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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) bu

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.
- velcrovan 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. It actually didn't work out that badly for me, I thought I made that clear. It worked out badly for most of the people I know, though. I think it should be illegal because it's broadly unhealthy for society. It's part of a broader belief that the way to fix a suboptimal public education system is to make sure all parents have big incentives to invest time and resources to improve it, rather than for the wealthy to flee and create a system that works only for themselves and leave the public system and the remaining people it serves to wither on the vine. > > 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. Yes, despite the fact that some kids (such as myself) did OK under homeschooling, it should still be illegal. I also knew a kid who learned to drive a stick at age ten with no license, and he didn't die. He was an exception. Still a bad idea that should not be legal.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    > I think it should be illegal because it's broadly unhealthy for society. It's part of a broader belief that the way to fix a suboptimal public education system is to make sure all parents have big incentives to invest time and resources to improve it, rather than for the wealthy to flee and create a system that works only for themselves and leave the public system and the remaining people it serves to wither on the vine. By that logic, private schools should also be made illegal. And that should be a higher priority than homeschooling, because (I believe) more people send their kids to private schools than homeschool. (Also by the same logic, charter schools and magnet schools are suspect.) I mean, you are correct in saying that that may be the best chance for the public education system. However, I think that your proposed solution is not only misguided, but heavy-handed authoritarian to boot. Let's throw away parental authority over children, and give it to the state, so that the schools will be better? No thanks. I want the schools to be better, but not at your price.
    - velcrovan 7y ago
      > By that logic, private schools should also be made illegal. I used to think this too, actually. But now I think that Finland’s approach satisfies the goal while being a bit less drastic. Private schools are still allowed, but are not allowed to charge tuition fees (they are funded by a state grant if approved), are not allowed to have a selective admission process, and must offer the same educational and social services as the municipal schools. It’s important to remember, the current system we have is heavy-handed and authoritarian too. It traps lots of people in an underfunded system and then tells them that system is hopeless and they are bad for using it. And parents do not “give up authority over their children” by sending them to public school. By fearing and vilifying any state action whatsoever, what you end up doing is vilifying, fearing (and eventually crippling) democracy. Instead of doing this, consider looking at measures that have been tried, proven to work, and have high satisfaction where they have been done, and join me in advocating an evidence-based approach to improving life for normal people!

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.

velcrovan 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. It actually didn't work out that badly for me, I thought I made that clear. It worked out badly for most of the people I know, though. I think it should be illegal because it's broadly unhealthy for society. It's part of a broader belief that the way to fix a suboptimal public education system is to make sure all parents have big incentives to invest time and resources to improve it, rather than for the wealthy to flee and create a system that works only for themselves and leave the public system and the remaining people it serves to wither on the vine. > > 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. Yes, despite the fact that some kids (such as myself) did OK under homeschooling, it should still be illegal. I also knew a kid who learned to drive a stick at age ten with no license, and he didn't die. He was an exception. Still a bad idea that should not be legal.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  > I think it should be illegal because it's broadly unhealthy for society. It's part of a broader belief that the way to fix a suboptimal public education system is to make sure all parents have big incentives to invest time and resources to improve it, rather than for the wealthy to flee and create a system that works only for themselves and leave the public system and the remaining people it serves to wither on the vine. By that logic, private schools should also be made illegal. And that should be a higher priority than homeschooling, because (I believe) more people send their kids to private schools than homeschool. (Also by the same logic, charter schools and magnet schools are suspect.) I mean, you are correct in saying that that may be the best chance for the public education system. However, I think that your proposed solution is not only misguided, but heavy-handed authoritarian to boot. Let's throw away parental authority over children, and give it to the state, so that the schools will be better? No thanks. I want the schools to be better, but not at your price.
  - velcrovan 7y ago
    > By that logic, private schools should also be made illegal. I used to think this too, actually. But now I think that Finland’s approach satisfies the goal while being a bit less drastic. Private schools are still allowed, but are not allowed to charge tuition fees (they are funded by a state grant if approved), are not allowed to have a selective admission process, and must offer the same educational and social services as the municipal schools. It’s important to remember, the current system we have is heavy-handed and authoritarian too. It traps lots of people in an underfunded system and then tells them that system is hopeless and they are bad for using it. And parents do not “give up authority over their children” by sending them to public school. By fearing and vilifying any state action whatsoever, what you end up doing is vilifying, fearing (and eventually crippling) democracy. Instead of doing this, consider looking at measures that have been tried, proven to work, and have high satisfaction where they have been done, and join me in advocating an evidence-based approach to improving life for normal people!