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ecshafer

The way I look at it if I were to end up homeschooling my kid wouldn't socialize with the ~5 kids in the co-op.

* co-op

* Ballet

* Fencing

* Gymnastics

* Math Circle

* Church / Fellowship

* Neighbors

* Family & Friends

That easily adds up to 50 children their age.

But my thinking isn't really about the numbers of socialization. Public school academics move at a glacial pace. They don't have a sufficient rigor, lack a decent education in mathematics, neglect the classics and philosophy, and have started to neglect the western canon in favor of contemporary literature which is poorly written and offers little value. There are also, even in the best schools, trouble students that disrupt classrooms.

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In my neighborhood:

* there is no co-op. Meeting another homeschooler is a whole day affair due to traffic

* ballet and other extracurricular are fine, but always after school hours when traffic is terrible

* math circle is so oversubscribed you have to test to get into it

* neighbors’ kids are locked in school all day and then doing their custom extracurricular. We never see them.

* family & friends, we have none.

Nonetheless we homeschool. We can cover 2 years of math and reading in 6 months.

and what does “covering 2 years of math and reading in 6 months” do for you? getting ready to send your kids to 9-5 grind when they are 12?

I hope they’ll have more options than I did. I never wanted to be a SWE working in social media, but grad school in pure math showed me I wasn’t good enough. A common story.

your kids will have amazing opportunities just because you are obviously a kick ass parent. but I don’t think squeezing two years of math in 6 months will do anything

As a bright student who was never challenged in K-12, I can unequivocally state that this ultimately hurt me in the long run. I seriously didn't know how to study and didn't care to try learning when I actually needed it in some of my undergrad courses.

For example, when I took trigonometry in high school I did none of the homework, showed up to the tests and aced them. That led me to getting a C in that class (kindly the teacher advanced me to pre-calc, but forced me to retake trig as well). That's basically the attitude I had throughout high school and undergrad. I'm positive I could have amounted to more earlier in life (only years later did I return to academia to earn my PhD in CS after tiring of industry).

same-ish for me but times are different now. kids these days have all the knowledge in the world at their fingertips and it is really up to the kids (with a little guidance :) )

You can't forget the projects that are supposed to teach you that you're really gonna regret it if you don't have good study habits that you skate through fine without developing those habits. Causes all future teachers to lose credibility.

Or just because math is awesome and knowing more is just great knowledge to obtain.

For some reason people think having an education is only valuable if it is traded for money. For example I think an educated wife and a mom who never earns a single dollar from an employer is incredibly value to her family.

I hope my daughters get a robust liberal arts education and then just get married young and have kids and be homemakers.

It means they can get to the fun stuff that much faster. Speed run grinding the basics.

When do you work to pay for your life? And have time for your self?

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