20 Homeschool Conferences: The Things I've Witnessed At Them Shocked Me.
October 29, 2023 3:51 PM Subscribe
A mom enters our booth in the exhibitor hall in Missouri. In Ohio, a mom breezes into our booth. I am in Texas, my home state. I am sitting in my booth in South Carolina. “What do you mean, ‘woke’?” I ask. She opens her mouth. Half-words and phrases stumble and tumble around. A few talking points from news sources fall out. Finally, she sighs. “I don’t know. Just tell me again what you write.”
That sounds exhausting, but she keeps doing it. She’s doing the Lord’s work, far more than the coffee-breathed godbotherers.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:11 PM on October 29, 2023 [16 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:11 PM on October 29, 2023 [16 favorites]
I don't understand how they don't automatically define an attempt to highlight female historical figures as inherently woke.
posted by Selena777 at 4:14 PM on October 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 4:14 PM on October 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
I did like the:
A: Is this woke/feminist/whatever?
B: We’ll, what do you mean by that?
A: …
…
…
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:21 PM on October 29, 2023 [30 favorites]
A: Is this woke/feminist/whatever?
B: We’ll, what do you mean by that?
A: …
…
…
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:21 PM on October 29, 2023 [30 favorites]
As a homeschooling parent, none of this surprises me. It is the water that you swim in as a homeschooler - at least in the U.S., and I’m sorry the author has to experience hostility at these events.
I think it’s encouraging to note that she says she sells a lot of products at these events, though. I often see homeschoolers painted with a broad brush, but that doesn’t reflect my experience in the world of homeschooling. There are plenty of secular homeschool families out there. I personally know dozens of them. And there are many reasons that families choose to homeschool, and they don’t all involve indoctrination with religious/political viewpoints. I know lots of families (mine included) who choose to homeschool to better meet the needs of neurodiverse kids, who sometimes struggle in traditional school environments.
posted by bitbotbit at 4:27 PM on October 29, 2023 [93 favorites]
I think it’s encouraging to note that she says she sells a lot of products at these events, though. I often see homeschoolers painted with a broad brush, but that doesn’t reflect my experience in the world of homeschooling. There are plenty of secular homeschool families out there. I personally know dozens of them. And there are many reasons that families choose to homeschool, and they don’t all involve indoctrination with religious/political viewpoints. I know lots of families (mine included) who choose to homeschool to better meet the needs of neurodiverse kids, who sometimes struggle in traditional school environments.
posted by bitbotbit at 4:27 PM on October 29, 2023 [93 favorites]
I was homeschooled for part of high school. Luckily I was raised by two lefty atheists, but I get the side eye sometimes when people find out about that, and understandably so.
posted by brundlefly at 4:31 PM on October 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by brundlefly at 4:31 PM on October 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
God bless her.
posted by brambleboy at 4:58 PM on October 29, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by brambleboy at 4:58 PM on October 29, 2023 [6 favorites]
An interesting collection of experiences! The opening note about the right-wing homeschoolers being an irritating splinter feels a bit at odds with the “now I’m throwing up before conferences” ending, though. There’s more meat in this story that ins’t in this article.
posted by Going To Maine at 5:06 PM on October 29, 2023 [15 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 5:06 PM on October 29, 2023 [15 favorites]
B and I look at where she is pointing. At the next booth, a company is selling books with rhyming Bible stories. Their banner sports a cartoon version of white Jesus with six-pack abs, biceps for days, and nail holes in his hands. Around him are brown-skinned people with large, crooked noses.
We are stunned into silence. Later, B and I wonder what rhymes with Jerusalem.
Once in the town Jerusalem
A carpenter gave their shalom
Nails were his trade
After what they had made
His work had grew too solemn
posted by adept256 at 5:09 PM on October 29, 2023 [10 favorites]
We are stunned into silence. Later, B and I wonder what rhymes with Jerusalem.
Once in the town Jerusalem
A carpenter gave their shalom
Nails were his trade
After what they had made
His work had grew too solemn
posted by adept256 at 5:09 PM on October 29, 2023 [10 favorites]
I don't understand how they don't automatically define an attempt to highlight female historical figures as inherently woke.
When you say "they", are you referring to the potential customers or the author?
If you mean the author, she probably doesn't want to cause a shit-show at a convention. She's already throwing up with anxiety before each of these sessions.
If you mean the potential customers - they don't really know what "woke" MEANS, they just know that it's bad. They heard that the word was bad before they learned what it meant. So that means that they very well may agree with some of the things that are habitually called "woke", but are just unaware that that's included in "woke-ism". And in fact, if you asked them about whether they agreed with these individual discrete points, they'd probably say "oh, yeah, I have no problem with that." And then turn around and say that they don't want "woke stuff" anyway.
It's like a conversation I had with a guy some 10 years ago who was saying he was against same-sex marriage. And he was using all the usual religious-based buzzwords in his arguments - and even did the "I don't have a problem with people living together, but...." thing - and at one point he finally said "and they say they want to be 'legally married'. What the hell does 'legally married' mean anyway?"
"Well, actually it just means that they want their union to be recognized by the state," I said. "And that they would enjoy the same protections as a married couple."
"Like what?"
"Well...for starters, one of them would be considered next of kin, and would be able to visit their partner in the hospital if they got sick."
They hesitated. "Wait....you can't do that if you're not officially married?"
"Nope. And you also can't inherit property if your partner dies. It would go to their partner's parents and siblings unless they paid out the nose for a good will."
"....Huh. I didn't know that. And that's something marriage gives you?"
"Yep. As well as being able to cover someone on your health insurance. Or adopt kids together. Or..." and I went through another list.
"Huh. Well, shit, I don't have a problem with that. Is that all 'legally married' means?"
"Yep."
"Huh."
And about a week later, I saw that same person online arguing in favor of same-sex marriage rights.
Sometimes people hear a buzz word before they hear what it means, and just accept that it's bad. But if you ask them about the individual things the buzzword means, they often don't really have a problem with it. They've just been given a label that sounds weird and scary and unfamiliar.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:10 PM on October 29, 2023 [151 favorites]
When you say "they", are you referring to the potential customers or the author?
If you mean the author, she probably doesn't want to cause a shit-show at a convention. She's already throwing up with anxiety before each of these sessions.
If you mean the potential customers - they don't really know what "woke" MEANS, they just know that it's bad. They heard that the word was bad before they learned what it meant. So that means that they very well may agree with some of the things that are habitually called "woke", but are just unaware that that's included in "woke-ism". And in fact, if you asked them about whether they agreed with these individual discrete points, they'd probably say "oh, yeah, I have no problem with that." And then turn around and say that they don't want "woke stuff" anyway.
It's like a conversation I had with a guy some 10 years ago who was saying he was against same-sex marriage. And he was using all the usual religious-based buzzwords in his arguments - and even did the "I don't have a problem with people living together, but...." thing - and at one point he finally said "and they say they want to be 'legally married'. What the hell does 'legally married' mean anyway?"
"Well, actually it just means that they want their union to be recognized by the state," I said. "And that they would enjoy the same protections as a married couple."
"Like what?"
"Well...for starters, one of them would be considered next of kin, and would be able to visit their partner in the hospital if they got sick."
They hesitated. "Wait....you can't do that if you're not officially married?"
"Nope. And you also can't inherit property if your partner dies. It would go to their partner's parents and siblings unless they paid out the nose for a good will."
"....Huh. I didn't know that. And that's something marriage gives you?"
"Yep. As well as being able to cover someone on your health insurance. Or adopt kids together. Or..." and I went through another list.
"Huh. Well, shit, I don't have a problem with that. Is that all 'legally married' means?"
"Yep."
"Huh."
And about a week later, I saw that same person online arguing in favor of same-sex marriage rights.
Sometimes people hear a buzz word before they hear what it means, and just accept that it's bad. But if you ask them about the individual things the buzzword means, they often don't really have a problem with it. They've just been given a label that sounds weird and scary and unfamiliar.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:10 PM on October 29, 2023 [151 favorites]
Which is precisely what Christopher Rufo and such openly state they are attempting to do with "woke" and "critical race theory" and such -- deliberately lumping in everything that an uninformed person might loathe under those concepts and inspiring a knee-jerk negative reaction to them.
This has, of course, been a roaring success amongst their target audience.
posted by delfin at 5:25 PM on October 29, 2023 [40 favorites]
This has, of course, been a roaring success amongst their target audience.
posted by delfin at 5:25 PM on October 29, 2023 [40 favorites]
I cannot understand for the life of me why someone in the year 2023 would be surprised at this. At this point, homeschoolers are literally just people who want the public school defunded but also want their boy children to be able to play public school sportsball. While their daughters are just left to ..... weelll, better not said. But the homeschooled "arrows for jebus" people are defintely not giving their girl children any actual education other than maybe "lick daddy's shoes clean."
posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 6:02 PM on October 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 6:02 PM on October 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
To clarify - these people live across the street from me. I have called CPS several times. They can't do anything because the dad waves some ridiculous "jebus based curriculum" in front of the worker - and the worker has to let it go. These poor little girls are thrown outside from dawn til dusk to "play" regardless of the weather.
posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 6:04 PM on October 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 6:04 PM on October 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
Woke means anything that makes white supremacy sad, uncomfortable, or inexplicably horny
posted by Jacen at 6:16 PM on October 29, 2023 [70 favorites]
posted by Jacen at 6:16 PM on October 29, 2023 [70 favorites]
I just mentally replace it with 'respect'
Florida is where respect goes to die etc
posted by adept256 at 6:19 PM on October 29, 2023 [16 favorites]
Florida is where respect goes to die etc
posted by adept256 at 6:19 PM on October 29, 2023 [16 favorites]
Yeah, this has to be exhausting. A combination book tour/retail poker face job, in a room full of right wing propaganda.
It’s also sad because, no offense to the author, in another world this series would be considered if anything a bit conservative. All of these women are fine role models and subjects of study as far as I know but they’re all well into the realm of historical figures.
posted by smelendez at 6:23 PM on October 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
It’s also sad because, no offense to the author, in another world this series would be considered if anything a bit conservative. All of these women are fine role models and subjects of study as far as I know but they’re all well into the realm of historical figures.
posted by smelendez at 6:23 PM on October 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
Do US states hold homeschoolers to any sort of standards? Is there any way to tell if kids are not getting a reasonable education and rescue them? I don't mean some marginal thing about "woke". (Although good god what does it mean to teach Harriet Tubman without talking about "woke" concepts?) I mean basic stuff like "we don't teach arithmetic because we're not very good at it and anyway we're spending all our class time on Jesus."
My impression is homeschooling is a right in most of the US. Is that true in other countries?
It's a fundamental question in democracies: do children belong to their parents? Or to society? Homeschooling is dangerously isolating.
posted by Nelson at 6:34 PM on October 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
My impression is homeschooling is a right in most of the US. Is that true in other countries?
It's a fundamental question in democracies: do children belong to their parents? Or to society? Homeschooling is dangerously isolating.
posted by Nelson at 6:34 PM on October 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
So many Red Flags with the homeschoolers. For good reasons.
Generally religious fundamentalist parents, but I digress.
We actually homeschooled one of our kids in middle school. His teacher, for two of his main classes wasn't interested in him not failing. It did not go all that well. But eventually, he ended up getting a degree in physics from a good university, and now works for a biotech startup in the east bay, and is making more money than I ever did. So, I guess we did alright with him.
But so much homeschooling is based in so many bed things. With horrible intentions. That said, do what is best for your children.
(ugh, have to post now, before I say bad things, but our kids are better than we were)...
posted by Windopaene at 6:57 PM on October 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
Generally religious fundamentalist parents, but I digress.
We actually homeschooled one of our kids in middle school. His teacher, for two of his main classes wasn't interested in him not failing. It did not go all that well. But eventually, he ended up getting a degree in physics from a good university, and now works for a biotech startup in the east bay, and is making more money than I ever did. So, I guess we did alright with him.
But so much homeschooling is based in so many bed things. With horrible intentions. That said, do what is best for your children.
(ugh, have to post now, before I say bad things, but our kids are better than we were)...
posted by Windopaene at 6:57 PM on October 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
In Washington State, homeschooling is a right, but families are required to submit notification to their school district (IIRC) and conduct standardized testing every year.
The only home schoolers I know personally are giving their kids a much higher quality education than they could get from my school district.
posted by bq at 7:05 PM on October 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
The only home schoolers I know personally are giving their kids a much higher quality education than they could get from my school district.
posted by bq at 7:05 PM on October 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
who's a plum
posted by Flunkie at 7:05 PM on October 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Flunkie at 7:05 PM on October 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
It's a fundamental question in democracies: do children belong to their parents? Or to society? Homeschooling is dangerously isolating.
The problem that comes up is that not all kids are going to be served by a school that’s within shouting distance. On paper, everyone has to be served, but in practice this isn’t actually true, not with any reasonable bounds on what "served" means. The question is, what then? The kids who can’t be served, need the loophole that the religious fundamentalists provide. It doesn’t feel great, because I agree that that stuff discussed in this article doesn’t do the thing education is meant to do — make it possible for the kids to live in society once the parents are gone. But this is one of those "there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy" situations. I mention this every time homeschooling comes up here because I genuinely think most people don’t understand that this can happen until it happens to them.
posted by eirias at 7:08 PM on October 29, 2023 [20 favorites]
The problem that comes up is that not all kids are going to be served by a school that’s within shouting distance. On paper, everyone has to be served, but in practice this isn’t actually true, not with any reasonable bounds on what "served" means. The question is, what then? The kids who can’t be served, need the loophole that the religious fundamentalists provide. It doesn’t feel great, because I agree that that stuff discussed in this article doesn’t do the thing education is meant to do — make it possible for the kids to live in society once the parents are gone. But this is one of those "there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy" situations. I mention this every time homeschooling comes up here because I genuinely think most people don’t understand that this can happen until it happens to them.
posted by eirias at 7:08 PM on October 29, 2023 [20 favorites]
the fructophobe
from jerusalem
(or anywhere
around the globe)
he boos a plum
or any pear
posted by Flunkie at 7:10 PM on October 29, 2023 [15 favorites]
from jerusalem
(or anywhere
around the globe)
he boos a plum
or any pear
posted by Flunkie at 7:10 PM on October 29, 2023 [15 favorites]
do children belong to their parents? Or to society?
What kind of parent would ever just automatically turn all decision making about their kids over to "society?" I sure as hell wouldn't. What if your society becomes dominated by religious fundamentalists and people who are afraid of wokeness? If your kids are getting messages from society that you feel are harmful in some way - climate change isn't real, vaccines are dangerous, feminism has gone too far, trans women are men, whatever seems wrong to you - aren't you going to try to counter those messages and teach what you think is right? Of course you are. Unfortunately, all the parents who believe those wrong things are going to do the same, but you can't stop it without creating an authoritarian dystopia. It doesn't feel like an authoritarian dystopia if your side is controlling it and the kids who are being forced to go to school are being protected from full immersion in crazy religious shit you don't believe in. But I can't help seeing it from the other side too.
posted by Redstart at 7:30 PM on October 29, 2023 [21 favorites]
What kind of parent would ever just automatically turn all decision making about their kids over to "society?" I sure as hell wouldn't. What if your society becomes dominated by religious fundamentalists and people who are afraid of wokeness? If your kids are getting messages from society that you feel are harmful in some way - climate change isn't real, vaccines are dangerous, feminism has gone too far, trans women are men, whatever seems wrong to you - aren't you going to try to counter those messages and teach what you think is right? Of course you are. Unfortunately, all the parents who believe those wrong things are going to do the same, but you can't stop it without creating an authoritarian dystopia. It doesn't feel like an authoritarian dystopia if your side is controlling it and the kids who are being forced to go to school are being protected from full immersion in crazy religious shit you don't believe in. But I can't help seeing it from the other side too.
posted by Redstart at 7:30 PM on October 29, 2023 [21 favorites]
"I'm not sure whose twisted idea it was to put hundreds of adolescents in underfunded schools run by people whose dreams were crushed years ago, but I admire the sadism."Your child does not need to be neurodivergent for you to want to spare them that. The fact that it is considered normal is a tragedy.
-Wednesday Addams
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:32 PM on October 29, 2023 [22 favorites]
Ugh, I wish we could have great public schools that are properly resources to serve all the diverse students that attend them. Public schools that produce educated critical thinkers and help build a sense of common community amongst future members of society.
Schools are criminally underfunded, and somehow homeschooling and private schools feel a lot like they perpetuate that cycle by further segregating our kids. I understand the urge to do best for your kids, I just wish we could all do better together.
posted by keep_evolving at 7:38 PM on October 29, 2023 [26 favorites]
Schools are criminally underfunded, and somehow homeschooling and private schools feel a lot like they perpetuate that cycle by further segregating our kids. I understand the urge to do best for your kids, I just wish we could all do better together.
posted by keep_evolving at 7:38 PM on October 29, 2023 [26 favorites]
I understand the urge to do best for your kids, I just wish we could all do better together.
…this is how we can tell you’re not American. Win alone, or not at all!
Togetherness is loser talk, and communism, and also something about how Satan hates the AR15 so that’s why 5.56 is the Jesus caliber.
posted by aramaic at 7:48 PM on October 29, 2023 [20 favorites]
…this is how we can tell you’re not American. Win alone, or not at all!
Togetherness is loser talk, and communism, and also something about how Satan hates the AR15 so that’s why 5.56 is the Jesus caliber.
posted by aramaic at 7:48 PM on October 29, 2023 [20 favorites]
Do US states hold homeschoolers to any sort of standards? Is there any way to tell if kids are not getting a reasonable education and rescue them?
It varies widely from state to state. There are states where you can just decide you're going to homeschool and you don't need to ask permission or provide any evidence of how your kids are doing academically and there are states that require things like curriculum plans or standardized testing. Of course no safeguards can ensure that every homeschooled kid gets a good education, just like none of the education standards or tests or No Child Left Behind legislation can ensure that every kid in public school gets a good education. There are homeschooling horror stories and there are public school horror stories.
The assumption on Metafilter seems to be that almost all homeschooling is done by ignorant people who want to isolate their kids and teach them a racist, sexist fundamentalist version of Christianity. That is very much not the case where I live. Most homeschoolers here are basically the same kind of people who are on the PTA or the school board and whose kids are high achievers at school. In some cases they are the exact same people, at different stages of their kids' lives. I know things are different in different parts of the country, but I'm not sure homeschooling is actually as bad anywhere as Mefites tend to assume it is.
posted by Redstart at 7:53 PM on October 29, 2023 [18 favorites]
It varies widely from state to state. There are states where you can just decide you're going to homeschool and you don't need to ask permission or provide any evidence of how your kids are doing academically and there are states that require things like curriculum plans or standardized testing. Of course no safeguards can ensure that every homeschooled kid gets a good education, just like none of the education standards or tests or No Child Left Behind legislation can ensure that every kid in public school gets a good education. There are homeschooling horror stories and there are public school horror stories.
The assumption on Metafilter seems to be that almost all homeschooling is done by ignorant people who want to isolate their kids and teach them a racist, sexist fundamentalist version of Christianity. That is very much not the case where I live. Most homeschoolers here are basically the same kind of people who are on the PTA or the school board and whose kids are high achievers at school. In some cases they are the exact same people, at different stages of their kids' lives. I know things are different in different parts of the country, but I'm not sure homeschooling is actually as bad anywhere as Mefites tend to assume it is.
posted by Redstart at 7:53 PM on October 29, 2023 [18 favorites]
5.56 is the Jesus caliber.
Don't nail guns use the Jesus caliber?
he was a carpenter's son!
posted by adept256 at 7:55 PM on October 29, 2023 [14 favorites]
Don't nail guns use the Jesus caliber?
he was a carpenter's son!
posted by adept256 at 7:55 PM on October 29, 2023 [14 favorites]
Please avoid making massive generalizations about homeschooling in a thread where people have shared that they are homeschooling!!
Homeschooling is on the rise in many communities, African American families for example. There are lots of reasons to feel alienated from public schools, and reactionary Christians don't own homeschooling.
posted by latkes at 8:01 PM on October 29, 2023 [26 favorites]
Homeschooling is on the rise in many communities, African American families for example. There are lots of reasons to feel alienated from public schools, and reactionary Christians don't own homeschooling.
posted by latkes at 8:01 PM on October 29, 2023 [26 favorites]
Homeschooling is, by its very nature, a moderately accessible place parents can escape whatever ills of public and private schools have to offer. It’s a wide range of reasons that leads families to the format, the most visible of which are often and sadly politicized and radical. I personally think it turns out kids that have limited ability to thrive in the institutions available beyond their front door, but that’s only my opinion.
I shudder every time I hear other Christians behave so poorly - demanding God and Jesus be in everything. They misunderstand that not everyone shares their beliefs, and that is to be expected and embraced. If the entirety of your curriculum is centered on Christian worldviews, you have failed to raise resilient children with the breadth of knowledge needed to thrive in this world.
There is nothing more Christian than helping people become better versions of themselves. The curriculum that this author has put together does just that. It’s in their slogan: Empowerment Curriculum for Girls. They should be thanking her and investing in her work to share far and wide. Imagine the good that could do.
posted by WorkshopGuyPNW at 8:07 PM on October 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
I shudder every time I hear other Christians behave so poorly - demanding God and Jesus be in everything. They misunderstand that not everyone shares their beliefs, and that is to be expected and embraced. If the entirety of your curriculum is centered on Christian worldviews, you have failed to raise resilient children with the breadth of knowledge needed to thrive in this world.
There is nothing more Christian than helping people become better versions of themselves. The curriculum that this author has put together does just that. It’s in their slogan: Empowerment Curriculum for Girls. They should be thanking her and investing in her work to share far and wide. Imagine the good that could do.
posted by WorkshopGuyPNW at 8:07 PM on October 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
The assumption on Metafilter seems to be that almost all homeschooling is done by ignorant people who want to isolate their kids and teach them a racist, sexist fundamentalist version of Christianity. That is very much not the case where I live.
So you know that big thread about finding Metafilter and how it represents a very specific form of the world, a certain white middle class lefty American vibe that can be easy to miss?
"Where I live" and where a lot of us live is not always the defining voice. I mean TFA is about someone actively seeking out homeschoolers with a product most of us here would consider fairly low intensity, and being so consistently stressed about the resulting interactions that she's throwing up before conventions.
Cool that you know her target market, folks, but home schooling is still chock full of people who pull their kids from public schooling - or never send them - not for the betterment of the child but to exert control over them, to the detriment of the child. It can reach the point where it becomes abusive, and it's a problem that's spoken out increasingly over the last ten years or so, especially as more graduates reach majority and start speaking of their experiences. I mean there was a huge swell of discussion once lock-downs started and everyone was home schooled for spell about how for many kids school is the only safe place they know.
Like I've met those kids growing up, even here in Australia where the standard is tougher. I had regular playdates with kids from my church who were homeschooled entirely as a measure of religious control, whose parents did not want them being exposed to dangerously liberal ideas - in the fucking 90s, guys. Lots of God ordained physical punishment, the umbrella model of home leadership, the works.
Like personal opinions and experiences aside, there is a very real potential for an under-regulated home schooled cohort to wind up undereducated at best and abused at worst. For me, that's the takeaway here. I'm not saying that it's the entire homeschooling experience, and there are solid reasons to homeschool, but when TFA is someone who is speaking to multiple families in multiple different locations immediately dismissing her experiences is unproductive. Like it needs to be addressed in the same breath as "it's not like that here" - because it is like that for a lot of kids, and they deserve better.
posted by Jilder at 8:29 PM on October 29, 2023 [51 favorites]
So you know that big thread about finding Metafilter and how it represents a very specific form of the world, a certain white middle class lefty American vibe that can be easy to miss?
"Where I live" and where a lot of us live is not always the defining voice. I mean TFA is about someone actively seeking out homeschoolers with a product most of us here would consider fairly low intensity, and being so consistently stressed about the resulting interactions that she's throwing up before conventions.
Cool that you know her target market, folks, but home schooling is still chock full of people who pull their kids from public schooling - or never send them - not for the betterment of the child but to exert control over them, to the detriment of the child. It can reach the point where it becomes abusive, and it's a problem that's spoken out increasingly over the last ten years or so, especially as more graduates reach majority and start speaking of their experiences. I mean there was a huge swell of discussion once lock-downs started and everyone was home schooled for spell about how for many kids school is the only safe place they know.
Like I've met those kids growing up, even here in Australia where the standard is tougher. I had regular playdates with kids from my church who were homeschooled entirely as a measure of religious control, whose parents did not want them being exposed to dangerously liberal ideas - in the fucking 90s, guys. Lots of God ordained physical punishment, the umbrella model of home leadership, the works.
Like personal opinions and experiences aside, there is a very real potential for an under-regulated home schooled cohort to wind up undereducated at best and abused at worst. For me, that's the takeaway here. I'm not saying that it's the entire homeschooling experience, and there are solid reasons to homeschool, but when TFA is someone who is speaking to multiple families in multiple different locations immediately dismissing her experiences is unproductive. Like it needs to be addressed in the same breath as "it's not like that here" - because it is like that for a lot of kids, and they deserve better.
posted by Jilder at 8:29 PM on October 29, 2023 [51 favorites]
We're not likely to hear from those cloistered children on metafilter. I was actually school-homed. I lived at school for five years.
We're all highly literate educated people here. I can tell by the way we spell and use complete sentences. The people who are under-served by home schooling won't be represented here. Unless you are - I'd love to hear your story. If it was all great for you and a positive experience, I don't think this article is about you.
posted by adept256 at 8:39 PM on October 29, 2023 [10 favorites]
We're all highly literate educated people here. I can tell by the way we spell and use complete sentences. The people who are under-served by home schooling won't be represented here. Unless you are - I'd love to hear your story. If it was all great for you and a positive experience, I don't think this article is about you.
posted by adept256 at 8:39 PM on October 29, 2023 [10 favorites]
We're not likely to hear from those cloistered children on metafilter.
Sure ya are. I have mixed feelings about it, I guess?
I hold an MLIS degree from one of the top three schools in the field- a lot of my peers who went to the local shitty rural high school are doing a lot worse these days.
posted by StarkRoads at 9:23 PM on October 29, 2023 [9 favorites]
Sure ya are. I have mixed feelings about it, I guess?
I hold an MLIS degree from one of the top three schools in the field- a lot of my peers who went to the local shitty rural high school are doing a lot worse these days.
posted by StarkRoads at 9:23 PM on October 29, 2023 [9 favorites]
John Oliver, recently on Last Week Tonight had this main story homeschooling. (Summary on Guardian with video embedded)
posted by ShooBoo at 9:29 PM on October 29, 2023 [21 favorites]
posted by ShooBoo at 9:29 PM on October 29, 2023 [21 favorites]
You're making my point for me. We've had a number of posts about child abuse at catholic schools. I've thought it's wise not to remark, actually, I Iived at catholic school for five years and it didn't happen to me. I don't feel like I have to defend catholic schools, especially when they are so fucked up. Somehow a happy homeschooling doesn't elicit the same reserve.
posted by adept256 at 9:35 PM on October 29, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by adept256 at 9:35 PM on October 29, 2023 [8 favorites]
Speaking as someone who knows a number of homeschooler parents (my sister among them), I can also attest that they are not all mindless zombies.
posted by AdamCSnider at 9:44 PM on October 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by AdamCSnider at 9:44 PM on October 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
I've previously talked about how I did some home schooling, too. And grew up Mormon, no less, with some pretty regressive and repressive stuff happening. (Not in the home schooling, just in general.)
And I learned more in those two middle school years just being left alone with my library card than I learned in the other 10+ years of public school.
And I came out weirder, more diverse and way more "woke" than most of MetaFilter's userbase. Shit, I was woke before MeFi - or even the world wide web - was even invented.
posted by loquacious at 9:54 PM on October 29, 2023 [19 favorites]
And I learned more in those two middle school years just being left alone with my library card than I learned in the other 10+ years of public school.
And I came out weirder, more diverse and way more "woke" than most of MetaFilter's userbase. Shit, I was woke before MeFi - or even the world wide web - was even invented.
posted by loquacious at 9:54 PM on October 29, 2023 [19 favorites]
adept256, I'm not following your train of thought at all.
you said :
We're not likely to hear from those cloistered children on metafilter.
And then you did hear from them!
You said:
The people who are under-served by home schooling won't be represented here.
They are!
I don't feel like I have to defend catholic schools, especially when they are so fucked up. Somehow a happy homeschooling doesn't elicit the same reserve.
Ohhh I'm supposed to feel guilty. Well, I don't, too bad!
posted by StarkRoads at 9:54 PM on October 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
you said :
We're not likely to hear from those cloistered children on metafilter.
And then you did hear from them!
You said:
The people who are under-served by home schooling won't be represented here.
They are!
I don't feel like I have to defend catholic schools, especially when they are so fucked up. Somehow a happy homeschooling doesn't elicit the same reserve.
Ohhh I'm supposed to feel guilty. Well, I don't, too bad!
posted by StarkRoads at 9:54 PM on October 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
he boos a plum
Well, a fig, as I remember it.
(I don't have a poem in me tonight, but someone ought to be able to do something apt with "bamboozle 'em".)
posted by aws17576 at 10:10 PM on October 29, 2023 [6 favorites]
Well, a fig, as I remember it.
(I don't have a poem in me tonight, but someone ought to be able to do something apt with "bamboozle 'em".)
posted by aws17576 at 10:10 PM on October 29, 2023 [6 favorites]
Kids don’t belong to their parents or to society.
Kids belong to themselves.
There is a reason parents are also called guardians — we are safeguarding our kids and preparing them for the day they will make their own decisions. As a parent, I have no rights over my sons. I do have lots of responsibilities, however, to act in their best interest.
What is “best” for a child is not always clear, and reasonable people can disagree. But the moment someone starts talking about “parents rights” my child-abuse Spidey sense starts to tingle.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 10:44 PM on October 29, 2023 [70 favorites]
Kids belong to themselves.
There is a reason parents are also called guardians — we are safeguarding our kids and preparing them for the day they will make their own decisions. As a parent, I have no rights over my sons. I do have lots of responsibilities, however, to act in their best interest.
What is “best” for a child is not always clear, and reasonable people can disagree. But the moment someone starts talking about “parents rights” my child-abuse Spidey sense starts to tingle.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 10:44 PM on October 29, 2023 [70 favorites]
I'm a scientist, we carried out a controlled experiment. 1) Raised one boy during our travelling years: he went to 7 different schools in 4 different countries 2) 18 years later raised two girls on a farm who never went to school at all. Results: girls tend to pull up their socks, boy not so much. I guess that puts my family adjacent to the "biggest piece of shit in the world" [76 faves] bin. We welcome compost.
It's just not correct that homeschooling is "dangerously isolating": Here is a YT channel where the daughters' peers each give a piece to camera about where they are as HE late teenagers and 20somethings in Ireland . . . where the right to educate at home is enshrined in Art 42 of the Constitution.
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:00 AM on October 30, 2023 [5 favorites]
It's just not correct that homeschooling is "dangerously isolating": Here is a YT channel where the daughters' peers each give a piece to camera about where they are as HE late teenagers and 20somethings in Ireland . . . where the right to educate at home is enshrined in Art 42 of the Constitution.
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:00 AM on October 30, 2023 [5 favorites]
You said:
The people who are under-served by home schooling won't be represented here.
They are!
But you say you're not one of them; you say it benefitted you, so in that particular aspect, the argument still stands (for now).
I do remember a former thread about home-schooling, where people who were underserved by home-schooling reported harrowing experiences, so I don't entirely agree that they're not represented at all on Metafilter.
But I can easily imagine that people who did well enough with home-schooling are likely to be over-represented here.
posted by sohalt at 1:21 AM on October 30, 2023 [5 favorites]
The people who are under-served by home schooling won't be represented here.
They are!
But you say you're not one of them; you say it benefitted you, so in that particular aspect, the argument still stands (for now).
I do remember a former thread about home-schooling, where people who were underserved by home-schooling reported harrowing experiences, so I don't entirely agree that they're not represented at all on Metafilter.
But I can easily imagine that people who did well enough with home-schooling are likely to be over-represented here.
posted by sohalt at 1:21 AM on October 30, 2023 [5 favorites]
I was homeschooled as a kid, and because of that i grew up around a lot of other kids that were. Homeschool centers, parent group everybody chips in field trips, extracurriculars kinda warped to fit in, weird "work experience" programs, the whole 9 yards. I'm still friends with a few people my age who grew up doing this in the pacific northwest, or just on the west coast. We all have pretty similar war stories, and all saw a bunch of really crazy shit.
Back then, there were basically two camps. People who didn't think there was enough jesus in regular school(public or private), even in erm... faith based schools, and people who were some degree of woo woo colloidal silver vaccines cause autism nudist colony types. The most interesting it got at the time were the people who were, somehow, both.
I knew some kids, and i know some adults now who grew up in the really, truly hard line isolated from society cult like jesus end of this. And like, watching the political machinations of the past 7 or so years play out i knew, like rotating it in my head, that this type of homeschool parent had to exist... but somehow this piece just managed to completely depress the crap out of me.
I'd also like to add, in the middle here as a little aside, that a lot of these people were educated well on paper by pretty damn intelligent parents. That was not the issue here. I learned a ton of stuff i wouldn't have learned in public school, and probably even in most great private schools. I was also surrounded by insanity, and failed in a million ways. This applies to basically all my friends who had similar experiences. Smart, educated people spat out into the world completely unprepared for the insanity of well... the world. I could write a huge essay on this. The problem isn't even "oh you get a crappy education", that's only some of the problem sometimes.
There's plenty of people who get a great education in like a STEM sense and are taught insane things politically, or have a ton of things left out intentionally or not. These people are very often also failed socially.
But
Like, i weep for the future of these children whose parents are afraid of "woke". I can't help but feel this is shittier than the dumbest behavior i saw come out of either of the previous evolutionary branches that led up to this. It feels less and less like there's any coherent thing to be running towards, any principles or ideology... and more like these people only have things to run from, and they can't even explain those things to you when you ask. This is exactly why homeschooling should be illegal, and why the many countries that ban it are on to something, even the ones that make a lot of other unfortunate calls.
And i say this as a no simpsons kid who's friends with several people who just dont have 90% of the reference points for Standard Millennial Pop Culture. We will be filling the schedules of EMDR therapists for years to come.
posted by emptythought at 1:32 AM on October 30, 2023 [25 favorites]
Back then, there were basically two camps. People who didn't think there was enough jesus in regular school(public or private), even in erm... faith based schools, and people who were some degree of woo woo colloidal silver vaccines cause autism nudist colony types. The most interesting it got at the time were the people who were, somehow, both.
I knew some kids, and i know some adults now who grew up in the really, truly hard line isolated from society cult like jesus end of this. And like, watching the political machinations of the past 7 or so years play out i knew, like rotating it in my head, that this type of homeschool parent had to exist... but somehow this piece just managed to completely depress the crap out of me.
I'd also like to add, in the middle here as a little aside, that a lot of these people were educated well on paper by pretty damn intelligent parents. That was not the issue here. I learned a ton of stuff i wouldn't have learned in public school, and probably even in most great private schools. I was also surrounded by insanity, and failed in a million ways. This applies to basically all my friends who had similar experiences. Smart, educated people spat out into the world completely unprepared for the insanity of well... the world. I could write a huge essay on this. The problem isn't even "oh you get a crappy education", that's only some of the problem sometimes.
There's plenty of people who get a great education in like a STEM sense and are taught insane things politically, or have a ton of things left out intentionally or not. These people are very often also failed socially.
But
Like, i weep for the future of these children whose parents are afraid of "woke". I can't help but feel this is shittier than the dumbest behavior i saw come out of either of the previous evolutionary branches that led up to this. It feels less and less like there's any coherent thing to be running towards, any principles or ideology... and more like these people only have things to run from, and they can't even explain those things to you when you ask. This is exactly why homeschooling should be illegal, and why the many countries that ban it are on to something, even the ones that make a lot of other unfortunate calls.
And i say this as a no simpsons kid who's friends with several people who just dont have 90% of the reference points for Standard Millennial Pop Culture. We will be filling the schedules of EMDR therapists for years to come.
posted by emptythought at 1:32 AM on October 30, 2023 [25 favorites]
Homeschooling is on the rise in many communities, African American families for example.
I remember seeing a tweet several years ago from a Black man who said he’d been homeschooled because his mother didn’t believe it was possible for a Black child in an American school to continue to believe in his own humanity. That was a shock to the conscience, because I can see exactly how a parent winds up there.
posted by eirias at 2:53 AM on October 30, 2023 [21 favorites]
I remember seeing a tweet several years ago from a Black man who said he’d been homeschooled because his mother didn’t believe it was possible for a Black child in an American school to continue to believe in his own humanity. That was a shock to the conscience, because I can see exactly how a parent winds up there.
posted by eirias at 2:53 AM on October 30, 2023 [21 favorites]
A friend of mine is home schooling her kid in the US because her daughter is neurodivergent (ADHD) and my friend, who is also neurodivergent (ADHD) and a feminist computer programmer doesn't want her daughter to suffer through the school trying to force a square peg into a round hole like she (the parent) went through. Her main reason for homeschooling is that schools are not ADHD friendly, and also that schools focus too much on conforming and being obedient, and not enough on learning that there are times that you should challenge authority.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 3:12 AM on October 30, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 3:12 AM on October 30, 2023 [10 favorites]
Years ago I met and befriended one home schooled person who fled from the US to Europe, where I am. Talking to him was eye opening. He was open and excited and curious to learn about the earth which, he now learned, was not flat. Mathematics and science aren't some kind of satanic code. To be gay is no evil — a relief since he himself was homosexual.
And one day he was gone. I received a brief message, he went off and joined a religious cult that was explicitly against homosexuality. It was one of the saddest days of my life. An innocent life, wrecked by home schooling parents.
I don't have any kind of professional opinion but that experience was brutal. I can relate to the writer of this article anxiety vomiting when meeting with parents who home school.
It's like driving children around without seatbelts. I don't know if it's enough to say "My parents drive carefully and look I'm fine right?". The percentage of kids who will grow up fully in the hands of an abusive parent with practically zero contact with the rest of the world is baked into that system. That's dreadful.
posted by UN at 3:13 AM on October 30, 2023 [18 favorites]
And one day he was gone. I received a brief message, he went off and joined a religious cult that was explicitly against homosexuality. It was one of the saddest days of my life. An innocent life, wrecked by home schooling parents.
I don't have any kind of professional opinion but that experience was brutal. I can relate to the writer of this article anxiety vomiting when meeting with parents who home school.
It's like driving children around without seatbelts. I don't know if it's enough to say "My parents drive carefully and look I'm fine right?". The percentage of kids who will grow up fully in the hands of an abusive parent with practically zero contact with the rest of the world is baked into that system. That's dreadful.
posted by UN at 3:13 AM on October 30, 2023 [18 favorites]
Bertrand Russell was home schooled until he entered Cambridge in 1890, so it must be possible to do it well with sufficient resources.
But you have to wonder whether he would have seduced the wives of quite so many of his colleagues if he had spent more time among peers and learned to put himself in others shoes, so to speak.
posted by jamjam at 4:10 AM on October 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
But you have to wonder whether he would have seduced the wives of quite so many of his colleagues if he had spent more time among peers and learned to put himself in others shoes, so to speak.
posted by jamjam at 4:10 AM on October 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
What would we say if the question were, "Should families be allowed to send children to school with a brown bag lunch?" School cafeterias must meet some kind of federal nutrition standard, after all. Should parents be allowed to depart from that standard? Won’t some of them send nothing but fruit snacks and lunchables? Won’t some kids be malnourished?
Certainly the answer is yes. And also, some children’s schools will serve inadequate fare, and some children will have serious food allergies that make dining hall food a bad idea, and some kids will just be picky af or think eating is boring and stupid and refuse everything the cafeteria has, and the parents are tearing their hair out every day to get a single calorie into their bodies. These things can all be true at the same time.
posted by eirias at 4:18 AM on October 30, 2023 [12 favorites]
Certainly the answer is yes. And also, some children’s schools will serve inadequate fare, and some children will have serious food allergies that make dining hall food a bad idea, and some kids will just be picky af or think eating is boring and stupid and refuse everything the cafeteria has, and the parents are tearing their hair out every day to get a single calorie into their bodies. These things can all be true at the same time.
posted by eirias at 4:18 AM on October 30, 2023 [12 favorites]
Jilder, I like your comment and just want to say we are not dismissing the author's experience. Just being a little defensive of our choice to homeschool as the only viable option to meet our own kid's needs, and desperately hoping not to be lumped in with the people the author is describing.
We are the people Redstart mentioned, strong supporters of our public school and also unwilling to sacrifice our child's welfare for several years when we were unable to get the system to bend enough to meet their needs. It was essential to do it. We continued to work with and support our public school throughout.
posted by evilmomlady at 4:21 AM on October 30, 2023 [10 favorites]
We are the people Redstart mentioned, strong supporters of our public school and also unwilling to sacrifice our child's welfare for several years when we were unable to get the system to bend enough to meet their needs. It was essential to do it. We continued to work with and support our public school throughout.
posted by evilmomlady at 4:21 AM on October 30, 2023 [10 favorites]
If someone came on Metafilter say circa 2017 and said, in as many words, that all Americans are Trump-loving gun nuts, there would be push-back. Several commenters earlier in the thread made quite strongly worded comments claiming (contra the article itself, even, whose author mentioned that her negative experiences at conventions were a small proportion of people she talked to) that all homeschool is conservative, Evangelical, and socially detrimental to children. All. That’s simply not true, and is hurtful to some of the people in this thread. At the same time, as the John Oliver segment described (go watch it - it’s good), the conservative Evangelical contingent is a significant portion of home schoolers in the US, is gaining an increasing share of that group, and is currently driving much of the lobbying agenda in ways that are not ultimately positive or helpful for kids. Like getting states to do away with any sort of oversight of home school curriculum, or even requirements that parents register as home schoolers. Some regular check-in of some sort to catch abuse would be quite helpful and important (Oliver talks about this more comprehensively, I do recommend the segment).
On the socializing end of things, however: the extreme age segregation in US schools is it’s own whole thing that prevents many kids from developing necessary social skills to be able to function in the multi-aged adult world, and harms kids whose social development is not on exactly the same path as a majority of their peers, as well as kids whose academic needs are not well-aligned with their exact age group. Multi-age classrooms and more interaction between grades (eg. through older students mentoring younger students or similar sorts of programs) are some tools used in a small number of schools to counter this problem, and are quite effective and helpful. But the majority of schools still provide a harmfully artificial social environment for students in this respect.
posted by eviemath at 4:59 AM on October 30, 2023 [22 favorites]
On the socializing end of things, however: the extreme age segregation in US schools is it’s own whole thing that prevents many kids from developing necessary social skills to be able to function in the multi-aged adult world, and harms kids whose social development is not on exactly the same path as a majority of their peers, as well as kids whose academic needs are not well-aligned with their exact age group. Multi-age classrooms and more interaction between grades (eg. through older students mentoring younger students or similar sorts of programs) are some tools used in a small number of schools to counter this problem, and are quite effective and helpful. But the majority of schools still provide a harmfully artificial social environment for students in this respect.
posted by eviemath at 4:59 AM on October 30, 2023 [22 favorites]
This seems like a good moment to note that if you are in Texas, you should give your state reps a call today to tell them to support public schools and oppose vouchers.
posted by tofu_crouton at 5:10 AM on October 30, 2023 [16 favorites]
posted by tofu_crouton at 5:10 AM on October 30, 2023 [16 favorites]
The opening note about the right-wing homeschoolers being an irritating splinter feels a bit at odds with the “now I’m throwing up before conferences” ending, though. There’s more meat in this story that ins’t in this article.
I was wondering that, too! Somebody who's doing the homeschool circuit has to know that they're going to meet Christians. Have they gotten more offensive? Is the author just getting more sick of THEM?
It did confirm my suspicions that "woke" is "anything that annoys me or makes me feel condescended to" so there's that.
posted by kingdead at 5:12 AM on October 30, 2023 [5 favorites]
I was wondering that, too! Somebody who's doing the homeschool circuit has to know that they're going to meet Christians. Have they gotten more offensive? Is the author just getting more sick of THEM?
It did confirm my suspicions that "woke" is "anything that annoys me or makes me feel condescended to" so there's that.
posted by kingdead at 5:12 AM on October 30, 2023 [5 favorites]
She described a splinter as potentially leading to a severe infection despite its small size. Which seems apt: the negative interactions sound like they were a splinter of the overall interactions, but were stressful enough to be causing her to throw up before conventions.
posted by eviemath at 5:29 AM on October 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 5:29 AM on October 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
I'm a retired community college professor. I taught more than a few home schooled students. My most amazing, well prepared and creative students were homeschooled. Alas, my least prepared and ill-educated were home schooled as well.
The Christian homeschooled students were often shockingly uninformed about their own religion, getting simple facts wrong (Moses was a follower of Jesus.) They also thought "Because God" was a well reasoned argument.
posted by cccorlew at 5:36 AM on October 30, 2023 [36 favorites]
The Christian homeschooled students were often shockingly uninformed about their own religion, getting simple facts wrong (Moses was a follower of Jesus.) They also thought "Because God" was a well reasoned argument.
posted by cccorlew at 5:36 AM on October 30, 2023 [36 favorites]
I know a few people who home-schooled their kids -- for a couple of years or straight through K-8 -- and did a fine job of it. No nutters, no fundie-ism, just focused teaching & learning. They appear to be a minority, which is concerning...but they also appear to validate the notion that kids who get specific attention and engagement will thrive. Their grown kids are smart and pleasant, engineers and businesspeople, and generally a credit to their families.
Last week we had a FPP about great Department of Defense schools. That's what I want in every town in America, and it will take resources, parental support, and fairness. It's not impossible, but everyone has to work for it. And unfortunately we've all got *gestures broadly at America* a lot our plates already.
posted by wenestvedt at 5:48 AM on October 30, 2023 [7 favorites]
Last week we had a FPP about great Department of Defense schools. That's what I want in every town in America, and it will take resources, parental support, and fairness. It's not impossible, but everyone has to work for it. And unfortunately we've all got *gestures broadly at America* a lot our plates already.
posted by wenestvedt at 5:48 AM on October 30, 2023 [7 favorites]
According to the Washington Post , the number of religiously-oriented homeschoolers has dropped from 64% to 34% over the past decade. So more likely that not, someone you meet in the past who was homeschooled probably had parents do so based on religion. That may not be true 10 years from now.
I will note, however, that even today, 68% say proving "moral instruction" is an important reason to homeschool, so I'm slightly skeptical about just how sharp the drop really is, and COVID has undoubtedly played a role in the last few years, so i wouldn't be surprised if the percentage of religious parents rose again in a few years.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:05 AM on October 30, 2023 [7 favorites]
I will note, however, that even today, 68% say proving "moral instruction" is an important reason to homeschool, so I'm slightly skeptical about just how sharp the drop really is, and COVID has undoubtedly played a role in the last few years, so i wouldn't be surprised if the percentage of religious parents rose again in a few years.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:05 AM on October 30, 2023 [7 favorites]
Homeschooling is HARD. There's a reason we have an entire university departments devoted to the study of how kids learn and how to teach them and why we normally leave the job to trained professionals.
The only reason religiously-oriented homeschooling appears to work at all is because a) there's tons of free "resources" out there to prop it up and b) it's easy to teach when you're not actually teaching (and it's difficult to recognize when you're not actually learning)
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:14 AM on October 30, 2023 [16 favorites]
The only reason religiously-oriented homeschooling appears to work at all is because a) there's tons of free "resources" out there to prop it up and b) it's easy to teach when you're not actually teaching (and it's difficult to recognize when you're not actually learning)
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:14 AM on October 30, 2023 [16 favorites]
Somebody who's doing the homeschool circuit has to know that they're going to meet Christians.
It's one thing to know in your head that some people are... the way that they are. It's more viscerally disturbing to experience it first-hand.
Dunno if this is true for her, but for me it hasn't gotten much less disturbing to hear nasty crap from people in the religion I was raised in. I haven't practiced or believed in decades and i was fairly young when I first saw how wrong the congregation could be, morally. But it's still a particular kind of painful.
posted by Baethan at 6:20 AM on October 30, 2023 [4 favorites]
It's one thing to know in your head that some people are... the way that they are. It's more viscerally disturbing to experience it first-hand.
Dunno if this is true for her, but for me it hasn't gotten much less disturbing to hear nasty crap from people in the religion I was raised in. I haven't practiced or believed in decades and i was fairly young when I first saw how wrong the congregation could be, morally. But it's still a particular kind of painful.
posted by Baethan at 6:20 AM on October 30, 2023 [4 favorites]
But you say you're not one of them;
sohalt thank you for the invitation to clarify. I said I had mixed feelings about it. This is a topic that may have some nuance to it w/r/t those of us who did the best we could in fundamentalist environments. The theological aspects of my personal education were rather unhelpful and (to say the very least) cost time that could have been put to better use elsewhere.
posted by StarkRoads at 7:00 AM on October 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
sohalt thank you for the invitation to clarify. I said I had mixed feelings about it. This is a topic that may have some nuance to it w/r/t those of us who did the best we could in fundamentalist environments. The theological aspects of my personal education were rather unhelpful and (to say the very least) cost time that could have been put to better use elsewhere.
posted by StarkRoads at 7:00 AM on October 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
Authoritarian parenting is child abuse.
posted by ob1quixote at 7:11 AM on October 30, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by ob1quixote at 7:11 AM on October 30, 2023 [9 favorites]
My critique of homeschooling is four-fold. First and foremost, it exacerbates gender income inequality because (all else equal) it is economically rational for the lower income parent to be the primary educator, which means homeschooling tends to reduce women's workforce participation and cut off career growth. According to the US government's National Center for Education Statistics women are the primary educator in 78% of homeschooled homes in the US [pdf].* Of course, we have to take these statistics with a grain of salt because homeschooling is almost completely unregulated in the United States, but my assumption would be that, if anything, the sort of homeschooling family that would decline to participate in a government survey about homeschooling would have more rigid gender roles, not less.
* This is about the same as the percentage of teachers in the US who are women, but at least they're being paid for it (albeit not nearly enough and usually unequally).
Second—and acknowledging that this is a broad strokes generalization—homeschooling education is primarily done by people who are themselves not as well educated as most teachers. According to the best available statistics, the highest level of education among homeschooling parents/guardians (not even among the primary educators, just the family as a whole) closely tracks overall US educational attainment, with 32% having a high school diploma or less and 30% having some college or a technical/vocational degree. Because of the economic pressures discussed above, if anything it is likely that the primary educator has less education. I think it is very reasonable to question whether, overall, homeschooling produces anything like similar educational outcomes as traditional schooling. But that is literally unknowable, at least in the US, because homeschooling is essentially completely unregulated, but again, I think the reasonable assumption is that the kind of family that would decline to participate in these surveys would tend to be less educated, not more.
Third, according to the best available statistics, the substantial majority (69%) of homeschooling families live in cities, suburbs, or towns. Only 31% live in rural areas, and presumably at least some of those families are actually reasonably close to the nearest public school. I will grant that the selection and response biases in the survey data may tend to go the other direction here, with the kind of family that would decline to respond being more likely to live in a rural area, but the bias would have to be overwhelming for even a bare majority of homeschooled families to truly live an unreasonable distance away from the nearest public school. In other words, most homeschooling families do have a reasonable public school option.
Fourth, and this is not a statistical argument, but in a complex society, I believe there is a very high value in the social cohesion provided by the common experience of schooling (incredibly imperfect as it often is). Many criticisms can (and should!) be leveled at the public school system, but I believe the solution to those is to level-up by improving that system, not to make it easier and easier for parents to opt out of it.
I don't think homeschooling should be illegal, but I do think it should be much more regulated than it is. In particular, the government should be notified on an annual basis that a child is being homeschooled, there should be some absolute bare minimum curriculum standards (e.g. literal reading, writing, arithmetic, plus some basic civics; obvious exceptions for children with special needs), and the child should be checked up on (at least) once a year by a social worker.
In an ideal world I would regulate it even more than that (e.g. I don't think religion should be valid reason to opt out, nor do I think religious schools should exist as an alternative to public schools; if you want your child to have a religious education / indoctrination then it can happen outside of school, on your own dime). But I think those minimal standards would do a lot to address the dangers of unregulated, abusive homeschooling.
posted by jedicus at 7:21 AM on October 30, 2023 [29 favorites]
* This is about the same as the percentage of teachers in the US who are women, but at least they're being paid for it (albeit not nearly enough and usually unequally).
Second—and acknowledging that this is a broad strokes generalization—homeschooling education is primarily done by people who are themselves not as well educated as most teachers. According to the best available statistics, the highest level of education among homeschooling parents/guardians (not even among the primary educators, just the family as a whole) closely tracks overall US educational attainment, with 32% having a high school diploma or less and 30% having some college or a technical/vocational degree. Because of the economic pressures discussed above, if anything it is likely that the primary educator has less education. I think it is very reasonable to question whether, overall, homeschooling produces anything like similar educational outcomes as traditional schooling. But that is literally unknowable, at least in the US, because homeschooling is essentially completely unregulated, but again, I think the reasonable assumption is that the kind of family that would decline to participate in these surveys would tend to be less educated, not more.
Third, according to the best available statistics, the substantial majority (69%) of homeschooling families live in cities, suburbs, or towns. Only 31% live in rural areas, and presumably at least some of those families are actually reasonably close to the nearest public school. I will grant that the selection and response biases in the survey data may tend to go the other direction here, with the kind of family that would decline to respond being more likely to live in a rural area, but the bias would have to be overwhelming for even a bare majority of homeschooled families to truly live an unreasonable distance away from the nearest public school. In other words, most homeschooling families do have a reasonable public school option.
Fourth, and this is not a statistical argument, but in a complex society, I believe there is a very high value in the social cohesion provided by the common experience of schooling (incredibly imperfect as it often is). Many criticisms can (and should!) be leveled at the public school system, but I believe the solution to those is to level-up by improving that system, not to make it easier and easier for parents to opt out of it.
I don't think homeschooling should be illegal, but I do think it should be much more regulated than it is. In particular, the government should be notified on an annual basis that a child is being homeschooled, there should be some absolute bare minimum curriculum standards (e.g. literal reading, writing, arithmetic, plus some basic civics; obvious exceptions for children with special needs), and the child should be checked up on (at least) once a year by a social worker.
In an ideal world I would regulate it even more than that (e.g. I don't think religion should be valid reason to opt out, nor do I think religious schools should exist as an alternative to public schools; if you want your child to have a religious education / indoctrination then it can happen outside of school, on your own dime). But I think those minimal standards would do a lot to address the dangers of unregulated, abusive homeschooling.
posted by jedicus at 7:21 AM on October 30, 2023 [29 favorites]
Given the way this (interesting) discussion is going, I looked for statistics on reasons for homeschooling. I was interested in particular on learning whether my bias that most homeschooling choices are driven by religious and cultural issues, a bias seemingly shared by many in this thread. In googling around, there seems to be a fair amount of slanted discussion about statistics which I avoided. Linked below is a report from the National Center for Education Statistics, a government agency. Here is what they say about themselves: The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the primary statistical agency of the U.S. Department of Education. It is one of thirteen principal federal statistical agencies1 whose activities are predominantly focused on the collection, compilation, processing, or analysis of information for statistical purposes.
The homeschooling data they report is from 2019 so caution that things may have changed somewhat after the Pandemic but here is what they say: parents of homeschooled students were asked to identify the single most important reason to homeschool their child in 2019. The most common was a concern about school environment, such as safety, drugs, or negative peer pressure (25 percent). Fifteen percent of homeschooled students had parents who reported that the most important reason was a dissatisfaction with the academic instruction at other schools. Thirteen percent had parents who reported that the most important reason was a desire to provide religious instruction.
This is a little misleading however because it refers to the most important reason. The link has a chart that lists the reasons chosen without ranking and 75% chose "moral instruction" and 59% chose "religious instruction". The most common choice, 80%, was "school environment". There are more reasons listed in the chart I took this from.
But I agree there are a lots of reasons and the point above about schools not being well prepared for neurodiverse kids is spot on - anecdote is a friend pulled her son out of school (ADHD) because the drugs changed his personality but were necessary for him to be able to sit in school.
Finally, the point about the possibility of home schooling providing better academic instruction seems to me to depend completely on the skill of the homeschooler parent. But I can see that one teacher with thirty kids may be less effective than one parent with a lot less than thirty kids.
posted by bluesky43 at 7:22 AM on October 30, 2023 [8 favorites]
The homeschooling data they report is from 2019 so caution that things may have changed somewhat after the Pandemic but here is what they say: parents of homeschooled students were asked to identify the single most important reason to homeschool their child in 2019. The most common was a concern about school environment, such as safety, drugs, or negative peer pressure (25 percent). Fifteen percent of homeschooled students had parents who reported that the most important reason was a dissatisfaction with the academic instruction at other schools. Thirteen percent had parents who reported that the most important reason was a desire to provide religious instruction.
This is a little misleading however because it refers to the most important reason. The link has a chart that lists the reasons chosen without ranking and 75% chose "moral instruction" and 59% chose "religious instruction". The most common choice, 80%, was "school environment". There are more reasons listed in the chart I took this from.
But I agree there are a lots of reasons and the point above about schools not being well prepared for neurodiverse kids is spot on - anecdote is a friend pulled her son out of school (ADHD) because the drugs changed his personality but were necessary for him to be able to sit in school.
Finally, the point about the possibility of home schooling providing better academic instruction seems to me to depend completely on the skill of the homeschooler parent. But I can see that one teacher with thirty kids may be less effective than one parent with a lot less than thirty kids.
posted by bluesky43 at 7:22 AM on October 30, 2023 [8 favorites]
It's a fundamental question in democracies: do children belong to their parents? Or to society? Homeschooling is dangerously isolating.
"Belonging to parents" is the possessive meaning of belong.
"Belonging to society" is the embedded meaning of belong.
By those definitions, it is definitely society.
posted by Happy Monkey at 8:16 AM on October 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
Homeschooling necessarily increases the risk of a particular set of harms to kids brought about by isolation. So if you are passionate about that set of risks and want to share examples of how those risks have been horrible realities for some kids, go off.
But what's pissing me off in this thread is conflating that set of risks with the material reality of the diverse people who school their kids at home. I know and have known tons of homeschooled kids, and the kids I've known who were homeschooled were afforded many social opportunities, outside influences, diverse sources for learning etc. These kids tend to be self-directed, creative, confident. They tend to retain their curiosity, willingness to try new things, and their confidence and independence. Many of these same kids were homeschooled because they were failing in the institutional setting, but blossomed at home.
I have a lot of critiques of the socio-economic failures that lead many families to choose homeschooling. Underfunded schools, schools focused on testing over learning, schools where racist inequalities are entrenched, where homophobic/transphobic bullying prevail, where the teachers are treated like shit or where the physical conditions are depressing or dangerous: this is where I point my ire.
It's reasonable to question the impact of pulling kids out of school rather than investing in the local school, but if you want better schools, is the most strategic move to focus on individual parent choices, or focus on pressuring governments to improve schools?
posted by latkes at 8:22 AM on October 30, 2023 [12 favorites]
But what's pissing me off in this thread is conflating that set of risks with the material reality of the diverse people who school their kids at home. I know and have known tons of homeschooled kids, and the kids I've known who were homeschooled were afforded many social opportunities, outside influences, diverse sources for learning etc. These kids tend to be self-directed, creative, confident. They tend to retain their curiosity, willingness to try new things, and their confidence and independence. Many of these same kids were homeschooled because they were failing in the institutional setting, but blossomed at home.
I have a lot of critiques of the socio-economic failures that lead many families to choose homeschooling. Underfunded schools, schools focused on testing over learning, schools where racist inequalities are entrenched, where homophobic/transphobic bullying prevail, where the teachers are treated like shit or where the physical conditions are depressing or dangerous: this is where I point my ire.
It's reasonable to question the impact of pulling kids out of school rather than investing in the local school, but if you want better schools, is the most strategic move to focus on individual parent choices, or focus on pressuring governments to improve schools?
posted by latkes at 8:22 AM on October 30, 2023 [12 favorites]
Fundamentally I view these rants about the evils of homeschooling the same way I view rants about the evils of gender affirming care. Yeah, this sounds crazy and abusive to you because nobody in your family needed it. You’d be singing a different tune if the lottery gave you a different child, a different neighborhood, a different governor. I hope you would, anyway.
posted by eirias at 8:35 AM on October 30, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by eirias at 8:35 AM on October 30, 2023 [12 favorites]
But what's pissing me off in this thread is conflating that set of risks with the material reality of the diverse people who school their kids at home. I know and have known tons of homeschooled kids, and the kids I've known who were homeschooled were afforded many social opportunities, outside influences, diverse sources for learning etc.
There are lots of highly capable people who homeschool for lots of non-religious reasons. But like almost all of the homeschooling lobbying is done by religious fundamentalists who happy conflate those reasons with their own desire to pick apart the secular public school system in favor of their own brand of religious fundamentalism. I think the John Oliver view even acknowledges this Faustian bargain where in many places the right to homeschool has only been achieved because a bunch of religious zealots weren't cool with their kids learning about science.
It's great that where you are there are lots of people homeschooling for different reasons. That doesn't diminish the size of the elephant in the room.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 9:10 AM on October 30, 2023 [18 favorites]
There are lots of highly capable people who homeschool for lots of non-religious reasons. But like almost all of the homeschooling lobbying is done by religious fundamentalists who happy conflate those reasons with their own desire to pick apart the secular public school system in favor of their own brand of religious fundamentalism. I think the John Oliver view even acknowledges this Faustian bargain where in many places the right to homeschool has only been achieved because a bunch of religious zealots weren't cool with their kids learning about science.
It's great that where you are there are lots of people homeschooling for different reasons. That doesn't diminish the size of the elephant in the room.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 9:10 AM on October 30, 2023 [18 favorites]
But I can see that one teacher with thirty kids may be less effective than one parent with a lot less than thirty kids.
I can see that one parent-teacher for all subjects is likely going to not be very good at that.
posted by mcstayinskool at 9:20 AM on October 30, 2023 [10 favorites]
I can see that one parent-teacher for all subjects is likely going to not be very good at that.
posted by mcstayinskool at 9:20 AM on October 30, 2023 [10 favorites]
But like almost all of the homeschooling lobbying is done by religious fundamentalists
It would be cool for this kind of claim to be backed by evidence.
posted by latkes at 9:37 AM on October 30, 2023
It would be cool for this kind of claim to be backed by evidence.
posted by latkes at 9:37 AM on October 30, 2023
Schools do so many more things than just teach kids. They're also a very convenient platform to implement community-level safeguards for children. Teachers are trained to spot signs of abuse and sometimes diagnose issues where kids could benefit from early intervention. School breakfast/lunch programs are a way to feed food-insecure kids. Heck, vaccine requirements used to be a way of ensuring that everyone got immunized.
There are lots perfectly valid and cromulent reasons to homeschool, but no one should be allowed to homeschool in the way the biggest and most well-funded and politically active proponents of homeschooling want people to homeschool: with zero oversight or accountability.
The problem with this Faustian bargain is that there are way too many smug, non-religious homeschoolers who have just as much contempt for mainstream education and are all willing to get into bed with the religious fundamentalists in order to fight against any and all attempts at sensible regulation.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 9:38 AM on October 30, 2023 [22 favorites]
There are lots perfectly valid and cromulent reasons to homeschool, but no one should be allowed to homeschool in the way the biggest and most well-funded and politically active proponents of homeschooling want people to homeschool: with zero oversight or accountability.
The problem with this Faustian bargain is that there are way too many smug, non-religious homeschoolers who have just as much contempt for mainstream education and are all willing to get into bed with the religious fundamentalists in order to fight against any and all attempts at sensible regulation.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 9:38 AM on October 30, 2023 [22 favorites]
It's a bit dismaying to see some people lumping all homeschoolers in with fundamentalist Christians who are homeschooling for all the wrong reasons. But it's heartening to see that at least we all agree that those ignorant, bigoted, child beating fundies are evil and a threat to society and their attempts to pass on their crazy beliefs are literal child abuse. You know what we should probably do? We should take their kids from them and put them in residential schools where they could be taught science and tolerance and reach their full potential as functioning members of a progressive society that is doing good.
posted by Redstart at 9:40 AM on October 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Redstart at 9:40 AM on October 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
The problem with this Faustian bargain is that there are way too many smug, non-religious homeschoolers who have just as much contempt for mainstream education and are all willing to get into bed with the religious fundamentalists in order to fight against any and all attempts at sensible regulation.
Who are these smug bed-getters-into?
posted by mittens at 9:51 AM on October 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
Who are these smug bed-getters-into?
posted by mittens at 9:51 AM on October 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
We should take their kids from them and put them in...
*eye roll*
posted by AlSweigart at 9:52 AM on October 30, 2023 [10 favorites]
*eye roll*
posted by AlSweigart at 9:52 AM on October 30, 2023 [10 favorites]
bluesky43: “Given the way this (interesting) discussion is going, I looked for statistics on reasons for homeschooling. I was interested in particular on learning whether my bias that most homeschooling choices are driven by religious and cultural issues, a bias seemingly shared by many in this thread.”The story here on the farm started with the child's parents calculating that spending an two hours a day in the car to take them to the closest Montessori wasn't time or cost effective. Especially when their Primary level friends weren't continuing with Elementary. They went to the nearby public elementary school to enroll, but between the Cyclone fences, the blaring announcements over the P.A. system, and the reactionary milieu they decided that wasn't a good choice for their gentle child.
So homeschooling it was. We did 1st and part of 2nd grade here on the farm. It often fell to me for various reasons. I started with just a pencil, a legal pad, the dictionary, an atlas, and a Columbia concise encyclopedia. We made that work for the first couple of weeks. I eventually bought a bunch of Scholastic workbooks and that really helped. During late 2020 we had a homeschooling "pod" between us and a few other like-minded families. The pod hired a teacher and a function hall and that was pretty good.
Circumstances split our little family up, and now parents and child reside in an area with decent schools not run by and for rednecks.
Despite the chaos, we managed to teach our little one to read and write. They now read well above grade level. Math was harder, as it takes practice which no child ever wants to do, but between flash cards and Highlights Mathmania, they can add, subtract, multiply, and divide.
Point being, sometimes schools aren't good for kids. Sometimes homeschooling isn't. What's bad for kids is authoritarianism.
posted by ob1quixote at 9:59 AM on October 30, 2023 [8 favorites]
<>During late 2020 we had a homeschooling "pod" between us and a few other like-minded families. The pod hired a teacher and a function hall and that was pretty good.
So... An actual school, only not licensed or regulated as such?
posted by meehawl at 10:22 AM on October 30, 2023 [9 favorites]
So... An actual school, only not licensed or regulated as such?
posted by meehawl at 10:22 AM on October 30, 2023 [9 favorites]
Hi, I am helping to raise my three children. We have been homeschooling for about 17 years now. We have three kids: a daughter who is about to graduate college, and two sons, one who will enter college next fall, and one who you could define as late-middle/early-high school.
My spouse and I are both former teachers. We did much of our child-raising in Austin, although my job has taken my family and I to spend a fair amount of time in other cities, and other countries.
In Austin, they had (and might still have) a thriving homeschool community. Lots of get-togethers. Lots of classes run by parents or other teachers or college profs. There were holiday parties. My wife used to run this enormous halloween party at the local children's museum. Hundreds of kids and families would attend.
There were two major groups of homeschoolers: the religious types, and the super-crunchy/hippie types. When we started, maybe the neatest thing about homeschooling was that you could get people at extreme ends of the political spectrum who had this one thing in common: they loved their kids, and they were making sacrifices to do what they considered best for them. While I disagreed vehemently with many parents' beliefs, I could not begrudge them the fact that they loved their kids.
Whenever people found out our kids were homeschooled, the inevitable questions was: "do you worry about their socialization?" It's a valid question, particularly for my kids, who are frigging weird in their own wonderful ways. What we discovered was that their socialization suffered, but in a good way. Our kids had considerably more exposure to adults than the average kid. I remember a time that I took my 8yo daughter to a book-signing with Kate DiCamillo. Tale of Despereaux was one of my daughter's favorite books. DiCamillo did a reading and then took questions. Before it was over, I was getting embarrassed, because my daughter and the author were having a 1-on-1 conversation about the ending of Charlotte's web, while everyone else just sat and watched.
This happened a lot. My daughter (and sons) weren't taught to respect elders because they were older, just to respect people. As a result, they came at relationships with the assumption that they were equals. This meant they weren't afraid to ask questions. But they had to learn how to talk like adults to adults. As a result, we were often told by other adults that our kids were delightful, and smart and curious. People really appreciated that our kids seemed to take a real interest in them.
The whole idea of the us vs. them mentality re: adults and kids is stupid as hell. I suspect it starts with a whole lot of societal crap (think contemporary tv/music/etc) that puts people in this mindset initially, and then is supported by kids just doing what they thing they're supposed to do: think adults are dumb, think school is boring, think being yourself means rebelling against society, which means doing "rebellious" things that are exactly the same as kids all over do. It's fine, but it comes about in part because in school, kids are being socialized by other kids. We were lucky to be able to skip that. Our kids are/were mostly socialized with adults, which means so much of the stupid, inexperienced crap that kids do was avoided.
This isn't to toot my own horn, or my kids'. It's more about what we think education is for, and how best to achieve that. My daughter is about to graduate college with a triple major in neuroscience, linguistics, and Arabic. The State Department paid for her to go study languages in Morocco when she was 17. She is planning on continuing her education through a doctorate and beyond.
This kid has holes in her education big enough to drive a truck through. We taught her a lot, and she taught herself even more, but I don't hide that fact that in some ways we failed her, w/r/t traditional education. But she and her brothers are learning how to think, and how to be Good People in the world. And their education leans toward the things in which they're interested. And if you define success as "able to be a good, useful person in the world," then I would argue they're doing just fine.
posted by nushustu at 10:47 AM on October 30, 2023 [26 favorites]
My spouse and I are both former teachers. We did much of our child-raising in Austin, although my job has taken my family and I to spend a fair amount of time in other cities, and other countries.
In Austin, they had (and might still have) a thriving homeschool community. Lots of get-togethers. Lots of classes run by parents or other teachers or college profs. There were holiday parties. My wife used to run this enormous halloween party at the local children's museum. Hundreds of kids and families would attend.
There were two major groups of homeschoolers: the religious types, and the super-crunchy/hippie types. When we started, maybe the neatest thing about homeschooling was that you could get people at extreme ends of the political spectrum who had this one thing in common: they loved their kids, and they were making sacrifices to do what they considered best for them. While I disagreed vehemently with many parents' beliefs, I could not begrudge them the fact that they loved their kids.
Whenever people found out our kids were homeschooled, the inevitable questions was: "do you worry about their socialization?" It's a valid question, particularly for my kids, who are frigging weird in their own wonderful ways. What we discovered was that their socialization suffered, but in a good way. Our kids had considerably more exposure to adults than the average kid. I remember a time that I took my 8yo daughter to a book-signing with Kate DiCamillo. Tale of Despereaux was one of my daughter's favorite books. DiCamillo did a reading and then took questions. Before it was over, I was getting embarrassed, because my daughter and the author were having a 1-on-1 conversation about the ending of Charlotte's web, while everyone else just sat and watched.
This happened a lot. My daughter (and sons) weren't taught to respect elders because they were older, just to respect people. As a result, they came at relationships with the assumption that they were equals. This meant they weren't afraid to ask questions. But they had to learn how to talk like adults to adults. As a result, we were often told by other adults that our kids were delightful, and smart and curious. People really appreciated that our kids seemed to take a real interest in them.
The whole idea of the us vs. them mentality re: adults and kids is stupid as hell. I suspect it starts with a whole lot of societal crap (think contemporary tv/music/etc) that puts people in this mindset initially, and then is supported by kids just doing what they thing they're supposed to do: think adults are dumb, think school is boring, think being yourself means rebelling against society, which means doing "rebellious" things that are exactly the same as kids all over do. It's fine, but it comes about in part because in school, kids are being socialized by other kids. We were lucky to be able to skip that. Our kids are/were mostly socialized with adults, which means so much of the stupid, inexperienced crap that kids do was avoided.
This isn't to toot my own horn, or my kids'. It's more about what we think education is for, and how best to achieve that. My daughter is about to graduate college with a triple major in neuroscience, linguistics, and Arabic. The State Department paid for her to go study languages in Morocco when she was 17. She is planning on continuing her education through a doctorate and beyond.
This kid has holes in her education big enough to drive a truck through. We taught her a lot, and she taught herself even more, but I don't hide that fact that in some ways we failed her, w/r/t traditional education. But she and her brothers are learning how to think, and how to be Good People in the world. And their education leans toward the things in which they're interested. And if you define success as "able to be a good, useful person in the world," then I would argue they're doing just fine.
posted by nushustu at 10:47 AM on October 30, 2023 [26 favorites]
meehawl: “So... An actual school, only not licensed or regulated as such?”I mean, when you put it like that…. Although in the families defense this was for a few months while there was the small matter of a pandemic.
On the other hand, there are overtly religious "home school academies" in the area I'm more worried about.
posted by ob1quixote at 11:03 AM on October 30, 2023 [3 favorites]
But what's pissing me off in this thread is conflating that set of risks with the material reality of the diverse people who school their kids at home.
We are discussing a HuffPo article highlighting someone's experience with parents that mostly appear unfit to teach children. You can understand why responses would start from the risks implicit in homeschooling, since the article is all about parents who embody that risk. Some of those stories made me visibly cringe in fear and concern for the poor children being indoctrinated in their parents' worldview. That poor 9 year old girl whose mother has taught her she can't listen to her heart, only "the Lord". That kind of teaching is harmful.
Of course that's Not All Homeschoolers. There are many good reasons one might homeschool. This article in this post isn't about that. Some of this discussion has turned into that though.
I go back to my question above: what sort of mechanisms are in place in state governments to ensure homeschooled kids are getting a reasonable education? Thanks to Redstart and bq for providing some answers to that.
I did a bit of research and found two resources. This site has a map with a broad categorization; 35 states are characterized as "low regulation" and it's clear the Northeast has more regulation than most of the rest of the country. And the US DoE has a chart which shows that 30 states have some form of "assessments or evaluation required". No doubt the details of each state's regulation are various and important.
posted by Nelson at 11:30 AM on October 30, 2023 [7 favorites]
We are discussing a HuffPo article highlighting someone's experience with parents that mostly appear unfit to teach children. You can understand why responses would start from the risks implicit in homeschooling, since the article is all about parents who embody that risk. Some of those stories made me visibly cringe in fear and concern for the poor children being indoctrinated in their parents' worldview. That poor 9 year old girl whose mother has taught her she can't listen to her heart, only "the Lord". That kind of teaching is harmful.
Of course that's Not All Homeschoolers. There are many good reasons one might homeschool. This article in this post isn't about that. Some of this discussion has turned into that though.
I go back to my question above: what sort of mechanisms are in place in state governments to ensure homeschooled kids are getting a reasonable education? Thanks to Redstart and bq for providing some answers to that.
I did a bit of research and found two resources. This site has a map with a broad categorization; 35 states are characterized as "low regulation" and it's clear the Northeast has more regulation than most of the rest of the country. And the US DoE has a chart which shows that 30 states have some form of "assessments or evaluation required". No doubt the details of each state's regulation are various and important.
posted by Nelson at 11:30 AM on October 30, 2023 [7 favorites]
> the moment someone starts talking about “parents rights” my child-abuse Spidey sense starts to tingle.
“Parent’s rights” now means 2 things, mostly.
1) the right to control the education of one’s children
2) the right to choose that one’s children receive gender affirming care.
So be careful what you wish for. I don’t think it’s possible to do away with one without effectively doing away with the other.
posted by bq at 12:06 PM on October 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
“Parent’s rights” now means 2 things, mostly.
1) the right to control the education of one’s children
2) the right to choose that one’s children receive gender affirming care.
So be careful what you wish for. I don’t think it’s possible to do away with one without effectively doing away with the other.
posted by bq at 12:06 PM on October 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
if you want better schools, is the most strategic move to focus on individual parent choices, or focus on pressuring governments to improve schools?
In my experience, in the US, we only get to pressure on governments if high-SES people need the service to improve.
posted by clew at 12:07 PM on October 30, 2023 [4 favorites]
In my experience, in the US, we only get to pressure on governments if high-SES people need the service to improve.
posted by clew at 12:07 PM on October 30, 2023 [4 favorites]
The whole idea of the us vs. them mentality re: adults and kids is stupid as hell. I suspect it starts with a whole lot of societal crap (think contemporary tv/music/etc) that puts people in this mindset initially
The power imbalance between adults and juveniles is a social phenomenon, you can't wish it away by getting children to mimic acting like adults, or by blaming the media for intergenerational conflict. Expecting children to act like growups is itself what historical societies did, they needed children to be mature in particular ways. Later developed societies were more able to afford a slower development of children i.e. this was called neotyny, the usual example given in developmental psychology being that college students (i.e. young adults in high SES societies) are less mature in many ways than same aged people 50 or 100 years ago.
So I think the argument that exposure to adults is why homeschooling is effective does not independently isolate the factors and of privilege and power in understanding the process of it.
For example, if I were homeschooled by my conservative parents and their community, I have no idea nor do I wish to describe how I might have turned out. Sociology studies point out one of the best predictors of a person's political growth is how schooling subverts and liberates the child from the values of their parents. That's science, not a story about rebels made up by Hollywood.
posted by polymodus at 12:34 PM on October 30, 2023 [6 favorites]
The power imbalance between adults and juveniles is a social phenomenon, you can't wish it away by getting children to mimic acting like adults, or by blaming the media for intergenerational conflict. Expecting children to act like growups is itself what historical societies did, they needed children to be mature in particular ways. Later developed societies were more able to afford a slower development of children i.e. this was called neotyny, the usual example given in developmental psychology being that college students (i.e. young adults in high SES societies) are less mature in many ways than same aged people 50 or 100 years ago.
So I think the argument that exposure to adults is why homeschooling is effective does not independently isolate the factors and of privilege and power in understanding the process of it.
For example, if I were homeschooled by my conservative parents and their community, I have no idea nor do I wish to describe how I might have turned out. Sociology studies point out one of the best predictors of a person's political growth is how schooling subverts and liberates the child from the values of their parents. That's science, not a story about rebels made up by Hollywood.
posted by polymodus at 12:34 PM on October 30, 2023 [6 favorites]
The numbers linked to by bluesky43 make it pretty clear that well north of 70% of people who homeschool in the US are doing it for religious reasons. That still leaves space for a lot of cool people doing homeschool for good reasons, but it does say they are very much a minority.
It is not totally off-base to think of homeschooling in the US as a primarily conservative christian phenomenon.
posted by 3j0hn at 1:58 PM on October 30, 2023 [11 favorites]
It is not totally off-base to think of homeschooling in the US as a primarily conservative christian phenomenon.
posted by 3j0hn at 1:58 PM on October 30, 2023 [11 favorites]
We are stunned into silence. Later, B and I wonder what rhymes with Jerusalem.
While constipated in Jerusalem
I opted to drink Metamucil, then
Some Milk of Magnesia
And prunes from Tunisia
My bowels were tight but I loosened 'em.
posted by Kabanos at 2:39 PM on October 30, 2023 [8 favorites]
While constipated in Jerusalem
I opted to drink Metamucil, then
Some Milk of Magnesia
And prunes from Tunisia
My bowels were tight but I loosened 'em.
posted by Kabanos at 2:39 PM on October 30, 2023 [8 favorites]
You know what we should probably do? We should take their kids from them and put them in residential schools where they could be taught science and tolerance and reach their full potential as functioning members of a progressive society that is doing good.
I mean, I understand (and abhor) what you're referencing, but I really don't think you should go there.
posted by ambrosen at 2:40 PM on October 30, 2023 [12 favorites]
I mean, I understand (and abhor) what you're referencing, but I really don't think you should go there.
posted by ambrosen at 2:40 PM on October 30, 2023 [12 favorites]
Just picking up on the second point that jedicus makes - and which nushustu backs up - the home-schooling argument devalues the work of teachers.
Teaching is hard work - work that I do not want to do and that you could never pay me enough to do. But somehow, someone with no training or experience is perfectly qualified to home school.
nushustu and their spouse were former teachers - and even then there were gaps.
I think it is because teaching is seen as "women's work" that it is so readily dismissed as being generic and fungible. To me it's the equivalent of "Now I have an electric toothbrush, I won't bother going to the dentist"
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 3:51 PM on October 30, 2023 [18 favorites]
Teaching is hard work - work that I do not want to do and that you could never pay me enough to do. But somehow, someone with no training or experience is perfectly qualified to home school.
nushustu and their spouse were former teachers - and even then there were gaps.
I think it is because teaching is seen as "women's work" that it is so readily dismissed as being generic and fungible. To me it's the equivalent of "Now I have an electric toothbrush, I won't bother going to the dentist"
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 3:51 PM on October 30, 2023 [18 favorites]
My first issue with homeschooling is just what Barbara noted above -- teaching is an art form requiring a ton of work, and that's when you're something of a specialist and can focus on one general subject area/curriculum at a time. Not every instructor will be equally suited to teach all subjects. What happens when the home-teacher is all thumbs at math, or has zero frame of reference in literature, or understands none of the nuances of the historical events they're quizzing their child on?
With a good set of support materials and resources, some of that burden is lessened, but not all. This author's experiences demonstrate that not everyone is looking for what scholars might call a 'good' set of such...
...which brings up the second issue, diversity. Some are looking to homeschool because they wish to insert specific topics, points of view, slants on learning that they feel that public schools do not provide. Others because they are looking to shield their children from exposure to the wrong ideas, the wrong facts, the wrong cultures, the wrong classmates, the wrong opportunities to learn how to question what they've been told at home. It can be very difficult in a formal school system to verify that students are learning accurate, balanced and sound information; homeschooling makes it that much harder for anyone to review and gauge that kind of thing.
The third issue is that when your P.E. class is just you and a parent, dodgeball loses much of its appeal.
posted by delfin at 5:56 PM on October 30, 2023 [4 favorites]
With a good set of support materials and resources, some of that burden is lessened, but not all. This author's experiences demonstrate that not everyone is looking for what scholars might call a 'good' set of such...
...which brings up the second issue, diversity. Some are looking to homeschool because they wish to insert specific topics, points of view, slants on learning that they feel that public schools do not provide. Others because they are looking to shield their children from exposure to the wrong ideas, the wrong facts, the wrong cultures, the wrong classmates, the wrong opportunities to learn how to question what they've been told at home. It can be very difficult in a formal school system to verify that students are learning accurate, balanced and sound information; homeschooling makes it that much harder for anyone to review and gauge that kind of thing.
The third issue is that when your P.E. class is just you and a parent, dodgeball loses much of its appeal.
posted by delfin at 5:56 PM on October 30, 2023 [4 favorites]
I think there’s a huge difference between “is homeschooling a good decision for me and my kids” and “is allowing homeschooling a good/bad policy”. I can’t answer the first question for anyone but holy shit it’s a fucked up policy and enables widespread child abuse. Hands down, shut it down.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 6:52 PM on October 30, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 6:52 PM on October 30, 2023 [7 favorites]
What happens when the home-teacher is all thumbs at math, or has zero frame of reference in literature, or understands none of the nuances of the historical events they're quizzing their child on?
This isn't wrong, but it is wrong to assume that the teachers you will get in a public school are much better. Something like half the teachers in the US quit within the first five years, which means something like half the teachers are pretty new to the job.
And let's be honest, many teachers don't have a deep understanding of the subjects they teach. I myself spent multiple years in history classes taught by coaches.
And even if they DO have a deep understanding, that doesn't mean they're good at transferring that knowledge to the youth: there's a reason you have to do additional training to be a teacher, beyond a regular college degree.
And even if you ARE good at transferring that knowledge, that doesn't mean you're any good at managing a classroom of 30 kids, of differing learning levels, with different needs and emotional capabilities, plus needy parents plus deadbeat parents plus incompetent administrations, all for the honor or making bupkis, and getting fewer discounts and thanks than we give to The Troops.
Homeschooling has plenty of opportunities to be fucked up, but last I checked, public education in this country isn't exactly a slam dunk either.
posted by nushustu at 7:09 PM on October 30, 2023 [6 favorites]
This isn't wrong, but it is wrong to assume that the teachers you will get in a public school are much better. Something like half the teachers in the US quit within the first five years, which means something like half the teachers are pretty new to the job.
And let's be honest, many teachers don't have a deep understanding of the subjects they teach. I myself spent multiple years in history classes taught by coaches.
And even if they DO have a deep understanding, that doesn't mean they're good at transferring that knowledge to the youth: there's a reason you have to do additional training to be a teacher, beyond a regular college degree.
And even if you ARE good at transferring that knowledge, that doesn't mean you're any good at managing a classroom of 30 kids, of differing learning levels, with different needs and emotional capabilities, plus needy parents plus deadbeat parents plus incompetent administrations, all for the honor or making bupkis, and getting fewer discounts and thanks than we give to The Troops.
Homeschooling has plenty of opportunities to be fucked up, but last I checked, public education in this country isn't exactly a slam dunk either.
posted by nushustu at 7:09 PM on October 30, 2023 [6 favorites]
This isn't wrong, but it is wrong to assume that the teachers you will get in a public school are much better. Something like half the teachers in the US quit within the first five years, which means something like half the teachers are pretty new to the job.
This isn't correct -- or to be more precise, the conclusion does not follow from the idea that half of teachers quit in the first five years. Imagine a new school with nine teachers, new to the profession. Every five years, the teacher in classroom A quits and is replaced by a new teacher (who will quit five years later); the other eight teachers stay on for a full 40 year career. After 40 years, there will have been 16 teachers in the school; half in the ill-fated classroom A, and half in the other rooms. Half of the teachers have quit in their first five years, but the vast majority (80%) of the classes in this school will have had an experienced teacher with over 5 years. (Paradoxically, if the teacher in room A quits every two years, then to have half of the teachers quit in their first five years you need a 21 teacher school and even more classes have an experienced teacher).
Looking at actual data [PDF link - table A-3 page 19]; the average US public school teacher has 14.5 years of experience, and about 63% of teachers have 10+ years of experience; only about 12% of teachers have 3 years or less of experience. And a teacher with 3 years of experience is, with average class sizes, a teacher who has taught 60 children. (This is broadly robust -- with the exception of charter schools (avg. 10.4 years experience), going from high-poverty to low-poverty schools is a range of 13.9 to 15.1 average years of experience and 14% to 10% new teachers; the range is smaller across community type, school level and student enrolment.)
And let's be honest, many teachers don't have a deep understanding of the subjects they teach. I myself spent multiple years in history classes taught by coaches.
And presumably you spent multiple years in history classes taught by teachers who were interested in teaching history. My eighth grade math teacher fucked around all year with us (I think he read us The Hobbit at one point?), and then my ninth grade math teacher taught us everything we should have learned in grade 8, all of grade 9 and the majority of grade 10. A homeschooled student will have one "teacher" -- period.
And even if they DO have a deep understanding, that doesn't mean they're good at transferring that knowledge to the youth: there's a reason you have to do additional training to be a teacher, beyond a regular college degree.
So, a teacher in a public school has a college degree (the majority have a Master's) in education, additional training, and has the experience of teaching dozens if not hundreds of children. How many parents have this? (Statistics indicate that about 20% of kids are homeschooled in a household where there is an adult with a graduate degree (a further 30% in a household where there is an adult with a bachelor's degree); most of these are not education degrees.)
posted by Superilla at 12:03 AM on October 31, 2023 [19 favorites]
This isn't correct -- or to be more precise, the conclusion does not follow from the idea that half of teachers quit in the first five years. Imagine a new school with nine teachers, new to the profession. Every five years, the teacher in classroom A quits and is replaced by a new teacher (who will quit five years later); the other eight teachers stay on for a full 40 year career. After 40 years, there will have been 16 teachers in the school; half in the ill-fated classroom A, and half in the other rooms. Half of the teachers have quit in their first five years, but the vast majority (80%) of the classes in this school will have had an experienced teacher with over 5 years. (Paradoxically, if the teacher in room A quits every two years, then to have half of the teachers quit in their first five years you need a 21 teacher school and even more classes have an experienced teacher).
Looking at actual data [PDF link - table A-3 page 19]; the average US public school teacher has 14.5 years of experience, and about 63% of teachers have 10+ years of experience; only about 12% of teachers have 3 years or less of experience. And a teacher with 3 years of experience is, with average class sizes, a teacher who has taught 60 children. (This is broadly robust -- with the exception of charter schools (avg. 10.4 years experience), going from high-poverty to low-poverty schools is a range of 13.9 to 15.1 average years of experience and 14% to 10% new teachers; the range is smaller across community type, school level and student enrolment.)
And let's be honest, many teachers don't have a deep understanding of the subjects they teach. I myself spent multiple years in history classes taught by coaches.
And presumably you spent multiple years in history classes taught by teachers who were interested in teaching history. My eighth grade math teacher fucked around all year with us (I think he read us The Hobbit at one point?), and then my ninth grade math teacher taught us everything we should have learned in grade 8, all of grade 9 and the majority of grade 10. A homeschooled student will have one "teacher" -- period.
And even if they DO have a deep understanding, that doesn't mean they're good at transferring that knowledge to the youth: there's a reason you have to do additional training to be a teacher, beyond a regular college degree.
So, a teacher in a public school has a college degree (the majority have a Master's) in education, additional training, and has the experience of teaching dozens if not hundreds of children. How many parents have this? (Statistics indicate that about 20% of kids are homeschooled in a household where there is an adult with a graduate degree (a further 30% in a household where there is an adult with a bachelor's degree); most of these are not education degrees.)
posted by Superilla at 12:03 AM on October 31, 2023 [19 favorites]
For comparison/inspiration: homeschooling is legal here in Denmark, but very unusual. It is regulated in the sense that every homeschooled child must have their education evaluated once a year. This evaluation can have different forms that are decided by the person who is responsible for it. That person is appointed by the local public school. After 10 years (6-16), the children can pass the national exams, AFAIK, at the local school, so they can enter our equivalent of high school.
Freedom of education is a very deeply rooted thing here, and there are tons of alternative school options, which is probably one reason there aren't more homeschoolers. But these schools are tightly regulated. Religious schools can't just teach that God created the world in six days or avoid the mandatory sex-ed. My children have been to different religious schools and different public schools, and there were no significant differences in the curriculum. Other options are Steiner schools, Montessori schools, Freinet schools and something we call little schools -- that are often very child-centered, these schools do not follow the national curriculum, and they aren't obligated to offer the national exams, but I think that today most do. There are also free schools, founded by parents who disagree with their local school management, but otherwise agree with the basic norms. All these not-public schools get public funding, so parents only have to pay 5-10% of the costs. Finally, there are various international schools, that may or may not receive public funding.
We had a friend who was homeschooled, he'd come over to our school to play ball now and then, but generally, he came over to our house after school. He never learned to read or write, but he is a highly succesfull person today. His parents were very charming, even charismatic, so they were always able to talk themselves out of the control system. I meet him every now and then, and I'd say he has some unnecessary hang-ups about being un-schooled.
As a university professor, I've had two students who were homeschooled, both because the parents travelled a lot. But the reasons they travelled were very different. One family were missionaries in some weird Christian sect, and the other were adventurers who lived to travel. The adventurer-family student was at school when they were not traveling. Both are succesfull and happy people today, but the person who grew up in a sect struggled personally through university, because they were still learning about life "outside". Both students stood out as empathetic and very talented people. It seemed to me that they did well because they had no idea what was normal, and approached every day, every new person and every task with an open mind. They were really good at learning.
I would never be able to homeschool my kids, just helping them with their homework always gave me a headache. But I don't think it should be illegal. As many have said above, there can be good reasons to homeschool, apart from religion. I do think it should be regulated. My childhood friend should have learnt the basics of education. I don't think he would have been more or less succesfull, but he would be more confident.
posted by mumimor at 2:10 AM on October 31, 2023 [12 favorites]
Freedom of education is a very deeply rooted thing here, and there are tons of alternative school options, which is probably one reason there aren't more homeschoolers. But these schools are tightly regulated. Religious schools can't just teach that God created the world in six days or avoid the mandatory sex-ed. My children have been to different religious schools and different public schools, and there were no significant differences in the curriculum. Other options are Steiner schools, Montessori schools, Freinet schools and something we call little schools -- that are often very child-centered, these schools do not follow the national curriculum, and they aren't obligated to offer the national exams, but I think that today most do. There are also free schools, founded by parents who disagree with their local school management, but otherwise agree with the basic norms. All these not-public schools get public funding, so parents only have to pay 5-10% of the costs. Finally, there are various international schools, that may or may not receive public funding.
We had a friend who was homeschooled, he'd come over to our school to play ball now and then, but generally, he came over to our house after school. He never learned to read or write, but he is a highly succesfull person today. His parents were very charming, even charismatic, so they were always able to talk themselves out of the control system. I meet him every now and then, and I'd say he has some unnecessary hang-ups about being un-schooled.
As a university professor, I've had two students who were homeschooled, both because the parents travelled a lot. But the reasons they travelled were very different. One family were missionaries in some weird Christian sect, and the other were adventurers who lived to travel. The adventurer-family student was at school when they were not traveling. Both are succesfull and happy people today, but the person who grew up in a sect struggled personally through university, because they were still learning about life "outside". Both students stood out as empathetic and very talented people. It seemed to me that they did well because they had no idea what was normal, and approached every day, every new person and every task with an open mind. They were really good at learning.
I would never be able to homeschool my kids, just helping them with their homework always gave me a headache. But I don't think it should be illegal. As many have said above, there can be good reasons to homeschool, apart from religion. I do think it should be regulated. My childhood friend should have learnt the basics of education. I don't think he would have been more or less succesfull, but he would be more confident.
posted by mumimor at 2:10 AM on October 31, 2023 [12 favorites]
WaPo gift link about the rise in homeschooling that references demographics
posted by Selena777 at 6:13 AM on October 31, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 6:13 AM on October 31, 2023 [2 favorites]
The question of personal interests versus policy is interesting. I think that a free, appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment is a good policy. But I don’t think it’s reality, given the state of funding for special education. My concern is making sure that parents whose schools give up on their kid have options. I understand that this is a minority of those homeschooling, but to ignore them in the calculus is, to my mind, really cruel.
I acknowledge that there are situations where this dynamic is turned on its head. In that article linked above (it’s good) one of the parents seems to have pulled her kid out of school specifically to avoid special education services. That made me queasy to read.
I have strong opinions about this despite never homeschooling myself (unless you count the pandemic). I have just known A Lot of families with weird children on the edge of exclusion, who either have homeschooled, or came pretty close at one time or another, because school just wasn’t working. If I could remake the world in my image, what I’d do is make sure that every school made a place for those children, not just on paper but in reality. That all children could see their humanity reflected in the faces of teachers who care for them. That would be a much better outcome. But I don’t think it’s one I’ll ever see.
posted by eirias at 6:34 AM on October 31, 2023 [3 favorites]
I acknowledge that there are situations where this dynamic is turned on its head. In that article linked above (it’s good) one of the parents seems to have pulled her kid out of school specifically to avoid special education services. That made me queasy to read.
I have strong opinions about this despite never homeschooling myself (unless you count the pandemic). I have just known A Lot of families with weird children on the edge of exclusion, who either have homeschooled, or came pretty close at one time or another, because school just wasn’t working. If I could remake the world in my image, what I’d do is make sure that every school made a place for those children, not just on paper but in reality. That all children could see their humanity reflected in the faces of teachers who care for them. That would be a much better outcome. But I don’t think it’s one I’ll ever see.
posted by eirias at 6:34 AM on October 31, 2023 [3 favorites]
As with certain other fundamental issues, there are two questions at hand: should one do the thing? And, should it be illegal to do the thing?
Don’t argue about the one and confuse it for an argument about the other.
posted by bq at 7:14 AM on October 31, 2023 [8 favorites]
Don’t argue about the one and confuse it for an argument about the other.
posted by bq at 7:14 AM on October 31, 2023 [8 favorites]
I will note, however, that even today, 68% say proving "moral instruction" is an important reason to homeschool, so I'm slightly skeptical about just how sharp the drop really is, and COVID has undoubtedly played a role in the last few years, so i wouldn't be surprised if the percentage of religious parents rose again in a few years.
For what it's worth, at least in the ~progressive~ PNW, i imagine these figures would have been about the same in the early 90s. It's unfashionable to say you're doing it for religious reasons, but you are, so you euphemism it away. I find it very very hard to believe that in this current erm, charged political climate this hasn't become even more common.
What we discovered was that their socialization suffered, but in a good way.
I'm gonna let this thread go after this so that i don't start horsebeating, but this is something i love to talk about because adults always felt this way about me as a kid, and i thought it was cool as a kid too. The problem was how different me and my friends socialization was from other kids.
This was cute and fun and stuff until high school age, and especially college age. It hit me, and collectively us, like an absolute ton of bricks. It basically took until my mid 20s for the water pressure to equalize on both sides of this that i was enough of an adult that this wasn't weird, and that i didn't come off weird to people anymore.
What you're describing is a form of precociousness honestly, and precociousness always comes with some kind of deficiency or downside. It's always the result of something.
And really, i'm saying this as the wonderkid adults always loved, being like 10 years old speaking to reference librarians and ~cool adults~ about their research/art/musicianship and wowing the studio audience. Ages like 17-25 were just... so rough.
And like, i've had a decent life at this point. Traveled around the world, dated lots of different kinds of people, made cool art, had lots of crazy experiences, have a lot of friends. But like, in the end, you have to live in a society where the majority of people around you have this One Big Common Experience. Fuck, people fight every few months about whether its weird that so many tv shows are about the Big Common Experience. And in the end, a lot of people end up seeing you as the weirdo.
I recently went on a date with someone who had a very similar background to me both with the homeschooling, and growing up in the same general region. A comment she made stuck with me.
"do you ever feel like you just never got out of it? like socially, why am i sitting here in front of you"
posted by emptythought at 9:24 PM on November 1, 2023 [5 favorites]
For what it's worth, at least in the ~progressive~ PNW, i imagine these figures would have been about the same in the early 90s. It's unfashionable to say you're doing it for religious reasons, but you are, so you euphemism it away. I find it very very hard to believe that in this current erm, charged political climate this hasn't become even more common.
What we discovered was that their socialization suffered, but in a good way.
I'm gonna let this thread go after this so that i don't start horsebeating, but this is something i love to talk about because adults always felt this way about me as a kid, and i thought it was cool as a kid too. The problem was how different me and my friends socialization was from other kids.
This was cute and fun and stuff until high school age, and especially college age. It hit me, and collectively us, like an absolute ton of bricks. It basically took until my mid 20s for the water pressure to equalize on both sides of this that i was enough of an adult that this wasn't weird, and that i didn't come off weird to people anymore.
What you're describing is a form of precociousness honestly, and precociousness always comes with some kind of deficiency or downside. It's always the result of something.
And really, i'm saying this as the wonderkid adults always loved, being like 10 years old speaking to reference librarians and ~cool adults~ about their research/art/musicianship and wowing the studio audience. Ages like 17-25 were just... so rough.
And like, i've had a decent life at this point. Traveled around the world, dated lots of different kinds of people, made cool art, had lots of crazy experiences, have a lot of friends. But like, in the end, you have to live in a society where the majority of people around you have this One Big Common Experience. Fuck, people fight every few months about whether its weird that so many tv shows are about the Big Common Experience. And in the end, a lot of people end up seeing you as the weirdo.
I recently went on a date with someone who had a very similar background to me both with the homeschooling, and growing up in the same general region. A comment she made stuck with me.
"do you ever feel like you just never got out of it? like socially, why am i sitting here in front of you"
posted by emptythought at 9:24 PM on November 1, 2023 [5 favorites]
It would be interesting if someone did some actual research on socialization of home-schooled kids. In anecdotes from my experience and direct observations:
But you know where that wasn’t an issue? The two schools I attended that had multi-age classrooms and ways to encourage interaction (eg. through tutoring or mentoring) between kids with even wider age differences. My understanding is the schools made those design choices based on research that showed negative social impacts of narrow age cohorting that is more commonly used in schools, such as students developing weird in-group norms, lack of ability to interact well with people outside their strict age cohort, less tolerance of difference, overall less empathy, more social-emotional difficulty with the transition to adulthood than kids exposed to wider age ranges while still attending formal school and allowed to be/treated as kids, and lack of skills for working in heterogeneous groups (by ability as well as age). That of course creates problems secondarily for young people transitioning between cultures, or who just never fit in to their dominant culture. But it’s also not healthy or positive for the kids who seem to excel in that very weird and artificial environment - the trope about the popular kids in high school peaking in high school and having their lives be all downhill from there, while certainly not a universal experience, is a trope for a reason.
To my mind, the problem is that we have created social norms and institutions that make cultural transitions of any sort very difficult (at any age), and the solution is not to make it a requirement to further limit cultural variance among kids, but to change our institutional norms to be more welcoming of cultural variance.
This is a separate issue from the issue of needing sufficient oversight to ensure homeschooling experiences meet basic educational standards and avoid enabling child abuse. We absolutely need more oversight in those areas. Along the same lines, one thing that came up in the DoD schools thread was that teachers there were part of what are known within education as communities of practice - they each had their own classrooms, but otherwise worked as a team, sharing teaching ideas and giving each other feedback, gaining more comprehensive overviews of each student’s needs, and so on. Public school systems that have implemented this sort of approach also tend to provide better quality education for students. And we need better funding of public schools. A large part of why my parents didn’t home school for more than two months one year when other options fell through was concern for actively supporting public schools. We know that public education in the US has been under attack by conservatives and especially by the religious right for decades, with support for charter schools, homeschooling, and school vouchers for private school attendance all being wielded as tools to defund and lower educational quality within public schools. Concern for how even secular homeschooling fits into this is understandable, especially given that homeschooling can be a lot of work and effort, leaving parents without the time and energy to spend advocating for their local public schools to be better resourced and better structured.
posted by eviemath at 5:07 AM on November 2, 2023 [4 favorites]
- one can attend formal school but in an entirely religious milieu and subsequently have social difficulties in the 17-25 years when first removed to a primarily secular setting for university;
- one can be the “weird” kid who can talk to adults easily and whose family doesn’t have a tv while also attending formal public school and thus encountering the same sort of social difficulties in the 5-17 age range before one has had any opportunity to potentially develop the skills to deal with that;
- one can be homeschooled in a secular environment that includes awareness of current youth culture and develop both the skills to talk to adults and to relate to one’s age cohort and not suffer socially; and
- one can be homeschooled in a secular or religious environment, develop the skills to talk to adults, not have any attention paid to whether or not one has developed skills to interact with younger age cohorts, and not have any attention paid to developing the skills to navigate a change in milieu as one shifts from homeschooling to the broader world and thus encounter social difficulties during that transition.
But you know where that wasn’t an issue? The two schools I attended that had multi-age classrooms and ways to encourage interaction (eg. through tutoring or mentoring) between kids with even wider age differences. My understanding is the schools made those design choices based on research that showed negative social impacts of narrow age cohorting that is more commonly used in schools, such as students developing weird in-group norms, lack of ability to interact well with people outside their strict age cohort, less tolerance of difference, overall less empathy, more social-emotional difficulty with the transition to adulthood than kids exposed to wider age ranges while still attending formal school and allowed to be/treated as kids, and lack of skills for working in heterogeneous groups (by ability as well as age). That of course creates problems secondarily for young people transitioning between cultures, or who just never fit in to their dominant culture. But it’s also not healthy or positive for the kids who seem to excel in that very weird and artificial environment - the trope about the popular kids in high school peaking in high school and having their lives be all downhill from there, while certainly not a universal experience, is a trope for a reason.
To my mind, the problem is that we have created social norms and institutions that make cultural transitions of any sort very difficult (at any age), and the solution is not to make it a requirement to further limit cultural variance among kids, but to change our institutional norms to be more welcoming of cultural variance.
This is a separate issue from the issue of needing sufficient oversight to ensure homeschooling experiences meet basic educational standards and avoid enabling child abuse. We absolutely need more oversight in those areas. Along the same lines, one thing that came up in the DoD schools thread was that teachers there were part of what are known within education as communities of practice - they each had their own classrooms, but otherwise worked as a team, sharing teaching ideas and giving each other feedback, gaining more comprehensive overviews of each student’s needs, and so on. Public school systems that have implemented this sort of approach also tend to provide better quality education for students. And we need better funding of public schools. A large part of why my parents didn’t home school for more than two months one year when other options fell through was concern for actively supporting public schools. We know that public education in the US has been under attack by conservatives and especially by the religious right for decades, with support for charter schools, homeschooling, and school vouchers for private school attendance all being wielded as tools to defund and lower educational quality within public schools. Concern for how even secular homeschooling fits into this is understandable, especially given that homeschooling can be a lot of work and effort, leaving parents without the time and energy to spend advocating for their local public schools to be better resourced and better structured.
posted by eviemath at 5:07 AM on November 2, 2023 [4 favorites]
> In Washington State, homeschooling is a right, but families are required to submit notification to their school district (IIRC) and conduct standardized testing every year
A homeschooler / unschooler I know here told me it's easy to get around the tests. She didn't give me specifics.
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:46 AM on November 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
A homeschooler / unschooler I know here told me it's easy to get around the tests. She didn't give me specifics.
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:46 AM on November 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
But like, in the end, you have to live in a society where the majority of people around you have this One Big Common Experience. Fuck, people fight every few months about whether its weird that so many tv shows are about the Big Common Experience. And in the end, a lot of people end up seeing you as the weirdo.
I recently went on a date with someone who had a very similar background to me both with the homeschooling, and growing up in the same general region. A comment she made stuck with me.
"do you ever feel like you just never got out of it? like socially, why am i sitting here in front of you"
This sounds like it has a lot in common with Third Culture Kids.
posted by bq at 10:28 AM on November 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
I recently went on a date with someone who had a very similar background to me both with the homeschooling, and growing up in the same general region. A comment she made stuck with me.
"do you ever feel like you just never got out of it? like socially, why am i sitting here in front of you"
This sounds like it has a lot in common with Third Culture Kids.
posted by bq at 10:28 AM on November 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
School levies aren’t exactly overwhelmingly popular at the state or local level either one.
How much homeschooling and private schooling can they survive?
posted by jamjam at 1:04 PM on November 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
How much homeschooling and private schooling can they survive?
posted by jamjam at 1:04 PM on November 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
My godson's disabled and homeschooling now for health reasons.
When he was in public school, he lost a dramatic amount of weight and got sick so often that he was in danger of failing a grade from so many absences. He was born VERY prematurely and has a lot of health challenges that make being in a system where kids get 15 minutes to eat lunch and special education is practically non-existent outright dangerous for him. More than once, he passed out at school from dehydration. It just wasn't safe for him, and thankfully, the pandemic made the transition easy (for the first year, at least).
Unfortunately, Texas doesn't make virtual learning easy or free for him. I know some people pushing vouchers and bleating about "school choice" use kids like him as examples to push their agendas, but I'd be much happier if public schools offered virtual learning as an option for kids who enrolled in the system, but were physically unable to attend in-person classes for whatever reason.
His mom would like nothing more than for him to be able to spend time making friends with other kids and having typical childhood experiences. She'd love to go back to work so the family didn't have to struggle on just one income.
But if you hug him too hard, he bruises. He has trouble walking down stairs by himself. He has to eat every 2 hours, because he has short-gut syndrome. He has trouble gripping a pencil long enough to write a sentence without dropping it.
Most public schools are simply not equipped to provide adequate support for children like him. (There may be some out there that exist, but I have yet to see it.)
And after his parents were saddled with a lifetime of debt from his 6 months in the NICU and an ongoing series of surgeries to preserve his vision and digestive system, private school was never going to be an option.
As much as it hurts my heart to see him spending most of his formative years at home alone with mom and dad, homeschooling has definitely been a blessing for him.
His first official report card, he made straight 100's. His science lessons involve spending a day at a local farm, petting the baby goats and learning how dairy cows turn grass into milk. He's realizing he has an aptitude for math, and is a voracious reader with a huge vocabulary. His mom just got him tested for Talented and Gifted and he's already excited about going to college someday.
I'm sharing all this because some people turn to homeschooling not so much to control their kids, but to simply keep them alive until they're able to survive on their own in a hostile world.
I understand very well the urge to shut down homeschooling as an option. Frankly, I wish there were better alternatives for differently abled children who deserve a free and equal education just like their peers, but cannot safely navigate the system as it currently exists.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 7:34 AM on November 3, 2023 [5 favorites]
When he was in public school, he lost a dramatic amount of weight and got sick so often that he was in danger of failing a grade from so many absences. He was born VERY prematurely and has a lot of health challenges that make being in a system where kids get 15 minutes to eat lunch and special education is practically non-existent outright dangerous for him. More than once, he passed out at school from dehydration. It just wasn't safe for him, and thankfully, the pandemic made the transition easy (for the first year, at least).
Unfortunately, Texas doesn't make virtual learning easy or free for him. I know some people pushing vouchers and bleating about "school choice" use kids like him as examples to push their agendas, but I'd be much happier if public schools offered virtual learning as an option for kids who enrolled in the system, but were physically unable to attend in-person classes for whatever reason.
His mom would like nothing more than for him to be able to spend time making friends with other kids and having typical childhood experiences. She'd love to go back to work so the family didn't have to struggle on just one income.
But if you hug him too hard, he bruises. He has trouble walking down stairs by himself. He has to eat every 2 hours, because he has short-gut syndrome. He has trouble gripping a pencil long enough to write a sentence without dropping it.
Most public schools are simply not equipped to provide adequate support for children like him. (There may be some out there that exist, but I have yet to see it.)
And after his parents were saddled with a lifetime of debt from his 6 months in the NICU and an ongoing series of surgeries to preserve his vision and digestive system, private school was never going to be an option.
As much as it hurts my heart to see him spending most of his formative years at home alone with mom and dad, homeschooling has definitely been a blessing for him.
His first official report card, he made straight 100's. His science lessons involve spending a day at a local farm, petting the baby goats and learning how dairy cows turn grass into milk. He's realizing he has an aptitude for math, and is a voracious reader with a huge vocabulary. His mom just got him tested for Talented and Gifted and he's already excited about going to college someday.
I'm sharing all this because some people turn to homeschooling not so much to control their kids, but to simply keep them alive until they're able to survive on their own in a hostile world.
I understand very well the urge to shut down homeschooling as an option. Frankly, I wish there were better alternatives for differently abled children who deserve a free and equal education just like their peers, but cannot safely navigate the system as it currently exists.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 7:34 AM on November 3, 2023 [5 favorites]
"We had a friend who was homeschooled... He never learned to read or write...His parents were very charming, even charismatic, so they were always able to talk themselves out of the control system...I'd say he has some unnecessary hang-ups about being un-schooled.."
If my parents were such assholes that they didn't even let me be taught how to *read and write*, you bet I'd have some fucking hangups. Why are you surprised at this?
posted by tavella at 8:35 AM on November 3, 2023
If my parents were such assholes that they didn't even let me be taught how to *read and write*, you bet I'd have some fucking hangups. Why are you surprised at this?
posted by tavella at 8:35 AM on November 3, 2023
If my parents were such assholes that they didn't even let me be taught how to *read and write*, you bet I'd have some fucking hangups. Why are you surprised at this?
Because he isn't blaming his parents, he is blaming people who went to school for being educated. When I push back, he can see it doesn't make sense, but then next time I see him he is at it again.
posted by mumimor at 10:16 AM on November 3, 2023
Because he isn't blaming his parents, he is blaming people who went to school for being educated. When I push back, he can see it doesn't make sense, but then next time I see him he is at it again.
posted by mumimor at 10:16 AM on November 3, 2023
I've never heard of gender affirming care that left someone woefully unprepared for life, or damaged in other ways. Not saying that it can't exist, but.
posted by Jacen at 9:59 PM on November 5, 2023
posted by Jacen at 9:59 PM on November 5, 2023
“Are Students Getting Worse?”—Elliot Sang, 10 November 2023
posted by ob1quixote at 7:53 PM on November 10, 2023
posted by ob1quixote at 7:53 PM on November 10, 2023
“The Right-Wing War on Education”—Zoe Bee, 19 November 2023
Public education is under attack, and it feels like the attacks are coming from everywhere. In this video, we dive into the actual, literal conspiracy underneath the attacks on education. Along the way, I explore common ideas about education, debunk those ideas, and offer a hopeful conclusion defending public education.posted by ob1quixote at 10:17 AM on November 19, 2023 [1 favorite]
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