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The irony is that for kids that are actually homeschooled, they spend maybe 2 to 3 hours per day doing schoolwork. That kids spend so long in public school is n

The irony is that for kids that are actually homeschooled, they spend maybe 2 to 3 hours per day doing schoolwork. That kids spend so long in public school is not to their benefit, but to the benefit of those that need to keep their parents away from them for 9+ hours a day. I can barely attend several hours worth of digital meetings, and I'm an adult. Imagine a 7-year old trying to do the same thing. Ridiculous.

john_moscow 6y ago
The school isn't just about the academic part. It also teaches you invaluable soft skills. How to handle conflicts, how to present in front of the audience, how to make friendships, how to respond to bullying, how to find like minded people. All those skills are extremely important in your average team environment, and learning them as a kid is much easier than guessing why you've been laid off, while your useless, but very empathic colleague got promoted instead.
- nickff 6y ago
  Those goals make sense to me, as I think they're all valuable, and I think some people do learn those skills while in school, but I'm not sure they learn them because of school. As the old saying goes: "what gets measured gets done", and schools only really measure test scores and years attended. I am not sure that schools really help people learn many social skills. Have you seen evidence that schools contribute more to social skills than their alternatives might? I'd like to agree with you, but I am a little skeptical.
- spaginal 6y ago
  School doesn’t teach those skills from my personal experience. I was a product of public schooling, the my way or highway attitudes of some teachers, the social isolation, cliches, bullying, teasing, all severely stunted my social development until I was a teenager and began competing in sports team environments, working jobs, and interacting with the public outside of school. After a couple years I was far more developed socially than anything the school environment provided in the decade prior to that. When I hear this reason often used, I fear it’s from people who enjoyed their social life in school due to reasons not actually involving the school, and place too much value in those social dynamics, ignoring the really ugly parts of it that hamper growth for a lot of students, including themselves. My own experiences show they lack any real application to life outside of school. I’ve never had a decent job that worked socially like any school environment I’ve been in, and the one or two I did have were quickly left.
- centimeter 6y ago
  I didn't learn a single one of those skills from attending public school. Every public school I attended (and I attended several, since my parents were chasing the accelerated learning program every time it moved) was not only a huge waste of time, but actively psychologically harmful. Based on the data I've seen, what I describe is a typical or even better-than-average public school experience. Private school was infinitely better once I started going, and my homeschooled friends (who I met at university) are, on the whole, vastly better adjusted than the people I attended public school with. Let's be honest - public schools' primary functions are to act as a daycare center and subsidized food distribution site. If you child is at all intelligent, you're probably better off leaving them at home with some books than sending them off to PS17851. I know I would have been better off that way!
  - SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
    > Let's be honest - public schools' primary functions are to act as a daycare center and subsidized food distribution site. If you child is at all intelligent, you're probably better off leaving them at home with some books than sending them off to PS17851. I know I would have been better off that way! Would you have been though? There's a core curriculum that I really doubt most kids would learn if they had their own way. Even with intelligence there's lots of stuff kids would never learn as it never interests them. What are the odds that a child is interested in Shakespeare, civics, biology, and trigonometry? We're drug through a lot of it kicking and screaming (to an extent), but it has value to have gone through it.
    - centimeter 6y ago
      > There's a core curriculum that I really doubt most kids would learn if they had their own way. Insofar as kids learn (and retain) things at all, chances are they were going to learn it on their own anyway. The preponderance of evidence suggests that it basically doesn't matter what you forcibly try to teach kids between the ages of zero-13; their later academic outcomes aren't going to change much anyway. This matches my anecdotal experience; kids who end up being good in some field are always way ahead of what public schools (which are forced to cater to the lowest common denominator) can teach them anyway, and kids who end up not being good at a field will probably pick up the same information they're being taught naturally, at a more natural and less painful pace. > What are the odds that a child is interested in Shakespeare, civics, biology, and trigonometry High? Lots of kids choose to read books on various topics with their free time and focus, which they would have more of if they weren't swamped with pointless make-work. Plus, it's not like you're actually going to get a comprehensive or even useful understanding of any of those things from the bottom 80% of schools. > but it has value to have gone through it Even if this is true (but I suspect the "kicking and screaming" might actually be net counterproductive), I really doubt it's worth the cost of spending something like 25% of your waking hours in Factory Labor Simulator for the first 13 (or whatever) years of your life.
- greggman3 6y ago
  I know my anecdata is just that but my experience to date is the all the homeschooled people I've met are far more social on average than the average non-homeschooled people. No idea why that would be but of the 12 or so I've meet they've stood out as above average.
- MichaelDickens 6y ago
  If that's one of the primary purposes of school, then schools should have four hours of recess per day, because recess is where you learn all of those skills (except presenting in front of an audience). Most of the rest of the time, you're sitting still in a classroom listening to a teacher, not interacting with your peers.
- hutzlibu 6y ago
  School can indeed teach those other skills. But mostly only by mistake and much more it does the opposite. Because in fact I learned bullying in (high) school. How to be bullied and how to bully others. (I actually remember being given a informal class about how to to it properly, by other pupils) There were allways at least on person in class who was the bottom of the social order, who would get everything. But everybody got its share, who showed any weakness or lack of "coolness" which could mean anything at that time, like not smoking. And I know many people who never sing anymore, because they have been traumatized in the school singing presentation. Likewise with other presentations. I could always sing without problem, as I learned singing from my mother, but others whose parents did not sing with them, were always scared of the singing and embarrasing themself in front of everyone, but accepted that as a 2 times a year ritual and just reinforced their trauma every time. But in compensation I got a trauma with presentation. I don't know exactly how it started, but probably with a teacher who liked to destroy childrens self confidence, if they were not perfectly prepared for the boring assignment and a class who was either sleeping or annoying. Got me a stuttering habit, too. Today I can give presentations, but I had a really hard time learning it later in life. So I am not sure what I will do, once my baby gets old enough, as I am located in germany and germany does not like homeschooling and I also would want other homeschoolers to be around, because I also think, that learning in small groups mostly beats learning alone or one on one.
- aklemm 6y ago
  This is simple dogma, so I would encourage you to research and listen to the experiences of those on different paths.
spaginal 6y ago
Much of modern public government education is part baby sitter, part indoctrinator, part time waster, and part money waster. The topics public schools waste time on are not something you would catch private elite academies getting caught dead teaching their pupils. I feel like public schools are more interested in just ensuring an equitable lowest common denominator result at the maximum budget possible to satisfy economic, social, and political grievances. Parents of kids in public schools have dropped the ball on education. They rubber stamp yes votes on budget increases yearly, and never ask themselves why it continues to fail and get worse year by year.
- grecy 6y ago
  Don't forget schools are also designed to keep kids off the labor market until they're ~18. Imagine what giving all those 13 year olds $2/hour jobs would do to the labor market.
  - a1369209993 6y ago
    Don't worry, we have minimum wage! So it's illegal to hire anyone whose work is worth less than 10$/hr (or whatever, I think LA (CA) would be 15). But no basic income, because then businesses might actually have to negotiate with people who aren't desperate for any way of affording basic necessities.
    - cameronbrown 6y ago
      Giving everyone UBI just means the cost of living goes up.
  - spaginal 6y ago
    I was one of those teenagers at 13. I appreciated the work training from early experience in the job market. The skills learned from getting mentored by the business owners for the small business I worked for as a teenager was invaluable as I got older. I wouldn’t have traded that for anything. Teenagers now only get their head filled up with lofty ideas as to how it should work, then go into the market at 18 with no experience in a job, no employment training, and no real concept of what it means to actually work and run a business.

john_moscow 6y ago

The school isn't just about the academic part. It also teaches you invaluable soft skills. How to handle conflicts, how to present in front of the audience, how to make friendships, how to respond to bullying, how to find like minded people. All those skills are extremely important in your average team environment, and learning them as a kid is much easier than guessing why you've been laid off, while your useless, but very empathic colleague got promoted instead.

nickff 6y ago
Those goals make sense to me, as I think they're all valuable, and I think some people do learn those skills while in school, but I'm not sure they learn them because of school. As the old saying goes: "what gets measured gets done", and schools only really measure test scores and years attended. I am not sure that schools really help people learn many social skills. Have you seen evidence that schools contribute more to social skills than their alternatives might? I'd like to agree with you, but I am a little skeptical.
spaginal 6y ago
School doesn’t teach those skills from my personal experience. I was a product of public schooling, the my way or highway attitudes of some teachers, the social isolation, cliches, bullying, teasing, all severely stunted my social development until I was a teenager and began competing in sports team environments, working jobs, and interacting with the public outside of school. After a couple years I was far more developed socially than anything the school environment provided in the decade prior to that. When I hear this reason often used, I fear it’s from people who enjoyed their social life in school due to reasons not actually involving the school, and place too much value in those social dynamics, ignoring the really ugly parts of it that hamper growth for a lot of students, including themselves. My own experiences show they lack any real application to life outside of school. I’ve never had a decent job that worked socially like any school environment I’ve been in, and the one or two I did have were quickly left.
centimeter 6y ago
I didn't learn a single one of those skills from attending public school. Every public school I attended (and I attended several, since my parents were chasing the accelerated learning program every time it moved) was not only a huge waste of time, but actively psychologically harmful. Based on the data I've seen, what I describe is a typical or even better-than-average public school experience. Private school was infinitely better once I started going, and my homeschooled friends (who I met at university) are, on the whole, vastly better adjusted than the people I attended public school with. Let's be honest - public schools' primary functions are to act as a daycare center and subsidized food distribution site. If you child is at all intelligent, you're probably better off leaving them at home with some books than sending them off to PS17851. I know I would have been better off that way!
- SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
  > Let's be honest - public schools' primary functions are to act as a daycare center and subsidized food distribution site. If you child is at all intelligent, you're probably better off leaving them at home with some books than sending them off to PS17851. I know I would have been better off that way! Would you have been though? There's a core curriculum that I really doubt most kids would learn if they had their own way. Even with intelligence there's lots of stuff kids would never learn as it never interests them. What are the odds that a child is interested in Shakespeare, civics, biology, and trigonometry? We're drug through a lot of it kicking and screaming (to an extent), but it has value to have gone through it.
  - centimeter 6y ago
    > There's a core curriculum that I really doubt most kids would learn if they had their own way. Insofar as kids learn (and retain) things at all, chances are they were going to learn it on their own anyway. The preponderance of evidence suggests that it basically doesn't matter what you forcibly try to teach kids between the ages of zero-13; their later academic outcomes aren't going to change much anyway. This matches my anecdotal experience; kids who end up being good in some field are always way ahead of what public schools (which are forced to cater to the lowest common denominator) can teach them anyway, and kids who end up not being good at a field will probably pick up the same information they're being taught naturally, at a more natural and less painful pace. > What are the odds that a child is interested in Shakespeare, civics, biology, and trigonometry High? Lots of kids choose to read books on various topics with their free time and focus, which they would have more of if they weren't swamped with pointless make-work. Plus, it's not like you're actually going to get a comprehensive or even useful understanding of any of those things from the bottom 80% of schools. > but it has value to have gone through it Even if this is true (but I suspect the "kicking and screaming" might actually be net counterproductive), I really doubt it's worth the cost of spending something like 25% of your waking hours in Factory Labor Simulator for the first 13 (or whatever) years of your life.
greggman3 6y ago
I know my anecdata is just that but my experience to date is the all the homeschooled people I've met are far more social on average than the average non-homeschooled people. No idea why that would be but of the 12 or so I've meet they've stood out as above average.
MichaelDickens 6y ago
If that's one of the primary purposes of school, then schools should have four hours of recess per day, because recess is where you learn all of those skills (except presenting in front of an audience). Most of the rest of the time, you're sitting still in a classroom listening to a teacher, not interacting with your peers.
hutzlibu 6y ago
School can indeed teach those other skills. But mostly only by mistake and much more it does the opposite. Because in fact I learned bullying in (high) school. How to be bullied and how to bully others. (I actually remember being given a informal class about how to to it properly, by other pupils) There were allways at least on person in class who was the bottom of the social order, who would get everything. But everybody got its share, who showed any weakness or lack of "coolness" which could mean anything at that time, like not smoking. And I know many people who never sing anymore, because they have been traumatized in the school singing presentation. Likewise with other presentations. I could always sing without problem, as I learned singing from my mother, but others whose parents did not sing with them, were always scared of the singing and embarrasing themself in front of everyone, but accepted that as a 2 times a year ritual and just reinforced their trauma every time. But in compensation I got a trauma with presentation. I don't know exactly how it started, but probably with a teacher who liked to destroy childrens self confidence, if they were not perfectly prepared for the boring assignment and a class who was either sleeping or annoying. Got me a stuttering habit, too. Today I can give presentations, but I had a really hard time learning it later in life. So I am not sure what I will do, once my baby gets old enough, as I am located in germany and germany does not like homeschooling and I also would want other homeschoolers to be around, because I also think, that learning in small groups mostly beats learning alone or one on one.
aklemm 6y ago
This is simple dogma, so I would encourage you to research and listen to the experiences of those on different paths.

spaginal 6y ago

Much of modern public government education is part baby sitter, part indoctrinator, part time waster, and part money waster. The topics public schools waste time on are not something you would catch private elite academies getting caught dead teaching their pupils. I feel like public schools are more interested in just ensuring an equitable lowest common denominator result at the maximum budget possible to satisfy economic, social, and political grievances. Parents of kids in public schools have dropped the ball on education. They rubber stamp yes votes on budget increases yearly, and never ask themselves why it continues to fail and get worse year by year.

grecy 6y ago
Don't forget schools are also designed to keep kids off the labor market until they're ~18. Imagine what giving all those 13 year olds $2/hour jobs would do to the labor market.
- a1369209993 6y ago
  Don't worry, we have minimum wage! So it's illegal to hire anyone whose work is worth less than 10$/hr (or whatever, I think LA (CA) would be 15). But no basic income, because then businesses might actually have to negotiate with people who aren't desperate for any way of affording basic necessities.
  - cameronbrown 6y ago
    Giving everyone UBI just means the cost of living goes up.
- spaginal 6y ago
  I was one of those teenagers at 13. I appreciated the work training from early experience in the job market. The skills learned from getting mentored by the business owners for the small business I worked for as a teenager was invaluable as I got older. I wouldn’t have traded that for anything. Teenagers now only get their head filled up with lofty ideas as to how it should work, then go into the market at 18 with no experience in a job, no employment training, and no real concept of what it means to actually work and run a business.