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People talk about homeschooling as if it's one single concept, but it's actually a whole bunch of very dissimilar things. There are people who homeschool becau

by jawns 3y ago

People talk about homeschooling as if it's one single concept, but it's actually a whole bunch of very dissimilar things. There are people who homeschool because they don't agree with the government's viewpoints, people who homeschool because the public school system has failed their kids, people who homeschool because it just happens to fit their lifestyle. Those are all very different motivations. Likewise, there are people who "unschool," people who use very formal curricula, people who make use of co-ops and traditional classroom settings, people who use a lot of remote learning, people who value social interactions and have their kids involved in lots of activities with other kids, and people who are more focused on academic achievement. These are all very different methods of education. Beyond that, there are parents who are well equipped to homeschool and parents who are not. And there is a small but hard-to-ignore percentage who claim to homeschool but really neglect their kids. Treating all these scenarios as a single thing that you can hold a single, consistent opinion about suggests to me a lack of familiarity with its wide spectrums along multiple dimensions. It's like passing a judgment on a person based on their race, country of origin, gender, etc. Disclaimer: Our family homeschools. Both my wife (previously a public- and private-school teacher) and I were biased against it prior to having kids, but we came to find that a lot of our biases and concerns were unfounded.

torial 3y ago
100% agree with this. Also, with the right community, it is possible to have plenty of "socialization" with other kids. My family participates in a parent-led co-op that allows kids to benefit from different strengths in different parents and to have lots of friends. As my kids are neurodivergent, I think this environment has been safer for them and allows them to focus on their passions. There is still some peer pressure re: neurodivergence, but I think it was less severe than when I was in public school with less obvious neurodivergence.
- darigo 3y ago
  >it is possible to have plenty of "socialization" with other kids. I agree. Public school is not a great place for socialization, and it's not hard to create something better. Nothing socializes kids like sitting next to each other motionless in silence for several hours lol
  - dboreham 3y ago
    I'm not sure it's about socializing with other kids. There's also something about being able to function in a hierarchical organization (e.g. the workplace) that may not be developed in a home school environment.
  - potta_coffee 3y ago
    I went to a violent high school. There were shootings and stabbings. Socialization is overrated.
    - yieldcrv 3y ago
      sir this is a thread about privilege that possibility isn’t even in the range here the choices are good school district, decent private school, or a home school concept
      - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 3y ago
        Oh, so because not everyone can do it, nobody should be allowed to? We should all strive for the lowest common denominator? That makes strong communities?
        yieldcrv 3y ago
        I am completely content with inequality
        bowsamic 3y ago
        He was joking
  - vrc 3y ago
    Do you really think kids in school sit silently and motionless in class for several hours? I’d invite you to sample any classroom to test that hypothesis. There are many reasons to suppose schools aren’t the best for socialization, but that’s not it.
  - 3y ago
- low_common 3y ago
  What the heck is neurodivergence?
  - lamp987 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - jandrese 3y ago
    It's almost anything out of the ordinary by definition, but usually refers to children somewhere on the Autism spectrum. They often struggle with being bullied in public school and depending on where they are on the spectrum can cause considerably increased workload for the school or even have outright behavioral problems complete with physical violence. That's extreme and rare thankfully, but even kids with relatively mild conditions can struggle in a chaotic public school environment.
    - seabass-labrax 3y ago
      Tiny suggestion: s/children/people. It's true that it's usually used to refer to children, but that's just because autism is most identifiable in early childhood. Autism (or Asperger's syndrome) is not something you can 'grow out of' or 'cure', because it's a difference in basic cognitive functions.
      - jandrese 3y ago
        Yes, but the context here is school students.
  - natpalmer1776 3y ago
    Neurologically divergent individuals who do not adhere well to traditional expectations of behavior in social settings. Given that this is a technical term that has gained colloquial usage, not everyone who is identified as (or self identifies as) neurodivergent is actually neurologically divergent in a literal sense, but behaviorally is close enough to be a moot point in non-academic settings.
  - 3y ago
- graemep 3y ago
  It is very possible (if not usual) to have better socialisation home educated. IMO meeting lots of different people, of a mix of ages, in multiple different places is better socialisation than going to the same place with the same people every day. I have had many years of compliments from people about how good my children's social skills are.
defgeneric 3y ago
Then these should be distinguished and regulated appropriately.
kup0 3y ago
Fully agree. For a long time I was heavily biased against it because of the versions of it I saw, growing up in a conservative religious family and seeing other far more conservative religious families in our church/etc do a very extreme/strict/sheltering form of it- and then becoming non-religious, kept that bias. But over time I've come to realize that is only one very specific form of 'homeschooling' that is nothing like other forms
alexvoda 3y ago
There is a single opinion that is valid of all those different forms together: it (home schooling) will increase inequality in society in terms of amplitude, spread and flavors.
- quacked 3y ago
  Why do you think that?
  - alexvoda 3y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38122622 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38122622
- kbelder 3y ago
  I'm doing everything I can to raise my children unequally.
  - BobaFloutist 3y ago
    As, understandably, is everyone. Everyone would do a better job with their taxes than the government is. Everyone drives better than the average driver. We need some structural limitations to keep things sorta ok for everyone.
    - alexvoda 3y ago
      I'll answer here for everyone. Some projected connotations on my comment, others were more neutral. My comment was actually intentionally devoid of connotations and just exposed a direct consequence of the nature of home schooling compared to public schooling. Home schooling simply has many more input variables (wealth of parents, religion of parents, politics of parents, etc. ) and therefore the outputs are much more spread out. Home schooling is an even more individualized form of private schooling and on an axis of equality, an "universal free public schooling only" system would be at one end of the spectrum and a "self funded home schooling only" system would be at the other end of the spectrum with many options in-between. My statement that home schooling is more unequal should not by itself be controversial. If follows directly from what the thread ancestor said, to quote: "People talk about homeschooling as if it's one single concept, but it's actually a whole bunch of very dissimilar things." What is controversial is whether equality or lack thereof is desirable. I will argue that striving towards more equality results in better social outcomes. Before that, I will note that just as parent said above, it is perfectly normal for any parent to desire the best for their own child. 1. My fist argument is that, as parent said, most people overestimate their own capabilities and the quality of their own decision making. All of the different categories of home schooling parents desire the best for their kids and imagine that they will have above average results yet very few will actually be above average, many will be below. I would argue that in this case we are talking specifically about equality of opportunities, and that while a few home schooled students will gain extra opportunities, most home schooled students will be robbed of opportunities that a public education would offer. AS a most extreme example, a flat earther insisting to home school their children and only present "alternative truth" is a danger to their children. 2. My second argument is that a more equal educational system is likely to result in a better adult environment for a student after they finish formal education. In other words, for better outcomes for ones own student it is worth spending on the education of other students too. This is because: 2.1 With more uniform educational outcomes a person will be part of a larger cohort and demographically it is more advantageous to be part of a larger cohort. The group of like minded people being larger means there are more social opportunities which result in more opportunities for both dating and professional networking. 2.2. Even presupposing a home schooled student is a winner and has way above average outcomes, it is better for them to live in a society with a higher baseline of education. Going by Carlo Cipolla's "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity", which splits people into 4 groups (intelligent, helpless, bandits, stupid) based on 2 criteria (benefits/losses that individuals cause to themselves and benefits/losses that individuals cause to others). Cipolla's 5'th rule says "A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person." And the corollary is: "a stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit". Therefore it is advantageous to the intelligent people to minimize the share of stupid people. A higher baseline of education is a way to hopefully achieve that. The only group that believes it is advantageous (at least on the short term but not on the long term) for the share of stupid people to be larger is the bandits. 3. My third argument is that, educational competitive pressure is detrimental to the health (especially mental and emotional, but also physical) of students. A more unequal educational system results in more competitive pressure. As can be seen in China and South Corea, extreme competitive pressure will result in peaks of performance but will also be largely detrimental to the well-being of the students during and after the years of formal education.
complianceowl 3y ago
I have never been homeschooled or homeschooled my children, but as someone who personally knows a looooot of homeschoolers, this has got to be the most accurate assessment of homeschooling I've seen. The various people I know who homeschool do it for different reasons; like you mentioned, some are entrepreneurs who need to stay mobile as a family, some have lost hope in the educational system and its ability to educate, and one particular friend who is in Mexico has his children in a co-op that consists of a large group of like-minded friends where they divide the curriculum based on area of expertise (e.g., the mechanical engineer teaches math, the fitness couple teaches physical education, the history buff teaches history, etc.). I don't have the network for a co-op, but hands down, that would be my school of choice for my kids.
sfink 3y ago
Thank you. I came here to say this. We're homeschooling, and I made the mistake of reading the train wreck of comments on the Post article. It was irritating how many people were absolutely certain of what homeschooling is and what its shortcomings (or successes) are, when it's nowhere close to being one thing. Homeschooling is defined by what it is not. Homeschooling because of COVID policies in public schools? Ok, there are some of those, some because things were too strict, some because things were too lenient. For religious reasons? Yes, some people want more of their religion, some want less of others'. Are the parents teaching? Sometimes, sometimes it's a co-op, sometimes it's online, sometimes it's at a community college. (Usually it's a mixture.) Then there are "non-location based charter schools" where the parents receive some of the state per-student funding, ... It's really hard to find a common thread between all of these scenarios, because there isn't one. Other than not being in a public school. Er... at least, not being in a public school for most of the day, since some people do use bits and pieces from public schools. "Not-zebras are awful because they're eating my rose bushes!"
- _dark_matter_ 3y ago
  On the other hand, I've watched my nieces and nephews - now aged 5-13 - fail to learn to do math (any), write, read, even _say the alphabet_. We've called the school district, CPS, and the police. None are able to do anything. These children are being raised to live in poverty. So yes, I'm against home schooling because it leaves some kids worse off. We have to enforce standards, and until we do I will not comply.
  - mensetmanusman 3y ago
    Almost half the public school graduates in California can’t read - the world is complicated. Sweeping generalizations are usually wrong in interesting ways.
    - nearbuy 3y ago
      I think the stat was that more than half of public school graduates in California couldn't read at a grade 11 level. The parent comment to yours seems to be saying these kids literally can't read, and don't even know the alphabet.
FireBeyond 3y ago
> Beyond that, there are parents who are well equipped to homeschool and parents who are not. And there is a small but hard-to-ignore percentage who claim to homeschool but really neglect their kids. There's such a disparity between states. States like mine require homeschooled kids to occasionally attend actual school for check in or certain classes, and participate in the same testing (regardless of your opinion of such testing). Other states are more vague and less frequent about such thing. And then a notable swathe of states, you might as well go off the grid. Tell the state you're homeschooling, and then that's it, you never interact with the state again. Troubling. And there's not just neglect, but active abuse, that that can help hide. Texas is working on an amendment that ostensibly cuts taxes on child care facilities to make them more affordable. It's very easy to tell that those savings won't be passed on to consumers. In reality, it's very much more a pro-homeschooling thing. "Homeschool your kids and save on your property taxes".
- anon291 3y ago
  > Texas is working on an amendment that ostensibly cuts taxes on child care facilities to make them more affordable. It's very easy to tell that those savings won't be passed on to consumers. In reality, it's very much more a pro-homeschooling thing. "Homeschool your kids and save on your property taxes". A 'childcare facility' typically refers to something kids go to before school. I've noticed several other commenters make the claim that those who are not using daycare facilities for their non-school-age children (i.e., the norm up until the late 90s) is a form of 'homeschooling'. It's not. Raising your young non-school-aged children at home is the normal way people have raised their children I have no opinion on Texas's law, but it doesn't sound like it's about homeschooling
  - pastage 3y ago
    It has not been normal to spend workdays with your three year old around here for ages. At 1-3 years most if not all children go to kindergarten.
- guidoism 3y ago
  I wonder how the neglecters/abusers stay hidden. We are in a state that doesn’t even require notification. As far as the school district is concerned our kids don’t exist. But the medical system definitely knows them. I guess the neglecters/abusers don’t take their kids to their annual well-child visit? Maybe that’s the thing that should be made compulsory?
AnimalMuppet 3y ago
Not only do different parents have different skills, but also different kids have different needs. And different schools have different strengths and weaknesses. The big thing is this: Parents, the buck stops with you. When one of your kids tells you "Every day when I get ready for school, my stomach hurts", pay attention to that. Homeschooling won't be perfect, no more than public or private or charter schools will be. But pay attention enough to see when something isn't working, and figure out what you have to do to make it better. This can cut both ways. If you're homeschooling and your kids aren't actually learning things, pay attention to that, too.
jandrese 3y ago
There is a huge spectrum, but back when we homeschooled (my wife wasn't yet comfortable sending the kids back to the classroom in 2021) we did a few events where local homeschool kids got together for various activities. Tree identification/nature trail at the park, visits to historic sites, stuff like that. Of the parents I met there was some variety, but 9 times out of 10 it seemed like they were mostly doing it because they thought the public schools were too secular and were teaching "sinful" sciences like evolution. They were all polite about it, but it started making me wonder if all of these other aspects of homeschooling were just a fig leaf over a whole lot of religious indoctrination. Maybe those kids are fine, I didn't quiz them, but it did raise an eyebrow.
- llbeansandrice 3y ago
  It's really difficult because a lot of the resources and groups are created by and supported by this very religious group that homeschools. There is still a very wide margin though. My wife was homeschooled because she did gymnastics at a fairly high level when she was young and so scheduling was easier for her that way. Her older sister wasn't homeschooled hardly at all though.
  - jandrese 3y ago
    Yes, no more recommendations for "excellent PragerU material", please!
  - petertodd 3y ago
    > It's really difficult because a lot of the resources and groups are created by and supported by this very religious group that homeschools. ...and why do those groups create so many resources? Because they tend to be people trying hard to replicate the traditional schooling experience, with high academic standards and expectations. Evangelicals are rarely the ones doing unschooling. Source: was mostly(1) unschooled as a kid, but spent a lot of time around evangelical Christian homeschoolers because we'd go to the gym classes and other organized events they ran. The evangelicals didn't seem to have any issues with the fact that I was 100% an atheist. 1) A key exception being reading and writing. The main reason why I ended up being homeschooled was the school systems useless "whole word" approach to reading was failing me. So I was drilled intensively on phonics and other traditional techniques, and finally learned how to read and write fluently much later than I should have. Meanwhile, I had no problem learning math and science with much less structure.
geocrasher 3y ago
^^^^^^^^^^ This. We unschooled our kids. Worked beautifully. They're both as much of a success or failure as if they had gone to public school. Had more to do with their idiot gene donor's DNA than their schooling.
- DiggyJohnson 3y ago
  > Had more to do with their idiot gene donor's DNA than their schooling. What do you mean by this? I’m assuming it’s just self-deprecating humor.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - geocrasher 3y ago
    Their biological father I am not. There's no way my kids would turn out the way they did if they had my DNA. If anything, they'd be dumber.
maxwelljoslyn 3y ago
> Treating all these scenarios as a single thing that you can hold a single, consistent opinion about suggests to me a lack of familiarity with its wide spectrums along multiple dimensions. It's like passing a judgment on a person based on their race, country of origin, gender, etc. A huge +1 to this, from observing the many friends I have who do homeschooling. Judging by their results -- super-smart, super-well-behaved children -- has gotten me thinking I'd like to do the same once I have kids.
- jeffrallen 3y ago
  Your children's future classmates wish you wouldn't keep your children from enriching their shared classroom. You might be just the kind of parent that the school needs to maintain a critical mass of involved parents.
  - anon291 3y ago
    My wife resents that her parents made her be this for the other kids in her class. This meant my wife had to do things like be the one to 'tame' the poorly behaved boy. Or she had to be the one to do extra work because the teacher would group her with the worst student. This is actually not preparation for adulthood. As an adult, when someone acts like a jerk, you ignore them and shun them and may report them depending on how bad it is. As a child, you're forced to interact. As an adult, I choose my colleagues so that they're intelligent and pull their weight. A common complaint I hear from homeschooled kids is 'parentification', where their parents expect adult responsibility from small children. I fail to see how what you're asking for is any different. Children shouldn't be expected to do adult's jobs.
    - humanrebar 3y ago
      Lots of adults have underachieving coworkers, have no say in the matter, and have to figure out how to deal with that both professionally and emotionally.
  - ninkendo 3y ago
    Underrated viewpoint. Public schools are the only option for most people. Most people don’t have the financial ability to spend their time teaching their kids when they’re already working as much as they can to make ends meet. Heck, for a huge segment of the population, public school is the only place where their kids can even get a decent meal. If every parent that does have the time to invest in their child’s future, takes said child out of public school, said schools are left with only the uninvolved parents, which makes it worse in a “self fulfilling prophecy” kind of way. The arguments in favor of home schooling all seem to amount to “fuck you, not my problem, I take care of my own kid, you’re on your own.”
twobitshifter 3y ago
How do you deal with the cases where kids are neglected or indoctrinated against American society?
- jdminhbg 3y ago
  Take them out of public schools, I guess?
tw04 3y ago
Sure, but ultimately when kids receive vastly different childhood educations, it will eventually fracture society because we're all starting from a completely different set of beliefs. Even if some schools are "better" or "worse" for the most part they have similar curriculum. As time goes on and that curriculum diverges, it'll make the political fractures in society today seem like a walk in the park IMO. The social aspect of schooling is just as important as the educational part of it. There's a reason growing up when we had home schooled kids that joined for their high school years, they were the "weird kids" - they just had absolutely no idea how to interact socially with their peers. And for some folks that carries on to adulthood. Disclaimer: my parents were public school teachers, and seeing the system deteriorate feels like a travesty. The number of parents who think school is daycare is disheartening to say the least.
- ndriscoll 3y ago
  In theory, society should be robust to differing beliefs: allow people to segregate into communities with shared beliefs and self-govern. Use higher levels of government sparingly to resolve conflicts and where coordination is necessary and general consensus exists that the thing you are coordinating is desired. In practice, people have trouble not butting into each other's lives. If we're going to try to force a shared belief on everyone, it should be to fix that.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    Segregating everyone into insular pockets of the like-minded just feeds ignorance, intolerance, and group-think. We shouldn't force beliefs on everyone, but we should reject ignoring facts or replacing them with beliefs. There's a lot to be said for giving all children a baseline level of education based on fact so that everyone understands the world and the large problems we have and so they will know how to work together to face them. The kids who are only ever taught that the world is 6,000 years old and flat, that women are inferior, that evolution is a lie, that global warming isn't real, or that gay people cause hurricanes are going to be at a substantial disadvantage in many areas of their lives and they will hinder efforts to resolve conflicts, to coordinate when necessary, and to reach general consensus.
nixass 3y ago
In short, homeschooling is idiocracy in making
Justsignedup 3y ago
Homeschooling _can_ work. But the likelihood of it working well is pretty low. You literally have a teacher wife who is homeschooling the kids. For most people homeschooling = not schooling. Very heavily used by the hassidic community here in nyc to prevent girls from having any education. I linked to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzsZP9o7SlI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzsZP9o7SlI as a top level post, but just to give you some ideas. This is John Oliver's take on it.
clausok 3y ago
We started homeschooling by happenstance when it turned out that kindergarten was going to conflict with our son's beloved jiu-jitsu class. The class was a bit of a drive and we weren't going to be able to get there in time for his favorite part: the 30 minutes of horsing around on the mats before class started. We thought, "Well, it's only kindergarten". It worked out well enough (knock on wood) that we just kept going. Compared to my own harried "THE BUS IS COMING!!!" sleep-deprived school days, it has been a wonderful change. If I could go back in time, I'd put my mom in an ankle lock until she agreed to do the same for me. Especially since I learned that in my home state homeschoolers can participate in high-school sports. In high school I had to wake up at 4AM for 5AM hockey practice. If I could have returned home afterwards and slept, rather than going straight to school, I would have thanked the Gods.
- Zelphyr 3y ago
  > the 30 minutes of horsing around on the mats before class started Followed by the collective groan about how they're too tired to do the warmups.
- justhereforthe 3y ago
  May I ask if your son is an only child? I’ve thought about online homeschooling my son when he’s old enough (he’s still a baby), but I wonder if he would be lonely if he turns out to be our one-and-done. You mentioned your son’s beloved jiu-jitsu; does he have other outlets for meeting friends and socializing?
  - mensetmanusman 3y ago
    Almost all only children say that they were lonely. There is something special that happens sleeping in the same house as siblings.
    - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 3y ago
      On the other hand, many of the only children I know (I'm close friends with 4, all from different backgrounds - one a non-US childhood) are all quite creative and independent people. Sometimes being allowed to be bored is excellent.
liveoneggs 3y ago
Religion and its associated anti-science (etc) is the majority reason for home schooling. The groups in highly-skilled co-ops are a small minority and are not what the word normally invokes.
- lolinder 3y ago
  > The groups in highly-skilled co-ops are a small minority and are not what the word normally invokes. Essentially what this sentence says is "the people that don't fit my stereotype are not the image that comes to my mind when I hear ${word}." While this is definitely true (it's more or less the definition of a stereotype), it's not a refutation of OP's point that homeschooling is more complicated than your stereotypes would have you believe.
- calvinmorrison 3y ago
  Poor people do homeschooling : Yeck gross bleck! Religious zealots! Rich people do homeschooling : Oh how jealous I am Bartholomew, I wish I could have a private tutor like yours to teach my kid all of the great languages, and look the Au Pair is bringing in the lunch!
  - OkayPhysicist 3y ago
    Well, yeah. If somebody's rich enough to provide a better education to their child despite the economy of scale advantage public/private schools have, then homeschooling can be advantageous. If somebody can't do that, then they're just abusing their kid.
petertodd 3y ago
> but it's actually a whole bunch of very dissimilar things. Even in the same kid it can be very dissimilar. The main reason I was homeschooled was that the local school system's ridiculous "whole word" approach to reading and writing was failing me badly, and by age ten I still could barely read. So that part of my homeschooling experience was very traditional, hands on, drilling in phonics and other time tested techniques... and soon I finally could read and write fluently. Meanwhile for math and science, I had no problem figuring it on my own with much less input now that I could finally read. I wasn't quite unschooled for those subjects. But it was close to that. Funny thing is I actually learned basic programming _before_ I could read fluently. I remember the hardest thing about it being struggling to read the books I was learning from. Programming itself seemed pretty straightforward in comparison.
- trealira 3y ago
  > Funny thing is I actually learned basic programming _before_ I could read fluently. I remember the hardest thing about it being struggling to read the books I was learning from. Programming itself seemed pretty straightforward in comparison. That's really interesting. How did you get introduced to programming? For example, did someone show you BASIC interpreter on a computer? (Not knowing your age, I don't know whether BASIC was popular when you learned basic programming.) What was it like to use a computer barely knowing how to read?
  - petertodd 3y ago
    I didn't even have a computer to use when I was initially learning. I'm not quite sure how I decided I wanted to learn, as I didn't have any friends or family who were programmers. But somehow I got interested and got books on BASIC and other simple languages from the library. I wrote my first programs with pen and paper on the kitchen table and had to "run" them in my head. I was probably about 7 or 8 years old, and didn't actually get access to a programmable computer until I was 10 (Hypercard on the school's computer lab). Which really frustrated me, as I didn't have access to a manual for Hypercard, so I couldn't figure out how to translate the ideas I knew from BASIC like loops into Hypercard. It took until I was about 11 or so to finally get a computer of my own, a $50, rather antique at the time, IBM XT. Though really, the real breakthrough was when I got my second computer, a 286 or so that I literally took from a neighbor's trash. That computer I could mess around with without worrying about breaking it!
rrradical 3y ago
I was (non-religiously) home schooled and very much benefited from it. I was able to spend a lot more time reading books than I would have in school. I was able to learn about computers, programming, etc. I did get some socialization through other kids in my neighborhood and events with other home school families. I started in back in school around high school and, although it was a bit of a transition, I enjoyed it (and don't regret homeschooling either). It probably wouldn't work well for every kid and every family. Personally, I found the structure of elementary school very constraining and was glad to get out. I'm sure there are pros and cons to both approaches. I think relative to my peers I'm generally able to be a bit more self motivated. And I think schools generally teach you to solve problems using only the information on the page in front of you, whereas the real world is much messier than that.
- bluGill 3y ago
  Or so you think. I don't know you, but every home school kids I've met shows the lack of meeting republicans/democrats/jews/blacks. None of them see that in themselves though.
  - troupe 3y ago
    In many public schools you have the exact same thing depending on where you are. There are also a lot of adults who show the lack of meeting a diverse set of homeschool families as well. They don't usually see that in themselves either.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    It's hard to know what this looks like.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    Nearly every person I've met struggles with empathizing with people who aren't in their in-group, that's not a homeschooled-specific thing. The enormous polarization in the modern political climate is due to precisely the kind of insularism that you're calling out, and it's not because of the 1.5% of the adult population that was homeschooled.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
peakskill 3y ago
Point of homeschooling is precisely that it's individualized instruction meant to, hopefully, match your kid's needs.
logicchains 3y ago
That's missing the main reason for the massive increase in home schooling over the past 3 years: parents wanting to escape mandatory COVID measures in schools like masking.
- troupe 3y ago
  That might be some of it, but I don't think it explains why the numbers are staying so high. A number of parents got a view into the quality of education and decided they could do better themselves.
- lolinder 3y ago
  Masking was not driving the homeschooling surge during COVID, it was driven by the sense parents had that during lockdowns they were effectively forced into homeschooling their kids with none of the agency that comes with full homeschooling. If they were going to be doing most of the teaching anyway while schools were closed, a lot of parents figured they'd ditch the poorly executed virtual lessons and just homeschool on their own terms.
fuzztester 3y ago
And there are people who homeschool, or more often don't school, because they are cults.
jancsika 3y ago
> Treating all these scenarios as a single thing that you can hold a single, consistent opinion about suggests to me a lack of familiarity with its wide spectrums along multiple dimensions. I'll give it a shot: in all these scenarios, there ought to be a minimum standard-- backed up by the state-- to ensure none of these children are being abused or neglected. Public and private schools benefit from the children having to be around many other people every day, some of whom are teachers and administrators who have a profession obligation to report such things. AFAICT there is no common standard to enforce this across the myriad concepts of home school you mention. There obviously should be. Importantly, none of the "very dissimilar" concepts of home schooling you mention obviate this need.
- tacocataco 3y ago
  Isn't the standard "pass the GED test"?
  - thatwasunusual 3y ago
    How are the students not passing the tests being followed up?
glitchc 3y ago
I am of the firm opinion that there is no substitute for a formal education. Homeschooling is great if one or both parents are teachers or come from a teaching background. Homeschooling is a disaster if neither parent has much of a formal education, or lack teaching acumen, but still feel that they are qualified to teach their kids. Between those two extremes is a huge range of variability. Exams are going to become even more of a factor to ensure kids coming from a range of diverse backgrounds meet the minimum bar for university. At the end of the day, facts are facts. Not knowing them is detrimental to self, and if in a position of authority, to others as well. People can pretend all education is equivalent, until they need to see a doctor for a disease, or an engineer to build a house or a lawyer to fight their case. Then they want the best, the most qualified. Four years of engineering/medical/law cannot fix 12 years of poor educational foundations. Edit: Downvotes are welcome, but it won't change what is factual. Homeschooling is guaranteed to increase inequality, not decrease it.
- sparrish 3y ago
  The facts don't line up with your opinion. A 2016 study by the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) indicates homeschoolers scored between 15 and 30 percentage points higher on standardized academic achievement tests and usually scored higher on the SAT/ACT. https://www.nheri.org/research-facts-on-homeschooling/ https://www.nheri.org/research-facts-on-homeschooling/
  - troupe 3y ago
    > Homeschooling is guaranteed to increase inequality, not decrease it. Your statistics support the previous claim. If you have a group out performing the public school by 15 to 30% there will be more spread in educational outcomes. Many would see that as a good thing when some kids get closer to reaching their potential, but not everyone wants that.
  - glitchc 3y ago
    No, that's not a fact. It's an observation that shows how people with training and resources can do a better job than the public school system. But as more affluent kids move out of the school system, funding will decrease, leaving the kids belonging to poor or uneducated parents stranded, until they too are forced to homeschool. It's funny how people will gut the foundation of public education over decades, then turn around and point saying "Look, it's shaky." Of course it's shaky. It's chronically underfunded, teachers have no say over student behaviour and no control over the curriculum.
erie 3y ago
But one thing is clear, it is the $-The average taxpayer paid $1,087 to Pentagon contractors $300 for education https://www.nationalpriorities.org/whats-new/2023/4/17/pay-taxes-you-gave-1087-pentagon-contractors/ https://www.nationalpriorities.org/whats-new/2023/4/17/pay-t...
ReptileMan 3y ago
>Thirteen Baltimore City high schools don't have a single student who has achieved grade-level proficiency in math. A recent news headline. The system is failing those students in such complete ways that I can't see any way in which homeschooling could be worse than that. Those kids could probably learn better math by sleeping with a textbook under their pillow and relying on osmosis. A kid could probably get better education just by being bored and left in a room with books and select access to educational YouTube videos than what parts of the educational system offer. Btw there was a epic tweek lately along the lines of: I pay my son 10$ for every book he reads. It's my best deal ever and he thinks he is ripping me off.
- Thlom 3y ago
  Only problem is that it is often the home that fails them in the first place ...
StillBored 3y ago
Right, a family member of mine was recently home schooled after their freshman year of high school. For a long list of reasons which can be summarized as the local public school was absolute garbage small town meth capital level of schooling. (Think no AP/etc classes) and a local district unwilling to provide an alternative school. Home schooling in this case was basically 70 something credits from the local community college, a handful of CLEP exams, and a bunch of highschool credits from the state online highschool system. The result was a diploma from said local highschool and an AA from the community college and acceptance to a college in the top 50 nationally. So, its not all dumb parents doing dumb things, but sometimes parents making the best out of a poor set of circumstances. And AFAIK the diploma from the crappy HS was just a rubber stamp to check the "graduated from HS" for the community college to grant the AA, and the public Uni to take them as a junior (at age 18 no less). edit: And I should point out the local HS itself apparently had some decent teachers/etc, its just the administration was catering to a conservative community largely disinterested in public education made worse by the fact that the top 10% or so of economically advantaged students had already left the district for a fancy private school or some kind of early college classes similar to my family member. Its the white version of the inner city failing school story, except there wasn't a better highschool on the other side of town for the motivated kids/parents to transfer to unless you also had 15k/year to spend.
pelasaco 3y ago
Regardless of the form of homeschooling, It is quite clear that we are moving towards a new form of "Dark Ages", where people just try to protect themselves behind walls. The State is failing massively in security, education, infra-structure.
graemep 3y ago
One reason i prefer the term home education (it gets away from the idea it is like school - methods are very different). The term used historically in the UK (essentially when posh people did it with tutors, look up older biographies of the Queen!) was "private education". The way I think of it is that it is every form of education other than school. https://pietersz.co.uk/2021/01/there-is-no-home-education https://pietersz.co.uk/2021/01/there-is-no-home-education My experience of it has been good. My kids definitely prefer it to the experiences of their school going friends. I think the individualised opportunities of home education has a lot to do with my older daughter going into a male dominated field - she is doing a degree apprenticeship (work while at university, takes a bit longer, get work experience and salary, and fees paid) in Electrical Engineering at the University of Warwick and Jaguar Landrover. My only regret is not starting home education earlier.
Angostura 3y ago
It is a single concept. Different people have different reasons to do it, and different aptitudes at managing it.
manjalyc 3y ago
Yes, there are a lot of reasons to homeschool. And I don’t want to undermine your idea, but the vast majority (by far) of people that homeschool do so because of disagreements with secular education. Public schools are an increasingly politicized issue, likely the dominant factor in the recent uptick of homeschooling, and I think saying it is not possible to hold an opinion on the issue one way or the other is a bit too reductionist of reality.

by jawns 3y ago

torial 3y ago

100% agree with this. Also, with the right community, it is possible to have plenty of "socialization" with other kids. My family participates in a parent-led co-op that allows kids to benefit from different strengths in different parents and to have lots of friends. As my kids are neurodivergent, I think this environment has been safer for them and allows them to focus on their passions. There is still some peer pressure re: neurodivergence, but I think it was less severe than when I was in public school with less obvious neurodivergence.

darigo 3y ago
>it is possible to have plenty of "socialization" with other kids. I agree. Public school is not a great place for socialization, and it's not hard to create something better. Nothing socializes kids like sitting next to each other motionless in silence for several hours lol
- dboreham 3y ago
  I'm not sure it's about socializing with other kids. There's also something about being able to function in a hierarchical organization (e.g. the workplace) that may not be developed in a home school environment.
- potta_coffee 3y ago
  I went to a violent high school. There were shootings and stabbings. Socialization is overrated.
  - yieldcrv 3y ago
    sir this is a thread about privilege that possibility isn’t even in the range here the choices are good school district, decent private school, or a home school concept
    - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 3y ago
      Oh, so because not everyone can do it, nobody should be allowed to? We should all strive for the lowest common denominator? That makes strong communities?
      - yieldcrv 3y ago
        I am completely content with inequality
      - bowsamic 3y ago
        He was joking
- vrc 3y ago
  Do you really think kids in school sit silently and motionless in class for several hours? I’d invite you to sample any classroom to test that hypothesis. There are many reasons to suppose schools aren’t the best for socialization, but that’s not it.
- 3y ago
low_common 3y ago
What the heck is neurodivergence?
- lamp987 3y ago
  [flagged]
- jandrese 3y ago
  It's almost anything out of the ordinary by definition, but usually refers to children somewhere on the Autism spectrum. They often struggle with being bullied in public school and depending on where they are on the spectrum can cause considerably increased workload for the school or even have outright behavioral problems complete with physical violence. That's extreme and rare thankfully, but even kids with relatively mild conditions can struggle in a chaotic public school environment.
  - seabass-labrax 3y ago
    Tiny suggestion: s/children/people. It's true that it's usually used to refer to children, but that's just because autism is most identifiable in early childhood. Autism (or Asperger's syndrome) is not something you can 'grow out of' or 'cure', because it's a difference in basic cognitive functions.
    - jandrese 3y ago
      Yes, but the context here is school students.
- natpalmer1776 3y ago
  Neurologically divergent individuals who do not adhere well to traditional expectations of behavior in social settings. Given that this is a technical term that has gained colloquial usage, not everyone who is identified as (or self identifies as) neurodivergent is actually neurologically divergent in a literal sense, but behaviorally is close enough to be a moot point in non-academic settings.
- 3y ago
graemep 3y ago
It is very possible (if not usual) to have better socialisation home educated. IMO meeting lots of different people, of a mix of ages, in multiple different places is better socialisation than going to the same place with the same people every day. I have had many years of compliments from people about how good my children's social skills are.

defgeneric 3y ago

Then these should be distinguished and regulated appropriately.

kup0 3y ago

Fully agree. For a long time I was heavily biased against it because of the versions of it I saw, growing up in a conservative religious family and seeing other far more conservative religious families in our church/etc do a very extreme/strict/sheltering form of it- and then becoming non-religious, kept that bias. But over time I've come to realize that is only one very specific form of 'homeschooling' that is nothing like other forms

alexvoda 3y ago

There is a single opinion that is valid of all those different forms together: it (home schooling) will increase inequality in society in terms of amplitude, spread and flavors.

quacked 3y ago
Why do you think that?
- alexvoda 3y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38122622 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38122622
kbelder 3y ago
I'm doing everything I can to raise my children unequally.
- BobaFloutist 3y ago
  As, understandably, is everyone. Everyone would do a better job with their taxes than the government is. Everyone drives better than the average driver. We need some structural limitations to keep things sorta ok for everyone.
  - alexvoda 3y ago
    I'll answer here for everyone. Some projected connotations on my comment, others were more neutral. My comment was actually intentionally devoid of connotations and just exposed a direct consequence of the nature of home schooling compared to public schooling. Home schooling simply has many more input variables (wealth of parents, religion of parents, politics of parents, etc. ) and therefore the outputs are much more spread out. Home schooling is an even more individualized form of private schooling and on an axis of equality, an "universal free public schooling only" system would be at one end of the spectrum and a "self funded home schooling only" system would be at the other end of the spectrum with many options in-between. My statement that home schooling is more unequal should not by itself be controversial. If follows directly from what the thread ancestor said, to quote: "People talk about homeschooling as if it's one single concept, but it's actually a whole bunch of very dissimilar things." What is controversial is whether equality or lack thereof is desirable. I will argue that striving towards more equality results in better social outcomes. Before that, I will note that just as parent said above, it is perfectly normal for any parent to desire the best for their own child. 1. My fist argument is that, as parent said, most people overestimate their own capabilities and the quality of their own decision making. All of the different categories of home schooling parents desire the best for their kids and imagine that they will have above average results yet very few will actually be above average, many will be below. I would argue that in this case we are talking specifically about equality of opportunities, and that while a few home schooled students will gain extra opportunities, most home schooled students will be robbed of opportunities that a public education would offer. AS a most extreme example, a flat earther insisting to home school their children and only present "alternative truth" is a danger to their children. 2. My second argument is that a more equal educational system is likely to result in a better adult environment for a student after they finish formal education. In other words, for better outcomes for ones own student it is worth spending on the education of other students too. This is because: 2.1 With more uniform educational outcomes a person will be part of a larger cohort and demographically it is more advantageous to be part of a larger cohort. The group of like minded people being larger means there are more social opportunities which result in more opportunities for both dating and professional networking. 2.2. Even presupposing a home schooled student is a winner and has way above average outcomes, it is better for them to live in a society with a higher baseline of education. Going by Carlo Cipolla's "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity", which splits people into 4 groups (intelligent, helpless, bandits, stupid) based on 2 criteria (benefits/losses that individuals cause to themselves and benefits/losses that individuals cause to others). Cipolla's 5'th rule says "A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person." And the corollary is: "a stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit". Therefore it is advantageous to the intelligent people to minimize the share of stupid people. A higher baseline of education is a way to hopefully achieve that. The only group that believes it is advantageous (at least on the short term but not on the long term) for the share of stupid people to be larger is the bandits. 3. My third argument is that, educational competitive pressure is detrimental to the health (especially mental and emotional, but also physical) of students. A more unequal educational system results in more competitive pressure. As can be seen in China and South Corea, extreme competitive pressure will result in peaks of performance but will also be largely detrimental to the well-being of the students during and after the years of formal education.

complianceowl 3y ago

I have never been homeschooled or homeschooled my children, but as someone who personally knows a looooot of homeschoolers, this has got to be the most accurate assessment of homeschooling I've seen. The various people I know who homeschool do it for different reasons; like you mentioned, some are entrepreneurs who need to stay mobile as a family, some have lost hope in the educational system and its ability to educate, and one particular friend who is in Mexico has his children in a co-op that consists of a large group of like-minded friends where they divide the curriculum based on area of expertise (e.g., the mechanical engineer teaches math, the fitness couple teaches physical education, the history buff teaches history, etc.). I don't have the network for a co-op, but hands down, that would be my school of choice for my kids.

sfink 3y ago

Thank you. I came here to say this. We're homeschooling, and I made the mistake of reading the train wreck of comments on the Post article. It was irritating how many people were absolutely certain of what homeschooling is and what its shortcomings (or successes) are, when it's nowhere close to being one thing. Homeschooling is defined by what it is not. Homeschooling because of COVID policies in public schools? Ok, there are some of those, some because things were too strict, some because things were too lenient. For religious reasons? Yes, some people want more of their religion, some want less of others'. Are the parents teaching? Sometimes, sometimes it's a co-op, sometimes it's online, sometimes it's at a community college. (Usually it's a mixture.) Then there are "non-location based charter schools" where the parents receive some of the state per-student funding, ... It's really hard to find a common thread between all of these scenarios, because there isn't one. Other than not being in a public school. Er... at least, not being in a public school for most of the day, since some people do use bits and pieces from public schools. "Not-zebras are awful because they're eating my rose bushes!"

_dark_matter_ 3y ago
On the other hand, I've watched my nieces and nephews - now aged 5-13 - fail to learn to do math (any), write, read, even _say the alphabet_. We've called the school district, CPS, and the police. None are able to do anything. These children are being raised to live in poverty. So yes, I'm against home schooling because it leaves some kids worse off. We have to enforce standards, and until we do I will not comply.
- mensetmanusman 3y ago
  Almost half the public school graduates in California can’t read - the world is complicated. Sweeping generalizations are usually wrong in interesting ways.
  - nearbuy 3y ago
    I think the stat was that more than half of public school graduates in California couldn't read at a grade 11 level. The parent comment to yours seems to be saying these kids literally can't read, and don't even know the alphabet.

FireBeyond 3y ago

> Beyond that, there are parents who are well equipped to homeschool and parents who are not. And there is a small but hard-to-ignore percentage who claim to homeschool but really neglect their kids. There's such a disparity between states. States like mine require homeschooled kids to occasionally attend actual school for check in or certain classes, and participate in the same testing (regardless of your opinion of such testing). Other states are more vague and less frequent about such thing. And then a notable swathe of states, you might as well go off the grid. Tell the state you're homeschooling, and then that's it, you never interact with the state again. Troubling. And there's not just neglect, but active abuse, that that can help hide. Texas is working on an amendment that ostensibly cuts taxes on child care facilities to make them more affordable. It's very easy to tell that those savings won't be passed on to consumers. In reality, it's very much more a pro-homeschooling thing. "Homeschool your kids and save on your property taxes".

anon291 3y ago
> Texas is working on an amendment that ostensibly cuts taxes on child care facilities to make them more affordable. It's very easy to tell that those savings won't be passed on to consumers. In reality, it's very much more a pro-homeschooling thing. "Homeschool your kids and save on your property taxes". A 'childcare facility' typically refers to something kids go to before school. I've noticed several other commenters make the claim that those who are not using daycare facilities for their non-school-age children (i.e., the norm up until the late 90s) is a form of 'homeschooling'. It's not. Raising your young non-school-aged children at home is the normal way people have raised their children I have no opinion on Texas's law, but it doesn't sound like it's about homeschooling
- pastage 3y ago
  It has not been normal to spend workdays with your three year old around here for ages. At 1-3 years most if not all children go to kindergarten.
guidoism 3y ago
I wonder how the neglecters/abusers stay hidden. We are in a state that doesn’t even require notification. As far as the school district is concerned our kids don’t exist. But the medical system definitely knows them. I guess the neglecters/abusers don’t take their kids to their annual well-child visit? Maybe that’s the thing that should be made compulsory?

AnimalMuppet 3y ago

Not only do different parents have different skills, but also different kids have different needs. And different schools have different strengths and weaknesses. The big thing is this: Parents, the buck stops with you. When one of your kids tells you "Every day when I get ready for school, my stomach hurts", pay attention to that. Homeschooling won't be perfect, no more than public or private or charter schools will be. But pay attention enough to see when something isn't working, and figure out what you have to do to make it better. This can cut both ways. If you're homeschooling and your kids aren't actually learning things, pay attention to that, too.

jandrese 3y ago

There is a huge spectrum, but back when we homeschooled (my wife wasn't yet comfortable sending the kids back to the classroom in 2021) we did a few events where local homeschool kids got together for various activities. Tree identification/nature trail at the park, visits to historic sites, stuff like that. Of the parents I met there was some variety, but 9 times out of 10 it seemed like they were mostly doing it because they thought the public schools were too secular and were teaching "sinful" sciences like evolution. They were all polite about it, but it started making me wonder if all of these other aspects of homeschooling were just a fig leaf over a whole lot of religious indoctrination. Maybe those kids are fine, I didn't quiz them, but it did raise an eyebrow.

llbeansandrice 3y ago
It's really difficult because a lot of the resources and groups are created by and supported by this very religious group that homeschools. There is still a very wide margin though. My wife was homeschooled because she did gymnastics at a fairly high level when she was young and so scheduling was easier for her that way. Her older sister wasn't homeschooled hardly at all though.
- jandrese 3y ago
  Yes, no more recommendations for "excellent PragerU material", please!
- petertodd 3y ago
  > It's really difficult because a lot of the resources and groups are created by and supported by this very religious group that homeschools. ...and why do those groups create so many resources? Because they tend to be people trying hard to replicate the traditional schooling experience, with high academic standards and expectations. Evangelicals are rarely the ones doing unschooling. Source: was mostly(1) unschooled as a kid, but spent a lot of time around evangelical Christian homeschoolers because we'd go to the gym classes and other organized events they ran. The evangelicals didn't seem to have any issues with the fact that I was 100% an atheist. 1) A key exception being reading and writing. The main reason why I ended up being homeschooled was the school systems useless "whole word" approach to reading was failing me. So I was drilled intensively on phonics and other traditional techniques, and finally learned how to read and write fluently much later than I should have. Meanwhile, I had no problem learning math and science with much less structure.

geocrasher 3y ago

^^^^^^^^^^ This. We unschooled our kids. Worked beautifully. They're both as much of a success or failure as if they had gone to public school. Had more to do with their idiot gene donor's DNA than their schooling.

DiggyJohnson 3y ago
> Had more to do with their idiot gene donor's DNA than their schooling. What do you mean by this? I’m assuming it’s just self-deprecating humor.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- geocrasher 3y ago
  Their biological father I am not. There's no way my kids would turn out the way they did if they had my DNA. If anything, they'd be dumber.

maxwelljoslyn 3y ago

> Treating all these scenarios as a single thing that you can hold a single, consistent opinion about suggests to me a lack of familiarity with its wide spectrums along multiple dimensions. It's like passing a judgment on a person based on their race, country of origin, gender, etc. A huge +1 to this, from observing the many friends I have who do homeschooling. Judging by their results -- super-smart, super-well-behaved children -- has gotten me thinking I'd like to do the same once I have kids.

jeffrallen 3y ago
Your children's future classmates wish you wouldn't keep your children from enriching their shared classroom. You might be just the kind of parent that the school needs to maintain a critical mass of involved parents.
- anon291 3y ago
  My wife resents that her parents made her be this for the other kids in her class. This meant my wife had to do things like be the one to 'tame' the poorly behaved boy. Or she had to be the one to do extra work because the teacher would group her with the worst student. This is actually not preparation for adulthood. As an adult, when someone acts like a jerk, you ignore them and shun them and may report them depending on how bad it is. As a child, you're forced to interact. As an adult, I choose my colleagues so that they're intelligent and pull their weight. A common complaint I hear from homeschooled kids is 'parentification', where their parents expect adult responsibility from small children. I fail to see how what you're asking for is any different. Children shouldn't be expected to do adult's jobs.
  - humanrebar 3y ago
    Lots of adults have underachieving coworkers, have no say in the matter, and have to figure out how to deal with that both professionally and emotionally.
- ninkendo 3y ago
  Underrated viewpoint. Public schools are the only option for most people. Most people don’t have the financial ability to spend their time teaching their kids when they’re already working as much as they can to make ends meet. Heck, for a huge segment of the population, public school is the only place where their kids can even get a decent meal. If every parent that does have the time to invest in their child’s future, takes said child out of public school, said schools are left with only the uninvolved parents, which makes it worse in a “self fulfilling prophecy” kind of way. The arguments in favor of home schooling all seem to amount to “fuck you, not my problem, I take care of my own kid, you’re on your own.”

twobitshifter 3y ago

How do you deal with the cases where kids are neglected or indoctrinated against American society?

jdminhbg 3y ago
Take them out of public schools, I guess?

tw04 3y ago

Sure, but ultimately when kids receive vastly different childhood educations, it will eventually fracture society because we're all starting from a completely different set of beliefs. Even if some schools are "better" or "worse" for the most part they have similar curriculum. As time goes on and that curriculum diverges, it'll make the political fractures in society today seem like a walk in the park IMO. The social aspect of schooling is just as important as the educational part of it. There's a reason growing up when we had home schooled kids that joined for their high school years, they were the "weird kids" - they just had absolutely no idea how to interact socially with their peers. And for some folks that carries on to adulthood. Disclaimer: my parents were public school teachers, and seeing the system deteriorate feels like a travesty. The number of parents who think school is daycare is disheartening to say the least.

ndriscoll 3y ago
In theory, society should be robust to differing beliefs: allow people to segregate into communities with shared beliefs and self-govern. Use higher levels of government sparingly to resolve conflicts and where coordination is necessary and general consensus exists that the thing you are coordinating is desired. In practice, people have trouble not butting into each other's lives. If we're going to try to force a shared belief on everyone, it should be to fix that.
- autoexec 3y ago
  Segregating everyone into insular pockets of the like-minded just feeds ignorance, intolerance, and group-think. We shouldn't force beliefs on everyone, but we should reject ignoring facts or replacing them with beliefs. There's a lot to be said for giving all children a baseline level of education based on fact so that everyone understands the world and the large problems we have and so they will know how to work together to face them. The kids who are only ever taught that the world is 6,000 years old and flat, that women are inferior, that evolution is a lie, that global warming isn't real, or that gay people cause hurricanes are going to be at a substantial disadvantage in many areas of their lives and they will hinder efforts to resolve conflicts, to coordinate when necessary, and to reach general consensus.

nixass 3y ago

In short, homeschooling is idiocracy in making

Justsignedup 3y ago

Homeschooling _can_ work. But the likelihood of it working well is pretty low. You literally have a teacher wife who is homeschooling the kids. For most people homeschooling = not schooling. Very heavily used by the hassidic community here in nyc to prevent girls from having any education. I linked to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzsZP9o7SlI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzsZP9o7SlI as a top level post, but just to give you some ideas. This is John Oliver's take on it.

clausok 3y ago

We started homeschooling by happenstance when it turned out that kindergarten was going to conflict with our son's beloved jiu-jitsu class. The class was a bit of a drive and we weren't going to be able to get there in time for his favorite part: the 30 minutes of horsing around on the mats before class started. We thought, "Well, it's only kindergarten". It worked out well enough (knock on wood) that we just kept going. Compared to my own harried "THE BUS IS COMING!!!" sleep-deprived school days, it has been a wonderful change. If I could go back in time, I'd put my mom in an ankle lock until she agreed to do the same for me. Especially since I learned that in my home state homeschoolers can participate in high-school sports. In high school I had to wake up at 4AM for 5AM hockey practice. If I could have returned home afterwards and slept, rather than going straight to school, I would have thanked the Gods.

Zelphyr 3y ago
> the 30 minutes of horsing around on the mats before class started Followed by the collective groan about how they're too tired to do the warmups.
justhereforthe 3y ago
May I ask if your son is an only child? I’ve thought about online homeschooling my son when he’s old enough (he’s still a baby), but I wonder if he would be lonely if he turns out to be our one-and-done. You mentioned your son’s beloved jiu-jitsu; does he have other outlets for meeting friends and socializing?
- mensetmanusman 3y ago
  Almost all only children say that they were lonely. There is something special that happens sleeping in the same house as siblings.
  - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 3y ago
    On the other hand, many of the only children I know (I'm close friends with 4, all from different backgrounds - one a non-US childhood) are all quite creative and independent people. Sometimes being allowed to be bored is excellent.

liveoneggs 3y ago

Religion and its associated anti-science (etc) is the majority reason for home schooling. The groups in highly-skilled co-ops are a small minority and are not what the word normally invokes.

lolinder 3y ago
> The groups in highly-skilled co-ops are a small minority and are not what the word normally invokes. Essentially what this sentence says is "the people that don't fit my stereotype are not the image that comes to my mind when I hear ${word}." While this is definitely true (it's more or less the definition of a stereotype), it's not a refutation of OP's point that homeschooling is more complicated than your stereotypes would have you believe.
calvinmorrison 3y ago
Poor people do homeschooling : Yeck gross bleck! Religious zealots! Rich people do homeschooling : Oh how jealous I am Bartholomew, I wish I could have a private tutor like yours to teach my kid all of the great languages, and look the Au Pair is bringing in the lunch!
- OkayPhysicist 3y ago
  Well, yeah. If somebody's rich enough to provide a better education to their child despite the economy of scale advantage public/private schools have, then homeschooling can be advantageous. If somebody can't do that, then they're just abusing their kid.

petertodd 3y ago

> but it's actually a whole bunch of very dissimilar things. Even in the same kid it can be very dissimilar. The main reason I was homeschooled was that the local school system's ridiculous "whole word" approach to reading and writing was failing me badly, and by age ten I still could barely read. So that part of my homeschooling experience was very traditional, hands on, drilling in phonics and other time tested techniques... and soon I finally could read and write fluently. Meanwhile for math and science, I had no problem figuring it on my own with much less input now that I could finally read. I wasn't quite unschooled for those subjects. But it was close to that. Funny thing is I actually learned basic programming _before_ I could read fluently. I remember the hardest thing about it being struggling to read the books I was learning from. Programming itself seemed pretty straightforward in comparison.

trealira 3y ago
> Funny thing is I actually learned basic programming _before_ I could read fluently. I remember the hardest thing about it being struggling to read the books I was learning from. Programming itself seemed pretty straightforward in comparison. That's really interesting. How did you get introduced to programming? For example, did someone show you BASIC interpreter on a computer? (Not knowing your age, I don't know whether BASIC was popular when you learned basic programming.) What was it like to use a computer barely knowing how to read?
- petertodd 3y ago
  I didn't even have a computer to use when I was initially learning. I'm not quite sure how I decided I wanted to learn, as I didn't have any friends or family who were programmers. But somehow I got interested and got books on BASIC and other simple languages from the library. I wrote my first programs with pen and paper on the kitchen table and had to "run" them in my head. I was probably about 7 or 8 years old, and didn't actually get access to a programmable computer until I was 10 (Hypercard on the school's computer lab). Which really frustrated me, as I didn't have access to a manual for Hypercard, so I couldn't figure out how to translate the ideas I knew from BASIC like loops into Hypercard. It took until I was about 11 or so to finally get a computer of my own, a $50, rather antique at the time, IBM XT. Though really, the real breakthrough was when I got my second computer, a 286 or so that I literally took from a neighbor's trash. That computer I could mess around with without worrying about breaking it!

rrradical 3y ago

I was (non-religiously) home schooled and very much benefited from it. I was able to spend a lot more time reading books than I would have in school. I was able to learn about computers, programming, etc. I did get some socialization through other kids in my neighborhood and events with other home school families. I started in back in school around high school and, although it was a bit of a transition, I enjoyed it (and don't regret homeschooling either). It probably wouldn't work well for every kid and every family. Personally, I found the structure of elementary school very constraining and was glad to get out. I'm sure there are pros and cons to both approaches. I think relative to my peers I'm generally able to be a bit more self motivated. And I think schools generally teach you to solve problems using only the information on the page in front of you, whereas the real world is much messier than that.

bluGill 3y ago
Or so you think. I don't know you, but every home school kids I've met shows the lack of meeting republicans/democrats/jews/blacks. None of them see that in themselves though.
- troupe 3y ago
  In many public schools you have the exact same thing depending on where you are. There are also a lot of adults who show the lack of meeting a diverse set of homeschool families as well. They don't usually see that in themselves either.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  It's hard to know what this looks like.
- lolinder 3y ago
  Nearly every person I've met struggles with empathizing with people who aren't in their in-group, that's not a homeschooled-specific thing. The enormous polarization in the modern political climate is due to precisely the kind of insularism that you're calling out, and it's not because of the 1.5% of the adult population that was homeschooled.

deleted 3y ago

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peakskill 3y ago

Point of homeschooling is precisely that it's individualized instruction meant to, hopefully, match your kid's needs.

logicchains 3y ago

That's missing the main reason for the massive increase in home schooling over the past 3 years: parents wanting to escape mandatory COVID measures in schools like masking.

troupe 3y ago
That might be some of it, but I don't think it explains why the numbers are staying so high. A number of parents got a view into the quality of education and decided they could do better themselves.
lolinder 3y ago
Masking was not driving the homeschooling surge during COVID, it was driven by the sense parents had that during lockdowns they were effectively forced into homeschooling their kids with none of the agency that comes with full homeschooling. If they were going to be doing most of the teaching anyway while schools were closed, a lot of parents figured they'd ditch the poorly executed virtual lessons and just homeschool on their own terms.

fuzztester 3y ago

And there are people who homeschool, or more often don't school, because they are cults.

jancsika 3y ago

> Treating all these scenarios as a single thing that you can hold a single, consistent opinion about suggests to me a lack of familiarity with its wide spectrums along multiple dimensions. I'll give it a shot: in all these scenarios, there ought to be a minimum standard-- backed up by the state-- to ensure none of these children are being abused or neglected. Public and private schools benefit from the children having to be around many other people every day, some of whom are teachers and administrators who have a profession obligation to report such things. AFAICT there is no common standard to enforce this across the myriad concepts of home school you mention. There obviously should be. Importantly, none of the "very dissimilar" concepts of home schooling you mention obviate this need.

tacocataco 3y ago
Isn't the standard "pass the GED test"?
- thatwasunusual 3y ago
  How are the students not passing the tests being followed up?

glitchc 3y ago

I am of the firm opinion that there is no substitute for a formal education. Homeschooling is great if one or both parents are teachers or come from a teaching background. Homeschooling is a disaster if neither parent has much of a formal education, or lack teaching acumen, but still feel that they are qualified to teach their kids. Between those two extremes is a huge range of variability. Exams are going to become even more of a factor to ensure kids coming from a range of diverse backgrounds meet the minimum bar for university. At the end of the day, facts are facts. Not knowing them is detrimental to self, and if in a position of authority, to others as well. People can pretend all education is equivalent, until they need to see a doctor for a disease, or an engineer to build a house or a lawyer to fight their case. Then they want the best, the most qualified. Four years of engineering/medical/law cannot fix 12 years of poor educational foundations. Edit: Downvotes are welcome, but it won't change what is factual. Homeschooling is guaranteed to increase inequality, not decrease it.

sparrish 3y ago
The facts don't line up with your opinion. A 2016 study by the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) indicates homeschoolers scored between 15 and 30 percentage points higher on standardized academic achievement tests and usually scored higher on the SAT/ACT. https://www.nheri.org/research-facts-on-homeschooling/ https://www.nheri.org/research-facts-on-homeschooling/
- troupe 3y ago
  > Homeschooling is guaranteed to increase inequality, not decrease it. Your statistics support the previous claim. If you have a group out performing the public school by 15 to 30% there will be more spread in educational outcomes. Many would see that as a good thing when some kids get closer to reaching their potential, but not everyone wants that.
- glitchc 3y ago
  No, that's not a fact. It's an observation that shows how people with training and resources can do a better job than the public school system. But as more affluent kids move out of the school system, funding will decrease, leaving the kids belonging to poor or uneducated parents stranded, until they too are forced to homeschool. It's funny how people will gut the foundation of public education over decades, then turn around and point saying "Look, it's shaky." Of course it's shaky. It's chronically underfunded, teachers have no say over student behaviour and no control over the curriculum.

erie 3y ago

But one thing is clear, it is the $-The average taxpayer paid $1,087 to Pentagon contractors $300 for education https://www.nationalpriorities.org/whats-new/2023/4/17/pay-taxes-you-gave-1087-pentagon-contractors/ https://www.nationalpriorities.org/whats-new/2023/4/17/pay-t...

ReptileMan 3y ago

>Thirteen Baltimore City high schools don't have a single student who has achieved grade-level proficiency in math. A recent news headline. The system is failing those students in such complete ways that I can't see any way in which homeschooling could be worse than that. Those kids could probably learn better math by sleeping with a textbook under their pillow and relying on osmosis. A kid could probably get better education just by being bored and left in a room with books and select access to educational YouTube videos than what parts of the educational system offer. Btw there was a epic tweek lately along the lines of: I pay my son 10$ for every book he reads. It's my best deal ever and he thinks he is ripping me off.

Thlom 3y ago
Only problem is that it is often the home that fails them in the first place ...

StillBored 3y ago

Right, a family member of mine was recently home schooled after their freshman year of high school. For a long list of reasons which can be summarized as the local public school was absolute garbage small town meth capital level of schooling. (Think no AP/etc classes) and a local district unwilling to provide an alternative school. Home schooling in this case was basically 70 something credits from the local community college, a handful of CLEP exams, and a bunch of highschool credits from the state online highschool system. The result was a diploma from said local highschool and an AA from the community college and acceptance to a college in the top 50 nationally. So, its not all dumb parents doing dumb things, but sometimes parents making the best out of a poor set of circumstances. And AFAIK the diploma from the crappy HS was just a rubber stamp to check the "graduated from HS" for the community college to grant the AA, and the public Uni to take them as a junior (at age 18 no less). edit: And I should point out the local HS itself apparently had some decent teachers/etc, its just the administration was catering to a conservative community largely disinterested in public education made worse by the fact that the top 10% or so of economically advantaged students had already left the district for a fancy private school or some kind of early college classes similar to my family member. Its the white version of the inner city failing school story, except there wasn't a better highschool on the other side of town for the motivated kids/parents to transfer to unless you also had 15k/year to spend.

pelasaco 3y ago

Regardless of the form of homeschooling, It is quite clear that we are moving towards a new form of "Dark Ages", where people just try to protect themselves behind walls. The State is failing massively in security, education, infra-structure.

graemep 3y ago

One reason i prefer the term home education (it gets away from the idea it is like school - methods are very different). The term used historically in the UK (essentially when posh people did it with tutors, look up older biographies of the Queen!) was "private education". The way I think of it is that it is every form of education other than school. https://pietersz.co.uk/2021/01/there-is-no-home-education https://pietersz.co.uk/2021/01/there-is-no-home-education My experience of it has been good. My kids definitely prefer it to the experiences of their school going friends. I think the individualised opportunities of home education has a lot to do with my older daughter going into a male dominated field - she is doing a degree apprenticeship (work while at university, takes a bit longer, get work experience and salary, and fees paid) in Electrical Engineering at the University of Warwick and Jaguar Landrover. My only regret is not starting home education earlier.

Angostura 3y ago

It is a single concept. Different people have different reasons to do it, and different aptitudes at managing it.

manjalyc 3y ago

Yes, there are a lot of reasons to homeschool. And I don’t want to undermine your idea, but the vast majority (by far) of people that homeschool do so because of disagreements with secular education. Public schools are an increasingly politicized issue, likely the dominant factor in the recent uptick of homeschooling, and I think saying it is not possible to hold an opinion on the issue one way or the other is a bit too reductionist of reality.