8 ms·

I would never send my kids to school (2017)

48 points by garaetjjte 7y ago

misterdoubt 7y ago
Cached: https://web.archive.org/web/20181117200216/https://supermemo.guru/wiki/I_would_never_send_my_kids_to_school https://web.archive.org/web/20181117200216/https://supermemo...
KirinDave 7y ago
A discussion about how school is modeled seems on point for this site, but the author of this seems a bit... zany? "Before humanity is taken over by AI?"
- wayoutthere 7y ago
  Yeah, I get the sense that this guy attached himself to a topic in the early 80s and has been on a self-directed tangent ever since. He makes a lot of unfounded claims, peppering in just enough references to sound credible. I’m sure he believes everything he says wholeheartedly, but self-directed learning without guidance can lead you to pick up some weird ideas before having the context to understand why they’re “weird”. I don’t think he’s entirely off-base with his criticisms of the school system, but I also don’t think he presents any arguments that aren’t well-established already. The question of which sources to trust (and thus learn from) is the biggest reason not to go entirely self-directed with learning. One is equally likely to end up with a theological argument as a scientific one depending on which sources you were introduced to first.
  - saalweachter 7y ago
    I feel fortunate in that most of the zany ideas I attached myself to in my late teens/early 20's were re: physics and mathematics. Because they could be pretty easily shown as nonsense with just a tiny bit more education and thought, like concretely, useless nonsense, for very straight forward easy to demonstrate reasons, I was able to later discard them without too much difficulty, and accept that I didn't actually have any Big Ideas about math and physics, ideas that were going to change the world. If my Big Ideas about how the world works had been about something more difficult to prove or disprove, like sociology or psychology, I kind of think I would still believe them, because it's one thing to elaborate your maths to a logical contradiction on a couple of sheets of paper, and another to run a well-controlled experiment with thousands of subjects.
- guerrilla 7y ago
  It sounds like it could be related to the LessWrong cult [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LessWrong#Roko's_basilisk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LessWrong#Roko's_basilisk
GrumpyNl 7y ago
Sounds like someone had a bad school experience.
- algaeontoast 7y ago
  Everyone who’s pushed narratives like this that I’ve known seems to have gone through bad public schools or private schools with a majority of bad students. Similar to how most open “communists” or “socialists” I’ve encountered seem to also have daddy issues (especially my friends from Spain haha).
  - chmod775 7y ago
    One of these is not like the other. With your first sentence you're accusing people of having personal experience(!), while with the second sentence you're just plain insulting people.
paulryanrogers 7y ago
There is a lot to read here. So far as I can tell it's a mix of proven ideas (spaced repitition, need for sleep, exercise, etc) and speculation (everyone is better without heavily structured schooling). My guess is we could use more customized, self-driven efforts in schools and intermingled age groups. Though I doubt his vision would be practical without devoting a lot more resources per child.
- tyri_kai_psomi 7y ago
  > ) and speculation (everyone is better without heavily structured schooling). https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/sep/20/grammar-schools-play-europe-top-education-system-finland-daycare https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/sep/20/grammar-sc... https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-are-finlands-schools-successful-49859555/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-are-finlands-s... This isn't speculation. Some of the best performing primary schools in the world are in Scandinavian countries, and they have a heavily unstructured "structure" if you want to call it that, day consisting of mostly playtime and activities, no standardized tests (even when there are testing, the results aren't publicized). A far-cry from some of the rigor and structure our kids face here in the US, where the primary objective seems to have been to raise obedient subservient factory workers rather than inspire dreams, aspirations, and creativity and teaching children how to truly learn, rather than simply perform a task.
  - gameswithgo 7y ago
    ditches need digging too. every us school i or my kids have been a part of has a gifted and talented program. two tier approach seems a reasonable compromise
    - wayoutthere 7y ago
      As one of the kids who went through a “gifted and talented” program, it was largely a way to segregate social classes. The “regular” classes were actually harder to do well in, but they weren’t full of blonde white kids.
  - 7y ago
NikolaNovak 7y ago
Have to read more to be able to comment meaningfully, but an early red flag is distilled in this statement: "I am looking for a formula for mass-production of little Nobel Prize winners, researchers, engineers, and creative problem solvers" There are many potential educational systems that would do better for the top [1|5|10]% of learners, while doing far worse for the remainder of the bell curve (however it is defined). One has to be upfront and honest with themselves, and audience, if the goals and proposals will benefit all overall, or select few. I am not yet convinced that less-structured approach will provide clear benefits for everybody :-/
- algaeontoast 7y ago
  I have similar concerns with people who claim existing education would massively benefit if homework didn’t exist as a teaching tool or means of gauging progress and development.
  - Broken_Hippo 7y ago
    There is research into this - and it seems to work well for elementary school kids, with a minimum of homework for older students. (universities are different). Scandinavian countries do this and always score well. AT least here in Norway, they also do not hold elementary kids back, but work with them appropriately. There is more than one way of gauging development and progress.
  - mumblemumble 7y ago
    There's a kernel of truth behind that one, FWIW. A growing body of evidence indicates that there can be too much of a good thing: Past a certain point, more homework actually hinders learning rather than helping it. By way of analogy, it's not at all unlike how most weightlifting advice says to give your muscles a day of rest in between workout sessions. e.g., I recently watched a talk where a researcher cited a study that found that putting kids in remedial literacy programs, with all their drilling and whatnot, seems to do more harm than good. The (deliberately over-simplified) impression I got was that, if you leave the kids alone instead of bothering them, you'll generally see a markedly bigger improvement through simple regression to the mean. That this gets over-simiplified into a simple "homework bad" in the popular sphere is unfortunate. Sadly, nobody has yet figured out a way to inoculate science so that it can survive on Facebook.
cwyers 7y ago
I don't always feel great about sending my kid to school, but until you can get a critical mass for some kind of alternative, the cost in social isolation for keeping kids out of school seems way too high to me.
- AlexB138 7y ago
  I concur. We're heavily considering taking our children out of the school system and this is our primary blocker. We're doing research on it and it does seem like there are a number of social groups specifically geared toward solving this problem in our area. It seems like it is growing much more common, though a disproportionate number of the groups are still non-secular, which makes them a bad match for us.
  - ksdale 7y ago
    We're going down this path as well and it's been a struggle to find secular options, but it is indeed growing much more common. I'd suggest that social development can be served by literally just playing with friends though. In our area, the YMCA offers sports basically the whole year, which is a good way for the kids to spend time in a structured group setting (and if you're lucky, you can even be the coach!), and my wife has found plenty of fellow homeschoolers and unschoolers on FB who are looking for some social interaction for their kids (we happen to live in a place that isn't particularly religious though). Relatedly, everyone just seems to agree that the socialization provided by school is good and necessary, and I'm not so sure that's true. It's been our experience that all of our friends and relatives, when they do complain about school, complain about bullying or kids otherwise misbehaving in a way that's stressful to the child in question. In addition, our experience on the playground has been that kids who are in school tend to be way more likely to be rude and aggressive. And I don't say this to suggest that school makes kids rude and aggressive, just that I have 4 kids and I have spent a lot of time around a lot of different kids and I've seen zero evidence that school provides positive socialization beyond what could be had by attending regular play groups.
    - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
wallflower 7y ago
If you found this interesting, you may find John Taylor Gatto’s “The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher” fascinating. He is mentioned in the linked book, of course. http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17619435 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17619435 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=182727 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=182727
joshuaheard 7y ago
Someone needs to disrupt education from the current Industrial Age model to a more current Information Age model. I lean towards a self-paced video model like Khan Academy, with some personal instruction to answer questions, along with some group activities to socialize the children. Unfortunately, our government and union run education institutions resist any changes.
- siempreb 7y ago
  It's even pre-industrial age model. School and its strict class system originate from the church. And I totally agree it should be disrupted by a more scientific proven model so kids can actually start to enjoy learning. The problem is that we have billions of people that were conditioned in traditional school. There is practically no way to change those peoples minds, whatever argument you come up with, it's futile. That's all the downvotes ;)
  - joshuaheard 7y ago
    You're right, there are some elements from the Agrarian Age, namely getting summers off to help with the harvest. But, if it's one thing I have learned, it's that anything can be disrupted!
ping_pong 7y ago
I'm struggling with this right now. My 7 year old child is "profoundly gifted" which is an IQ above 145 (he is almost 160). He is mostly a wonderful child and he is very very smart. He is well above his peers and is mostly sweet but he has extreme behavioral issues many times throughout the day. He has friends that love to play with him but like a German Shepherd, will out of nowhere attack them verbally because he perceived a slight and will scream and say horrible things. We have sent him to psychologists and behaviorists and burned through our savings and spent close to $200k over the last two years and we have run out of money. I'm getting close to the point where I accept that school isn't for him. I've been told that most schools do not cater for profoundly gifted children, especially the asynchrony of the emotional development. I don't blame the schools because children like my son are very extreme. I don't know what setting is right for him, but we have no choice but to look into home schooling, let him grow academically and in emotional peace, and maybe when his maturity increases we can reintegrate him with other children. Or maybe home schooling will be such a relief for him that his anxiety or whatever it is that is causing this will get naturally alleviated.
- mumblemumble 7y ago
  I'm sorry to hear about this; that sounds like a really difficult situation for everyone involved. If I can presume to mount my own soapbox in response, though: This strikes me as a symptom of the rather extreme age segregation that goes on in typical schools. I went to quite a few, and my favorite for the social environment had middle school and high school all together in one building, with a total student body of a bit over 100. And one of the neat things that happened there is that, while kids were generally age-segregated in their actual classes, we were all together for lunchtime, school plays, etc. The group of people I typically sat with at lunch time during my junior year of high school included seniors and also one 6th grader. In retrospect, I imagine that made for a better environment for everyone's social and emotional development.
  - ping_pong 7y ago
    Thank you. I toyed with the idea of having him accelerated, but emotionally he is so immature that the older kids will very quickly, to be honest rightfully, ostracize him. I have noticed he does get along better with older kids, maybe because they are more predictable for him, but I'm quite sure he is mature enough to handle the higher emotional expectations of older kids.
user_50123890 7y ago
School is supposed to be a place of learning. Instead, it became a daycare for kids to spend their days in autopilot mode
leftyted 7y ago
There's a movie relevant to this topic called Captain Fantastic. It's about a father who raises his kids in the forests of the Pacific NW. I do think it's true that school is oppressive. I guess it's oppressive for the same reason modern mass societies are oppressive: strict conformity is tacitly enforced. The nail that stands out (for whatever reason) is usually hammered in. Of course we also gain a lot from the way we've arranged our societies (and our schools). We're optimizing for the best outcomes on average -- and we may be doing that fairly well -- but that doesn't mean we're anywhere close to optimal for a given individual. Unfortunately, "optimal for each individual" may not be a realizable goal. But if you have the resources, alternative means of educating your children seem tempting. It's also well-documented that girls seem to tolerate school better than boys (and get better grades), which is interesting.
velcrovan 7y ago
I was homeschooled for all but 2nd and 3rd grade. I have mixed feelings about my experience of it (for me it worked out sort of OK for various lucky reasons) but no mixed feelings about the concept of it, and I now believe it should be illegal. It's possible, even common, to have a terrible social experience AND a terrible education in homeschooling. Most of the reasoning for it was that public schools are evil and stupid and raise evil drone kids with evil drone values. This is a terrible perspective to inculcate into your children and it warped my view of everyone around me well into my twenties. Also the homeschooling community tends to self-select for a lot of the most narcissistic and BPD types of parents who actually do inflict major developmental and psychological damage and abuse on their children. There was also a smattering of justifying it to the effect of "children learn better at home than they do in a classroom environment". This may be partly and technically true, but in practice it gets cancelled out by the fact that most parents are not actually able to educate children effectively past a 3rd grade level. There are always exceptions. The broad exception, as usual, is when the family has plenty of money and the parents have LOTS of autonomy over their work schedules. The home-schooled children of doctors and lawyers that I knew had private tutors in some subjects and did all kinds of travel, participated in sports and robot building competitions, even worked for state legislators as part of their "high school". Long story short, I am sending my children to Minneapolis public schools. As a parent, I hugely get the desire to keep your kids close and be their everything all the way through to adulthood. It was hard for us to watch our six year old get on the school bus and think about this first chapter of our lives together was in some sense ending. But I also know from experience and observation, the protectionist instinct to keep your kids that close for that long is really not healthy.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  "I didn't like it, it worked out badly for me, so it should be illegal for everyone"? That seems like a bit of an over-reaction. > There are always exceptions. And yet you believe it should be illegal. It's going to be hard to make it illegal and still allow the exceptions, though. "Illegal unless you have plenty of money and autonomy over your schedule" is a pretty sketchy law.
  - 7y ago
packet_nerd 7y ago
It's interesting to me to think, compared to our evolutionary history, schools are really really foreign and unnatural. Until relatively recently, the average kid would have grown up in a small community surrounded by her parents, relatives, and other adults. At toddler age she would play with other kids or find ways to amuse herself, later like 5, 6 and up, she'd start to help out with chores. Whereas at a school kids are cooped up in a high pressure environment, with other kids who are all just as immature, and a few adults to supervise. My parents homeschooled my brothers and I. I'm really torn as to whether I want to do the same for my kids some day. One the one hand, I feel like it was a good healthy environment to learn and grow up. On the other, I've always felt like I don't fit into society and sometimes am jealous of "normal" people.
- onemoresoop 7y ago
  >I've always felt like I don't fit into society Many who were not homeschooled feel the same way. I don't think this has to do with being homeschooled or not, it has to do with how some people adapt better than others. I went to regular school and sometimes I get that feeling that it is hard to fit in with the average, but that is not a bad thing after all. Modern times are quite tough for everyone. Perhaps we all have that feeling but never talk about it.
dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
Man, this is rant level 1000. It seems the guy was really hurt by the school system.

48 points by garaetjjte 7y ago

Cached: https://web.archive.org/web/20181117200216/https://supermemo.guru/wiki/I_would_never_send_my_kids_to_school https://web.archive.org/web/20181117200216/https://supermemo...

KirinDave 7y ago

A discussion about how school is modeled seems on point for this site, but the author of this seems a bit... zany? "Before humanity is taken over by AI?"

wayoutthere 7y ago
Yeah, I get the sense that this guy attached himself to a topic in the early 80s and has been on a self-directed tangent ever since. He makes a lot of unfounded claims, peppering in just enough references to sound credible. I’m sure he believes everything he says wholeheartedly, but self-directed learning without guidance can lead you to pick up some weird ideas before having the context to understand why they’re “weird”. I don’t think he’s entirely off-base with his criticisms of the school system, but I also don’t think he presents any arguments that aren’t well-established already. The question of which sources to trust (and thus learn from) is the biggest reason not to go entirely self-directed with learning. One is equally likely to end up with a theological argument as a scientific one depending on which sources you were introduced to first.
- saalweachter 7y ago
  I feel fortunate in that most of the zany ideas I attached myself to in my late teens/early 20's were re: physics and mathematics. Because they could be pretty easily shown as nonsense with just a tiny bit more education and thought, like concretely, useless nonsense, for very straight forward easy to demonstrate reasons, I was able to later discard them without too much difficulty, and accept that I didn't actually have any Big Ideas about math and physics, ideas that were going to change the world. If my Big Ideas about how the world works had been about something more difficult to prove or disprove, like sociology or psychology, I kind of think I would still believe them, because it's one thing to elaborate your maths to a logical contradiction on a couple of sheets of paper, and another to run a well-controlled experiment with thousands of subjects.
guerrilla 7y ago
It sounds like it could be related to the LessWrong cult [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LessWrong#Roko's_basilisk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LessWrong#Roko's_basilisk

GrumpyNl 7y ago

Sounds like someone had a bad school experience.

algaeontoast 7y ago
Everyone who’s pushed narratives like this that I’ve known seems to have gone through bad public schools or private schools with a majority of bad students. Similar to how most open “communists” or “socialists” I’ve encountered seem to also have daddy issues (especially my friends from Spain haha).
- chmod775 7y ago
  One of these is not like the other. With your first sentence you're accusing people of having personal experience(!), while with the second sentence you're just plain insulting people.

paulryanrogers 7y ago

There is a lot to read here. So far as I can tell it's a mix of proven ideas (spaced repitition, need for sleep, exercise, etc) and speculation (everyone is better without heavily structured schooling). My guess is we could use more customized, self-driven efforts in schools and intermingled age groups. Though I doubt his vision would be practical without devoting a lot more resources per child.

tyri_kai_psomi 7y ago
> ) and speculation (everyone is better without heavily structured schooling). https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/sep/20/grammar-schools-play-europe-top-education-system-finland-daycare https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/sep/20/grammar-sc... https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-are-finlands-schools-successful-49859555/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-are-finlands-s... This isn't speculation. Some of the best performing primary schools in the world are in Scandinavian countries, and they have a heavily unstructured "structure" if you want to call it that, day consisting of mostly playtime and activities, no standardized tests (even when there are testing, the results aren't publicized). A far-cry from some of the rigor and structure our kids face here in the US, where the primary objective seems to have been to raise obedient subservient factory workers rather than inspire dreams, aspirations, and creativity and teaching children how to truly learn, rather than simply perform a task.
- gameswithgo 7y ago
  ditches need digging too. every us school i or my kids have been a part of has a gifted and talented program. two tier approach seems a reasonable compromise
  - wayoutthere 7y ago
    As one of the kids who went through a “gifted and talented” program, it was largely a way to segregate social classes. The “regular” classes were actually harder to do well in, but they weren’t full of blonde white kids.
- 7y ago

NikolaNovak 7y ago

Have to read more to be able to comment meaningfully, but an early red flag is distilled in this statement: "I am looking for a formula for mass-production of little Nobel Prize winners, researchers, engineers, and creative problem solvers" There are many potential educational systems that would do better for the top [1|5|10]% of learners, while doing far worse for the remainder of the bell curve (however it is defined). One has to be upfront and honest with themselves, and audience, if the goals and proposals will benefit all overall, or select few. I am not yet convinced that less-structured approach will provide clear benefits for everybody :-/

algaeontoast 7y ago
I have similar concerns with people who claim existing education would massively benefit if homework didn’t exist as a teaching tool or means of gauging progress and development.
- Broken_Hippo 7y ago
  There is research into this - and it seems to work well for elementary school kids, with a minimum of homework for older students. (universities are different). Scandinavian countries do this and always score well. AT least here in Norway, they also do not hold elementary kids back, but work with them appropriately. There is more than one way of gauging development and progress.
- mumblemumble 7y ago
  There's a kernel of truth behind that one, FWIW. A growing body of evidence indicates that there can be too much of a good thing: Past a certain point, more homework actually hinders learning rather than helping it. By way of analogy, it's not at all unlike how most weightlifting advice says to give your muscles a day of rest in between workout sessions. e.g., I recently watched a talk where a researcher cited a study that found that putting kids in remedial literacy programs, with all their drilling and whatnot, seems to do more harm than good. The (deliberately over-simplified) impression I got was that, if you leave the kids alone instead of bothering them, you'll generally see a markedly bigger improvement through simple regression to the mean. That this gets over-simiplified into a simple "homework bad" in the popular sphere is unfortunate. Sadly, nobody has yet figured out a way to inoculate science so that it can survive on Facebook.

cwyers 7y ago

I don't always feel great about sending my kid to school, but until you can get a critical mass for some kind of alternative, the cost in social isolation for keeping kids out of school seems way too high to me.

AlexB138 7y ago
I concur. We're heavily considering taking our children out of the school system and this is our primary blocker. We're doing research on it and it does seem like there are a number of social groups specifically geared toward solving this problem in our area. It seems like it is growing much more common, though a disproportionate number of the groups are still non-secular, which makes them a bad match for us.
- ksdale 7y ago
  We're going down this path as well and it's been a struggle to find secular options, but it is indeed growing much more common. I'd suggest that social development can be served by literally just playing with friends though. In our area, the YMCA offers sports basically the whole year, which is a good way for the kids to spend time in a structured group setting (and if you're lucky, you can even be the coach!), and my wife has found plenty of fellow homeschoolers and unschoolers on FB who are looking for some social interaction for their kids (we happen to live in a place that isn't particularly religious though). Relatedly, everyone just seems to agree that the socialization provided by school is good and necessary, and I'm not so sure that's true. It's been our experience that all of our friends and relatives, when they do complain about school, complain about bullying or kids otherwise misbehaving in a way that's stressful to the child in question. In addition, our experience on the playground has been that kids who are in school tend to be way more likely to be rude and aggressive. And I don't say this to suggest that school makes kids rude and aggressive, just that I have 4 kids and I have spent a lot of time around a lot of different kids and I've seen zero evidence that school provides positive socialization beyond what could be had by attending regular play groups.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago

wallflower 7y ago

If you found this interesting, you may find John Taylor Gatto’s “The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher” fascinating. He is mentioned in the linked book, of course. http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17619435 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17619435 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=182727 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=182727

joshuaheard 7y ago

Someone needs to disrupt education from the current Industrial Age model to a more current Information Age model. I lean towards a self-paced video model like Khan Academy, with some personal instruction to answer questions, along with some group activities to socialize the children. Unfortunately, our government and union run education institutions resist any changes.

siempreb 7y ago
It's even pre-industrial age model. School and its strict class system originate from the church. And I totally agree it should be disrupted by a more scientific proven model so kids can actually start to enjoy learning. The problem is that we have billions of people that were conditioned in traditional school. There is practically no way to change those peoples minds, whatever argument you come up with, it's futile. That's all the downvotes ;)
- joshuaheard 7y ago
  You're right, there are some elements from the Agrarian Age, namely getting summers off to help with the harvest. But, if it's one thing I have learned, it's that anything can be disrupted!

ping_pong 7y ago

I'm struggling with this right now. My 7 year old child is "profoundly gifted" which is an IQ above 145 (he is almost 160). He is mostly a wonderful child and he is very very smart. He is well above his peers and is mostly sweet but he has extreme behavioral issues many times throughout the day. He has friends that love to play with him but like a German Shepherd, will out of nowhere attack them verbally because he perceived a slight and will scream and say horrible things. We have sent him to psychologists and behaviorists and burned through our savings and spent close to $200k over the last two years and we have run out of money. I'm getting close to the point where I accept that school isn't for him. I've been told that most schools do not cater for profoundly gifted children, especially the asynchrony of the emotional development. I don't blame the schools because children like my son are very extreme. I don't know what setting is right for him, but we have no choice but to look into home schooling, let him grow academically and in emotional peace, and maybe when his maturity increases we can reintegrate him with other children. Or maybe home schooling will be such a relief for him that his anxiety or whatever it is that is causing this will get naturally alleviated.

mumblemumble 7y ago
I'm sorry to hear about this; that sounds like a really difficult situation for everyone involved. If I can presume to mount my own soapbox in response, though: This strikes me as a symptom of the rather extreme age segregation that goes on in typical schools. I went to quite a few, and my favorite for the social environment had middle school and high school all together in one building, with a total student body of a bit over 100. And one of the neat things that happened there is that, while kids were generally age-segregated in their actual classes, we were all together for lunchtime, school plays, etc. The group of people I typically sat with at lunch time during my junior year of high school included seniors and also one 6th grader. In retrospect, I imagine that made for a better environment for everyone's social and emotional development.
- ping_pong 7y ago
  Thank you. I toyed with the idea of having him accelerated, but emotionally he is so immature that the older kids will very quickly, to be honest rightfully, ostracize him. I have noticed he does get along better with older kids, maybe because they are more predictable for him, but I'm quite sure he is mature enough to handle the higher emotional expectations of older kids.

user_50123890 7y ago

School is supposed to be a place of learning. Instead, it became a daycare for kids to spend their days in autopilot mode

leftyted 7y ago

There's a movie relevant to this topic called Captain Fantastic. It's about a father who raises his kids in the forests of the Pacific NW. I do think it's true that school is oppressive. I guess it's oppressive for the same reason modern mass societies are oppressive: strict conformity is tacitly enforced. The nail that stands out (for whatever reason) is usually hammered in. Of course we also gain a lot from the way we've arranged our societies (and our schools). We're optimizing for the best outcomes on average -- and we may be doing that fairly well -- but that doesn't mean we're anywhere close to optimal for a given individual. Unfortunately, "optimal for each individual" may not be a realizable goal. But if you have the resources, alternative means of educating your children seem tempting. It's also well-documented that girls seem to tolerate school better than boys (and get better grades), which is interesting.

velcrovan 7y ago

I was homeschooled for all but 2nd and 3rd grade. I have mixed feelings about my experience of it (for me it worked out sort of OK for various lucky reasons) but no mixed feelings about the concept of it, and I now believe it should be illegal. It's possible, even common, to have a terrible social experience AND a terrible education in homeschooling. Most of the reasoning for it was that public schools are evil and stupid and raise evil drone kids with evil drone values. This is a terrible perspective to inculcate into your children and it warped my view of everyone around me well into my twenties. Also the homeschooling community tends to self-select for a lot of the most narcissistic and BPD types of parents who actually do inflict major developmental and psychological damage and abuse on their children. There was also a smattering of justifying it to the effect of "children learn better at home than they do in a classroom environment". This may be partly and technically true, but in practice it gets cancelled out by the fact that most parents are not actually able to educate children effectively past a 3rd grade level. There are always exceptions. The broad exception, as usual, is when the family has plenty of money and the parents have LOTS of autonomy over their work schedules. The home-schooled children of doctors and lawyers that I knew had private tutors in some subjects and did all kinds of travel, participated in sports and robot building competitions, even worked for state legislators as part of their "high school". Long story short, I am sending my children to Minneapolis public schools. As a parent, I hugely get the desire to keep your kids close and be their everything all the way through to adulthood. It was hard for us to watch our six year old get on the school bus and think about this first chapter of our lives together was in some sense ending. But I also know from experience and observation, the protectionist instinct to keep your kids that close for that long is really not healthy.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
"I didn't like it, it worked out badly for me, so it should be illegal for everyone"? That seems like a bit of an over-reaction. > There are always exceptions. And yet you believe it should be illegal. It's going to be hard to make it illegal and still allow the exceptions, though. "Illegal unless you have plenty of money and autonomy over your schedule" is a pretty sketchy law.
- 7y ago

packet_nerd 7y ago

It's interesting to me to think, compared to our evolutionary history, schools are really really foreign and unnatural. Until relatively recently, the average kid would have grown up in a small community surrounded by her parents, relatives, and other adults. At toddler age she would play with other kids or find ways to amuse herself, later like 5, 6 and up, she'd start to help out with chores. Whereas at a school kids are cooped up in a high pressure environment, with other kids who are all just as immature, and a few adults to supervise. My parents homeschooled my brothers and I. I'm really torn as to whether I want to do the same for my kids some day. One the one hand, I feel like it was a good healthy environment to learn and grow up. On the other, I've always felt like I don't fit into society and sometimes am jealous of "normal" people.

onemoresoop 7y ago
>I've always felt like I don't fit into society Many who were not homeschooled feel the same way. I don't think this has to do with being homeschooled or not, it has to do with how some people adapt better than others. I went to regular school and sometimes I get that feeling that it is hard to fit in with the average, but that is not a bad thing after all. Modern times are quite tough for everyone. Perhaps we all have that feeling but never talk about it.

dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago

Man, this is rant level 1000. It seems the guy was really hurt by the school system.