This started as a comment in the megathread but got long so I decided to make it it’s own post. Obviously covid makes this different, but for general purposes, I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it till I die, please don’t homeschool your kids
I was homeschooled from early in elementary school until halfway through my sophomore year of high school. The reason I joined high school is because I was so depressed and lonely I wanted to die, and I knew my education had been neglected for years, so I begged my parents to put me in public school. Basically the only thing my parents kept up with was math and that’s only because they had me in online math classes.
And of the homeschooling parents I knew, mine were some of the best ones as far as actually educating their children go. Mild neglect with some basic math and science from atheist parents is worlds better than the psycho Christian “education” some people I knew got.
But even with all that the education was the smaller problem. Turns out math is the only thing that actually builds on itself over time in the American education system, everything else just restarts but slightly more complicated when you get to high school.
The bigger problem was how alone I was and how stunted it made my social skills, something I’m still dealing with now and I’m in fucking grad school. Kids and teenagers need to be around people their own age. I straight up did not learn how to function properly in social situations. I almost got the shit beat out of me in my first week in high school for calling a football player a dumbass. If adults said things to me that were mildly accusatory I’d cry, but also I had no concept of not saying shit so I’d call out adults for any minor system issue or other problem completely out of their control which most people just found annoying. I had so much trouble understanding fairly basic social interactions.
My younger brother was homeschooled from after kindergarten all the way until his senior year of high school, which he then dropped out of. He was more stunted both socially and educationally than I was, and started smoking weed nearly every day when he was around 15 to cope. It also definitely didn’t help that my whole family is chock full of mental illness. I think he did just start at community college though, which I’m super proud of.
So yeah. Rant over. Don’t home school your kids. It’s shitty.
i feel like its better to say don't homeschool IF you can't provide a constant social outlet outside of schooling. Like if a kid goes to clubs/the mall/skatepark etc... and has a social outlet separate from school I think that's more healthy than having education and socialization tied together
like an ideal would be having education and socialization separate from one another right?
I disagree. Part of the benefit of school is that it isn’t a designated place for socializing, you have to interact with people you don’t know or hardly know while getting other unrelated shit done. Socializing with people you know deliberately is very different from people you don’t know or just met out of necessity.
Plus the time difference is insane. Even if you’re doing shit every evening that’s still what, 3-4 hours a day? Compared to 7 for school, plus any after school activities, plus socializing outside of school. Just passively being around other kids for that long is a huge deal.
well ideally school wouldn't be that long, like my idea system, would be like 3 hours schooling, then 3/4 hours doing social activities like clubs and stuff (still "school"), then the rest is free time.
School is only that long because it is government daycare, not because education necessitates that length. Plus I don't feel like school is actually that good for socializing since in reality, you find 3/4 people you like and stick with them throughout the school day lol.
I mean yeah people have friends, but you still have to passively interact with others. There’s something to be said for simply having to exist in the same space as others for an extended period of time.
I agree about the length of school though, especially for younger kids, but I still think that time should be spent in a place with other kids their same age, like you said. Not so much “shorter school days” more “reallocating time spent during the school day.”