> Home education is the logical endpoint of this. If your child is learning more at home than at school, what is the point of school?
There’s more to school than learning math. Learning how to work with other people, learning how to do things you don’t want to do, learning how to function in a group of people with different needs and goals, learning subjects other than math, etc.
> My experience is that HE is is better for that - meet lots of different people in different settings rather than the same people in the same place daily.
Those are all transient relationships. It’s still worth having long-lasting interactions/relationships - even with people who aren’t your family or maybe you don’t even care for.
There are other places to learn the social networking aspects of school, and arguably so it better. Sports teams, churches, volunteering and other extra curricular activities can develop the friendships, group work, and compromise skills that are good for society, while also giving a family and child the choice to pursue their interests.
Schools often do a low quality job of those. Teachers don't have a lot of time to mentor individual gruops, so often some individuals end up doing all the work and resent groups. Children get bullied and start hating school because teachers don't really have time, interest, or ability to stop it.
It is more about learning to work and value knowledge. But it is easier to learn to work when you see some point in it. For a lot of people, school feels pointless other than the low quality social aspects of it. And teachers generally do a bad job of explaining the importance of anything. So a lot of children eventually leave school with the mentality that they won't use math and they don't need books and they only learned things so they could 1. Maybe go to college and 2. Maybe get a good paying job where they don't use those things anyways. Those answers are now cliche in our society.
If we did more apprenticeships, application of knowledge in practical situations with adults and other members of the community (volunteering, organising events, work experiences, etc.) people would learn skills and be excited to keep doing it and feel like they fit in.
> There’s more to school than learning math. Learning how to work with other people, learning how to do things you don’t want to do, learning how to function in a group of people with different needs and goals, learning subjects other than math, etc.
Yes, home education is better at all that in my experience.
I specifically said that maths is not unique.
> Those are all transient relationships.
No they are not. My younger daughter has relationships that have lasted many years so far from HE. Despite our moving twice in the last three years.
If you go to the same classes or activities or have the same hobbies or stay in touch online....
You also have more time to maintain relationships outside school
I don’t doubt that some schools are worse than home-schooling. But think (for many, not all kids) the best school is better than the best home-schooling.
I disagree. I went to one of the best schools in Britain and my kids got a better education than I did.
Kids are individuals with different talents and interests. Tailoring education to the individual is usually better than standardising it and that is the key difference between schools and HE.
They can do subjects that schools rarely teach and follow interests. For example, my younger daughter has GCSEs in Latin and astronomy. Both my children have a really wide range of interests and and that broad education is something school rarely really deliver - they can make kids do subjects but few people seem to come out really enjoying a wide range of them.
I very much doubt my older daughter would be in a very male dominated career (automotive electrical and electronics R & D) if she had gone to school. There is more room to be yourself without being brainwashed into stereotyped roles.
There’s more to school than learning math. Learning how to work with other people, learning how to do things you don’t want to do, learning how to function in a group of people with different needs and goals, learning subjects other than math, etc.
> My experience is that HE is is better for that - meet lots of different people in different settings rather than the same people in the same place daily.
Those are all transient relationships. It’s still worth having long-lasting interactions/relationships - even with people who aren’t your family or maybe you don’t even care for.