4 ms·

I was homeschooled k-11, then GED'd, went to college, came out with a Master's. My sibling did the same route, but ended up with a PhD from an Ivy. Neither of

I was homeschooled k-11, then GED'd, went to college, came out with a Master's. My sibling did the same route, but ended up with a PhD from an Ivy. Neither of us recommend it; my sib is more antagonistic than I am. There are a number of conjoined factors, but it, as conventionally understood, is not a sufficient system for forming a child's development. People talk about "socialization" and "friends", those are subtly wrong. The key question is integration with society and understanding how it works. As a parent now of a 4yo, I am passionately planning to put him in public schools. I would STILL have yanked him into homeschool for 2020-2021 school year and sucked it up. Local public school districts were a cluster. Zoom school seems to be a hilariously bad idea for people who aren't like, e.g., my sib, who is incredibly disciplined and great at self teaching. Edit: Happy to answer questions; if it relates to things that might be disparaging to others or requires a very serious & thoughtful response, please just email me at my listed address in the profile.

seattle_spring 5y ago
> The key question is integration with society and understanding how it works. As a 3rd party observer to colleagues who have been homeschooled, this is right on the money with regard to their deficiencies. However, I don't know if it's strictly due to homeschooling, or because they also tend to have been raised with extremely religious and conservative values.
- abnry 5y ago
  > The key question is integration with society and understanding how it works. What does this mean in particular? What does it mean to "integrate with society" and "understand how it works?"
  - pnathan 5y ago
    Those are great questions. The simplest way I can say is that homeschooling alienates from society, and you become an Other, in your own eyes and the eyes of others. The child become adult must reassimilate (with all the nuances and weight that word conveys) into broader society. That should give you the vector to look into - the question of assimilation and the other has been adequately discussed elsewhere.
    - BirdieNZ 5y ago
      > homeschooling alienates from society, and you become an Other, in your own eyes and the eyes of others As someone who was homeschooled, and would quite happily at least try to homeschool my own children in the future, I do agree with this statement. Nonetheless, I don't necessarily see it as a strict negative. Yes, initially after finishing my secondary education there were some difficulties with integrating specifically with my peer group (but not with other age groups). This took at least a couple of years to overcome to a sufficient level that I "passed" as a normal person. A lot of this was not social ability per se, but more to do with using the right vernacular, dressing to match my peers better, and avoiding certain social faux pas. However, positively as an "Other", I am advantaged in some ways. 1) I fit in better with other "Others", like immigrants and their children, racial minorities, odd and strange people, and so on. Because I was/am one, they are "my people", even if I can easily pass as not-Other. 2) Learning to assimilate means that I can easily assimilate into different cultural contexts more easily than those who never had to. I can fit in with a wider group of cultural contexts and adjust quickly and easily. 3) I have a different perspective on some aspects of society that is not necessarily better or worse, just different. When you add that up to the other benefits of homeschooling, I'm not sure the negatives come near to discouraging homeschooling. However, my experience is not everyone's experience, and I understand that some people remain stuck as Other and suffer for it. I also can't say it felt particularly good to be Other and unable to pass as normal, in the interim. In the long term, I don't know that it mattered that much. ---- I feel compelled to note that the common idealisation of being a maverick, odd-ball, elite hacker on the edges of society and so on that is common enough in tech circles is not necessarily an advantage or something I am advocating for. There's nothing wrong with being ordinary, and being unusual often or typically works against you. I wouldn't homeschool my children to make them unusual, and I don't think we should glorify weirdness as superior. I don't consider my experience as being an odd-ball on society as something that makes me superior; if anything, it was for a time an inferiority to be overcome.
      - pnathan 5y ago
        > Nonetheless, I don't necessarily see it as a strict negative There are meaningful advantages. But on balance - again, it's been some twenty years since I was homeschooled - I've found that being an Other to be painful, repeatedly. I don't believe assimilation to have ever been finished for me. I think the alienation and lack of normality has repeatedly hampered my interactions with mainstream society, to some degree or other. This has material consequences in all sorts of interactions in relation to "social fabric" things. Some of those consequences are trivial - preferring different media; some are profound - things relating to promotion and so forth WRT soft skills.
zaphar 5y ago
I was homeschooled k-12 and my recommendations are much more nuanced. 1. Homeschooling is an enormous investment both in time and money. Not every family can afford to do it. 2. Done incorrectly homeschooling can have an adverse effect on the child. (See point #1 about the investment). On the other hand done properly it an escape route for families who may have no other way out. I would not be where I am now without the advantages of my homeschool education. To do it well you have need a few components: 1. You need at least one parent who is able to focus on the education. It takes planning and preparation. In many cases this could mean that a family loses all or part of one of the parents income. 2. You need a good support network. Your child will need interaction with both other children but also other adults who are not their parents. 3. To get the most out of it you need to tailor the education for each child. The benefits can be huge but it's not a slam dunk for anyone. I'm glad the option exists for those who will get no other better outcome though. Not every public school is equal. And homeschooling can sometimes be an overall financial win compared with private schools. I know a lot of people whose experience was not as good as mine though so I include a lot of caveats when someone asks me if it's a good idea for their family. It's not something to jump into blindly.
- pnathan 5y ago
  There are times when homeschooling is absolutely the right choice. For example: I would homeschool my child if the right circuits close and he turns into a prodigy aiming at a PhD by 18. Similarly, I can imagine its the right choice for children with specific disabilities which the school district simply can't serve adequately. I've chatted with a black gent who said if he had kids, he'd homeschool, because of the heavy racism in schools that he experienced. That's definitely a variable that has to be solved for too. I would also homeschool (before moving to a new school district...) if the school district decided that Zoom school was appropriate for children barring specific acute crises. =) There's probably a very nice PhD dissertation on the atomization of US society and how modern homeschooling both is an outcome of that social drift and, in combination with a sufficiently atomized poor socialization of the specific family, produces poor outcomes. I reckon we had probably close to the best-case academic outcome. One thing I've noticed as I've matured and lived - it's been 20 years since my last time at the kitchen table doing school work - is that my conclusion regarding homeschooling has gotten more and more negative. I don't mean to say that public or private schools are de facto better. They are not. But homeschooling has very ugly and very easy failure modes, and it fails-unsafe.

seattle_spring 5y ago

> The key question is integration with society and understanding how it works. As a 3rd party observer to colleagues who have been homeschooled, this is right on the money with regard to their deficiencies. However, I don't know if it's strictly due to homeschooling, or because they also tend to have been raised with extremely religious and conservative values.

abnry 5y ago
> The key question is integration with society and understanding how it works. What does this mean in particular? What does it mean to "integrate with society" and "understand how it works?"
- pnathan 5y ago
  Those are great questions. The simplest way I can say is that homeschooling alienates from society, and you become an Other, in your own eyes and the eyes of others. The child become adult must reassimilate (with all the nuances and weight that word conveys) into broader society. That should give you the vector to look into - the question of assimilation and the other has been adequately discussed elsewhere.
  - BirdieNZ 5y ago
    > homeschooling alienates from society, and you become an Other, in your own eyes and the eyes of others As someone who was homeschooled, and would quite happily at least try to homeschool my own children in the future, I do agree with this statement. Nonetheless, I don't necessarily see it as a strict negative. Yes, initially after finishing my secondary education there were some difficulties with integrating specifically with my peer group (but not with other age groups). This took at least a couple of years to overcome to a sufficient level that I "passed" as a normal person. A lot of this was not social ability per se, but more to do with using the right vernacular, dressing to match my peers better, and avoiding certain social faux pas. However, positively as an "Other", I am advantaged in some ways. 1) I fit in better with other "Others", like immigrants and their children, racial minorities, odd and strange people, and so on. Because I was/am one, they are "my people", even if I can easily pass as not-Other. 2) Learning to assimilate means that I can easily assimilate into different cultural contexts more easily than those who never had to. I can fit in with a wider group of cultural contexts and adjust quickly and easily. 3) I have a different perspective on some aspects of society that is not necessarily better or worse, just different. When you add that up to the other benefits of homeschooling, I'm not sure the negatives come near to discouraging homeschooling. However, my experience is not everyone's experience, and I understand that some people remain stuck as Other and suffer for it. I also can't say it felt particularly good to be Other and unable to pass as normal, in the interim. In the long term, I don't know that it mattered that much. ---- I feel compelled to note that the common idealisation of being a maverick, odd-ball, elite hacker on the edges of society and so on that is common enough in tech circles is not necessarily an advantage or something I am advocating for. There's nothing wrong with being ordinary, and being unusual often or typically works against you. I wouldn't homeschool my children to make them unusual, and I don't think we should glorify weirdness as superior. I don't consider my experience as being an odd-ball on society as something that makes me superior; if anything, it was for a time an inferiority to be overcome.
    - pnathan 5y ago
      > Nonetheless, I don't necessarily see it as a strict negative There are meaningful advantages. But on balance - again, it's been some twenty years since I was homeschooled - I've found that being an Other to be painful, repeatedly. I don't believe assimilation to have ever been finished for me. I think the alienation and lack of normality has repeatedly hampered my interactions with mainstream society, to some degree or other. This has material consequences in all sorts of interactions in relation to "social fabric" things. Some of those consequences are trivial - preferring different media; some are profound - things relating to promotion and so forth WRT soft skills.

zaphar 5y ago

I was homeschooled k-12 and my recommendations are much more nuanced. 1. Homeschooling is an enormous investment both in time and money. Not every family can afford to do it. 2. Done incorrectly homeschooling can have an adverse effect on the child. (See point #1 about the investment). On the other hand done properly it an escape route for families who may have no other way out. I would not be where I am now without the advantages of my homeschool education. To do it well you have need a few components: 1. You need at least one parent who is able to focus on the education. It takes planning and preparation. In many cases this could mean that a family loses all or part of one of the parents income. 2. You need a good support network. Your child will need interaction with both other children but also other adults who are not their parents. 3. To get the most out of it you need to tailor the education for each child. The benefits can be huge but it's not a slam dunk for anyone. I'm glad the option exists for those who will get no other better outcome though. Not every public school is equal. And homeschooling can sometimes be an overall financial win compared with private schools. I know a lot of people whose experience was not as good as mine though so I include a lot of caveats when someone asks me if it's a good idea for their family. It's not something to jump into blindly.

pnathan 5y ago
There are times when homeschooling is absolutely the right choice. For example: I would homeschool my child if the right circuits close and he turns into a prodigy aiming at a PhD by 18. Similarly, I can imagine its the right choice for children with specific disabilities which the school district simply can't serve adequately. I've chatted with a black gent who said if he had kids, he'd homeschool, because of the heavy racism in schools that he experienced. That's definitely a variable that has to be solved for too. I would also homeschool (before moving to a new school district...) if the school district decided that Zoom school was appropriate for children barring specific acute crises. =) There's probably a very nice PhD dissertation on the atomization of US society and how modern homeschooling both is an outcome of that social drift and, in combination with a sufficiently atomized poor socialization of the specific family, produces poor outcomes. I reckon we had probably close to the best-case academic outcome. One thing I've noticed as I've matured and lived - it's been 20 years since my last time at the kitchen table doing school work - is that my conclusion regarding homeschooling has gotten more and more negative. I don't mean to say that public or private schools are de facto better. They are not. But homeschooling has very ugly and very easy failure modes, and it fails-unsafe.