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Homeschooling hits record numbers

(reason.com)
216 points bilsbie | 2 comments | 21 Nov 25 00:31 UTC | HN request time: 0.445s | source
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pyuser583 ◴[21 Nov 25 21:44 UTC] No.46009344[source]▶
I used to teach high school. The amount of time I spent doing crap work was insane. It was necessary. If you don’t remind students 100 times what the assignments are, they won’t do them.

You also have to spend an insane amount of time with the lowest performers, because with enough attention, they can improve dramatically.

But this creates tradeoffs. Should I neglect the students doing best?

One on one instruction is the best kind. It’s generally reserved for doctoral students.

I also tried homeschooling by eldest. It didn’t work.

Its insane more parents don’t homeschool.

replies(1): >>46009874 #
kachapopopow ◴[21 Nov 25 22:39 UTC] No.46009874[source]▶
well if we just apply the bell curve here, on average children will be pretty average (shocker) so those should be left on their own and discover their own niche while bad performers should get extra attention so they can keep up with the rest and with the gifted (if they actually want to) given the opportunity to explore higher level subjects.

so in the end we give attention to gifted and the struggling since there's very little you can do to children who are already decent and are capable of keeping up at most they lack discipline or motivation.

replies(1): >>46011425 #
1. pyuser583 ◴[22 Nov 25 02:11 UTC] No.46011425[source]▶
Gifted and average students who aren’t given attention become poor performers quickly.

Gifted students especially.

Students who learn ahead don’t want to be told: “ok you have the material, so I’ll ignore you for a bit.” They want more. They want their questions answered, even if the questions aren’t part of the lesson plan.

Nobody wants to be told “we aren’t studying that today.”

You really can’t starve the rest of the class to cater to poor performers.

replies(1): >>46011888 #
2. kachapopopow ◴[22 Nov 25 03:40 UTC] No.46011888[source]▶
teaching independent learning is also a very valuable skill, most average people can do it especially the gifted ones as long as they are given the resources to do so and general skills taught in the first 8 grades since realistically I caught up by 10th grade while being a very poor performer in the first 8 (mostly due to lack of effort and generally being very stupid as a kid).

also there is very little excuse now with how advanced AI is getting at being able to explain subjects, it's all coming down to motivation, environment and the ability to use these tools in the first place - children struggle to use computers since we see it as a given, but to someone who didn't grow up with the incremental advancements it can seem very overwhelming.