3 ms·

> Home-schooled children have attended Ivy League schools and won national spelling bees. They have also been the victims of child abuse and severe neglect. Som

> Home-schooled children have attended Ivy League schools and won national spelling bees. They have also been the victims of child abuse and severe neglect. Some are taught using the classics of ancient Greece, others with Nazi propaganda. So ... just like kids in public school? Somewhat orthogonal to the article: In my state a lot of people were forced to home-school during Covid, and a significant percentage of them continue to do so. They found the experience and outcomes a lot better than what they had been getting at the public school. I listened to their experiences on a local radio show, and was fairly disappointed with the home school curriculum - it was far more focused on alternative subjects not taught in schools, and quite a lot of the "usual" curriculum was omitted (very little math, for example, and if they did teach science, it was with a lot less rigor). It was almost 80-90% about "experiential learning" vs "book learning". I get the value of experiential learning and do agree public schools have too little of it, but I fear these kids are being cheated out of the possibility of getting into STEM - there's no way they can do anything in the hard sciences without some good foundations. The other thing that always confounds me: Virtually every study out there shows that on average, by a certain age, home school kids outperform public school kids in most/all arenas (social, academic, etc). At worst they perform at the same level. The parents are very happy with the outcomes. I've known homeschooled kids that are easily 2 grades ahead of where they would be at a typical public school - and with no social shortcomings whatsoever, but they may be outliers as the parents were brilliant themselves. So, both anecdotal and research shows it to be superior. Yet most adults I've met who were home schooled as a kid are unhappy with their parents' choice.[1] I suspect it is akin to how most people overvalue what they don't have, seeing only the benefits of what they've been deprived and not the downsides. [1] Although as I write this, I realize I should account for the fact that many/most kids really hate their school experience - particularly high school. So perhaps the home schooled kids aren't any less satisfied with their education experience than typical public school kids.

foogazi 3y ago
> I've known homeschooled kids that are easily 2 grades ahead of where they would be at a typical public school - and with no social shortcomings whatsoever For certain kids school is holding them up But that’s the problem with a standardization. What are the odds that all kids need the same amount of time for all subjects Initially everyone was home schooled. The school system is a feature & bug of scaling up
- varjag 3y ago
  Initially everyone was illiterate, except the lucky few in position of wealth.
  - danans 3y ago
    Going back far enough in parts of the world, even the wealthy were illiterate, which is why they employed scribes.
- BeetleB 3y ago
  > But that’s the problem with a standardization. What are the odds that all kids need the same amount of time for all subjects They acknowledge that, but it doesn't change the thought process, right? If I know my kids can learn 70% more than they do in public schools, and have all the skills/tools to provide it to them, I don't care about the reason schools are inefficient. The sentiment that homeschooling parents has is that public schools time things to target below average students. That's wildly inefficient. Couple it with a reluctance to hold back students and it gets even more inefficient. I went to a private school. For certain key subjects (history, math, science, etc), if you failed just one subject you get held back and have to repeat the whole year. As a student, this was fantastic. It means if your class got stuck with a "troublemaker" who was poor academically and disruptive, you wouldn't have to put up with him for more than a year. He would either shape up eventually or keep failing till the parents pulled him out because it's too expensive.
  - foogazi 3y ago
    > For certain key subjects (history, math, science, etc), if you failed just one subject you get held back and have to repeat the whole year. Insane
    - BeetleB 3y ago
      They did give you a chance to do a makeup exam at the end of the summer. If you passed it, you'd get to go to the next year. I don't find it insane at all. Well, perhaps for the lower grades, but once you're in the 5th or 6th grade, the kids are mature enough to handle it. As are their parents. In my class, failures weren't that common - perhaps less than 5% of kids - although there was a sharp increase in the 9th grade, which is when the subjects get considerably more difficult (and I guess kids' hormones kick in).
MisterBastahrd 3y ago
> I've known homeschooled kids that are easily 2 grades ahead of where they would be at a typical public school - and with no social shortcomings whatsoever, but they may be outliers as the parents were brilliant themselves. I've never met a single person like this. I have met quite a few whose parents were dumber than stumps and had weird religious reasons for homeschooling their kids. The result was extremely poorly socialized, super-dumb kids who never progressed past the education level of their parents. They mostly moved to public school for high school because they wanted to play varsity sports, and they got their heads handed to them in class because they were several years behind their classmates. It's hard to learn in a class when you don't understand anything that the class is being taught and everyone thinks you're stupid to boot. One of them moved out of state immediately out of high school because he was so embarrassed at people's perception of him.

foogazi 3y ago

> I've known homeschooled kids that are easily 2 grades ahead of where they would be at a typical public school - and with no social shortcomings whatsoever For certain kids school is holding them up But that’s the problem with a standardization. What are the odds that all kids need the same amount of time for all subjects Initially everyone was home schooled. The school system is a feature & bug of scaling up

varjag 3y ago
Initially everyone was illiterate, except the lucky few in position of wealth.
- danans 3y ago
  Going back far enough in parts of the world, even the wealthy were illiterate, which is why they employed scribes.
BeetleB 3y ago
> But that’s the problem with a standardization. What are the odds that all kids need the same amount of time for all subjects They acknowledge that, but it doesn't change the thought process, right? If I know my kids can learn 70% more than they do in public schools, and have all the skills/tools to provide it to them, I don't care about the reason schools are inefficient. The sentiment that homeschooling parents has is that public schools time things to target below average students. That's wildly inefficient. Couple it with a reluctance to hold back students and it gets even more inefficient. I went to a private school. For certain key subjects (history, math, science, etc), if you failed just one subject you get held back and have to repeat the whole year. As a student, this was fantastic. It means if your class got stuck with a "troublemaker" who was poor academically and disruptive, you wouldn't have to put up with him for more than a year. He would either shape up eventually or keep failing till the parents pulled him out because it's too expensive.
- foogazi 3y ago
  > For certain key subjects (history, math, science, etc), if you failed just one subject you get held back and have to repeat the whole year. Insane
  - BeetleB 3y ago
    They did give you a chance to do a makeup exam at the end of the summer. If you passed it, you'd get to go to the next year. I don't find it insane at all. Well, perhaps for the lower grades, but once you're in the 5th or 6th grade, the kids are mature enough to handle it. As are their parents. In my class, failures weren't that common - perhaps less than 5% of kids - although there was a sharp increase in the 9th grade, which is when the subjects get considerably more difficult (and I guess kids' hormones kick in).

MisterBastahrd 3y ago

> I've known homeschooled kids that are easily 2 grades ahead of where they would be at a typical public school - and with no social shortcomings whatsoever, but they may be outliers as the parents were brilliant themselves. I've never met a single person like this. I have met quite a few whose parents were dumber than stumps and had weird religious reasons for homeschooling their kids. The result was extremely poorly socialized, super-dumb kids who never progressed past the education level of their parents. They mostly moved to public school for high school because they wanted to play varsity sports, and they got their heads handed to them in class because they were several years behind their classmates. It's hard to learn in a class when you don't understand anything that the class is being taught and everyone thinks you're stupid to boot. One of them moved out of state immediately out of high school because he was so embarrassed at people's perception of him.