Comment by spraak | Hacker News Reader

Comment by spraak | Hacker News Reader

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> most of who are teachers and all of who state that kids who have been taught outside of the standard educational system are always behind kids who were not.

Would you admit that your perspective then is heavily biased? I don't claim to be unbiased, but I myself come from a family of educators, and I chose a different direction (see also John Gatto). That is, I'm very unsurprised that traditional educators would think that homeschoolers are behind, but it's very not true.

> Just because it’s not a new idea it doesn’t mean it isn’t also total garbage.

Public school is total garbage, in my experience and opinion.

> Learning to read is not just about learning the shapes of spoken languages. Learning to read also teaches literacy and creative writing. It engages parts of the imagination that other forms of creative play do not. Plus it also teaches mental discipline as well.

I don't disagree. You say it as though my daughter has none of that, which I again find strange.

> The only things I chose to read were technical schematics and programming manuals for 70s and 80s computing hardware. That had a really significant impact on my writing skills; to the extent that I massively struggled to pass my English exams.

Right. Well you have a good lesson to share about that, then. And that's the same reason why I still guide what my daughter reads, and still encourage and recommend a variety of works.

Just out of interest, which country are you based? I wonder if the reason perspective is so polarised from mine is because our education systems also vastly differ.

From the perspective of the UK, most of what you said is completely untrue.

I live in the UK. Everybody complains about the public ("state" or whatever) schools. I'd never enroll my kids in public schools here (pre-university), only in private schools, if I had the means. Continental Europe is much better IMO/E.

People moan about a great many things but it doesn’t mean they’re right (hence Brexit, Trump, “Christian values”, racism/homophobia/etc, those who moan about computer security from a lazy ux perspective (eg “why can’t my password be the same as my user name?”).

I take much more stock in the opinions with those who actually have to work under those conditions and see those systems in use first hand.

I agree it’s not perfect and there are plenty of areas it can be improved but some of the comments on here are throwing out the baby water (as others have also pointed out). If you can afford private education then that’s also an option. But you’re still part of the same education system with the same flaws. You are just (hopefully) paying for better teachers (that isn’t always the case - more about that below). For all of its warts, public schools are still a far better option than homeschooling in the vast majority cases.

Its worth noting that I’ve provided IT services for a few private’s schools in my time and frankly some of them were worse than the public school I went to! Both in terms of teaching staff and school equipment. It was a real eye opener for me because up until that point I was planning on sending my (then theoretical) kids to private school too.

> I take much more stock in the opinions with those who actually have to work under those conditions and see those systems in use first hand.

Check out John Taylor Gatto's works [1]. He was a public school teacher for 30 years, but later advocated for homeschooling.

[1] E.g. Dumbing Us Down: the Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, and The Underground History of American Education: A Schoolteacher’s Intimate Investigation Into the Problem of Modern Schooling

I know of his work. I just disagree with it. He isn’t the only teacher with 30 years of experience in public schools under his belt and plenty of other teachers have the opposite opinion of homeschooling to him.

While I do think it’s good that people like him create a discussion I still see him as somewhat of an outlier when all of the other teachers I know - both retired and those still in “active service” - take a dim view of homeschooling.

But if that’s what you want to do for your kids then I genuinely hope it works out for you.

Schools with worse equipment and worse teachers can sometimes do very well. They might have far less classroom disruption because the rules are different and the families are different. In a school that is free for all to attend, the most important quality of a teacher is probably the ability to control mayhem without having the authority to do much of anything to stop it.

You can’t argue that bad teachers don’t matter in private schools because if a teacher is unable to teach the subject effectively then it doesn’t matter how well the class behave, they’re still not going to learn the subject.

One of the private schools I was referring to had successfully been sued by several ex-pupils because they failed exams because the teachers were that poor they didn’t even touch large sections of the syllabus.

Another school was trying to teach ICT on hardware that was more than 10 years out of date and their ICT teacher was actually a geography teacher who’s only qualifications in IT was a passing interest in the subject.

Sure, if you pay a high premium then I’m sure you can make some guarantees about the quality of your child’s education. But honestly, some private schools are actually a whole lot worse than your average public school.

From their perspective the people who are against school are against it for basically the same reason you’re against being hit in the head, because it’s harmful and subjecting children to it is wrong. The difference between being punched in the head, punched in the head by someone wearing boxing gloves, hit with a goofball in a sock don’t change that someone is getting hit in the head and that’s wrong. It’s like a Christian trying to convert an apostate from Islam on the basis that they’ve rejected Allah when they became an atheist because the arguments for God’s existence are insufficiently strong. The atheist will reject the Christian and any other theist as well.

The U.K. system is probably slightly more curiosity crushing and stress inducing than average as school systems go, they certainly start academic instruction well before its age appropriate, but the entire system of child warehousing under the authority of people who are to train children to sit down, shut up and do as they’re told, giving them no or minimal choice in what they do for most of their waking hours is wrong, and he system is Many have tried, they even teach their writings in Ed schools. End result, nothing.

I've found that very much depends on the teacher and - to a lesser extent - the school policies as well. Each teacher will have their own teaching style. Some do favour "sit down and copy from a worksheet" style of teaching but I'd argue those are the lazier teachers. Others, however, do find more creative and interactive ways for kids to learn the same curriculum.

Source: my wife is a primary school teacher and really enjoys creating fun lessons.

I presume your wife follows the national curriculum. If she does the subjects children study, the content they learn and their progression within that curriculum are mandated. Children have extremely limited freedom to explore within those narrow guidelines. They are not free to pursue their own interests, to decide what they want to do with their time or to spend the amount of time playing that they would naturally. They are not free to socialise across age groups and they learn little to nothing about the deep, abiding interests of other children in the environment where they spend most of their waking hours for the majority of their childhood. They are not in any meaningful way free.

The curriculum is a mandatory set of topics (crudely speaking), yes. But how you teach that doesn't have to be sterile and unimaginative.

In terms of your point about kids having the freedom to explore the subjects they want, I think a fair amount of structure is actually beneficial rather than counter productive. Again, this doesn't mean lessons have to be boring.

If it was entirely down to the child me to control my learning, there is a lot of subjects I simply wouldn't have studied that adult me is glad are covered under the curriculum. There are children who, if given the choice, wouldn't do any studying at all and they really benefit from having structure. There are also children who simply don't know what that like yet and they really benefit from having exposure to the diverse range of subjects on the curriculum.

It's worth baring in mind that what the UK education system does works for the majority most of the time. There will be outliers of people who are disruptive and need more specialised attention just as there are people who are naturally inquisitive and might excel better in environments where their learning is left to themselves to structure. Given the demographic of HN, it wouldn't surprise me if we fall more into the latter category than a common slice of society normally would. However that doesn't mean that the net worth of our education system isn't there.

Curious what you mean by a different direction? I'm a fan of John Gatto so I wonder what direction you mean..

I think Wikipedia explains it well:

> John Taylor Gatto ... was an American author and school teacher who taught in the classroom for nearly 30 years. He devoted much of his energy to his teaching career, then, following his resignation, authored several books on modern education, criticizing its ideology, history, and consequences. He is best known for his books Dumbing Us Down: the Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, and The Underground History of American Education: A Schoolteacher’s Intimate Investigation Into the Problem of Modern Schooling, which is sometimes considered to be his magnum opus.

I.e. he was a former public school teacher who criticized public education and advocated for alternatives.

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