless public schools have changed to the point of being utterly unrecognisable from the 80-90's when it was inflicted on me.

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

#927

When the choice is be happy with your assigned school based on your location, or you have to uproot and move your entire household, homeschooling becomes one of the few options when public school is failing one of your kids.

If you have the ability and desire to homeschool then it's always going to be the best choice. Only if you feel like you won't be a good teacher or you do not have the resources should you consider public/private school. My kids are in public school because neither my wife nor I have the time to homeschool. However, I feel like we still do about 25% homeschool because of the engagement required to actually educate ou…

Disagree. Most parents are not going to be good teachers of children, no matter how good they think they can teach. Being present/engaging doesn't cut it. School, especially for younger kids is all about social relationships, managing emotions/empathy and less about education/academics.

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

#928

I was home-schooled until high school. Long story short, it was a disaster. I bordered on having no education at all, on top of no socialization. I'm so fortunate I got at least four years of public school. I still think I suffer to this day. For parents who are thinking of home schooling your kids: best of luck to you. If you succeed, maybe your kids will be smarter. If you fail, you could be setting your kids up fo…

For real. It's telling that the kids don't jump in here to defend the practice, hardly ever (also homeschooled, education was great, socialization was absolutely problematic despite doing all the homeschool group things.)

My siblings and I were all home schooled until college. We all have advanced degrees, families, and high paying professional jobs. My socialization was great. There is barely a memory of mine growing up were my siblings and I weren't out with friends in the neighborhood. Home school isn't for everyone and neither is public school. Personally I wouldn't trade my experience for anything.

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

#929
post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was raised very Catholic (and decided by my early teens that I didn't believe in any of it), and I completely disagree with your conclusion. Organized religion (at least Christianity) absolutely is about deep fear. "Do this or you'll go to hell!" "Believe this or you'll go to hell!" Repeat ad infinitum. I won't deny that some churches (as in, specific people, not the system as a whole) can do good in the world; one…

> But overall, religion is about control how many religions do you know and have experience with, in order to make such a claim? don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

How many religions do you know where its adherents are just fine with you leaving the faith behind?

Because if they aren't, then they're about control.

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

#930

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question ”what kind of person should I be?” could be answered by god, I guess, but the alternative would be to answer it yourself, and/or consult society, possibly friends and family. Not "anything goes". Putting it in the hands of god means anything goes, and you just say that's how you thought god wanted you to be. You'd have to trust that society encoded the proper set of values and morals into the religion. W…

Not necessarily. For me it’s a subset of “answer it yourself”: it’s a way of asking myself “what is my potential? What was I put here for? If I had a perfect parent, what would they expect of me?”

It's the same for me, since none of those questions require a god or religion to answer. So, I'll have to disagree again with the premise that the alternative is "anything goes, you can be whatever you feel like and there's no judgement of any of your actions".

If anything, that is more representative of religion, as long as you say that's what god wanted (e.g. discriminating against LGBT people, trying to overthrow the government, etc.)

In contrast to non-theists, you simply employ a different way to ask yourself and society (albeit a subset of society which more rarely evolves their belief system to comport with the rest of society).

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