Homeschooling hits record numbers

The biggest misunderstanding I hear year-over-year is homeschoolers are "not exposed to the real world". Isolation exists for some, but my extensive interaction with homeschoolers is they are immersed in healthy communities, hand-picked by parents to keep away problem children. Who would plant a flower next to a sick or hostile one? Parents of healthy children should give 0 s*ts of societal/political pressure against this concept. Your kids are a bad influence for whatever reason? Not my problem to fix.

Homeschoolers are some of the most resilient and well-behaved people I know.

Modern academic life is only well suited to a small percent of the population. Those children who are truly happy and excelling in that setting.

So much time and resources, to produce what exactly? A piece of paper and fancy picture to stare at? Forced mass education was a good idea for developing societies, but personalized education has been possible for at least a decade now, at a fraction of the cost. And to add insult to injury, there's an increasing torrent of deranged ideologies teachers and professors share with students.

Here's a famous song on the topic for those who know how to "chew the meat from the cud": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xe6nLVXEC0&list=RD8xe6nLVXE...

* It's fascinating to watch the points on my comment go up and down a ton. Very controversial issue. I believe it highlights pressure from social and political structures in society, and/or personal experiences. They vary so much.

> Your kids are a bad influence for whatever reason? Not my problem to fix.

Not your problem to fix for sure - but it is your problem to equip your child to comfortably weather. There are bad influences out in the world and they generally have outsized effects on their social and professional scenes. In fact, the kind of curated, limited community you're advocating for is one where bad influences thrive.

> So much time and resources, to produce what exactly? A piece of paper and fancy picture to stare at?

I certainly agree the degree is whatever - but I think you're really under-valuing the social-gauntlet aspect of school. You will have classmates who kind of (or really) suck. You will need to do your work anyway. You will be incentivized to learn perseverance and a self-centered locus of control. These are valuable skills that only come from actual exposure to bad influences.

Someone who's perfect in perfect conditions is going to struggle because the world is not perfect. The aims you highlight here make me think less of homeschooling than I did before.