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Homeschooling hits record numbers

(reason.com)
193 points bilsbie | 1 comments | 21 Nov 25 00:31 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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jmathai ◴[21 Nov 25 01:56 UTC] No.46000348[source]▶
I do think Covid forced people to ask questions they hadn’t before.

We have sent our kids to private, poor quality and top rated schools.

We saw a stark difference between the poor quality and higher cost options. No surprise.

But the reason we are considering home schooling our younger kids was surprising. It says something about a system dedicated to teaching children when parents think they can do as well or better.

That’s just education. The social situation in schools is ludicrous. Phones, social media, etc. what a terrible environment we adults have created for kids to learn both educationally and socially.

Home schooling has answers for ALL of that.

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aidenn0 ◴[21 Nov 25 02:03 UTC] No.46000393[source]▶
> But the reason we are considering home schooling our younger kids was surprising. It says something about a system dedicated to teaching children when parents think they can do as well or better.

What's the reason?

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jmathai ◴[21 Nov 25 02:07 UTC] No.46000429[source]▶
I think we could teach them as well as the school does. And more importantly, we can provide a better environment for them to mature socially.
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Voultapher ◴[21 Nov 25 10:24 UTC] No.46003115[source]▶
> And more importantly, we can provide a better environment for them to mature socially.

Citation needed.

Every perspective I've heard personally - and mirrored in comments here as well - from the non parent side of things, is quite negative in terms of learning how to behave and socialize with your peers. To you the children might seem polite and servile, and you might see this as something positive - as you state in another comment - but you are likely setting them up for life of social awkwardness and ostracization.

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1. aidenn0 ◴[22 Nov 25 00:06 UTC] No.46010630[source]▶
I know a ton of home-schooled kids and this is far from universal.

Yes, kids who were home-schooled because their parents didn't want secular society interfering with them raising their kids in a niche religion are more likely to experience this. Even in those cases, however, I found that the kids adapted rather quickly.

In most other cases[1], the parents were explicitly worried about their kids' socialization, and found many opportunities for the kids to interact with other kids their age (e.g. typical after school activities like sports or such).

Many of the kids I know who were both home-schooled and socially awkward started in public school and were pulled due to bullying &c. To say that the home-schooling stunted their social growth is a counterfactual; it's just as easy to see them ending up worse off.

For the most part, I would say that socializing in public school vs. homeschooling is a bit like communication with in-person companies versus remote; in the former it just "happens" to some degree, sometimes well, sometimes poorly; in the latter it requires intentional work to happen, but can still happen.

1: A notable exception is one person I know who was homeschooled by parents, with a father that traveled a lot for work and took his family with him. She was often in situations where she had fewer than 5 kids around close to her age who also spoke English.