Reply With QuoteYep. We have 5 aged 17 down to 9. They’re homeschooled.Originally Posted by Mark Rippetoe
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Correction, the sport was softball, and the school volunteered insurance information to cover any associated medical cost.
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Yep. We have 5 aged 17 down to 9. They’re homeschooled.
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Then the local board of education and school system leadership have failed. Vote the school board out and replace the school system leadership. It's really that simple.
As a non-shitty teacher (middle school, special education), I have to disagree with you, Rip. Very few parents are qualified to teach their children. Contrary to popular belief, teaching (I'm referring to actually providing children with the tools [both academic and social] that they need to be successful in life.) isn't easy. Sure, there are kids that will learn regardless of the specific situation they are placed in, but those kids would learn just as much in a public school as they would at home. These students are in the top 10%. The rest of the population benefits from rigorous, quality instruction (Rare these days.) provided to them by people that are qualified to do so (Even rarer than rigorous, quality instruction.). In my personal opinion, pushing for homeschooling is a cop out. It's a 'take my ball and go home' mentality. Instead, people (and I mean ALL people...even those without children) need to demand improvement in their local school systems. Better schooling means better post-secondary outcomes for your citizens. Better post-secondary outcomes for your citizens benefits everyone living the in the community (i.e. less reliance on welfare, lowers costs of policing/incarceration, lowers costs of health care, etc.). Can you homeschool your kid? Sure. But you're still going to be paying for/dealing with the end results of a crappy school system for the rest of your life. Why not take the time to improve the school system, and by extension, your entire community?
In addition to the lack of parents qualified to provide their children with an education, there are some really important social-emotional skill sets that children in homeschool situations don't learn without the parents going out of their to expose them to the situations required to develop those skill sets. I work with students outside of school (quite a few of which have been homeschooled), and I can easily point out the kids that haven't ever attended a public school. They're often socially awkward and have few, if any, friends. They missed out on the whole hidden curriculum (social-emotional) that a vast majority of public school students learn intuitively. Whether you realize it or not, this is just as, if not more, important as the concrete information that students learn during their years in school. You can be brilliant, but companies aren't going to hire you if you're incapable of working with your peers. You're simply not worth the HR hassle.
Just my two cents.
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This is actually incredibly difficult, nigh impossible.
This is an appeal to authority, qualification. I can make just an easy argument that many if not most qualified, i.e., State-licensed, teachers may not actually be qualified to teach children. I have teachers on both sides of my family; they will be the first to criticize the ineptitude of some of their colleagues.
There are several self-guided homeschooling programs, parental supervision is not necessary. Moreover, those who teach, tend to learn themselves. But the point is to break the cycle which is demonstrably not working. Throwing more money at it will not fix the problem. The only solution for a civilized society IS "take the ball and go home."
This is an old trope that doesn't hold. Modern schooling and the "socialization" argument is predicated on one fallacy: that a person will for his entire life interface with others who are of the same age and level of personal development as you. It's a fantasy. Even in the workplace, the likelihood that your peers will be of your same age, background, interests, is incredibly low. Learning to "socialize" with kids of your own age is easy; dealing with people older than you AND younger than you is the trick. Moreover, one of the arguments that advocates of home schooling make is that they don't want their children to be exposed to the poor behavior and anti-social behaviors of their "peers."
It all comes down to who is really in charge with regard to education, really raising one's children. Abdicating this to the State which has no incentive other than to make tax producers is not the answer. It's been a failure for more than a century now.
TMPHBITEU
Yes, we all know how simple it is to replace an entire school board in an election. It's much simpler to just take the kids out of school and make yourself responsible for their education.
And as a terminal user of your product ("educated" citizens), and having been in the government schools myself, it is obvious to me that very few government school teachers are qualified to teach our children. As you admit here:As a non-shitty teacher (middle school, special education), I have to disagree with you, Rip. Very few parents are qualified to teach their children.
Further:The rest of the population benefits from rigorous, quality instruction (Rare these days.) provided to them by people that are qualified to do so (Even rarer than rigorous, quality instruction.).
Taking your kids out of school and becoming personally responsible for their education accomplishes two things: It makes them better educated, and it costs the system money. The system pay attention to lost money. If enough people do this, the system will either respond to the market correctly, or it will continue to erode. Or it can respond the way governments usually do and pass truancy laws to ensure continued attendance and continued funding of their shitty schools.In my personal opinion, pushing for homeschooling is a cop out. It's a 'take my ball and go home' mentality. Instead, people (and I mean ALL people...even those without children) need to demand improvement in their local school systems. Better schooling means better post-secondary outcomes for your citizens. Better post-secondary outcomes for your citizens benefits everyone living the in the community (i.e. less reliance on welfare, lowers costs of policing/incarceration, lowers costs of health care, etc.). Can you homeschool your kid? Sure. But you're still going to be paying for/dealing with the end results of a crappy school system for the rest of your life. Why not take the time to improve the school system, and by extension, your entire community?
This one won't die. I know you think that getting pushed around in the locker room is an invaluable experience for a kid, but the social education of kids who are not being imprisoned at home can be managed by parents too, just like algebra. More important than peer-group socialization is the ability to interact with adults at an adult level, as is expected of the adults these kids will be. Dating/playing sports/racing cars/hanging out with buddies are activities that are fortunately not exclusive to government school students. Schools are not society. They are actually the opposite of socialization.In addition to the lack of parents qualified to provide their children with an education, there are some really important social-emotional skill sets that children in homeschool situations don't learn without the parents going out of their to expose them to the situations required to develop those skill sets. I work with students outside of school (quite a few of which have been homeschooled), and I can easily point out the kids that haven't ever attended a public school. They're often socially awkward and have few, if any, friends. They missed out on the whole hidden curriculum (social-emotional) that a vast majority of public school students learn intuitively. Whether you realize it or not, this is just as, if not more, important as the concrete information that students learn during their years in school. You can be brilliant, but companies aren't going to hire you if you're incapable of working with your peers. You're simply not worth the HR hassle.
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I have observed a negative social conditioning effect imposed on children by placing them in supervised day care for most of their lives until the age of 18+. If they are treated like toddlers, they will continue to act like toddlers. They will not grow and learn.
There are three things students are conditioned to do to "succeed" with good grades in high school:
1. Putting in your seat time is more important than doing something useful.
2. They should create the appearance of doing work while doing as little as possible. (Quality does not matter as long as it gets done)
3. Their absolute conformity and subordination to the teacher or authority figure matters more than truth, logic and discourse.
I fully regret not dropping out of high school at the age of 14.
There are many high quality internet-based courses available. They are usually better quality courses at lower cost than a public high school course and can easily be adapted to the student's needs; A more advanced student can move more quickly and take more advanced classes, while a less advanced student can take remedial courses and move more slowly.
Starting Strength Coach
I agree. You would easily be able to point out that my children are homeschooled. You would be able to do that for a variety of reasons:
1) My children, though coming from parents of average to maybe very slightly above intelligence, routinely score in the high 90s in percentile compared to their age-peers in standardized testing. My 11 year old son consistently scores in the 99th percentile against his peers, while my 9 year old is generally in the 95th percentile, give or take a few percentage points.
2) My children can carry on substantive conversations with terminally degreed adults.
3) My children have a breadth and depth of knowledge that far outpaces their peers. My children get about 3 hours of instruction per day. The rest of their day is spent participating in youth sports, martial arts, music, taking educational field trips, or performing self-study in a topic of their interests.
4) My 11 year old spent one year in public school. It was in that one year of public school that my son was attacked by an older child. Because they are not in school, there are learned behaviors that my children have virtually no knowledge of. My children are not around bullying, racism, bigotry, and they are not subjected to non-age-appropriate sexually charged conversation or other material.
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Schools are dangerous -- John Taylor Gatto. "They cripple your kids" in this case, literally.
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A lot of you made some excellent points, and I wish I had the time to reply to each of you individually. Unfortunately, I don’t. For me, the ability for all children, regardless of their personal situation or ability level, to receive a free and appropriate education is one of the most important parts of what sets America apart from the rest of the world. I’ll continue to do everything in my power to change the current screwed up system to one that’s focused on doing what’s best for the students. I refuse to take my ball and go home.
Starting Strength Coach
Rip, it is certainly impressive that anytime the conversation gets started about my children being homeschooled (most often by people making snide comments like, "Shouldn't they be in school?"), the almost universal response is: "Don't you worry about them not learning to socialize?" It is almost as if a vast majority of the population thinks that school is the only social interaction that is available to children.
I do understand how educators buy into the public education system, as that is who pays their paycheck and people want to be a part of something they believe in. It is a very similar experience being in the military. That said, being a product of the public school system myself, and being married to an educator, our decision to homeschool our children was due to the fact, despite our average intelligence, we can provide a much better education to our children. It isn't so much of "taking our ball and going home". It is simply acknowledging that the public school system is not the only choice, and there are certainly bad aspects of government run school systems. Case in point: our children play youth league basketball and Micah and I coach the team. By the time we get to the gym for basketball practice at 5:30pm, there are still busses waiting to take children home. They arrive at school probably between 7:30 and 8:00. That is potentially 9 1/2 hours spent at the school. For what? Maybe 2 hours of actual instruction and 7 1/2 hours of the teacher redirecting children, making students sit quietly while other students finish, changing classes, etc. By the time we get to practice, my children have completed their school work at levels that are orders of magnitude higher than their peers, played outside, worked out, helped around the house, spent time reading, rode their bikes, etc. The whole time being able to spend that time with their mother instead of some roster of teachers they won't remember. There is so much wasted time in government run schools. Most of all, they enjoy their childhood, AND, at the same time, they enjoy learning.
You've been around my children before. They aren't socially awkward. They aren't weird. They aren't devoid of friendships. They are actually exceptionally high functioning, wonderful children with good manners, they are kind to people, respect other people, have wickedly keen senses of humor, and they are very well-rounded. I have an 11 year old that has made his mind up that he wants to be an orthopaedic surgeon and a 9 year old that hasn't quite made his mind up on whether he wants to be a dentist or an oncologist. They, oftentimes, get to interact with the individuals practicing in the profession they aspire to end up practicing in, and they have always impressed those professionals with their intelligence and maturity for their ages. They did not learn this at public school. They learned this by having parents that model good behavior and help cultivate the desire in them to be good people.
People always talk about homeschool kids being weird, but, have these people not been in a regular government run school? There are weird kids there too. There are plenty of kids, despite being an unwilling participant in the "hidden social-emotional curriculum, have no idea how to interact with other people.
Last edited by Will Morris; 01-29-2020 at 06:29 PM.
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