From what I can tell as a non-expert, kids cannot learn certain things very well until they reach a certain age or maturity, but after that age it's very easy.
My gripe with the education system is that early on, there's too much focus on learning things that people are going to learn regardless. If your kid learns the alphabet at 4 or at 8, what's the difference? Can anyone not learn how to read a newspaper by the time they leave school?
Later on, when the kids get to the teenage years, they are able to learn a great deal of stuff. But then nobody is really teaching them when they can learn. There's a whole load of scientific stuff that's quite interesting that ends up getting crammed into a few years of high school, and crammed in a way that turns kids off. And culture classes (literature, history) are so horrific some people never pick up another book.
There's also not enough emphasis on motivation. The emphasis is on passing tests. If you're motivated, you can learn anything. You'll even spend your own time and money learning. My guess is the home schoolers have figured this out and that's why they're not that far behind ordinary schools.
>If your kid learns the alphabet at 4 or at 8, what's the difference?
It's a huge difference. As soon as a kid can read, they can learn in a way that isn't just you telling them stuff. They can self-direct their learning, read books about stuff, go online and devour Wikipedia, etc. It's not just "hey, can anyone not read a newspaper by the time they leave school?", it's "how soon does this kid have the tool to satisfy their natural curiosity about things that require more than someone telling them about it?" which establishes their relationship with learning itself, with knowing how to learn.
>There's also not enough emphasis on motivation. The emphasis is on passing tests. If you're motivated, you can learn anything.
My problem with education is that there is no 'one-size-fits-all' policy. Some kids fail hard in a structured system that puts emphasis on passing tests, other thrive in it but fail in a less structured 'find-your-own-motivation' system. Like a pendulum we just keep swinging back and forth and realize we keep missing a portion of the kids. I don't know how you fix it because it's expensive to tailor education to a kid. I guess it's all up to the parents.
> If your kid learns the alphabet at 4 or at 8, what's the difference?
It might make a big difference to the individual kid. One of my earliest memories is seeing how adults read words and numbers, I must have been between 4 and 5 years old. I asked my parents to show me how to do that and they replied "no, you'll learn this when you're older, this is not for you." Later in first grade, learning to read and write was no fun at all (I blame the teacher), and guess what: a good number of kids could already do it. Where would the harm have been in taking a few hours to teach me that stuff a couple of years earlier, when I first wanted to?
This anecdote is about learning things early, but overall I agree with you that learning stuff gets massively easier at a later age. I never really understood math and physics until I was in my twenties and had the opportunity to explore the subjects on my own terms.
Yup, it doesn't mean much to teach alphabets to 4yr old, but I also observe that kids don't just become a competent reader spontaneously. Some kids do---just provide them access to books and they naturally pick them up---but some don't. I thought immersing them with literature and stimulating their curiosity were enough, but I was wrong.
> Can anyone not learn how to read a newspaper by the time they leave school?
Yes, plenty of them. During WWII when they tested recruits something like 1/3 of them lacked basic literacy. It's probably better these days, but don't assume just everyone figures it out.
The thing that stood out most to me in this article is the tale of abuse and torment the kids received when going back to the formal school system. The concept of teasing and abuse was foreign to them. Obviously it's just one datapoint, but I'd love to see a study that checks whether the school system makes children meaner and more cruel.
Imagine the damage being done to society if it really is the case that traditional schools result in meaner people.
It might be the law of large numbers. The larger the school, the larger the probability for one or more really mean kids per age group. This is then probably amplified once more by school size since mean kids thrive on a large audiences and have an easier time recruiting allies (who in this context aren't actively mean themselves but are eager to provide social support structures to bullies).
I switched primary schools once at that age because of massive bullying (in my country switching to a different primary school is almost impossible unless you move to another school zone, so it took quite some effort). The second school was smaller and more diverse socially, and I got through the whole thing much easier.
n=1 anecdote, but my experience is that I had equally-bad (if not worse) bullying experiences outside of school than inside.
What I suspect is happening is that the school environment mixes people of different "cultures" much more thoroughly than non-school environments, which greatly increases the possible exposure of would-be bullies and would-be bully targets.
This is one big reason I'm really happy I never went to school. I was fragile enough as it was, particularly in my early teens; I'm really glad I had time to grow up and sort myself out in a social environment dominated by adults rather than children.
My brother and I were home educated from end of primary up to 18 years old or so. My brother totally believes in home education, and (not but!) is now a primary school teacher, after having gone on to do his degree and masters in universities in the UK.
We found European home educators are often much more "anarchist" in the sense of this article, liberal, free-thinking, non-conforming, often of non-traditional religion / spirituality, who think the state system is too narrow, limited, and structured. In the States it's much more right-wing religious exclusionists who think the system is too liberal, unstructured, and ungodly. A very very weird difference of culture.
My mum wrote a lot about home education, here's her site with all kinds of info about getting started, details about what we did, etc: http://home-ed.info/
I loved it, and it was perfect for me. My brother loves regime and structure, so would probably have done fine in school. I'm much less academic, and do a whole mixture of jobs (acting, teaching, programming, writing, A/V, electronics, etc.) in a non-profit organisation. Almost all stuff that I learned as a kid, with the oceans of free time that I had, and my friends in school didn't. I worked in a theatre company for 3 years, and did school-work in the evenings, or when I had time. I taught myself to code.
With our kids now, my wife (non-home-educated) is a bit skeptical of her ability to home-school. Our son is still too young (he's one). I certainly wouldn't object to him going to school - providing it doesn't interfere with his education too much. :-)
> Does the author resent staying out of school because... it didn't prepare them for the awfulness of school? I kind of got that impression.
No. The author resents staying out of school because it also meant staying out of more diverse and more regular social interaction. Successful social interaction requires shared values (which wasn't really the issue) and, at least to a degree, shared social experiences. If two people have hitherto had experiences that are so divergent that ego cannot understand any of the structures or references alter uses, then social interaction becomes very difficult.
Accordingly, fitting in was difficult because of their non-standard upbringing, and while the parents might not have minded that they did not quite "fit in", the children did not have a choice of their own or even the necessary experience that would have enabled them to make an informed choice in the first place.
What is described is the removal from the Zeitgeist, which becomes a problem if others simply assume a shared set of conventions and experiences or if you would like to be part of a group that is based on different premises.
That school was (at least partially) awful was merely a symptom of this underlying social schism, not a cause.
Its an interesting story but I would summarize it more as being extremely poor as children in the 70s, also they happened to home school although that wasn't a substantial part of their story. Or if they somehow attended stereotypical K-12, however impossible it would have been logistically, wouldn't have changed the overall story very much.
Also, in the olden day, people, both kids and adults, were more creative.
> Also, in the olden day [sic], people, both kids and adults, were more creative.
Wat? [citation needed]
It probably depends on who you hang out with. Granted, i wasn't there in the 70s, but there are some mighty creative individuals in my sphere of experience, both local and remote.
More upbeat than the story of the Paskowitz family, as told in the documentary Surfwise. They said they never had trouble with the authorities because their kids never started school. Dropping out of the system is tougher than never entering it.
The kids, as adults, were quite resentful that they lacked an educational background that could've helped them.
I generally sympathize with homeschoolers, but these parents seemed pathologically unable to doubt themselves or admit to mistakes. They were unable to see that their son, James, needed help learning to read, and even seemed to minimize his unhappiness. They did nothing to prepare their children for public school, despite professing to know how unpleasant the social environment can be. When James was picked on by his classmates, he never let his parents know — presumably because they were so unattuned to their children's experiences that it would have been pointless.
These parents doubtless believed they were virtuous in rejecting the culture of the times, but they went quite a bit farther and were basically delusional. People like that should not homeschool.
First, an anecdote about home schoolers: I am good friends with three people who started home-schooled and did not enter the traditional school system until later on (two in high school, one in college). I don't think any of them regret it, and they are all very well off academically. There seems to be a popular conception of home schooling parents as crazy religious zealots or something, which I think has little basis in reality.
Honestly, having spent about half my pre-college years at public schools, I would much rather be home schooled than public schooled.
The primary reason is that it seemed like public school classes were always geared towards the lowest common denominator of the class. I hardly did any work (and hardly learned anything) because we spent so much time banging on the same concepts for the benefit of the slowest people in the class. When I finally went to private school, we suddenly started targeting at least the middle of the class. I finally started learning things in school!
The secondary reason is political. Even from a young age, I was very aware of the fact that the public school system didn't treat me like a human being. I'm better at articulating why I felt that way now; it's because the public school system is alarmingly close to the prison system.
As a child, you are legally required to attend school, under threat of force (directed at your parents). Since many people can't or won't do home or private schooling, this amounts to forcing many children to attend public school. Upon arriving, you are not permitted to leave of your own free will. You are subject to the arbitrary directives of non-elected officials. You are stripped of many basic human rights on campus (in particular, the right to free speech and the right to be protected from unreasonable searches and seizures). There is a healthy judicial tradition in the USA of taking away the rights of school children. I'm sure there's a list of relevant supreme court cases around. Public schools in the US also do tons of political indoctrination, like saying the pledge of allegiance on a regular basis. Growing up in that environment was extremely deleterious to my critical thinking; by the time I was in sixth grade, I had all sorts of authoritarian leftist ideas of exactly the sort I'd been subjected to by my teachers and my schools of the last seven years.
It wasn't until I finally switched to private school, where they treated me like a human, that I realized I had been imprisoned about half the days out of every year. Finally, I was free to leave campus of my own accord. Finally, discourse, rather than blind obedience, was the norm. If private school wasn't an option, I'd much rather homeschool my children than expose them to the academic and psychological clusterfuck that is every public school I every attended.
> There seems to be a popular conception of home schooling parents as crazy religious zealots or something, which I think has little basis in reality.
Knowing nothing about you other than that you read and comment on this site I would assume that 1) you are above societal average intellectually and financially and 2) you associate with people who are similarly successful.
Given that you mostly know people roughly as successful as you, it shouldn't be a surprise that people you know who are home schooled are doing about as well as you are.
To directly address your point, I think of the home schooling population as fairly bimodal; there are many parents who choose homeschooling for religious reasons, and there are some (especially with gifted children) who homeschool because the standard curricula move to slow. Which is to say, crazy religious zealots are a large fraction of the homeschoolers, but not representative of the homeschooled people you and I meet.
Incidentally, I was briefly homeschooled with no impact on my academic career.
People that were home-schooled seem to be a little off, to me at least; granted, I was in the public education system from kindergarten on. They often seem to be blithely ignorant of the rules that most people operate by. Honestly, I typically find them insufferable, since they are so much more prone to bike-shedding, as opposed to nodding and then going and getting shit done.
> by the time I was in sixth grade, I had all sorts of authoritarian leftist ideas of exactly the sort I'd been subjected to by my teachers and my schools of the last seven years
I'm not sure i understand this correctly: you're saying that now, after having managed to un-brainwash yourself, you do not harbour leftist ideas any more? Do you consider this a good thing? (I'm clear on the authoritarian side of your story, and i agree)
Other than that, i totally agree—i experienced the public schools i went to precisely the way you describe. It's a soul-crushing experience.
I have seen this happen. To me, it is all legitametely wonderful, except for the naiveté of the parents in thinking they can drop their kids into the churning river of public school without any instruction on how to get along. That challenge can be addressed, but only if you acknowledge it exists.
"didn't they need to be with their peers and suffer all the harsh experiences that entails"
Around some people, there's a belief that "doing time makes your a person"
But you know what. Regular folks avoid going to prison. Moreover, they avoid doing things leading to that outcome.
Why would you submit your child to prison-like environment? It's not like adults are routinely exposed to that kind of experience. Certainly not required for leading a productive life.
I've never understood this at all. Outside of public school, I've only encountered one other similar environment--my first retail job after high school.
After that, social interactions have been nothing at all like what school prepared me for.
Because even the social environments that don't resemble schools are created by, operated by, and comprised of people who learned how to interact socially in the school environment. This means that many of the subtle conventions that underly the more visible dynamics will be intuitive to someone with a school background, and inaccessible to someone without it. The issue is exacerbated by the fact that the school environment is unnatural and irrational, and so its customs will never follow from common sense.
Also, not sharing a huge formative experience with the rest of the population makes it harder to empathize with them.
There are multiple strains of Anarchism, each as valid as the next, and some diametrically opposed to the other (eg. Anarcho-Capitalism vs. Anarcho-Communism). People are going to self-identify in ways you may not agree, so just focus on the content not the label.
This assertion would be more interesting if it included some supporting detail. What is that "definition"? Why should we use it rather than some other definition? How does the situation in TFA not qualify?
Don't worry, I'm not attached to any particular definition of any particular political philosophy. I'm just curious about what you're trying to say.
[+] [-] lordnacho|10 years ago|reply
My gripe with the education system is that early on, there's too much focus on learning things that people are going to learn regardless. If your kid learns the alphabet at 4 or at 8, what's the difference? Can anyone not learn how to read a newspaper by the time they leave school?
Later on, when the kids get to the teenage years, they are able to learn a great deal of stuff. But then nobody is really teaching them when they can learn. There's a whole load of scientific stuff that's quite interesting that ends up getting crammed into a few years of high school, and crammed in a way that turns kids off. And culture classes (literature, history) are so horrific some people never pick up another book.
There's also not enough emphasis on motivation. The emphasis is on passing tests. If you're motivated, you can learn anything. You'll even spend your own time and money learning. My guess is the home schoolers have figured this out and that's why they're not that far behind ordinary schools.
[+] [-] nationcrafting|10 years ago|reply
It's a huge difference. As soon as a kid can read, they can learn in a way that isn't just you telling them stuff. They can self-direct their learning, read books about stuff, go online and devour Wikipedia, etc. It's not just "hey, can anyone not read a newspaper by the time they leave school?", it's "how soon does this kid have the tool to satisfy their natural curiosity about things that require more than someone telling them about it?" which establishes their relationship with learning itself, with knowing how to learn.
[+] [-] macspoofing|10 years ago|reply
My problem with education is that there is no 'one-size-fits-all' policy. Some kids fail hard in a structured system that puts emphasis on passing tests, other thrive in it but fail in a less structured 'find-your-own-motivation' system. Like a pendulum we just keep swinging back and forth and realize we keep missing a portion of the kids. I don't know how you fix it because it's expensive to tailor education to a kid. I guess it's all up to the parents.
[+] [-] Udo|10 years ago|reply
It might make a big difference to the individual kid. One of my earliest memories is seeing how adults read words and numbers, I must have been between 4 and 5 years old. I asked my parents to show me how to do that and they replied "no, you'll learn this when you're older, this is not for you." Later in first grade, learning to read and write was no fun at all (I blame the teacher), and guess what: a good number of kids could already do it. Where would the harm have been in taking a few hours to teach me that stuff a couple of years earlier, when I first wanted to?
This anecdote is about learning things early, but overall I agree with you that learning stuff gets massively easier at a later age. I never really understood math and physics until I was in my twenties and had the opportunity to explore the subjects on my own terms.
[+] [-] lostlogin|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shiro|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lmm|10 years ago|reply
Yes, plenty of them. During WWII when they tested recruits something like 1/3 of them lacked basic literacy. It's probably better these days, but don't assume just everyone figures it out.
[+] [-] OmarIsmail|10 years ago|reply
Imagine the damage being done to society if it really is the case that traditional schools result in meaner people.
[+] [-] Udo|10 years ago|reply
I switched primary schools once at that age because of massive bullying (in my country switching to a different primary school is almost impossible unless you move to another school zone, so it took quite some effort). The second school was smaller and more diverse socially, and I got through the whole thing much easier.
[+] [-] jcranmer|10 years ago|reply
What I suspect is happening is that the school environment mixes people of different "cultures" much more thoroughly than non-school environments, which greatly increases the possible exposure of would-be bullies and would-be bully targets.
[+] [-] artost|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marssaxman|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deckiedan|10 years ago|reply
We found European home educators are often much more "anarchist" in the sense of this article, liberal, free-thinking, non-conforming, often of non-traditional religion / spirituality, who think the state system is too narrow, limited, and structured. In the States it's much more right-wing religious exclusionists who think the system is too liberal, unstructured, and ungodly. A very very weird difference of culture.
My mum wrote a lot about home education, here's her site with all kinds of info about getting started, details about what we did, etc: http://home-ed.info/
I loved it, and it was perfect for me. My brother loves regime and structure, so would probably have done fine in school. I'm much less academic, and do a whole mixture of jobs (acting, teaching, programming, writing, A/V, electronics, etc.) in a non-profit organisation. Almost all stuff that I learned as a kid, with the oceans of free time that I had, and my friends in school didn't. I worked in a theatre company for 3 years, and did school-work in the evenings, or when I had time. I taught myself to code.
With our kids now, my wife (non-home-educated) is a bit skeptical of her ability to home-school. Our son is still too young (he's one). I certainly wouldn't object to him going to school - providing it doesn't interfere with his education too much. :-)
[+] [-] abecedarius|10 years ago|reply
Imagine if all the state money that went into your schooling were invested instead for your minimum basic income: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/23/ssc-gives-a-graduation-...
[+] [-] rmk2|10 years ago|reply
No. The author resents staying out of school because it also meant staying out of more diverse and more regular social interaction. Successful social interaction requires shared values (which wasn't really the issue) and, at least to a degree, shared social experiences. If two people have hitherto had experiences that are so divergent that ego cannot understand any of the structures or references alter uses, then social interaction becomes very difficult.
Accordingly, fitting in was difficult because of their non-standard upbringing, and while the parents might not have minded that they did not quite "fit in", the children did not have a choice of their own or even the necessary experience that would have enabled them to make an informed choice in the first place.
What is described is the removal from the Zeitgeist, which becomes a problem if others simply assume a shared set of conventions and experiences or if you would like to be part of a group that is based on different premises.
That school was (at least partially) awful was merely a symptom of this underlying social schism, not a cause.
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] VLM|10 years ago|reply
Also, in the olden day, people, both kids and adults, were more creative.
[+] [-] toothbrush|10 years ago|reply
Wat? [citation needed]
It probably depends on who you hang out with. Granted, i wasn't there in the 70s, but there are some mighty creative individuals in my sphere of experience, both local and remote.
[+] [-] michaelfeathers|10 years ago|reply
The kids, as adults, were quite resentful that they lacked an educational background that could've helped them.
[+] [-] willchang|10 years ago|reply
These parents doubtless believed they were virtuous in rejecting the culture of the times, but they went quite a bit farther and were basically delusional. People like that should not homeschool.
[+] [-] wyager|10 years ago|reply
Honestly, having spent about half my pre-college years at public schools, I would much rather be home schooled than public schooled.
The primary reason is that it seemed like public school classes were always geared towards the lowest common denominator of the class. I hardly did any work (and hardly learned anything) because we spent so much time banging on the same concepts for the benefit of the slowest people in the class. When I finally went to private school, we suddenly started targeting at least the middle of the class. I finally started learning things in school!
The secondary reason is political. Even from a young age, I was very aware of the fact that the public school system didn't treat me like a human being. I'm better at articulating why I felt that way now; it's because the public school system is alarmingly close to the prison system.
As a child, you are legally required to attend school, under threat of force (directed at your parents). Since many people can't or won't do home or private schooling, this amounts to forcing many children to attend public school. Upon arriving, you are not permitted to leave of your own free will. You are subject to the arbitrary directives of non-elected officials. You are stripped of many basic human rights on campus (in particular, the right to free speech and the right to be protected from unreasonable searches and seizures). There is a healthy judicial tradition in the USA of taking away the rights of school children. I'm sure there's a list of relevant supreme court cases around. Public schools in the US also do tons of political indoctrination, like saying the pledge of allegiance on a regular basis. Growing up in that environment was extremely deleterious to my critical thinking; by the time I was in sixth grade, I had all sorts of authoritarian leftist ideas of exactly the sort I'd been subjected to by my teachers and my schools of the last seven years.
It wasn't until I finally switched to private school, where they treated me like a human, that I realized I had been imprisoned about half the days out of every year. Finally, I was free to leave campus of my own accord. Finally, discourse, rather than blind obedience, was the norm. If private school wasn't an option, I'd much rather homeschool my children than expose them to the academic and psychological clusterfuck that is every public school I every attended.
[+] [-] thesteamboat|10 years ago|reply
Knowing nothing about you other than that you read and comment on this site I would assume that 1) you are above societal average intellectually and financially and 2) you associate with people who are similarly successful.
Given that you mostly know people roughly as successful as you, it shouldn't be a surprise that people you know who are home schooled are doing about as well as you are.
To directly address your point, I think of the home schooling population as fairly bimodal; there are many parents who choose homeschooling for religious reasons, and there are some (especially with gifted children) who homeschool because the standard curricula move to slow. Which is to say, crazy religious zealots are a large fraction of the homeschoolers, but not representative of the homeschooled people you and I meet.
Incidentally, I was briefly homeschooled with no impact on my academic career.
[+] [-] douche|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toothbrush|10 years ago|reply
I'm not sure i understand this correctly: you're saying that now, after having managed to un-brainwash yourself, you do not harbour leftist ideas any more? Do you consider this a good thing? (I'm clear on the authoritarian side of your story, and i agree)
Other than that, i totally agree—i experienced the public schools i went to precisely the way you describe. It's a soul-crushing experience.
[+] [-] sopooneo|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] guard-of-terra|10 years ago|reply
Around some people, there's a belief that "doing time makes your a person"
But you know what. Regular folks avoid going to prison. Moreover, they avoid doing things leading to that outcome.
Why would you submit your child to prison-like environment? It's not like adults are routinely exposed to that kind of experience. Certainly not required for leading a productive life.
[+] [-] learc83|10 years ago|reply
After that, social interactions have been nothing at all like what school prepared me for.
[+] [-] adrusi|10 years ago|reply
Also, not sharing a huge formative experience with the rest of the population makes it harder to empathize with them.
[+] [-] macspoofing|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ctlaltdefeat|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jessaustin|10 years ago|reply
Don't worry, I'm not attached to any particular definition of any particular political philosophy. I'm just curious about what you're trying to say.
[+] [-] zekevermillion|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] karzeem|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dylanjermiah|10 years ago|reply