I liked this posting from American economist Bryan Caplan:
Questions non-economists ask when I tell them I’m homeschooling my sons:
1. What makes you think you’re qualified to teach them?
2. Who are you to decide what your kids should study?
3. What about socialization?
4. How come you’re not teaching [insert pet subject here]?
5. Won’t this hurt your kids later in life?
6. Aren’t you hurting your kids’ development right now?
7. When will they interact with girls?
8. Isn’t there more to life than academics?
9. Aren’t you undermining social cohesion?
10. Why are you turning your kids into brainwashed freaks?Questions economists ask when I tell them I’m homeschooling my sons:
1. Doesn’t it take a lot of time?
I suspect, though, that even economists might ask a few of the questions in the first list, if only because they will hold the same sort of statist ideology when it comes to schooling that the vast majority of other people, in my experience, seem to have. Even so, Caplan’s posting is food for thought and here is an earlier article by him about the homeschooling topic, with shedloads of links.
Caplan says that “I argue that the power of nurture is vastly overrated. Genetics, not upbringing, explains almost all of the observed similarity between parent and child.”
Which attracts a good response in the comments :
“Studies which find no family social environment component to children’s later success achieve this result by controlling (i.e., holding constant) factors which responsible parents will vary.”
Like who your children interact with outside the home.
Also homeschooling is so rare that the homeschooled wouldn’t move the needle on any educational statistics, even if most of them won a Nobel Prize.
There is one good answer to all of the questions Bryan has been receiving and that is ‘mind your own business you…’
My oldest daughter is starting school next year and I’m not looking forward to her being taught by socialists all day – unfortunately sending her to private school might not change that.
For many, home schooling is not an option. However, ‘micro schooling’ could take off big time. By this I mean a handful of children, say 10, being taught in a small venue, like a converted 3 bed semi. Facilitating such arrangements (forcing the hand of local authorities to accept conversions etc.) could revolutionise schooling. Mainly because keeping it at this scale would greatly expand the number of venues in which a school could be set up.
When I finally departed from the Minneapolis Public School system I promised myself that I would NEVER subject a child of mine to public education.
Economists?
Is that REAL economists, or -disingenuous political science activism,camouflaged as economics- “economists”?
SEE: NYT, Marx
“Aren’t you undermining social cohesion?”
I’m still trying to come up with something witty and snarky in response to this one; I’m still rather gobsmacked that this might actually be a real-life example.
“What makes you think you are qualified to teach them?” is the most sinister question.
“Qualifications” in teaching were not compulsory even in English state schools till 1974.
Now even private schools tend to demand these bits of paper showing that one is approved of by the state.
Q.
A. ‘The Common Good before the Individual Good’ was a Nazi slogan. You wouldn’t want to have common ground with Nazis would you?
My answers to the hoi polloi:
1.a. I have a BS in engineering, my wife a BA in anthropology and sociology from a university that’s better than yours.
1.b. Studies show that homeschooled kids do better than public schooled kids no matter the parents’ educational level.
1.c. I’m their parent. It’s my responsibility if those I’ve delegated through government can’t do it right. And clearly, they can’t.
2. I’m their parent. It’s my responsibility if those I’ve delegated through government can’t do it right. And clearly, they can’t.
3. My kids are better socialized than yours. They mix with kids of different ages as well as with adults. They play soccer. My son is an Eagle Scout. They perform in musical groups (all have performed professionally.) They run track. The girls were all competitive gymnasts. A guy at a conference that had nothing to do with homeshooling once asked if our kids were homeschooled. We asked why he asked that. He said, “They’re not afraid to talk to adults.” Your kids are in a Lord of the Flies laboratory.
4. I don’t think it’s worth more than the subjects we’re already teaching them. You should homeschool and teach your kids that subject. As is your right.
5. No. It IS later in life for some of them. They’re all doing better than their peers. And interestingly, when they interact with public schooled kids, hearing stories and observing competence, the frequently thank us for having homeschooled them.
6. No. I’m enhancing it. Why aren’t you enhancing your kids’ development?
7. Every week. How are interactions between the sexes working to society’s and the individuals’ advantage in public school? See out of wedlock, STD, and emotional trouble statistics. Why would you do that to your kids?
8. Yes. See the socialization answer.
9. Yes. But only the bad kinds.
10. Uh… Really?
My answer to the economists:
1. Yes. But it’s worth it. It was an economic decision for us with regard to the best allocation of scarce resources. This argument should appeal to you.
Here in Tennessee, the reaction thought but probably not said would be, “Gee, I didn’t know you were a religious fanantic.”
P.S. Cliffnotes to my last comment for those not in the know…
Home schooling in the American south is a refuge for those parents that wish to evade the devil’s teachings of evolution and the like. ‘So they can teach proper teachings, like that Jesus hung the stars to light our way at night, and that world history began with Abraham’s ancestry. You know…important facts like that.
The question I would ask: What took you so long?
I think the fundamental problem is the bizarre desire many parents have that everything has to be formally taught from sex education to table manners*. The idea that useful things can be learnt (note I didn’t even say, “taught”) without it being “official” is utterly ridiculous and destructive. I did a physics degree without an A-Level in maths. I blagged my way in and taught myself concurrently. Yeah, I had books and help from my mates but I did it. It took me a semester to get the hang. By the end of my degree the more theoretical the better. I guess I had an aptitude but it was also a slog. Fun, mind. Until we think of learning as active and not passive we are buggered. Until we think of learning as a process undertaken by the learner and not the, “casting of false pearls before real swine” we are buggered. I have taught and tutored and teaching those that don’t wanna know is a complete waste of time for all concerned (well, at least I got paid).
*Reminds me of a phrase my late Granddmother used meaning, “Everything” – “Form arsehole to breakfast time”. My Gran had, on occasion, a turn of phrase that would make a Royal Marine wince.
PS
Corollary:
By which I mean kids should be, much more than now, allowed to get into things they are interested in. In any case you never know where that might lead. But the current National Curriculum consists of a lot of pointless hammering of square pegs into round holes.
If we are looking at the subject of learning rather than training, then the processes of teaching and learning that Caplin refers to (which I have followed at Econlib)are more in the nature of
de-schooling; where there are not aggregations of “students.”
Where public “schooling” has become a part of the socialization process, there is some loss of the “freedom” of selectivity of association (which is largely reserved to parents or proxies at the earlier stages of minority ages).
Associational influences on learning patterns have been observed and analyzed. Parental authority and responsibility for associations at minority ages are still widely recognized and accepted – particularly for effects on group conduct. In “system teaching” the intrusion into the adult-minor age association selection by parents is notable; probably a major element in much system dysfunction.
In the public “teaching system” that parental authority and responsibility is also impaired (sometimes negated) with respect to the inter-age (or student) groupings that are essential to the “public” process.
Thus, de-schooling can also be retention of responsibility for associations and the impacts of associations on learning and on the character of the individuals..
The above was misposted to the other topic today
Questions I’d ask of anyone sending their children to their local state school;
1. What makes you think they are qualified to teach them?
2. Who are they to decide what your kids should study?
3. What about socialization?
4. How come they are not teaching [insert pet subject here]?
5. Won’t this hurt your kids later in life?
6. Aren’t you hurting your kids’ development right now?
7. When will they interact with girls?
8. Isn’t there more to life than academics?
9. Aren’t you undermining social cohesion?
10. Why are you turning your kids into brainwashed freaks?
I could imagine David Friedman asking “Who are you to decide what your kids should study? Shouldn’t you let them decide what to study themselves?“
‘Questions economists ask when I tell them I’m homeschooling my sons’
No the question a real economist (and I) would ask is; how much is it costing you? Time is money. Most people (like me) have to work at something called a job and therefore don’t have time to homeschool. So place your child in a good private school, get a job and you’ll save money! Most people can easily make more than a private school will cost for 2-3 kids and a good private school can usually beat the education quality of homeschooling.
Notice I said ‘good’ private school. You have to do your homework and later monitor the school and ALWAYS supplement your child’s education every chance you get (which is every day)
BTW, they’re not really ‘private’ schools since most have open enrollment.
There is a tendency to underestimate the ability of teachers. Most people don’t hesitate to use professional doctors, dentists, accountants, etc. It’s a famously bad idea to think you can lawyer better than a lawyer. Yet somehow lots of amateurs are convinced that they are better teachers than professionals.
Put most people in a classroom and they would be eaten alive in lack of depth of knowledge, and inability to explain simply. Yet they are still better teachers so long as it is their own children? Do you honestly think professional teachers learn nothing about teaching properly, despite being in a classroom year after year? I know a lot here hate them because they tend to be left-leaning, but extending that to their professional competence is a mistake. Sure there are duds, like bad lawyers etc. But all of them?
Not only that, but home schoolers insist they can teach across the whole range better than a school? That’s like saying not only are you a better lawyer than your lawyer, but you’re a better mechanic than your mechanic, a better dentist than your dentist, etc. I call bullshit on that — I have not met a single homeschool teacher than I would trust to teach my children top level Calculus. Sorry, but there’s no way a gifted amateur is going to get away with that (you may have done the subject at school, but teaching it requires rather more than the ability to do it yourself — or every top level footballer would make an excellent coach).
I have an friend whose home schooled kids asked to go to school when they were 14. He had famously hated it, so tried to avoid them going. But they were not him. They actually liked school, it turned out.
My son attends a very academically rigorous school in Singapore that has him at least two years ahead of his peers in Canada in maths and science.
It’s all academics and the social values are left to the parents.
Then, I noticed a lot of course work lying around on the perils of global warming. Turns out his geography teacher is Canadian.
I laughed.
Personally I find that kids love to find holes in their teachers’ lessons. Inculcating a critical thinking mindset isn’t that hard, which is why most schools are so diligent in destroying it.
And reasonably so. But remember, they’re not (necessarily) convinced they’re better at teaching a room full of students they don’t know. Just that they’re better at teaching one or two kids they know very well.
Eric: My view exactly.
I have years of experience as an in-class assistant in my kids’ elementary schools, public and private. (all relatively high-end; the public schools were so-called “magnet” schools.)
All the teacher demonstrated great skill at managing rooms full of kids. That is, at keeping them from disrupting the class.
More than half demonstrated appalling weaknesses in basic academic areas, especially math. (And remember, we’re talking about math for 6-12 year old kids, not even real algebra.)
Oh, and lest I forget the OTHER fun parts of schools!
– The “in-depth, polite” conversation I had with a history teacher (kids age 11, IIRC) about the blatantly anti-american, anti-free-market posters he kept all over his walls.
– The fun phone call I had with the lady from Child Protective Services, because a school psychologist/counselor type had reported me, because I had demonstrated to her my method of regaining my son’s wandering attention during disciplinary conversations (a two-finger brisk light tap on the cheekbone). (Fortunately the CPS lady was a reasonable person…)
Chester Draws, you write, “There is a tendency to underestimate the ability of teachers. Most people don’t hesitate to use professional doctors, dentists, accountants, etc. It’s a famously bad idea to think you can lawyer better than a lawyer. Yet somehow lots of amateurs are convinced that they are better teachers than professionals.”
I am a former teacher, married to a teacher. I think that a moderately well-educated and motivated homeschooling parent usually can teach their own children better than a teacher. Your analogy with lawyers, doctors and accountants breaks down for several reasons.
1) The type of skill involved in winning a legal case, performing a medical procedure, or accountancy functions beyond bookkeeping is quite different from the skill of teaching. Law, medicine and accountancy comprise highly specific procedures. No one could guess what they are from first principles. There is no human instinct for IR35 or the correct surgical procedure to remove a pancreas. In contrast there is a human instinct for teaching. Teaching is part of how we evolved. Teaching our own kids is very much part of how we evolved. I do not claim that subject knowledge is irrelevant, but anyone who has ever taught or been taught knows that subject knowledge does not a good teacher make.
2) The procedures of law, medicine and accountancy are single-failure-critical. In other words single easily-made errors do major damage. Teaching is different. I was generally quite a good teacher but my odd duff lesson made very little difference to anyone. Teaching is more like a relationship, another thing humans are programmed for.
3) As Eric has already said, homeschooling parents are “not (necessarily) convinced they’re better at teaching a room full of students they don’t know. Just that they’re better at teaching one or two kids they know very well.”
Thailover, you write, “Home schooling in the American south is a refuge for those parents that wish to evade the devil’s teachings of evolution and the like. ‘So they can teach proper teachings, like that Jesus hung the stars to light our way at night, and that world history began with Abraham’s ancestry. You know…important facts like that.”
That’s correct. The right to educate your child as directed by your own values rather than the State’s values is, like the right to speak as directed by your own values rather than the State’s values, frequently exercised by silly people. I think they have the right to do it anyway. Do you?
Natalie, I don’t think it’s moral or ethical for parents nor anyone else to teach faith-based beliefs as established facts, no matter how personally convinced they may be. That’s as true for unfalsifiable cosmological theories (like multiverse, that’s arguably not science) as it is for religious theory. And anyone who teaches that the evolution theory of the origin of species is baseless, or designed to be “anti-god” is teaching falsehoods.
Chester Draws,
Well, maybe but I can teach The Calculus of Newton and Leibniz. Odd, really but then I do have an MSc in Astrophysics from Queen Mary, University of London. And essentially what Natalie said just above. I try and educate my cat along such lines but it is an utter FAIL.
PS. Can anyone explain to me quite why if I have fish for dinner His Feline Majesty (aka “Timmy”* ) wants some (even to leaping onto the table and mooching.
*Not our name. My wife’s Gran’s name for him. But she got Alzheimer’s and we got Timmy. He is a right leetle buggeuer. I was trying to feed him yesterday and he was in a strop. I came close to renaming him, “Muhammad” on the mountain basis. Instead I used terms which were more Anglo-Saxon. The furry sod did eat his kibble in the end and no mountains had to move. I cannot imagine what the neighbours would think if I went into the garden and shouted, “Muhammad, Muhammad… you got salmon and prawns in jelly!” He is a lovely critter mind. He does like to lick his anus in front of my mother-in-law but that is cats. But that is cats for you. He still is annoyed about my wife and I going to Glasgow for four days. Abondoned! Well, no. My mother-in-law (who lives about three miles away) and my Dad (who lives about five miles away were looking after him (and not for the first time – he knows them well). There are also a couple of neighbours who look out for him… He is still a diva.
Sorry, I think I failed to state the obvious. The cat hates getting wet but loves eating fish. It seems odd but then I like Alaskan line-caught salmon but I prefer to stay in Cheshire/Manchester than spend time tossing in a boat with horny-handed seamen.
Thailover I would rather children in Tennessee were taught Creationism (although as a James McCosh man – I am PRO the theory of biological evolution) than taught about the “need” for a State income tax and more government spending for benefits and “public services”.
Which is what your “public” education system will teach them – and many of the private schools also.
Christians who believe in Creationism generally do no harm.
People who believe in the “need” for more taxes and government spending (and regulations) do vast harm.
As for culture – the culture of East Tennessee (specifically the east – the First, Second and parts of the Third Congressional Districts) is the bedrock of the United States.
Anti Slave Power, patriotic (you will be aware of the dead from this area – in every war), in favour of individual freedom and voluntary association.
I hope you do not have a problem with all that Sir.
“Aren’t you undermining social cohesion?”
I’m not communist.
(Watch them go speechless, mouth fly open and eyes go wide, lol).
Paul Marks, it’s not “my” public school system, I’m an Objectivist, though I’m also a Tennessean.
And as far as preferring kids be inculcated in creationism rather than statism, I see your point, but note that it’s really two sides of the same coin. They’re what Ayn Rand called mystics of spirit and mystics of muscle. Both are anti-reason, and both defer to their religion or pseudo-religion (statism) in terms of authoritarianism, faith, surrender of self for the “greater good”, humility, flocking/congregational or “community service”. In other words, both sides are collectivist. One might say that Abrahamic-religionists tend to be statist in the sense that their monarch lives in the heavens and individualism is deemed outright Satanic. Individualism might even be what Augustine called Original Sin.
In describing home schooling as “rare” to the point of irrelevance, I suspect that Lee Moore must either not live in the US or is in some leftist-dominated corner of it (such as New York). Certainly in the South it is fairly common: there are home-schooling associations, conferences conducted in large public venues, radio ads for teaching materials oriented to home-schoolers, etc. Admittedly, it is far from a majority, but hardly an insignificant minority.
The socialization issues of home schooing (not, I hasten to add, the “social cohesion” one) were what concerned me when my wife raised the possibility, and I opposed it solely on that basis (I had no doubt that between the two of us we could have covered all necessary topics to a reasonable level, and then let our son take it from there by himself). And I think I was right; he’s insular enough as it is, and forcing him out into social situations was valuable. To me, “socialization” entails interacting on a relatively intimate level, and for extended periods of time, with people from a variety of backgrounds. I think back to my induction into the US Army in 1970 (during the height of the VietNam-era draft): my compatriots ranged from inner-city high school dropouts to college graduates. (Seeing an afro-sporting black receive his first army haircut was vastly amusing; much like watching a sheep being sheared.) It was an eye-opening experience for me, and I think a public school can be much the same. A “Lord of the Flies laboratory”? Well, to some extent I suppose so, but doesn’t that describe life generally? And at a fundamental level isn’t that what we’re trying to prepare our children for?
I have absolutely no objection to home schooling (even when conducted by “religious fanatics”). It just wasn’t for me.
Paul Marks said,
Why would I have a problem with individual freedom and voluntary association? I’m a champion of rights of association, and say that “anti-discrimination laws” usually violate these rights. I’m fine with patriotism as long as it’s not mindless “duty” jingoism. Rather I’m patriotic BECAUSE the focus of America’s Bill of Rights is the recognition of the primacy of individual rights and freedom.
It’s interesting to me that I can be a supporter of free speech, even the despicable speech of nazis, and leftists get it, but I can be a supporter of rights of association, even the despicable practice of banning blacks or Jews from privately owned restaurants, and they don’t get it, even if it’s really two sides of the same coin. That coin being private ownership, freedom of mind and non-aggressive action. When I support the former, leftists agree with me. When I support the latter, they’re prone to calling me a racist or sexist, lol. They don’t get that it’s essentially the same thing “negative” individual rights.
NickM said,
“The cat hates getting wet but loves eating fish.”
Hey, that’s catism. You’re labeling. (never mind that I just labeled you a cattist). Think of the self esteem of cats everywhere, you monster. lol.
I took it upon myself to be offended, therefore you’re wrong. I demand spontaneous and immediate sincere heart-felt apology on behalf of cats everywhere. LOL
The main purpose of school is to impose conformity, bully and isolate anyone different, and crush any spark of creativity or talent into dust.
School is the opiate of lazy, selfish, narcissistic parents who see it as a place to dump the kids.
Well, lets puts this to rights Thailover. Several years ago I bought some very nice smoked fish from Aldi in South Manchester. I ate it all and put the packet in the kitchen bin. You might think this the end of the story… Oh, no! I was watching the telly and there was an appalling noise. His Feline Majesty had gone into the bin after the empty pack and the fishulent traces thereof. Investigating this pitiful howl I was presented with a scene. A standard IKEA swing-top bin accessorized with a cat tail. I pulled the little bugger out. Naughty cat!
Thailover, as a Tennessee homeschooler, I have to say that there is a little truth to your comment but also a lot of untruth.