Good example of the goals of homeschooling and private religious schools. An army of ignorant sycophants at your beck and call
I listen to certain podcast uhumh people and they’re falling over themselves for home schooling. And school vouchers.
And I’m over here pissed that the only way I can at least give my kid a chance at a decent school education is to go private. Our public schools have been systematically eroded to the point of barely being called daycare so the only way to give my kid a chance to actually learn is a private school that has the resources and small class sizes.
Imo, education should not be paywalled. Everyone should have equal access to quality education and not just “memorize these facts” and “be a good worker for the overlords” but actually be encouraged to think and understand the world as it is and how it can be
“The American school system is failing you.”
“I was homeschooled dimwit.”
“Literally proving my point.”
“(rage)”
You really need to have been home schooled to think that mentioning it is a flex.
Shit I was homeschooled and I tend to keep that on the DL just due to the stigma lol. Really sucks that fundies like this ruin something that can really be beneficial for some kids. I’d stress the worst offenders of homeschooling stem from religious fundamentalism and it can be done very successfully in a secular household.
We homeschooled our kids while we lived in Utah simply to avoid the religious fundamentalism. But we definitely also knew religious people who “homeschooled” their children, who ended up completely unable to read at age 10. Turns out spending time with the pigs doesn’t constitute a well-balanced education.
As someone who wasn’t home schooled, can you explain what the benefit is when the goal isn’t to indoctrinate your kids into believing exactly what you want them to believe, especially when those beliefs go against societal norms?
Because that seems to be the only purpose from those I’ve seen even entertaining the idea of homeschooling, though luckily those acquaintances require dual incomes and didn’t have the time.
I ask this sincerely. Because it seems like if you want a better education than public school offers, supplementing their normal school with additional home lessons seems better for their socialization, and gives the best of both worlds.
I can see an argument if the kids have special needs that aren’t being met at school, or insulation from extreme bullying. But both of those seem to lead to a rude awakening when they’re eventually forced into the real world.
Well for background my wife was public schooled and did pretty well. Honors, AP classes, extracurriculars, good grades,etc. Ultimately she still felt held back while also having similar concerns to me with how public school can shape a child, and we ultimately discussed this over the years candidly before having kids and came to the conclusion that we would try homeschooling. Our state partially contributed to that decision, similar to the other user’s reply mentioning being in Utah.
I don’t want to put down teachers or public schools because I do believe they have a positive benefit of lifting these boats but let’s also be clear: they’re very much a cookie-cutter one-size-fits-all institution. They don’t do well with outliers. The very notion of these institutions seemed born more out of the fact that our system needed child daycare to maintain an adult workforce undistracted from raising kids. I’ll rapid-fire some of our bigger reasons for choosing to homeschool our kids:
Public School tends to be where creativity and passion go to the die. My wife (the smarter better half) talked about this. She suffered serious burnout and as a result by the time college came around lost a lot of interest despite her being very book-smart and having photographic memory. She always admired my own passion and curiosity for knowledge by contrast.
Peer-pressure, band-wagoning fallacies are potent. In public school there very much exists this Blind-Leading-the-Blind mentality that shapes right from wrong — popular from unpopular. That can be extremely detrimental and crippling especially to those who tend to be outsiders by default. When you have fellow children dictating norms more so than adults, that can set up an extremely toxic environment.
And that’s reflected in rising adolescent suicidal/homicidal rates. And while I’m here and despite the statistical improbability I’d be remiss if I didn’t say we had concern for school shootings just the same. It should be noted that my own mom pulled my older sister from school because of bullying and sexual harassment and that’s where it all began for the rest of us. (I should point out that at the time my household was religious, though I wouldn’t go so far as to say fundamentalist. We’ve all since changed from conservative religious Republicans to progressive leftist non-religious Democrats… Well except one of my siblings).
Related to the former, there tends to be less adult oversight and less dedicated attention. In Public schools you get 1:15 or 1:30 teacher-student ratios; with homeschooling you have a PARENT who cares more about your future than any teacher would in a 1:1-4 ratio, generally. And again not to downplay what teachers do, but the vast majority of grade-school work isn’t post-graduate by definition… There are well-established curricula and teaching methods that can be used as templates. And in this day, it’s easier than ever with massive resources that weren’t even fully available to my generation: state resources, supplementary cyber-school programs, robust libraries, etc.
While there isn’t a ton of data out there, what does exist seems to show that homeschooled kids do tend to perform above-average both academically in life satisfaction. I’ll dig up my sources of these for those further interested. There is a lot of concern about socialization, which you can still get by becoming involved in local communities, get into team sports, martial arts, improv/theater, volunteer work, etc. Ultimately I think there is just as much risk to public school teaching the wrong kind of social skills as opposed to learning the good kind.
Do I think homeschooling is for everyone? No. And that applies not just to the uniqueness of the child but also the circumstances and willingness of the parents. On the flip-side, I don’t believe public schooling is for everyone either. I don’t think I would’ve done well, but I do think someone like my sister would have. There are particular advantages in precision-targeting education to interests and personality. Catering to adhd, autism, social sensitivities, etc.
We want our kid to be surrounded by adults who love them; to be role-models rather than the loudest biggest kid in their classroom. We want our kids to maintain their passion for curiosity and learning and to grow in their own unique way without being forced into a one-size-fits-all cookie-cutter box often found in public schools.
To your final point that often gets raised about, “preparing for the real world,” the “real world” is QUITE different from public school, which can feel like an inescapable prison for many kids. Why? Because they have no agency as an adolescent. They are forced to go back to their hell-hole every day and not even have a modicum of protection from the school who tends to look the other way. Meanwhile your own parents have very limited capacity to help you… But when you’re an adult… At least there’s a level of decorum even for those bullies who grow up… And at least you have the capacity to say fuck-you in most cases and ghost someone, leave your job, and so forth. A child doesn’t have nearly the same agency, which is what makes school so difficult for many. And sure, some come through the other side despite severe bullying successfully, but I’d caution against making a survivor-bias fallacy.
Hopefully this gives a little insight into our perspective even if you may not necessarily agree personally.
The short answer is the ability to tailor the entire learning experience to one child’s specific needs and interests. For example: My sister loves cooking so for history and chemistry she got to do it from a culinary perspective.
Extra curricular activities can help supplement public education but kids still need unstructured play time, so there is a limit to how much can be added.
I know two people who thrived in a homeschooling environment, for them it was 100% the right choice. 99% of the time it is the wrong choice.
Side note: Virtual learning has created a weird third option that isn’t quite public school but also isn’t homeschooling. This gets mixed in with homeschooling conversations but I think it confuses things and belongs in a separate category.
Same. I tend not to mention it, especially IRL. I fucking loved it, and feel like I got a much better education than most public schools offer. But fucking fundamentalists make me feel like if someone finds out then they’re going to assume I’m a cousin fucker who thinks the planet is 300 years old and that Jesus rode a dinosaur to rescue America from the communists.
I was raised young earth evangelical and home schooled K-12.
That is not a flex, I have just summarized the trauma that is defining my middle years of life as I deconstruct and unpack it - now that I recognize it as the trauma that it is.
I was sort of homeschooled. I kept getting kicked out of school for… basically civil disobedience, and dad just had enough and decided to homeschool me.
he had a masters in education, and I got all my lessons from university professors for a few years. people still think I have a LOT more formal education than I do. there were some really incredible school trips, some of which I can’t even talk about without doxxing myself. I got three aquariums, and most of the backyard, and if I did anything other than routine maintenance, I had to justify what I was doing and why. if anything died that wasn’t supposed to, I had to cut it open. which is great, because I was a few years behind and really needed the motivation to catch up. there was a textbook, and I paid a LOT more attention to it than I did in any class. I called my teachers for help. I was far enough ahead on humanities and tech shit, dad really just had to occasionally remind me to do critical thinking about whatever I was reading, and throw books in my general direction. he made me write a few essays, which I resented at the time. I remember the sparse geology classes (really just a couple field trips-it wasn’t my whole education, and the previous year science class was geology, so there probably would have been more) I got involved a lot of rope.
I feel like I mostly wasted the opportunity, but I’m more well read than probably 95+% of the country, and was before I hit high school, where I promptly squandered my entire advantage with a year or two before dropping out, but I can still pass as having a degree in a small handful of subjects.
I agree that most parents should not be fucking home schooling their kids, but in my case, its probably the only way I got any education at all. I think every kid should get opportunities like I did, but can’t really think of a way to scale it up without just generally making the world better in every way. why are we not doing that, again?
Right wing motherfuckers who froth at their mouth complaining against making ultra rich pay their fair share have annual family income of $45k
They wouldn’t want to make more money because that would mean they’d have to pay a higher tax rate. Don’t try to explain how tax brackets actually work because you’ll just make them angry for highlighting their ignorance.
In all fairness, no one actually teaches what communism is because then everyone would be a communist.
Well 90 to 95 percent of us would be. The other 5-10 percent would be afraid to have their wealth redistributed, and would do anything they could to not let it happen. Kind of like what they do now.
Just to be clear, when you say “socialized capitalism” you mean capitalism, but with a welfare state?
The system currently burning the world to death with no particular sign of actually changing course.
Communism depends on the people on top not being greedy fucks who will just keep the power instead of distributing it. Humans aren’t like that. We’re greedy for power and we won’t share it from the top down.
Socialism is much better as it works within the confines of the established system and just wants to alter it. Communism work on paper but humans are the part of the plan that doesn’t work. By the way I say this as a survivor of a murderous, Communist regime.
Correct, which is why communism is a bottom up system.
Sorry you’ve been propagandized to believe otherwise.
I depends what you mean in particular.
I’ll preface this by saying I self identify as a socialist (I say self-identity, as I have not read specific books on the topics of communism and socialism. Think what you will of this), and believe in from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.
However, communism has become a bit of a loaded word where I feel myself both defending it from people on the right, and feeling weird about communists calling for communism (well, especially the two things below).
This is because of some of the variants I think are a bit generous in their belief that people won’t act selfishly:
Anarcho-communism? Sure, if you believe in fairies and that every single self-governing group will uphold the social contract with every single other self-governing group and not raid their shit. I hate to say, but I think at our current population levels, we need some kind of state to have a monopoly on violence, which the people as a collective have meaningful control over. Anarchism was only possible when there weren’t as many people, and let’s be real, I’d prefer not to worry that another group might attack us…
No money? I think this is just a recipe for corruption where managers wield influence over the production they oversee for personal gain. Money is just a useful symbol for value which can be exchanged. I’m for “no money” in the sense things which ought to be subsidised should be free, public transport, healthcare etc. However I think it would be truly dumb to make everything free, because it would reduce people’s choices, in a world where we have finite resources but unlimited desires.
If we are each given equitable money (i.e. I’m not entirely against people earning more or less, for example if you have to work a job where you necessarily need to be away from friends and family) then some things ought to cost money so that the people who want something most will pay more. And prices could be guided partially by demand, or public policy as appropriate. The profit would be redistributed to the people.
Else you’re left with a system where you’re waiting years to get a car, it’s a lottery, or more likely corruptly given to some over others.
I think I do want communism, in general, but the specifics, remains to be seen. I don’t agree that everyone would be a communist if they knew what communism is, because communists themselves also don’t agree on the specifics, it would seem.
As an Anarchist I’m irresistibly compelled to respond to this in order to spread propaganda. (Sorry for the ramble I don’t know how to write concisely.)
To start I don’t use communism, democracy or even socialism to refer to my beliefs. I use anarchy. That’s because anarchy in my mind is concrete. no-archy. against hierarchy. Even though anarchy does follow the classical definition of communism, and is socialism, as in worker-owned means of production. These words are unnecessary as anarchy does the trick. And communism has too much bloody history to most people, me included.
Anarchy is not possible in the current cultural space. Anarchy requires a complete transformation of all parts of society, including culture. A lot of your problems come from having underlying archic (hierarchical/capitalist) beliefs. For an anarchist society to succeed these beliefs must be abandoned.
This is because of some of the variants I think are a bit generous in their belief that people won’t act selfishly:
This is a comprehensive answer on a popular FAQ: https://anarchistfaq.org/afaq/sectionA.html#seca215
Anarcho-communism? Sure, if …
This entire paragraph is based in tribalism. An inherent idea that people belong to distinct groups that compete with each-other. It is one of those archic beliefs that I mentioned. There are many different responses to this but I believe in federation (Thanks to this video: https://youtu.be/lrTzjaXskUU timestamp 36:44). This system envisions the anarchist society not as distinct groups but a large number of intersecting groups. No group would “raid” other groups because they have friends in all those groups. On top of that everyone in an anarchist society should be educated enough to understand that everyone in the society has a role to play and hurting them is hurting the society which is in turn hurting them.
On your opinions on money. It seems you do not understand how an anarchist economy would function. In anarchy you wouldn’t buy something, you would order it from the person or co-op who makes those things. Generally used items like food and clothes would probably be available for free, but anything requiring construction would be ordered. This allows you to receive a completely personalized item. Otherwise people would just work for no reason and end up with things they don’t need. I don’t see any point in producing an item just so it would sit on a shelf somewhere. There might be a small storage for conveyor-produced items in order to reduce order times, but in general retail wouldn’t need to exist.
Also due to your usage of “managers wield influence” I can see you haven’t read any socialist theory as in socialism and anarchism the managers are responsible to the workers. If they are acting in corrupt ways that’s because the workers don’t care enough to uncover it and change the manager. And when it comes to “oversee production for their own personal gain” I am left wondering what personal gain would that be. without money there is no incentive to hoard and if that personal gain is abusive then it will be discovered and the manager changed.
Else you’re left with a system where you’re waiting years to get a car,
The fact that you think cars are a thing in a socialist society again reveals your inexperience. Cars are a fundamentally capitalist construct that have no use in socialist societies.
finite resources but unlimited desires.
The unlimited desires (that I’m interpreting as material as spiritual and mental desires don’t need resources) are exactly the thing that anarchy seeks to destroy. It is a poisonous mindset cultivated by capitalism that leads to catastrophe (for example look out the window). It is incompatible with continued existence and the destruction of it in an individual is the first step towards anarchism. It was made with the specific need to fuel the hyper-consumerism of the modern age. You get told from everywhere that you need more stuff. Understanding that you don’t is fundamental to all anti-capitalist thought.
I want to suffix this post with a point that if any of this comes across as rude then that was not my intention. The points made reflect my own ideas and opinions and other anarchist will have their own. I hope you consider what I wrote (and again sorry for the rambling.)
I appreciate your response, and will respond fully later. Edit before I post: turns out later is immediately when I started typing. (Again, very much appreciate your engagement)
But just quickly wanted to get in that I very much dislike cars, just a convenient example because of cars being notoriously long to get in the Soviet union.
Which I recognise was not a anarchist project.
I want to preface this, this is all with the assumption that any system has successfully met all the fundamental basic needs of health, shelter and food, and is no longer capitalist.
Your proposed system isn’t even anarchy to me though, a federalised system? Smells a lot like a an archy to me. Freely associated groups, who set rules amongst themselves? Doesn’t sound very anarchist at all, sounds quick democratic if you ask me, though that might be my bias talking.
Sure, Europeans states are free to do what they want, with certain restrictions they agree to by being part of the EU. This reeeeealy doesn’t scream anarchy to me (replacing states for freely associated smaller groups). Plus, I don’t really think being able to up and leave it a great way to run a overall society anyway, as sometimes disagreements will not be settled by the groups in question, and the rest of the larger federated group will need to enforce the consensus. Is this anarchy? Really feels like some kind of democracy to me.
(I invite you to correct misconceptions, in your view, as I am cognisant I may be straw-manning you here due to misunderstanding. I have no yet read the long FAQ you linked)
No group would “raid” other groups because they have friends in all those groups.
I would suggest groups wouldn’t necessarily need to stay in one place, of course no one wants to hurt friends. Go a couple hundred kms down the road, steal some shit. Yes, most people won’t, I wouldn’t. Even fewer people would if hypothetically their needs have been met. But there will be people who will. How will we deal with this?
Let’s say I accept federated groups are “anarchist”, which I don’t, what is to stop other federated groups coming to raid your federated groups stuff. (Yes this is tribalism, but let’s be real here, if your system relies on everyone letting go of tribalism, and being educated you’re never going to achieve it, there will be dumb people, there will be some subset of tribally minded people, or people who have different aims that the majority. A hypothetical: you’re from a federated group from an area with fewer natural resources (more on how I think a moneyless ordering system would not work, and would fail to adequately distribute finite resources later), you’re having a laugh if you there’s no chance they would organise an army to get more resources.
If they do, is your group gonna organise an army in time? Else, you already have standing army? How are you going to play your part as the federated group, by sending someone from your collective? What if your collective has no one willing to be a soldier, hmmm wouldn’t it be great if we had some way to compensate people for their time so that you can specialise in a large federated group of people. If you have a standing, paid army, and all the other groups are keeping all the other groups to their word and pulling their weight, this does not feel like anarchy to me. That’s a federated democratic state.
On ordering things. I’m not capitalist, it’s a stupid system, but supply and demand aren’t made up things we can leave behind in a post capitalist world. There will be stuff that is more desirable and people will want it more. How exactly do anarchists propose allocating these things fairly. First in best dressed? That will mean long waits for some things, and none for others. This is silly because people have different wants, and value things differently.
Money is great. It’s just accounting, and allows for greater personal choice (in a hypothetical post-capitalist world where amassing wealth is made impossible).
I have $x, I’m gonna spend most it on dance classes, because I really like that, and barely any on clothes, because I’m not a fashionista. Others might spend more on nicer food, but hate dancing.
Some options with moneyless ordering the things you need, without money
- Everyone orders more of something than there is to go around, lots of waiting for high demand stuff :/
- You limit how much someone can order in total value (this is money, in my view)
- Each group decides what they feel like making for others (this sounds like social debt, to me, which ultimately is money without the accounting, it’s money by feeling rather than numbers). Sucks, because what if I want something from some random group across the world. Boy, wouldn’t it be great if we had some medium of exchange people would accept in place of debt :O
Money also seems necessary, because while there are many jobs (including mine, I’d do mine) which are fine to do, I think there are some jobs who should get paid more. Working unsocialable hours at a bar? I think you ought to get paid more for that. Air traffic control at 3 AM. Yep more money. Working in sewer work? Yeah, I think you should get paid more.
How, exactly, are you gonna deal with that without money? Just hope people are willing to do the necessary jobs? Let people work however much they want, okay, now we have a worker shortage in XYZ undesirable area. Nah, pay them more, enough so there are enough people to do the job. Sounds like your federated group needs to get together and decide how to fairly pay these people hmmmm. Gonna need to enforce that, smells a lot like regulation :O
Small freely associating groups are no longer possible we have cities of millions. And people will disagree, absolutely no doubt about that. Are you suggesting breaking those up into smaller groups to be managed entirely separately? Sounds like a nightmare at city scale. And if you hand wave it away to say, oh we can set up larger structures to freely associate city wide rules, well, again this doesn’t exactly smell like anarchy to me, unless any part of the city can just go, nah, we don’t want to associate with you, we want our lovely park to ourselves now, if you’re then enforcing them to do something when they don’t want to (not blocking off their neighbourhood), it doesn’t really feel like anarchism, (to me) it feels like democracy.
If you’re suggesting keeping groups of millions, are you seriously suggesting not having a police force? Not having courts? Like, I’m not in the US, and I get how bad cops are there (and somewhat generally elsewhere), but what, you think crimes are only committed by people in poverty (which is a large part, sure).
Generally, most people are good, would have little to no reason to commit violent crimes in a socialist/communist world, but, there will be some level of violent crime, for which you would need some system to deal with fairly. And you will need to enforce it on those who don’t agree. Else what, dude across the city negligently caused my friends death, but doesn’t think it’s his fault, and his group also doesn’t think so. What are we going to do, politely agree to disagree? Or, is it then gonna have to be taken to some justice system all the groups agreed to. What if the group really decides not to play ball, and they control vital infrastructure? Threaten to leave the federation if they don’t get their way?
Hate to tell you, family is a kind of tribe, and you cannot be claiming people won’t be tribal in the future.
I would say, it’s something to be managed and controlled for, and I don’t think anarchy would do it.
This was a ramble, I will get around to reading the FAQ haha, hope you enjoy rebutting my not very well laid out arguments!
