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On January 09 2014 04:17 Epishade wrote:I agree with your main points in the beginning that sending your kids to school is much more beneficial than detrimental to their learning and future opportunities. Blue seems to have a negative connotation with school and I don't think it'll be easy for Blue's kids to have as many opportunities as other children who attend high-school/college. Show nested quote +On January 09 2014 04:03 Smurfett3 wrote:On January 09 2014 03:32 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On January 09 2014 03:29 Sn0_Man wrote:
The fun part here is to vote "neither" then not leave a comment elaborating.
(I didn't actually do this).
Homeschooling is a thing and its not that hard so blue might not understand that they can get what they want from that. Unless the US has some weird laws about that Iunno. Yeah he made it pretty clear that he was *not* homeschooling his kids... he was merely not sending his kids to school (which I didn't even know was legal to do). I learned how how to type effeciently on a computer (continuously typing in cheats to age of mythology), my love for rts games (age of mythology), and that school subjects are boring compared to computer games I actually learned how to type fast by typing in cheats whenever I played Starcraft BW. I remember in my fifth grade spelling bee, I beat out the other kids in my class because they gave me the word "overwhelming". Having typed in power overwhelming for god mode just about every game I played, I got that one for sure. And then, I was CHEATED out of the grade competition when they gave me a word that I'll never forget. They told me to spell residence. I spelled it like residents and they told me that was wrong. What bs.
You need to ask the definition of the word before spelling it. That would've cleared up your confusion.
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Blue makes a lot of conjectures, and bad assumptions. For example his point about his children have been missing on only ONE thing when not going to school and school going children missing on MANY things, being unable to listen to other people ideas when at school. Who is going to stop you from listening to other people ideas at school??
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On January 09 2014 04:15 Smurfett3 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2014 04:06 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On January 09 2014 03:51 sc4k wrote:
Can't stand to read the way blue argues his case, when red is being so civil. Having said that, I don't disagree with some of his points. But ultimately I'm pretty sure the deciding factor, in my opinion, is that (unless home schooling becomes more prevalent) you are just creating an unnecessary barrier to 'fitting in' and settling into a social role in society for your child by home schooling them. Whenever they come to be 'integrated' into a school setting, whichever age this is chosen to be, it is going to probably be traumatic for a good proportion of the children inserted this way. The main problem is probably that they won't have experienced the more negative side of human interaction and won't be that ready for it, they won't have built in defences that we all need at points all the way through our lives to maintain.
I'm sure that his philosophy is a hell of a lot better than a lot of other well-meaning parents though. I agree. I've seen him comment on my friend's other posts, and he's rather eloquent and seems to be smart, so I assume his decision to not send his children to school is not out of some weird phobia or laziness. But I definitely think that there are going to be some social situations that children and young adults learn quite well when integrated into a microcosm like school. Making friends, dating, being on sports teams, joining clubs, study groups, etc. "seems to be smart" can also be substituted with "seems confident with his assertions" being confident and being smart are 2 different things though
I agree with you. Unfortunately, that's a distinction I can't make in regards to him, as I don't know him.
On January 09 2014 04:21 Golgotha wrote:
School is not only for education...it is where a child goes to learn how to live within a community as a social being. It is highly detrimental to take this away from a child, because school is a place where lasting friendships can be made, relationships with teachers are created, and just so many X things can happen to you while you are at a position in school. The kids should be doing something like this with a bunch of other students, I don't care if it is public or technical school. They should not be left alone under a restricted human influence. Going to school is not just about education.
Absolutely. The social aspects are incredibly important, not just the academic ones.
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On January 09 2014 04:43 spinesheath wrote:
School could be a lot better than it is (judging from what I experienced at German schools obviously), but I seriously doubt that not sending kids to school is a better option.
That's my take on the situation as well. Blue is essentially throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
On January 09 2014 04:44 Mstring wrote:
Bravo to Blue. His kids will become leaders.
Sarcasm?
On January 09 2014 04:53 Roman666 wrote:
Blue makes a lot of conjectures, and bad assumptions. For example his point about his children have been missing on only ONE thing when not going to school and school going children missing on MANY things, being unable to listen to other people ideas when at school. Who is going to stop you from listening to other people ideas at school??
Yeah, and he won't even know what his students are currently missing out on, by removing them from the entire experience... so there's no way he'll be able to compensate for these other things he doesn't realize.
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Homeschooling is terrible in majority of cases because, however awful modern schools might be, kids need to learn to deal with a wider range of social situations than staying at home with their parents, ideally before they turn 30.
Schools need to be improved, not removed.
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On January 09 2014 03:32 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2014 03:29 Sn0_Man wrote:
The fun part here is to vote "neither" then not leave a comment elaborating.
(I didn't actually do this).
Homeschooling is a thing and its not that hard so blue might not understand that they can get what they want from that. Unless the US has some weird laws about that Iunno. Yeah he made it pretty clear that he was *not* homeschooling his kids... he was merely not sending his kids to school (which I didn't even know was legal to do).
I think he just doesn't want to call it homeschooling, but that is in fact what he is doing. Assuming this as a premise, I'm just going to talk about homeschooling.
On the topic, both red and blue have good points but they aren't really arguing against each other towards the same conclusion. Red seems to be arguing that school should be required, while blue is arguing that homeschooling is better. Blue is off in assuming that it would be better for everyone, but I think he would be correct in asserting that it is better for certain individuals, which doesn't conflict Red's arguments. I think schooling should be mandatory, but homeschooling should be an encouraged option for those capable. To not require schooling would be a huge detriment to our society because homeschooling is not easy and requires competent parenting, which only a small percentage of the adult community I would expect to be able to do more efficiently than school.
School does have its detriments, in that it kills the enjoyment of learning and doesn't teach kids how to learn things on their own. Obviously this isn't true of every school, and some private schools can avoid these negatives fairly well, but it's pretty true of most public schools. The bigger drawback of public schools in my eyes is that it doesn't allow above average children to flourish, but instead they are held back by the No Kid Left Behind policy.
On the topic of homeschooling being bad for the social life of the kids, I have to disagree with that. I work a job in which I interact with a lot of families/tourists, and it's always the kids who are here during the school season (which is possible due to homeschooling) who are much more sociable and interact with me and other adults without being shy about it. Going to school teaches you how to interact with other kids your same age +/- 1 year, whereas a homeschooled child with competent parents should have been creating social situations for the child where he learns to interact with kids of a much wider range, and adults outside of just his teacher much more often.
Conclusion: I think homeschooling is best for competent parents, which, if I were to offer a completely rough estimate, is probably only around 10-20% of the adult population, and then only if one of them is able to stay home with the kid full time as well which limits it further. The main drawback of homeschooling is the child will be exposed much more strongly to the biases of the parent, since almost all interactions will be set up/organized by the parent.
I have also met a couple older (17-19) homeschooled people and they are almost always more mature/intelligent than the average person I meet in the same age group. Obviously such a small sample is irrelevant scientifically, and they may have just ended up that way regardless, but I have no negative experiences with a homeschooled individual.
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Interesting discussion. My brief take on it:
First of all, HS in the US is a joke, so I doubt Blue's kids are missing much on the academic side if what he says is true (i.e. he and his wife are intellectually qualified to teach them).
I think, however, that the kids will be missing a bit of discipline by not going to school; being forced to study/learn shit you don't like is a life skill, and if his kids are only learning when they feel like it, they may run into problems later down the line.
I also think it's delusional of him to insist that his kids will be on an equal footing with those who have HS/college degrees. While it may be true that they'll be better equipped to do a wider variety of jobs/tasks because they've lived more enriched lives (or whatever he wants to pass it off as), in the end it will boil down to how others see his kids, not how he sees them; an employer may not care that the kid is a jack of all trades, he just wants to know if he can do X, and if another applicant also demonstrates that they can do X while also having tangible proof of qualifications, I think his kids will lose out.
Also, it's really damn easy to indoctrinate your kids in this kind of an environment. I ultimately think you learn more from your peers than your teachers, both socially and academically. It's not just about "sending your kids out to play when the other kids get home" = SUCCESS! By spending time in school with others, you learn how others think and see the world, and that can be worth its weight in gold.
Hopefully that's coherent. Splitting headache, argh. I am normally quite cynical about the value of US education (in that, I think it's often overstated compared to what it actually is), but even as bad as the US HS education system is, it's still valuable to some degree. Then again, it's hard to say in this situation, 'cause who knows, Blue could be really darn qualified, and he does say at the beginning that the major premise he disagrees with is that all kids should go to school. (And I do think there are some kids who are better taught at home than at school.)
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I agree that it's beneficial, and in most cases necessary, for children to go to school. It's not even about the subjects you learn at school, even though it can be good preparation for higher education. IMO the primary benefit of formal schooling is that it teaches you two very important things:
- You don't have to enjoy something to do it, and in fact most recognition and success can only come from doing things you don't enjoy. This fact is often lost on children who mostly interact with their immediate family, who keep cheering them on for being "good" at their favorite thing when they are in the mood to do it.
- No matter how highly you think of yourself or how lowly of others, you have to get along with your peers, and this always means give-and-take. Pretending to be the center of the universe might work on your parents (and your reluctant older siblings), but it's the fastest way to a lonely experience elsewhere.
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On January 09 2014 05:11 calh wrote:
I agree that it's beneficial, and in most cases necessary, for children to go to school. It's not even about the subjects you learn at school, even though it can be good preparation for higher education. IMO the primary benefit of formal schooling is that it teaches you two very important things:
- You don't have to enjoy something to do it, and in fact most recognition and success can only come from doing things you don't enjoy. This fact is often lost on children who mostly interact with their immediate family, who keep cheering them on for being "good" at their favorite thing when they are in the mood to do it.
- No matter how highly you think of yourself or how lowly of others, you have to get along with your peers, and this always means give-and-take. Pretending to be the center of the universe might work on your parents (and your reluctant older siblings), but it's the fastest way to a lonely experience elsewhere.
I don't see how these can't be counteracted by competent parenting. Have a disciplined and balanced education regime for them and they have to stick to it. A child is not always going to want to study, especially whatever topics he might not be as proficient in, so that's where the discipline comes in.
For learning to get along with individuals you don't enjoy the company of, a homeschooled kid can learn this by interacting with groups of kids doing sports or whatever other group activities the parents can still enroll him in.
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On January 09 2014 05:04 Salazarz wrote:
Homeschooling is terrible in majority of cases because, however awful modern schools might be, kids need to learn to deal with a wider range of social situations than staying at home with their parents, ideally before they turn 30.
Schools need to be improved, not removed.
I like that quote 
On January 09 2014 05:11 calh wrote:
I agree that it's beneficial, and in most cases necessary, for children to go to school. It's not even about the subjects you learn at school, even though it can be good preparation for higher education. IMO the primary benefit of formal schooling is that it teaches you two very important things:
- You don't have to enjoy something to do it, and in fact most recognition and success can only come from doing things you don't enjoy. This fact is often lost on children who mostly interact with their immediate family, who keep cheering them on for being "good" at their favorite thing when they are in the mood to do it.
- No matter how highly you think of yourself or how lowly of others, you have to get along with your peers, and this always means give-and-take. Pretending to be the center of the universe might work on your parents (and your reluctant older siblings), but it's the fastest way to a lonely experience elsewhere.
I think those are two good points as well. It's very hard to live a life of isolation, and you'll eventually need to go and do things out of your comfort zone anyway, so being overly-sheltered at home can be a problem.
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On January 09 2014 05:15 Najda wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2014 05:11 calh wrote:
I agree that it's beneficial, and in most cases necessary, for children to go to school. It's not even about the subjects you learn at school, even though it can be good preparation for higher education. IMO the primary benefit of formal schooling is that it teaches you two very important things:
- You don't have to enjoy something to do it, and in fact most recognition and success can only come from doing things you don't enjoy. This fact is often lost on children who mostly interact with their immediate family, who keep cheering them on for being "good" at their favorite thing when they are in the mood to do it.
- No matter how highly you think of yourself or how lowly of others, you have to get along with your peers, and this always means give-and-take. Pretending to be the center of the universe might work on your parents (and your reluctant older siblings), but it's the fastest way to a lonely experience elsewhere. I don't see how these can't be counteracted by competent parenting. Have a disciplined and balanced education regime for them and they have to stick to it. A child is not always going to want to study, especially whatever topics he might not be as proficient in, so that's where the discipline comes in. For learning to get along with individuals you don't enjoy the company of, a homeschooled kid can learn this by interacting with groups of kids doing sports or whatever other group activities the parents can still enroll him in.
Very true, although the emphasis is definitely on competent parenting!
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On January 09 2014 05:19 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2014 05:15 Najda wrote:On January 09 2014 05:11 calh wrote:
I agree that it's beneficial, and in most cases necessary, for children to go to school. It's not even about the subjects you learn at school, even though it can be good preparation for higher education. IMO the primary benefit of formal schooling is that it teaches you two very important things:
- You don't have to enjoy something to do it, and in fact most recognition and success can only come from doing things you don't enjoy. This fact is often lost on children who mostly interact with their immediate family, who keep cheering them on for being "good" at their favorite thing when they are in the mood to do it.
- No matter how highly you think of yourself or how lowly of others, you have to get along with your peers, and this always means give-and-take. Pretending to be the center of the universe might work on your parents (and your reluctant older siblings), but it's the fastest way to a lonely experience elsewhere. I don't see how these can't be counteracted by competent parenting. Have a disciplined and balanced education regime for them and they have to stick to it. A child is not always going to want to study, especially whatever topics he might not be as proficient in, so that's where the discipline comes in. For learning to get along with individuals you don't enjoy the company of, a homeschooled kid can learn this by interacting with groups of kids doing sports or whatever other group activities the parents can still enroll him in. Very true, although the emphasis is definitely on competent parenting!
Yes that's why even though I believe strongly in homeschooling, I still think schooling should remain the strong recommendation (although schools definitely need improving). There are no requirements for a parent who wishes to homeschool their child at the moment, and for some parents to attempt it can be a very irresponsible thing to do, especially at higher grade levels.
Ideally, as the person above me said, schools would be improved to the point where homeschooling is completely unnecessary.
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The whole idea of taking hundreds of kids and forcing them to learn the same things the same way is terrible.
That being said, no one seems interested in developing solutions for the kids that don't learn the way they're being taught, and are a lot more creative than schools will allow.
The current school structure crushes creativity and though they ask kids to "think outside of the box" in high school, they're taught the exact opposite in elementary and middle school. Blame standards, blame administrators, I don't know.
I don't think this guy is as radical as people are making him sound.
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On January 09 2014 05:11 calh wrote:
- You don't have to enjoy something to do it, and in fact most recognition and success can only come from doing things you don't enjoy. This fact is often lost on children who mostly interact with their immediate family, who keep cheering them on for being "good" at their favorite thing when they are in the mood to do it.
I guess you learned this great truth of life in school, didn't you? It's nevertheless hard to blame you for such ignorance, because this is what the current mass education system is mainly deisgned to do - to force the kids into thinking that the lack of enjoyment is a natural state, to make them "grown adults", which is a well engineered euphemism for supression of indivuduality and conformance to the system of the society. Threre are actually more instances in this thread when people put something like "learing to deal with how things work" as a plus of school, while it is the complete oposite - imagine if now we make a whole generation not go to school and the great values of hard but completely unnecessary work, rigid daily schedule and in general most of what makes up the contemporary corporate world will be lost forever. Wouldn't that be a much nicer world? (Unintuitve Google keyword: "bullshit jobs" for more reading in this direction.)
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Intelligent children can learn everything they would have learned in school at home, without much effort or instruction. Gifted children learn to talk, read, write and do basic arithmetic before they even start school just fine, without even realizing how miserable institutions can make the experience of learning. The primary value of schools is as an extended kindergarten to free up their parents' time for work and to keep children from making trouble and endangering themselves.
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On January 09 2014 05:40 opisska wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2014 05:11 calh wrote:
- You don't have to enjoy something to do it, and in fact most recognition and success can only come from doing things you don't enjoy. This fact is often lost on children who mostly interact with their immediate family, who keep cheering them on for being "good" at their favorite thing when they are in the mood to do it.
I guess you learned this great truth of life in school, didn't you? It's nevertheless hard to blame you for such ignorance, because this is what the current mass education system is mainly deisgned to do - to force the kids into thinking that the lack of enjoyment is a natural state, to make them "grown adults", which is a well engineered euphemism for supression of indivuduality and conformance to the system of the society. Threre are actually more instances in this thread when people put something like "learing to deal with how things work" as a plus of school, while it is the complete oposite - imagine if now we make a whole generation not go to school and the great values of hard but completely unnecessary work, rigid daily schedule and in general most of what makes up the contemporary corporate world will be lost forever. Wouldn't that be a much nicer world? (Unintuitve Google keyword: "bullshit jobs" for more reading in this direction.)
While you certainly have a point, calh wasn't completely wrong in saying that either. Even if you're working your dream job you can still run into things that you don't enjoy doing - but have to do them anyway. Everyone had to file taxes, regardless of how fun you think they are. I think a more apt way of phrasing "doing things you don't like doing" would be something like "learning how to weigh the consequences of doing a task vs the enjoyment of the process."
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I was homeschooled for my entire life up until I turned 17. I'm now in university, top of my class for computer science. (Just to qualify what I want to say, not to boast. Top of a fairly small class isn't that big of a deal  )
What blue is referring to is what I term "unschooling", that is, non-structured, non-formal education at home. It's popular at the moment among home-schoolers because of the move in education in general (which has been going on for a while) which allows the child to learn what they want to learn. The exact term slips my mind at the moment, but it's essentially self-learning as opposed to being told what to learn.
I was more traditionally home-schooled, with a formal curriculum created by my mum and dad, and had a desk to work at and so on. In terms of educational quality alone, what I received was better than any other formal educational institution that I know of. Perhaps some of the top private schools were able to provide a similar level, but only the best ones. However, being in a structured environment is quite different from the open-plan unschooling method. The major flaw with unschooling that I can see is that children simply don't know what is out there and what to learn, so there are likely to be large holes in their knowledge. If they're not interested in a subject, they simply don't need to learn it. To be fair, it wouldn't surprise me if the parents tend to make non-subtle pushes in directions of particular subjects they want their children to learn anyway.
On January 09 2014 04:06 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2014 03:51 sc4k wrote:
Can't stand to read the way blue argues his case, when red is being so civil. Having said that, I don't disagree with some of his points. But ultimately I'm pretty sure the deciding factor, in my opinion, is that (unless home schooling becomes more prevalent) you are just creating an unnecessary barrier to 'fitting in' and settling into a social role in society for your child by home schooling them. Whenever they come to be 'integrated' into a school setting, whichever age this is chosen to be, it is going to probably be traumatic for a good proportion of the children inserted this way. The main problem is probably that they won't have experienced the more negative side of human interaction and won't be that ready for it, they won't have built in defences that we all need at points all the way through our lives to maintain.
I'm sure that his philosophy is a hell of a lot better than a lot of other well-meaning parents though. I agree. I've seen him comment on my friend's other posts, and he's rather eloquent and seems to be smart, so I assume his decision to not send his children to school is not out of some weird phobia or laziness. But I definitely think that there are going to be some social situations that children and young adults learn quite well when integrated into a microcosm like school. Making friends, dating, being on sports teams, joining clubs, study groups, etc.
On January 09 2014 04:21 Golgotha wrote:
School is not only for education...it is where a child goes to learn how to live within a community as a social being. It is highly detrimental to take this away from a child, because school is a place where lasting friendships can be made, relationships with teachers are created, and just so many X things can happen to you while you are at a position in school. The kids should be doing something like this with a bunch of other students, I don't care if it is public or technical school. They should not be left alone under a restricted human influence. Going to school is not just about education.
On January 09 2014 05:04 Salazarz wrote:
Homeschooling is terrible in majority of cases because, however awful modern schools might be, kids need to learn to deal with a wider range of social situations than staying at home with their parents, ideally before they turn 30.
Schools need to be improved, not removed.
All three of you, with all due respect, are completely wrong when it comes to the idea that school is necessary for children to learn how to act in social situations.
Firstly, I had no lack of social situations involving people of all ages. Church, visiting other people's homes, playing with the neighbourhood kids (one of whom I have had a lasting friendship continuing to this day), playing in numerous sports clubs (soccer, athletics, swimming, crosscountry for the most part), trips to parks and museums and shopping malls and so on have been a constant thing in my life. Now that I'm attending university, and having worked for a couple of years prior to university, I have had no difficulty at all adjusting to being with other people of my age, or older, or younger. I've been with other people all my life, from all walks of life, of all ages. And I know plenty of public schooled children who have not.
The only social situation which children going to public schools have is being with large amounts of similarly aged children, with a few authority figures which don't have that much power. They have a more limited social experience than I have had, not a more expansive one. Then you add in the amount of peer pressure, bullying, and negative influences that commonly occur in a school, and I would say that it is far worse for the social development of a child to be in a school than to not be in a school. For me, following the herd with fashion, drugs, alcohol, smoking, cussing, thought patterns, laziness, whatever it is, is not a "normal" thing, because I wasn't brought up in a situation where I was surrounded by hundreds of children doing X thing, where if I did Y thing I would be ostracized. And of course if I HAD been brought up in that situation, I would quickly learn not to do Y. Y might be better than X, or worse. But I wouldn't do it for fear of this supposedly necessary social situation called school.
I never went to high school at a public or private school, so I can't say from my OWN experience that there would be some climate shock for homeschooled children starting at a high school. What I can say is that going out into the work force, and from there into university, presented little difficulty in terms of social interaction. I suppose I didn't realize how much gossip went on in some/most workplaces before I started work, so you could say I wasn't used to that social situation. Having said that, I was pretty easily able to recognize it for what it was, and deal with it, so I don't think I was particularly slowed down in that regard.
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On January 09 2014 04:59 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Sarcasm?
No. What would make you suspect this?
I'd imagine that almost no mathematical or scientific concepts would be learned in a child's spare time
I spent all my spare time learning mathematical and scientific concepts until I started high school. Then I spent all my spare time playing computer games in order to escape the reality that was the imposition of schooling.
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A general rule that is true in very many walks of life: If the majority is doing it, it's probably wrong.
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@ Birdie: Wrt social life, I think it depends on the kid. Being homeschooled would not have done my brother and I any good, and both of us were actually bullied in public school. Not that I think that was a good experience for either of us, but it was more than made up for by the friends we did actually make throughout elementary/middle/high school (I met some of my best friends in 2nd grade). This isn't to say that you can't make good friends outside of school, but for my brother and I, it wouldn't have happened, whether it's because we were naturally inclined towards solitude or because our parents weren't very big on social activities/gatherings either (and so never encouraged us to socialize with the other kids to begin with).
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EPT
