4 ms·

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.
    - em-bee 2y ago
      i agree that traditional schooling leaves a lot to be desired. it's not just public schools but private schools as well. it's the whole structure of lectures and boring homework and the inflexibility of the teaching material. but most of all, and i believe studies confirmed that (i vaguely remember there was a discussion about this here on HN) the primary factor for a good school experience is the quality of the teachers. that goes for homeschooling as well as public or private schools. and the solution here is not the funding for schools, but the funding of education of teachers. no amount of school funding is going to make schools better if we don't give teachers better training. besides that though, i think schooling really needs to be revamped. and we already have proven alternative options, if only our governments had the courage to try them. i am mainly thinking of the montessori education model. it has proven itself. and teacher training is not expensive. it only takes one year if done fulltime. i really do not know what it takes to change that though. there is so much resistance to change in the education sector that it is really painful to watch. btw, it is interesting to note that in germany where i am from, homeschooling is strictly illegal. the reason today is that homeschooling allows families to avoid integration into the wider society. it enables insular thinking and allows families to avoid contact with others who think differently. the goal of public schooling in germany is to let children of different backgrounds, cultures, opinions and worldviews interact and learn from each other, to accept and tolerate them and to create an integrated society. school is the only place where different cultures are forced to interact with each other.
- 3np 2y ago
  I don't see them saying anything of the sort and just talking about their own choices for their own children.

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.
  - em-bee 2y ago
    i agree that traditional schooling leaves a lot to be desired. it's not just public schools but private schools as well. it's the whole structure of lectures and boring homework and the inflexibility of the teaching material. but most of all, and i believe studies confirmed that (i vaguely remember there was a discussion about this here on HN) the primary factor for a good school experience is the quality of the teachers. that goes for homeschooling as well as public or private schools. and the solution here is not the funding for schools, but the funding of education of teachers. no amount of school funding is going to make schools better if we don't give teachers better training. besides that though, i think schooling really needs to be revamped. and we already have proven alternative options, if only our governments had the courage to try them. i am mainly thinking of the montessori education model. it has proven itself. and teacher training is not expensive. it only takes one year if done fulltime. i really do not know what it takes to change that though. there is so much resistance to change in the education sector that it is really painful to watch. btw, it is interesting to note that in germany where i am from, homeschooling is strictly illegal. the reason today is that homeschooling allows families to avoid integration into the wider society. it enables insular thinking and allows families to avoid contact with others who think differently. the goal of public schooling in germany is to let children of different backgrounds, cultures, opinions and worldviews interact and learn from each other, to accept and tolerate them and to create an integrated society. school is the only place where different cultures are forced to interact with each other.
3np 2y ago
I don't see them saying anything of the sort and just talking about their own choices for their own children.