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Comment by hprotagonist | Hacker News Reader

What stops me is that the socialization and peer-group relationship skills that are obtained rapidly in a public school context are not replicatable at home. Neither are the skills learned in dealing with non-family adults, independence of task skills away from home, and much else besides in that vein.

I would rather -- and do -- support the public school system in my (medium sized) city.

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It’s interesting because I actually have observed that homeschooling, especially in large urban areas, is much more social than school.

A huge number of families opt out of public school because of racism and bullying.

Just like families can design their child’s education, they can design their social experiences.

School is a socially engineered environment with little opportunity for organic play.

In traditional school, kids sit in rows or at tables in same age classrooms (often not very diverse ones since they are segregated by neighborhood in public school or parent ability to pay in private school)and they get 30 minute of highly chaotic recess a day if they’re lucky.

In homeschool , families participate in highly diverse, eclectic group of children of different ages. They engage in playgroups and community gatherings, field trips, classes, collaborative projects and have plenty of time for play.

The idea that homeschooling is less social is a myth - and as the homeschool population grows increasing opportunities for organic social interactions and true community emerge.

Here’s some more that I’ve written on this topic https://manisharoses.medium.com/highly-social-homeschooling-...

I'm wondering about the economics of a household that can afford to have at least one non-working parent in San Francisco, and can maintain all those activities for their children. To me, this reads like a schedule for the children of the particularly wealthy. No one that I know who lives with kids in the vicinity could afford this.

My wife is very active in various Mom's groups. When we were living in San Francisco, she was invited to a 1 year birthday party. This was for all kids who were all having their 1 year anniversary (+/- 1 month). Met at golden gate park and there must have been at least 100 families there that day. After that there were various posts inviting folks to form smaller cliques / pods around different neighborhoods. We never got into it cause most of the ensuing invites were for weekdays and both of us work.

I personally have never found the "socialization" argument persuasive. Public school is, in fact, a highly artificial and non-representative environment. You have a group of kids, all within 12 months of the same age, and an authority figure to boss them around.

As far as I know, that kind of "society" is not replicated anywhere, with the possible exception of military boot camp.

Real societies have a mixture of people from infancy to old age. Real workplaces have a mixture of people from entry level to retirement age. Even prison has a mixture of ages!

The model of education used in most of the United States was designed in the 19th century with the purpose of cranking out factory workers who would remain on-task until a bell rang -- so even its original purpose is largely obsolete.

Exactly this. Better have custom socialization, custom academics and custom childcare

A military boot camp is also an educational institution, so the similarity to a school is hardly accidental.

I broadly agree that it's a bit of an odd environment, and definitely not one that is optimized for socialization, but there are two reasons I feel that it "works."

Firstly I think that simple exposure is very important. Going to school tends to just force you to interact with a lot of different people. That could probably be replicated in other environments, just with more difficulty.

Second, I think that one of the most important facets of socialization is shared experience. Even if traditional schooling isn't an ideal setting for socialization, it is still what most experience. I think removing a child from that sets them up for a significantly more challenging time when it comes to relating to others.

So yeah I think I agree that school isn't really ideal for socialization, but I'm not sure there is a better option out there at the moment.

> the skills learned in dealing with non-family adults

In my experience, the relationship developed with non-family adults at school is a narrow, one-sided relationship, where non-family adults are authority figures, rather than say, mentors, strangers, or even friends. Having this skill is still important but the one-sidedness can warp a kid's perception of what adults "are", so it's important to develop adult relationships outside of the school setting.

Also, your first sentence seems true to me, but I assume home-schoolers aren't always at home -- they can meet with other groups of home-schooled kids, or join groups related to sports, activities, etc. This, of course, largely depends on the parents.

I was a camp counselor for many years in my teens and into my twenties.

We could always--always--tell which kids were the homeschooled kids.

Would appreciate an anecdote.

Can you elaborate?

Because they were less amenable to blindly accepting orders from arbitrary authority figures?

In my experience s/less/more/ .

I was homeschooled for several years, and have known a variety of other homeschooled people.

For me personally, I was impacted in my ability to socialize with people in my own group, and did not develop any rebellious tendencies until I re-entered public school and realized there were other options.

For some homeschooled people I know, they can't read at above a first grade level.

Others can read/write at a higher than average level, may be average or better at math, and have little capability to interact with others.

Still others are some of the smartest, most well rounded people I know.

Unfortunately, most homeschooled people in my experience sit somewhere between the first and second groups - which then means that gatherings of home-schooled families will also tend that direction.

Can you explain briefly in what way you could tell?

Whatever selection biases there may have been in the past, homeschooling is becoming much more popular now. COVID and remote school pulled back the curtain on the type and amount of learning that is happening in public schools, and parents of all types are opting out of the system.

What we are seeing now is a seismic shift that will result in a much more mainstream population of homeschooled kids. I doubt it will be as easy to tell which kids were homeschooled in a decade.

Can you provide data to back this claim?

> James Dwyer, a professor at William and Mary Law School and co-author of “Homeschooling: The History and Philosophy of a Controversial Practice,” told me: a growing segment of “the mainstream middle class, well-educated and not on either political extreme, has been very disenchanted with public schools’ response to the pandemic.”

from https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2022-01-24/8-t...

There are many other articles about the growth of homeschooling during the pandemic, and the likely causes. As the author of the LA Times article notes, the data is still being gathered so experts' theories have yet to be validated with certainty.

But I've not seen anyone question the notion that the people who have recently started homeschooling are not demographically the same as those who homeschooled pre-pandemic. If you have seen such claims, I would be interested to see them!

There could be a selection effect at play. When I was growing up (the nineties), there was a social stigma around homeschooling due to its association with creationism. I went to Christian summer camps until I was a teenager, and the homeschooled kids stood out even in that environment as by far the more religious among us. Whether they were awkward because their religious practices shielded them from normal life or because they were raised by naturally awkward parents that self-selected into a highly regimented lifestyle is a mystery.

> We could always--always--tell which kids were the homeschooled kids.

With 100% accuracy in which direction? You noticed every homeschooled kid, or every kid you thought was homeschooled was actually homeschooled? Because those have very different implications.

What about this is specific to public as opposed to private schools?

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