6 ms·

> figuring out how to provide kids with fresh air, nutritious food, sunlight, and adequate sleep Most of these are already known, which is the more frustrating

> figuring out how to provide kids with fresh air, nutritious food, sunlight, and adequate sleep Most of these are already known, which is the more frustrating thing. The 1001st paper on teenage sleep isn't going to suddenly make schools change their tune. They simply do not care. In the US it is illegal to offer whole milk in elementary school because the USDA says so because of completely insane rules from the 1980's when nutrition science was at its worst. The only way you can really fight these forces is by exiting (homeschooling, private schooling).

apocalypstyx 4y ago
As a former home-schooled child, don't do this.
- omginternets 4y ago
  Could you elaborate?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - apocalypstyx 4y ago
    Most people are not going to have the requisite knowledge of pedagogy. We think we know X, Y, Z, or we actually know X, Y, Z, but teaching that (especially to children) is a whole other ballgame. When your parents are your teachers, the disappointment quotient to your failure isn't double but a power of 2 because, whether they know it or not, their ego is on the line twice over as both teacher and parent. They tend to start telling you or others that 'you're so mature for your age', where you are expected to be adult in mentality but without the actual ability to act upon that mentality (that is, they want to reference how 'adult' you are --- because of their parenting/education style --- and by definition of being underage, you have no autonomy. So have all the expectations of being or interacting like an adult without any of the autonomy, so you end up in your 20s feeling closer to 40 --- most especially if there is a lack of socialization with children your own age, and you the vast majority of the first two decades of your life around people your parents' or grandparents' age. So when you're in college, you feel alien from everyone who is your own age.) All of this goes double if the reasons for homeschooling are religious fundamentalism, or add a disbelief in autism or ADHD into the mix. My experience is that the vast majority of people who homeschool their kids don't do so because the education system is 'failing' but because of control --- my kid isn't going to be infected by evolution, etc (and transness nowadays). This is, of course, not all homeschools, but it remains by far the majority of what I have seen in person and online. Also there is a sense of illegitimacy. When your high-school diploma is just a sheet signed by your father stuck in a folder that you have to send out when official transcripts are required, it's a constant worry of if these records are going to be accepted or not, or that this school has no XYZ ID number because there was never any such thing back then, etc. All of the educational records that would you would normally request to be transferred between institutions, you have to manage.
    - apocalypstyx 4y ago
      While I'm on this (literally just saw this). Inside a US Neo-Nazi Homeschool Network With Thousands of Members https://www.vice.com/en/article/z34ane/neo-nazi-homeschool-ohio https://www.vice.com/en/article/z34ane/neo-nazi-homeschool-o...
- mleonhard 4y ago
  Second. I was homeschooled K-12 and missed a lot of opportunities to learn social skills. Learning these skills later in life is very very very hard. Now, I would pay a lot of money for live role-playing classes to help me develop the missing mental habits, but I have not found such classes offered anywhere.
  - omginternets 4y ago
    Do you have examples that might illustrate what it means, concretely, to have missed opportunities to learn social skills? I understand why and how it can happen, but it's all a bit abstract. I have a hard time imagining a concrete situation in which that handicap would manifest.
- nosecreek 4y ago
  Also a former home-schooled child, and I say go ahead and do it. Like any other kind of schooling, homeschooling does have some downsides, so be aware of them and do your best to mitigate those things (i.e. be very intentional about finding other avenues for your kids to socialize like clubs, sports, etc.)
- seany 4y ago
  as a former home-schooled kid. It might be the only reasonable option.
giantg2 4y ago
Just because we know certain things, doesn't mean we know how to apply those things to maximum benefit. Yes, starting school after 9am could be better for some kids. It could be worse for some others. Then the main issue is that the majority of adults are at work prior to 8am, making schools essentially babysitters. We'd have to change a lot about society to really make later start times work well for everyone. I haven't really seen good solutions in practice so far since the solutions are usually one size for all, or ignore the effects of socital factors. Perhaps the common issue at the center of most school complaints is that it's essentially authoritarian imposition of what someone thinks is best for the child. Whether that's low fat milk and cardboard "whole wheat", or whitelisting approved snacks (down to the brand) for personal snacks, or when to start classes, or what speech and images are allowed.
azemetre 4y ago
No, the only way you can truly fight these issues is running for local office, getting on school boards, townships, and development boards and actually pushing for this. Just giving up and doing your own thing is a complete antithesis to democracy and modern society. You act like these institutions are set in stone when it doesn't make much force to enact local change at all. We're talking about positions of power that get decided in an election of maybe 300-600 voters.
- zamfi 4y ago
  No, the only way you can truly fight these issues is by convincing parents not only that these issues matter, but that the conventional thinking is wrong. You won't be able to do that from a school or township board. Get on a school board, try to push for whole milk in schools, and you'll see how quickly ill-informed parents and vested interests fight back. School starts early because most adults work, and their kids can't leave home after they do. It's easy to think that each of these issues continues to be an issue because someone "doesn't care", but the reality in many cases is the much more challenging "someone cares a lot, but has the opposite opinion."
  - azemetre 4y ago
    There's always challenges for everything in life, and wanting to give up at the slightest bit of hardship is so odd. I've done zero research on this, but I have to assume societal movements have a much much shorter shelf life since the advent of modern social media. But hey it's okay, by not caring about these local institutions or political races just means people that don't agree with do care and are actively showing up and making changes.
    - zamfi 4y ago
      O...kay? No one's saying to "give up" here -- I'm just saying a local leadership post is not typically the position of influence you're implying: an elected representative who is consistently pushing an agenda that's unsupported by constituents isn't going to last very long, and is certainly not going to change many minds. Frankly you'd have better luck as an "influencer"...
saiya-jin 4y ago
Walling yourself from societal problems generally is not a long term solution in any way, neither for you/your kids nor for society. You harm your kids in myriad other ways, while you keep pounding your chest how great parent you are. So you are not fighting anything, you just gave up. Great example for kiddos. Look at society with similar approach to even greater issues - South Africa. Everybody rich walled away from everybody else, moving around only in cars, praying not that they aren't robbed as much as not catching thieves at their houses. No personal freedom at all, a sad place.
robocat 4y ago
> exiting (homeschooling I imagine that there is a bimodal distribution of ability in parents because of the different reasons parents choose to homeschool. Blanket advice also captures unwise parents who nurture badly, and lack the wisdom to understand the negative parts of the compromises.

apocalypstyx 4y ago

As a former home-schooled child, don't do this.

omginternets 4y ago
Could you elaborate?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- apocalypstyx 4y ago
  Most people are not going to have the requisite knowledge of pedagogy. We think we know X, Y, Z, or we actually know X, Y, Z, but teaching that (especially to children) is a whole other ballgame. When your parents are your teachers, the disappointment quotient to your failure isn't double but a power of 2 because, whether they know it or not, their ego is on the line twice over as both teacher and parent. They tend to start telling you or others that 'you're so mature for your age', where you are expected to be adult in mentality but without the actual ability to act upon that mentality (that is, they want to reference how 'adult' you are --- because of their parenting/education style --- and by definition of being underage, you have no autonomy. So have all the expectations of being or interacting like an adult without any of the autonomy, so you end up in your 20s feeling closer to 40 --- most especially if there is a lack of socialization with children your own age, and you the vast majority of the first two decades of your life around people your parents' or grandparents' age. So when you're in college, you feel alien from everyone who is your own age.) All of this goes double if the reasons for homeschooling are religious fundamentalism, or add a disbelief in autism or ADHD into the mix. My experience is that the vast majority of people who homeschool their kids don't do so because the education system is 'failing' but because of control --- my kid isn't going to be infected by evolution, etc (and transness nowadays). This is, of course, not all homeschools, but it remains by far the majority of what I have seen in person and online. Also there is a sense of illegitimacy. When your high-school diploma is just a sheet signed by your father stuck in a folder that you have to send out when official transcripts are required, it's a constant worry of if these records are going to be accepted or not, or that this school has no XYZ ID number because there was never any such thing back then, etc. All of the educational records that would you would normally request to be transferred between institutions, you have to manage.
  - apocalypstyx 4y ago
    While I'm on this (literally just saw this). Inside a US Neo-Nazi Homeschool Network With Thousands of Members https://www.vice.com/en/article/z34ane/neo-nazi-homeschool-ohio https://www.vice.com/en/article/z34ane/neo-nazi-homeschool-o...
mleonhard 4y ago
Second. I was homeschooled K-12 and missed a lot of opportunities to learn social skills. Learning these skills later in life is very very very hard. Now, I would pay a lot of money for live role-playing classes to help me develop the missing mental habits, but I have not found such classes offered anywhere.
- omginternets 4y ago
  Do you have examples that might illustrate what it means, concretely, to have missed opportunities to learn social skills? I understand why and how it can happen, but it's all a bit abstract. I have a hard time imagining a concrete situation in which that handicap would manifest.
nosecreek 4y ago
Also a former home-schooled child, and I say go ahead and do it. Like any other kind of schooling, homeschooling does have some downsides, so be aware of them and do your best to mitigate those things (i.e. be very intentional about finding other avenues for your kids to socialize like clubs, sports, etc.)
seany 4y ago
as a former home-schooled kid. It might be the only reasonable option.

giantg2 4y ago

Just because we know certain things, doesn't mean we know how to apply those things to maximum benefit. Yes, starting school after 9am could be better for some kids. It could be worse for some others. Then the main issue is that the majority of adults are at work prior to 8am, making schools essentially babysitters. We'd have to change a lot about society to really make later start times work well for everyone. I haven't really seen good solutions in practice so far since the solutions are usually one size for all, or ignore the effects of socital factors. Perhaps the common issue at the center of most school complaints is that it's essentially authoritarian imposition of what someone thinks is best for the child. Whether that's low fat milk and cardboard "whole wheat", or whitelisting approved snacks (down to the brand) for personal snacks, or when to start classes, or what speech and images are allowed.

azemetre 4y ago

No, the only way you can truly fight these issues is running for local office, getting on school boards, townships, and development boards and actually pushing for this. Just giving up and doing your own thing is a complete antithesis to democracy and modern society. You act like these institutions are set in stone when it doesn't make much force to enact local change at all. We're talking about positions of power that get decided in an election of maybe 300-600 voters.

zamfi 4y ago
No, the only way you can truly fight these issues is by convincing parents not only that these issues matter, but that the conventional thinking is wrong. You won't be able to do that from a school or township board. Get on a school board, try to push for whole milk in schools, and you'll see how quickly ill-informed parents and vested interests fight back. School starts early because most adults work, and their kids can't leave home after they do. It's easy to think that each of these issues continues to be an issue because someone "doesn't care", but the reality in many cases is the much more challenging "someone cares a lot, but has the opposite opinion."
- azemetre 4y ago
  There's always challenges for everything in life, and wanting to give up at the slightest bit of hardship is so odd. I've done zero research on this, but I have to assume societal movements have a much much shorter shelf life since the advent of modern social media. But hey it's okay, by not caring about these local institutions or political races just means people that don't agree with do care and are actively showing up and making changes.
  - zamfi 4y ago
    O...kay? No one's saying to "give up" here -- I'm just saying a local leadership post is not typically the position of influence you're implying: an elected representative who is consistently pushing an agenda that's unsupported by constituents isn't going to last very long, and is certainly not going to change many minds. Frankly you'd have better luck as an "influencer"...

saiya-jin 4y ago

Walling yourself from societal problems generally is not a long term solution in any way, neither for you/your kids nor for society. You harm your kids in myriad other ways, while you keep pounding your chest how great parent you are. So you are not fighting anything, you just gave up. Great example for kiddos. Look at society with similar approach to even greater issues - South Africa. Everybody rich walled away from everybody else, moving around only in cars, praying not that they aren't robbed as much as not catching thieves at their houses. No personal freedom at all, a sad place.

robocat 4y ago

> exiting (homeschooling I imagine that there is a bimodal distribution of ability in parents because of the different reasons parents choose to homeschool. Blanket advice also captures unwise parents who nurture badly, and lack the wisdom to understand the negative parts of the compromises.