General Education Thread

And you're getting hostile again. Homeschoolers aren't an oppressed minority; stop trying to act like they are.

"There are more homeschoolers than Japanese-Americans." "It's growing more popular." It's meaningless. I make, to make a deliberately hyperbolic comparison, the alt-right grew more popular all through 2016, that didn't make it a good thing.

All your anecdotes say is it didn't break you. That doesn't mean it's not a bad idea in general. It doesn't outweigh what anyone else has said.

edited 22nd Mar '18 10:34:25 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

There's bad people who homeschool, but there's bad people who go to public schools, too, and there's no difference. all groups have bad people in them.

There is a difference. A very crucial difference.

One bad teacher at a public school is, at most, one year of a student's academic career, or less once you get to the grades where students attend multiple classrooms per day.

One bad homeschool teacher, on the other hand, is their students' entire academic career.

And it's a lot harder to call out a bad public school teacher than a bad homeschooling teacher. Since the homeschooling teacher is also the parent.

More or less.

edited 22nd Mar '18 10:47:34 PM by M84

You mean a lot harder to call out a parent than a teacher?

I am getting upset, and I apologize for letting that show, though I think my feelings are valid. It's just another perfectly valid form of education. Right alongside public schools, online education, etc. If you can't accept that, then you're living in the past. Clinging to the idea of such a strict uniform method of education is making you close-minded, and I'm sorry, I tried to help.

Homeschool isn't perfect, but nothing is, and it's preferable and superior to "normal" education for many people. People learn better when they actually want to learn. Letting children learn what they want at their own pace lets it sink in much more and educates them better.

I don't think being at home would inherently make me want to learn any more than being at school would.

It's a matter of letting the student choose what they want to learn and the pace they want to learn it. It's more customizable, and it's all focused on what the student wants and needs. Children focus and learn better when they feel they have some degree of control over the lesson.

You're not helping by calling everyone close-minded whenever they don't arrive at the same conclusions as you.

It doesn't matter when those conclusions are wrong.

Yeah but children typically don't know what's best for them.

Again, just because someone didnt arrive at the same conclusion you did doesn't mean they are wrong.

edited 23rd Mar '18 5:10:48 AM by PhilosopherStones

You'd be surprised. Give kids actual control and they wisen up quick.

It's not a matter of opinion. They're just wrong, end of story.

edited 23rd Mar '18 5:12:50 AM by PushoverMediaCritic

Ok, what do you have to support this? Outside of your own experiences.

Explain to us how theyre wrong as well.

edited 23rd Mar '18 5:13:18 AM by PhilosopherStones

I literally wouldn't trust kids with control over the TV remote. Definitely not over their education. If kids had any idea what's good for them, teenage pregnancy wouldn't be a problem.

Not saying that kids are completely stupid, but they have proven poor impulse control and little foresight. Having a dialogue with the kid is fine, but responsible adults should have the last word.

A lot of children are basically the Fearless Fool incarnate at first, for better or for worse.

Kids are inquisitive and want to learn about the world. Forcing knowledge on them just dampens that initial curiosity. There are multiple different camps of homeschooling, one of which is giving the kids full and unrestricted control over their education. I think this camp goes too far. Homeschooling inherently gives more freedom to the child over their education, but giving complete control isn't good either. Sometimes, kids need to be forced to work on a subject they don't like in order to learn some essential information for life.

Unfortunately, it's hard to find reputable research on homeschooling, since some quack named Brian D. Ray has decided to constantly churn out "scientific journals" with shoddy science and his sources are mostly himself from other "scientific journals". No doubt this charlatan is one of the front-runners of those groups fighting to keep homeschooling from being regulated.

edited 23rd Mar '18 5:36:25 AM by PushoverMediaCritic

Ok, let's say that's true.

That doesn't mean a child's parents are the best facilitators of that kind of learning.

Even if the parents are friggin' geniuses, that doesn't mean they are qualified to teach. Teaching is not easy, even (maybe especially) if you are an expert in your field.

edited 23rd Mar '18 5:43:01 AM by M84

Well, a strict schedule in a crowded school with teachers who have to juggle attention between tens of children all at once certainly isn't. I'm talking about the freedom for the kid to say "I want to learn about marine biology this week", and then the next week is working through a few chapters of a textbook on marine biology, a few pages a day at any time the kid wants. Granted, the parent should have the right to decide "we're going to learn about math today", but the kid should still only have to work when they're comfortable and engaged enough to learn (within reason, no skipping days).

Actually reminds me a little of college. Huh. Never noticed that before.

Another advantage homeschooling has is that you can decide whether or not to adhere to school standards of having breaks on weekends and seasons, and if you don't, that means you can spread out the material a lot more to make the day-to-day grind less painful.

edited 23rd Mar '18 5:47:04 AM by PushoverMediaCritic

So far you've mostly just argued against one way schools can be organised.

Heh, mine tried that line.

Part of the draw of "unschooling" and similar bullshit is that even more responsibility is laid on the child by lazy parents. "Everything is up to the child to learn at their pace" will translate into something like "they were lazy" every time it fails.

If we're talking anecdotes, unschooling and other radical practices in the same hat seem to have a serious evangelism streak going on. Parents swearing with pride on how they are better rhan the system, how their kid is so much smarter than those in public schools. Taking credit all for themselves while leaving all the responsibility for any failure or hardship suffered on the child.

My homeschooling consisted of zero education outside of bible reading or Bob Jones propaganda. "Science" was a tool of Satan and "History" was written by the left, the homosexual, whatever other boogeyman came to mind at the time.

And homeschool groups? All packed to the brim with the same mindset. Some even worse (nazis, militia members, kkk, word of faith) Social development was repressed, sexuality was forbidden ground where even the barest hint was severely punished. On that note, some homeschool groups would try to work out arranged marriages between the children.

We were also taught to evangelize, that the system of ours was right and good and to go out and spread the good news. The few times I talked to someone outside our tiny circles was like talking to an alien. The very idea of being able to pick up and look at even just a book that had been forbidden to us felt like committing a sin for the longest time.

Frankly, my parents' inability to understand computers or lock down the internet was probably the only thing that kept me from becoming what they wanted. I eventually made it into a community college and paid my way through it over several years. Think I tested at an approx 6th grade level in math and maybe two below in writing. Science was right out.

Glorious state of North Carolina deems all of it legal. There are no inspections, no qualifications needed. A simple high school aptitude test alone would have disqualified my parents and most of the others. Parents and family are continuing it with my youngest relatives now too, and there us no framework for reporting them or even petitioning for the educational equivalent of a wellfare checkup. Not unless physical abuse is involved.

Edit( forgive me if this is a little disjointed, early morning and on mobile)

edited 23rd Mar '18 5:50:13 AM by carbon-mantis

Yeesh, the more I hear about North Carolina the more I realize I was lucky to grow up in Pennsylvania. Even if Pennsylvania is vampire territory.

edited 23rd Mar '18 5:52:47 AM by M84

Once again you're presenting the flaws of your homeschooling system as it's strong points. You keep trying to demonstrate how not ignorant you are yet all you're doing is confirming how ignorant homeschooling can leave a person.

Teaching is very hard and often teachers have to deal with problems bigger than what goes on in their classes. That just comes with being a teacher. Being a teacher does not make somebody unqualified to teach.

That sounds like it really sucked. You have my sympathies for having to grow up in such a terrible place. I was raised to love science and reading, and my connections to my religion, Judaism, are minor, and just for the sake of holidays. I'm quite left-wing and I was raised to be. Clearly, our experiences were radically different and the communities that surrounded us were also.

Also, Ambar, sorry for not extending this same sympathy to you earlier. I wasn't thinking clearly and I should've cared more.

That being said, the awful people who you both were surrounded by are a Vocal Minority, one that I am all in favor of stomping out.

edited 23rd Mar '18 6:01:28 AM by PushoverMediaCritic

Uh no, that's the majority.

No, it really isn't. America's sheer size and population means that it's still a huge number of people, but it still doesn't represent all homeschoolers.