Teaching/Homeschooling Discussion

Beofett

Jan 5, 2012 16:33

@Aarthi My thought was that we should discuss that here, first, before committing to welcoming the Homeschooling proposal. Starting the Area 51 discussion seems to me to be a tacit agreement that we'd be willing to take them

I've been going through the list of sample questions in the proposal, and I really do feel that the vast majority of them are applicable to our site

Aarthi

I see what you mean. Well, before anything else, you and Torben need to agree about your feelings on the subject. @cabbey, too, if he happens to swing by.

Beofett

"Does homeschooling impair children's social skills?"

"Are there any peer-reviewed studies linking home-schooling to better or worse performance in university studies?"

"Unfortunately I can no longer homeschool my children, ages 6 and 10. How can I make the transition to public school easier for them?"

Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

@Beofett Exactly. Let's discover the stance of this community before we address that community

Aarthi

...poach. poach the questions, ask them here. Make them CW if you don't want all the rep yourself.

Beofett

some of these have been touched on in discussions on our site already

Aarthi

Jan 5, 2012 16:35

the homeschooling tag here only has 1 question currently.

Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

@Aarthi good idea!

Aarthi

:D

Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

Frankly, I'm against merging homeschooling with parenting. We're already trying to say that teaching and school is off-topic (because it's education and not child rearing). If we allow homeschooling, then we should also allow (school)teaching. I think homeschooling needs its own site, and topics that touch on parenting go here -- or there.

Aarthi

It was @Beofett's idea to merge in the first place. I'd link to TL, but it's seekrit and stuff.

Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

(afk)

Beofett

Jan 5, 2012 16:39

@TorbenGundtofteBruun How would you categorize this question: "How can I teach my homeschooling students to become more self-motivated, especially when I have multiple students at multiple ages."? Parenting, or Homeschooling?

Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

Jan 5, 2012 17:10

that's a very good borderline example! I'd go by the intended context: as written, it refers to "students" i.e. the perspective is from a teacher and/or the focus is schooling. That would be @homeschooling.
Written another way, it could be a parent wanting to create motivation for doing the homework and/or other chores at home. That would be @parenting. Even though it's basically the same idea.

Beofett

Jan 5, 2012 17:23

@TorbenGundtofteBruun I think the point I'm having a hard time on is that I believe a definition of parenting can include "teaching your children the life lessons they need to become well-adjusted, productive, happy adults".

That makes teaching an intrinsic part of parenting, and I could point to a whole slew of good questions on our site to support that view

the problem becomes: when is teaching part of parenting, and teaching not part of parenting?

If Hunter and I are at the store, and I say "there are three boxes here... one, two, three!" to teach him how to count, is that more parenting and less teaching than if he were sitting at a desk and I said the same thing?

Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

Jan 5, 2012 17:51

@Beofett yes, that's the edge we walk on. And it's a very wide, vague edge. Learning to count to three is easily in the parenting realm, while learning calculus or history or chemistry isn't, or at least doesn't have to be. Learning numbers, shapes, colors etc. is not really what you do in school anyway, but much of what I learned in school is something my parents could not have taught me.

Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

Jan 5, 2012 18:06

The first few(?) years of school is not really about learning in an academic sense (@parenting) but it soon enough turns into actually learning things that end in tests and exams and grades (@schooling).

Beofett

@TorbenGundtofteBruun Yes, there's a ton of stuff I learned in school that my parents could not have taught me. However, at least some of that is because my parents did not have the Internet.

I'm sure if I wanted to, I could google tutorials on biology, physics, geometry, literature, or any other subject for which I felt my personal understanding would be insufficient to teach my son

Sadly, given some of the experiences I have had with bad educators, I think the quality of the online tutorials is probably, on average, on par or better than the average public school education

@TorbenGundtofteBruun but that is only part of the education process. Learning how to research, write properly formatted and referenced papers, filter fact from rumor, and time management are all part of the meta aspects of learning, that are more important (imo) than the actual subject matter taught in schools

Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

Jan 5, 2012 18:30

@Beofett I agree, but it's still an academic skill, and that is also something you learn in the later years of school, not the first few. Hence, @schooling, not @parenting.

Shog9

If you've seen the proposal, you know that a good many of the proposed questions have very little to do with the actual academic aspects of homeschooling, @TorbenGundtofteBruun

(BTW: the A51 proposal is still in the early definition phase - I'm not particularly worried about merging at this point. But if you guys welcome / reject HS questions, it's going to go a long way toward influencing the future progress of the proposal)

Beofett

@TorbenGundtofteBruun I can quite honestly say that the only academic skills I learned directly from public school were how to use the Dewey Decimal system, and how to write a standard 5-paragraph essay with three supporting arguments.

@Shog9 I think we're more discussing whether we make a post on the proposal inviting them to join our site, much as board and card games did with the poker proposal

I think some sort of invitation is appropriate, but whether or not that invitation includes "most of your homeschooling questions" or "there are some aspects of homeschooling that qualify as on-topic for parenting.se" still needs to be decided

Shog9

@Beofett That's cool. Either way you go on this, it should be codified somewhere on your site, since this is a parenting matter for a lot of parents at some point (before it becomes an academic matter)

Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

@Beofett I guess we should actually be defining "parenting" more clearly than we have.

Shog9

Interestingly, "should I homeschool" is probably not going to be a great question for a homeschooling site - but it might be appropriate in some form for your site.

2

Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

Jan 5, 2012 18:38

@Shog9 yep! we're just tossing the ball right now, trying to figure out what could go into a meta post.

Beofett

@TorbenGundtofteBruun I've actually been looking at definitions, and most of the ones I find are essentially either "the act or process of being a parent" or "acting as a mother or father" :(

Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

@Beofett huh dictionaries aren't really helpful

Aarthi

Parenting

Parenting is the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood. Parenting refers to the aspects of raising a child aside from the biological relationship. In the case of humans, it is usually done by the biological parents of the child in question, although governments and society take a role as well. In many cases, orphaned or abandoned children receive parental care from non-parent blood relations. Others may be adopted, raised by foster care, or be placed in an orphanage. The goals of human ...

Beofett

@TorbenGundtofteBruun It can give us a starting point, though (hopefully)

Wikipedia > dictionary... who'd have thought it? :P

"Parenting is the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood."

now all we have to do is define "intellectual development"

as a side note, does homeschooling include tutoring?

Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

@Beofett I'm not sure why we need to differentiate in the first place. Homeschooling + school schooling + tutoring + higher ed + pedagogy + teaching methods/tools = all the same site? but all of these are not parenting.

Beofett

Jan 5, 2012 18:54

@TorbenGundtofteBruun except that, as Shog9 mentioned, most of the questions on the Homeschooling proposal don't relate to school schooling, tutoring, higher ed, pedagogy, or teaching methods/tools, but rather things that seem clearly on topic here

and I think Homeschooling done by a hired tutor is rather different than Homeschooling done by a parent

Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

@Beofett so let's welcome those questions here.

Beofett

@TorbenGundtofteBruun agreed. The question at hand, though, is where do we draw the line?

we have 39 questions tagged [education]

4 are closed (including one asking about the legalities of homeschooling in a particular province)

2

Q: What should one look for in first firearms training for children?

I have heard of videos and courses that teach children about firearm safety and how to handle firearms, but have never watched or evaluated any. I've know that the US National Rifle Association (NRA) puts out some material. Has anyone used these with their children? What approaches are most effe...

Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

@Beofett the line is easily drawn by the statements of the FAQ. If the faq doesn't make it clear, let's revise it!

Beofett

That question appears to be on-topic, and generated a good answer. Yet I would deem it a matter of academics

Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

true

Beofett

Jan 5, 2012 19:00

@TorbenGundtofteBruun I'm open for suggestions. But I'm not sure we're both on the same page with "academics = off-topic"

Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

Then let's open another meta post to clear that up.

Beofett

we might actually want to think about what we would put for a tag wiki for the [homeschooling] tag before we start looking at the FAQ

I've found one question that I think merited having the tag added, and another that may or may not, depending on how we define "homeschooling"

is it full-time, in-home education only? Does it include any supplemental education outside of the school environment?

Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

@Beofett I'm still struggling with why we discern home schooling from other kinds of schooling. Yeah I know, the parents do the teaching, so what?

Beofett

@TorbenGundtofteBruun Two reasons:

Aarthi

@TorbenGundtofteBruun Well there is public vs private vs gifted vs home, here in the US.

Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

Jan 5, 2012 19:06

perhaps my struggle is because it's a whole other planet to me. I went to school to learn. "School" is one concept to me, not four.

Beofett

one is that the relationship, and in particular the boundaries, between a teacher and a child vs. a parent and a child are very different, as teachers are obligated to remain very clear about the distinction between their role and parents

i.e. a teacher has much more limitations on what they can and can't do, say, and enforce, and this means that homeschooling environments where a parent is teaching will be fundamentally different

the other reason is that I believe homeschooling tends to allow more blurring of topics and lessons. You don't have one instructor dedicated to science, and another to grammar, so lessons can cross over disciplines easily

this allows for learning environments that go beyond the stereotypical classroom environment

Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

@Beofett so for a homeschooling parent, a situation might arise that would be useful to raise here on parenting, you say? But that would then be a parenting question anyway, no? What does schooling have to do with it?

I'm thinking: parenting questions yes, schooling questions no. Where's the problem?

Beofett

@TorbenGundtofteBruun we're already allowing schooling questions

3

Q: When do kids start learning fractions in school?

My daughter, 9yo, is starting to be exposed to fractions at school. I've tried to help her out with basic fraction arithmetic but don't seem to be getting too far. I've spoken to her teacher who has basically told me not to get involved, her teacher is like that. My daughter is otherwise very sma...

education

23

Q: How does one formally educate a gifted child without wrecking childhood?

I have a very bright child (just turned 7), he is not a genius by any stretch, but he reads way past his level (really liked Hatchet, and Call of the Wild), understands somewhat complex mathematics (basic algebra, series, trig), and is proving to have a knack for chemistry and geometry. I would ...

education social-development gifted homeschooling

6

Q: What are the pros and cons of having an advanced student skip Kindergarten?

I have a 5 year old boy who is supposed to start Kindergarten in the US this year. He is advanced in many academic areas already, and we are worried he would be bored in Kindergarten. He is reading and doing math on a second grade level. He is not quite on a second grade level in writing and spel...

education school

16

Q: How much pressure should I put on my kids to learn?

My wife just started reading "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother", a book written by a Chinese mother who talks about the pros and cons of the high-pressure and rigid parenting style of some Chinese parents. In discussing the book with my wife, I started thinking about high-pressure vs. low-pressu...

education

Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

these examples are all from a parent's perspective = on topic. They're not about the actual teaching which I feel would be off-topic.

sorryif I'm frustrating you :) perhaps I'm too damn pragmatic.

Aarthi

I think it's good that you're pushing; it's important that the site's scope be specific.

Beofett

Jan 5, 2012 19:11

Nope, I'm not frustrated :)

Just trying to clarify what I see as a gap in our definitions

What about this question:

19

Q: How do you handle bilingual education in a country where you do not speak the language natively?

Our 2 year old son is growing up in a different country (New Zealand) than we did (Brazil). We try to speak to him in portuguese all times, and we noticed that he is learning english reasonably well at the daycare. Obviously he does not understand that he speaks 2 different languages yet. But,...

bilingual education

Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

our faq says "school-based teaching". perhaps if we change it to say that "teaching per se" is off-topic, would that help us?

Beofett

That seems more about "actual teaching"

@TorbenGundtofteBruun I think that would imply an overly restrictive policy. Toilet training, for example, could be teaching, but clearly on-topic

9

Q: How do I teach my child to speak in sentences?

My son is 2.3yrs. Right now we keep reading books for him. He pays attention only for some time. We also keep teaching letters and numbers during his bed time or during his bath. When asked he repeats most of them with similar modulation. But, when he wants to convey something he uses only words ...

toddler education teaching

Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

@Beofett that one sounds to me as if it's worded wrong. The education is not bilingual, it's plain english. The home is not english, but it's unilingual too.

@Beofett are you making jokes now? Toilet training, tying shoelaces, brushing teeth ... yes of course that's training but not at all in a scholarly sense! Let me revise my above "teaching per se" to "scholarly teaching, regardless whether at home or some institution".

Beofett

@TorbenGundtofteBruun but if the question was about teaching 2 languages in the home (I believe we have some that touch on that), it still strikes me as an example of education, and the fact that it is at home seems tangential to me

Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

we clearly need to agree/define what we mean by the words "teaching" and "education".

Beofett

Jan 5, 2012 19:16

@TorbenGundtofteBruun I caught the distinction of training vs. teaching after I posted that, but I still think the distinction, if not specifically addressed somewhere, could cause confusion to some people

7

Q: How do you explain World War II to young children?

My 7-year old son asks many questions about World War II. I have the habit not to hide anything, but concepts such as nazism or the Holocaust are so inherently dreadful that he sometimes seems to believe I exaggerate or even lie to him. His legitimate lack of knowledge of religious and political ...

education history discussion

Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

Of course parents teach and educate to great lengths, but not in a scholarly meaning. Can we differentiate between "school skills" and "life skills"?

(you're awesome at pulling up excellent examples!)

Beofett

@TorbenGundtofteBruun I'm not sure I see the distinction as anything other than arbitrary. Why does it make a huge difference if questions related to learning could apply to a teacher just as much as a parent?

@TorbenGundtofteBruun thanks :) There seem to be a lot of them, which is why I think we need to clarify

I believe the intent was to avoid falling into questions that were only applicable to teachers

but I may be mistaken

However, I have to go afk a bit

Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

@Beofett me too, soon, for the night.

@Beofett "teaching" and "education" and also "learning" needs clarification then. As I've tried to say, I understand that all these words can refer to home as well as school. For me, the pragmatic difference is that anything that is (usually) taught in school is off-topic (with rare exceptions) while anything that teachers (usually) expect kids to have learned at home is on-topic. Call it what you will ...

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