[extropy-chat] Re: Home-schooling

[David Lubkin]

Anders asked:

 > How does homschooling really work? We do not have it here in Sweden,
 > so I have no intuition of its effect on my model. In particular,
 > does parents stay at home teaching (full time or partial time)?
 > How large are the economic savings?

and Mike Lorrey answered:

>Actually, David Lubkin is probably the best reference on this list for
>these questions, as he homeschooled his daughter (as a single dad,
>too). From people I've talked to, home schooling takes far less of the
>day than children spend in school. Most school time is babysitting and
>horsing around.

My daughter wasn't precisely home-schooled. What we did varied over the 
years. The constants are that I encouraged broad curiosity and answered 
questions as honestly and fully as she could absorb, much as Sasha did with 
Eugene. (Anders, was he there when I first met you at Sasha's? That's one 
impressive kid!)

When she was a baby, we'd tried the "better baby" program. It had dramatic 
effects, but they appeared to be short-lived. For a time, from before she 
could speak, she could identify hundreds of items, from countries to Van 
Gogh paintings. (How? Ask her where Mongolia was, and she'd point to it on 
a wall map.)

When she was four, I taught her about negative numbers and we discussed 
situational ethics.

She went to public and private schools almost through high school. I was 
closely involved, and was sure whatever she learned at school was augmented 
or corrected. It was difficult for her when what I taught her contradicted 
what her teacher had said. The pressure to conform is great.

She always had a computer, the net, a substantial home library (45K 
volumes), and access to an array of knowledgeable adults.

In high school, she had health problems that made regular school untenable. 
Ultimately, she applied to college as a home schooler. She mostly explored 
what she was interested in on her own. Afterwards we figured out the best 
way to document it as a set of courses with grades. Colleges were very 
receptive but she missed out on some scholarships that were only available 
through regular schools.

Most home-schoolers that follow a standardized curriculum complete their 
official work for the day in about an hour and a half. There's a lot of 
room for motivated parents or kids to use field trips, public lectures, 
college courses, volunteer activities, etc. to learn far more. (We did 
this, further leveraged by my personal connections.)

Parents' need to work is definitely a problem. Home-schooling seems most 
common in religiously-motivated families with stay-at-home moms but I also 
know irreligious libertarians. In some towns, there's a network of parents 
who teach each other's kids what they know, harkening back to earlier eras.

I'd be happy to kibitz off-list for anyone considering home-schooling or an 
atypical college application.

Am I right in recalling that Keith Henson's daughter was home-schooled?

How is it that so few of us have kids? Or, if indeed many do, why do we 
rarely discuss parenting on-list?


-- David Lubkin.