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1. That’s kind of awesome. I went to public school, but I often think back and wonder at how little I learned in my academic classes. Most of what I learned, I learned on my own time — talking with my parents ( my dad’s a a professor, mother’s taught art history, etc.), reading on my own, etc.

   What the school did offer me was a great slate of extracurriculars — specifically, the acting and music programs (both of which were scheduled as classes during the day, but would also have after-school meetings). Those programs, which are difficult to reproduce without some sort of institution, are, I think, the best reason to keep kids in schools, but you seem to have found a way to provide most of the same benefits without — quite commendable.

   — Peter Suderman · Jan 18, 06:00 PM · #

2. Some of us who were schooled at home did go through that oft-mentioned awkward stage where we tucked our shirts into our underwear, had pet goats in the middle of suburbia, and harbored secret desires to live in the 18th rather than the 21st century. But any social awkwardness is usually lost within a few months after getting a full-time job or going to college. Years ago, I remember the first time I heard the dirtiest of dirty words in the workplace. The initial shock eventually gave way to annoyance.

   All that to say—the trade-off’s not so bad when you think about it.

   — Davey Henreckson · Jan 18, 06:24 PM · #

3. I was home schooled through high school (and, actually, in Chicago and the Chicago suburbs). I went to a college with quite a few fellow home school graduates. I’m now in law school. I think that the most socially awkward people I know, I met in law school. Home schoolers have no monopoly on social awkwardness.

   — djs · Jan 18, 06:56 PM · #

4. you wrote:
   “people who got into homeschooling through unexpected contingency, not because they have some kind of principled objection to secularists corrupting their children”

   Sounds like your kid is getting a real education in the co-op. If parents homeschool because they have principled objections to their kids not being well educated, I can’t see why that is less legitimate than “accidentally” educating you kid well.

   Alan Jacobs is to be commended for educating his child despite the pressure of peers, habit, and stereotype. But his excuse-making for homeschooling is just ridiculous. He tries to appear like a “normal” person. I’m sorry but smart people don’t send their kids to the kind of public school he describes. If normal people do, why try to appear normal over smart?

   — kuyper · Jan 18, 07:07 PM · #

5. There’s a lot of personal abuse I’m willing to take, but when someone accuses me of trying to appear like a “normal” person — well, as Bugs Bunny used to say, this means war.

   “If parents homeschool because they have principled objections to their kids not being well educated, I can’t see why that is less legitimate than “accidentally” educating your kid well.” Well . . . neither can I. Did you read someone else’s blog post about homeschooling, maybe?

   — Alan Jacobs · Jan 18, 07:34 PM · #

6. We are home schooling our kids, but not for any fear of secularism. We happen to be Christians, but that has very little to do with it. I’m an academic, and my wife was also in the past. We know several academic home schooling parents, who just think that American public schools can be pretty weak, and we think we know a thing or two about education. In our experience, there are two main camps of home schoolers: Christian fear-of-secularism types, and hippie types who want a top education for the kids, and think the public schools tend to way undershoot that. I guess we more fit the latter than the former.

   — sal mineo · Jan 18, 09:02 PM · #

7. [We] want a top education for the kids, and think the public schools tend to way undershoot that.

   One of the greatest evidence-free beliefs in American intellectual life. “The public schools are in crisis”… all you have to do is say it, apparently.

   Those who want to home school their kids, well, more power to them. I would never judge someone else’s decision to do that. Those decisions are difficult to make under the best circumstances. Personally, public school created the fundamental architecture of who I am; there simply has been nothing as important in my development— intellectually, politically, socially, and (most importantly) morally. It’s in everything I am. I tend to have a hard time interacting with people who were home schooled, not because of any personal animus, but because I simply can’t imagine what it would be like.

   But then, I must be stupid, because I went to a poor public school. I’m told they fall well short of providing a top education.

   — Freddie · Jan 18, 09:34 PM · #

8. <i>Maybe we’re making a mistake; maybe he will be socially limited for life. </i>

   I don’t understand why some people think this. It’s inconsistent with the evidence, for one thing. See http://stuartbuck.blogspot.com/2007/03/homeschooling-and-socialization.html

   What’s more, if you were designing a system from scratch, who in their right mind would think that the best way to “socialize” youngsters is to keep them in a group of 20 or so kids their own age? That’s not a good way to learn ANYTHING, and nowhere else in life do you find such rigid age segregation. Put it this way: Why would I ever think that my eight-year-old son would be better socialized by being around a bunch of other similarly immature eight-year-olds (who, when they get together, talk about nothing but video games), rather than by being around me?

   Another point: Close to 50 years ago, the eminent sociologist James Coleman’s book The Adolescent Society studied several high schools in Illinois. Coleman made some pungent observations that still seem to apply today, and that suggest that the “socialization” often received in a school setting is anti-intellectual and destructive.

   Specifically, he found that peer culture in high school was a poisonous mix in which boys were prized most highly for their cars or athletic ability, while girls were prized most highly for “physical beauty, nice clothes, and an enticing manner.” He then observed that in no respectable area of adult life are these qualities “as important for performing successfully as they are in high school,” and that the typical high school might as well be designed to turn girls into “chorus girls” or “call girls” who exist only to “serve as objects of attention for men.”

   James S. Coleman, The Adolescent Society: The Social Life of the Teenager and its Impact on Education (New York: Free Press, 1961), pp. 50-51.

   — Stuart Buck · Jan 18, 09:55 PM · #

9. Personally, public school created the fundamental architecture of who I am; there simply has been nothing as important in my development— intellectually, politically, socially, and (most importantly) morally. It’s in everything I am.

   I absolutely believe you. And that’s why, if at all possible, my children will never be in public school.

   — Michael Kelley · Jan 18, 10:57 PM · #

10. Let me just go on the record noting that “I don’t want my son to grow up and be like Freddie” was not one of my reasons for taking him out of public school.

    — Alan Jacobs · Jan 18, 11:29 PM · #

11. I realize that I was probably overly terse in my previous comment. I hope that my comment is not interpreted as a slam on Freddie, but an agreement with him that education shapes us in deep, fundamental ways, even in ways that we don’t realize. Like the old saw goes, “If you want to know what water is like, don’t ask a fish.”

    The educational enviroment that children grow up in can have a huge effect not just on their grasp of academic subjects, but as Freddie says, in creating the “fundamental architecture” of who they are, and again as he says, in forming their moral values. With that in mind, when it comes to our children, the response of my wife and I is to place them in a school where not only are the academics more rigorous than what they would get at most public schools, but that is in line with the values that we wish to impart to our son and daughters.

    Again, I apologize for coming off snarky in my earlier comment.

    — Michael Kelley · Jan 19, 12:16 AM · #

12. The educational enviroment that children grow up in can have a huge effect not just on their grasp of academic subjects, but as Freddie says, in creating the “fundamental architecture” of who they are, and again as he says, in forming their moral values. With that in mind, when it comes to our children, the response of my wife and I is to place them in a school where not only are the academics more rigorous than what they would get at most public schools, but that is in line with the values that we wish to impart to our son and daughters.

    Public schools do not do worse at educating. They educate those who are worse at being educated. Private schools and home schooling eliminate every variable that negative correlates with educational accomplishment: emotional disturbance, criminality, infantile drug dependence, severe behavioral problems, broken families and (the biggie) poverty. Adjust for those things, and any numerical advantage over public school (which, by the way, you haven’t cited) slips away into the ether. Private and home schooled kids, by the pure demographics, don’t have those problems— all the problems that are seen again and again in educational disadvantage. If the pool of students educated were equal, public schools would perform no worse than others. Sorry to disillusion you.

    And you know what happens to your kids who don’t get exposed to people with real diversity? Not “we’re introducing our home schooled kid to some black people”, but real diversity—everyday, routine interaction with people who are not like them, people who don’t come from the same places economically, racially, culturally. What happens is, they only know people just like them. And that, sir, is a poverty of the mind so complete and all-encompassing that I wouldn’t pay the price if it gave my child the presidency. I went to public school, and I could not have had a better education, and I could not be prouder of where I went to school. You don’t know me, you don’t know where I went to school, you don’t know the hundreds of intelligent and hard-working and compassionate and incredibly open and fair minded kids I went to school with. You don’t know how competent and committed the large majority of my teachers were. And you don’t know how amazing a small few were who did whatever they could with limited resources to make things better for every student. You don’t know my community. You don’t know my high school. If there’s ever a time I feel unsure or despairing about my political and ethical self, I just need to go back there. Because it’s a living, breathing argument for everything I believe about the justice of a egalitarian, progressive liberal democracy.

    I don’t often get angry about things that are written online, but I’m furious now.

    — Freddie · Jan 19, 12:44 AM · #

13. Wow, glad to see how well you learned tolerance for those with other viewpoints in your diverse education.
    You are right, I don’t know you. I don’t know anything about you, or where you went to school, or your teachers, or any of that. And what’s more, I never said that I did, or even remotely implied that I might. So let’s drop the faux indignation, ok? You aren’t the only one that went to public school, you know. I went to public schools, good ones for the most part, from K through university, in a fairly affluent suburb. I know what it’s like. If that’s fine with you, great, I hope your kids do well (assuming you have any). I expect more from mine, and will do everything I can to give them that opportunity.

    — Michael Kelley · Jan 19, 12:57 AM · #

14. No faux indignation here. I was royally angry. Really. A cool is a terrible thing to lose, and I lost mine. Tolerance is a good thing; the private school kids who told me I went to “nigger school” when I was growing up could have used some.

    I expect more from mine, and will do everything I can to give them that opportunity.

    Cool man. I see you have completely chosen to ignore the problem with assessing data that suggests that private school is better than public. And, of course, you’ve offered no argument of your own. The idea that private school is superior, apparently, requires no corroboration; needs no evidence; invites no supporting argument. You’re just sure. You say you are interested in making your kids do well. And yet you aren’t even prepared to interrogate your own enormous prejudice. But then, your mind was made up a long time ago. Wasn’t it?

    — Freddie · Jan 19, 01:11 AM · #

15. Let’s assume that you are correct for a moment about your statistics (which, ironically, though you fault me for not providing, you have not deemed necessary to provide yourself). That would be useful information if my choice was between sending my children to the “statistically representative public school” versus the “statisically representative private school” or the “statistically representative home school”. But I’m not. My choices are between actual schools, some of which are better than others. Though you accuse me of making assertions about you without knowing you, you seem to be able to assert a whole lot about me without knowing anything about my family, my children, and the school choices available to us.

    Like I said before. I agree with you about your basic premise. Public schools shape our children in fundamental ways. I know, I’m the product of them. What we disagree about is whether that’s always a good thing.

    — Michael Kelley · Jan 19, 01:23 AM · #

16. Freddie’s high school experience —at least regarding diversity — seems atypical. The public school system in America is largely characterized by de facto economic and racial segregation. In fact, this study suggests that private schools are actually more racially integrated than public schools:
    http://www.schoolchoices.org/roo/jay1.htm

    Regardless of whether private schools are, in fact, more integrated than public schools (a point that is no doubt contestable), the vast majority of American PUBLIC school children do not have routine interactions with people who are not like them. Why then suggest that it is home-schoolers and private school kids who are particularly apt to suffer from a complete and all encompassing poverty of the mind?

    — marcus · Jan 19, 02:45 AM · #

17. I posted some thoughts here a few months ago — before we changed to the new CMS, so I can’t link to it — about “the suburbs,” in which I pointed out that there are so many different kinds of suburban experience that you can’t make useful generalizations about them. I think the same applies to the categories “public school” and “private school.” Those categories are just too general to be helpful. If all I told you was that I was educated in public schools, you would know absolutely nothing from that one fact about the quality of my education.

    — Alan Jacobs · Jan 19, 03:19 AM · #

18. ****Private schools and home schooling eliminate every variable that negative correlates with educational accomplishment: emotional disturbance, criminality, infantile drug dependence, severe behavioral problems, broken families and (the biggie) poverty. Adjust for those things, and any numerical advantage over public school (which, by the way, you haven’t cited) slips away into the ether. Private and home schooled kids, by the pure demographics, don’t have those problems— all the problems that are seen again and again in educational disadvantage.****

    Private schooled kids “don’t have these problems”? What on earth is the evidence for such a sweeping statement? In fact, as I pointed out to Freddie on Megan McCardle’s blog a while back — with no response — there are often some perverse selection effects going on with religious private schools. I’ve personally known troublemakers and delinquents who went to a private Christian school; apparently their parents thought that if they signed their kid up for a religious school, that might be the one thing that could straighten him out. And sometimes the religious schools think of accepting a bad kid as a way of reaching a lost soul.

    Less anecdotally, Coleman and Hoffer found that “students who transfer from public sector elementary schools to the private sector, particularly to the Catholic sector, contain a HIGH NUMBER who were doing poorly, scholastically or behaviorally, in public elementary school.” (p. 112).

    Derek Neal and Jeffrey Grogger more recently found [http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/brookings-wharton_papers_on_urban_affairs/v2000/2000.1grogger.pdf] that “there is evidence of NEGATIVE SELECTION into Catholic schools. Relative to their public-school counterparts, urban whites who attend these schools appear to possess unmeasured traits that inhibit attainment.” They add this footnote: “Evidence of negative selection is common in this literature. Coleman and Hoffer (1987), Evans and Schwab (1995), and Neal (1997) all report evidence of negative selection into Catholic schools. A common hypothesis concerning this result is that some parents send their children to Catholic schools seeking a remedy for existing problems with discipline and motivation.”

    I don’t want to turn this into a debate over private vs. public schools; I think that both types of schools exhibit what I consider perverse peer effects (that is, it’s not a good idea to have a child spend too much time with a bunch of age-mates who are in a similarly uncivilized and immature state). Still, I thought it worth pointing out.

    — Stuart Buck · Jan 19, 05:10 AM · #

19. A schoolteacher describes all of the wonderful socialization that goes on at her school here: http://www.gazette.net/stories/011008/princol132359_32358.shtml.

    Since this site doesn’t accept HTML code, I can’t use a blockquote or link, but all that follows is a quote:

    “You need to understand this, however: A ‘‘separate tribe,” as author Patricia Hersch describes our youth subculture, rules our schools’ hallways. Hallways are this tribe’s turf, the meeting and greeting ground where young people play out popular fantasies of violence, sexuality, and, especially, consumerism. The hallway rules are easy, the rewards immediate, and the rituals provide culturally approved media roles young people have been fed since birth. In school hallways almost everyone can be ‘‘someone,” even, or especially, if that someone is a wannabe thug, pimp, player, roller or top ‘‘dawg.”

    If you were to spend five minutes in my school’s hallways at class change or at the end of day, you would despair for our country’s future. Students screaming obscenities at each other, male students bullying and degrading, in the most graphic and unmistakable ways, female students (and the females usually laughing hysterically at each insult), fights between residents of one neighborhood vs. another, and enough anger to blow up a city block or, for that matter, a city.

    One of my ‘‘better” female students, from Cameroon, Africa, described our hallways as ‘‘opening a sewer, toxic poisons spilling over everyone.” She adds, ‘‘There’s not a day I’m not afraid.”

    — Stuart Buck · Jan 19, 03:10 PM · #

20. “Homeschooling’s not just for crazy religious people anymore!” – Buffy the Vampire Slayer

    The socialization critique of homeschooling (or private schooling) has always puzzled me. Any reasonable parent will look to shape, in some way, the sorts of interactions their children have, since such interactions have deep and lasting effects. Simply being exposed to “diversity” is no more self-evidently right than its opposite – it’s a question of making judgments about what makes sense for different children and the answers will differ for different children. After all, children are not statistical abstractions and what will work well for one child won’t for another.

    Having gone to public schools up through high school, I’m neither uncritically enamored of them (I must have missed those soul-shaping experiences) nor especially fearful. They, like every other sort of institution, range from the good to the bad. I do worry – and here my experience with friends who are and have homeschooled their kids comes into play – that most public schools do short-shrift the actual intellectual learning part of their mission, either because it’s just hard to do what Alan is talking about up there on a mass scale or because they’re more interested in the sorts of soul-shaping activities that Freddie celebrates and Michael worries about. Homeschooling (again, this is from my friends’ experience and anecdotes ain’t data) offers opportunities for a learning environment that is, intellectually at least, richer and more extensive than even the priciest of private schools. That makes it pretty attractive for a guy who didn’t wake up intellectually until his junior year in college – I’d like my kids to not have to wait so long.

    — Michael Simpson · Jan 19, 05:30 PM · #

21. Freddie complains that home-schooled kids “don’t get exposed to people with real diversity…people who are not like them, people who don’t come from the same places economically, racially, culturally” and that this leads to “a poverty of the mind” that is “complete and all-encompassing.”

    But Stuart Buck suggests the definitive response to this nonsense. Sticking eight year olds in with a bunch of other eight year olds (or, for that matter, sticking eighteen year olds in with a bunch of other eighteen year olds) is exposing them to “diversity?” So long as they differ sufficiently in their socio-economic and cultural backgrounds?

    Only if you suffer from a complete and all-encompassing poverty of mind.

    It would be interesting to see Freddie attempt to respond to Stuart Buck’s points, and/or to the excellent article he pointed out: http://www.gazette.net/stories/011008/princol132359_32358.shtml – an article which perfectly reflects my own experience both as a student and as a teacher in the public schools.

    — steve burton · Jan 19, 07:20 PM · #

22. Articles like the one I quoted are a dime a dozen, by the way. I’m not cherrypicking the one high school teacher in America who has ever complained about the destructiveness of the peer culture in schools.

    — Stuart Buck · Jan 19, 07:51 PM · #

23. I think Freddie already did respond (in advance) to Stuart Buck, and the article he cites, by saying that his experience was totally different, characterized by committed teachers and good relations among the kids. He had a really good experience in public school and is thankful for it, which seems to me totally appropriate; my son’s experience turned out (after fifth grade anyway) to be really bad, and we responded in a way we think appropriate. Again: it’s not possible to draw general conclusions on the basis of dueling anecdotes, which I think was one of Freddie’s points.

    — Alan Jacobs · Jan 19, 07:51 PM · #

24. With respect, Mr. Jacobs: so far as I could tell, Freddie was merely participating in the anecdotal duel.

    The biggest issue here is not anecdotal, but conceptual: what counts as “diversity?”

    What is more “diverse?” Is it:

    (1) A bunch of eight year olds, all acting like eight year olds, together, provided that they differ sufficiently in race, culture, socio-economic status, or whatever?

    Or is it:

    (2) an eight year old in the company of any two randomly selected adults, regardless of race, culture, socio-economic status, or whatever?

    I’d say (2).

    — steve burton · Jan 19, 08:46 PM · #

25. Freddie isn’t just offering an anecdote, as far as I can tell. Instead, his post was trading on his personal and very emotional story, and suggesting that people who DON’T have his particular mode of education experience “a poverty of the mind so complete and all-encompassing that I wouldn’t pay the price if it gave my child the presidency.”

    It’s one thing to say, “Here’s my personal experience.” It’s another to say, “I like my school experience very much, and I like the results of it (i.e., me) very much indeed. In fact, if you choose something else in your particular situation, you’re irreparably harming your child.”

    — Stuart Buck · Jan 20, 12:09 AM · #

26. Diversity? HAHAHAHAH! As a former public school teacher I can tell you what real diversity is: any “smart” male kid who is not big and imposing enough will get the bejabbers kicked out of him on a daily basis. “Diversity” means conformity, in dress, manners, disdain for learning or discipline, anything but certain athletic stardom (football, baseball, basketball, perhaps soccer and/or swimming). Any “smart” female kid will be verbally and sometimes physically bullied and ostracized. ANY kid who sticks out will be constantly verbally humiliated.

    Consider: (in the Buffy theme): Eliza Dushku, Michelle Trachtenberg. Both were working actresses in their High Schools, beautiful and accomplished and wealthy and powerful. Both HATED their High School experience specifically the bullying and cliques and humiliation. If ELIZA DUSHKU and MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG can undergo this — what hope does an ordinary boy or girl that stands out in any way from the cliques and conformity of High School social life have?

    Home Schooling will AVOID negative socialization: for boys that the only value is how “hot” your physique and accomplishments as a jock in select sports makes you; for girls how “hot” and able to fit in with the local clique of “hot girls” you can be. Studying, discipline, delayed gratification, avoiding alcohol and drug abuse/over-use, are all perceived negatives in High School society.

    For avoiding bad lessons in socialization (and lack of confidence for most boys and girls due to the abusive social environment) home schooling alone is a winner.

    Add to that the fact that Schools are a giant baby-sitting machine, with at most teaching to various state and federal (No Child Left Behind) mandated tests, and you see that kids in public schools do not get educated. PC mandates and over-regulation by States (CA’s Ed Code runs bookshelf length) make teaching and learning impossible, let alone the negative social environment and heavy class load (try teaching 35 kids most who are miserable and want out).

    Social interactions in home schooling (having to be accountable directly to instructors not your parent) is good preparation for the workplace. The only thing perhaps to match it is the Jesuit education in disciplined Catholic schools teaching the classics.

    — Jim Rockford · Jan 20, 05:08 AM · #

27. What, I ask, is wrong with Freddie? Freddie is edgy, smart, and I love reading his posts.

    And now for something completely different: a 26-reply debate over homeschooling versus public schooling!

    — Joules · Jan 21, 05:42 AM · #

28. “But then, I must be stupid, because I went to a poor public school. I’m told they fall well short of providing a top education.”

    Well, your inability to imagine what homeschooling might be like, and its impact on your interaction with people who were educated in such a manner are data points in that direction, but I’d need to speak with before I agreed.

    — TW Andrews · Jan 21, 05:41 PM · #

29. Freddie seems to have fallen prey to a very common human bias — having a personal experience that is so emotional (for whatever reason) that one assumes, completely without external evidence, that it is universal, and even that other people should be ashamed of making different choices in their own lives.

    — Stuart Buck · Jan 21, 08:30 PM · #

30. Let’s not be too selective in our readings of others. Freddie’s initial response to my post was fair-minded and reasonable, but he got irritated by a response which certainly seemed to be saying “I’m keeping my kids out of public school because I don’t want them to be like Freddie.” That would irritate me too. And I don’t see any of Freddie’s critics offering evidence any more substantial or less anecdotal than his.

    And finally, I’d prefer this to be a site where we stick with the issues rather than offer armchair psychoanalysis of other commenters. Let’s try that, okay?

    — Alan Jacobs · Jan 21, 09:12 PM · #

31. Freddie’s initial response to my post was fair-minded and reasonable, but he got irritated by a response which certainly seemed to be saying “I’m keeping my kids out of public school because I don’t want them to be like Freddie.” That would irritate me too.

    I respectfully disagree. My original post was poorly worded, but I quickly apologized and clarified that it had nothing to do with Freddie personally (This was actually the first time I have ever even looked at the comments on this blog, I have no clue what Freddie’s comment history is here), but rather that I was agreeing with him when he said that public schools are enormously morally formative for the children in them, as they had been for Freddie, and stating that as a parent, the idea of my children being morally formed by today’s public schools is more than a bit terrifying.

    His visceral reaction was not to that original post, but to my apology and clarification post, specifically to the my stating that I was putting my children in a private school in order to provide a better education. At least that’s my understanding.

    Again, my initial post was poorly phrased, and I apologize for what my post inadvertantly implied. I’m sorry to turn this into a play-by-play, but I really don’t want to be painted with saying something I’ve already clarified myself as not meaning and apologized for.

    — Michael Kelley · Jan 21, 09:33 PM · #

32. Michael, that’s why I said “seemed to be saying.” I appreciated and appreciate your apology.

    — Alan Jacobs · Jan 21, 10:03 PM · #

33. “And I don’t see any of Freddie’s critics offering evidence any more substantial or less anecdotal than his.”

    My Jan. 19 post at 12:10 am, which was responding to Freddie, cited four scholarly studies.

    FYI, my “psychoanalysis” [which did nothing more than identify an instance of the availability heuristic] arises from the fact that I’ve had this very debate with Freddie on more than one occasion (such as on Megan McArdle’s blog), and he never takes into account any of the scholarly evidence that I cite (let alone cite any studies on his own behalf). It’s frustrating.

    — Stuart Buck · Jan 22, 01:50 AM · #

34. Also, my first post, at 4:55 pm on Jan. 18, cited a famous book by one of the preeminent sociologists of the 20th century, as well as a scholarly study on homeschooling socialization that was quoted on my own blog. So that’s a total of six scholarly studies. This is just “dueling anecdotes”?

    By the way, I’d add that the availability heuristic affects us all, me included. I would have to admit that my views on homeschooling are ineradicably affected by the fact that I was homeschooled myself as a youngster (back when homeschooling was really weird).

    — Stuart Buck · Jan 22, 02:05 AM · #

35. I’ll add that parents must spend time with their children and be observant of them. We must ask questions and be willing to learn. We also need to know that we may have to go “off the menu” for their education.

    For example, a friend of mine with two daughters affected by autism followed the best known and recommended practices in special education and therapy with both girls for 8 years. At the age of 10, her oldest daughter still appeared to be in the early preschool stages of learning. My friend went to train with a woman who developed an approach to teaching, communicating, and learning for autistic children that worked for her own son.

    Because her daughter liked the communication system (since she is only a little verbal), she took to it within three weeks and began “talking” to her mother with a letter board. They were able to determine that her daughter had been reading since the age of 2 and was capable of understanding Math concepts typically associated with a fourth grade level.

    The best practices for educating her daughter in a public school setting were beneficial but there was no way to measure whether she had learned anything because cooperation and communication were so difficult for this girl. She was intensely distracted in the public school environment. She is making good progress with her schooling now that they’ve adjusted her educational setting to the home, found a few new methods that work for her, and a way to communicate that the girl will use.

    Obviously we’re talking about general education but I know how vastly intelligent readers of TAS are—far more than I. It’s not tough to see how these ideas might apply to educating typically developing children. You have to do research, keep an open mind, trust your gut and, once you’ve determined a course for your child, don’t be too easily swayed by the ideas and comments of others who aren’t directly involved or who may have an agenda of their own. A tall order but it’s possible!

    — Joules · Jan 22, 06:27 PM · #

36. I’m afraid I have little to add beyond my own anecdotal experience, comprising seven grades of home schooling (k-7, excluding 6) and six of public schooling (6, then 8-12). I’m sure both greatly contributed to my personality in both positive and negative ways. However, I consider the years of my home schooling as the foundation of my intellectual curiosity and my moral sense.

    I echo loudly (if I may, I hope I don’t hurt anyone’s ears) the sentiment that particular decisions for particular children are vastly more important than asserting some general principle. Given that, I think it’s quite legitimate to discuss personal experiences with an aim toward a general opinion of home schooling.

    If I had not been home schooled, I would instead have experienced the intellectual sophistication of the Branson, Missouri elementary school, of which little more need be said. This would have been followed by the socialization lessons of the Monroe, Louisiana middle schools, which featured several memorable incidents of interracial violence during my time in that city.

    My public high school experience, on the other hand, featured traveling speech and debate competition, Latin, and AP classes taught by great instructors (and, not incidentally, worth college credit), none of which I would have been able to receive through home education alone (though our local group has since come to offer some of those things).

    Perhaps it’s a bit arrogant for me to imagine that I got the best of both worlds, but I certainly believe that I made out like a bandit. I even learned how to always avoid cliches in my writing!

    — Ethan Cordray · Jan 23, 03:39 AM · #

37. Thanks, Ethan – that adds an interesting perspective on the whole issue.

    — Alan Jacobs · Jan 23, 04:24 PM · #

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