America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

Re:America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries... by rantanplan on Friday March 11, 2016 @05:57AM (#11265865)

All of the things you mentioned are true and still homeschooling is worse. You know why? Our society is not without its flaws either. So unless you can provide a full alternative reality experience to your children, I'd say stand back.

And by the way, who's preventing you to teach your children to identify(and thus ignore) the flaws of this system?

What you're suggesting is the nuclear option and I don't see any reason for that.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries... by dhimes on Friday March 11, 2016 @11:24AM (#11267517)

I'm no expert, but when I was teaching college I had a few homeschooled students. They were usually younger (still high-school aged) and better students than the traditional students in my classes. So I saw a select group.

It seems to me that homeschooling is a great option for kids well away from the mean of the 'bell curve' - in either direction. It's difficult for the schools to properly handle kids that are far from normal. So for the kid who just needs to learn life skills as well as the kid who is taking the college physics class at 15 years old home schooling seems like a reasonable choice- if the parents are up to it.

I think tokenadult has a lot of interesting insight on this subject.

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Re:America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries... by rantanplan on Friday March 11, 2016 @12:38PM (#11268111)

Kids that are far from normal was not the topic here though.

Also, why should it be only the one or the other? These are not mutually exclusive. Personally, I went to school and I was homeschooled at the same time.

Removing regular school from the equation is almost always a bad idea.

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Re:America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries... by saint_fiasco on Friday March 11, 2016 @11:58AM (#11267766)

>And by the way, who's preventing you to teach your children to identify(and thus ignore) the flaws of this system?

What do you mean 'ignore'? If children are forced to go to school, they can hardly 'ignore' that they are being bullied or 'just go away' if a teachers is incompetent.

Most children are perfectly capable of identifying the flaws, they are just impotent and can't do anything about it which causes additional misery.

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Re:America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries... by rantanplan on Friday March 11, 2016 @12:28PM (#11268037)

The children are incapable. The parents are not.

If they don't know how to handle those things then maybe: 1) they should have thought better before deciding to have children and 2) seek help on how to raise them?

We used to live in the fucking jungle and you think that today's society is cruel? What's the matter with you people?

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Re:America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries... by saint_fiasco on Friday March 11, 2016 @01:52PM (#11268663)

>The parents are not.

True. Some parents see those problems and deal with them by, for example, homeschooling their children.

Homeschooling doesn't strike as a thing an 'incapable' parent would choose to do. It takes deliberate thought and lots of work.

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Re:America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries... by chiph on Friday March 11, 2016 @08:57AM (#11266590)

It's a big country, and there's room for both approaches.

Ideally, the parents will choose the method that lets their child learn most effectively. In reality, some of them will make bad choices and stunt their children's education. Which sucks, but life is not fair.

[ Parent | on HN ]