Pinned
I got my first three jobs *because* I was homeschooled. All three of my first bosses told me “oh, we love homeschoolers.”
Being homeschooled isn’t a hurdle you have to get over when you enter the real world. Often it’s actually a huge asset.
Hannah Frankman Hood
5,834 posts
Hannah Frankman Hood
@HannahFrankman
writing about education while my sourdough rises // also posting @rebelEducator
- This is an 8th grade exam from 1912. No calculating how many watermelons Stacey can fit in her station wagon. It's all about things like interest payments and construction problems. Real-world stuff. Because 8th grade education was supposed to be adequate prep for real life.
- People say homeschooling is expensive, but: - Project Gutenberg has every classic available online, free - Khan Academy has the entire K-12 math curriculum, free - YouTube has entire courses by Ivy League universities, free Homeschooling only costs an internet connection.
- The average kid asks 40,000 questions between the ages of 2-5. They often ask 200-300 questions A DAY. By the time kids turn 11 (or finish elementary school), they ask almost ... none. The correlation between schooling and the cessation of curiosity is not a coincidence.
- 25% of American high school students are functionally illiterate and innumerate. 40-60% of college freshmen need remedial math, English, or both. What exactly are we spending 12+ years of classroom education doing, if kids still need remedial work at the end?
- You’re a five year old. You love to read. You can read chapter books. You’re excited to start school in the fall. Then you actually start school. You’re stuck doing basic literacy. The rest of your class can’t read. You’re not allowed to read your books. You’re frustrated andI worked with gifted black and brown kids in Washington, D.C. in the mid-90s and I always find these attempts, almost always in the name of racial equity, to be such a slap in the face to those kids who finally got to feel normal for once in their life. They NEEDED to be around
- Public school is a massive waste of time. Homeschoolers spend 2-3 hrs/day on school, tops, and still often outperform public schoolers. Government school is mostly just an inefficient babysitting service.
- There’s nothing like watching a two-year-old boy’s entire body light up at his own birthday party when he opens his present and realizes it’s an excavator to make you realize that gender-normative interests are, in fact, deeply and intensely real.
- My parents made so many sacrifices to homeschool me and my sister. They drove old cars. They bought used clothes. They lived on one income even when it was tight. The “most families can’t afford to homeschool” argument infuriates me. Maybe they don’t want to. But it’s a
- I’m sorry, a 16 year old with a drivers license isn’t allowed to go to Target by themselves? Or a 12 year old who’s running inside for mom so she doesn’t have to unbuckle the baby? This is insaneMy kids used to love walking to Target until the local Target changed their policy to "no unaccompanied kids under 18" It's v frustrating. I'm looking for chances to help my kids be independent & I have basically no societal cooperation on this project
- Most homeschoolers I know are *better* socialized than public school kids. Public school kids know how to interact with peers and defer to authority. Homeschool kids know how to talk to people of all ages, from toddlers to adults, hold their own, and navigate in the real world.
- If public schools are costing the population nearly $16,000/year/kid, and aren't delivering on their job of educating their students, I'm sorry, but taxpayers should be able to cancel their subscriptions.
- "Most parents don't have enough basic knowledge to homeschool their kids." Oh, you mean the basic knowledge public school supposedly taught them? Yeah, it's doing a great job, their kids should totally go there too.
