So.... homeschooling!

[Greg]

Sometimes competition brings out the best in people though, and drives them to achieve higher and better than they normally would have.

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Tell me about it.  My 8 year old ran 5:56 for the Westminster Mile which I would have bet you dollars to donuts was impossible given his split times in training and his height.

His arch rival was there and Mo Farah (his sporting hero) turned up and high-fived all of the competitors before their race.  He was so excited to meet the Double Olympic Champ that I think he must have got some sort of adrenalin rush which made him run a huge PB.

Same thing goes for his school work.  He has an important exam next year called the 11+ which he is studying hard for now.  The fact his older sister passed it is a huge driver for him to pass not to mention the rivals at school he wants to beat.  Healthy competition is a very good thing and fostering it produces stronger results.  Which is why expensive private schools foster healthy competition in just about every activity they can.

They have had about 800 years to work out how best to motivate learning.

[Chestertonian]

I can see those advantages of a pecking order, Greg.  but as  someone who got beat up a lot and bullied in school, I have also seen how they can be detrimental.  . 

with certain things, i think homeschooling gives you an ability to specialize..... for example, if your child thinks they are good at singing, they can join a local choir and spend time with other singers.  Or they could go to a music school where they will have a teacher evaluate their ability

a child can build relationships based on similar interests and common goals vs. being grouped in the same warehouse

I went to an arts high school so things were a little different you had to get in based on some sort of artistic ability and people were constantly comparing peoples work to other peoples   but for the most part, public education is just a warehouse

[Greg]

How do homeschoolers do Chemistry practicals where you need access to a range of specialised glassware and even a fumigation cupboard if you're going to do the fun and meaningful stuff.  Or metalwork or woodwork classes that require lathes and bench drills, veener presses etc.  Do any homeschoolers order hexamethylenediamine and sebacoyl chloride and produce nylon at home?  If you don't do these practical experiments then how do you correctly teach long chain polymerization, or the polarisation/diffraction of light, the Corolis effect so that 20 years later when some fool tries to convince them that water goes down a plughole opposite ways in the northern and southern hemispheres they know he is a fool.

Has ANYONE here ever used a laser as part of a homeschool experiment in optics or a laser die cutter as part of design?

Have any homeschooled children taken a PC apart and rebuilt it and reloaded an operating system or gone into the bios as part of the home-schooled curriculum?.  Any home-schooling parents ordered a Raspberry Pi and built a bunch of coursework around it.

I'm guessing that mum 99% of the time does not know how to do this.  10% of dad's might, perhaps, optimistically.  So unless Johnny or Jane is a natural geek, how do they learn the basic concepts of what is going on behind that metal box?  Kinda useful to know that for a well rounded education.  Computers are in everything.

Surely, what actually happens, is that if mum is a liberal arts graduate her kids' education is heavily biased towards liberal arts and if Johnny or Jane does not self-teach and learn how to correctly wire a 3-pin plug due to their own interest, or the left and right-hand rules in electromagnetism they basically become a useless bloke who will never be able to take the child-lock setting off their washing machine or change the oil in their car engine.  Or, alternatively, Dad teaches you those things and you think "Picasso" is a French car and MichaelAngelo a Mexican Rap Artist.

It's kinda tough for Mum and Dad to give children a full education with access to the equipment and possibilities that the school system has.  Which is why I decided to send my kids to school and fill in the gaps which the school cannot do (religion, culture, Russian language, explosives, elite sports performance, astronomy, mechancial repairs, gardening, plastering and decorating, cooking orienteering, scuba diving, (when they are at least 12) etc.  I don't see that it has to be one thing or the other.  If they schools are reasonably decent, and free, then why not send them to school and educate them at home as well?

I went to a school staffed by modernist Catholics.  That did not turn me into a modernist; quite the reverse.  It showed me just what a bunch of totally fruitless crud modern Catholicism was.  I adopted the values of the people I respected whose values had delivered fruits.  But I listened to my physics and chemistry and English and Maths teachers.

I was bullied at school too, because I went to school with a lot of new immigrant Irish barbarians who could only talk with their fists.    Standing up to the bullies was probably the best lesson I ever learned.  Hardly a day goes past that I don't use the side of my character that that experience shaped.  While I wouldn't put my children into that lion's den deliberately, it's my belief that whatever set of cards life deals you, you can fold, bluff, or play to win.  There is no such thing as a completely bum hand only the way you choose to play the cards you have been dealt.

If I could have my life over again I'd probably choose the same school.  At least i'd like to think I am brave enough to make that choice.

[Jayne]

How do homeschoolers do Chemistry practicals where you need access to a range of specialised glassware and even a fumigation cupboard if you're going to do the fun and meaningful stuff.  Or metalwork or woodwork classes that require lathes and bench drills, veener presses etc.  Do any homeschoolers order hexamethylenediamine and sebacoyl chloride and produce nylon at home?  If you don't do these practical experiments then how do you correctly teach long chain polymerization, or the polarisation/diffraction of light, the Corolis effect so that 20 years later when some fool tries to convince them that water goes down a plughole opposite ways in the northern and southern hemispheres they know he is a fool.

Has ANYONE here ever used a laser as part of a homeschool experiment in optics or a laser die cutter as part of design?

Have any homeschooled children taken a PC apart and rebuilt it and reloaded an operating system or gone into the bios as part of the home-schooled curriculum?.  Any home-schooling parents ordered a Raspberry Pi and built a bunch of coursework around it.

I went to school and did not do any of these things.

[The Curt Jester]

Have any homeschooled children taken a PC apart and rebuilt it and reloaded an operating system or gone into the bios as part of the home-schooled curriculum?.  Any home-schooling parents ordered a Raspberry Pi and built a bunch of coursework around it.

That is something that can be learned without being part of a curriculum.   It was not in part of mine, but through experience with my dad and my uncle, I learned about computers and ended up building my own.   Honestly, if a child's talents lie in a certain direction, it's easy enough for parents to start steering that way, but those thing certainly don't have to be in every child's curriculum.  For instance, woodworking would have been a waste of time on me,  but music wasn't.  Guess which one I got?

It's not so much about providing anything and everything, but focusing where the child's skills are.   Parents can do a whole lot better at this than a school can.   That's why schools just dump everything on people -- because they haven't a clue what each individual can do.

[Chestertonian]

I have not done any of t the things you mentioned Greg.... But of course I went to arts high school (where I was a theatre major)pretty sure at the regular high school they didn't do that stuff.  maybe at a STEM magnet high school

[Stu Cool]

How do homeschoolers do Chemistry practicals where you need access to a range of specialised glassware and even a fumigation cupboard if you're going to do the fun and meaningful stuff.  Or metalwork or woodwork classes that require lathes and bench drills, veener presses etc.  Do any homeschoolers order hexamethylenediamine and sebacoyl chloride and produce nylon at home?  If you don't do these practical experiments then how do you correctly teach long chain polymerization, or the polarisation/diffraction of light, the Corolis effect so that 20 years later when some fool tries to convince them that water goes down a plughole opposite ways in the northern and southern hemispheres they know he is a fool.

Has ANYONE here ever used a laser as part of a homeschool experiment in optics or a laser die cutter as part of design?

Have any homeschooled children taken a PC apart and rebuilt it and reloaded an operating system or gone into the bios as part of the home-schooled curriculum?.  Any home-schooling parents ordered a Raspberry Pi and built a bunch of coursework around it.

I went to school and did not do any of these things.

Same here and I was in the Honors and AP classes.

[Greg]

Have any homeschooled children taken a PC apart and rebuilt it and reloaded an operating system or gone into the bios as part of the home-schooled curriculum?.  Any home-schooling parents ordered a Raspberry Pi and built a bunch of coursework around it.

That is something that can be learned without being part of a curriculum.   It was not in part of mine, but through experience with my dad and my uncle, I learned about computers and ended up building my own.   Honestly, if a child's talents lie in a certain direction, it's easy enough for parents to start steering that way, but those thing certainly don't have to be in every child's curriculum.  For instance, woodworking would have been a waste of time on me,  but music wasn't.  Guess which one I got?

It's not so much about providing anything and everything, but focusing where the child's skills are.   Parents can do a whole lot better at this than a school can.   That's why schools just dump everything on people -- because they haven't a clue what each individual can do.

How can woodworking be a waste of time?

Someday you're going to have a sticky door or wobbly banister or newel post or rotten window frame or broken garden bench and want to repair or adjust it or you'll need to fit a lock on a door in the house or change the keys over to a lock which is slightly larger than the one you're replacing.  That's going to require you to use a tenon saw, mitre saw, chisel, drills, dowels woodglue etc.

It makes complete sense for boys to do some amount of woodworking at school so they can tackle basic DIY jobs around the house.  Call out charges for these minor jobs are crazy expensive in most first world countries.  Moreover, familiarity with hand tools and how to use them raises up your ability to repair a broken pane of glass, replace rotten decking planks, fix squeaky floorboards, re-align patio doors and a 101 other jobs around the home.

I'll never need to play a musical instrument as part of everyday life.  I can download tonnes of music for free from YouTube.  Pretty much every song i would want to listen to is a simple search away.

But stuff is going to break and need replacing in your home for the REST OF YOUR LIFE.

[The Curt Jester]

How can woodworking be a waste of time?

Someday you're going to have a sticky door or wobbly banister or newel post or rotten window frame or broken garden bench and want to repair or adjust it or you'll need to fit a lock on a door in the house or change the keys over to a lock which is slightly larger than the one you're replacing.  That's going to require you to use a tenon saw, mitre saw, chisel, drills, dowels woodglue etc.

It makes complete sense for boys to do some amount of woodworking at school so they can tackle basic DIY jobs around the house.  Call out charges for these minor jobs are crazy expensive in most first world countries.  Moreover, familiarity with hand tools and how to use them raises up your ability to repair a broken pane of glass, replace rotten decking planks, fix squeaky floorboards, re-align patio doors and a 101 other jobs around the home.

I'll never need to play a musical instrument as part of everyday life.  I can download tonnes of music for free from YouTube.  Pretty much every song i would want to listen to is a simple search away.

But stuff is going to break and need replacing in your home for the REST OF YOUR LIFE.

It would have been a waste of time to focus on it when my talents were elsewhere.  I wasn't talking about learning how to fix the occasional thing (which I can do).  If I can change a head gasket in a car, I don't think I have to worry about the occasional item that needs fixing!

Again, though, I think these are skills (mechanical, cars, computers, etc.) that every man should pass on to his children (sons in particular).   It shouldn't have to be part of a curriculum.

[Greg]

Why not though?  Woodwork is fun and creative and teaches fine motor skills.  Your gonna need it come what may unless you wind up making so much money that you can hire workmen for the smallest task.  Nobody is talking about focusing in it.  We are talking about 5 percent of the school week spent on manual skills with tools.

Most people are never going to dare tackle a head gasket.  For one thing you need at least $200 of specialised tools, such as a torque wrench.  Nobody has those except for head bolts.

I've used workworking skills FAR more often than Pythagoras' theorem.

As for I think these are skills (mechanical, cars, computers, etc.) that every man should pass on to his children (sons in particular).  Dream on ... in the REAL WORLD most men are not passing these skills onto their children.  That is why auto breakdown cover is a billion dollar industry.  They is why schools SHOULD teach these skills to MOST people.

The maths and music boffins are sufficiently into their pet subject that a few hours a week using their hands to fix or create something would probably be healthy for filling out their otherwise geeky character.  The way to create weirdos and social misfits is let 11 year olds get wholly obsessed with nuclear physics or Java.

Forcing David Helfgott to make a cigar case or cook a first class Beef Wellington at school would have probably made him a better pianist and more mentally stable.

[Jayne]

Different people have different ideas about what is important for their children to learn.  I make a big deal about Latin and care very little about wood working or sports. I couldn't care less how fast my children run and think it is pretty silly.  One of the great things about homeschooling is that the parents get to make these decisions based on their children's interests and their own priorities.  It is not decided by some school bureaucrat or an Internet pundit.

[Greg]

That's great if your parents are mentally well balanced.

Not so great if they are Branch Davidian cult members or obsessed with turning you into a concert pianist.

I agree running times don't MATTER in an absolute sense.  But neither does latin.  Or pure maths.  You can get by in life just fine without any of them or indeed reading any philosophy books.

But I think winning and excelling at SOMETHING which is widely accepted as worth excelling at, such as sport or music or maths is a very good way for children to see the benefits of learning and mastering a skill.  If they don't perceive the benefits themselves they are probably not going to stick at it for very long.

My son has a best friend at school who is a very good diver (springboard and high boards).  He's 9.  Nobody knows about it or cares about it very much or has ever seen him in competition since high diving is rather a niche sport which you will NEVER get to perform before, or compete with, your peers at.   This 9 year old might stick it out, but most likely he will quit, yet today it is a significant time commitment to turn up and train and costs a fair amount of money for accessing the baths and travelling to competitions.  Running on the other hand is core to a multitude of sports, football, baseball, etc.  You can enter a meaningful competition with decent competitors every fortnight, train for different distances and pretty much all the way through school you are either doing track and field or some sport where running endurance is vital.

So running is only "silly" if all sports that involve running are "silly" since nearly all those sports require you to run fast.  I don't think many people would agree that all sports are silly.  It's quite obvious that people enjoy sports immensely and they are key part of human life.  So much so that they have replaced religion in some cases, but that is not the fault of sport but simply a feature of how unsilly sport it consider to be by a huge swath of mankind.

In terms of the future it would make more sense for a kid to master golf than high-diving since there are plenty of careers you can get as a scratch golfer but bugger all as a high diver and you can play golf well into your 60s.

So some ideas are better than others in that they have more beneficial outcomes and more secondary benefits.

[Akavit]

Hmm.  I've somehow managed to acquire a vast range of skills that were never in the homeschooling curriculum and much of that was done by spending time with adults rather than children.  An uncle used to invite me over whenever he had car repairs and I'd get to fetch tools, remove bolts and earn a $20 bill in the process.  Good thing because a couple weeks ago I had to diagnose a bad water pump and swap it out (professional mechanics failed to identify the bad pump).  Luckily years of tool hunting at sales meant I had almost everything needed for the job.

Computer building, programming, woodworking, car repairs, plumbing, metal working, golf, bowling and paintball are some of the skills that I've attained at least some proficiency in.  Most were learned from various relatives and a few were done on my own initiative after high school graduation.  People without extended families may need such things in their curriculum but I didn't.

Most of the local schools closed their shops anyway or else they have poor programs with ill-maintained equipment and disgruntled teachers.

[The Curt Jester]

As for I think these are skills (mechanical, cars, computers, etc.) that every man should pass on to his children (sons in particular).  Dream on ... in the REAL WORLD most men are not passing these skills onto their children.  That is why auto breakdown cover is a billion dollar industry.  They is why schools SHOULD teach these skills to MOST people.

So in a world in which men are not passing on skills that they should (or failed to learn them), you're thinking that a school (public ones even?) should be able to teach it.  Public schools can't even teach math and get students to pass without lowering standards.  They can't fit in regular subjects without complaining about budget problems.   Just how are they going to accomplish the task of getting extra classes, extra teachers, and extra funding to fit in all those extra subjects?   Okay, we know how they'll get the funding (taxes), but even if they get those classes going, I would question their worth.    Basically, with the current school system (at least in the U.S.A.) it would be a miracle if anything came of it.   

Talk about dreaming!  More like hallucinations.

[Chestertonian]

I'm a piano teacher and I love woodworking.  I don't see these things as mutually exclusive....it wasn't so in my life, anyway

i was blessed to have a father who enjoyed woodworking and home improvements.  When I was little, I would go out to the garage and watch him work.  he always gave me a job, whether it was sanding, handing him tools, or what have you.  It was a hobby for him on the weekends..the rest of the week he was a lawyer.  if something around the house was broken, he did his best to fix it with the tools he had.  But, I remember there were many things he couldn't fix.  He never did his own plumbing or electrical work, for instance.  it's difficult to be a lawyer and a jack of all trades at the same time.

these things might not be part of a homeschooling curriculum, but life skills are often passed down from the parents.  I probably won't teach my son to put a computer together from spare parts, because in our house weuse laptops and ipads and the parts are so small you need specialized robots with teeny tiny robotic arms.

but i know how to tune a piano

kids who go to school might take home ec.  We didn't have that in school, but we had my mom, and I watched her cook enough times to figure it out when I went out on my own. 

children who are educated at home often have more opportunities to learn these practical life skills than their public/private schooled peers. 

as for discovering and recognizing gifts, homeschoolers have the opportunity to pursue all sorts of extracurricular things.  here in NYC, there are sports leagues, children's choirs, theatre programs, robotics clubs, instrumental music programs, etc.  there are places you can send your child to do lab science projects. 

one thing I hated about school was having to endure gym.  I had medical exemptions until 3rd grade but after that, I had to play every sport under the sun, never getting to excel at any of them.

for a few weeks it was baseball.  Then soccer, then volleyball, team handball, flag football...  For a while we were forced to do square dancing....my parents wrote a note exempting me from that lest I have physical contact with a member of the opposite sex. 

gymnastics... there were always a handful of kids who had done gymnastics from toddlerhood.  the girls would prance about like little nymphs and the men would whirl around the horse with ease while the rest of us klutzes struggled to hurl our bodies around, usually impaling ourselves on the handle a few times.  And it's safe to say that I was not the lord of The Rings

then there was The Rope.  when you climbed it you wrote your name on the ceiling....like some kind of special 30 foot high club.  needless to say that was not a club I ever enrolled in

also they had us run around the gym like gerbils.  teachers stood in the middle of the room shouting at you by your last name.  by the endof that, I thought my first name had become "Pick up the pace!"  always made me think of the videos I saw in Hebrew school of nazis chasing jews with guns and forcing them to run barefoot in the snow.  All I could think of was how lucky i was that I had converse all stars and the air conditioning was on.

the one sport I ever had an aptitude for was swimming, and that wasn't one of the sports featured in our gym class sampler.  if I were homeschooled, I would have been able to focus on swimming and ignore all the other sports.