5 ms·

Sure it is, you can homeschool for example.

by SirMaster 2y ago

7bit 2y ago
Americans and their home schooling
moron4hire 2y ago
No thanks, don't want to put my kids through my childhood
- SirMaster 2y ago
  My point was simply it's a valid option. You can't just reject some valid options and then say that what's left is inescapable... Or at least I don't think that's a very strong argument.
  - moron4hire 2y ago
    I'm not on a good mentalspace to discuss this, I will admit. By most accounts, I'm consider a "success" of homeschooling. And in that, I have some resentment. A child shouldn't be a social experiment. A child should be prepared to live in the society in which they live. And that's where I think homeschooling failed me. I don't blame my parents for this. At the time, 35+ years ago, it was "different". I guess. I don't know. I know my parents did what they thought was best. I just don't think they knew what was best. They were barely in their 20s when they had me. I was well into my 30s when we had our kids. So now, I'm here with them, and I don't want them to experience the pervasive loneliness that I did.
- _heimdall 2y ago
  Assuming you were homeschooled and it went poorly for you, was your takeaway that it could never be done well? What did you find that makes homeschooling always worse than trusting the local, likely poorly paid and appreciated, state educators?
  - em-bee 2y ago
    What did you find that makes homeschooling always worse we all live by the experience of our childhood. it is pervasive, and influences us in ways that we can't escape. i don't know what the parent commented experienced. but most likely they have not experienced bad regular schools, nor seen well working homeschooling. so their own homeschooling experience probably is all they have to go on. i struggle as a parent because i missed a lot of important experiences from my childhood. as a result i am unable to replicate them. even if i get told by others what i should be doing, it feels unnatural and uncomfortable because i have not experienced that myself. for all i can tell, my kids childhood is better than my own, but i am repeating many of the mistakes of my parents because i simply don't know any better. homeschooling may go the same way. if the parent had a bad experience homeschooling, they may just be unable to translate that into a better experience for their kids even if they believe or know that a better experience is possible. trusting the local, likely poorly paid and appreciated, state educators? my experience in a US highschool led me to conclude that the poor pay self selects for more motivated teachers. all the teachers i had there were excellent and i had the best time there out of all my schooling. that's an anecdote of course, and there are many counter examples, but equally you could ask the reverse question. what did you find that you believe that government schooling is necessarily a bad experience? homeschooling is not for everyone. during covid, my ability to engage the kids into learning activities was an abysmal failure. so despite believing that great homeschooling is possible and not having experienced bad homeschooling myself, i'll never be doing it with my kids.
    - _heimdall 2y ago
      Thanks for sharing here, its always interesting to hear a different person's experience/story. With regards to public schooling I'll share my anecdotal experience, as you mentioned I can't compare directly to homeschooling since I only ever went to public school. I grew up in a pretty well off area, by no means was it a rich area but solidly middle to upper middle class. My public schools were pretty well funded and maintained, the teachers I had were very hit or miss though. I had a handful of really good teachers in high school, maybe 3 out of the 25 or so different teachers I had. I had at least as many that were down right awful and had no business teaching. The rest were somewhere in the middle, they did seem to care about their job but weren't very good teachers and were mostly just teaching to the test. That is my biggest issue with how public schools are run. Public education is made into such a specific process of how students are taught, what they are taught, and how they are tested and evaluated that the education seems better suited to developing robots rather than adults. The remnants of an educational system designed to produce factory workers are still very noticeable in my opinion. I saw plenty of my peers struggle in school because they weren't interested in the topics they were forced to learn and weren't offered the chance to engage with what they actually enjoyed. Others struggled because the teachers we did have didn't understand the materials very well and weren't able to teach lessons in different ways for different students (I always noticed this most in math classes). Homeschooling is interesting to me, if and when we have kids, because (a) I experienced way too many bad teachers in what was comparatively a pretty good school system and (b) I don't prefer the idea of the state taking such direct control over what, how, and when kids are taught. It definitely isn't for everyone though, totally agree there and I've seen friends and relatives bounce between public schools and homeschooling as they struggled with making homeschooling work for them.

Sure it is, you can homeschool for example.

7bit 2y ago

Americans and their home schooling

moron4hire 2y ago

No thanks, don't want to put my kids through my childhood

SirMaster 2y ago
My point was simply it's a valid option. You can't just reject some valid options and then say that what's left is inescapable... Or at least I don't think that's a very strong argument.
- moron4hire 2y ago
  I'm not on a good mentalspace to discuss this, I will admit. By most accounts, I'm consider a "success" of homeschooling. And in that, I have some resentment. A child shouldn't be a social experiment. A child should be prepared to live in the society in which they live. And that's where I think homeschooling failed me. I don't blame my parents for this. At the time, 35+ years ago, it was "different". I guess. I don't know. I know my parents did what they thought was best. I just don't think they knew what was best. They were barely in their 20s when they had me. I was well into my 30s when we had our kids. So now, I'm here with them, and I don't want them to experience the pervasive loneliness that I did.
_heimdall 2y ago
Assuming you were homeschooled and it went poorly for you, was your takeaway that it could never be done well? What did you find that makes homeschooling always worse than trusting the local, likely poorly paid and appreciated, state educators?
- em-bee 2y ago
  What did you find that makes homeschooling always worse we all live by the experience of our childhood. it is pervasive, and influences us in ways that we can't escape. i don't know what the parent commented experienced. but most likely they have not experienced bad regular schools, nor seen well working homeschooling. so their own homeschooling experience probably is all they have to go on. i struggle as a parent because i missed a lot of important experiences from my childhood. as a result i am unable to replicate them. even if i get told by others what i should be doing, it feels unnatural and uncomfortable because i have not experienced that myself. for all i can tell, my kids childhood is better than my own, but i am repeating many of the mistakes of my parents because i simply don't know any better. homeschooling may go the same way. if the parent had a bad experience homeschooling, they may just be unable to translate that into a better experience for their kids even if they believe or know that a better experience is possible. trusting the local, likely poorly paid and appreciated, state educators? my experience in a US highschool led me to conclude that the poor pay self selects for more motivated teachers. all the teachers i had there were excellent and i had the best time there out of all my schooling. that's an anecdote of course, and there are many counter examples, but equally you could ask the reverse question. what did you find that you believe that government schooling is necessarily a bad experience? homeschooling is not for everyone. during covid, my ability to engage the kids into learning activities was an abysmal failure. so despite believing that great homeschooling is possible and not having experienced bad homeschooling myself, i'll never be doing it with my kids.
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    Thanks for sharing here, its always interesting to hear a different person's experience/story. With regards to public schooling I'll share my anecdotal experience, as you mentioned I can't compare directly to homeschooling since I only ever went to public school. I grew up in a pretty well off area, by no means was it a rich area but solidly middle to upper middle class. My public schools were pretty well funded and maintained, the teachers I had were very hit or miss though. I had a handful of really good teachers in high school, maybe 3 out of the 25 or so different teachers I had. I had at least as many that were down right awful and had no business teaching. The rest were somewhere in the middle, they did seem to care about their job but weren't very good teachers and were mostly just teaching to the test. That is my biggest issue with how public schools are run. Public education is made into such a specific process of how students are taught, what they are taught, and how they are tested and evaluated that the education seems better suited to developing robots rather than adults. The remnants of an educational system designed to produce factory workers are still very noticeable in my opinion. I saw plenty of my peers struggle in school because they weren't interested in the topics they were forced to learn and weren't offered the chance to engage with what they actually enjoyed. Others struggled because the teachers we did have didn't understand the materials very well and weren't able to teach lessons in different ways for different students (I always noticed this most in math classes). Homeschooling is interesting to me, if and when we have kids, because (a) I experienced way too many bad teachers in what was comparatively a pretty good school system and (b) I don't prefer the idea of the state taking such direct control over what, how, and when kids are taught. It definitely isn't for everyone though, totally agree there and I've seen friends and relatives bounce between public schools and homeschooling as they struggled with making homeschooling work for them.