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1) tokenadult doesn't make any generalizations about the homeschooling community at large. He simply shares his personal homeschooling experience and rational f

by zdean 13y ago

1) tokenadult doesn't make any generalizations about the homeschooling community at large. He simply shares his personal homeschooling experience and rational for pursuing it. 2) what difference does it make if 99% of the early adopters are ultra-right wing, conservative Christian creationists? If homeschooling my kids gives them the best environment to develop academically and socially, why should it affect my decision to know the motivation of everyone else that's doing it?

lmartel 13y ago
The note that he "knows hundreds" of homeschooling families and the claim that they all conform to his model seems like a generalization about the homeschooling community at large, even if it's not 100% explicit.
- zdean 13y ago
  No, it's actually a generalization about the homeschoolers that he knows...which is a subset (that he selected) of the greater homeschooling community. Look, no one is denying that there are lots of religiously motivated people that homeschool their children. But for those that aren't, this is a completely irrelevant fact. If you've got an argument that shows me that homeschooling as an educational approach is fundamentally flawed because religious people are a majority of the early adopters, I'd love to hear it.
sanderjd 13y ago
Ignoring (1), the difference (2) makes is that some people believe public-schooling to be a lesser evil than the probability of home-schooling being indoctrination instead of education, and those people tend to be in favor of policies making it more difficult for parents to have complete control over the home-schooling of their children, which home-schooling proponents like tokenadult are typically (understandably!) opposed to.
- knewter 13y ago
  The fact that homeschooling is referred to as indoctrination when compared with public schooling sickens me. I can't really think of many more poorly designed systems than (1) a popularly elected government, who (2) controls what its future voters are taught. As engineers, this should be an easy point to take hold of. How is the publicly elected government planning curriculum somehow less indoctrination than a parent doing the same?
  - prawks 13y ago
    > How is the publicly elected government planning curriculum somehow less indoctrination than a parent doing the same? Unless the parents' house has 200+ kids in it and equally numerous teachers, then their children will often be exposed to a wider range of viewpoints in a school. I also don't fully understand how being publicly elected affects the curriculum. Reading into the curriculum being taught is very tinfoil-hat. Many teachers are still largely autonomous, and while they must meet certain standards, are free to teach cursory information of their choosing.
  - sanderjd 13y ago
    Well, in my view, it's similar to how we manage a publicly elected government planning laws; we set up an adversarial system with different actors with different incentives all having a voice in the process. So federal government entities have a (admittedly, too loud IMO) voice, but so do local community school districts and the parents that go to their meetings and argue with them. This system acts to sort of filter whatever indoctrination is happening through the lens of all the people that were involved in the process. For better or worse, there is no such filter with home-schooling, it can be purely what the parents think best.
- zdean 13y ago
  "makes is that some people believe public-schooling to be a lesser evil than the probability of home-schooling being indoctrination instead of education" I'd love to see these people back it up with facts. To me it seems like a lot of people make up their mind about homeschooling and then use this as a straw man argument against it. Again, just because the early adopters are motivated by a certain factor doesn't mean that you (or I) need to be motivated by the same factor. We could end up having the same positive conclusion about homeschooling but for very different reasons.
  - sanderjd 13y ago
    I have an extremely positive personal view of home-schooling, and hope that it will be possible for me to home-school my own children. But I think in a big society it is reasonable to be strongly in favor of things at a personal level and skeptical of those things at a societal level. For instance, I really like being able to afford gasoline and drive anywhere I want anytime I want, but I'm unsure that society should continue letting me do those things. edit: For the record, I don't at all think home-schooling should be outlawed or even at all discouraged (quite the opposite!), but I do think it should regulated, which is a scary ball of wax, to be sure.
davvolun 13y ago
> Most homeschooling families I know, and I know hundreds all around the United States, ... This is generalization.
- zdean 13y ago
  ...about his circle of homeschoolers, not the general homeschooling community.

by zdean 13y ago

lmartel 13y ago

The note that he "knows hundreds" of homeschooling families and the claim that they all conform to his model seems like a generalization about the homeschooling community at large, even if it's not 100% explicit.

zdean 13y ago
No, it's actually a generalization about the homeschoolers that he knows...which is a subset (that he selected) of the greater homeschooling community. Look, no one is denying that there are lots of religiously motivated people that homeschool their children. But for those that aren't, this is a completely irrelevant fact. If you've got an argument that shows me that homeschooling as an educational approach is fundamentally flawed because religious people are a majority of the early adopters, I'd love to hear it.

sanderjd 13y ago

Ignoring (1), the difference (2) makes is that some people believe public-schooling to be a lesser evil than the probability of home-schooling being indoctrination instead of education, and those people tend to be in favor of policies making it more difficult for parents to have complete control over the home-schooling of their children, which home-schooling proponents like tokenadult are typically (understandably!) opposed to.

knewter 13y ago
The fact that homeschooling is referred to as indoctrination when compared with public schooling sickens me. I can't really think of many more poorly designed systems than (1) a popularly elected government, who (2) controls what its future voters are taught. As engineers, this should be an easy point to take hold of. How is the publicly elected government planning curriculum somehow less indoctrination than a parent doing the same?
- prawks 13y ago
  > How is the publicly elected government planning curriculum somehow less indoctrination than a parent doing the same? Unless the parents' house has 200+ kids in it and equally numerous teachers, then their children will often be exposed to a wider range of viewpoints in a school. I also don't fully understand how being publicly elected affects the curriculum. Reading into the curriculum being taught is very tinfoil-hat. Many teachers are still largely autonomous, and while they must meet certain standards, are free to teach cursory information of their choosing.
- sanderjd 13y ago
  Well, in my view, it's similar to how we manage a publicly elected government planning laws; we set up an adversarial system with different actors with different incentives all having a voice in the process. So federal government entities have a (admittedly, too loud IMO) voice, but so do local community school districts and the parents that go to their meetings and argue with them. This system acts to sort of filter whatever indoctrination is happening through the lens of all the people that were involved in the process. For better or worse, there is no such filter with home-schooling, it can be purely what the parents think best.
zdean 13y ago
"makes is that some people believe public-schooling to be a lesser evil than the probability of home-schooling being indoctrination instead of education" I'd love to see these people back it up with facts. To me it seems like a lot of people make up their mind about homeschooling and then use this as a straw man argument against it. Again, just because the early adopters are motivated by a certain factor doesn't mean that you (or I) need to be motivated by the same factor. We could end up having the same positive conclusion about homeschooling but for very different reasons.
- sanderjd 13y ago
  I have an extremely positive personal view of home-schooling, and hope that it will be possible for me to home-school my own children. But I think in a big society it is reasonable to be strongly in favor of things at a personal level and skeptical of those things at a societal level. For instance, I really like being able to afford gasoline and drive anywhere I want anytime I want, but I'm unsure that society should continue letting me do those things. edit: For the record, I don't at all think home-schooling should be outlawed or even at all discouraged (quite the opposite!), but I do think it should regulated, which is a scary ball of wax, to be sure.

davvolun 13y ago

> Most homeschooling families I know, and I know hundreds all around the United States, ... This is generalization.

zdean 13y ago
...about his circle of homeschoolers, not the general homeschooling community.