7 ms·

>My understanding is that home-schooling with private tutors > the typical school environment > remote learning without supervision. In pure academics, maybe.

>My understanding is that home-schooling with private tutors > the typical school environment > remote learning without supervision. In pure academics, maybe. What about your children's social/well-being from not interacting with their peers?

Foobar8568 4y ago
Have you seen today kids? Well-being is to be far away from them.
- yywwbbn 4y ago
  I don’t know. Kids to today seem to be generally nicer than those in the past.
nine_k 4y ago
Some peers are a pain to interact with, so results may be mixed. Also, some communities, like online games, provide serious amounts of social interaction set around reaching a common goal to willing peers.
- kingkawn 4y ago
  Online interactions do not come close to the bandwidth of stimulus from irl engagement with other people
matheusmoreira 4y ago
> What about your children's social/well-being from not interacting with their peers? I don't know. It seems like there's plenty of kids suffering at school precisely because they have to interact with other kids. Getting bullied at school is probably something almost everyone's experienced at some point.
- sweezyjeezy 4y ago
  I was bullied, but find it hard to believe that not interacting with kids was the solution. The root cause of the bullying (from my side) was because at the time my social skills were lagging behind my peers', and I don't regret not being taken out of that situation.
  - DSingularity 4y ago
    The results of bullying vary I guess
  - klibertp 4y ago
    Stockholm syndrome? There's really no excusable "cause" for bullying; it's like saying you don't regret getting raped because, at the time, your sexual drive was lagging behind your peers. That's a rationalization and a way to cope with trauma for the victim. From the other side it's simply blaming the victim.
    - sweezyjeezy 4y ago
      I'm in no way grateful that I was bullied, I didn't enjoy my school years. But part of the reason why I was singled out for bullying was because I spent a lot of my school years buried in math books rather than being with my peers. When I started to understand how badly behind I was socially at around age 14, I started to make the changes necessary to catch up. This meant talking and listening to to the kids at my school a lot more. I didn't realise this because of the bullying, but they were clearly related. The bullying was damaging I agree, but I think taking me out of school completely would have been so much more harmful.
      - klibertp 4y ago
        Right, indeed, I'm not a psychologist by any means, but I also think that removing the problem altogether without solving it could be damaging too, maybe in other, more subtle ways later on. To be honest, I don't think there's a solution to bullying that wouldn't be damaging in some way, for all involved - once it starts, it's already too late to go back to normal; you can only do damage control and hope for time (and/or professionals) to help heal the wounds. I'm glad you've made it out of that situation without major harm (and even some constructive conclusions), but you're an outlier, I think. Normally it doesn't go that well. It really shouldn't happen in the first place...
- chrchang523 4y ago
  I’ve actually heard that bullying has been dramatically decreased in public schools over the last generation. (People complain about feminization of education, and I suspect they have a valid point, but that trend comes with some upsides.)
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    Has it actually decreased, or is it merely under-reported, as a significant amount of it moved off school premises and into social media?
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  Actually eradicating bullying is impossible (if you think you did it, you're not looking close enough) so best to consider it a necessary evil - it's better to experience it in a relatively controlled environment and learn to deal/defend yourself from it so that you are ready with adulthood. Bullying doesn't magically disappear in adulthood and not being prepared for it may make it significantly worse. Also, the problem with bullying isn't bullying itself but that people are receptive to it and don't defend themselves (partly because school rules prohibit defense). If everyone stands their ground and defends themselves, bullying will disappear. Bullying only makes sense when the reward (whether psychopathic self-satisfaction or bolstering your social status) is worth more than the risk (which is usually nothing if the target doesn't defend themselves). If bullying is guaranteed to result in a punch in the face, it will change the risk/reward calculation dramatically and make 99% of it not worth it.
  - rybosworld 4y ago
    Being bullied definitely can teach some important life skills (dealing with conflict). You are absolutely correct that bullying is a theme in all stages of life, it just comes in many different forms. I think we discuss bullying in schools so much because children are more overt about it (e.g. stealing lunch money or what have you) and also more vulnerable. If you're a kid that does something really obnoxious/socially unacceptable, bullying is a way for peers to correct you. The kid that picks their nose will be made fun of and they'll grow up to be an adult that doesn't pick their nose. As with most things, bullying can go too far but that's not the norm.
    - Nextgrid 4y ago
      Yep that's the other thing with bullying. Most people will experience some form of it, but in generally there's one category that's just light-hearted dumb jokes you can ignore (and are not even directed specifically at you - the person is being an asshole to everyone without a specific focus), and a second category that picks on a particular point - a point that's different enough about yourself that makes the bullying acceptable to the rest of your peers; in which case the best course of action is to correct that difference.
- kingkawn 4y ago
  So don’t interact with other humans? absurd
  - matheusmoreira 4y ago
    Of course. Just not in a compulsory school setting where you're forced to associate with toxic people whether you want to or not just because shoving lots of kids into one class is the most convenient mass education format.
q-big 4y ago
> What about your children's social/well-being from not interacting with their peers? With "social skills", you mean either tolerating bullying or becoming a bully? (Compulsary) school is a prison, so the only social skills that children learn in school are about surviving in this prison.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  Society is a compulsory prison too, and even in adulthood you can't always run away from a situation, so being able to survive in a suboptimal environment is a worthwhile skill. Even if we assume you had unlimited money and could literally buy an island and live on it, you will still have to deal with bullies - just that they will generally have much more resources and will be less shy in resorting to violence or significant crime. Not saying this is right, but you can't change the world (neither as a parent nor as a kid), so adaptation is the best strategy.
chasd00 4y ago
There’s lots of social activity available for homeschoolers. Field trips, athletics, and lot of other stuff geared for social development. Homeschool parents are usually very connected to each other and make sure there’s lots of social time for their kids.
klibertp 4y ago
There are group activities you can take part in that have nothing to do with school. Actually, you should take part in it anyway, but with private tutors you have much more time to spend with a peer group of your choice. Not sure how scouting works elsewhere, but in my country it is well organized, more or less well funded, teaches a lot of very useful skills, and most of all gathers kids who want to be there. You have to actually experience it to feel how huge is the difference in atmosphere in a group like this versus one where participants are forced to attend. Private tutors are the best there is and you won't beat it. Whatever is lacking, can and should be supplemented. It doesn't even need to be a 1-1 with a tutor: 3-5 kids are still a manageable group. 25-1 or sometimes 35-1 is absolutely horrible and it shows in the results. Remote learning without help and care (honestly, "supervision"? The heck? Are they your child or inmates serving time for the crime of being born?) is obviously even worse than going to school. So, to my eyes, the GP got it right with that quote.

Foobar8568 4y ago

Have you seen today kids? Well-being is to be far away from them.

yywwbbn 4y ago
I don’t know. Kids to today seem to be generally nicer than those in the past.

nine_k 4y ago

Some peers are a pain to interact with, so results may be mixed. Also, some communities, like online games, provide serious amounts of social interaction set around reaching a common goal to willing peers.

kingkawn 4y ago
Online interactions do not come close to the bandwidth of stimulus from irl engagement with other people

matheusmoreira 4y ago

> What about your children's social/well-being from not interacting with their peers? I don't know. It seems like there's plenty of kids suffering at school precisely because they have to interact with other kids. Getting bullied at school is probably something almost everyone's experienced at some point.

sweezyjeezy 4y ago
I was bullied, but find it hard to believe that not interacting with kids was the solution. The root cause of the bullying (from my side) was because at the time my social skills were lagging behind my peers', and I don't regret not being taken out of that situation.
- DSingularity 4y ago
  The results of bullying vary I guess
- klibertp 4y ago
  Stockholm syndrome? There's really no excusable "cause" for bullying; it's like saying you don't regret getting raped because, at the time, your sexual drive was lagging behind your peers. That's a rationalization and a way to cope with trauma for the victim. From the other side it's simply blaming the victim.
  - sweezyjeezy 4y ago
    I'm in no way grateful that I was bullied, I didn't enjoy my school years. But part of the reason why I was singled out for bullying was because I spent a lot of my school years buried in math books rather than being with my peers. When I started to understand how badly behind I was socially at around age 14, I started to make the changes necessary to catch up. This meant talking and listening to to the kids at my school a lot more. I didn't realise this because of the bullying, but they were clearly related. The bullying was damaging I agree, but I think taking me out of school completely would have been so much more harmful.
    - klibertp 4y ago
      Right, indeed, I'm not a psychologist by any means, but I also think that removing the problem altogether without solving it could be damaging too, maybe in other, more subtle ways later on. To be honest, I don't think there's a solution to bullying that wouldn't be damaging in some way, for all involved - once it starts, it's already too late to go back to normal; you can only do damage control and hope for time (and/or professionals) to help heal the wounds. I'm glad you've made it out of that situation without major harm (and even some constructive conclusions), but you're an outlier, I think. Normally it doesn't go that well. It really shouldn't happen in the first place...
chrchang523 4y ago
I’ve actually heard that bullying has been dramatically decreased in public schools over the last generation. (People complain about feminization of education, and I suspect they have a valid point, but that trend comes with some upsides.)
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  Has it actually decreased, or is it merely under-reported, as a significant amount of it moved off school premises and into social media?
Nextgrid 4y ago
Actually eradicating bullying is impossible (if you think you did it, you're not looking close enough) so best to consider it a necessary evil - it's better to experience it in a relatively controlled environment and learn to deal/defend yourself from it so that you are ready with adulthood. Bullying doesn't magically disappear in adulthood and not being prepared for it may make it significantly worse. Also, the problem with bullying isn't bullying itself but that people are receptive to it and don't defend themselves (partly because school rules prohibit defense). If everyone stands their ground and defends themselves, bullying will disappear. Bullying only makes sense when the reward (whether psychopathic self-satisfaction or bolstering your social status) is worth more than the risk (which is usually nothing if the target doesn't defend themselves). If bullying is guaranteed to result in a punch in the face, it will change the risk/reward calculation dramatically and make 99% of it not worth it.
- rybosworld 4y ago
  Being bullied definitely can teach some important life skills (dealing with conflict). You are absolutely correct that bullying is a theme in all stages of life, it just comes in many different forms. I think we discuss bullying in schools so much because children are more overt about it (e.g. stealing lunch money or what have you) and also more vulnerable. If you're a kid that does something really obnoxious/socially unacceptable, bullying is a way for peers to correct you. The kid that picks their nose will be made fun of and they'll grow up to be an adult that doesn't pick their nose. As with most things, bullying can go too far but that's not the norm.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    Yep that's the other thing with bullying. Most people will experience some form of it, but in generally there's one category that's just light-hearted dumb jokes you can ignore (and are not even directed specifically at you - the person is being an asshole to everyone without a specific focus), and a second category that picks on a particular point - a point that's different enough about yourself that makes the bullying acceptable to the rest of your peers; in which case the best course of action is to correct that difference.
kingkawn 4y ago
So don’t interact with other humans? absurd
- matheusmoreira 4y ago
  Of course. Just not in a compulsory school setting where you're forced to associate with toxic people whether you want to or not just because shoving lots of kids into one class is the most convenient mass education format.

q-big 4y ago

> What about your children's social/well-being from not interacting with their peers? With "social skills", you mean either tolerating bullying or becoming a bully? (Compulsary) school is a prison, so the only social skills that children learn in school are about surviving in this prison.

Nextgrid 4y ago
Society is a compulsory prison too, and even in adulthood you can't always run away from a situation, so being able to survive in a suboptimal environment is a worthwhile skill. Even if we assume you had unlimited money and could literally buy an island and live on it, you will still have to deal with bullies - just that they will generally have much more resources and will be less shy in resorting to violence or significant crime. Not saying this is right, but you can't change the world (neither as a parent nor as a kid), so adaptation is the best strategy.

chasd00 4y ago

There’s lots of social activity available for homeschoolers. Field trips, athletics, and lot of other stuff geared for social development. Homeschool parents are usually very connected to each other and make sure there’s lots of social time for their kids.

klibertp 4y ago

There are group activities you can take part in that have nothing to do with school. Actually, you should take part in it anyway, but with private tutors you have much more time to spend with a peer group of your choice. Not sure how scouting works elsewhere, but in my country it is well organized, more or less well funded, teaches a lot of very useful skills, and most of all gathers kids who want to be there. You have to actually experience it to feel how huge is the difference in atmosphere in a group like this versus one where participants are forced to attend. Private tutors are the best there is and you won't beat it. Whatever is lacking, can and should be supplemented. It doesn't even need to be a 1-1 with a tutor: 3-5 kids are still a manageable group. 25-1 or sometimes 35-1 is absolutely horrible and it shows in the results. Remote learning without help and care (honestly, "supervision"? The heck? Are they your child or inmates serving time for the crime of being born?) is obviously even worse than going to school. So, to my eyes, the GP got it right with that quote.