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Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stopping you?
Hi all, I’m a teacher and startup founder building a platform to support families homeschooling. I’m curious to know for those of you who have considered this approach, but not taken the leap yet, what’s stopping you and what kind of tools would make it a no-brainer/easier for you to adopt.
- dotdi 4y agoI get this is targeted at the US, still I'm throwing this out there: my wife and I (with combined degrees in literature, molecular biology and computer science) would have seriously considered homeschooling. But we live in Germany, and it is absolutely illegal here.
- actfrench 4y agoThat’s definitely a problem. And even in the US families can face problems. I know great homeschool families in nys who had social services called on them by a neighbor. And many of the African American teens in our community have been stopped on the streets for “truancy” when they’d legally registered to homeschool.
- rfdave 4y agoWhy is that a problem?
- mensetmanusman 4y agoIt decreases the diversity of thought. If your school system is failing, the government shouldn’t imprison parents who want to do their best to try something else.
- jakelazaroff 4y agoNot sure why "diversity of thought" is axiomatically a Good Thing. When extremely religious parents homeschool their children because they want to pass on those values, that's bad for society. Some things are heterodox for a reason.
- potta_coffee 4y agoYou don't get to decide that religious values are good or bad.
- sofixa 4y agoAs a citizen in a country, you get to decide on allowing religious fundamentalists to indoctrinate their children. I choose hell no, keep religion out of schools and out of public life.
- potta_coffee 4y agoYou're using a lot of loaded language in your response. What is a "religious fundamentalist" to you? Also you're missing the point, because the topic of discussion is religious people educating their own kids, not religion in public schools.
- mensetmanusman 4y agoThis is an authoritarian mindset common on the left but is antithetical to liberal values. Having a desire to control how other people prefer to care for their children usually doesn’t end well historically.
- jakelazaroff 4y agoI do, actually.
- rfdave 4y agoI'm going to go out on a limb and claim that human sacrifice is bad.
- jpambrun 4y agoI do, and society does. Sex equality comes to mind.
- mensetmanusman 4y agoDiversity of thought is important for creating a robust problem-solving framework. Once a monoculture forms it becomes easy to subvert it because people tend to be vulnerable in the same way. e.g. a monoculture is easier to abuse by corrupt leaders. Increased diversity of thought may have prevented Germany from systematically becoming entirely reliant on Russia.
- sofixa 4y agoThere are always private schools you can send your kids to if you really think the public school system is failing.
- anon291 4y agoPrivate schools often start out as homeschooling coops.
- rfdave 4y agoYou're assuming that parents who are homeschooling intend to provide their children with a good education. However, what about people who claim to "homeschool" their children but don't actually follow through, leading to uneducated adults who can't support themselves. I think that assuming good intentions for everyone is a problematic assumption, and you need to manage policies for bad actors as well.
- david927 4y agoMy wife and I have one child and she requested homeschooling for high school. So we moved from Europe to Idaho, where it's supported. (I'm American.) She's been doing a hybrid model of two classes a day at the local school and the rest on her own, and it's been incredibly successful. She's going into her senior year now and is looking at top universities like Harvard, Oxford and Yale. We couldn't be happier with the experience.
- davidmbesonen 4y ago> we live in Germany, and it is absolutely illegal here Why is it illegal?
- runjake 4y agoThe amount of effort it would take and the quality of that effort, when I already have a full-time job. Edit: I have 3 kids, and they all learn in quite different ways. I can't really give one presentation to all 3 on something. The pandemic gave me a little glimpse into what home schooling would be like.
- actfrench 4y agoSo you’re looking for ways to reduce the effort …at not too high a cost I imagine ?
- actfrench 4y agoA lot of families thinks this would mean sitting at the kitchen table at their kids from 9-3 but actually homeschool does not need to look like school in order to be effective academically. with mastery learning and 1-1 instruction, kids learn way faster than in a classroom setting , so often parents spend max 1-2 hours guiding their kids through math and ELA with many of the great secular homeschool curriculums available and then cobble together a bunch of afterschool activities /skill shares , social activities and pareht swaps. Sometimes more affluent parents hire tutors but it’s not necessary. And there are some great digital tools kids csn use to largely teach themselves like khan academy - not to mention good old-fashioned books !
- actfrench 4y agoI think one of the big challenges with pandemic homeschooling is that parents were trying to help kids with school work and keeping up with school , rather then necessarily directly helping them learn. One of the cool things about homeschooling is you can choose your child’s curriculum and support them learning at their own pace. I think you may even find you spend less or equal time as your child’s teacher than you do helping them with homework. And by the way , I have often found as a tutor/teacher that homework is where a lot of the only learning takes place because kids tune out in class lectures, miss vital info and fall behind. Many homeschool families I know have 4-5 kids with radically different learning styles and personalities and still only spend 1-2 hrs on direct instruction. These kids are going on to Harvard, Stanford, getting high scores on multiple AP exams because the learning goals are clear and they are able to learn at their own pace and master info before moving on to the next problem. Because kids learn so differently, I built a curriculum planner early on at Modulo to help families find the right tool for their individual child, that engages, inspires and challenges them. Also I don’t know about the dynamic of your family but older kids can help teach younger ones and “student as teacher” is one of the best ways for someone learning to really achieve mastery and a deep understanding of the subject.
- superb-owl 4y agoI'm curious if there are legal hurdles to doing something between homeschooling and private schooling. E.g. is it possible for me and a few other neighborhood families hire a private tutor for our kids?
- PhaedrusV 4y agoCheck the homeschooling laws in your state; as a homeschooler your can hire whatever tutors you want. HSLDA.org has the state legal summaries
- actfrench 4y agoIt depends on your state and the ages of the children involved. Sometimes it can get more tricky if kids are younger than five because that triggers DOH laws as well as DOE laws.
- actfrench 4y agoThis blog I wrote about how to start a microschool /learning pod/hybrid school might be helpful to you . Please let me know if you’ve got any specific questions I can be of support with https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/learningpod https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/learningpod
- abnry 4y agoThat's probably just called homeschooling. The way I described how my parents' homeschooled me in highschool is that they were a general contractor for my education. Writing classes were online, history classes were from the local community college, other activities from the co-op, calculus was from a textbook supervised from my engineer dad, etc.
- anon291 4y agoI don't think so. My wife was 'homeschooled'. Her mother didn't like some of her classes in public school so pulled her out of them, such that she wasn't spending the required amount of time in the public school. Thus, my mother registered her as a homeschooler, so my wife didn't need to be in the classroom. Of course, the public schools here have to take your child if you drop them off. My wife is well-socialized, extremely well-educated, and way better off than her peers, so it worked.
- bell-cot 4y agoMy sister-in-law homeschooled most of her kids. OTOH, she left her full-time job as an elementary school teacher to do that. Right after my kid brother got a new, far-better-paid job, which made that a viable option. She's still kinda involved with homeschooling. From various comments on what that is like these days (post-1990's), there are a huge number of resources already on the web to support homeschooling.
- kennywinker 4y agoIn my experience, both direct and indirect, homeschooling has the effect of concentrating a parent’s influence on their children’s lives / brain development / psychology, etc. Take that, and think about it, before you start. If you have unexamined issues like anger problems, fixations, avoidances, fears - those will have an impact on your child, and a bigger impact if you homeschool your child - purely on the basis of much more time spent together. If you’re going to do it, i would strongly encourage you to start therapy asap. Because the more of those things you crack open and deal with, the less your child will have to deal with the consequences of them. The school system has a ton of problems. So does home schooling. There is no magic bullet. Just choices.
- acover 4y agoHow much can a parent even affect their children? I remember studies of adopted children showing it was little. Edit: this[0] is not the study but shows something similar > Adopted children resemble their adoptive parents slightly in early childhood but not at all in middle childhood or adolescence In contrast, during childhood and adolescence, adopted children become more like their biological parents, and to the same degree as children and parents in control families [0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1997.tb00458.x https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9280.199...
- elil17 4y agoTwin adoption studies often show that effects of parenting are present but smaller than effects of genetics. However those don’t typically look at abnormal cases like homeschooling.
- dash2 4y agoVery much this. Effects of current levels of variation in parenting practice ≠ effects of potential variation. Here’s the argument in full: https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/no-wait-stop-parents-do-make-difference https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/no-wait-stop-parents-do-m...
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- hprotagonist 4y agoWhat stops me is that the socialization and peer-group relationship skills that are obtained rapidly in a public school context are not replicatable at home. Neither are the skills learned in dealing with non-family adults, independence of task skills away from home, and much else besides in that vein. I would rather -- and do -- support the public school system in my (medium sized) city.
- na85 4y agoI was a camp counselor for many years in my teens and into my twenties. We could always--always--tell which kids were the homeschooled kids.
- slackware_linux 4y agoCan you elaborate?
- wngr 4y agoWould appreciate an anecdote.
- Turing_Machine 4y agoBecause they were less amenable to blindly accepting orders from arbitrary authority figures?
- Shared404 4y agoIn my experience s/less/more/ . I was homeschooled for several years, and have known a variety of other homeschooled people. For me personally, I was impacted in my ability to socialize with people in my own group, and did not develop any rebellious tendencies until I re-entered public school and realized there were other options. For some homeschooled people I know, they can't read at above a first grade level. Others can read/write at a higher than average level, may be average or better at math, and have little capability to interact with others. Still others are some of the smartest, most well rounded people I know. Unfortunately, most homeschooled people in my experience sit somewhere between the first and second groups - which then means that gatherings of home-schooled families will also tend that direction.
- techabby25 4y agoYes correct
- mcone 4y agoOur kids are 11 and 6 and we've always homeschooled them. As a secular homeschooling family, our headaches aren't related to curriculums or anything academic-related (there are lots of good options and resources out there) but rather the lack of socialization options outside of the home. If your experience is like ours, you'll quickly discover is that most homeschooling families are very religious or pulled their children out of school due to some kind of behavioral issue.
- actfrench 4y agoThat’s tough . Do you live in a rural area ? I find this is a lot easier in a place like San Francisco and NYC where there are more secular homeschoolers and more techies and teachers educating their kids at home for a better education /more mastery learning . Hopefully this will change for you as the population grows. Have you considered reaching out to SEA homeschoolers for connecting w families near you ? https://m.facebook.com/seahomeschoolers https://m.facebook.com/seahomeschoolers I know a bunch of secular homeschoolers around the world and am happy to help you forge connections if you like :)
- standardUser 4y agoSchool is great. Not all of it obviously, and more for some people than others, but overall the pain and stresses of going to school were hugely outweighed by the fun and adventure of navigating through that system and interacting with all of those different peers and teachers. I wouldn't want to deny any kid those adventures and relationships and that exposure to our culture (for better and for worse). To be fair, I also grew up in a pretty great school system. I feel the same way about college. I understand the arguments that college is not often worth the excessive cost if you look at it in terms of financial outcomes. But I didn't go to college for financial outcomes. I went because it was going to be (and was) a uniquely amazing adventure that I could never replicate at any other time in my life. I think going to grade school is the same thing. Nothing can replace acting awkward around your crush in the hall, learning to navigate around the bully, bonding after class with a favorite teacher, enduring the horrors of PE or the excitement of a bomb threat, to name a few nostalgic examples.
- vitno 4y agoAs someone who was both home-schooled and went to public school, you are buying into the mythos around school too much. I had my own experiences when I was homeschooled that were far better than "enduring the horrors of PE".
- standardUser 4y agoI am not "buying into" anything, I am sharing my lived experience. And life without a little horror is not much of a life if you ask me.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- rambambram 4y agoI've considered home schooling, but what stopped me was the fact that I suddenly realized I have no children. On a more serious note, I like how you asked the question with "what's stopping you?".
- actfrench 4y agoLol. Thanks for the compliment and making me laugh. That would probably be a good reason not to homeschool ! Though you could certainly mentor your friends’ kids! I believe we can all take part in educating the next generation whether we are parents or not !
- troupe 4y agoKhan Academy started out as a way to help his niece...so mentoring others is absolutely a reasonable thing to consider. :)
- turtlebits 4y agoHonestly, I'm not well balanced enough to home school. I'm afraid taking on primary schooling would cause expectations for my kid to be too high. Also, I feel that socialization with other kids (learning to make/maintain friends), interaction with (other) adults and having a structured routine is more important. Probably most importantly, I'm fairly confident in the competence in my local public elementary (great teachers and lots of parent volunteers) I'd would consider co-op, but most groups are too small or unorganized.
- actfrench 4y agoVery helpful . The Je so much for sharing your experience ! I’m curious to know what area you live in where the co-ops are poorly organized ? Many thanks !
- jelled 4y agoI was homeschooled in the late 80s / early 90s and I hated it. Though we were part of a homeschool group, we only got together with other families once or twice a week. It was really lonely and I never felt like a normal kid. Ultimately I convinced my parents to send me to public high school and had a great experience. Watching my own kids thrive in school with lots of friends and social interaction has reaffirmed my thinking that building social skills is as much a part of schooling as the education itself.
- rmbeard 4y agoI'm too old to be homeschooled.
- actfrench 4y agoHopefully you’re still learning though ! :)
- dyingkneepad 4y agoSocialization. Going to school is not only about absorbing academical knowledge. It's about interacting with a broader group of people, learning how to behave, how to avoid common problems, etc. I would not be able to provide this to my kids. On top of that, the language we speak at home is not the language used by the school, or the rest of the country. There are a million problems that come with this: they would force us to use our language, which they're more comfortable with, they would be learning our broken accents, we're not super familiar with the local language so our ability to teach it would be worse, etc, etc.
- unity1001 4y agoThis. Not only what you said, but also even being the part of a certain generation as that generation grows up and creates a shared culture enables one to socialize much later. Having played similar games that a generation played, having listened to same songs, having played with the same toys etc.
- Turing_Machine 4y ago> It's about interacting with a broader group of people A cohort within 12 months in age, typically from the same neighborhood, is not a "broader group of people".
- verisimilidude 4y agoIt's much broader than none.
- Turing_Machine 4y agoBecause home schooled children never see anyone else at all? I think you'll find that is not actually the case. Also, I would argue that the distorted "society" produced by public schools is more harmful than beneficial.
- verisimilidude 4y ago
- ShadowBear 4y agoHomeschooling was detrimental to my own social development as a child, and that of my (many) siblings. Adjusting to college life made me nearly suicidal with hopelessness that I'd ever catch up either academically or socially, and none of my other siblings managed to successfully complete it. We're all doing much better now, but none of us would ever consider putting our own children through that kind of isolation long-term. Now I'm part of an ex-homeschooler support group where most of us had a similar story. In my own case, the "homeschooling" was a political choice by parents who were deeply paranoid about the US government. They lacked the education to even understand what all we were missing and relied on a popular curriculum program to guide them without any supplemental counseling or outside tutoring. Academically I'm sure some more educated parents could do better and understand they need to get information from a variety of sources, but socially it would be very difficult to replicate the opportunities that school provides most kids.
- ShadowBear 4y agoOne important thing about child development in isolated environments is that academically: you can catch up later. You might be older than the other students when you finally get there, but you can do it and end up doing just as well as the children who had a head start. But socially that's a very long, lonely road I wouldn't wish on anyone. The only situation in which I'd consider homeschooling my child is if it was in the daily, sustained company of other families and involved parents. Skill-building aside: seeing other kids at the playground once a week doesn't even begin to take the edge off the loneliness.
- actfrench 4y agoThank you much for sharing this experience. I’m really sorry this was the case for you and your siblings. I myself was e trembly lonely as a child despite trying public and private schools. I ended up cooped up all the time doing homework and not much time to interact in school. It wasn’t really until I went to an acting school in Paris in my twenties that I made really close friends. It was it’s a different culture that felt more conducive to socializing and community - and in my experience more inclusive of a weirdo like myself :) since then I’ve found my friends working on collaborative projects (tech accelerators) or spiritual communities (zen center, yoga)
- noufalibrahim 4y agoI used to do it for my kids and wrote some articles on why and how on my blog here http://nibrahim.net.in/2011/09/06/homeschooling_in_india_part_1.html http://nibrahim.net.in/2011/09/06/homeschooling_in_india_par... I moved towns and my main issues were 1. Lack of a like minded community who were willing to invest time and energy like I was. It's a demanding journey and not one that's easy (or even possible) to do alone. 2. Lack of insight into what the future holds esp. from the POV of higher studies. I can experiment with my own life but was scared of doing it with my kids'.
- actfrench 4y agoCool! Thanks so much for sharing ! Looking forward to poring through these entries!
- mensetmanusman 4y agoWe home schooled our 4th grade daughter during the pandemic. Was very fun, she was easily able to memorize the periodic table through song, made lots of progress in understanding operators in mathematics, wrote weekly letters to family for class… She is back in school now because it’s a great school, but if we didn’t have options we would definitely teach at home, there has never been more tools available to make it easy. Truth is the U.S. economy is entirely built around the assumption that both parents are working full time now so there is less time to be at home to help kids learn, so we send them off to giant prison-looking buildings and hope for the best.
- dsr_ 4y agoWe could start with: it's incredibly expensive. Kids need time and attention and space. Teaching is not compatible with holding down a full-time job, because it is a full-time job. Teaching one or two or three kids is not significantly less work than teaching 20.
- actfrench 4y agoActually homeschoolers are on average the same or lower than the median in terms of household income. Families who go to public school have to pay a ton on childcare, summer camp and after school classes, whereas homeschoolers often choose flexible work and develop creative solutions like skill shares and childcare shares. Fostering independent learners also certainly helps. Here’s some more I wrote on the topic of homeschooling on a budget https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/budget https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/budget
- elil17 4y agoI’ve never met someone who was homeschooled past elementary school and thought it was a good idea. I think homeschooling is often cruel to children. However I think tools to help make it better for those who will choose it anyway are a good thing. Best of luck to you.
- sbuttgereit 4y agoWell, it's available resources about building and delivering an effective curricula across subjects and time. I have found a number of homeschooling resources, but the best organized efforts tend to be from religious perspectives (not surprising). We're not religious. My being an atheist and my wife being best described as irreligious (doesn't identify with a religion and puts approximately zero thought into the question) means much of that religious perspective is unwanted and is something I would consider detrimental. That I do seriously consider homeschooling should also make it evident that I reject public schooling as a good option; there are a number of reasons but your question implicitly assumes that to be true so I'll just restate it for others. We do have relatives that have successfully homeschooled and I have seen groups that do their homeschooling together (homeschooling isn't necessarily about sitting at home by yourselves). So it's resources/support targeted to delivering a well-rounded homeschooled education, it's finding sufficiently like-minded others with whom to share the effort in a small group setting. With sufficient resources I could likely solve the time problem. Absent that, we're looking at private schools for our kid. We'd probably just do this, but it's not a cheap alternative.
- actfrench 4y agoI actually think I may have a potential solution for you on this one. It was clear to me when I started that sifting through religious curriculum to find secular stuff and making sure it was accurate and mastery-based was very hard and time-consuming for parehts. Over the past three years, I’ve poured over thousands of resources in 50 different subjects to help families learn at home with kids. From these, I selected the best resources that were secular, accurate and mastery-based. I’ve also conducted dozens of intake interviews with parents helping them choose the best digital app, workbook, or nature-based curriculum for learning at home, that their child would love and fit their family’s needs. With our curriculum planner, you can answer a few questions about your child’s interests and your preferences around screen time, budget, etc and it will recommend core curriculum, math and literacy tools to support your child’s education I’ve been iterating on it and find most people find it to be a helpful starting place https://modulolearning.typeform.com/to/VBJmkLTu https://modulolearning.typeform.com/to/VBJmkLTu
- f154hfds 4y agoAs someone who was homeschooled through 6th grade and then private schooled and considering homeschool for early elementary (I have a 4 year old) I would say my main concern is actually in my wife's ability to maintain a parent/teacher balance right now. What I mean by this is simply wearing two hats in the household is a tricky business and can be overwhelming especially when our young students have younger siblings that must be cared for. I have enormous respect for my wife but handling these responsibilities is no easy feat! Of course my kids are very young. I have other concerns beyond elementary, mostly around an increasing need for expertise in sciences/math and properly rigorous testing ensuring mastery over subjects without access to a realistic grade curve. My personal experience was very good but a bit unrealistic - I was taught to read by my mom who has taught kindergarten for decades. Not everyone has a professional educator as their homeschool teacher!
- actfrench 4y agoThat’s a really interesting point. I imagine this could be a similar issue for stay-at-home moms who wear so many hats.
- troupe 4y agoThere are a number of curriculums designed to help when you have multiple kids. It is challenging, but amazing to see how well it can work. Regarding expertise in particular areas, there are many options for that including taking a few online classes for particular subjects. If you think working through Algebra II might be a bit challenging, find an awesome teacher teaching an online class for it and sign them up. You can still help them study, bit it gives your child some interaction with another teacher (and in the better online classes) other students. While I'm sure you mom had a lot of experience she brought to the table, it isn't uncommon to have kids reading at 3 or 4 taught by parents who didn't have a background in education and simply did some research to find the best way to do it. True it might be harder than it was for your mom, but it isn't like a parent has to just guess. There are plenty of people like your mom making information available about what seems to work and what doesn't so you can find the best thing for your kids.
- potatosalad1 4y ago
- judah 4y agoI was homeschooled and I credit much of my success in life to it. It taught me to think logically, taught me to honor my parents, taught me the value of tradition, morality, spirituality. It taught me the value of hard work, of loyalty, of kindness. It kept me out of vices that many of my public-schooled friends and peers got pulled into. In my experience, homeschooling can create well-rounded, upright people at a ratio above traditional schooling. It insulates kids from many of the extreme elements and moores of society. Homeschooling is an excellent tool to pass on values from one generation to the next. Lack of socialization is indeed a problem. Homeschooling parents need to make a big effort to get their kids in homeschooling groups and co-ops, youth sports, etc. I have three kids myself now, but we send our them to private school rather than homeschool. What stops us from homeschooling is, my wife didn't feel like she had the skills to homeschool. She's not a teacher and feels she doesn't have the patience for it.
- kleiba 4y agomy wife didn't feel like she had the skills to homeschool. She's not a teacher and feels she doesn't have the patience for it Since you were homeschooled yourself, wouldn't you have been the better parent for the job anyway?
- corrral 4y agoProbably have very unequal income. That's why we don't homeschool—I'd like to, but make 3x what my spouse does, and my spouse doesn't want to, so we don't.
- judah 4y agoYes, and if I wasn't working my career, I could probably homeschool. When my wife and I had kids, she wanted to quit her job as a nurse and be a stay-at-home mom. We agreed this was a good solution, even though she's not cut out to homeschool them.
- kleiba 4y agoWhere I live, it's not legally possible to homeschool. My wife and I feel that the main advantage of sending our kids to school is the social aspect, and that we might actually be better at teaching them "knowledge", but we're not sure. I mean, it could be the classic layman "oh, I could do that!" stance, and since everybody has been to school themselves they have a vague idea what the job of a teacher is like (which, of course, is in all likelihood a fallacy). That, paired with a certain cynicism about the job of a teacher in the first place (here, they've got super-safe jobs, almost no accountability, a strong lobby, lots of days off, and are mostly done work after half a day if they're so inclined) and less than stellar results of our educational system when compared internationally, gives us a certain "we couldn't do it much worse" feeling. As a matter of fact, as a homeschooler, you've only got your own kids to focus on, not a whole class of 30 children with a wide spectrum of different prerequisites. But then again, maybe we couldn't do it very well at all. It's such a long-term commitment, one that requires consistency over years. And the relation between children and parent is different from a student-teacher relationship, there wouldn't be such a sharp distinction between what happens inside the school and the home. Topics like bullying and other negative forms of social pressure are omnipresent in school settings, but withdrawing our children completely from such realities might turn out to be less good of a preparation for their later lives. And lastly, without a doubt school teachings are colored by certain political world views, and they might not always be ones you agree with. But when you send your kids to school, you give up control over what they are actually taught. Of course, it is recommended to keep a close eye on that at any point in time, and also challenge contents where you think things are going wrong. But I also think it will become increasingly difficult to do this as your kids get rooted deeper and deeper in the school system, where the political and worlds views of the teachers will play as much of a role as those of the political parties that are in charge of your country's educational system. So, whether or not to homeschool is a really tricky question - but as I said above, it does not even present itself in our case, because we have no right to homeschool where we currently live.
- somethoughts 4y agoI'd welcome more tools to enable home after-schooling and home summer schooling. A lot of the after school/summer school in person offerings are pretty expensive and usually pretty sports centric. Full home schooling I feel could easily burn out even the most hard working parent - as there's little time for getting groceries, etc. done. And lack of socialization in the childs cohort is an issue. I think more online tools for prepping for science fairs and other academic competitions would be great. More tools like Khan academy would be great - I'd love it if there were resources that were able to introduce real biology, chemistry, physics prior to high school.
- actfrench 4y agoThank you for these great thoughts and questions somethoughts. Awesome handle, btw Actually I think about homeschooling more as a movement and ideology of greater involvement in education than a replacement to school. In fact, I call it “modular learning” where families can choose a variety of modules to compose their child’s education including school ! The burnout factor is real but I think that when you give yourself freedom to optimize on academics , social and childcare, you might find it’s lesss of a burnout than the grind of early morning wake-up’s, after school pickups , homework and pta meetings. I’ve written a lot about curriculum tools to support learning at home. With regards to physics and chemistry, it depends on your kid’s ages … some of my favorites off the top of my head are mystery science, blossom and roots science curriculum, quantum camp , mel science, Steve Spangler science
- somethoughts 4y agoAs some one interested in the space - I definitely feel providing tools to parents for home after schooling is a much, much larger total addressable market size and likely more profitable. The average after school math tutor probably nets $90-$120 per hour, where the average school teacher probably nets $50 per hour.
- troupe 4y agoIf you are willing to do stuff online, the cost for a math tutor is only a fraction of what you described.
- gnicholas 4y agoGlad to see people building in this space! One thing that would make us more likely to take the leap is a popular online community where 'everyone' goes to organize in-person events and meet kids with similar interests. I think there are enough similar homeschooling-curious families where I live (Silicon Valley), but I just don't know enough of them. If I knew 3x as many interested families, there's a good chance I'd have given homeschooling a try. It would also be great to have some knowledge base-style articles about how to navigate the bureaucracy, how to get whatever funding is available, etc. I know this varies by jurisdiction, but presumably this could be crowdsourced and validated for many areas.
- vyrotek 4y agoTime. I also think our 3 kids would struggle with the lack of separation between Teacher and Parent. Similar to how some adults struggle with working at home and separating work and home life appropriately. I know several folks who do it well and love the freedom and flexibility. But I feel it would take a lot of effort to really stay on top of it and not let things slide when it gets tough. Not going to lie, the "babysitting" aspect of school is very nice too.
- actfrench 4y agoChildcare is a really big deal. One of the nice things about homeschool though is you can customize childcare for when you need it, not just 9-3
- wanderr 4y agoI was homeschooled from 5th grade on. The reasons people have for homeschooling their kids varies widely, from hyper-religious to anti-establishmentism to the-schools-here-suck. The types of kids people have also vary widely. So my experience is not necessarily reflective of what your kids' experience might be. That said, here's my story: My options were home schooling or a Christian school affiliated with my parents' church. I chose to be home schooled. My mother is high school educated, not a teacher, and frankly weak on most subjects. But she loves to dig in and research options, so she did a reasonable job of finding curriculums for standard things like math. I always had a strong thirst for knowledge of certain subjects, so she left me to my own devices on those things (this was pre-internet so I think this was an especially bad strategy. How's a kid with no money going to find the best resources to learn about these things that would normally be classes?). In general, I have always loved learning, so I was relatively easy to homeschool. By 8th grade I was scoring at the 12th grade level, 99th percentile on the CAT across the board. I had more free time than my peers and more flexibility in my schedule. Field trips were a breeze. By high school I was taking community college classes and tutoring the adults, which was extremely helpful to have those credits when I went to college - I got to skip some intro courses and had the flexibility to take a year off of school when financial hardship hit. So far it sounds great, but I would not really recommend it. If you don't have access to quality schools for your kid, you should move if you can afford it at all. There were a few major issues: - Social isolation. I had little access to kids my own age, mostly my parents' friends' kids, who were, frankly, shitheads. (Not that the Christian school was better. All but one girl in what would have been my class graduated pregnant or with a child, and therefore married or engaged to be, shotgun style) - College Admissions. I was enrolled in an online high school program at an accredited school (the first one!), but even with the transcript + 4.0 GPA in a year's worth of community college credits, colleges were deeply skeptical about homeschooling and made me jump through extra hoops. I'm fairly certain my top choice rejected me because of this. - Misinformation & bias. I know this is an issue in school too, and my alternative option of a religious school would not have been much better, but I had to unlearn so so much of what I was taught - Extracurriculars. Opportunities to participate in extracurricular activities are extremely limited. Many things are associated with a school and not open to non-students. It's also worth noting that while I did relatively well in this setup, I have siblings who were also home schooled and never finished high school or got their GED. If you do go down this path: - Have a strategy for how to socialize your kids beyond "well, some of my friends have kids" - Find good curriculum - Have a strategy ready for when a kid does not want to learn something - Make sure you or your spouse will have a lot of free time to supervise - Enroll them in a program that will get them a HS transcript from an accredited school. - Find ways to expose them to extracurricular activities of their choosing, beyond your own interests.
- aaronchall 4y agoI homeschooled in 8th grade and I loved it. - No commute to middle school, which returned me an hour of my day right there. - No bullying from the soon-to-be dropouts. - No gross school lunches or having to tote around a smelly lunchbag/box/cooler. - No carrying a pile of books everywhere because the administration banned bookbags (drugs or weapons or something like that...), and no dealing with the worst students who always had their hands free because they didn't care if they had their books. - I went as fast as I wanted through my Algebra textbook (doing up to 8 lessons a day.) - Went to a science class taught every Friday in the next city over with demonstrations of chemistry and physics. - Played my trombone the homeschool band, we performed at Disney World and local recitals too. - Made some friends in the homeschool group. - I disliked the English and History exercises but I did them in weekly batches to get them done. And I read lots of books from the big city's library which was far superior to the school or local city's library that I would have to use later when high school let out. If I had stuck with the homeschooling system I could have finished my BS at the same time I finished high school by taking all my classes at the local university - but I would have probably not double-majored. My experience with home-schooling gave me a big insight to my high school experience. I asked for privileges such as staying in classrooms during lunch or pep-rallies to play chess or read, and I usually got them because I was well-behaved, respectful, and demonstrated I could be trusted. But I also resented the arbitrariness and capriciousness of the public school administration's dictates built around maintaining order due to worst behaving students (for example, I couldn't wear a ball-cap on a bad hair day because the resource officer caught kids hiding drugs in caps - knocking a cap off would start brutal fighting). Compared to that system, homeschooling was a kind of utopia to me. The only downside was not being around the friends that I grew up with. Fewer birthday parties and such. But there was more hanging out with a much smaller set of friends who were all homeschooling, and making new friends in the local homeschool resource group. I went back to high school in 9th grade on the theory that I missed my friends and wanted to be involved in student government and other clubs. But they weren't as friendly as I remembered, and student government and the other clubs did basically nothing. So I spent my 12th grade year at the local university full time, which gave me the freedom I sorely missed from 8th grade. My only regret was not doing it sooner.
- JJMcJ 4y ago
- ElijahLynn 4y agoSocial needs. Children need to learn how to be in relationship with others, it is the most fundamental need we have and is so important for the future of our planet. If I were to homeschool, it isn't about the learning, that is easy, it is about providing an environment where children can learn to co-exist with others. That can still be done with homeschool, but it will need to be intentional with daily activities that involve being in relationship with others, in physical form.
- poulsbohemian 4y agoWe probably agree more than we disagree, but I'll just add my own daughters as data points. When they stayed home during covid, the oldest (not a good student) did better academically with the lack of peer / social pressures. My youngest (an exceptional student) did better academically too, which has since allowed her to jump way ahead in her studies and finally be recognized by teachers as an academic prodigy, whereas before they saw her as a social misfit. So - I agree that it is good for kids to learn how to coexist with others, I also think there are lots of ways to accomplish that and that we might all give school credit for social outcomes that aren't a reality.
- wussboy 4y agoI think you're confused as to the point of school. We often believe the point of school is the academics, but I would argue it's the social. Studies indicate social skills are more important to future success than academics. A hurriedly-googled link: https://www.tcscholars.org/social-success/ https://www.tcscholars.org/social-success/ And I would also argue you need excellent social skills to reach your potential academically. So, yes, your kids did better academically when they were at home, and that's great. But that's not the point of school.
- poulsbohemian 4y ago>I think you're confused as to the point of school Actually, I think we're both wrong. During the time in my local PTA what stood out to me was the amount of time and money we spent on providing basic social services to kids - think providing meals, clothes, filtering for home and family problems etc. I would argue that in modern America, public schools are there to provide day care for working parents and to provide a modicum of social services, with education being an overarching hope and dream.
- isleyaardvark 4y agoIntegrated public schools are now generally recognized as having the biggest impact in reducing racism. Plus the lack of support for public schools would increasingly leave kids with disabilities out of luck. So there’s a moral angle. I’d rather my kid grow up to be non-racist and I could fix any deficiencies in their schooling
- cassac 4y agoIf the goal of public schools is now to create non-racists at the cost of academics then I would rather homeschool. I can teach my kids to not be [race/sex/able]ists, and I do, because I treat people with respect. The schools should have a moral obligation to teach everyone academics first and say everyone deserves to be treated with respect. There doesn’t need to be a big agenda about racism/sexism/ableism. Trump? Treat with respect. Hilary? Treat with respect. Homeless? Treat with respect. Former criminals? Treat with respect. Anybody who’s different than you? Treat with respect. Now let’s get back to math. I don’t want to hear any individual teachers opinion on anything other than academics. If they want to give their opinion it should be leveled and end with treating all people with respect. If they did this maybe less people would homeschool and go to private school and then schools could continue to have their much needed funding.
- troupe 4y ago> are now generally recognized as having the biggest impact in reducing racism. Do you have a source for that statement or is it just "common knowledge?" There seems to be at least some evidence that homeschooling produces children who are more tolerant of other views. While one study does not prove anything, it is slightly stronger than "general recognition" without a source. https://reason.com/2019/01/22/homeschooling-produces-better-students/ https://reason.com/2019/01/22/homeschooling-produces-better-... On the other hand if your local public school will get your kids to whatever academic level you feel they are capable of, it is great you have a local school that meets your particular needs.
- importantbrian 4y agoThe main thing stopping us is that we both enjoy our careers and neither of us wants to teach. I think if there was strong evidence that homeschooling conferred significant benefits we would probably make the sacrifice to do it, but based on my research it seems like a wash. The added factor is that my wife was home schooled, and my view of homeschooling is somewhat tainted by that. The homeschooling community she came from isn't exactly a strong advertisement for homeschooling, but I recognize there are also bad schools out there. The strongest part of her education seems to have been the co-op classes, but those classes are really just like sending your kids to a private school. At that point I'm not sure why you wouldn't just send your kids to school outside of an ideological commitment to homeschooling.
- outside1234 4y agoYour kids need more than your life experience. They also need to learn how to get along with other kids.
- optemization 4y agoI don't know much about the space but if you're just starting out, I'd pay attention to two interesting companies: 1. https://www.synthesis.com https://www.synthesis.com (productizing Elon Musk school) 2. https://primer.com https://primer.com (community for home schooled kids)
- andsoitis 4y agoEducating someone requires expertise. Being exposed to different education styles is far better than just having one teacher (the parent). There's no way for a parent to have sufficient breadth and depth across a range of topics, never mind generic pedagogical expertise.
- thescriptkiddie 4y agoI know you asked for responses from people who are interested in homeschooling and this comment is going to come across as unnecessarily adversarial, but... Homeschooling is very bad and should be banned in the US, as it already is in many other countries.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cowmix 4y agoI'm 50, live in AZ (where home schooling is very popular) -- I didn't homeschool my kids but many of my friends did. Here's what I have seen: 1) If you are non-religious, the canned curriculum, trade shows, support groups are very few and far between. You will be much more lonely than your religious home-schooling counterparts. 2) As your kids get older, it is harder and harder to give them a proper education. By the time your kids are in middle-school, subjects get harder for a parent (or pairs of parents) to cover in a way that does each subject justice. In the end, most of my friends who home-schooled eventually sent their kids to middle-school and or high-school... and that timing seemed about right.
- Mc91 4y ago> As your kids get older, it is harder and harder to give them a proper education. By the time your kids are in middle-school, subjects get harder for a parent (or pairs of parents) to cover in a way that does each subject justice. I agree. My cousin's daughter was not home-schooled, but she was having trouble with high school math so I tutored her. At the time I was going to college for computer science. We did algebra for a year and that went fine. I still remembered it from high school. Then we got to trigonometry. The year I was supposed to learn trigonometry in high school was disruptive so I never learned it properly. So I studied the lesson and learn it myself before I would go see her. I'm supposed to be the math/CS guy too. It worked out and she passed trigonometry too - I did have to spend much more time preparing to teach trigonometry than algebra as I had never learned trigonometry. I can imagine one parent having to teach trigonometry, biology, physics, chemistry, the themes of the Scarlet Letter, French, Medieval history etc.
- virissimo 4y ago> As your kids get older, it is harder and harder to give them a proper education. By the time your kids are in middle-school, subjects get harder for a parent (or pairs of parents) to cover in a way that does each subject justice. As a kid, I attended mostly private school, but when public school-educated parents express concern that they wouldn't be able to competently teach standard middle school subjects, that sounds much more like an indictment of public schooling than of the at-home variety.
- triyambakam 4y agoConsider reading "Dumbing Us Down" by John Gatto for anyone who isn't yet convinced about the benefits of homeschooling.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- xpe 4y agoMy advice? Read the book titled "Homeschooling the Right: How Conservative Education Activism Erodes the State" by Heath Brown so you realize what you're jumping into, eyes open. It probably isn't what you think it is. And it has tremendous regional variation. In particular, get ready for parents who want to very carefully control what their kids are exposed to.
- ivolimmen 4y agoWell since I am not an American it's not really that common in the Netherlands. Plus as @ElijahLynn mentions: Scocial needs. I read "The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do" by Judith Rich Harris (highly recommend doing so before starting with kids). And it contains a nice example of a boy that is home-schooled by two teachers. The kids is brilliant and and 21 becomes the youngest University teacher. He writes a book on model trains that is considered to be the most boring book that exists and he offs himself. At least this is what I remember of the book. I think the example says it all... Edit: I do understand the need for home-schooling with the school shootings and all. Maybe that is why it is not that common in other countries?
- TimPC 4y agoNeeding to work mostly. I have the skill set to teach and considered becoming an elementary school teacher at one point in my life. I know socialization is a big factor but I feel like that can be accounted for with lots of extra curricular group programs and an active effort to introduce them to kids their own age to make social plans with. I’m mostly interested because of the fact that private tutoring performs at roughly the 98th percentile compared to classroom teaching. I think that’s a big enough gap that I consider education an unsolved problem. Plenty of kids would be capable of going to university at sixteen instead of nineteen if they got an individually tailored education instead of being put through one-size fits all programs.
- TaupeRanger 4y agoNeed for daycare (with busy parents) and socialization (in the absence of neighborhood friends). When working from home, it is difficult to do serious, thoughtful work when your young children are running and playing around the house.
- jpgvm 4y agoNothing. If I have children and they are like me (i.e on the spectrum) then I will homeschool them. School was by far the worst time of my life and also contributed the least to my success. I succeeded in spite of traditional schooling, mostly due to the great nature of my parents (who unfortunately just didn't have the capacity or economical means to homeschool me.) Enduring my schooling years didn't make me stronger it just left me with deep emotional scars that took years to come to terms with. My partner has early age teaching experience and we are equipped to school our children if that is how things turn out. Socialization is definitely a concern but I think it can be adequately addressed through sports, activity groups and extended family. Of course if my children are normal then maybe none of this will be necessary and a normal school will be what is best for them.
- anon291 4y agoSame. My parents both worked, but they were so shocked by how little we learned in schools that they'd spend the evenings tutoring my brother and I, such that, by the time we learned anything in school, we had already learned it. Ultimately, we were homeschooled, and school was daycare.
- baby 4y agodisclaimer: I think school is mostly inefficient and a waste of time in terms of education. Yet, I wouldn't take my kids away from school, basically because I remember when I was a kid and meeting kids that had been homeschooled (either later in school, or in activity centers) and they were always weird. I'm wondering how they grew up, and if it was much more difficult for them to acclimate after that, or if it was actually fine. But I feel like the world is a hard place, and the more you delay the reality the harder it'll be for kids. I'd be interested in stats like, for example, rate of suicide amongst homeschooled kids vs non-homeschooled kids.
- wussboy 4y agoI grew up at a small college, and you could always pick the home-schooled kids out of the crowd. I said this in an earlier reply, but I agree that school is inefficient at education, but I'd argue that's not what the benefit of school is. School is about learning the social skills to succeed in life as an independent adult. That skill helps with learning later. Unfortunately, the reverse is not true: Intelligence is no guarantee to cross the social bridge.
- anon291 4y agoMy wife and I were thinking of homeschooling. Socializing kept us back. Then we joined a church with an active homeschooling group. The kids meet up multiple times a week, with and without parents. They even take classes together (parents hire tutors for a group of kids, or one parent takes a group of kids for a class). This has alleviated our fears. I think our daughter will get more socializing here and not just in the classroom. The group regularly (>1 / month) takes field trips, goes on outings, and we're even going camping with them this summer. So anything you can do to replicate that... would be great
- a-user-you-like 4y agoI’ve heard from some that it’s Multifaceted: * To ensure their values live on * To take their kids out of a racist environment * To protect their kids from the high number of sexual assaults from government teachers * To protect their kids from bullying * To spend more time with their kids * Flexibility in scheduling and curriculum
- jameskraus 4y agoI was homeschooled and it was an isolating experience that set me back socially until I finally pleaded with my parents to let me go to public school. It took me a _while_ to catch up to my peers socially and it caused me a least a year of being a social outcast until I learned how to act "normal". Did I learn some topics ahead of other kids? Sure. Was it at all good for my development as a person? Oh god no. 0/10, would not recommend homeschooling.
- promhize 4y agoI wonder if growing up in an environment with a lot of other kids might have changed your experience.
- sergiotapia 4y agoI don't want my child to have zero social skills or experience with the opposite sex. That's literally why I don't do it.
- AdrianB1 4y agoThe law: it cannot be done legally in my country.
- copperx 4y agoGetting buy-in from your own parents is a giant hurdle, because they need to dedicate a huge portion of their personal time to schooling you. That's not an easy undertaking. I have not seen any efforts in developing materials that children, once they've decided they want to be homeschooled, can give to their parents to convince them that homeschooling is a good idea.
- subpixel 4y agoIt takes two incomes to survive, that’s why.
- itronitron 4y agoI'm currently homeschooling three teenagers (since the start of Covid), although one just recently graduated and will be attending University this fall. Ultimately we decided to take the leap to homeschooling because the quality of instruction and curriculum available to us through local or online schools was either not good or not a good fit. Prior to that the two biggest things stopping us were the assumption that children have to go to an 'official' school in order to get a diploma and go to college, and the challenge in finding good curriculum. In my opinion, the good resources include Khan Academy, IXL, and Well Trained Mind, or at least that is what has worked for us. Tools that would make homeschooling easier would be an assignment tracker by class/subject that was easy to use. Khan supports assigning work but it's rather labor intensive to administer. For example if I have assigned tasks in a class for the next eight weeks and the schedule slides by one week then it would be nice to be able to just move all the assignments in that class back one week instead of changing every individual assigned date separately (as Khan Academy currently requires). This could even be something as simple as making a list of assignments available as a spreadsheet. Logical progression across the units in a class is important. The Khan Academy AP Physics curriculum is a good example of what not to do in that respect. Any attempt by the instructor/course material at getting the student excited about learning should be avoided/removed. Grammatical errors, typos, and misspellings should never be present in anything your company makes available to students or parents.
- OJFord 4y ago> one just recently graduated That's quite funny if you don't immediately recall that North Americans talk of 'graduating' school... Anyway, do you fit this in alongside working (not as a home-teacher I mean) through some combination of relatively hands-off assignments etc. and evenings/weekends, or does it only work because you don't?
- muzani 4y agoWe did remote schooling during covid. Kids don't actually like it. I never thought I'd see the day when my child would wail about not being able to go to school, but that's it. Also as bad as kids are with learning with teachers, it's usually a lot worse with parents. It's very stressful to, say, teach a child math. I think being in a group of others doing it gives them a little more grit.
- jhawk28 4y agoRemote schooling is not the same as homeschooling. When the children are young, it is a lot of couch learning. You sit down with the child on the couch and go through a lesson per day of reading. You have "manipulatives" like blocks to show patterns and counting. Books are often scripted so that you can just read the lesson to the child. As the children get older and more independent, the child can read the lesson themselves and answer the questions. The parents role is then to grade the work and make sure their children are doing the work. Homeschooling is not easy. It can be stressful, but it gives you the freedom to teach your kids in the best or worst way.
- codingdave 4y agoI have one child who thrived learning remotely during the pandemic, and two who did not. No matter what platforms are set up, there are simply some people who work well independently/remotely and some who do not. Same as the rest of us - some of us love remote work, some never want to do it again. My recommendation is to put some focus into helping parents identify which camp their children fall into before trying it out, to avoid kids crashing and burning as they discover it is not for them.
- Robert64 4y ago
- Robert64 4y ago
- dboreham 4y agoExpense. We looked into it when the kids were little but concluded we would need to hire at least one full time teacher (wife and I both work) and therefore would need to aggregate with several other families. At that point you're starting a school and we observed that we were already paying (handsomely) for the public school. That said we did supplement our kids education at the elementary level with a once-a-week science class from a retired teacher we know, and I spent quite a bit of time teaching them Mathematics "properly" up through 9th grade. I made use of various tools for that, including the same problem setting software the professional teachers used, and of course Messrs Kahn and 3Blue.
- pc86 4y agoDoesn't homeschooling by definition sort of presuppose one of the parents staying home and teaching? That's the only context in which I've ever heard it discussed.
- dboreham 4y agoIt amounts to the same thing doesn't it? Either you perform the work yourself, or you work a job for which you're paid and then pay someone to perform the work. I think the essence of home schooling is schooling in the home, or outside of official education institutions.
- motherfscker 4y agoI was homeschooled my entire life and to this day have terrible issues with socializing. I won’t say that homeschooling is the only cause of that, but it certainly did not help. Secondly, the relationship between a student and teacher, much like an employee and employer, is a professional relationship. It is completely different from the close personal relationship you want with your parent/child. Inserting yourself as a teacher or “boss” completely throws off this dynamic. Thirdly, my academic opportunities were severely limited as a result. I had no ap classes, no extracurriculars, no guidance counselor, etc. I didn’t have a teacher that challenged me to achieve more. My mom only has a bachelors, and did not have the knowledge to challenge me in subjects like math past algebra. I eventually took the SATs, the ACTs, and was able to go go university and get a BS in Computer Science. However, I was severely behind in math compared to my peers. I had only taken Algebra 2 in highschool, so in university I had to start with precalc instead of Calc 1. I had no AP credits that I could use to skip gen-eds. Perhaps my parents were just unprepared for homeschooling, but they were definitely worse than a teacher. Although I admit this last point might be specific to my experience.
- cat_plus_plus 4y agoNeither one of us can afford to stay at home and earn no income, or are temperamentally suited to such a life even if practical. I would be happy to work from home indefinitely, but I can't interrupt my coding every 20 minutes to answer questions and still get anything done. Town layout as such that even teenagers need parents to drive them everywhere, at least high school campus has library/gym/pool/various clubs.
- xupybd 4y agoI'm surrounded by people homeschooling. The only thing stopping us is the age our kids. First due in a few weeks. I've been thinking about building tools as needed. It's my dream to work in this space.
- t_mann 4y agoI think having good curricula to follow would be interesting. I always found the International Baccalaureate interesting. It seems to be both a more rigorous (academically) and a more flexible (administratively) system than typical public schools: the main demographic I heard who were doing it did so because joining the regular system would have been difficult (because they spent a year abroad, or were travelling with their parents), but they were on average very successful in tertiary education, and they all credited the IB and its rigorous curriculum. Another advantage of the IB is that, despite its unusual structure, it has near universal global recognition, which is important because a recognized high school diploma is a formal requirement in many places. If you were able to do something like that for distance/home schooling that would be interesting.
- _benj 4y agoI was homeschooled and I truly believe it was a major factor to getting me where I am in life. With that said I’ve also seen homeschooling gone very wrong. I think the major component of it being a great experience is the motivation of the parents for doing homeschooling. Teaching kids at home to intentionally keep them from society and indoctrinate them in some specific ideology, usually religious, can be very damaging, not necessarily because of the religion itself but because sooner or later the kid/adolescent/adult will meet the wider society and have no tools to deal with the diversity found in it. This, btw, doesn’t only happen in homeschooling but is how root of racism/sexism/etc are planted. In my experience, and what I hope to accomplish when/if I get to homeschool is to create an space where the child can pursue her interests, nourish/encourage curiosity and use it to teach instead of ignoring it an teaching some other boring thing the kid has no interest in as sadly is often done in school just from the fact that a teacher can’t pursued the interest/curiosity of 30 students at the same time in one classroom. Regarding the social aspect, there’s soccers, orchestra, martial arts, ymca swimming, inviting friends over often, 4h, Boy Scouts, and so many more opportunities to provide a place for the kid to socialize while hopefully minimizing the toxicity usually found in public schools. This is by no means a critique of public schools, I think is a sad reality of our society that all we can afford for our kids is an assembly line education with very little space for diversity and with one size fits all measurements of success.
- t0bia_s 4y agoTime management. Work, rising youngest and teach elders is really challenge. What is more reasonable for me is educate children in smaller group of parents, that want do homeschooling and than have ie one day per week just for teaching a small group of children among our friends. Also this could be more connected to professions of parents.
- snapplebobapple 4y agoNot believing in God has really limited my kids access to the social club that is religion, which makes me uncomfortable removing the other major access to kids their own age, school. Atheists/agnostics just aren't as organized in supporting their offspring's social development, probably because they have less kids.