This started as a comment in the megathread but got long so I decided to make it it’s own post. Obviously covid makes this different, but for general purposes, I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it till I die, please don’t homeschool your kids

I was homeschooled from early in elementary school until halfway through my sophomore year of high school. The reason I joined high school is because I was so depressed and lonely I wanted to die, and I knew my education had been neglected for years, so I begged my parents to put me in public school. Basically the only thing my parents kept up with was math and that’s only because they had me in online math classes.

And of the homeschooling parents I knew, mine were some of the best ones as far as actually educating their children go. Mild neglect with some basic math and science from atheist parents is worlds better than the psycho Christian “education” some people I knew got.

But even with all that the education was the smaller problem. Turns out math is the only thing that actually builds on itself over time in the American education system, everything else just restarts but slightly more complicated when you get to high school.

The bigger problem was how alone I was and how stunted it made my social skills, something I’m still dealing with now and I’m in fucking grad school. Kids and teenagers need to be around people their own age. I straight up did not learn how to function properly in social situations. I almost got the shit beat out of me in my first week in high school for calling a football player a dumbass. If adults said things to me that were mildly accusatory I’d cry, but also I had no concept of not saying shit so I’d call out adults for any minor system issue or other problem completely out of their control which most people just found annoying. I had so much trouble understanding fairly basic social interactions.

My younger brother was homeschooled from after kindergarten all the way until his senior year of high school, which he then dropped out of. He was more stunted both socially and educationally than I was, and started smoking weed nearly every day when he was around 15 to cope. It also definitely didn’t help that my whole family is chock full of mental illness. I think he did just start at community college though, which I’m super proud of.

So yeah. Rant over. Don’t home school your kids. It’s shitty.

  • EmmaGoldman [she/her, comrade/them]M
    ·
    3 years ago

    If you're considering homeschooling your child because you don't trust the American education system to give your child a decent education, the answer is not to do it yourself, it's to move to a country that has a competent education system: a nearly impossible task for most. It sucks, but the reality is that you won't do a better job and your kid will have a lot of difficulty as a result.

    Alternatively, you can put the kid through regular school and additionally cover material that is more advanced and helpful outside of school. This I think is the best method. As an educator myself, I don't think I could handle the full time job of comprehensively educating a child on everything all by myself, but I think it would be fully within my ability to augment and improve my child's education. I understand the desire to prevent bullying or other social issues with other students, but what needs to happen is moving to another school, something for which provisions are in place in the existing system, though they often suck. Not having enough social interaction at all is going to result in a lot more difficulty down the line.

    • Phillipkdink [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Yeah that's a good point - I'm a teacher and a good one, but the idea of teaching a kid everything sounds like a totally fucked up task I would for sure do that poorly.

      • EmmaGoldman [she/her, comrade/them]M
        ·
        3 years ago

        Yeah, like I can do the curricula for pretty much all of science, andall of social studies and that kid will know more about chemistry, physics, history, politics, geography, sociology, and anthropology than any other kid graduating from high school, but math? Math? Oh I'm gonna fuck that up. That's gonna be a kid who can remember every equation for everything and tell you the political history in every nation but who also has to use a calculator to figure out how to do a 20% tip on an exactly $50 meal

        • Phillipkdink [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          How is that kid going to know physics if you can't do math lol

          But yeah, I like to think I'm pretty worldly and know a lot of shit but there's something to be said for expertise you know? Like aside from language or auto mechanics shit I know I know nothing about, even though I'm well-read and can write very well, I'm sure there are incredible subtleties to teaching that to someone else I'd really rather have an expert teach my kids to write you know?

          • EmmaGoldman [she/her, comrade/them]M
            ·
            3 years ago

            No, yeah, I can understand equations and how to use them, but I can't do basic math for shit lmao. The genuine inverse of the "you're not gonna have a calculator on you all the time." Yes, actually, I never go anywhere without a magical combination calculator/flashlight/camera/recorder/encyclopedia called a smartphone. Why should I memorize a bunch of multiplication and division tables?

            But yeah, that's what I mean. Nobody can remember everything about everything, that's why we build education systems as a society, so that people who are good at certain things can teach that thing to everyone adequately, and compensate for difficulties in learning.