So right before our eyes we have seen very recently the perception shift of homeschooling, which was for decades considered even more “elite” than catholic or private schools. To 2023 where anyone who dares homeschooling is “a religious nut”, “depriving their children of a real education”, and on an on. As homeschooling became more prevalent with conservatives it became less of a “gold standard” in education to an “Alex Jones Q anon indoctrination camp”.
Semi related: this all came about because I’m watching old South Park and season 3 episode 12 showed perfectly how “homeschooling” kids were perceived, all intellectual and no social skills.
My best friend was in homeschool till highschool. He said the biggest thing he had to learn was to pretend to be stupid to get along.
Stupidity is the most valued commodity in society.
Naturally. Public schools can't turn away the dumb, and there are lots of dumb people in public school, especially if the school is "diverse."
We went to rival high schools. Mine was the diverse one, his was the preppy clique upper middle class one. His parents thought the school had a gifted program. AP is not gifted BTW. Especially the way they did it.
So his highschool experience was trying to get along in a world that demanded you have status not smarts. The classes were entirely about setting status and not education. It was demanded by teachers. I knew what he meant because I had just been in one.
I just realized he had to be their most diverse guy because he was a 6 foot tall vietnamese guy.
Me and all of my brothers were homeschooled, and we were part of a homeschool group of families who would do yours and activities together, so I know a number of other homeschool families. Everyone is different, but generally homeschool kids are gonna be smarter than average, and more socially awkward than average. I personally think my brothers and I were more normal because we all played multiple youth sports, so we interacted with more kids our age.
The quality of your homeschool education is gonna come down to how smart your parents are and how involved they are. Almost all of the parents who want to homeschool their kids are involved, which is good, but not all of them are smart.
On the whole though homeschooling produces better citizens and results in better education.
Public education is specifically designed for factory work—smart enough to press buttons, but not understand why they're pressing them. It's a great environment to produce drones that won't think too hard and will Just Follow Orders™ when told.
And when those people get into some power or good money they think they're superior to all the others that came off the same production line
I have never seen homeschooling being described as "elite", unless you're referring to private tutors, which are most assuredly not what most people think of when they think "homeschooling", they think of the mom teaching the kid (and they're right), and/or using online classes.
Home schooling hasn't shed the reputation that was attached to it 40 years ago. Ask a normie about it and you get the standard "they will be unsocialized religious nuts" line.
Once upon a time this might have even been true. Not now. Homeschool is organized now, with the rise of the internet. Homeschool kids have access to all the organized sports and clubs that public school kids do. They have access to chemistry labs, and local home school parents can team up in a micro-school and get tutors to cover advanced subjects that a parent cannot do.
Home schooling has gotten much more popular because of COVID, where parents all across the country were exposed to what their kids teachers were doing in class rooms. We're talking double digit growth compared to pre-COVID numbers.
What home schooling does is insulate your kids from the worst aspect of public schools. They don't have to learn at the same slow pace as the 85 IQ mongoloid, they don't have to waste valuable learning time as the class clown acts up in class, and they don't have to deal with the lord of the flies aspect of socialization that is built in to public schools. Smarter kids really benefit from home schooling because they can learn at their pace, at their level, without the class idiot making them bored to tears.
I've been seeing all those things you just described as about homeschooling since the 90s at the least. Its always been "antisocial wierdo" or "religious zealot."
And having known a few, the social problem isn't always "awkward shyness of a major intellectual" but also just as often "massive ego who thinks he is smarter than literally everyone, despite being a chronic failure."
Because you can bring a kid to groups to get interaction and teamworking skills, but you can't undo the horrible coddling effect that is having your Mom's attention all day, every day rarely divided. Exacerbated by the lack of hazing, bullying and other guy to guy rituals that help us shed our worst elements.
Traditionally lots of siblings will fix that problem, especially if there are 3 or more boys. But yeah, 1-2 child homes homeschooling presents social problems, and that is more common nowadays.
Gonna have to disagree; Homeschooling has been seen on the left as just shy of 'cult indoctrination' for, well, decades. They've always pushed against it, mumbling something about 'poor socialization outcomes' and drooling on about 'interacting with other kids' while somehow ignoring all the abuse most nerds and geeks suffer when in the typical high school.
Funny. Almost as if they were never part of that group to begin with...
What changed was the ease and availability of home schooling. For all it's ills, the internet and electronic communication means there's a plethora of teaching resources on-hand that are easy to get and often more superior than what you'll learn in-class as most schools as long as you apply yourself. (Both parent-wise and kid-wise).
The moment this tool becomes something valuable more conservative-leaning parents can utilize to get away from government indoctrination cued the more outspoken and virulent screeching from the typical leftists. It's just more obvious and vocal now because it's now a lot easier to pull off.
Which is a good thing. If I ever have kids, I know I'm going to be very hesitant to put them in any public school.
American Schools never were great, but at least they represented some kind of standard. Now they're absolutely garbage so they have to lie about the alternatives to stay relevant.
The only thing that public school socialises you on is what arseholes people can be and how to spot it early on, I hate this bullshit argument so much. Really what people are admitting without saying it when they try to make the 'socialising' argument for public schools is that you're not there to learn anything meaningful.
Here's the thing:
Socialization is just an obvious easy issue for people to use, but nobody actually wants to have in-depth discussions on the issues of public, private, and homeschooling actually are.
I know from both personal experiences and the experiences of family and friends for all of those methods, and my grandfather has seen the gamut of what they are like, and none of them are ideal.
Homeschooling becoming more popular as of late is more just a reaction to the disastrous political unraveling of the US education system to the point where kids are being literally indoctrinated into leftism and grooming (and falling standards thanks to Common Core), but in terms of actual educational prowess and understanding, homeschooling is not anything impressive by any means.
Even intelligent parents generally can't effectively teach and homeschool their kids, its just less harmful compared to the dumb/average parents doing it. The problem is largely parental egos and arrogance, using contrarianism against the educational system system to justify essentially leaving their kids unprepared for a world that would fuck them in the ass if they aren't exposed to it. If they have the money and ability to get multiple private tutors, maybe that's different, but things like online classes or educational materials, even from prestigious places, aren't gonna help kids do well in the real world, and has ultimately dubious educational value, if that.
Public schools are wide and varied in their issues, really depending on location and populace, but so are their standards and quality of education. Someone who thinks the education quality of a public school in an upper middle class suburb is in any way comparable to an inner city public school is delusional, for example. They can be shit, they can be mediocre, they can be good, they can be great. It really depends on where you look and how good the area is.
Private schools standards are generally nonexistent, the teachers aren't under requirements to have qualifications and you'll be lucky if you get any increased value over a public school (and in fact you're more likely to get fucked than not). My grandfather put my aunt in a catholic private school, found out they weren't teaching her jack Its lucky if you can find a private school, but essentially you would probably need a gated community of super-elites to have a chance of it being an actually good school, because there are plenty of expensive private schools that are just bad.