
Why We Choose to Homeschool Our Kids - technologyvault
http://prosperopedia.com/why-we-choose-to-homeschool-our-kids/
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feistypharit
Though I disagree with much in this article, I can see some of the reasoning.
I agree that parents need to take more of a role in their children's lives (in
US anyway). School is meant to teach some very specific skills, but it by no
means is meant to raise your child. But you also learn other things in
school... And I agree it can be more efficient to tailor a curriculum to a
child...if your goal is to only learn that one thing. What they'll miss is how
to tolerate and work with other, very different people. Traveling is great
too, you can learn a lot, more people in the US should do it.

However, I worry about abandoning the system and isolation. There's already
large politic, social, etc divides, I think this will make them worse.

Also, a call to be more like the prosperity when our founding fathers time?
Please..that's a sheathed call for racism, slavery, and all sorts of
persecution.

~~~
bitlax
> And I agree it can be more efficient to tailor a curriculum to a child...if
> your goal is to only learn that one thing.

I assume that by "that one thing" you mean the curriculum itself. It seems
obvious that the core concern of the education system should be the mastery of
some agreed-upon curriculum, and that students performance should be the
primary metric by which the system is judged. The rebranding of the public
schools as socio-cultural stewards is a head fake designed to move the
discussion away from how these educators have failed in their core mission. It
is also a natural result of the overrepresentation of social science majors in
the teaching profession.

> What they'll miss is how to tolerate and work with other, very different
> people.

Public schools are actually very bad at this. Especially in primary school,
students primarily interact with children their same age. Students form social
groups, self-segregating by gender, race, economic status, neighborhood, etc.
Students learn to exclude others and ostracize those who aren't members of
their groups. The author speaks writes about his and his family's experiences.

> Traveling is great too, you can learn a lot, more people in the US should do
> it.

Again, the author talks about this. He moved the family to Costa Rica for six
months. His children are studying Mandarin for an upcoming trip to China.
Public schooling families are tied to the public school schedule, and
therefore generally must travel when it is most expensive and most crowded.
Also, I'm not sure why you think homeschooling would preclude or discourage
travel.

> However, I worry about abandoning the system and isolation.

These children are not isolated. Again, the author talks about the myriad
activities in which the children are engaged, as well as the time they
actually get to spend forming more meaningful bonds with their family members.
I know many people can speak to how isolated one can feel in a public school.

If by "the system" you mean our society and system of government, I'm not sure
why you view these children as some sort of threat. They are well-loved and
competent; and if they weren't, you acknowledge that the schools are not
responsible for parenting them. Aside from textbook Marxists, even people who
are against homeschooling generally feel broken homes are much more of a
societal threat.

If by "the system" you mean the public school system, I wouldn't worry. The
public school system isn't going anywhere. It's a massive bureaucracy and
children (especially those with working parents) have to go somewhere during
the day. By your standards, the schools will probably only become more
successful, by housing an increasing number of children of various backgrounds
in the same place during the workday.

> There's already large politic, social, etc divides, I think this will make
> them worse.

I'd like to see some evidence that the homeschooling population will have any
impact on whether society at large is polarized or not on a particular
subject. There are plenty of issues where the polarization is simply a result
of people having more information. The usual example is when some people want
to build a bridge and some people don't want to build the bridge. The solution
is not to compromise and build half the bridge. And a large number of people
are going to be unhappy whether or not the bridge is built. But that's not
indicative of a failure of government, but rather how government works. More
people today understand how policies affect them personally and are able to
advocate for themselves more effectively. At any rate, it's safe to say that
the public schools have probably tended toward your ideal more over the last
few decades and the polarization has become more pronounced, so it's tough to
say that the recent small trend toward homeschooling is causing or
contributing to the polarization.

> Also, a call to be more like the prosperity when our founding fathers time?
> Please..that's a sheathed call for racism, slavery, and all sorts of
> persecution.

This I think you nailed. It's easy to see that these people will not stop
until slavery is reinstituted nationwide.

~~~
technologyvault
Maybe you're just being sarcastic with the reinstitution of slavery remark?

If not, I'm interested in knowing how the idea of promoting racism and slavery
could be connected to anything in this article.

I'm the author of this article on homeschooling, and I don't even recall
having a thought about racism, slavery, etc. while writing the article.

If the idea is that anyone who respects and reveres the Founding Fathers must
be racist, I don't see the connection, although I have seen enough revisionist
historical writings that falsely paint them in a poor light (including making
all of them racists because they allowed slavery) to discredit the system they
set up.

For some examples of how modern historians have changed our view of the
Founders, I'd recommend reading "The Jefferson Lies" by David Barton.

~~~
bitlax
Yes, I was being sarcastic, which is sort of bending the HN rules but: 1. I
thought I had enough substance in my post to balance it out and 2. I didn't
think it was a claim that showed any depth and was therefore worth responding
to seriously. Haha I mostly responded for fun and to get my own thoughts in
order. I thought it was so far down the HN rankings that even the original
poster wouldn't read the response to his/her comment. Thanks for a great read!
The subjects of the article are a real inspiration.

Edit: Well I guess you're the subject of the article so congratulations and I
wish you and your family continued success.

~~~
technologyvault
Thank you for the compliment. Our next adventure involves starting a bluegrass
band in Tennessee. We'll see how that goes.

