For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching
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For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching
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Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching
#2We are in our ninth year of homeschooling. My wife and I attended private and public schools and grew up with typical biases against homeschooling, e.g. they lack social skills. When we got married, we always assumed we'd send our kids to traditional schools.
What we learned, though, is that homeschooling has changed since we were in school. Back then, it was a niche, and the sort of parents who chose to homeschool usually existed on the fringe (and probably lacked social skills themselves).
Nowadays, there are a lot more "normal" families who choose to homeschool. Our family, and many others we've encountered, values and promotes social skills. Our kids attend co-ops, play sports, and do other activities with their peers.
And because the demographics of homeschoolers have changed, so too have the ways that they homeschool. It's not very surprising that there is more collaborative teaching, where parents remain the primary educators, but certain subjects are outsourced to co-ops, online sessions on Outschool, etc.
Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching
#3Synposis: Shitty Silly-Con valley company is selling "teaching homeschoolers" under the guise of "microschooling" and "guides" instead of proper teachers. Reading in any of these scam companies, and you'll find quickly that they are not schools, and these are not accredited teachers. But again, deregulation and demolishment of public sector structures and laws to further private interests IS the point, as we'll see.
And their payment model is bonkers.... https://www.prenda.com/empowering-learners
The Prenda Fee - "The Prenda fee for the 2023-2024 school year is $2,199." (As in, each student's family pays this to Prenda)
The Guide Fee - "The guide fee is set by you as the guide and will vary from microschool to microschool." (AKA The Uber/AirBNB model of education, where the intermediates have no knowledge and all the risk.)
In reality, send your children to public school, and use the money you'd waste on this scam to visit museums, universities, libraries, historical sites, and the like. BE the enriching force in your child's life.
Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching
#4We are in our ninth year of homeschooling. My wife and I attended private and public schools and grew up with typical biases against homeschooling, e.g. they lack social skills. When we got married, we always assumed we'd send our kids to traditional schools. What we learned, though, is that homeschooling has changed since we were in school. Back then, it was a niche, and the sort of parents who chose to homeschool u…
The argument about lack of socialization from failure to attend public school might have some basis.
But thinking back, I came out of the public schools with some pretty anti social behaviors and attitudes that I picked up there. Being cool is so important at that age in that setting.
I often wonder what life would have been like had I been taken out say, age 12 or 13 and given a more solid education to match my natural inclinations away from the cruelty, the misbehavior and the general time wasting that characterizes much of public school in the US.
Kuddos to you for putting in the effort to give your kids the best possible real education. It has to be a lot of work.
Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching
#5We are in our ninth year of homeschooling. My wife and I attended private and public schools and grew up with typical biases against homeschooling, e.g. they lack social skills. When we got married, we always assumed we'd send our kids to traditional schools. What we learned, though, is that homeschooling has changed since we were in school. Back then, it was a niche, and the sort of parents who chose to homeschool u…
How much time does homeschooling take for you? Does it roughly equate to one full-time job? I have wanted to homeschool my kids but I am afraid I would have to quit my job or downshift to part-time.
And since they are different ages, I worry that if I taught them all at the same time, the curriculum would average into something too challenging for the younger and not challenging enough for the elder. How do you manage to meet all their needs at once?
Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching
#6We are in our ninth year of homeschooling. My wife and I attended private and public schools and grew up with typical biases against homeschooling, e.g. they lack social skills. When we got married, we always assumed we'd send our kids to traditional schools. What we learned, though, is that homeschooling has changed since we were in school. Back then, it was a niche, and the sort of parents who chose to homeschool u…
Speaking from experience, there were plenty of normal families who chose homeschooling decades ago. The problem is that the weird people make a lot of noise, and then homeschooling gets a reputation, which causes the self-aware normal folks to shy away from talking about homeschooling too publicly because they don't want to be associated with the negative stereotypes.
The trouble is, this can become a feedback loop, because the only way to dispel the stereotypes is if more normal folks speak up.
I've seen this same phenomenon affect other subcultures too, and I suspect there's probably a name for it, but I don't know what it is.
Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching
#7Synposis: Shitty Silly-Con valley company is selling "teaching homeschoolers" under the guise of "microschooling" and "guides" instead of proper teachers. Reading in any of these scam companies, and you'll find quickly that they are not schools, and these are not accredited teachers. But again, deregulation and demolishment of public sector structures and laws to further private interests IS the point, as we'll see.…
Is it really a scam if it helps kids fit in and learn? I have a pretty strong baseline bias against homeschool, but a lot of the testimonials in the article are pretty positive. For every fear people have of homeschools being dangerous or inadequate, it’s hard to look at public education as anything but that.
Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching
#8We are in our ninth year of homeschooling. My wife and I attended private and public schools and grew up with typical biases against homeschooling, e.g. they lack social skills. When we got married, we always assumed we'd send our kids to traditional schools. What we learned, though, is that homeschooling has changed since we were in school. Back then, it was a niche, and the sort of parents who chose to homeschool u…
The argument about lack of socialization from failure to attend public school might have some basis. But thinking back, I came out of the public schools with some pretty anti social behaviors and attitudes that I picked up there. Being cool is so important at that age in that setting. I often wonder what life would have been like had I been taken out say, age 12 or 13 and given a more solid education to match my natu…
Is public school really that cruel these days? I have a 10 year old, and everyone in her class seems so wholesome and... exceedingly tolerant for lack of a better phrase. Compared to when I was a 10 year old where public school was a Lord Of The Flies thunderdome with bullying, and shoving people into lockers, and fights, and in-groups and out-groups and nerds vs. jocks, all the cruel 80s stereotypes. Sure, there's the occasional story of extreme bullying that happens to make the news, but it seems like these are far outliers these days.
I see absolutely zero need to pull her out. The academics are ok--not what an expensive private school might offer, but they track well with what I was learning at that age. The social/institutional environment is much better than when I was a kid.
The few parents I know who homeschool (admittedly, mostly from my wife's church group) do so for religious separatism reasons, not for educational outcome. They object to public school on ideological grounds and perceived "indoctrination," not on the academics.
Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching
#9We are in our ninth year of homeschooling. My wife and I attended private and public schools and grew up with typical biases against homeschooling, e.g. they lack social skills. When we got married, we always assumed we'd send our kids to traditional schools. What we learned, though, is that homeschooling has changed since we were in school. Back then, it was a niche, and the sort of parents who chose to homeschool u…
The argument about lack of socialization from failure to attend public school might have some basis. But thinking back, I came out of the public schools with some pretty anti social behaviors and attitudes that I picked up there. Being cool is so important at that age in that setting. I often wonder what life would have been like had I been taken out say, age 12 or 13 and given a more solid education to match my natu…
That argument held sway with me for a long time, but not anymore.
Our kids get a decent amount of socialization through all the activities they're involved in, and when other kids find out they're homeschooled, their response is more often genuine surprise rather than "Oh, that figures."
The idea that kids learn social skills best by being thrown into a rigid, institutional environment surrounded by hundreds of other kids whose social skills are also far from developed is kinda silly, though. It's like saying criminals will reform themselves best by surrounding themselves with lots of other criminals.
Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching
#10Synposis: Shitty Silly-Con valley company is selling "teaching homeschoolers" under the guise of "microschooling" and "guides" instead of proper teachers. Reading in any of these scam companies, and you'll find quickly that they are not schools, and these are not accredited teachers. But again, deregulation and demolishment of public sector structures and laws to further private interests IS the point, as we'll see.…
Is it really a scam if it helps kids fit in and learn? I have a pretty strong baseline bias against homeschool, but a lot of the testimonials in the article are pretty positive. For every fear people have of homeschools being dangerous or inadequate, it’s hard to look at public education as anything but that.
Testimonials are as useful as Amazon five-star reviews, and the actual data on educational interventions/approaches takes decades to come back.