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I'm skeptical when these parents their kids cite poor public schools as the primary reason for home schooling. When you look closer, it's almost always lifestyl

I'm skeptical when these parents their kids cite poor public schools as the primary reason for home schooling. When you look closer, it's almost always lifestyle and ideology that are the main factors. The often-cited failure in socialization extends beyond socialization within peer-groups as well--kids also need exposure to a variety of adults and authority figures. It's not only about learning how to make friends. > Today, Hillsborough home-schoolers inhabit a scholastic and extracurricular ecosystem that is in many ways indistinguishable from that of a public or private school. Home-schooled kids play competitive sports. They put on full-scale productions of “Mary Poppins” and “Les Miserables.” They have high school graduation ceremonies, as well as a prom and homecoming dance. > The Christian home-schooling co-op that had about 40 kids in 2011 when McKeown joined it — a co-op she would go on to direct — has grown to nearly 600 students. > “Home-schoolers in Hillsborough County do not lack for anything,” she said. “We have come such a long way.” I mean reading this it just sounds like they are discovering the hard way the concept of... a school??

pdonis 3y ago
A school-like environment that doesn't indoctrinate their children in values that the parents disagree with, which is what would happen if their children went to public schools.
- defgeneric 3y ago
  Sorry, but the parents' "values" are almost always some crackpot nonsense. Public schools at least aim for a measure of neutrality, beyond which children can develop their own ideas. It's just strange to me that people are so intent on having their children mirror their own ideas. Have some humility, entertain the idea that you yourself may be wrong about everything, and let the kids figure out what they think for themselves. The public school gives them a reasonably neutral basis to do that, even as the different ideological fads come and go in the faculty and administration.
  - pdonis 3y ago
    > the parents' "values" are almost always some crackpot nonsense "Almost always" is way, way too broad. Yes, some parents' values are crackpot nonsense, but many are not. One does not have to be a crackpot to prefer homeschooling to US public schools. Also, the values that the people who set up the US public school system explicitly said that system would indoctrinate children into are nothing to write home about either. > Have some humility Take your own advice. If anyone is being way overconfident here, it's you. > let the kids figure out what they think for themselves It seems to me that homeschooling is far more likely to let kids do this than public schools are. > The public school gives them a reasonably neutral basis to do that In the US? You must be joking. Public schools in the US are anything but neutral.
    - mjx0 3y ago
      > > the parents' "values" are almost always some crackpot nonsense > > "Almost always" is way, way too broad. Yes, some parents' values are crackpot nonsense, but many are not. One does not have to be a crackpot to prefer homeschooling to US public schools. What are some examples of values that would lead one to prefer to homeschool their child, and are not "crackpot values"?
      - pdonis 3y ago
        > What are some examples of values that would lead one to prefer to homeschool their child, and are not "crackpot values"? Values such as the ones the US was founded on: things like individual liberty and deep distrust of governments, particularly governments wanting to indoctrinate children. And governments have done plenty to earn such distrust.
        alexvoda 3y ago
        You don't get the easy way out with such a vague statement. Give some actual examples. Also, the US very much was not built on distrust of government because building the US meant building a government everyone would trust.
        3y ago
- tomtheelder 3y ago
  Ok so they invented religious school which, again, already exists.
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  Public schools contributed to my departure from the faith decades afterward. Public schools weren't indoctrinating anything. Rather they taught me to think critically, using proven methods, and avoid fallacies. Faith communities taught me lazy thinking, blind faith, bigotry, etc. Thank Prussia for a system that -- for all its faults -- provides a way out for kids born into religion.
  - uticus 3y ago
    > Faith communities taught me lazy thinking, blind faith, bigotry, etc. shame on faith communities - and parents - that teach laziness of mind. the effects are obvious, you are not the only person saying this. > Public schools weren't indoctrinating anything. Rather they taught me to think critically, using proven methods, and avoid fallacies you are not the first person to claim religion indoctrinates but public schooling doesn't. i'm always surprised how quickly logic and clear reasoning are thrown out in these statements. has it never occurred to you that critical thinking must be founded on something? that proven methods, useful as they are, can also be misused to support accepted truths that are wrong? that distinguishing fallacies requires recognition of truth, which requires acceptance of certain things as true? i guess what i'm trying to point out is that the list of things you were taught is indoctrination, and that to a high degree. indoctrination is not a bad thing in and of itself. but a system of indoctrination that teaches it isn't indoctrinating scares me.
  - pdonis 3y ago
    > Public schools weren't indoctrinating anything. I don't know which public schools you went to, but the ones I went to (in the US) most certainly were indoctrinating all sorts of things. Nor has that situation improved since I went to school; if anything, in the US it has gotten worse. As for teaching critical thinking, some of the teachers I had in public schools did that. Many others did not. And I think I was among the more fortunate students; many, as far as I could tell, had no teachers who taught them critical thinking. Nor should the fact that US public schools are indoctrinating children be a surprise. As I have noted elsewhere in this thread, the people who set up the US public school system explicitly stated that indoctrinating children in the values the State wanted them to have (whether or not their parents agreed) was a goal of the system.
jononomo 3y ago
> I mean reading this it just sounds like they are discovering the hard way the concept of... a school?? Yeah, a school that works.
- tomtheelder 3y ago
  It’s literally just a religious private school.
- epakai 3y ago
  More like a school that can easily exclude problem students. Public schools don't get that privilege. Seems like the same lesson as private academies that were used to enforce de facto segregation. Run away from the scary change, and try to keep doing things the old way. It's just not sustainable the way public institutions are.

pdonis 3y ago

A school-like environment that doesn't indoctrinate their children in values that the parents disagree with, which is what would happen if their children went to public schools.

defgeneric 3y ago
Sorry, but the parents' "values" are almost always some crackpot nonsense. Public schools at least aim for a measure of neutrality, beyond which children can develop their own ideas. It's just strange to me that people are so intent on having their children mirror their own ideas. Have some humility, entertain the idea that you yourself may be wrong about everything, and let the kids figure out what they think for themselves. The public school gives them a reasonably neutral basis to do that, even as the different ideological fads come and go in the faculty and administration.
- pdonis 3y ago
  > the parents' "values" are almost always some crackpot nonsense "Almost always" is way, way too broad. Yes, some parents' values are crackpot nonsense, but many are not. One does not have to be a crackpot to prefer homeschooling to US public schools. Also, the values that the people who set up the US public school system explicitly said that system would indoctrinate children into are nothing to write home about either. > Have some humility Take your own advice. If anyone is being way overconfident here, it's you. > let the kids figure out what they think for themselves It seems to me that homeschooling is far more likely to let kids do this than public schools are. > The public school gives them a reasonably neutral basis to do that In the US? You must be joking. Public schools in the US are anything but neutral.
  - mjx0 3y ago
    > > the parents' "values" are almost always some crackpot nonsense > > "Almost always" is way, way too broad. Yes, some parents' values are crackpot nonsense, but many are not. One does not have to be a crackpot to prefer homeschooling to US public schools. What are some examples of values that would lead one to prefer to homeschool their child, and are not "crackpot values"?
    - pdonis 3y ago
      > What are some examples of values that would lead one to prefer to homeschool their child, and are not "crackpot values"? Values such as the ones the US was founded on: things like individual liberty and deep distrust of governments, particularly governments wanting to indoctrinate children. And governments have done plenty to earn such distrust.
      - alexvoda 3y ago
        You don't get the easy way out with such a vague statement. Give some actual examples. Also, the US very much was not built on distrust of government because building the US meant building a government everyone would trust.
      - 3y ago
tomtheelder 3y ago
Ok so they invented religious school which, again, already exists.
paulryanrogers 3y ago
Public schools contributed to my departure from the faith decades afterward. Public schools weren't indoctrinating anything. Rather they taught me to think critically, using proven methods, and avoid fallacies. Faith communities taught me lazy thinking, blind faith, bigotry, etc. Thank Prussia for a system that -- for all its faults -- provides a way out for kids born into religion.
- uticus 3y ago
  > Faith communities taught me lazy thinking, blind faith, bigotry, etc. shame on faith communities - and parents - that teach laziness of mind. the effects are obvious, you are not the only person saying this. > Public schools weren't indoctrinating anything. Rather they taught me to think critically, using proven methods, and avoid fallacies you are not the first person to claim religion indoctrinates but public schooling doesn't. i'm always surprised how quickly logic and clear reasoning are thrown out in these statements. has it never occurred to you that critical thinking must be founded on something? that proven methods, useful as they are, can also be misused to support accepted truths that are wrong? that distinguishing fallacies requires recognition of truth, which requires acceptance of certain things as true? i guess what i'm trying to point out is that the list of things you were taught is indoctrination, and that to a high degree. indoctrination is not a bad thing in and of itself. but a system of indoctrination that teaches it isn't indoctrinating scares me.
- pdonis 3y ago
  > Public schools weren't indoctrinating anything. I don't know which public schools you went to, but the ones I went to (in the US) most certainly were indoctrinating all sorts of things. Nor has that situation improved since I went to school; if anything, in the US it has gotten worse. As for teaching critical thinking, some of the teachers I had in public schools did that. Many others did not. And I think I was among the more fortunate students; many, as far as I could tell, had no teachers who taught them critical thinking. Nor should the fact that US public schools are indoctrinating children be a surprise. As I have noted elsewhere in this thread, the people who set up the US public school system explicitly stated that indoctrinating children in the values the State wanted them to have (whether or not their parents agreed) was a goal of the system.

jononomo 3y ago

> I mean reading this it just sounds like they are discovering the hard way the concept of... a school?? Yeah, a school that works.

tomtheelder 3y ago
It’s literally just a religious private school.
epakai 3y ago
More like a school that can easily exclude problem students. Public schools don't get that privilege. Seems like the same lesson as private academies that were used to enforce de facto segregation. Run away from the scary change, and try to keep doing things the old way. It's just not sustainable the way public institutions are.