
My Parents Were Home-Schooling Anarchists (2011) - akbarnama
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/magazine/my-parents-were-home-schooling-anarchists.html
======
lordnacho
From what I can tell as a non-expert, kids cannot learn certain things very
well until they reach a certain age or maturity, but after that age it's very
easy.

My gripe with the education system is that early on, there's too much focus on
learning things that people are going to learn regardless. If your kid learns
the alphabet at 4 or at 8, what's the difference? Can anyone not learn how to
read a newspaper by the time they leave school?

Later on, when the kids get to the teenage years, they are able to learn a
great deal of stuff. But then nobody is really teaching them when they can
learn. There's a whole load of scientific stuff that's quite interesting that
ends up getting crammed into a few years of high school, and crammed in a way
that turns kids off. And culture classes (literature, history) are so horrific
some people never pick up another book.

There's also not enough emphasis on motivation. The emphasis is on passing
tests. If you're motivated, you can learn anything. You'll even spend your own
time and money learning. My guess is the home schoolers have figured this out
and that's why they're not that far behind ordinary schools.

~~~
nationcrafting
>If your kid learns the alphabet at 4 or at 8, what's the difference?

It's a huge difference. As soon as a kid can read, they can learn in a way
that isn't just you telling them stuff. They can self-direct their learning,
read books about stuff, go online and devour Wikipedia, etc. It's not just
"hey, can anyone not read a newspaper by the time they leave school?", it's
"how soon does this kid have the tool to satisfy their natural curiosity about
things that require more than someone telling them about it?" which
establishes their relationship with learning itself, with knowing how to
learn.

~~~
learc83
There is no solid evidence that teaching reading early is advantageous, and in
fact there is evidence that it can be damaging. No one really knows why
exactly, but there are several theories ranging from discouraging other types
of play and interaction, to the difficulty turning them off of reading later
on.

>it's "how soon does this kid have the tool to satisfy their natural curiosity
about things that require more than someone telling them about it?"

I don't think that's true at all, an average 4-7 year old who can read, cannot
read to a level where they can learn topics complex enough that they "require
more than someone telling them about it."

A kid who learns to read at 7 will catch up to the kid who learned at 4, so
that by the time they are ready to teach themselves on their own through
reading, there won't be a difference.

[https://deyproject.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/readinginkind...](https://deyproject.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/readinginkindergarten_online-1.pdf)

~~~
egypturnash
> ...to the difficulty turning them off of reading later on.

Wait. What?

Who the hell thinks that making kids stop liking to read is a thing that
should happen?

~~~
jacalata
I think that sentence meant "the difficulty of reading at a young age makes
them less interested in reading when they are older"

~~~
egypturnash
Hmm, oh yeah, I think you're right.

(Personally I was reading by the time I was four without my parents doing
anything more than reading to me on a regular basis, and maybe setting a good
model by reading a lot themselves.)

------
OmarIsmail
The thing that stood out most to me in this article is the tale of abuse and
torment the kids received when going back to the formal school system. The
concept of teasing and abuse was foreign to them. Obviously it's just one
datapoint, but I'd love to see a study that checks whether the school system
makes children meaner and more cruel.

Imagine the damage being done to society if it really is the case that
traditional schools result in meaner people.

~~~
Udo
It might be the law of large numbers. The larger the school, the larger the
probability for one or more really mean kids per age group. This is then
probably amplified once more by school size since mean kids thrive on a large
audiences and have an easier time recruiting allies (who in this context
aren't actively mean themselves but are eager to provide social support
structures to bullies).

I switched primary schools once at that age because of massive bullying (in my
country switching to a different primary school is almost impossible unless
you move to another school zone, so it took quite some effort). The second
school was smaller and more diverse socially, and I got through the whole
thing much easier.

~~~
zanny
Same experience I had. Went from a medium sized middle school of ~3k to a high
school of ~15k students and had the worst time. Transferred to a rural high
school of ~1500 and had a much better experience the rest of my high school
years.

The other contributing factor though is culture. My middle school was serving
a metropolitan suburbia. Demographics were mostly white, a good amount of
Hispanics, and few Asian / African kids. Parents were often overbearing and
abusive through their helicoptering, Stark contrast with my high school - much
more mixed culture, knock 30k off the mean income, tons more violently abused
kids who take it out on their peers.

And then I moved to a literal bleach show, where in 1500 kids there were
probably ~50 - 100 non-white students, and it was in a college town where the
median income was around 100k. The kids were super passive aggressive to an
outsider like me, but there was absolutely no violent bullying, and the
insularism of the community meant I could just ignore everyone and they
ignored me.

Fundamentally though, its systemically broken to stuff kids in grades like
this, with the same peers, with no escape for over a decade. Bullying is
barely a thing outside of school because its only in school that you cannot
escape it. In the real world, you quit jobs with peer abuse, you move away
from toxic neighbors, you avoid the bad neighborhoods. It isn't toughening
them up because its in no way reflective of reality to have to put up with
verbal and physical harassment every day without reasonable recourse.

~~~
hdctambien
> In the real world, you quit jobs with peer abuse, you move away from toxic
> neighbors, you avoid the bad neighborhoods. It isn't toughening them up
> because its in no way reflective of reality to have to put up with verbal
> and physical harassment every day without reasonable recourse.

As long as you have the money or support to quit your job, or move, or avoid
the bad neighborhoods.

Do people choose to live in bad neighborhoods? Do they choose to send their
children to poorly funded schools? Do they choose to work part time, minimum
wage jobs?

> Bullying is barely a thing outside of school because its only in school that
> you cannot escape it

Or if you're a female on the internet.

Or black in the south.

Or poor.

~~~
guard-of-terra
"They want that nobody would be rich"

"My granddad wanted that nobody would be poor"

Do you want everybody to be poor, human-interaction-wise?

------
deckiedan
My brother and I were home educated from end of primary up to 18 years old or
so. My brother totally believes in home education, and (not but!) is now a
primary school teacher, after having gone on to do his degree and masters in
universities in the UK.

We found European home educators are often much more "anarchist" in the sense
of this article, liberal, free-thinking, non-conforming, often of non-
traditional religion / spirituality, who think the state system is too narrow,
limited, and structured. In the States it's much more right-wing religious
exclusionists who think the system is too liberal, unstructured, and ungodly.
A very very weird difference of culture.

My mum wrote a lot about home education, here's her site with all kinds of
info about getting started, details about what we did, etc: [http://home-
ed.info/](http://home-ed.info/)

I loved it, and it was perfect for me. My brother loves regime and structure,
so would probably have done fine in school. I'm much less academic, and do a
whole mixture of jobs (acting, teaching, programming, writing, A/V,
electronics, etc.) in a non-profit organisation. Almost all stuff that I
learned as a kid, with the oceans of free time that I had, and my friends in
school didn't. I worked in a theatre company for 3 years, and did school-work
in the evenings, or when I had time. I taught myself to code.

With our kids now, my wife (non-home-educated) is a bit skeptical of her
ability to home-school. Our son is still too young (he's one). I certainly
wouldn't object to him going to school - providing it doesn't interfere with
his education too much. :-)

------
abecedarius
Does the author resent staying out of school because... it didn't prepare them
for the awfulness of school? I kind of got that impression.

Imagine if all the state money that went into your schooling were invested
instead for your minimum basic income:
[http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/23/ssc-gives-a-
graduation-...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/23/ssc-gives-a-graduation-
speech/)

~~~
rmk2
> Does the author resent staying out of school because... it didn't prepare
> them for the awfulness of school? I kind of got that impression.

No. The author resents staying out of school because it also meant staying out
of more diverse and more regular social interaction. Successful social
interaction requires shared values (which wasn't really the issue) and, at
least to a degree, shared social experiences. If two people have hitherto had
experiences that are so divergent that ego cannot understand any of the
structures or references alter uses, then social interaction becomes very
difficult.

Accordingly, _fitting in_ was difficult because of their non-standard
upbringing, and while the parents might not have minded that they did not
quite "fit in", the children did not have a choice of their own or even the
necessary experience that would have enabled them to make an informed choice
in the first place.

What is described is the removal from the Zeitgeist, which becomes a problem
if others simply assume a shared set of conventions and experiences or if you
would _like_ to be part of a group that is based on different premises.

That school was (at least partially) awful was merely a symptom of this
underlying social schism, not a cause.

~~~
Turing_Machine
"The author resents staying out of school because it also meant staying out of
more diverse and more regular social interaction."

How is sitting in a room with other people, all of whom are within 12 months
of your own age, with an authority figure at the front constantly telling you
what to do, a "diverse" social interaction?

American schools were designed to produce factory workers who would stay on-
task based on the direction of a foreman and bells ringing at certain times.
That world doesn't exist any more.

~~~
lk145
The public schools I attended were far more economically, culturally,
ideologically, and ethnically diverse than both my private college and post-
college work environments (and you can throw in gender diversity too wrt my
work environments). I would not have met kids like this otherwise -- certainly
not if I had been in a homeschool group socializing with the children of
parents who had similar philosophical views about schooling.

Public education is certainly in need of big reforms, but I'm grateful for the
diversity I was exposed to attending one. It's a big part of what keeps me
grounded in the ridiculous Silicon Valley bubble.

------
guard-of-terra
"didn't they need to be with their peers and suffer all the harsh experiences
that entails"

Around some people, there's a belief that "doing time makes your a person"

But you know what. Regular folks avoid going to prison. Moreover, they avoid
doing things leading to that outcome.

Why would you submit your _child_ to prison-like environment? It's not like
adults are routinely exposed to that kind of experience. Certainly not
required for leading a productive life.

~~~
learc83
I've never understood this at all. Outside of public school, I've only
encountered one other similar environment--my first retail job after high
school.

After that, social interactions have been nothing at all like what school
prepared me for.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Worse still, school un-prepairs you from healthy interactions. You grow all
kinds of needles, you become wary of people and insecure. It takes literally
years of your life to overcome that. Sometimes forever.

------
VLM
Its an interesting story but I would summarize it more as being extremely poor
as children in the 70s, also they happened to home school although that wasn't
a substantial part of their story. Or if they somehow attended stereotypical
K-12, however impossible it would have been logistically, wouldn't have
changed the overall story very much.

Also, in the olden day, people, both kids and adults, were more creative.

~~~
toothbrush
> Also, in the olden day [sic], people, both kids and adults, were more
> creative.

Wat? [citation needed]

It probably depends on who you hang out with. Granted, i wasn't there in the
70s, but there are some mighty creative individuals in my sphere of
experience, both local and remote.

------
michaelfeathers
More upbeat than the story of the Paskowitz family, as told in the documentary
Surfwise. They said they never had trouble with the authorities because their
kids never started school. Dropping out of the system is tougher than never
entering it.

The kids, as adults, were quite resentful that they lacked an educational
background that could've helped them.

------
willchang
I generally sympathize with homeschoolers, but these parents seemed
pathologically unable to doubt themselves or admit to mistakes. They were
unable to see that their son, James, needed help learning to read, and even
seemed to minimize his unhappiness. They did nothing to prepare their children
for public school, despite professing to know how unpleasant the social
environment can be. When James was picked on by his classmates, he never let
his parents know — presumably because they were so unattuned to their
children's experiences that it would have been pointless.

These parents doubtless believed they were virtuous in rejecting the culture
of the times, but they went quite a bit farther and were basically delusional.
People like that should not homeschool.

------
wyager
First, an anecdote about home schoolers: I am good friends with three people
who started home-schooled and did not enter the traditional school system
until later on (two in high school, one in college). I don't think any of them
regret it, and they are all very well off academically. There seems to be a
popular conception of home schooling parents as crazy religious zealots or
something, which I think has little basis in reality.

Honestly, having spent about half my pre-college years at public schools, I
would much rather be home schooled than public schooled.

The primary reason is that it seemed like public school classes were always
geared towards the lowest common denominator of the class. I hardly did any
work (and hardly learned anything) because we spent so much time banging on
the same concepts for the benefit of the slowest people in the class. When I
finally went to private school, we suddenly started targeting at least the
middle of the class. I finally started learning things in school!

The secondary reason is political. Even from a young age, I was very aware of
the fact that the public school system didn't treat me like a human being. I'm
better at articulating why I felt that way now; it's because the public school
system is alarmingly close to the prison system.

As a child, you are legally required to attend school, under threat of force
(directed at your parents). Since many people can't or won't do home or
private schooling, this amounts to forcing many children to attend public
school. Upon arriving, you are not permitted to leave of your own free will.
You are subject to the arbitrary directives of non-elected officials. You are
stripped of many basic human rights on campus (in particular, the right to
free speech and the right to be protected from unreasonable searches and
seizures). There is a healthy judicial tradition in the USA of taking away the
rights of school children. I'm sure there's a list of relevant supreme court
cases around. Public schools in the US also do tons of political
indoctrination, like saying the pledge of allegiance on a regular basis.
Growing up in that environment was extremely deleterious to my critical
thinking; by the time I was in sixth grade, I had all sorts of authoritarian
leftist ideas of exactly the sort I'd been subjected to by my teachers and my
schools of the last seven years.

It wasn't until I finally switched to private school, where they treated me
like a human, that I realized I had been imprisoned about half the days out of
every year. Finally, I was free to leave campus of my own accord. Finally,
discourse, rather than blind obedience, was the norm. If private school wasn't
an option, I'd much rather homeschool my children than expose them to the
academic and psychological clusterfuck that is every public school I every
attended.

~~~
thesteamboat
> There seems to be a popular conception of home schooling parents as crazy
> religious zealots or something, which I think has little basis in reality.

Knowing nothing about you other than that you read and comment on this site I
would assume that 1) you are above societal average intellectually and
financially and 2) you associate with people who are similarly successful.

Given that you mostly know people roughly as successful as you, it shouldn't
be a surprise that people you know who are home schooled are doing about as
well as you are.

To directly address your point, I think of the home schooling population as
fairly bimodal; there are many parents who choose homeschooling for religious
reasons, and there are some (especially with gifted children) who homeschool
because the standard curricula move to slow. Which is to say, crazy religious
zealots are a large fraction of the homeschoolers, but not representative of
the homeschooled people you and I meet.

Incidentally, I was briefly homeschooled with no impact on my academic career.

~~~
jessaustin
_...you associate with people who are similarly successful._

This argument is nearly uncounterable (that's not a good thing): is anyone
going to respond "no I hang out with dumbass bible-thumpers all the time"?

Since we're comparing anecdotes, some homeschoolers I know might comprise
another "mode": those whose local public schools are so horrible and dangerous
that they cannot subject their children, whom they love, to such an
environment.

~~~
thesteamboat
> This argument is nearly uncounterable [...]

I'm not sure I understand your objection here. Most people spend their time
interacting with people who are similar to them. If anything, this is an
argument that anecdotal evidence is quite limited in general. But that doesn't
seem controversial at all!

------
sopooneo
I have seen this happen. To me, it is all legitametely wonderful, except for
the naiveté of the _parents_ in thinking they can drop their kids into the
churning river of public school without any instruction on how to get along.
That challenge can be addressed, but only if you acknowledge it exists.

------
macspoofing
There are multiple strains of Anarchism, each as valid as the next, and some
diametrically opposed to the other (eg. Anarcho-Capitalism vs. Anarcho-
Communism). People are going to self-identify in ways you may not agree, so
just focus on the content not the label.

------
ctlaltdefeat
This is not what the modern definition of "Anarchists" means at all.

~~~
jessaustin
This assertion would be more interesting if it included some supporting
detail. What is that "definition"? Why should we use it rather than some other
definition? How does the situation in TFA not qualify?

Don't worry, I'm not attached to any particular definition of any particular
political philosophy. I'm just curious about what _you 're_ trying to say.

------
zekevermillion
Why doesn't NYT let hackernews links through their soft paywall? I guess I
will go and google the headline so I can read the article...

~~~
dylanjermiah
Why should HN be an exception?

~~~
zekevermillion
It's in NYT's interest to allow people to read linked articles. I'm never
going to subscribe to NYT just to follow a link from Google or any other
source. But maybe if I read enough interesting pieces linked from other
sources, I'll shell out $100 to see what else is in the publication, access
archives, etc.

