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Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

I am not trying to be offensive, but I have never ever understood how can home schooling possibly work. The sheer amount of knowledge that is covered at school seems like way too much for a parent or even two to teach. How can you give your child expert knowledge of physics, mathematics, history, biology, foreign language of choice and sports? Or do I understand how it all works wrongly? Where I come from home schooling is incredibly rare(partially because it's illegal, unless you have a disability).

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Art, sports, machine shop - you turn to professionals for these. But for the rest, any well-educated adult is able to teach up to middle school for instance.

It becomes harder in high school. Many home-schooled students attend regular high school when they are ready for it. And they are ready years earlier than those in the state-sponsored track.

Don't imagine that the average parent can teach a class of 30 better than a trained teacher. Nor can they tutor a single student better. But neither of those things is happening.

The average parent can tutor a single student better than a trained teacher can teach a class of 30 (or 40). That's the tradeoff you have as a parent. And yes, you sure can do better.

Consider: if that teacher did nothing but give individual attention to students all day for 5 hours, your student would get 10 minutes of individual attention per day. You can do that in the first 10 minutes of your home-school day. You can do 10 times better than that. In fact home-school 'school days' are generally just an hour or two, during which the student progresses further than the public-school student does in 5 hours.

Oh yes I agree that if each teacher gave you their undivided attention it would have been fantastic. But while I could teach my child maths or physics quite well, I would not know nearly enough history or biology to even start. So I would need to stop working and consider education of my child to be my primary job. I think that's a massive sacrifice that's completely unnecessary, but hey, that's just my own opinion - maybe there are home-schooling parents who work full time at the same time,but I can't see it work. And if they are not working,but staying home to teach their children then the net benefit to society is.....negative? That's just my guess though.

Or just get a good curriculum and follow it. You only have to be 1 day ahead on the lessons to teach. We're talking 6-12 year olds. You can read from the book, watch the videos with them, talk through your own experiences.

And its just an hour or two a day. Doesn't have to cramp your career at all. Or you can team up with others in your community, take a day a week and do what you know, leave the rest to the others. Now your child is in a group of 4 or 5, still manageable, still valuable to have the close attention of their teachers.

So essentially.......create your own school, use people in the community as teachers, and still call it "home schooling"? I am sorry,but I don't see it that way. And with most careers working as they are, if you spend 2 hours per day, you either have to give the lessons very early in the morning or very late in the day - both are horrible for children. And then you run into the same problems regular teachers do - when do you check homework? It will take you non-trivial amount of time which you don't have if you work full time.

School requires a structure, a time and place and schedule or its easy to get off track. So sure, create a school.

Very early in the morning is a great way to start the day. Young kids are never brighter than in the early morning.

If its not worth the effort to work full-time and add in home-schooling, then I'm sorry but it may not work for you. It sure does work easier if somebody in the household works part-time. I should say, works outside the home part-time, and works in the home part-time. Because the more you put into it, the more you get out.

It depends on the weight you give your kids in your life I guess. And the condition of your local schools. Maybe its not a problem where you are.

But if your schools are not the best, its a tragedy to consign your valuable child to a 6-year sentence in a rough environment. With a half-strength education and a poor start to life.

Most of the learning in school is taken from the material in the text books. So home schooling only requires an adult facilitator that can assist on moving that book knowledge to the brain of the student. Now that in itself is a skill that not every parent has. In those cases, the student, if successful, will figure out how to learn from the books.

Also much of home schooling is done as a correspondence course, which typically comes from a private school (these schools, usually religious in nature, have regular classrooms, and have home-schooled students which are considered part of the class, and they have periodic meetups available for field trips and stuff). In these cases there is a teaching staff to back up the parent, which provides homework and testing material, and sometimes phone support too.

> How can you give your child expert knowledge of physics, mathematics, history, biology, foreign language of choice and sports?

Who comes out of high school with "expert knowledge" in anything?!

The same could be said for a lot of university degrees for that matter.

Public education has only been a "normal" thing for a century and a half or so. It's certainly not the only way to turn out a competent adult, and that's assuming it actually does, which is becoming more and more questionable.

Sorry, I might have phrased that sentence wrong - by "give child expert knowledge" I meant that the person teaching has to be an expert,not that the child has to become one. If you are teaching your child about something that you haven't received proper education in, then what, do you expect to be learning as you go? That even sounds ridiculous, and I am pretty sure it is.

For elementary-age teaching, you really only have to be one lesson ahead. Which as an adult is easy/trivial. Its not expert knowledge you're providing; its training in how to learn, methodical approaches to study, and a lively interest in a variety of topics. And the topic of course, which is pretty much reading, writing and arithmetic. Which at that level if you haven't received proper education in, yes you should consider not home schooling.

Most classes don't require an expert-level of knowledge and some teachers are completely incompetent, especially prior to high school. I had a science teacher in junior high that did not believe in evolution.

Why do you expect parents to turn kids into experts in all these subjects, when public school is not reaching anywhere near that goal?

And who said kids must know those exact topics and not others? Why do you think when you have the liberty to teach your kids about the world at home, that you still need to follow the government curriculum?

Open up your mind.

On that topic: home-schooling opens up many opportunities unavailable to public school. Biology can include raising goats, space permitting. Gardening, cooking, beekeeping. Math can be integrated with gardening, carpentry, planning outings. Social studies can dovetail with public service, community events, food drives. Its all fair and all education.

Well I would expect my child to be taught biology by someone who has a higher degree in that subject, a degree which I myself don't have so I don't feel qualified to teach it. And I would like the government curriculum to be applied because I pay for it in my taxes, so I equate home schooling with an all out anarchism.

And I have my mind fully opened to the idea of home schooling - I just have not seen a single compelling argument for it yet. If such is provided I will support the idea fully - but for now for me it looks like it's just a waste of time and money.

There's little biology in elementary school (planting the seed in the cup). The government curriculum is available to home-schoolers for free; your school district is required to provide a copy to you if asked. So no problems there.

The money is a sunk cost, no getting that back. And the real waste; the real cost to you is the education or lack of one that your child receives.

If you don't value your child over your tax bill, then maybe home-schooling isn't for you. Just lob your kid into the public school and feel like you're getting a bargain; I sure won't be there to stop you.

Maybe it's just a difference in how things are done in different countries. In mine private schools are almost non-existent, and those that exist have a really bad reputation for basically giving out diplomas for money. There is a broad selection of public schools, and where I grew up(city of only 15,000) there were 10 different schools,and you could either go to a one which was bad with education or one which was consistently in top 50 in the entire country. Every single one of them free. That's what I mean when I say that I pay for education in my taxes - every level of education over here is free, including higher education(so colleges and universities too) - not using it and resorting to home schooling seems borderline foolish.

Free is a temptation I'm sure. Education in America through College is 'free' too, in the same sense.

But if you can afford the time and effort, then home-schooling is a whole different process with a substantially different goal. Instead of babysitting its about engaging your youth in lifelong learning. Its got the advantages of personal attention and customized plans. The child is relieved of the risks of institutionalization, while taking advantage of the facilities as needed.

Its not such a radical notion, to manage the education part of your child's life in much the same way you provide food and housing. In America, home-schooling before the modern age had a different name - it was called 'schooling'.

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