Being around other kids helps kids learn social skills.
Most of us do that in school. Homeschooled kids can lack that depending on how the parent socializes their kids. Some homeschooling parents realize that they have to socialize their kids. Those parents put their kids in sports or scouts or other places where the kid can socialize. Other parents are oblivious that social skills are learned, then you can end up with some really awkward people out there.
As someone who was homeschooled and now holds a master’s degree, I will proudly own the ‘weirdo’ title and make no claims to normalcy. And I suspect most of my 7 siblings would do the same.
But saying we’re all ‘likely retarded’ is a bit peculiar to me. Most homeschoolers I’ve met (which I suspect is more than most folks, being from inside the community) come from high-functioning or highly-religious families, with very few notably ‘retarded’. How many homeschool kids have you actually known?
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I’m very against homeschooling. It breeds religious zealotry, stunts communal empathy, an open mind, and critical thinking skills.
All this talk about grooming, and that’s what I see homeschooling as (though not really in the sexual sense).
Eh… I see where you’re coming from, and I’m generally against homeschooling as well. For various reasons, I wish I hadn’t been and wouldn’t do so for my child.
That said, I’m inclined to disagree. It only promotes what the parents put into it - which, yes, often is a lot of religion, but it isn’t intrinsic to the practice. The religious component I suspect is where you get the stunting of open-mindedness and critical thinking ideas, but fwiw I and several of my siblings have since left the faith for atheism, and even those who still participate in religion are mostly rather progressive. I do fully recognize that I and my siblings are probably the exception in this regard, so in those aspects I think your opinion generally represents the actual outcomes of homeschooling as it exists in the US, and probably is not that unpopular outside of homeschooling circles - but I would reiterate that I don’t think it’s intrinsic to homeschooling; rather, I think it’s a result of who in the US tends to choose to homeschool.
As for the idea that it stunts communal empathy, I’m a little bit baffled. I work in a mental hospital, one of my sisters has spent a year volunteering at orphanages in Ghana, one of my cousins (who was also homeschooled) runs a rural mission hospital in Bangladesh, etc… My observation is that most homeschooling families are rather pro-social and fully embrace the concepts of community and communal support of one another (even if they have eaten the socialism-is-bad propaganda; their rationale then is just that charity should come from the community itself rather than being subject to government mandate and bureaucratic inefficiency), so I’m curious what gives you that idea.
not the person you replied to, but someone with similar opinions: of your 3 examples, only you are still working in the community you presumably grew up in and live in. homeschooling can make it difficult to feel tied to your local community; often, they are perceived as “other” and feel themselves separate, at least the ones I’ve met. you may all feel driven to work for “communal good”, but it seems like it’s often done as an outsider to the community. there’s no “communal empathy” because you(generally, the home schooled) aren’t part of the community.
I have awful social anxiety - when I was little it was just called “painfully shy” - and my mother considered home schooling as an alternative. my grandmother was an elementary school teacher in the local public school system, and said the most valuable thing they taught in school was how to navigate socially. everything else can be taught outside school, but it’s extremely difficult to give kids the opportunity to learn societal norms and how to deal with peer groups when they aren’t interacting with people outside their small group on a daily basis. I’m honestly not sure how well I’d function in society as an adult if my mother hadn’t listened to my grandmother. I learned a lot of my social skills at school, more than I could in church or clubs where the peers were fewer and our similarities greater.
Appreciate the reply. Perhaps my view of homeschooling is all hyper-religious families who tend to be the evangelical type, as a whole I see that population of people as lacking empathy, critical thinking skills, etc.
I just don’t see the need for homeschooling as it just perpetuates this evangelical religious fervor. Besides, we live in a society of different backgrounds, religions, and ethnicities. Schools are a good place to meet people who are different than you.
I get you’re going for the literal “retarded”, like the “developmentally delayed” kind… but man that was a bold choice to use the word literally in the same sentence as calling them weirdos lol
Not every homeschooled child is abused, but when I worked for CPS, a HELL of a lot of abusive families used it as a means to keep their kids away from those pesky mandatory reporters.
Absolutely, not only for child welfare, but for basic education standards. I’ve seen homeschool be everything from structured classes for 8 hours, to sit here and read the Bible for 8 hours.
For sure, socialization is super important, and you need to be very intentional about it with homeschooling. Personally, I grew up with both a very tight-knit group of friends from other homeschooling families (and actually a few that weren’t homeschooled). I also went to what’s called a “co-op” for a time, which is basically like a school run by a bunch of parents that take turns teaching classes and such. I also did attend a normal school until I was 9, which I’m sure affected my early development of social skills. And on top of all that, I went to university and worked a number of very social jobs, all of which helped a lot.
But yeah, homeschooling is certainly not without its own issues and personally I’m not planning on homeschooling my own son, which I’m sure tells you plenty.
Waiting for Trump to be all “When we retake what’s rightfully ours, I’ll make sure those who were wrongly imprisoned by Crooked Joe Biden are exonerated as the patriots they are!”
He’ll do it, but he’ll charge them a few mill to get a pardon, then they’ll start a pateron/GoFundMe/Kickstarter to fleece their rubes for more money, and then they’ll split the cash.
If Trump was literate, he could write a masterclass on getting fucking morons to send you money.
Wasn't even there on January 6th. I point this out not because he was over-sentenced, but because everyone else was under-sentenced. For one separate case the judge said "I don't think I'll hand down a sentence 15 years below guidelines ever again in my career." Yeah. You shouldn't have done it this time either.
I didn’t sign up yet, because I’m not set to recertify for like a while yet, and I’m trying to avoid paying for a degree doing me no good.
I’m currently on a $0 repayment, and have been for a long while, but I’ve been making a regular paycheck for the last year, and if I had needed to recertify since 2020 I’d have had to pay.
I don’t know if it would impact my repayment/certification to apply, but I won’t be employed soon anyway, so I’m putting it off as long as I can.
But I also don’t know that it’s ever going to be implemented anyway… republicans seem really into screwing us poors. I’ll just wait.
I went ahead and switched to the SAVE plan. You can actually go through the application process and near the end of it, they’ll provide you a list of plan options and how much you’ll have to pay, if any. If you would have to start paying, you can quit the application and no changes will be made to your current plan / certification and at least you won’t get “sticker shock” down the road and can start planning.
The most staggering revelation I had was that many of my preconceived judgments based on stereotypes were way wrong. We camped with people that I would not normally connect with in the default. Some of these people I think have the potential to be strong, lifelong friends
There’s more in common Than there is a difference.
People go on and on about Tech, Bros and sparkle ponies, but scenarios like this, allow those of us, with the best intentions to shine. I hope this year’s Takeaway is more about the strength of unity than anything else
were the kind and caring people more kind and more caring than the people in your community who spend their time and resources in bettering the community? did they shine and/or were their intentions better than volunteers in your community?
This is what it’s all about. Grew up in the festival scene, met my wife on the dancefloor, in daily contact with friends I’ve had for decades from those days.
Not everyone can travel to another country for ‘away from home’ experiences but they are vital to a growing mind.
Festivals like this one are an analogue for that. You meet people you wouldn’t necessarily meet and you rely on one another for safety, entertainment and connection.
Taking those lessons back to city life is natural and a part of why these events are important experiences for many people.
Just curious- did you check the weather report before you went into the desert and did you check it again when you arrived at your destination as is basic practice when going to any desert location?
Not original commenter, but, I was able to look at the Apple Weather forecast right before I napped at 2pm Friday. The forecast then pretty much said showers for a few hours that day, but definitely was nowhere close to the amount of rain that actually fell. The weather there can be unpredictable.
A crew of people is there for a whole month before the event starts, and it pretty much always rains at least once that month, and we read about them having to stop work, shelter, and avoid medical emergencies. This year, Tropical Storm Hilary passed through a week before the event start, and the community as a whole was keeping a keen eye on it.
You may have seen the word ‘playa’ in reference to the event grounds. In the general English context, ‘playa’ means ‘dry lake’. The entire event is literally held in a dry lake. If you want many square miles of ground that can sometimes be asphalt-like, you go to a dry lake. And for the land speed records, it also happens to be super flat. It’s the accumulated standing water that does that.
It’s widely known to most attendees how impassable Black Rock Desert is when it rains. My camp and all the camps around us had food and water for at least a few extra days, and we had more than adequate morale the entire weekend. This year, I personally brought at least 2 weeks worth of kilocalories, and packed 3 raincoats. I handed out 2 of the raincoats to campmates pronto.
If you look at the back of the event’s paper ticket, and then the official survival guide, for this year, and years prior, they mention rainstorms, and what to do in such a scenario.
I’ve not seen a lot of coverage of this in the English press but his mother also shut herself in a church and went on hunger strike to protest the mistreatment of the poor boy.
If the only people defending you in this type of case are your mother and Woody Allen then I think you can safely assume you’re in the wrong.
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