1156 sats \ 13 replies \ @south_korea_ln 25 Feb \ on: Over 3 Million Americans are Homeschooled charts_and_numbers
Based on my uninformed opinion, this would be more of a testament to how bad public schools have become in some places in the US than to interpret this directly as a positive trend.
I believe that a good trained teacher who is paid a decent wage is better than a motivated parent who has many other responsibilities than teaching a full curriculum for 7 or 8 hours a day. I speak as someone who already has a hard time giving quality material to my son when I have to watch him on his days off from kindergarten while taking care of my full-time job. Even without a full-time job, it'd be hard. I know of some parents who can do this well, but they are the exception rather than the rule.
The social skills one learns in a good school setting are also invaluable.
The kids at school are not doing a full curriculum for 7/8 hours a day, a lot of it is "busy work", crowd control and other unnecessary stuff. Most "homeschoolers" (i.e. those who do "school" or at home) pull it off in about a couple of hours - 3 hours at the most.
reply
This is correct. My son, now 13, has been homeschooled for his entire educational career. If we didn't allow him to get ahead or work on other educational/developmental interests such as coding, music, taekwondo/working out during his 8 hours of schooling per day he would be done his entire daily curriculum in 2-3 hours.
He is a grade level ahead in every subject and two grades ahead in math.
Public schools are more about social development and learning to take instruction and get work done than actual education. How can one teacher truly dynamically teach 30 students who each need to learn in their own unique way?
Anyways, I am a bit biased because we have had so much success with homeschooling and I know a lot of people I went to school with that became teachers and only one of them did it because they are passionate about teaching. The rest did it because in Canada it is a really cushy job, well paid, with a lot of time off and you can be really bad at it and never get fired. That's just reality. The teachers unions practically run Canada.
reply
reply
My son loves being homeschooled. He has a couple extra curricular activities he does to add in some of the social element. His friends are pretty cool about the fact that he is homeschooled.
What's interesting is the change in reaction from other parents. We used to get odd looks from fellow parents when we said we were homeschooling but now we get more interested looks and a lot of questions so there has definitely been a shift in public perception.
reply
Regarding socialisation, home educated kids are learning social skills in the "real world" rather than in a class of 30 kids the same age as them (so like 3x0 8 yr olds) and the teachers who are "authority figures" which often creates an unpleasant power dynamic as there is a need for control. In home education there is a wide range of ages and experience and more of a mutual respect between adults and children. It's difficult for people who don't have the experience to grasp. I was there 16 years ago, thinking I was crazy for removing my eldest from state education - but it was pretty swift learning curve, once I was plunged into it.
reply
One additional thing that just came to mind is how schooling affects the parent-child bond, especially when both parents work, as it's the often the case nowadays. Children mostly experience their parents in stressful situations. In my opinion, this has unthinkable far reaching consequences.
When you talk to relatively older people, like 50+, you realise that they had much more freedoms. Already in early age, they could roam the streets unsupervised, socialise, play, explore with other kids. This would be unthinkable today, especially in a big cities. A tragedy!
reply
Appreciate the positive experiences with homeschooling shared as counter arguments to my initial reply. I'm happy to hear it's not all black and white. I probably based my opinion on the extreme cases of American homeschooling portrayed in foreign media where parents insulate their kids from different ways of thinking based on extreme religious convictions or based on a dogmatic rejection of the scientific method of understanding the world. Even then i realise that this last statement is probably also too generalizing. In any event, it is interesting reading people with different perspectives of the world.
reply
I probably based my opinion on the extreme cases of American homeschooling portrayed in foreign media where parents insulate their kids from different ways of thinking based on extreme religious convictions or based on a dogmatic rejection of the scientific method of understanding the world
Whilst I don't doubt those situations do definitely occur, bear in mind that almost all MSM articles on homeschooling will be hit pieces specifically skewed to paint homeschooling in a negative light. We need to ask ourselves, should we believe everything you read in the mainstream?
Thank you for considering another point of view 🙏🏼 I appreciate it! As a home educating parent, I have spent the past many years being held accountable and often attacked for doing the best by my kids. It can be mentally draining. Literally nobody has to justify their decision to send their kids to school, even if that school is absolutely terrible and they get beaten up or abused everyday.
reply
Do not underestimate the child's intrinsic motivation for learning. Ultimately, this is what matters. Adults' roleis to protect and encourage at this at all costs, but unfortunately the opposite happens in most schools.
Based on my limited knowledge of the montessori system, teachers are only guides, and children do the "heavy lifting" on their own.
Also, I am sure if there were no schools, children would still have plenty of opportunities to mingle and learn social skills.
reply
Exactly, I have seen myself as a facilitator and support person in my children's education, rather than a teacher. If I was to let my ego get in the way, my children would have only learnt what "I" know. They were capable of so much more than that!
And yes to your point about social skills. People don't realise that schools are a relatively new concept in the history of the human species. Kids were not unsociable, uncouth savages, incapable of holding a civilised conversation before school came along. 😂
reply
I believe that a good trained teacher who is paid a decent wage is better than a motivated parent who has many other responsibilities
Teachers can have 30+ kids to cater for with many other responsibilities and red tape that are part of their job but not actually related to teaching. It's a major complaint from teachers in many different countries right now. The testing and marking alone takes up so much of their time. Of those 30+ kids, all have different abilities, strengths, learning styles, personalities, academic levels, special education needs. That's before you even get into lesson plans, preparation, parent teacher evenings, social issues, socio-ecomonic issues, bullying and much much more that teachers have to deal with. The huge rise in autism spectrum disorder is a major challenge for many teachers right now. It's a hard job! I'm not saying home educating your kids isn't hard but it's a whole different beast.
I have been told by 2 different fellow home ed parents, who are both ex-teachers, that the best home educating parents are not ex-teachers, as they are not basing the facilitation of their children's education on the bias of their training. They are coming at it from a completely different angle. Plus they have a vested interest in their own kids. A lot of public schooling is testing and crowd control.
reply
What works in South Korea won’t work in USA because of ethnic and cultural homogeneity
reply
For sure. Lots of nuance to this type of question. Hence my uniformed opinion on the US situation.
reply