Comment by ryanmarsh
7 years ago
The online high schools these days are varied and pretty good. If you have a child with special needs or just doesn’t fit into the box the public education system is designed around then homeschooling is the best option. You don’t need a PhD to teach grammar to an 8 year old. There’s also a wealth of incredible videos and teaching materials to help too.
If anything I think parents are best suited to teach their own children until high school given the parents have a reasonable IQ.
Yes, but a certain level of literacy, cultural development and education is still required on the part of the parent in order to make effective use of all those resources. One still has to make sensible judgments about how to appropriate them and to supplement them with intelligent pedagogy.
Doubtless, some parents who home-school their parents have an adequate foundation for this. However, some of the greatest proponents of home-schooling I've met most definitely do not, and it boggles my mind.
This is true. I’ve seen it. I’m not sure this is such a bad thing. I know this sounds crazy but I kinda want to see how this plays out. Maybe some education diversity will have positive impacts we can’t forsee
Mayhaps. But based on the trends I've seen to predominate in the world of "education diversity", I wouldn't bet on it...
For reasons better addressed in PG's timeless "Nerds" article (http://paulgraham.com/nerds.html) better than in most other places, I don't think many children, least of all intelligent children, really "fit" into the box of public school.
But that's part of the point, as I see it. Lots of modern institutions are a bit unnatural and require some contortion for humans to squeeze themselves into. Public school is valuable in teaching that, or at least it was to me and many other people I know, as we reflect upon it years later.
We have the worlds okayest public education system. I’m glad I have the freedom in my state to offer my children something better at home, because the system utterly failed me (or I failed to adapt to it).