No thoughts just questions...
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Do you know what you're doing?
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Do you have a goal in mind when trying to home school your children?
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Are you a part of a home schooling group or going it alone?
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What do your children want?
this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2025
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Good questions to ask! I'm still a few years from kids at the moment so I'd say I don't know what I'm doing at all, but I'd like to provide my future kid(s) with an education that isn't totally at the whims of the capitalist state.
That doesn't necessarily mean homeschooling, or even alternative schooling I suppose, but one of the aspects of being a (communist) parent in an age of fascism and austerity is helping your child prepare for the world that exists today, but encouraging them to imagine how the world could exist tomorrow.
I have a bunch of younger neurodivergent siblings, some who don't conform to gender and sexual stereotypes (made worse in the andrew tate era) and I cannot help but think that they were neglected or even abused at the hands of teaching staff who were either untrained or straight up ableist.
I dunno, part of me knows there are benefits to exposing your kid to these things and working as a parent to help them through whatever comes up. I certainly dont want to go the other way of trying to raise an ideologically rigid soldier to serve the revolution or some shit, just that these institutions are often harmful even when you're a "good parent" and I know alternatives do exist as a nucleus of the future.
Thats a pretty big and relevant fear.
In this day and age it probably isn't a bad thing to prepare for the worst case scenario. Figure out what it would take to fully/partially homeschool your kid and do your best to let the kid know that they actually can tell you what is going on at school (if not homeschooled) so everybody can be on the same page about whether to stay in school, look into switching schools, or go the homeschool route.
We homeschooled our kids and, now that they're older, I still think it was the right call. We had had them in a private school (which I recognize is a privileged thing to be able to do, and both sets of grandparents were helping pay for it.) Then we moved to place where there was only one school, and it was terrible. We gave it a semester.
We were able to join an organization that provided funding, so we were able to get a full curriculum, and assigned a licensed teacher to each family who provided guidance and was available to answer questions. We were also able to keep the kids in the after school group at the local school and let them go to riding lessons (again, privileged. The homeschool group paid for it as physical education.)
We've since moved again and the kids are in public high school here.
So I guess my advice is: Look at the specific schools available to you, they might not be that bad. Prioritize your kid(s) spending time with other kids, out of your house. And be realistic about whether you can afford the curriculum. It takes a lot of time to learn about what's available, make your choices, and then pivot if something isn't working for your kid... I personally would say it's only worth doing if the publicly available options are truly unacceptable and you have plenty of time and money and community resources and activities to put in to it.
Honestly, I see a lot of good that came from homeschooling, but I couldn't do it now that the economy has changed and I've had to go back to work.
I was home-schooled and imo it should be illegal. It's a terrible environment to grow up in and socially stunts people for life, please do not home school your kid(s)
Overwhelming amounts of homeschooling parents are hyper religious freaks, rich people who don't want to mingle with the poors, and like 5 teachers or professors who actually do a better job than their underfunded public schools can.
I was also homeschooled and know that it severely stunted me socially and academically in retrospect. To be fair to my parents, I also hated public school and would just walk out whenever they tried to leave me there. But homeschooling was not the solution, just the easiest path.
Every time i meet another person who was homeschooled we always just talk about how fucked up it is and how “You don’t seem homeschooled!” is the best compliment you can receive lmao
I was homeschooled for several years, and I completely agree with PeeNutButtHer, it should be illegal. Except for particular circumstances with a limited timeframe, I think it’s abusive.
Honestly the education part isn’t even the issue. It’s the socializing. Public school forces you to be around hundreds of kids your own age every day for several hours and that’s incredibly important. And it’s important that they be away from their parents for that time.
No matter what you do, no amount of extracurricular or homeschool specific activities will make up for the amount of socializing you have to do in school. I joined public school halfway through high school because i was so lonely and depressed, and while it was the best decision i ever made, i basically had to force myself to learn how to talk to people at 16.
Do not homeschool your children.
Same, and agreed
I can see a lot of the discussion is about homeschooling which is totally fine. I'd love to hear about experiences as a parent or student at alternative (eg. democratic/montessori) schools too because a lot of the critique about traditional schooling acknowledges how important socialising is, which is definitely a downside of many homeschooling setups.
Without access to good curricula and pedagogical theory, it will be difficult to prepare enough material for a substantive education. Teachers benefit from institutional support, communities of knowledge, and (however bad or politically dodgy) pre-made curricula. You'll have the benefit of working 1 on 1 but finding the time to consistently research and prepare material will probably be exhausting.
Also, children's brains grow and develop so quickly. One of the benefits teachers have is getting to teach the same age or age range consistently so they are able to adapt their methods to be developmentally appropriate. Working with your child year after year, you don't get the same clarity on development.
But traditional schools are sort of inherently violent. I'm an early elementary teacher in a public school in the US.
I went to Montessori breifly, at about four years old. For some reason they decided my motor skills weren't good enough so I got singled out to do nothing but sort buttons all day. When I cried about it I just got told to learn to cry quietly, then sat down for half an hour and told 'no, you had a good day' before being picked up. 0/10 do not recommend.
any homeschooled child will turn out to be some kind of a goddamn freak
any regular school child will also turn out to be some other kind of a goddamn freak