Homeschooling Debate

As a former home-schooled child, don't do this.

This sounds to me like you're extrapolating your own experience and generalizing it to the whole population, when in truth you are likely to be an outlier: most kids do fine in school (and always have), and most home schooled people find it harder to contribute meaningfully to society (due to less exposure to socialization opportunities and poorer education).

Thanks for perpetuating stereotypes.Both my kids have been homeschooled. My oldest, 15, entered a public high school this year, is a solid A/B student, and is taking senior-level classes. My youngest, 13, is still being homeschooled and will likely go the same path in a couple of years.We don't go to church. We teach evolution. Both kids are passionate about science, especially biology and astronomy.Amongst other homeschooling families in our area, we are not atypic

It varies depending on circumstances, of course, but the vast majority of homeschooled kids I've met are very well socialized, capable of reasoned debate, and quite well-rounded in their outlook on life. By contrast, in American public schools at least, I'm seeing a serious trend toward unhealthy social interactions, cyber bullying, teachers who only have time for testing, and more. If your country doesn't allow it, you may not have had the chance to observe the difference but it&

I was homeschooled until 7th grade. If your parents aren't monsters maybe it can be good. But many if not most parents who choose to homeschool their kids are zealots of some kind or another, or have serious control/paranoia/narcissim issues. Exposure to people outside the home, who aren't hand-picked by the child's parents can go a long way towards teaching the child that there are people in the world who are different from their parents. I think that would have helped

This is not directly relevant to the article, but I see people look at public/private school v. homeschool as if it's a zero-sum game. Many families are unable to have a parent stay home the entire day(whether due to money or due to the parent liking their career-who wants an unhappy, bored teacher all day?), but ideally "schooling" should be going on in the home as well as in school. In public school I learned little of value past socialization (I did have interaction with p

sounds like a good reason for homeschooling http://eus.sagepub.com/content/39/2/264.short

I completely agree with you. Do you have any ideas about what might stem this tide on a grander scale? I live in the country and will homeschool my kids--I think the risk of under-socialization is worth the reward of competency-based education and the higher likelihood of my own principles taking hold--but I would vastly prefer to send them to a normal school with other kids, albeit one in a superior society to that which we currently inhabit.

Every time the subject of homeschooling or unschooling comes up in HN the same tired arguments get trotted out: Kids will suffer socially, most parents aren't qualified to teach. There's some irony in the usually libertarian-learning HN audience defending schools, which are a system designed to deprive individuals (children) of their freedom and to limit their opportunities.These arguments are not supported by evidence or history. They are based on misconceptions about homeschooling

Part of "socializing" is observing that one's parents aren't the absolute authority in the world. Parents sometimes butt heads with teachers, coaches etc. No home schooling scenario can provide this experience. I think it leads to enhanced levels of narcissism in both students and parents.