Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education

Re:Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form... by lapetitejort on Tuesday October 31, 2023 @02:47PM (#38089514)

I was in a home-school coop about 25 years ago. We attended it a few times, until we stopped going. I was just a kid so I have no idea why we stopped. I remember it didn't help. I didn't know how to do any of the homework they assigned so I never did any (a practice that carried into high school). Since I never had tests or grades of any sort it didn't really matter.

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Re:Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form... by biomcgary on Tuesday October 31, 2023 @02:54PM (#38089638)

Thanks for the additional details about your experience (and I'm sorry about them). Statistically, I'm slightly surprised that you were in a co-op that long ago. I was home-schooled a few years earlier and the notion of a co-op was just starting to be discussed.

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Re:Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form... by noelwelsh on Tuesday October 31, 2023 @03:27PM (#38090150)

There is a long tradition in this sort of thing in anarchist (and related) education. For example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-managed_social_center#Fre...

It's maybe not 100% what you're thinking of, but it's reasonably close.

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Re:Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form... by vkou on Tuesday October 31, 2023 @05:35PM (#38091714)

> Since I never had tests or grades of any sort it didn't really matter.

I was homeschooled to grade 3, and just because my parents didn't give me tests or grades, it absolutely mattered.

I had to correctly solve, both verbally and in writing, enough questions at the end of the current chapter of the textbook, to a standard that satisfied them. For every subject of study. Every single day.

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Re:Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form... by spiderice on Tuesday October 31, 2023 @06:21PM (#38092225)

> just because my parents didn't give me tests or grades

> I had to correctly solve ... to a standard that satisfied them

In other words, you had tests and grades

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Re:Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form... by vkou on Tuesday October 31, 2023 @09:11PM (#38093446)

A test is, by most people's general understanding, is a closed-book, timed, evaluation of competency.

A grade is a permanent record of a snapshot-in-time evaluation of your understanding of a material.

"Read the chapter, solve the problems in it, we'll go over your work later" is neither a test, nor a grade.

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Re:Home schooling's rise from fringe to fastest-growing form... by devbent on Thursday November 02, 2023 @02:27AM (#38109667)

Historically oral exams were commonly used to test a student's proficiency, but they fell out of favor as the educational system scaled up.

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