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Comment by deanCommie | Hacker News Reader

Before COVID, the only people I saw home schooling were doing so out of ideologic incentives.

(Other than extreme edge cases).

I see no issue with home schooling receiving a negative rep.

Unless you're a trained educator, I see no benefit to home schooling children and depriving them of standard curriculums and socializing.

(I'm biased having only experienced positive public school environments in Russia and Canada. Perhaps there is some dystopia with the American Public School system, but the root problem is America, not public schools)

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Not everyone has the same image or experience of school. I see School as a day care for children to allow parents to work during the day, with some inefficient learning on the side. It's very convenient, but not the only option.

Personally I learned nothing (edit: not much) in school, was bullied, it was an awful experience and all I remember is watching the clock all day waiting for it to pass while daydreaming. Elementary school was like one year to learn to make additions, one year multiplication, for how many hours in school? To finally get a lot of children struggling to read in 6th grade. Middle school was more or less the same for me. I feel like I was the subject of an ideology too.

I was similarly bullied through school and would easily get bored with the ease of the content.

I think partly because I never had the fine tuned sense of social interaction that many are naturally blessed with and paired with a dangerous tendency to let pigheaded curiosity be a guiding principle.

But, the the stuff it has taught me is indispensable. It was never taught explicitly, but without school I would have grown up completely oblivious of the invisible walls, thorns and highways that inhabit the society we live in.

Like if you want to infiltrate into a rebel base as a spy, you would want to spend a lot of time learning their mannerisms and adopting a persona. School helped me tremendously in fitting in, because my type of person would have certainly ended up an outcast in this society, if I was to be homeschooled.

Yes that's pretty much the question I'm trying to answer, and how outside activities with other kids could maybe replace that aspect of school.

Damn, Im sorry for your loss. School, like university, is not just about being looked after by more competent people. Its a place where you not only learn academic disciplines but also begin to understand how the real world works - social hierachies, networking and building relationships etc etc. To an extent, its what you make of it.

I don't question it's essential to learn what you point out, but that school as it exists and is organized now is maybe not the best, or at least the only way fit-all approach for education + socializing. On the education I'm sure it's not. On the socializing part I clearly didn't make much of it but maybe I'm lightly on the spectrum so it didn't help.

I read this essay a few years ago and it really resonated, it does obviously a way better job at putting my feeling into words: http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

Interesting essay. Not to pry, but how old are you? pg went to high school in the 80s, and as someone who attended more recently, most of his points read like artifacts of the time--something with more resemblance to a John Hughes movie than real life.

Are you really certain that you weren't one of the people who actually was part of the privileged clique?

My small town school had instances of missing teeth, broken jaws, one kid beaten far enough to require hospitalization for 2 weeks, etc. 10 years later, the popular kids say that there was no bullying and it was all intended in good fun. My therapist didn't even believe me at first when I discussed the things that were going on at my school, but luckily I do have some reminders of those times on visible places.

I'm 100% sure I fall under "nerd" as pg uses it--if you'd asked a random student in my year to name a nerd, it would've been me--and that's why I have trouble connecting with these stories. Neither I or my Academic Decathlon/programming/D&D friend group encountered that level of bullying. Cliques were there, but most people were in more than one, so the lines weren't very stark.

Your school sounds awful, I'm sorry. I went to a pretty diverse school with >2000 students, so there was some violence, but it was either mutual or gang-related. Petty teenager dickishness existed, but nothing like the kind of Stephen King bullies you describe. As far as I know, at least.

I admit I could've been oblivious, but for that to be possible already indicates a friendlier environment than these descriptions.

I don't necessarily disagree with you overall, but home schooling in general has one massive advantage over normal schools: the teacher to student ratio.

There are so many things that happen when you are sitting in a class of 32 students that could be far better. Delays simply due to lagging students, teachers not having time to properly explain things, or get to understand and correct holes in their students' knowledge, tailor subjects to their tastes and interests, etc. Some random acquaintance who home schooled her children pointed out to us that their biggest problem - after finishing the government mandated curriculum for the day in 2 hours - was finding things to actually keep the kids busy for the rest of the day. It makes me wonder what an optimised education system could actually achieve.

The problem I have with this is the "teacher" to "person" ratio. It doesn't matter if the teacher has more time per student to answer questions and properly explain if they don't know the answer. It's lacking in depth.

There really isn't any difficult material (at least in the UK) up to KS3. A competent tutor should be able to cover at least STEM alone, and I would be surprised if one person couldn't cover most of the rest.

There's also the issue that in a home schooling environment, the student is vastly freer to just ask questions. In a school, there's a curriculum and a lesson plan to follow, so the only questions that get answered are along the lines of "how do I do (this thing you just asked me to do)".

Another way to put that is that public schooling has the same problem, and institutionally at least the solution is to just discourage those questions.

It is not the concept knowledge that is lacking but the pedagogical knowledge. Knowing how to teach something is different from just knowing the thing. Especially when you consider that your child will have different learning needs than you did. Teaching professionals are experts at what they do.

A teacher has an entire classroom of children who rotate periodically, all of whom have different skills and learning styles.

A parent teaching their child for months and years gets a pretty good idea of how their child learns. They don't need to know how to accommodate every learning style, they just need to figure out one.

I don’t mean learning styles particular to students. I mean something specific to what is being taught: the dozens of different ways of teaching each skill.

This is quite an important point, though I would hope that someone who decides to dedicate 10 years or so of their life to the task would read up on the topic. (I mean that non-ironically, I suspect it is often lacking and doesn't happen.)

On the flipside, I have had several real teachers about whom I frequently wondered why they had chosen teaching as a profession. It was like they lacked both the aptitude for it, and had an intense dislike of students. To be fair, most were not like this, and there were a few truly excellent ones. But to make the argument that they are all highly trained, excellent professions is a bit of a stretch.

It's part of why teachers now generally stay in particular grade levels, rather than following the students or teaching multiple levels as was once standard. They become experts on the pedagogical content knowledge of their particular level, so they can apply years of experience to solving the unique challenges each kid has.

Most homeschoolers I know (I was homeschooled) would agree that its not for everyone. If you don't feel that you have the time or aptitude to teach then you should look for an alternative. Its a big commitment, both financially and in time spent.

That being said, you don't need to know all the material on day one. My mother did not know algebra when she taught it to my older brother the first time. She simply worked through the book a few lessons ahead of us, and if we ran into a problem we really couldn't answer, she reached out to friends and/or family who might be able to help. And I'm sure that wasn't the first or last time she encountered material that was new to her.

There are a significant number of resources and support organizations that can provide material, lesson plans, cooperative support, and many other things for those who aren't experts in a given field. I know many groups who collectively trade subjects leaning on friends who have a particular specialization.

If you teach your child how to learn on their own, they will be able to, at some point, take over their own education. That's what happen with myself and my two brothers. We all started taking primary responsibility for learning as we matured, and going into high school only occasionally leaned on our mom for assistance in a given subject.

The important thing here isn't that you as a parent know everything, but that you as a parent are willing to leverage the resources at your disposal and to invest time in learning when you need it.

Yes, I suspect this would depend quite a bit on both the quality of the parent as a teacher, as well as the "real" teacher we're comparing against. I've seen shocking extremes in either direction, for both individuals. I might be a bit biased in one direction, as my parents (and broader family in general) are quite knowledgeable, and could easily outdo the average teacher (as a broad average over the ones I encountered - full public school education in two different countries) on just about any topic, let alone their own areas of specialty.

It might have a worse fool to student ratio.

I find this trained educator comment awkward. For universities the main thing needed to be a professor is a PhD. While graduate programs will often require some amount of TAing (typically two semesters) that's not universally true in the US. You can complete a PhD in some schools without ever TAing. And then as applying to be a professor is judged at most schools mainly by your research and not your teaching experience it is conceivable to teach a class without prior study of teaching. The more typical case is you have been a TA for a couple semesters. I don't really consider that a high bar. My college allowed undergrads to TA for classes and I did that mostly for fun. Is that enough for me to be considered an effective teacher? I'd lean towards no, but it's pretty comparable to what graduate students typically would end up having.

As for education at high schools/middle schools, that also really depends. States usually have a teaching certificate/degree as needed, but sometimes a math degree is fine for teaching a math class even if you haven't taken any classes on education. Typically this happens in cases where there's a shortage of teachers for a subject. It doesn't help that a lot of states pay pretty mediocre for teachers.

I can say personally one of the high schools I went to, most if not all of the teachers had not done a degree in education and their background was pretty much entirely having studied the associated subject in college. I think for my other high school my teachers typically had education backgrounds, but even there I remember my chemistry teacher did not (she happened to be excellent anyway). My chemistry teacher had a chemical engineer background instead and wound up choosing to teach.

Extra anecdote I know my dad has been teaching for decades now as a professor, but back when he got his PhD he never TAed. He had 0 teaching experience/education until he taught his first class. I think TA requirements are less common in europe which is where got his PhD, although he did get it awhile ago so maybe things have changed since then.

I'm American and I was home schooled by my parents out of Ideological incentives. I also know a lot of home schooled families. My experience is anecdotal but real and somewhat informed.

Home schooling has a number of outsize advantages that neither public nor private school has:

* Individualized attention and instruction especially in the early grades.

* An emphasis on self learning and self instruction in the later grades.

* It is more time efficient allowing young children more time for play.

* It encourages development of social skills by imitating adults not you peers. In my particular circle of home schooled children this resulted in being more comfortable holding a conversation with other adults and in general less problematic social behaviors with other children.

* In many of our cases including my own personal case it resulted in a better education than the public school was capable of providing. (I was on the path to failing if my parents had not intervened in this way.)

The trade off is that our family had to be single income for most of my childhood and thus very low income. We were poor though I didn't know it at the time. My mom and dad had to sacrifice quite a bit to make it work. Home schooling requires a large investment in money and time to be done efectively.

I by no means think that home schooling is for everyone. My wife and I had to choose a different route for our family due to a number of personal circustances. However for those who are prepared and capable of doing what it takes it can be a superior education for many children.

I also do not think that public school is evil. It's an incredible tool to empower people to better themselves. But like homeschooling it's effectiveness is a function of the community and society they are in being willing to make the tradeoffs and sacrifices needed to have an effective education system.

For those families who are in a society where that is not the case home schooling can provide a way out where there might not have been any other way.

"It encourages development of social skills by imitating adults not you peers. In my particular circle of home schooled children this resulted in being more comfortable holding a conversation with other adults and in general less problematic social behaviors with other children."

When learning a language, the worst thing you can do is practice with fellow learners. It encourages propagation of mistakes, and can result in a miniature broken dialect among your group. I can see an argument that socialization is similar.

Of the children and adults I have met who were home schooled, most were inquisitive, thoughtful and open people which I found to be a stark contrast to those who were educated in institutions.

I believe that a side benefit of home education is that the process does not destroy a persons respect for learning and accomplishment.

There is a massive selection bias at play. People who need both parents working, and single parents, cannot homeschool. School is largely a matter of resources, whether it is a traditional school or homeschool.

And if you’ve never met a religious homeschooler then your sample size is quite skewed. According to the Department of Education they account for more than 66% of homeschoolers.

Outside of a few affluential areas, public school is dismal. I took the most advanced class for literature in my high school, and one of the projects was to decorate a book cover out of a cereal box. This was called "AP Literature" and was supposed to effectively be a collegiate-level class.

Interesting Caveat

affluential = affluent + influential

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/affluential

There is a definition of caveat that means portmanteau?

huh, TIL. interesting

...so? There is nothing in that description that is alarming. Sounds like a fun and creative project to show what you know, while giving less-verbal learners a chance to express themselves differently than an essay. I wish I went to your school!

The project wasn't chosen in order to assist less-verbal learners, it's because it was a school in an impoverished area where elementary teachers drank alcohol during work and the building itself hadn't had any renovations since the 1970's. No one gave a shit, and they didn't challenge their students, and many of them ended up with barely grade-school level knowledge by the time they graduated. You do not wish that you went to that school.

In case I wasn't clear in the above - if you went to school in a middle or upper class area, count your lucky stars, and consider the fact that your experience may not be representative of everyone's.

Many public school programs are set up more as 'day care for older kids' than 'a place for kids to learn'. It's highly dependent on what part of a city/county you live in, at least in the US, as to whether you'll have a healthy/positive learning environment in a school.

In addition to the other problems GP describes, top-level literature classes should not include "less-verbal learners."

> socializing

This is probably the biggest factor.

I can't imagine being schooled and not being socially mal-adjusted.

The big problem is that most of the socializing we know, is never explicitly taught, rather it's implicitly imprinted on us as we go through the same stages of life. Skip one of those, and it becomes immediately visible.

In a less egregious example, in Grad School, it took less than an hour of knowing someone to intuit if they have ever had to share their private space with someone else before. (ie. if they dormed in UG or shared rooms growing up). Similarly, spending your formative years in a non-standard environments leads to mannerisms that people similarly pick up on. Often, the differences are not taken kindly.

This argument crops up pretty often when the subject of homeschooling is brought up. I'm not sure I understand it really.

Socialization has never been the exclusive domain of the School Building/Environment. I would expect the most significant factor in any person's socialization skills would be the parents, as those are the people the child spends most the first 6 years of their life interacting with. And that doesn't change when a child goes to school. They'll still spend a more significant amount of time around their own family than with other people.

And who says that a school building is the only place that a child is going to encounter people who aren't in their own family? Churches, sports, a child's own neighborhood, and a wide array of social opportunities exist outside of school yards and classrooms. All offer opportunities for a child to encounter people who are different from them.

And, though anecdotal, I have met just as many socially maladjusted people who have gone to public or private schools as I have in the homeschool communities I've been a part of.

"Because that's how everyone else does it," or "other people will think you're weird if you're different," don't seem like very good reasons to mandate a society-wide rule on how to raise a child. Not to mention those arguments would have precluded the development of classroom schooling itself in the first place.

You are just saying the idea of public schools align with your ideological incentives.

A lot of schools function effectively as childcare for parents to go to work (or do their own thing). You can hear that in what some parents are saying now that schools are closed.

You can get more effective education from a couple of hours employing an educator to work 1-1 or in small groups; you can get more effective socializing from going to sports and hobby clubs which don't have to be segregated by age and where you can leave if it isn't working out - this teaches you how to value your time.

> You can hear that in what some parents are saying now that schools are closed.

This. I haven't read a single comment on Facebook from anyone complaining that their kids will get less knowledge this year.

One obvious benefit of home schooling is that it protects children from pandemics. Mark my words, there will be more pandemics in the coming years. Maybe the next disease will hit children harder, and the quality of a child's education doesn't matter so much if they're dead. (Even if it hits adults harder, your family dying is often a serious distraction from education.)

If this flailing response from the US gov't is typical, we can expect incompetence and denial to make coordinated response to outbreaks impossible. Even a sane administration would have limited options without universal healthcare, a strong social safety net so that people can survive without jobs, and dare I say a Green New Deal to drive the economy and avoid the next catastrophe.

Antibiotic resistance is a looming threat to modern healthcare, and covid-19 may worsen it: https://www.wired.com/story/covid-19-may-worsen-the-antibiot... If antibiotics lose their effectiveness, the world will not be the same.

It's also not possible to understate the threat of the potential spread of anti-science sentiment, including anti-vaxxers. Good policies could be defeated by enough people simply refusing to follow them.

TL;DR: The benefit of home schooling protecting people from disease will remain relevant.

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