Experience with homeschooling (as student or parent / instructor)

Discussion Greater Forumosa
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Two kinds of kids, those bound for higher education and those who are not. I think homeschooling can work for both.

I think the problem is that, increasingly in many (mostly urban) school US districts public education has a set of goals that differ wildly from the goals that well-meaning, striving, responsible parents have for their kids.

For most of them it’s a way to outflank the growing problems within traditional “education” and provide their kid(s) a path to a successful life (obviously doesn’t apply to special needs kids). That does not make the parents bad people. In fact, in today’s US it probably says more about the current state of public “education” and the disastrous effects of equity (including CRT and DEI concepts overall, but here I mean DEI equity: equality of outcome without regard to merit) on kids who might otherwise thrive with benefit of higher education.

Most parents only got one batch of kids, after all. I don’t see how it’s at all unreasonable for parents to want the best for their children. And I don’t think they should be held in contempt for doing so.

For those not bound for higher education (and I think that’s far and away the majority of American kids) then this school district in Maine may be the way to go. These kids are going to depend on their wits, and equity will likely never be their lived truth.

I think public education is at a fork in the road, at least in the US. Unless changes are made, homeschooling is probably going to keep growing and is here to stay.

Eighth-grader William “B.J.” Hallowell is among those who have benefited from the program. His poor performance in school made a U-turn as soon as he was introduced to the trades. His yard is now cluttered with tractors and snowmobiles he’s taking apart, and he dreams of becoming an engineer. His family says he’s happier and calmer and his grades have improved. “Since he started doing hands-on learning, he’s a totally different kid,” his mom, Veronica, said.

Bryson Mattox, 17, said after St. George created its trade program he went from being bored and “coasting” in school to feeling “energized.” Bryson’s sentiment reflects national trends. According to the Association for Career and Technical Education, vocational training is associated with higher levels of student engagement and reduced high-school dropout rates. Though still a high-school senior, Bryson has his own laser-cutting business; he makes signs, mugs, puzzles and cheese boards. He already has an offer to work at Lyman-Morse, a custom boat builder in nearby Thomaston, after graduation.

A Maine Lobster Town Sees Its Future in Shop Class - WSJ (archive.is)

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22

Who knew that the OP’s simple question about homeschooling would open up this huge can of worms arguing for traditional schooling. :joy:

Now I know why they specified:

A lot of good arguments here for traditional schooling, but none of that matters if OP can’t get their kids to school.

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Well, we decided in the US that people are “supposed to” go to college, rather than providing other opportunities besides “college”. I wasn’t even allowed to take a woodworking class in hs because I was “too smart for that”. My high school was very much tracked into who will go to college and who was supposed to just be stupid and fail in life. This was based on our parent’s education levels and professions just as much as our own grades

I don’t support the idea that everyone should go to college. Trades pay very well and are arguably more necessary to a functioning society than most lawyers and consultants (we need electricity and plumbing in our homes. We don’t need people to help with frivolous lawsuits). But it is a fundamental human need to be social and have social connections, which you do not get in the same way from playing sports or tinkering with Lego robotics as you do from your peers in your classroom. Children need many different experiences with the widest possible variety of people (ability, language, socioeconomic background, religion) around their age. Homeschooling prevents them from access to almost all of these things, no matter how hard parents try to arrange play dates.

There is also a massive push to undermine public education and standards for teachers across the US, with some states (like Arizona) allowing anyone 18 on up to be a classroom teacher. Rather than pay teachers a living wage, they removed any qualifications at all to be a teacher. This leads people with the means to do so to pull their kids out and send them to private schools or use state and federal funds to develop private and unregulated micro schools/homeschool their children. This means people with parents who are literate, competent, and have enough money to give them copious amounts of support get an education of some form. Meanwhile, the children of parents who have to work for a living or do not have an advanced education are stuck with some high school drop out collecting a babysitting paycheck instead of teaching them to read or do basic math. This doesn’t help anyone in society because poor overall education outcomes lead to crappy jobs with wages that can’t support basic needs for the majority of the population, leading to increased violence and crime cuz it’s easier to steal than get a job that can feed yourself.

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Thanks to all for the input.

I did intentionally hold back as I did not want to preempt the discussion.

As already intimated, we are not on the fence but have taken the plunge. There is a (severely under-resourced) local school which the kids will attend for activities, and we are in a village with kids more or less their age, so the socialisation should be sufficient. (As an aside, the eldest already easily initiates social contact with peers.) They will be free to run feral once the schoolwork is done, most which will be outdoors. This is the kind of place where the shopkeeper knows you bought fish yesterday and will set aside that special sauce to go with it. So, assuming rural people are validly human, this socialisation should not be discounted. When they are older we plan on taking them to an aboriginal south american village for a year or so. So while I do not discount the value of in-classroom-socialisation, there is more society to see and understand than the classroom mill.

We will periodically volunteer to teach some specialised classes at the school as well. We will also get tutors (face to face and online in extreme circumstance) for some topics to ensure no academic standards are compromised.

Regarding reasons, they are many, but nothing judgemental: key points being identified public system shortcomings (and our ability to address this at a family level rather than at a societal level), better living environment, and the flexibility to experience life in different countries for extended periods of time without interrupting their studies.

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25

It would be presumptuous for me to say; depends on student, circumstance and goals. We dipped our toes into the local system and we noted academic and social regression in the eldest, which confirmed my experiences teaching and lecturing at all levels in Taiwan.

“Pain as social glue?” :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

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True, which is why they will be earning the black belts in running feral in the village soon. once school work is done, they will be out of my hair socialising with ALL ages as they see fit, not the artificial limitation to people of their own ages. We will also take some neighbourhood kids in on some of the homeschooling classes.

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27

Growing up in the 70s, our neighborhood had at least a dozen to a dozen and a half of guys with age differences of up to 7-8 years old. We played baseball in the corner lot, tackle football, basketball, etc. Definitely helped the younger kids to see/hear the older ones’ viewpoints, musical taste, etc.

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