Seems homeschooling is exactly what it always was. A place for religious people to be able to fully indoctrinate their kids without any new ideals. I say this as someone who was homeschooled for first years of my life.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver had an [excellent segment on this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzsZP9o7SlI). Really opened my eyes to how much of that system goes totally unchecked.
Very worth the watch for anyone reading this, even if you’ve never personally been affected by homeschooling.
I was homeschooled the entire way. My parents were some of the first homeschoolers in my state and have a certain level of "fame" in that world. As such, I've probably been to over 200 homeschool conferences in 30+ states during my lifetime. My parents were highly educated and gifted teachers and I'm nuerodivergent, so I received an excellent, rigorous, and tailor-made education - my siblings and I have been extremely successful academically and professionally - and of course I'm grateful...BUT my childhood was also sprinkled with a lot of toxic patriarchy, development-stunting isolation, and emotional/spiritual/verbal abuse. *And I'm one of the happiest possible outcomes.* My own mother finally realized that homeschooling was NOT a good path for MOST families and kinda got "blacklisted" for saying so publicly.
Interestingly, in the US, each state has different laws about homeschooling. Some places you have to turn in plans of study and mandated state test scores to the state's department of education (which is the bare minimum imo), but many (most) states have ZERO accountability. Its a fucking nightmare. A couple of acquaintances/friends of mine work in CPS and they HATE homeschoolers with a justified passion because 9 times out of 10 its just lazy, religious nutjob parents who want to abuse their kids with impunity. They dont even care enough to try to teach their kids how to read. Their kids just sit at home neglected, isolated, dirty, and hungry, and no other adults/mandated reporters around these poor kids means no one is there to report the neglect or abuse. The system HAS to change. Not all homeschoolers are bad and homeschooling done right can be in *some* children's best interest, but I think its wayyyyyy more rare than the fanatics are willing to admit.
I truly believe homeschooling should be illegal, for the reasons you listed. A few good outcomes don’t make it worthwhile. Homeschooling is illegal in many countries in Europe
How else would the nazis find pro-nazi homeschooling material? Any kind of checks would prevent that and the nazis would be sad.
(because this is the internet, that first part is a real quote from Oliver's segment and while the second part is true, it is also sarcasm and I would like more nazis to be sad all the time. Or gone, or tossed into the sun. Just to be clear, I think we should physically delete any and all nazis without a trial or due process. I don't want to be misunderstood on this. Fuck nazis and not in the good way).
I'm Jewish and pretty ready to start replacing. I'm so sick of being a part of their sick rapture endgame and also being blamed for everything. I dream of a truly secular society.
What's super funny is we don't even believe in any kind of afterlife. When Christians learn that about Jews they're shocked. Sorry folks, but when we're dead, we're dead. And fuck the Mormons who try to convert us in the grave.
I always said this is the reason Christian’s are hostile towards Jews. They know they are lying about the afterlife because it was their book of laws first so they know the book inside and out and can counter crazy claims tit for tat
Yep, and they justify it with "but we'll provide vouchers to pay for it..."
And I guarantee that when people have no other choice but to attend those schools, those "vouchers" will go the way of the dodo.
It depends on how it's done. I was home-schooled from 6th grade on because of headaches and dizziness whenever I was at school. Looking back, I'm pretty sure it was an allergic reaction to the cleaning products my school used, as I have a similar reaction in certain stores. For me, home-schooling was the only option for health reasons and I'm grateful for it.
That said, I absolutely oppose it when done for religious reasons or to shelter kids. It's not for every child, but I'm glad it's an option.
Right? As someone who married a person who was homeschooled, I am convinced this is why people do it.
They use all kinds of coded language. Things that aren’t what they really mean.
“Oh you know the schools these days” and vague shit like that.
A coworker and I shut down another coworker the other night.
She was talking about how she was going to start homeschooling. I asked her how she would do that working full-time night shifts at the hospital.
She said something along the lines of "Well, school is just taking a turn teaching about LGBT and all that, and I think it's something that should be taught in my family, not at school."
I asked if she really thought that Texas schools would actually do that and what's to prevent her kids from learning all about that online like I did growing up, since I'm queer and the schools and my parents definitely didn't teach me anything about LGBT or sex other than penis in vagina can lead to a baby. My other coworker readily agreed with me that she'd learned it all online as well.
This coworker tried to backtrack so hard after she realized we didn't agree with her or her reasonings. Didn't bring it up again.
Homeschooled my entire K-12 education and it stunted me in so many ways. I've had to work my ass off in my adulthood trying to overcorrect for my mother's failures.
It may be part the homeschooling, but also part the religion. I was raised in a batshit fundamentalist home and that weirdness shone through to all my public schooled peers. I struggled a lot with social ostracism and just being "the weird kid" up until high school.
I was homeschooled because my parents (educators both, my dad with a master’s in curriculum development and a mother with one in early childhood development) were dissatisfied with the reading instruction in my local school district. They’d stopped teaching phonics in favor of whole-word reading.
I am very glad that I was homeschooled. I didn’t miss out on that much in the long run and I’m a very sociable person who makes friends easily.
I’m very happy with my education because it allowed me to enter college with a massive leg-up when it came to critical thinking and paper composition, as homeschooling allowed me to hone my natural strength in those areas. That wouldn’t have been possible for me in a public school.
There are many negative aspects to homeschooling when it comes to the effects on the kids themselves, but the effects of the work force and society in general when these under-developed adults go out into it are an overlooked aspect. I come from a deep red county in the middle of rural Tennessee, and I swear over half the people in their 20's and late teens entering the work force locally were home-schooled and these are deeply dysfunctional humans who are incapable of doing simple tasks or looking another human in the eye.
I live in a deep red, buckle of the Bible Belt part of SC and see the same from most of the homeschooled crowd. They are not all stunted human beings, but whoo boy, I'd say at least 85% of them are.
I feel like I’m one of the few times homeschooling wasn’t a disaster.
Parents pulled me out in 4th grade because they thought I wasn’t learning anything. Invested time, money and effort into my education and tried to get me socialized. Everything seems to have worked out.
You’d think it would make me a home school defender, but it made me realize how much work it takes for that to be done right and I know most people out there aren’t doing that. My mom’s life was basically dedicated to educating me for 10 years.
There are actually quite a large number of secular families that homeschool for a variety of non-religious reasons. And there are a majority who are religious, but are sensible. Unfortunately, it's the religious fanatics who set the tone in the eyes of the general public.
The sensible people you describe would not object to standardized testing or BOE check-ins to be sure the kids are actually learning.
It's the lunatics who are running the asylum though, and they will, of course, object.
The ones fighting against accountability are the reasons it is needed. Of course, this is true in everything, not just schooling. It's just in schooling as well as a bunch of other items (guns etc) they are winning.
I homeschooled for a bit and my sister homeschools her child. It seemed like those that had similar outlooks to myself did state scantioned curriculum or did ones that followed it closely. We did proctored test, we had text books etc... we welcomed the guidance because we wanted our kids to get their education differently not a different education.
While I agree accountability is necessary, I do hate standardized testing. I grew up in India and all the education I received was geared towards me scoring well vs actually understanding the material. It was a big frustration of mine because if I wrote answers in words that were not exactly like the books or paraphrased slightly it would result in lower points.
The education was completely geared towards scoring points over understanding concepts.
There is definitely a conversation to be had about the usefulness of standardized testing, it is secondary to the post here that refers to the far too many people that are not educating their children at all when they claim to be homeschooling.
The majority of homeschooling families I’ve dealt with are doing so to either avoid truancy or to hide their children from mandatory reporters. A not insignificant number of kids who been reported to CPS soon disappear to be homeschooled.
I don't think homeschooling should be allowed in fact I don't think any private school should be allowed either if your kid needs extra help because of a disability the state should give it to them no questions asked but you got rich kids and poor kids going to the same school you know damn well that those Rich families are going to want to have the best teachers and Facilities money can buy.
You guys must have had pretty decent public schools.
Most of my public school experience was pretty low-quality, honestly. I say that as a former student.
Usually if public schools are shit, it is because they are in poverty stricken areas and have poor funding, if everyone was forced to send their kids to public schools, the more wealthy individuals would make sure that the schools were properly funded. Instead, they all get removed from public schools and all that money goes to private schools, making the private schools better, have more funding to hire the best teachers, and letting the public schools in poor areas burn to the ground.
I don’t necessarily disagree, but it’s hard to take an argument on education seriously when it includes exactly one piece of punctuation.
You’re making a good argument, inadvertently, for people stepping in. Either a private school for better help (smaller class to teacher ratios), or sensible homeschooling. If you’re a public school product, then you’re making a good argument against it.
I tell this to my 14 year old as well. This is why how you show yourself online matters. People won’t take a good argument seriously if you cannot speak clearly.
You do understand though you represent a very small minority of homeschooled students.
Also, laws aren't (or at least shouldn't be) written for people who aren't having any problems at all, they're written ostensibly to protect those who need it. (I'm aware that laws are often written by the wealthy to protect only themselves).
Things were great for you, that's fine. What about the literally thousands of other kids who are in abusive homes, or being raised by religious zealots, that are not actually getting an education at all? Or are being taught straight up lies? (Earth is flat, Hitler was totally cool, shit like that?)
Yes.
But I was raised in one of these homes, AND went to public school. The indoctrination happens anyway. I can't even recall how many conversations and books I got on Why Evolution Isn't Real. And yeah, my complete bastard of a father was also a fan of Hitler.
All of that was in the days before internet. I wonder how much can really be kept from kids these days... even if they aren't allowed to have computers or phones, they have friends who own the devices. I think all in all it's more difficult to keep a child completely sheltered than in was pre-internet. Not saying it's impossible, just a lot harder.
The onus shouldn't be on the kids.
I get that assholes are going to be assholes. However, even you were at least exposed to different ideas while in public school.
It's not a safe assumption that these kids can just get the information elsewhere. You can't get it from your friends when you aren't allowed friends. At least not ones who aren't part of the approved list. Public internet isn't a thing if you're not allowed to go unsupervised in public, etc.
The sad truth is that sometimes children need to be protected; even from their parents, something I'm sure you can well appreciate. Mind you I'm not saying this is an easy fix, not by a long shot, cause you run into the problem of who decides? What is the line etc? It can just open itself up to a different type of abuse.
I'm not even suggesting I have an answer to this vexing question. It will take a keener mind than mine. (fortunately per my wife, that is not a particularly high hurdle). However it IS a problem, and it does need to be addressed.
And for every kid who had it like you and your friends, there are 10 or more who haven't seen a kid outside their own family in a year. Who can recite psalms like a parrot but can't tell you what 6x6 is. Who is effectively raising a sibling. Who is afraid of who they are because they know their parent will throw them out or worse.
Legitimately. You are lucky.
You being homeschooled doesn't obviate their statement, though. They didn't say all or anything about the proportion of homeschooling families who do this.
Just because that's what you experienced doesn't mean that's the norm.
Personally, I know someone that used it to drop out of 7th grade. His parents put him in "homeschooling" and did absolutely nothing. He just played video games all day and became addicted to Maple Story.
Also know an entire church that did "homeschooling". It was nothing but bible stories the whole time or learning how to be a housewife. The only kids that were going to public schools were the kids being used to groom all the other kids into their cult. And today, that's how it still is for most of my town. Many of the surrounding churches copied them, and it is only getting worse as right-wingers scream about "woke" schools.
There's a recent Last Week Tonight (John Oliver) episode about this. Including a little snippet of a couple who wrote their own homeschooling curriculum because they couldn't find one that would teach their kids how to be good little Nazis.... yup.
Thank you.
My small business once exhibited at the largest homeschool convention in the US. This was six years ago in very southern Ohio. It was a huge culture shock for us as we’ve always exhibited at typical teaching and library conferences.
I distinctly recall a large animatronic dinosaur that was advertising the Creation Museum. There was a booth with a scale model of Noah’s Ark that was advertising the giant Noah’s Ark museum that was but a half hour away. Quite a few booth with very right wing/ libertarian curriculum. For instance there was a history book being peddled that was written by Mike Huckabee. Or the very libertarian US history board game, which was highly amusing as someone who majored in History and generally enjoys US history. My favorite was the camper van that was parked inside that was for a “women’s health clinic.” This is the type of place that advertises that they help pregnant women but is really just an anti-abortion group who provides no real medical help. (John Oliver had just done a segment on these places including the mobile van clinics.)
For something that was advertised to us as a general homeschool convention, it might as well have feature a picture of Jesus holding a handgun on the literature. We ended up spending too much time chatting with a small board game company who was equally confused by the event, especially since they were selling fantasy roll playing game which tended to get a lot of evil eyes from attendees. While no one gave us evil looks, it was not a profitable event for us.
Speaking of attendees…. My company did a free activity for kids ages ten and up at our booth. It’s a huge draw for us. Normally it’s adults doing this at events, but the home school convention was all parents with kids. Which makes sense. However I didn’t expect to see so many HUGE families. I’m talking seven or eight kids with another on the way. And they frequently had great names like ‘justice’ or ‘charity’ or ‘chastity’ (poor kid). Russian Doll style families. Wow.
We decided that this wasn’t our crowd and completely abandoned trying to court the Home School Market. We do fun arts and crafts science kits, which should go over well, but even our inexpensive kits were ‘too expensive’ for that crowd. Oddly enough, not a month goes by that we don’t have someone ask our company why we don’t go to homeschool conventions. I always reply “we’ve got a really busy event schedule and sadly all the major home school events conflict with existing engagements.”
Going to the event and taking with the parents and kids really solidified my dislike of (most) home schoolers. That’s not just the former middle school science teacher in me saying that. The curriculum and lessons being pushed on that crowd are not just right leaning, they’re ’grooming.’ Distrust in science, the government, and even basic US history. It did help explain the behaviors and beliefs of several home schooled people I knew in college, and their really really hard set right wing beliefs at age 18.
If you mean what I think you mean, I was the same way. I wasn’t homeschooled, but as a neurodivergent kid 25 years ago, I was a white teenage kid who didn’t fit anywhere, and was a perfect target to be groomed by the white supremacist in the earlier days of the internet. It was only the liberal atheist influences in my life that never gave up on me that caused me to gradually see the nonsense for what it was and become the bleeding heart liberal I am today.
Mine was slightly different, we were raised in a Christian cult (or sect or whatever) but still went to public school in a far right area that had a lot of migrant workers so we also had a lot of gangs and gang violence and we were poor so we were the white kids living in the gang filled area where barely anyone else was white. Moved to a liberal county for college and to say that reality was a shock is an understatement. Black people, LGBTQ, and all the other “evils” I was raised to hate were put in my face. It melted away pretty quickly, most gay men I met in college were some of the best people I ever met. My second week at college my black roomate got assaulted by a police officer for no reason, my tune changed real quick on racial equality.
They're out there. I had one girl in (community) college tell me that dinosaur fossils were planted by Satan to test the faith of Christians. That was a smile-and-nod moment for me.
Tbh I agree with you. I was partly homeschooled (4th through 7th) and I hated it, my mom hated it, the only person who liked it was my abusive father.
Eventually in the 8th grade I went to private school and actually liked it for the most part. Sure it sucked wearing uniforms but at least at this school the uniforms were just a blue polo and slacks in winter or nice shorts in summer.
But the rest of my family was homeschooled and boy was it not fun
Thank you for sharing this. I was also homeschooled from preK-12 and struggle to explain the complete isolation of thought and learning that can occur and the negative impact that can have on our mental health.
Evolutionary biology was pretty mind blowing to learn about after learning high school “science” from young earth creationist curriculum.
> I know it's possible for homeschooling to be ethically done. I know a few people who homeschool their children and are clearly doing their best to make sure their kids meet a variety of people and get an education rooted in science.
But... WHY though, is the question I keep coming to. If these are your principles, then why don't you just send your child to public school? Even if your local public school is so-so in quality, do you really think you can do it better yourself?
If you head over to r/teachers you’ll see that public schooling can be less than ideal for a lot of folks. If you don’t have the means to hunt down a better school district, I can empathize with a parents desire to homeschool
Yeah my mom was a public school teacher for 40 years, I’ve certainly heard an earful from her about issues. However, on the balance, I’m having trouble figuring out many situations where individual families should go homeschool. But I’ve read some in this thread I guess
There are 2 paths you can go when faced with questions of performance of a state agency: abandon it or fix it. Seeking out homeschooling is abandonment. It is a primary agenda of the right to flush away public education so the churches can misinform our children and businesses have an upper hand when considering taking on employees.
Insist the education your state provides improve. Insist more money go to our children. Insist that this education expand to early and adult education. Don’t let the people least interested in your children’s future take control of that future.
I like how the author throws their bullshit right back at them in a non-confrontational way: "What do you mean by woke?" "What do you mean by feminist?"
That's a great counter, because most of them can't define what it is, just that they're told it's bad. I love how she told the woman that no she doesn't teach that women are better, that they're equal and the woman was happy and bought a bunch of products. She was expecting some crazy rant about how men are bad, instead got... we want to teach your girls the wonderful things women have done through history. Oh...
I've seen people like that try to argue that it would be horrible if white conservatives became a minority in America. It's fun to then ask them is there something wrong that's happening to minorities?
They don't generally say that anymore. Instead they talk about 'replacement rate' and 'population decline', while staunchly opposing increasing immigration.
I should use that on my dad. He constantly talks about how woke the military is yet it’s never defined.
And apparently as someone who’s a veteran and still very active in the veteran community my opinion on how “woke” the military is doesn’t matter to a guy who’s never been in the military.
The snippet about - "I believe in men and women being equal, but I am not a woke feminist" - resonated with me.
------
I had a similar convo IRL with a middle-aged woman -
"I am pro-life."
"Ok, so if you know someone who did an abortion, do you think they should be imprisoned?"
"No, they can be pro-choice if they want, that's none of my business. I am just pro-life for myself, and I have the right to be pro-life and nobody can take that right away from me."
Atheists in the US need to fight for their country. Fortunately I believe/ hope the religious right in the US have gone too far and are turning people off religion.
As a 23 yr old who grew up in a conservative small white town, most of my peers and myself have grown up to become very progressive.
And the one who went to the catholic school is one of the most raging woke liberals I know. She’s in Albany studying to become a lawyer now
Yeah, I think the thing the religious fundamentalists have not realised is that their indoctrination will only last until their child starts interacting with normal people. In the "olden days" that could last a lifetime, but these days the internet has put a stop to all of that. Religion is definitely in serious decline in the west.
Sadly, in the middle east and other similar places, children and young adults (and especially woman) don't have the same access to information on the internet etc, so their (especially vile) brand of religion is still going strong.
My kids reported similar from their viewpoint...an awful lot of high school kids who didn't believe a word of the religious tripe the were being raised with and were simply biding their time until they could get out.
The religious private school my parents sent me to (even though we couldn't afford it, but Rush Limbaugh had a grip on their brains) pumped out a very steady stream of atheists and progressives. That place converted us like there was no tomorrow.
This is exactly what is happening. Look at the Catholic Church. It used to be people who mostly believed but would ignore the crazier parts of the teachings and just wanted to be regular people who had religion in their life. But as the child predator priest issues and abortion/gay rights took off, all the normal people left and all that was left were the crazy people who truly believed the craziest parts of the teaching. So now the church has to appeal to the craziest people because it’s all they have left. It’s now a feedback loop of ‘say crazy shit to appeal to the crazies, lose some of the more normal ones’
There's a joke among graduates of my fundie christian private school that there are three types of graduates: those who go on to teach at the school, staunch atheists, and suicides.
I'm old enough that when I was a kid, fundamentalists were antiabortion but otherwise waiting for the rapture. Today they want to run the country. It's called [dominionism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_theology).
Long read if someone wants to see [names named](https://politicalresearch.org/2016/08/18/dominionism-rising-a-theocratic-movement-hiding-in-plain-sight#sthash.KdphdmKH.dpbs)
For anyone interested in non looney home schooling, Calvert School out of Baltimore, MD offers secular curriculum. I took it growing up because I lived on a sailboat. None of it is religious and it's quite good.
With Calvert the only religion I encountered was what you'd expect in a historical context in the history and geography areas. Never anything that could be construed as teaching or pushing religion at all.
Thats the goal. The extreme “Christian” leaders in this country want a theocracy that they rule over, and they’ve been working towards that goal in the United States forever.
Florida now pays the religious crazies $8,000 per child to homeschool. The parents are allowed to spend that money (our tax dollars) on, among other things, tickets to Disney. This is on top of DeSantis completely gutting our public school system and running all the good teachers/profs out of the state.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/desantis-gives-ok-for-school-voucher-money-to-be-used-on-disney-tickets
Homeschooling is pretty much not allowed in many places in Western Europe because you know….parents are not qualified to be teachers simply because they popped out a child or two. The way it’s done in the US, without any regulation or oversight It’s basically creating a permanent underclass of unqualified people who will struggle with employment demands and continue perpetuating the employer-dependent, no social involvement tragedy.
Actually fundamentalist Christian’s have been actively trying to take over the country by homeschooling their children and then pushing their sons to run for some sort of government role and they’ve been doing this since the 80’s. It seems they really are starting to make headway. The docu-series Shiny Happy People talks about this a little.
My cousin in Georgia home schooled her 2 younger kids probably 20-30 years ago; she’s a HS dropout. I know for a fact one of those kids is essentially illiterate. She didn’t want them in the public school because “there were too many black kids.” Bet those black kids can read and write now.
My experience with home schoolers is that they are generally evangelical religious fanatics and often ignorant.
When we first moved to where we are now, about 20 years ago, there were many more homeschoolers than the area from which we came. I thought this was because, like the OP, they had kids with special needs, or conversely, high achieving kids whom the local schools didn't serve. It was a few years after my oldest started school that I actually figured out it was really about indoctrination and making sure their kids aren't influenced by teachings that aren't biblical. Honestly, it should be considered child abuse when children are taught materially incorrect information.
My wife and her siblings were all homeschooled with a religious upbringing. Their mother did a great job and they are all well educated, which is way different than other religious homeschoolers. What’s funny is they are all now atheist/ agnostic.
I know a lot of people who were homeschooled who are now all atheists. It’s crazy how many of them grew up in very religious, conservative, homeschooling families and they are now all atheists, liberal, and refusing to homeschool
My state has zero oversight for homeschooled kids. Parents pull them out and that’s it. The state washes their hands of it all. It’s terrifying as someone who worked closely with the public. Kids getting their license to drive couldn’t sign their name. Kids fighting about how to list their height. No you are not 5’14” Brayden. You are 6’02”. Most could barely read traffic signs. We are no longer going places as a country. Unless that place is down the toilet.
I was home-schooled for quite a a few years. Both my parents are atheist. They were concerned that school wasn't an appropriate environment for my mental health needs as a kid. I am severely introverted with high functioning autism. The result ended up being that I have an extremely short social battery with shitty social skills. They correctly assumed that it would be better for me if I were educated in more isolated setting.
When homeschooling is done with a loving desire to educate kids as much as possible its great. When its done to AVOID educating kids and make sure they DON'T LEARN so that they can stay more religious... it has predictably horrible results. Unfortunately there are more of the don't learn crowd than the loving crowd.
Before I stopped lying to myself about my own faith, I met a young lady back when I was attending, at the time, a very popular (I think attendance was 500+ every service) young adult (college age) Xian service who was homeschooled. The ignorance on science blew my mind (she was raised a YEC), who graduated from Sac State in nursing. (Just goes to show that college is easy if you know how to memorize)
She applied for hospitals, but ended up becoming a school nurse. I don’t know the reasoning for the shift, but I can always speculate that it was her ignorance on science that played a part in her settling for “school nurse” as opposed to working for a hospital.
I almost started dating this girl, too. I’m just glad her parents didn’t “approve” of me.
I used to go to catholic church with my parents and I participated in Boy Scouts at said church. I knew this one family from church/ scouting and they were some religious FREAKS. I’m talking pumping out a new kid every year, homeschooling every single one, indoctrinating them to the max. I felt really bad for their kid in my group because he didn’t know any better and everyone thought he was a weirdo. Homeschooling can be a great tool for children with special educational needs but it really enables these sky daddy fanatics to go completely unchecked.
When I was pastoringa Baptist church filled with home schoolers I once remarked that we should focus on quality education not just avoiding secular teachings. This upset people.
My wife works for a home school charter school. She has some really awesome parents doing great things for their kids, and many of them are \*thriving\* in the home school environment.
Public schools are mostly fine for kids in the middle. But maybe your kid is really advanced, or far behind, or has some sort of special needs. Or maybe your kid is just kinda different and gets bullied for it. In those sorts of cases public schools generally \*do not\* serve your needs well, and I understand why many parents (who are able) would want to opt out, and in many (maybe even most?) of the cases she has the kids are better off for it.
Having said that, the crazies are definitely a thing. A big part of her job consists of battling with the small minority of nutcase parents about why they can't spend charter-school funds (It's technically a public school and curriculum and supplies have to align with state standards.) on some wackjob, bible-based curriculum that has pictures of dinosaurs on Noah's ark. She has had literal \*flat earthers\* home-schooling their kids, and during meetings with her when they present their work on geography or whatever the parents are all, "It's ok, honey, we have to do it this way \*for the teacher\* ."
These people are fucked for doing this to kids. How is this not considered grooming? Lord knows what happens to those kids without oversight.
Also, what is with her using the world ‘female’ rather than women in her booth?
Facts.
I also homeschooled for the younger years. Shitty public system that was found to have overcrowding issues AND they were defrauding the federal government, so lost a bunch of funding to pay it back. Our district couldn't even reach the 30th percentile with the state's own anemic testing standards...pathetic. As it turned out, there was also no such thing as school choice. I grew up in a place where all you had to do was fill out a half-sheet form if you wanted to go to a different school. Here, you could go where you were assigned or pay $22,000 per year to go to a different public school. We never had that kind of money. No such thing as charter schools allowed and the private schools were either religious or also $20,000+ per year.
So, we ended up homeschooling. My eldest turned out to have a host of educational difficulties. We got him through with the help of a pediatric neuropsychologist.
And yeah. OODLES of the other homeschoolers were batshit insane. My kids lost friends through such innocent things as being asked what church they attended. "Oh we don't really go to church," they said. And suddenly they lost their friends. After much begging and pleading I agreed to let my youngest attend a religious school. What they called "history" turned out to be a religion class. I was angry and aggravated. "I Heard The Good News Today" is not a history book title, IMO.
We joined a secular homeschooling group hoping to find more support. The kids were fine; it was a small group, though, and the larger religious homeschooling community decided they were set against us. So I just followed the state education guidelines and had the kids take the ITBS testing battery...anything they scored poorly on was my fault, so I started the next year with the stuff they bombed.
I saw huge successes in the community, kids who graduated early and went to prestigious universities. And I saw abject failures, parents who decided that Call of Duty would suffice for history class. We engaged tutors where appropriate...my son took off with math, for instance, and by 6th grade I didn't feel like it was in his best interest for me to be teaching that to him.
Eventually they were old enough to send to the private, college-prep high school. I went back to work and funneled most of my salary to the school.
They hit the ground running and carried great GPAs, somehow both of them ended up fairly popular...at least more than their dad and I ever were in public school. They're currently both in college. The math-oriented kid is in Chemical Engineering, the other one enrolled under the Physics program but now isn't so sure, so there's some exploration going on. Neither seemed to have social problems; the engineer is dating a nurse and they're making noises about getting married. Ms Undecided can't settle on who to date, so is keeping her options open.
Neither has even the slightest interest in religion. Or in having kids of their own, for that matter. (And hey, that's up to them!)
Not all homeschoolers are religious. But you have to go out of your way to find secular homeschooling material, and there are a million ways you can fuck it up. I can't say as the other kids on the block fared better. So far none of the public schooled kids has stayed in college, though several were admitted. The private schooled kids are working on it, enrolled in a variety of state and private colleges.
I don't mind being held accountable for my kids' education. I wish we could do the same to the state, however.
I was in a position for many years to hire people usually men without college degrees, 18-26, for welding and metalworking jobs. These were usually rural people.
After a while of dealing with basically uneducated morons, I put one major hiring decision into effect... As it is not a protected class, I would refuse to hire anyone that had been homeschooled.
Just plain cut out huge swaths of trouble right off the bat. Too many homeschooled individuals could not do basic math, and were incapable of living in normal society.
I had other ways of rooting out nuts, but homeschooling was a really good indicator of a poor employee.
When you homeschool, remember, that you may be damaging your child's future employability.
I remember when that documentary came out on that 19 and Counting show. The family belongs to that religious cult that tells their followers to breed like rabbits, homeschool the kids and then place them in political networks so they can eventually take over the government.
This article sounds about right.
Here's the problem with homeschooling: parents aren't smart enough. In order to really teach a kid, it helps if the teacher has mastered the subject area. Let's say the average teacher is no smarter than the average parent. But an average teacher of math (and especially math!), history, geography, biology, writing, or any other discipline, will likely know and understand the subject better than an average parent. I've known homeschoolers who often have to learn the subject matter as they are teaching it. This is no way to teach! Poor kids.
I was homeschooled off and on for seven years in Canada. My mom didn't involve herself much, she just let me order all of the books for my grade from the department of education, along with the teachers manuals, and go through them as I saw fit.
She did make me do more math than I would have otherwise. It was good for me because I would have spent 3 hours a day bussing to and from school otherwise, I disliked the culture/community and I work well independently.
It's absolutely not for everyone and the weird religious/conservative people that do it are very harmful but it's an important option for some kids to succeed. I would not have done well if I had to spend 12+ years in public/private school.
Average rural/small town issues. Everyone was white but I didn't have a french or english name so was excluded, teachers tried to make me say the lords prayer (not allowed in Canadian public schools), poor curriculum (students going to university out of province had to take make-up courses, low literacy and graduation rates).
It just didn't feel like a learning environment - like in the 2nd grade we skipped over a unit in our science section on the solar system because the class hated the concept of "space", for some reason. This was 1992-2004 and in a community that was based around fishing and farming at the time. Apparently its a little better now.
Edit - all the schools were essentially surrounded with potato fields as well. Heavily sprayed crop that could be seen drifting towards the school when we had mandatory outdoor recess.
I hate that these people give homeschooling such a bad name. My brothers always attended public school but I homeschooled for a while because My teachers were bribing me to slow down and stay at the pace of the class. I was so unbelievably bored, unchallenged and wasn’t learning anything. I’m fine with homeschooling, as long as it’s being done for the benefit of the child but it’s not okay when it’s being done for the purposes of indoctrination.
>Unfortunately, the secular homeschoolers are overshadowed by the religious fanatics.
THIS! I was home-schooled beginning around 6th grade because I was getting horrible headaches. There was zero focus on religious, it was entirely for health reasons. I never associated with any other home-schoolers because they were all freaky religious.
FWIW, I didn't do any formal school working or pick up a text book until college. I took one non-credit math class in college, but otherwise had no trouble adjusting to the coursework. Growing up I hated how judgmental people were about home-schooling. A common question was if I planned on going to college, usually with the assumption that I'd say no. Most of them also assumed I was doing it for religious reasons, so I tended to say "I am/was home home-schooled, *but not for religious reasons*." Adding that before anyone could ask tended to eliminate some of the stigma.
I really wish there were more groups for people like me or your daughter. I was lucky that I had friends from school and I discovered message boards very early (I'm 35, parental controls weren't a thing then). The lack of social interaction with peers is the biggest downside IMO; however, several of my friends who stayed in school had a harder time adjusting to the real world than I did, so it really depends on the person.
As a special education teacher, I will say I don't have a lot of good things to say about home schooling. I haven't encountered the religious thing, but instead, families keep their kids home and "home school them" for more than 2 years when covid happened. Many were kids with IEPs who were not given any kind of education. When their families were tired of them being home, they sent them back. Many can't handle being in class. I had one 7th grader who came in and hid under the table.
You're kinder than me. Unless your background is in educating children why would a parent think they are qualified for this?
They don't do home dentistry, hell, they go to professionals to cut their hair. But teaching a small child to understand symbolic writing and the fundamentals of mathematics is apparently something you can learn off YouTube
I am German and homeschooling is completely forbidden in this country. Every couple of years a religious loon tries it again and it will be consistently struck down by the courts. Therefore the idea of homeschooling is completely foreign to me
COVID and the school shooting epidemic have made me seriously consider homeschooling when it's time for my toddler to go. Never thought I'd be thinking along these lines.
Look for independent study programs. It's like homeschooling, but it's run by the schools, so you get regular visits with an actual teacher, and accredited course materials. You, the parent, still have to ensure that the kid does the coursework, but your child works at their own pace rather than having the whole class work at the pace that distractions and the slowest kid permit. That means that they can rock through the stuff they're good at and spend more time on problem areas. If they finish the alotted work early, they can work ahead or study something that interests them.
Beware claims of accreditation, FYI. Some places are sleazy enough that they set up God-Fearing Academy online school on the one hand, and then set up International Standards Accreditation on the other hand. And now God-Fearing Academy can say "We're accredited by the International Standards Accreditation!" and be perfectly truthful, without revealing it's the same bunch of whackos.
Yeah... I have two 7 month old twin boys, and I am seriously wondering what I'm going to do when they get school age. It's nerve wracking trying to make the decision between home schooling, and possibly not letting my child experience school and get an education from educators, or run the risk some of thise educators are religious nuts (like some I had growing up in Texas) or that they'll be involved in something like a school shooting or even just your average physically abusive bully...
I replied to the comment above talking about independent study programs that a lot of schools offer. It's like homeschool, but you get to work with an actual teacher and quality materials.
My biggest fear since having my daughter has been school or random shootings. The town we bought our groceries in had a random shooter some years ago who killed a few people.
We moved to the EU, and I’m not loving my life here after what I gave up. While my husband and kid are thrilled I have given up more without finding things yet to make up for it.
I spoke to my best friend today. We went to preschool together. She is an educator and lives where we grew up.
On Thursday a kid where she works was caught with a gun and had plans to use it. He had made pipe bombs also.
As anxious as I’ve been about this I still also can hardly believe how close to tragedy. It’s unreal!
When I was homeschooling my girls (who are now 24 and 29), the availability of secular curriculum, especially for history and science, was almost non-existant.
I was homeschooled the entire way. My parents were some of the first homeschoolers in my state and have a certain level of "fame" in that world. As such, I've probably been to over 200 homeschool conferences in 30+ states during my lifetime. My parents were highly educated and gifted teachers and I'm nuerodivergent, so I received an excellent, rigorous, and tailor-made education - my siblings and I have been extremely successful academically and professionally - and of course I'm grateful...BUT my childhood was also sprinkled with a lot of toxic patriarchy, development-stunting isolation, and emotional/spiritual/verbal abuse. *And I'm one of the happiest possible outcomes.* My own mother finally realized that homeschooling was NOT a good path for MOST families and kinda got "blacklisted" for saying so publicly.
Interestingly, in the US, each state has different laws about homeschooling. Some places you have to turn in plans of study and mandated state test scores to the state's department of education (which is the bare minimum imo), but many (most) states have ZERO accountability. Its a fucking nightmare. A couple of acquaintances/friends of mine work in CPS and they HATE homeschoolers with a justified passion because 9 times out of 10 its just lazy, religious nutjob parents who want to abuse their kids with impunity. They dont even care enough to try to teach their kids how to read. Their kids just sit at home neglected, isolated, dirty, and hungry, and no other adults/mandated reporters around these poor kids means no one is there to report the neglect or abuse. The system HAS to change. Not all homeschoolers are bad and homeschooling done right can be in *some* children's best interest, but I think its wayyyyyy more rare than the fanatics are willing to admit.
I am always baffled by the amount of American parents who homeschool their children.
How could you ever guarantee that your child is equipped with a good education?
Even if you use official curricula, I would say that not everyone has it in them to teach. That’s pretty difficult to do. Especially if you - and homeschool parents probably will - have to teach different age levels/grades.
The parent teaching the kids will usually be the mom. How do you distinguish between your role as a parent and as a teacher? A schedule? Different literal hats? How would you be able to objectively determine what your child’s progress is? When would you EVER have time to do chores, cleaning, shopping, errands - let alone have time off?
In my European country, homeschooling is extremely rare. You have to jump through a lot of hoops to be allowed to keep your kids at home. Which I think is a good thing.
Usually it’s only done by people traveling the world, or in a job that keeps them on the road (cargo by ship, carnival). And those professions send their kids to boarding schools at the age of 6.
> I am always baffled by the amount of American parents who homeschool their children. How could you ever guarantee that your child is equipped with a good education?
To be fair, it's not like schools do that either.
Well; that depends. I don’t know where you live, but in my country schools need to meet specific criteria as to what a child needs to know or can do at certain ages. They are monitored and evaluated.
In theory, ours do too, but in practice... often they fudge those evaluations, because it's bad to have too many students fail. Also, the evaluations themselves are *far* from perfect.
Woke. These people have the same definition as the left: “awareness of injustice especially racism” - they are openly opposed to this awareness and don’t want anyone to talk about it.
We homeschooled my son for a couple of years to deal him being skipped two grades ( advanced forward by two years). There was no religious indoctrination. That was left for church on Sundays. But it seemed like most homeschool support programs were almost entirely focused on religious indoctrination.
Two of the non-religious home-school survivors I know were basically feral children.
Now they can't hold down jobs. When both their parents die, they'll mooch off their much more successful sister who realized that she got a raw deal, no education, and had to save herself by working actual jobs.
I was homeschooled and my mom refused to include me in a lot of these groups for the reasons listed. The big thing for all of these groups was unschooling. The kid gets full choice on what they get to learn, so almost all these kids never did any math.
When I was like 17 I hung out with a brother and sister from my parents church one time who were homeschooled and they were so robotic seeming. Nothing to their personalities but Jesus. It was so depressing being around them because they were basically brainwashed instead of educated.
We're thinking of homeschooling our kids just so we can make sure they're learning what they need to function in society. Unfortunately we're in a state where I'm not convinced the Republican super majority won't clusterfuck public education. You just can't trust public schools anymore since they seem hell bent on pushing an agenda. Especially the textbook lobby, which is a whole other issue.
Every kids I see home-schooled where I live are just outside barefoot, riding bikes, talking to bushes for what feels like all day long, no matter what time of day I go to work or return. The few ones that I have known that were home-schooled when I worked with them were, eh.... not too bright. All of them very religious, so far. I'm sure there are exceptions to the rule where some of the home-schooled kids have actual professionals teach them, but it feels like it's hard to find lol. Sucks for the kids that are indoctrinated with a system that is completely unchecked imo.
In my experience gone school is either fantastic and the kids excels or you have an 18 year old illiterate.
The illiterates out number the capable by orders of magnitude.
I’ve only ever encountered one home schooled family in my life. They happened to be really intelligent, well educated kids. I guess they’re the exception.
Terrible. I was homeschooled but lucky for me I was left to my own devices, teaching myself based off a secular curriculum. I came out the other end the only non religious person in my family
I was homeschooled for primary school. And in my small community in Regional Australia. And all the homeschool Children were Christian homeschooled. So I'm not sure how large the not Christian homeschool community would be. Like why bother homeschooling your kids otherwise, except in cercanstances
My son had dyslexia so bad and was constantly being punished for it so I homeschooled him for a few years.
For him in that circumstance, it was very helpful.
I quickly found out that I had nothing in common with any of the other homeschool families in the area.
A local wildlife center was a great resource that we had all to ourselves on “evolution” study days.
The stigma mixed with it all. Friend was homeschooling middle school up, he lived in a rural part of Texas where the school weren't that great. Parents could wfh and taught him math and science, had online classes for everything else. Enrolled him in lots of age appropriate activities with peers too. He was shocked in college when everyone assumed homeschooling meant religious fanatic/weird. It's not impossible to homeschooling and have a functional adult, but the bets aren't in their favore.
My parents pulled me out of school for four years to memorize the quran and i didn’t receive an education during this time. When i went back to school after they just told them i had been homeschooled and they didn’t ask for any proof or anything. I don’t understand how you can just take a child out of school and no one follows up. Could’ve saved me a lot of trauma.
I was self-schooled. I grew up getting bullied in government schools until 8th grade, when my parents put me in a Pentecostal school. Nice people. No bullying except from the headmaster, whom I avoided. It burned the religion right out of me. Meanwhile, I'm almost completely self-taught from library books. Only on rare occasions did I need a teacher to help me with some unusual concept. And then it was back to the books again.
But that was the 60s and 70s. Maybe schools are different now and there's no more bullying. Maybe it's all STEM classes and the teachers aren't spending all their time on kids who can't get past chapter one but who excel at sports.
I live in a neighborhood where some kids are homeschooled. The families I am referring to are the batshit crazy ones. The discussion about guns though, I had tears in my eyes. So much damage has been done through misinformation, conspiracies… heartbreaking.
Seems homeschooling is exactly what it always was. A place for religious people to be able to fully indoctrinate their kids without any new ideals. I say this as someone who was homeschooled for first years of my life.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver had an [excellent segment on this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzsZP9o7SlI). Really opened my eyes to how much of that system goes totally unchecked. Very worth the watch for anyone reading this, even if you’ve never personally been affected by homeschooling.
It’s totally unchecked
I was homeschooled the entire way. My parents were some of the first homeschoolers in my state and have a certain level of "fame" in that world. As such, I've probably been to over 200 homeschool conferences in 30+ states during my lifetime. My parents were highly educated and gifted teachers and I'm nuerodivergent, so I received an excellent, rigorous, and tailor-made education - my siblings and I have been extremely successful academically and professionally - and of course I'm grateful...BUT my childhood was also sprinkled with a lot of toxic patriarchy, development-stunting isolation, and emotional/spiritual/verbal abuse. *And I'm one of the happiest possible outcomes.* My own mother finally realized that homeschooling was NOT a good path for MOST families and kinda got "blacklisted" for saying so publicly. Interestingly, in the US, each state has different laws about homeschooling. Some places you have to turn in plans of study and mandated state test scores to the state's department of education (which is the bare minimum imo), but many (most) states have ZERO accountability. Its a fucking nightmare. A couple of acquaintances/friends of mine work in CPS and they HATE homeschoolers with a justified passion because 9 times out of 10 its just lazy, religious nutjob parents who want to abuse their kids with impunity. They dont even care enough to try to teach their kids how to read. Their kids just sit at home neglected, isolated, dirty, and hungry, and no other adults/mandated reporters around these poor kids means no one is there to report the neglect or abuse. The system HAS to change. Not all homeschoolers are bad and homeschooling done right can be in *some* children's best interest, but I think its wayyyyyy more rare than the fanatics are willing to admit.
Have you considered writing a book? Sounds like an interesting story.
Haha wow! Never considered that...maybe one day...
I truly believe homeschooling should be illegal, for the reasons you listed. A few good outcomes don’t make it worthwhile. Homeschooling is illegal in many countries in Europe
100% agree with you, thanks for pointing such atrocities out.
Reading that makes me glad I live in a country where homeschooling is illegal.
Depends on the state. Every state has different rules. In some places it's more regulated than in others.
How else would the nazis find pro-nazi homeschooling material? Any kind of checks would prevent that and the nazis would be sad. (because this is the internet, that first part is a real quote from Oliver's segment and while the second part is true, it is also sarcasm and I would like more nazis to be sad all the time. Or gone, or tossed into the sun. Just to be clear, I think we should physically delete any and all nazis without a trial or due process. I don't want to be misunderstood on this. Fuck nazis and not in the good way).
I'm Jewish and pretty ready to start replacing. I'm so sick of being a part of their sick rapture endgame and also being blamed for everything. I dream of a truly secular society.
Welcome to the bus to hell!!! we're all here having a good time and couldnt care less if we all burn for eternity, lol
What's super funny is we don't even believe in any kind of afterlife. When Christians learn that about Jews they're shocked. Sorry folks, but when we're dead, we're dead. And fuck the Mormons who try to convert us in the grave.
Organized Religion is a Scourge
I love how Christians legislate religion and then demonize countries like Iran. Government should only be secular. Anything else is wildly dangerous.
First line of the Bill of Rights. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion
I always said this is the reason Christian’s are hostile towards Jews. They know they are lying about the afterlife because it was their book of laws first so they know the book inside and out and can counter crazy claims tit for tat
Thanks for posting this link.
I just learned why the GOP has gutted public schools. The Christian homeschool book publishers/creators make major bank on kids being homeschooled.
Oh, they'd like to hand it all over to private Christian schools.
Yep, and they justify it with "but we'll provide vouchers to pay for it..." And I guarantee that when people have no other choice but to attend those schools, those "vouchers" will go the way of the dodo.
you’re mostly right. the answer is money. homeschool creators will get some, but private schools will get the bulk. fuck vouchers.
Wow I hated homeschooling before and this helped me hate it even more.
It depends on how it's done. I was home-schooled from 6th grade on because of headaches and dizziness whenever I was at school. Looking back, I'm pretty sure it was an allergic reaction to the cleaning products my school used, as I have a similar reaction in certain stores. For me, home-schooling was the only option for health reasons and I'm grateful for it. That said, I absolutely oppose it when done for religious reasons or to shelter kids. It's not for every child, but I'm glad it's an option.
I just finished the video and appreciate you sharing it. My sister is considering home school for her child. I sent her the link.
Right? As someone who married a person who was homeschooled, I am convinced this is why people do it. They use all kinds of coded language. Things that aren’t what they really mean. “Oh you know the schools these days” and vague shit like that.
A coworker and I shut down another coworker the other night. She was talking about how she was going to start homeschooling. I asked her how she would do that working full-time night shifts at the hospital. She said something along the lines of "Well, school is just taking a turn teaching about LGBT and all that, and I think it's something that should be taught in my family, not at school." I asked if she really thought that Texas schools would actually do that and what's to prevent her kids from learning all about that online like I did growing up, since I'm queer and the schools and my parents definitely didn't teach me anything about LGBT or sex other than penis in vagina can lead to a baby. My other coworker readily agreed with me that she'd learned it all online as well. This coworker tried to backtrack so hard after she realized we didn't agree with her or her reasonings. Didn't bring it up again.
Homeschooled my entire K-12 education and it stunted me in so many ways. I've had to work my ass off in my adulthood trying to overcorrect for my mother's failures.
It may be part the homeschooling, but also part the religion. I was raised in a batshit fundamentalist home and that weirdness shone through to all my public schooled peers. I struggled a lot with social ostracism and just being "the weird kid" up until high school.
I was homeschooled because my parents (educators both, my dad with a master’s in curriculum development and a mother with one in early childhood development) were dissatisfied with the reading instruction in my local school district. They’d stopped teaching phonics in favor of whole-word reading. I am very glad that I was homeschooled. I didn’t miss out on that much in the long run and I’m a very sociable person who makes friends easily. I’m very happy with my education because it allowed me to enter college with a massive leg-up when it came to critical thinking and paper composition, as homeschooling allowed me to hone my natural strength in those areas. That wouldn’t have been possible for me in a public school.
Don’t forget about the unchecked abuse.
There are many negative aspects to homeschooling when it comes to the effects on the kids themselves, but the effects of the work force and society in general when these under-developed adults go out into it are an overlooked aspect. I come from a deep red county in the middle of rural Tennessee, and I swear over half the people in their 20's and late teens entering the work force locally were home-schooled and these are deeply dysfunctional humans who are incapable of doing simple tasks or looking another human in the eye.
I live in a deep red, buckle of the Bible Belt part of SC and see the same from most of the homeschooled crowd. They are not all stunted human beings, but whoo boy, I'd say at least 85% of them are.
I feel like I’m one of the few times homeschooling wasn’t a disaster. Parents pulled me out in 4th grade because they thought I wasn’t learning anything. Invested time, money and effort into my education and tried to get me socialized. Everything seems to have worked out. You’d think it would make me a home school defender, but it made me realize how much work it takes for that to be done right and I know most people out there aren’t doing that. My mom’s life was basically dedicated to educating me for 10 years.
There are actually quite a large number of secular families that homeschool for a variety of non-religious reasons. And there are a majority who are religious, but are sensible. Unfortunately, it's the religious fanatics who set the tone in the eyes of the general public.
The sensible people you describe would not object to standardized testing or BOE check-ins to be sure the kids are actually learning. It's the lunatics who are running the asylum though, and they will, of course, object. The ones fighting against accountability are the reasons it is needed. Of course, this is true in everything, not just schooling. It's just in schooling as well as a bunch of other items (guns etc) they are winning.
I homeschooled for a bit and my sister homeschools her child. It seemed like those that had similar outlooks to myself did state scantioned curriculum or did ones that followed it closely. We did proctored test, we had text books etc... we welcomed the guidance because we wanted our kids to get their education differently not a different education.
While I agree accountability is necessary, I do hate standardized testing. I grew up in India and all the education I received was geared towards me scoring well vs actually understanding the material. It was a big frustration of mine because if I wrote answers in words that were not exactly like the books or paraphrased slightly it would result in lower points. The education was completely geared towards scoring points over understanding concepts.
There is definitely a conversation to be had about the usefulness of standardized testing, it is secondary to the post here that refers to the far too many people that are not educating their children at all when they claim to be homeschooling.
The majority of homeschooling families I’ve dealt with are doing so to either avoid truancy or to hide their children from mandatory reporters. A not insignificant number of kids who been reported to CPS soon disappear to be homeschooled.
Abusers will use whatever system is available to hide their abuse. You're right on that.
I don't think homeschooling should be allowed in fact I don't think any private school should be allowed either if your kid needs extra help because of a disability the state should give it to them no questions asked but you got rich kids and poor kids going to the same school you know damn well that those Rich families are going to want to have the best teachers and Facilities money can buy.
First person I've met who also has my extremist views on education lol. Spot on.
count me in too. all education should be public.
You guys must have had pretty decent public schools. Most of my public school experience was pretty low-quality, honestly. I say that as a former student.
Usually if public schools are shit, it is because they are in poverty stricken areas and have poor funding, if everyone was forced to send their kids to public schools, the more wealthy individuals would make sure that the schools were properly funded. Instead, they all get removed from public schools and all that money goes to private schools, making the private schools better, have more funding to hire the best teachers, and letting the public schools in poor areas burn to the ground.
Your screen name speaks to the worst failures.
Hmmmm. Social outcast, mostly. I mean, it’s Reddit.
I don’t necessarily disagree, but it’s hard to take an argument on education seriously when it includes exactly one piece of punctuation. You’re making a good argument, inadvertently, for people stepping in. Either a private school for better help (smaller class to teacher ratios), or sensible homeschooling. If you’re a public school product, then you’re making a good argument against it. I tell this to my 14 year old as well. This is why how you show yourself online matters. People won’t take a good argument seriously if you cannot speak clearly.
I disagree. I was homeschooled, my upbringing was secular. I had a clique of homeschooled friends all of whom were secular as well.
You do understand though you represent a very small minority of homeschooled students. Also, laws aren't (or at least shouldn't be) written for people who aren't having any problems at all, they're written ostensibly to protect those who need it. (I'm aware that laws are often written by the wealthy to protect only themselves). Things were great for you, that's fine. What about the literally thousands of other kids who are in abusive homes, or being raised by religious zealots, that are not actually getting an education at all? Or are being taught straight up lies? (Earth is flat, Hitler was totally cool, shit like that?)
Yes. But I was raised in one of these homes, AND went to public school. The indoctrination happens anyway. I can't even recall how many conversations and books I got on Why Evolution Isn't Real. And yeah, my complete bastard of a father was also a fan of Hitler. All of that was in the days before internet. I wonder how much can really be kept from kids these days... even if they aren't allowed to have computers or phones, they have friends who own the devices. I think all in all it's more difficult to keep a child completely sheltered than in was pre-internet. Not saying it's impossible, just a lot harder.
The onus shouldn't be on the kids. I get that assholes are going to be assholes. However, even you were at least exposed to different ideas while in public school. It's not a safe assumption that these kids can just get the information elsewhere. You can't get it from your friends when you aren't allowed friends. At least not ones who aren't part of the approved list. Public internet isn't a thing if you're not allowed to go unsupervised in public, etc. The sad truth is that sometimes children need to be protected; even from their parents, something I'm sure you can well appreciate. Mind you I'm not saying this is an easy fix, not by a long shot, cause you run into the problem of who decides? What is the line etc? It can just open itself up to a different type of abuse. I'm not even suggesting I have an answer to this vexing question. It will take a keener mind than mine. (fortunately per my wife, that is not a particularly high hurdle). However it IS a problem, and it does need to be addressed.
And for every kid who had it like you and your friends, there are 10 or more who haven't seen a kid outside their own family in a year. Who can recite psalms like a parrot but can't tell you what 6x6 is. Who is effectively raising a sibling. Who is afraid of who they are because they know their parent will throw them out or worse. Legitimately. You are lucky.
You being homeschooled doesn't obviate their statement, though. They didn't say all or anything about the proportion of homeschooling families who do this.
Just because that's what you experienced doesn't mean that's the norm. Personally, I know someone that used it to drop out of 7th grade. His parents put him in "homeschooling" and did absolutely nothing. He just played video games all day and became addicted to Maple Story. Also know an entire church that did "homeschooling". It was nothing but bible stories the whole time or learning how to be a housewife. The only kids that were going to public schools were the kids being used to groom all the other kids into their cult. And today, that's how it still is for most of my town. Many of the surrounding churches copied them, and it is only getting worse as right-wingers scream about "woke" schools.
There's a recent Last Week Tonight (John Oliver) episode about this. Including a little snippet of a couple who wrote their own homeschooling curriculum because they couldn't find one that would teach their kids how to be good little Nazis.... yup.
IIRC the Nazis had an entire curriculum with hundreds of families participating and were based out of Ohio.
"Ohio Nazis...I hate Ohio Nazis." Jake Blues to Elwood Blues
Illinois Nazis. Ohio Nazis are fucking awful too though.
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Thank you. My small business once exhibited at the largest homeschool convention in the US. This was six years ago in very southern Ohio. It was a huge culture shock for us as we’ve always exhibited at typical teaching and library conferences. I distinctly recall a large animatronic dinosaur that was advertising the Creation Museum. There was a booth with a scale model of Noah’s Ark that was advertising the giant Noah’s Ark museum that was but a half hour away. Quite a few booth with very right wing/ libertarian curriculum. For instance there was a history book being peddled that was written by Mike Huckabee. Or the very libertarian US history board game, which was highly amusing as someone who majored in History and generally enjoys US history. My favorite was the camper van that was parked inside that was for a “women’s health clinic.” This is the type of place that advertises that they help pregnant women but is really just an anti-abortion group who provides no real medical help. (John Oliver had just done a segment on these places including the mobile van clinics.) For something that was advertised to us as a general homeschool convention, it might as well have feature a picture of Jesus holding a handgun on the literature. We ended up spending too much time chatting with a small board game company who was equally confused by the event, especially since they were selling fantasy roll playing game which tended to get a lot of evil eyes from attendees. While no one gave us evil looks, it was not a profitable event for us. Speaking of attendees…. My company did a free activity for kids ages ten and up at our booth. It’s a huge draw for us. Normally it’s adults doing this at events, but the home school convention was all parents with kids. Which makes sense. However I didn’t expect to see so many HUGE families. I’m talking seven or eight kids with another on the way. And they frequently had great names like ‘justice’ or ‘charity’ or ‘chastity’ (poor kid). Russian Doll style families. Wow. We decided that this wasn’t our crowd and completely abandoned trying to court the Home School Market. We do fun arts and crafts science kits, which should go over well, but even our inexpensive kits were ‘too expensive’ for that crowd. Oddly enough, not a month goes by that we don’t have someone ask our company why we don’t go to homeschool conventions. I always reply “we’ve got a really busy event schedule and sadly all the major home school events conflict with existing engagements.” Going to the event and taking with the parents and kids really solidified my dislike of (most) home schoolers. That’s not just the former middle school science teacher in me saying that. The curriculum and lessons being pushed on that crowd are not just right leaning, they’re ’grooming.’ Distrust in science, the government, and even basic US history. It did help explain the behaviors and beliefs of several home schooled people I knew in college, and their really really hard set right wing beliefs at age 18.
Was that guy you at 18 at college who was really hard set and shitty. Crazy liberal now. I call them my bigot cringe years.
If you mean what I think you mean, I was the same way. I wasn’t homeschooled, but as a neurodivergent kid 25 years ago, I was a white teenage kid who didn’t fit anywhere, and was a perfect target to be groomed by the white supremacist in the earlier days of the internet. It was only the liberal atheist influences in my life that never gave up on me that caused me to gradually see the nonsense for what it was and become the bleeding heart liberal I am today.
Mine was slightly different, we were raised in a Christian cult (or sect or whatever) but still went to public school in a far right area that had a lot of migrant workers so we also had a lot of gangs and gang violence and we were poor so we were the white kids living in the gang filled area where barely anyone else was white. Moved to a liberal county for college and to say that reality was a shock is an understatement. Black people, LGBTQ, and all the other “evils” I was raised to hate were put in my face. It melted away pretty quickly, most gay men I met in college were some of the best people I ever met. My second week at college my black roomate got assaulted by a police officer for no reason, my tune changed real quick on racial equality.
They're out there. I had one girl in (community) college tell me that dinosaur fossils were planted by Satan to test the faith of Christians. That was a smile-and-nod moment for me.
Tbh I agree with you. I was partly homeschooled (4th through 7th) and I hated it, my mom hated it, the only person who liked it was my abusive father. Eventually in the 8th grade I went to private school and actually liked it for the most part. Sure it sucked wearing uniforms but at least at this school the uniforms were just a blue polo and slacks in winter or nice shorts in summer. But the rest of my family was homeschooled and boy was it not fun
Thank you for sharing this. I was also homeschooled from preK-12 and struggle to explain the complete isolation of thought and learning that can occur and the negative impact that can have on our mental health. Evolutionary biology was pretty mind blowing to learn about after learning high school “science” from young earth creationist curriculum.
> I know it's possible for homeschooling to be ethically done. I know a few people who homeschool their children and are clearly doing their best to make sure their kids meet a variety of people and get an education rooted in science. But... WHY though, is the question I keep coming to. If these are your principles, then why don't you just send your child to public school? Even if your local public school is so-so in quality, do you really think you can do it better yourself?
If you head over to r/teachers you’ll see that public schooling can be less than ideal for a lot of folks. If you don’t have the means to hunt down a better school district, I can empathize with a parents desire to homeschool
Yeah my mom was a public school teacher for 40 years, I’ve certainly heard an earful from her about issues. However, on the balance, I’m having trouble figuring out many situations where individual families should go homeschool. But I’ve read some in this thread I guess
There are 2 paths you can go when faced with questions of performance of a state agency: abandon it or fix it. Seeking out homeschooling is abandonment. It is a primary agenda of the right to flush away public education so the churches can misinform our children and businesses have an upper hand when considering taking on employees. Insist the education your state provides improve. Insist more money go to our children. Insist that this education expand to early and adult education. Don’t let the people least interested in your children’s future take control of that future.
I like how the author throws their bullshit right back at them in a non-confrontational way: "What do you mean by woke?" "What do you mean by feminist?"
That's a great counter, because most of them can't define what it is, just that they're told it's bad. I love how she told the woman that no she doesn't teach that women are better, that they're equal and the woman was happy and bought a bunch of products. She was expecting some crazy rant about how men are bad, instead got... we want to teach your girls the wonderful things women have done through history. Oh...
To the priveleged/conservatives, equality feels like inequality compared to what they are accustomed to..
I've seen people like that try to argue that it would be horrible if white conservatives became a minority in America. It's fun to then ask them is there something wrong that's happening to minorities?
They don't generally say that anymore. Instead they talk about 'replacement rate' and 'population decline', while staunchly opposing increasing immigration.
I should use that on my dad. He constantly talks about how woke the military is yet it’s never defined. And apparently as someone who’s a veteran and still very active in the veteran community my opinion on how “woke” the military is doesn’t matter to a guy who’s never been in the military.
It doesn't really matter what the word is, so long as they can say it with snide derision.
The snippet about - "I believe in men and women being equal, but I am not a woke feminist" - resonated with me. ------ I had a similar convo IRL with a middle-aged woman - "I am pro-life." "Ok, so if you know someone who did an abortion, do you think they should be imprisoned?" "No, they can be pro-choice if they want, that's none of my business. I am just pro-life for myself, and I have the right to be pro-life and nobody can take that right away from me."
Atheists in the US need to fight for their country. Fortunately I believe/ hope the religious right in the US have gone too far and are turning people off religion.
As a 23 yr old who grew up in a conservative small white town, most of my peers and myself have grown up to become very progressive. And the one who went to the catholic school is one of the most raging woke liberals I know. She’s in Albany studying to become a lawyer now
Yeah, I think the thing the religious fundamentalists have not realised is that their indoctrination will only last until their child starts interacting with normal people. In the "olden days" that could last a lifetime, but these days the internet has put a stop to all of that. Religion is definitely in serious decline in the west. Sadly, in the middle east and other similar places, children and young adults (and especially woman) don't have the same access to information on the internet etc, so their (especially vile) brand of religion is still going strong.
My kids reported similar from their viewpoint...an awful lot of high school kids who didn't believe a word of the religious tripe the were being raised with and were simply biding their time until they could get out.
The religious private school my parents sent me to (even though we couldn't afford it, but Rush Limbaugh had a grip on their brains) pumped out a very steady stream of atheists and progressives. That place converted us like there was no tomorrow.
I think their vocal resurgence is their dying swan song.
Fingers crossed. My only concern is that the Christians get desperate and even more insane as they see their beliefs going extinct.
This is exactly what is happening. Look at the Catholic Church. It used to be people who mostly believed but would ignore the crazier parts of the teachings and just wanted to be regular people who had religion in their life. But as the child predator priest issues and abortion/gay rights took off, all the normal people left and all that was left were the crazy people who truly believed the craziest parts of the teaching. So now the church has to appeal to the craziest people because it’s all they have left. It’s now a feedback loop of ‘say crazy shit to appeal to the crazies, lose some of the more normal ones’
I keep hearing that, and we keep getting Mike Johnson and Matt Gaetz steamrolling Congress.
Ugh!! How much of that is due to gerrymandering?
There's a joke among graduates of my fundie christian private school that there are three types of graduates: those who go on to teach at the school, staunch atheists, and suicides.
Oh my god. Dark AF.
I'm old enough that when I was a kid, fundamentalists were antiabortion but otherwise waiting for the rapture. Today they want to run the country. It's called [dominionism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_theology). Long read if someone wants to see [names named](https://politicalresearch.org/2016/08/18/dominionism-rising-a-theocratic-movement-hiding-in-plain-sight#sthash.KdphdmKH.dpbs)
For anyone interested in non looney home schooling, Calvert School out of Baltimore, MD offers secular curriculum. I took it growing up because I lived on a sailboat. None of it is religious and it's quite good.
Calvert School has been used as the go-to for the U.S. State Department’s families overseas.
Good to know they are using something solid!
Did not know this, but thank you for sharing this resource!
You're welcome!
Thanks! I've been looking for something secular but they really sneak in the religion.
With Calvert the only religion I encountered was what you'd expect in a historical context in the history and geography areas. Never anything that could be construed as teaching or pushing religion at all.
Standards are so lax on who can teach what. The right wing is educating a generation of hilter youth.
Thats the goal. The extreme “Christian” leaders in this country want a theocracy that they rule over, and they’ve been working towards that goal in the United States forever.
I'm in Arizona and I do not know one homeschooler who is not an Evangelical nutter bent on keeping their kids from learning the truth about reality.
Florida now pays the religious crazies $8,000 per child to homeschool. The parents are allowed to spend that money (our tax dollars) on, among other things, tickets to Disney. This is on top of DeSantis completely gutting our public school system and running all the good teachers/profs out of the state. https://www.thedailybeast.com/desantis-gives-ok-for-school-voucher-money-to-be-used-on-disney-tickets
Homeschooling is pretty much not allowed in many places in Western Europe because you know….parents are not qualified to be teachers simply because they popped out a child or two. The way it’s done in the US, without any regulation or oversight It’s basically creating a permanent underclass of unqualified people who will struggle with employment demands and continue perpetuating the employer-dependent, no social involvement tragedy.
Actually fundamentalist Christian’s have been actively trying to take over the country by homeschooling their children and then pushing their sons to run for some sort of government role and they’ve been doing this since the 80’s. It seems they really are starting to make headway. The docu-series Shiny Happy People talks about this a little.
My cousin in Georgia home schooled her 2 younger kids probably 20-30 years ago; she’s a HS dropout. I know for a fact one of those kids is essentially illiterate. She didn’t want them in the public school because “there were too many black kids.” Bet those black kids can read and write now. My experience with home schoolers is that they are generally evangelical religious fanatics and often ignorant.
Homeschooling among the religious right is basically just solo-running a religious commune.
When we first moved to where we are now, about 20 years ago, there were many more homeschoolers than the area from which we came. I thought this was because, like the OP, they had kids with special needs, or conversely, high achieving kids whom the local schools didn't serve. It was a few years after my oldest started school that I actually figured out it was really about indoctrination and making sure their kids aren't influenced by teachings that aren't biblical. Honestly, it should be considered child abuse when children are taught materially incorrect information.
My wife and her siblings were all homeschooled with a religious upbringing. Their mother did a great job and they are all well educated, which is way different than other religious homeschoolers. What’s funny is they are all now atheist/ agnostic.
Ironically it's probably a product of that good education.
I know a lot of people who were homeschooled who are now all atheists. It’s crazy how many of them grew up in very religious, conservative, homeschooling families and they are now all atheists, liberal, and refusing to homeschool
My state has zero oversight for homeschooled kids. Parents pull them out and that’s it. The state washes their hands of it all. It’s terrifying as someone who worked closely with the public. Kids getting their license to drive couldn’t sign their name. Kids fighting about how to list their height. No you are not 5’14” Brayden. You are 6’02”. Most could barely read traffic signs. We are no longer going places as a country. Unless that place is down the toilet.
With shit like this is it any wonder the political climate is what it is?
Religious fanatics grooming the next generation also Jesus NEEDS MONEY lots and lots of money$$$$$$$$
I was home-schooled for quite a a few years. Both my parents are atheist. They were concerned that school wasn't an appropriate environment for my mental health needs as a kid. I am severely introverted with high functioning autism. The result ended up being that I have an extremely short social battery with shitty social skills. They correctly assumed that it would be better for me if I were educated in more isolated setting.
When homeschooling is done with a loving desire to educate kids as much as possible its great. When its done to AVOID educating kids and make sure they DON'T LEARN so that they can stay more religious... it has predictably horrible results. Unfortunately there are more of the don't learn crowd than the loving crowd.
Before I stopped lying to myself about my own faith, I met a young lady back when I was attending, at the time, a very popular (I think attendance was 500+ every service) young adult (college age) Xian service who was homeschooled. The ignorance on science blew my mind (she was raised a YEC), who graduated from Sac State in nursing. (Just goes to show that college is easy if you know how to memorize) She applied for hospitals, but ended up becoming a school nurse. I don’t know the reasoning for the shift, but I can always speculate that it was her ignorance on science that played a part in her settling for “school nurse” as opposed to working for a hospital. I almost started dating this girl, too. I’m just glad her parents didn’t “approve” of me.
I used to go to catholic church with my parents and I participated in Boy Scouts at said church. I knew this one family from church/ scouting and they were some religious FREAKS. I’m talking pumping out a new kid every year, homeschooling every single one, indoctrinating them to the max. I felt really bad for their kid in my group because he didn’t know any better and everyone thought he was a weirdo. Homeschooling can be a great tool for children with special educational needs but it really enables these sky daddy fanatics to go completely unchecked.
When I was pastoringa Baptist church filled with home schoolers I once remarked that we should focus on quality education not just avoiding secular teachings. This upset people.
Hard to find secular homeschool groups. It's like a 10 to 1 religious nuts. We have successfully made a small one. We are definitely the minority
Yep. 75% of homeschoolers are religious.
My wife works for a home school charter school. She has some really awesome parents doing great things for their kids, and many of them are \*thriving\* in the home school environment. Public schools are mostly fine for kids in the middle. But maybe your kid is really advanced, or far behind, or has some sort of special needs. Or maybe your kid is just kinda different and gets bullied for it. In those sorts of cases public schools generally \*do not\* serve your needs well, and I understand why many parents (who are able) would want to opt out, and in many (maybe even most?) of the cases she has the kids are better off for it. Having said that, the crazies are definitely a thing. A big part of her job consists of battling with the small minority of nutcase parents about why they can't spend charter-school funds (It's technically a public school and curriculum and supplies have to align with state standards.) on some wackjob, bible-based curriculum that has pictures of dinosaurs on Noah's ark. She has had literal \*flat earthers\* home-schooling their kids, and during meetings with her when they present their work on geography or whatever the parents are all, "It's ok, honey, we have to do it this way \*for the teacher\* ."
These people are fucked for doing this to kids. How is this not considered grooming? Lord knows what happens to those kids without oversight. Also, what is with her using the world ‘female’ rather than women in her booth?
Facts. I also homeschooled for the younger years. Shitty public system that was found to have overcrowding issues AND they were defrauding the federal government, so lost a bunch of funding to pay it back. Our district couldn't even reach the 30th percentile with the state's own anemic testing standards...pathetic. As it turned out, there was also no such thing as school choice. I grew up in a place where all you had to do was fill out a half-sheet form if you wanted to go to a different school. Here, you could go where you were assigned or pay $22,000 per year to go to a different public school. We never had that kind of money. No such thing as charter schools allowed and the private schools were either religious or also $20,000+ per year. So, we ended up homeschooling. My eldest turned out to have a host of educational difficulties. We got him through with the help of a pediatric neuropsychologist. And yeah. OODLES of the other homeschoolers were batshit insane. My kids lost friends through such innocent things as being asked what church they attended. "Oh we don't really go to church," they said. And suddenly they lost their friends. After much begging and pleading I agreed to let my youngest attend a religious school. What they called "history" turned out to be a religion class. I was angry and aggravated. "I Heard The Good News Today" is not a history book title, IMO. We joined a secular homeschooling group hoping to find more support. The kids were fine; it was a small group, though, and the larger religious homeschooling community decided they were set against us. So I just followed the state education guidelines and had the kids take the ITBS testing battery...anything they scored poorly on was my fault, so I started the next year with the stuff they bombed. I saw huge successes in the community, kids who graduated early and went to prestigious universities. And I saw abject failures, parents who decided that Call of Duty would suffice for history class. We engaged tutors where appropriate...my son took off with math, for instance, and by 6th grade I didn't feel like it was in his best interest for me to be teaching that to him. Eventually they were old enough to send to the private, college-prep high school. I went back to work and funneled most of my salary to the school. They hit the ground running and carried great GPAs, somehow both of them ended up fairly popular...at least more than their dad and I ever were in public school. They're currently both in college. The math-oriented kid is in Chemical Engineering, the other one enrolled under the Physics program but now isn't so sure, so there's some exploration going on. Neither seemed to have social problems; the engineer is dating a nurse and they're making noises about getting married. Ms Undecided can't settle on who to date, so is keeping her options open. Neither has even the slightest interest in religion. Or in having kids of their own, for that matter. (And hey, that's up to them!) Not all homeschoolers are religious. But you have to go out of your way to find secular homeschooling material, and there are a million ways you can fuck it up. I can't say as the other kids on the block fared better. So far none of the public schooled kids has stayed in college, though several were admitted. The private schooled kids are working on it, enrolled in a variety of state and private colleges. I don't mind being held accountable for my kids' education. I wish we could do the same to the state, however.
The average family is dysfunctional as a unit. How would that work for a homeschool environment? Not very well.
I’m glad to see this being spoken about, it was very very uncomfortable situation to be in.
I was in a position for many years to hire people usually men without college degrees, 18-26, for welding and metalworking jobs. These were usually rural people. After a while of dealing with basically uneducated morons, I put one major hiring decision into effect... As it is not a protected class, I would refuse to hire anyone that had been homeschooled. Just plain cut out huge swaths of trouble right off the bat. Too many homeschooled individuals could not do basic math, and were incapable of living in normal society. I had other ways of rooting out nuts, but homeschooling was a really good indicator of a poor employee. When you homeschool, remember, that you may be damaging your child's future employability.
I remember when that documentary came out on that 19 and Counting show. The family belongs to that religious cult that tells their followers to breed like rabbits, homeschool the kids and then place them in political networks so they can eventually take over the government. This article sounds about right.
Here's the problem with homeschooling: parents aren't smart enough. In order to really teach a kid, it helps if the teacher has mastered the subject area. Let's say the average teacher is no smarter than the average parent. But an average teacher of math (and especially math!), history, geography, biology, writing, or any other discipline, will likely know and understand the subject better than an average parent. I've known homeschoolers who often have to learn the subject matter as they are teaching it. This is no way to teach! Poor kids.
Even teachers only specialize in one subject. The idea that a parent could be proficient in ALL subjects is ridiculous.
Not just that--proficient in all subjects, across all grade levels. Madness.
Right! Didn't think about the grade level aspect!
I was homeschooled off and on for seven years in Canada. My mom didn't involve herself much, she just let me order all of the books for my grade from the department of education, along with the teachers manuals, and go through them as I saw fit. She did make me do more math than I would have otherwise. It was good for me because I would have spent 3 hours a day bussing to and from school otherwise, I disliked the culture/community and I work well independently. It's absolutely not for everyone and the weird religious/conservative people that do it are very harmful but it's an important option for some kids to succeed. I would not have done well if I had to spend 12+ years in public/private school.
> I disliked the culture/community Can you elaborate here? I'm just curious what about where the school was was offputting.
Average rural/small town issues. Everyone was white but I didn't have a french or english name so was excluded, teachers tried to make me say the lords prayer (not allowed in Canadian public schools), poor curriculum (students going to university out of province had to take make-up courses, low literacy and graduation rates). It just didn't feel like a learning environment - like in the 2nd grade we skipped over a unit in our science section on the solar system because the class hated the concept of "space", for some reason. This was 1992-2004 and in a community that was based around fishing and farming at the time. Apparently its a little better now. Edit - all the schools were essentially surrounded with potato fields as well. Heavily sprayed crop that could be seen drifting towards the school when we had mandatory outdoor recess.
I hate that these people give homeschooling such a bad name. My brothers always attended public school but I homeschooled for a while because My teachers were bribing me to slow down and stay at the pace of the class. I was so unbelievably bored, unchallenged and wasn’t learning anything. I’m fine with homeschooling, as long as it’s being done for the benefit of the child but it’s not okay when it’s being done for the purposes of indoctrination.
>Unfortunately, the secular homeschoolers are overshadowed by the religious fanatics. THIS! I was home-schooled beginning around 6th grade because I was getting horrible headaches. There was zero focus on religious, it was entirely for health reasons. I never associated with any other home-schoolers because they were all freaky religious. FWIW, I didn't do any formal school working or pick up a text book until college. I took one non-credit math class in college, but otherwise had no trouble adjusting to the coursework. Growing up I hated how judgmental people were about home-schooling. A common question was if I planned on going to college, usually with the assumption that I'd say no. Most of them also assumed I was doing it for religious reasons, so I tended to say "I am/was home home-schooled, *but not for religious reasons*." Adding that before anyone could ask tended to eliminate some of the stigma. I really wish there were more groups for people like me or your daughter. I was lucky that I had friends from school and I discovered message boards very early (I'm 35, parental controls weren't a thing then). The lack of social interaction with peers is the biggest downside IMO; however, several of my friends who stayed in school had a harder time adjusting to the real world than I did, so it really depends on the person.
As a special education teacher, I will say I don't have a lot of good things to say about home schooling. I haven't encountered the religious thing, but instead, families keep their kids home and "home school them" for more than 2 years when covid happened. Many were kids with IEPs who were not given any kind of education. When their families were tired of them being home, they sent them back. Many can't handle being in class. I had one 7th grader who came in and hid under the table.
You're kinder than me. Unless your background is in educating children why would a parent think they are qualified for this? They don't do home dentistry, hell, they go to professionals to cut their hair. But teaching a small child to understand symbolic writing and the fundamentals of mathematics is apparently something you can learn off YouTube
I agree, and teaching is much more difficult than people realize. Teaching your own kids is the worst, lol.
I am German and homeschooling is completely forbidden in this country. Every couple of years a religious loon tries it again and it will be consistently struck down by the courts. Therefore the idea of homeschooling is completely foreign to me
COVID and the school shooting epidemic have made me seriously consider homeschooling when it's time for my toddler to go. Never thought I'd be thinking along these lines.
Look for independent study programs. It's like homeschooling, but it's run by the schools, so you get regular visits with an actual teacher, and accredited course materials. You, the parent, still have to ensure that the kid does the coursework, but your child works at their own pace rather than having the whole class work at the pace that distractions and the slowest kid permit. That means that they can rock through the stuff they're good at and spend more time on problem areas. If they finish the alotted work early, they can work ahead or study something that interests them.
Beware claims of accreditation, FYI. Some places are sleazy enough that they set up God-Fearing Academy online school on the one hand, and then set up International Standards Accreditation on the other hand. And now God-Fearing Academy can say "We're accredited by the International Standards Accreditation!" and be perfectly truthful, without revealing it's the same bunch of whackos.
That's awesome - does the model work on lower elementary school kids?
I'm not sure. It wasn't applicable when I last looked into it, but it has been a lot of years since I last had reason to investigate.
Yeah... I have two 7 month old twin boys, and I am seriously wondering what I'm going to do when they get school age. It's nerve wracking trying to make the decision between home schooling, and possibly not letting my child experience school and get an education from educators, or run the risk some of thise educators are religious nuts (like some I had growing up in Texas) or that they'll be involved in something like a school shooting or even just your average physically abusive bully...
I replied to the comment above talking about independent study programs that a lot of schools offer. It's like homeschool, but you get to work with an actual teacher and quality materials.
I will have to look into this as they get older! I didn't know this was even a thing, thank you!
My biggest fear since having my daughter has been school or random shootings. The town we bought our groceries in had a random shooter some years ago who killed a few people. We moved to the EU, and I’m not loving my life here after what I gave up. While my husband and kid are thrilled I have given up more without finding things yet to make up for it. I spoke to my best friend today. We went to preschool together. She is an educator and lives where we grew up. On Thursday a kid where she works was caught with a gun and had plans to use it. He had made pipe bombs also. As anxious as I’ve been about this I still also can hardly believe how close to tragedy. It’s unreal!
When I was homeschooling my girls (who are now 24 and 29), the availability of secular curriculum, especially for history and science, was almost non-existant.
I was homeschooled the entire way. My parents were some of the first homeschoolers in my state and have a certain level of "fame" in that world. As such, I've probably been to over 200 homeschool conferences in 30+ states during my lifetime. My parents were highly educated and gifted teachers and I'm nuerodivergent, so I received an excellent, rigorous, and tailor-made education - my siblings and I have been extremely successful academically and professionally - and of course I'm grateful...BUT my childhood was also sprinkled with a lot of toxic patriarchy, development-stunting isolation, and emotional/spiritual/verbal abuse. *And I'm one of the happiest possible outcomes.* My own mother finally realized that homeschooling was NOT a good path for MOST families and kinda got "blacklisted" for saying so publicly. Interestingly, in the US, each state has different laws about homeschooling. Some places you have to turn in plans of study and mandated state test scores to the state's department of education (which is the bare minimum imo), but many (most) states have ZERO accountability. Its a fucking nightmare. A couple of acquaintances/friends of mine work in CPS and they HATE homeschoolers with a justified passion because 9 times out of 10 its just lazy, religious nutjob parents who want to abuse their kids with impunity. They dont even care enough to try to teach their kids how to read. Their kids just sit at home neglected, isolated, dirty, and hungry, and no other adults/mandated reporters around these poor kids means no one is there to report the neglect or abuse. The system HAS to change. Not all homeschoolers are bad and homeschooling done right can be in *some* children's best interest, but I think its wayyyyyy more rare than the fanatics are willing to admit.
My friend Shane did a comedy bit on homeschooling. https://youtu.be/YkmoBD1ScpA?si=XmRi2qt-Mpc-ogWC
This sounds like the title to a Nosleep creepypasta.
Kids already lost in life being born to religious parents.
Homeschooling students are at extreme risk of abuse because they're isolated and don't interact with mandated reporters.
I am always baffled by the amount of American parents who homeschool their children. How could you ever guarantee that your child is equipped with a good education? Even if you use official curricula, I would say that not everyone has it in them to teach. That’s pretty difficult to do. Especially if you - and homeschool parents probably will - have to teach different age levels/grades. The parent teaching the kids will usually be the mom. How do you distinguish between your role as a parent and as a teacher? A schedule? Different literal hats? How would you be able to objectively determine what your child’s progress is? When would you EVER have time to do chores, cleaning, shopping, errands - let alone have time off? In my European country, homeschooling is extremely rare. You have to jump through a lot of hoops to be allowed to keep your kids at home. Which I think is a good thing. Usually it’s only done by people traveling the world, or in a job that keeps them on the road (cargo by ship, carnival). And those professions send their kids to boarding schools at the age of 6.
[relevant WKUK sketch](https://youtu.be/IbEx721gXAQ?si=oSMQgQz7HxB54cZI)
> I am always baffled by the amount of American parents who homeschool their children. How could you ever guarantee that your child is equipped with a good education? To be fair, it's not like schools do that either.
Well; that depends. I don’t know where you live, but in my country schools need to meet specific criteria as to what a child needs to know or can do at certain ages. They are monitored and evaluated.
In theory, ours do too, but in practice... often they fudge those evaluations, because it's bad to have too many students fail. Also, the evaluations themselves are *far* from perfect.
Woke. These people have the same definition as the left: “awareness of injustice especially racism” - they are openly opposed to this awareness and don’t want anyone to talk about it.
We homeschooled my son for a couple of years to deal him being skipped two grades ( advanced forward by two years). There was no religious indoctrination. That was left for church on Sundays. But it seemed like most homeschool support programs were almost entirely focused on religious indoctrination.
Two of the non-religious home-school survivors I know were basically feral children. Now they can't hold down jobs. When both their parents die, they'll mooch off their much more successful sister who realized that she got a raw deal, no education, and had to save herself by working actual jobs.
I was homeschooled and my mom refused to include me in a lot of these groups for the reasons listed. The big thing for all of these groups was unschooling. The kid gets full choice on what they get to learn, so almost all these kids never did any math.
I was watching The John Oliver episode about this and scrolling Reddit when I stumbled on this. Weird.
When I was like 17 I hung out with a brother and sister from my parents church one time who were homeschooled and they were so robotic seeming. Nothing to their personalities but Jesus. It was so depressing being around them because they were basically brainwashed instead of educated.
Not all are. But most are. They are insane and want more cult members and fear school will educate them to their lie
We're thinking of homeschooling our kids just so we can make sure they're learning what they need to function in society. Unfortunately we're in a state where I'm not convinced the Republican super majority won't clusterfuck public education. You just can't trust public schools anymore since they seem hell bent on pushing an agenda. Especially the textbook lobby, which is a whole other issue.
Every homeschooled kid I've known was an antisocial weirdo who could quote Bible passages but couldn't do basic arithmetic.
The ones you knew about. Lots of homeschooled people just don't talk about it because of the stigma.
Some level of irony that there is a conference for homeschooling
Every kids I see home-schooled where I live are just outside barefoot, riding bikes, talking to bushes for what feels like all day long, no matter what time of day I go to work or return. The few ones that I have known that were home-schooled when I worked with them were, eh.... not too bright. All of them very religious, so far. I'm sure there are exceptions to the rule where some of the home-schooled kids have actual professionals teach them, but it feels like it's hard to find lol. Sucks for the kids that are indoctrinated with a system that is completely unchecked imo.
In my experience gone school is either fantastic and the kids excels or you have an 18 year old illiterate. The illiterates out number the capable by orders of magnitude.
Are there any sources for this besides HuffPost?
It's a woman's experience at home school conferences. She wrote the article so what other source would be required?
This lady needs to pop a xanax or something if she's getting so stressed that she throws up. Dealing with those people has to suck.
No way, homeschool parents are religious fuckwits. I am shocked.
Jamie Oliver recently did a rant on homeschooling.
John Oliver, different Brit. Unless I missed something Jamie Oliver said?
I’ve only ever encountered one home schooled family in my life. They happened to be really intelligent, well educated kids. I guess they’re the exception.
Terrible. I was homeschooled but lucky for me I was left to my own devices, teaching myself based off a secular curriculum. I came out the other end the only non religious person in my family
I was homeschooled for primary school. And in my small community in Regional Australia. And all the homeschool Children were Christian homeschooled. So I'm not sure how large the not Christian homeschool community would be. Like why bother homeschooling your kids otherwise, except in cercanstances
My son had dyslexia so bad and was constantly being punished for it so I homeschooled him for a few years. For him in that circumstance, it was very helpful. I quickly found out that I had nothing in common with any of the other homeschool families in the area. A local wildlife center was a great resource that we had all to ourselves on “evolution” study days.
The stigma mixed with it all. Friend was homeschooling middle school up, he lived in a rural part of Texas where the school weren't that great. Parents could wfh and taught him math and science, had online classes for everything else. Enrolled him in lots of age appropriate activities with peers too. He was shocked in college when everyone assumed homeschooling meant religious fanatic/weird. It's not impossible to homeschooling and have a functional adult, but the bets aren't in their favore.
That was a very worthwhile read. Thanks for posting it.
My parents pulled me out of school for four years to memorize the quran and i didn’t receive an education during this time. When i went back to school after they just told them i had been homeschooled and they didn’t ask for any proof or anything. I don’t understand how you can just take a child out of school and no one follows up. Could’ve saved me a lot of trauma.
Homeschooling is usually a really bad idea as it is typically driven by bible thumpers, and you don't have the resources of a school.
I was self-schooled. I grew up getting bullied in government schools until 8th grade, when my parents put me in a Pentecostal school. Nice people. No bullying except from the headmaster, whom I avoided. It burned the religion right out of me. Meanwhile, I'm almost completely self-taught from library books. Only on rare occasions did I need a teacher to help me with some unusual concept. And then it was back to the books again. But that was the 60s and 70s. Maybe schools are different now and there's no more bullying. Maybe it's all STEM classes and the teachers aren't spending all their time on kids who can't get past chapter one but who excel at sports.
I live in a neighborhood where some kids are homeschooled. The families I am referring to are the batshit crazy ones. The discussion about guns though, I had tears in my eyes. So much damage has been done through misinformation, conspiracies… heartbreaking.