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Homeschooling parents are divided into two separate groups. One is secular with college degrees who really want to give their children a better education than t

Homeschooling parents are divided into two separate groups. One is secular with college degrees who really want to give their children a better education than they could get in a school AND are able to do so. The other group are very religious who don't want their children learning about evolution or many other secular things. The only real issue I have with homeschooling in the US is that regulations vary wildly by state. Some states have so little enforcement that it is possible to teach a child essentially NOTHING by the time they are 18 and face no punishment for ruining that child's life.

thelock85 2y ago
A few weeks ago while giving a talk to some business school students, I was shocked to find most of the students and children of the faculty were homeschooled for K-12. This was a Baptist-affiliated university. I really had no clue this was so prevalent amongst evangelicals.
randerson 2y ago
I'd add at least a 3rd group: Parents of kids with sensory (e.g. autism) or behavioral issues that are incompatible with learning at a school.
- UltraSane 2y ago
  That still falls under option 1.
  - Glyptodon 2y ago
    I'd broaden the group to "kids who parents feel have been done wrong or failed by the local school and see home schooling as the best choice available." I don't think this group is quite as consistently college educated as group 1.
aliasxneo 2y ago
The way this is written seems to imply that religious people don't have similar (or the same) reasons as secular people.
- UltraSane 2y ago
  I suppose from their perspective they do but from my perspective they are just going to raise scientifically ignorant people. I was raised young earth creationist Lutheran and understand this world quite well.
  - drivebyhooting 2y ago
    To be fair most high school graduates might recite the “right scientific facts” while having no basis for supporting them. The earth is 4 billion years old. Survival of the fittest drives evolution. Why? How do you know? Basically just another form of indoctrination. Children are not taught science so much as science appreciation.
    - UltraSane 2y ago
      How old is the earth then? The Universe?
      - roenxi 2y ago
        Under what circumstances would it matter? As long as people believe the earth is older than around 3,000 years they are going to have more of a problem with general background ignorance than their misconceptions about that specific fact. If a group of people believing a random untrue fact is a threat, there are a vast number of threats out there. Far more than the school system can possibly deal with. Misidentifying the age of the earth is harmless compared to things like economic misconceptions and there aren't many school systems making a credible effort to correct those.
        UltraSane 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
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elcritch 2y ago
Certainly a biased view of religious home schoolers. Most of my religious friends who homeschool are college educated and many have postgraduate degrees. Some do disbelieve evolution, or at least disdain it a bit. Pretty much all of them are motivated people however. Of course that's just my little bubble.
- brightball 2y ago
  The hard thing for a lot of people to accept is that belief or lack thereof of evolution has no impact on daily life at all. It always comes up in these discussions as a boogeyman anyway.
  - UltraSane 2y ago
    "The hard thing for a lot of people to accept is that belief or lack thereof of evolution has no impact on daily life at all. " Not accepting it leads to a profoundly WRONG worldview that bleeds into everyday life in many ways.
    - arkey 2y ago
      Such as? I'm honestly and genuinely curious.
      - UltraSane 2y ago
        Antibiotic resistance Existence of vestigial structures in organism. Why do humans get goosebumps when we don't have enough hair to insulate us? Because it's an evolutionary leftover from our hairy ancestors when the reflex would actually cause hair to trap more air for better insulation. Understanding evolution is crucial for crop management. The development of pesticide resistance in insects follows the same principles as antibiotic resistance. Farmers who don't understand evolutionary principles might not recognize the importance of rotating pesticides or implementing refuge areas to prevent resistance from developing. Medical research often relies on animal models because of shared evolutionary history. Our biological similarities with other mammals exist because of common ancestry. Without this framework, it becomes harder to understand why medicines tested on mice or primates might work in humans, or why certain diseases affect multiple species similarly. Human susceptibility to back and knee pain is a consequence of how recent bipedalism is in our evolution. Same for why humans are so prone to chocking, our larynx evolved to enable speech at the cost of making it easier for food to enter it.
hilux 2y ago
There is another issue. Kids in the first group can get an incredible academic intellectual education, AND be emotionally and socially stunted. I have directly observed this, unfortunately. It also happens in very liberal, high-end, private schools.
watwut 2y ago
There is also abusive parents who want their kids to be isolated and do not want social services to get involved.
arkey 2y ago
Those groups do overlap.
carlosjobim 2y ago
Schools shouldn't teach neither evolution, nor creationism, nor any other origin story. Because it is something that doesn't matter at all – knowledge without value. Worse is that the majority pupils around the world will be taught both the Abrahamic creation story, the origin of man according to evolution, and usually a third or even fourth creation story from local pre-Abrahamic mythology. In the same school and from the same teacher. Talk about confusion of the highest order!

thelock85 2y ago

A few weeks ago while giving a talk to some business school students, I was shocked to find most of the students and children of the faculty were homeschooled for K-12. This was a Baptist-affiliated university. I really had no clue this was so prevalent amongst evangelicals.

randerson 2y ago

I'd add at least a 3rd group: Parents of kids with sensory (e.g. autism) or behavioral issues that are incompatible with learning at a school.

UltraSane 2y ago
That still falls under option 1.
- Glyptodon 2y ago
  I'd broaden the group to "kids who parents feel have been done wrong or failed by the local school and see home schooling as the best choice available." I don't think this group is quite as consistently college educated as group 1.

aliasxneo 2y ago

The way this is written seems to imply that religious people don't have similar (or the same) reasons as secular people.

UltraSane 2y ago
I suppose from their perspective they do but from my perspective they are just going to raise scientifically ignorant people. I was raised young earth creationist Lutheran and understand this world quite well.
- drivebyhooting 2y ago
  To be fair most high school graduates might recite the “right scientific facts” while having no basis for supporting them. The earth is 4 billion years old. Survival of the fittest drives evolution. Why? How do you know? Basically just another form of indoctrination. Children are not taught science so much as science appreciation.
  - UltraSane 2y ago
    How old is the earth then? The Universe?
    - roenxi 2y ago
      Under what circumstances would it matter? As long as people believe the earth is older than around 3,000 years they are going to have more of a problem with general background ignorance than their misconceptions about that specific fact. If a group of people believing a random untrue fact is a threat, there are a vast number of threats out there. Far more than the school system can possibly deal with. Misidentifying the age of the earth is harmless compared to things like economic misconceptions and there aren't many school systems making a credible effort to correct those.
      - UltraSane 2y ago

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elcritch 2y ago

Certainly a biased view of religious home schoolers. Most of my religious friends who homeschool are college educated and many have postgraduate degrees. Some do disbelieve evolution, or at least disdain it a bit. Pretty much all of them are motivated people however. Of course that's just my little bubble.

brightball 2y ago
The hard thing for a lot of people to accept is that belief or lack thereof of evolution has no impact on daily life at all. It always comes up in these discussions as a boogeyman anyway.
- UltraSane 2y ago
  "The hard thing for a lot of people to accept is that belief or lack thereof of evolution has no impact on daily life at all. " Not accepting it leads to a profoundly WRONG worldview that bleeds into everyday life in many ways.
  - arkey 2y ago
    Such as? I'm honestly and genuinely curious.
    - UltraSane 2y ago
      Antibiotic resistance Existence of vestigial structures in organism. Why do humans get goosebumps when we don't have enough hair to insulate us? Because it's an evolutionary leftover from our hairy ancestors when the reflex would actually cause hair to trap more air for better insulation. Understanding evolution is crucial for crop management. The development of pesticide resistance in insects follows the same principles as antibiotic resistance. Farmers who don't understand evolutionary principles might not recognize the importance of rotating pesticides or implementing refuge areas to prevent resistance from developing. Medical research often relies on animal models because of shared evolutionary history. Our biological similarities with other mammals exist because of common ancestry. Without this framework, it becomes harder to understand why medicines tested on mice or primates might work in humans, or why certain diseases affect multiple species similarly. Human susceptibility to back and knee pain is a consequence of how recent bipedalism is in our evolution. Same for why humans are so prone to chocking, our larynx evolved to enable speech at the cost of making it easier for food to enter it.

hilux 2y ago

There is another issue. Kids in the first group can get an incredible academic intellectual education, AND be emotionally and socially stunted. I have directly observed this, unfortunately. It also happens in very liberal, high-end, private schools.

watwut 2y ago

There is also abusive parents who want their kids to be isolated and do not want social services to get involved.

arkey 2y ago

Those groups do overlap.

carlosjobim 2y ago

Schools shouldn't teach neither evolution, nor creationism, nor any other origin story. Because it is something that doesn't matter at all – knowledge without value. Worse is that the majority pupils around the world will be taught both the Abrahamic creation story, the origin of man according to evolution, and usually a third or even fourth creation story from local pre-Abrahamic mythology. In the same school and from the same teacher. Talk about confusion of the highest order!