My wife are secular homeschoolers and have homeschooled our 3 kids: 10,8,5 for 5 years.
We use outschool regularly, its a great platform to introduce random topics. I would invest in it honestly.
AMA I guess
Also how do you go about socializing them? I've been considering it myself
1. we felt like time was passing too quickly and wanted to have them around, we wanted to be together basically.
2. with 3 kids my wife hasnt been able to work (her line of work is not well paying), so it made sense to start homeschooling vs private schooling.
3. I have issues with what public schools are now, hyper focused on testing, lack of critical thinking, no outdoor time.
The "socializing" concern is a farce imo. Granted we live in area with plenty of groups. Maybe a solo kid way out in the sticks will have problems. Our kids also regularly play with kids 2-5 years older or younger so things are different. Our kids have activities with other homeschool kids 4 days a week.
The schedule looks like this:
M: Outdoor Nature camp: think building fire with bow drills, axes, skinning animals, foraging for wild plants
T: Academic day at home then occasional horseback riding
W: Academic day at home, private music lessons, then playdate at friends house
TH: Homeschool meetup group: think art, music, dance, karate, extracurricular classes with a group of 100 kids and 10 teachers
FRI: another Homeschool meetup group: with various classes and open play
SAT: Climbing, iceskating, skiing, biking, something outdoors
Our life is a mellower version of "Captain Fantastic"
As far as socialization, I’ve been asked this a hundred times: “so...like...how do you talk to people when you’re at home?” Now, I understand they mean well. But for someone who just implied their superior social capabilities, they sure seem rude and unsocialized. ;)
Well that's not entirely fair. I know of several situations (including my own) where students were punished for fighting when attacked by other students. You can't say that's not "doing something", I guess.
But it does seem obvious that being forced to associate with brutes is unpleasant, demoralising and inconducive to academic learning. By the same token why not teach people to deal with pain by tapping them daily with hammers?
We also have to factor in also that many people will become brutes as a result of this forced association, like the way criminality incubates in prisons.
The way we learn to get along is through a combination of shared challenges and by trying to emulate people we admire. Not being locked up with Bane seven hours every day.
For one thing, setting aside how cruel it is, at 12 years+ the 'school bully learning method' is monstrously inefficient.
Btw, similar arguments are applied to most school subjects. For example, one is forced to take obsolete subject X because it is useful if one later wishes to study subject Y, which is in turn can be helpful if Z crops up in adult life, and so on.
Most sane adults would rather learn 'just in time' and to the precision and extent appropriate to the unique challenge they face. Yet, perhaps because of the enormous sunk cost of their own schooling, they become irrational about this where their children are concerned.
It turns out that humans are innately moral and social, outside of extreme situations.
And as they often have large families, their children have a large number of sibiling so aren't lonely, so they presume it's all good. Which just leads to entire families of socially inept homeschoolers.
Whether or not religious people retain their views is not the benefit of socialisation - being able to function in everyday human society through direct experience of it, not a carefully curated and managed microscopic subset, that's the advantage.
I don't know of any studies (or if any could be performed, really) that demonstrate the social impact of public schools on students like this, or at least easily-identified outgroup kids. I know from anecdotal experience that in the public schools I attended that they (the semi-cultish religious kids who were not/no longer homeschooled) were not treated well, never successfully integrated socially, and disappeared from my radar very quickly after graduation. With hindsight I feel very badly about that now, and wish there some way to impact the systemic cliquish nature of public schools, especially high school. Unfortunately I lack a time machine for the kids of the past, and simply don't have answers for those going forward.
Either way, my suspicion is that public schools specifically do not offer the best (or even a much better) experience for socializing students.
What are your estimated cost per year per child? (Including the aforementioned private teachers etc). It’d be interesting to compare that with the average expenditure per child in your local schooling district (it’s hard to compare directly due to hard to quantify factors like a parent staying home, but it’d still be interesting to see if it’s significantly more/less or not).
It sounds like a great setup, but it also seems difficult and expensive to me at first blush.
Based on that limited observation, I think that the socialism of homeschool kids depends on the kids and their parents in the same way as any other aspect of homeschooling: If the parents are reasonably social, they will find ways to get their kids involved in social things, and their kids will be social too.
If the parents are reclusive, or inclined to isolate themselves from mainstream society for whatever reason, this will also be reflected in their kids. What may seem like a negative outcome of homeschooling could just be a matter of kids resembling their parents. And it wouldn't shock me if genetics plays a role.
How much time do you spend as a parent teaching or overseeing homeschooling? Are you encouraging your kids to go to college? And if they did want to go to college do they realistically have the option to pick the school they want? Any state or country requirements you need to adhere to in terms of curriculum? Have your kids ever expressed an interest in going to school? I can see homeschooling work well for disciplines like math or programming but have any of your kids expressed interest in something like medicine or law where prestige matters a lot? Are kids really self motivated to learn anything? How much structure do you impose? Do you find that they do more projects and experiments as opposed to reading theoretical stuff?
Its a busy schedule for my wife, granted we have 3 kids. She also works part-time at their nature camp
> Are you encouraging your kids to go to college?
Depends. I plan on enrolling them at the local community college by age 14-15.
> And if they did want to go to college do they realistically have the option to pick the school they want?
I want them to attend community college then transfer, which is what I did and I transfered to a public ivy school
> Any state or country requirements you need to adhere to in terms of curriculum?
No requirements here in MI, depends on your state.
> Have your kids ever expressed an interest in going to school?
Nope.
> I can see homeschooling work well for disciplines like math or programming but have any of your kids expressed interest in something like medicine or law where prestige matters a lot?
Why would that matter? Top tier colleges are looking for/encouraging homeschool applicants because they are generally very independent thinkers and self-directed.
> Are kids really self motivated to learn anything?
Definitely. For example, my one daughter loves birds and is studying everything she can find about the local bird population. Kids are naturally very curious.
> How much structure do you impose?
This depends on the homeschooling family. We have a decent structure now but other families use no structure.
> Do you find that they do more projects and experiments as opposed to reading theoretical stuff?
50/50 I would say. They are still young so the reading is not like deep theory on anything yet.
"Travel to Paris"
"Viking Art and History"
"Waldorf Form drawing"
"The History of Halloween"
They also get to see the instructor and interact with them and other kids.
Dumb question: Is that a field trip or just a "learn about Paris" lesson?
Right, but that's not clear. He listed it as a lesson/subject. It can be read as an actual trip, or a virtual trip.
You "believe"?
You don't know if your own kids went with you to Paris or not?
I call shenanigans. You're a duplicate account or otherwise working for OP's company.
Sheesh. This situation with YC funded companies getting dog and pony show coverage here with a bevy of fake accounts and special algorithmic preference is never going to stop. YC's so full of crap it's amazing. Bogus.