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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   1803 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for January 8, 2025

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Any good homeschooling resources that TheMotte would recommend?

I want to start homeschooling my two elementary school aged kids from this year (one is early elementary, the other late elementary). What are some good resources for learning at home? I'm interested in online tools (Khan Academy, stuff like that) but also premade programs and curricula, mail order/correspondence programs, anything like that. Also, any resources on being an effective homeschool teacher without formal training in education.

I want to teach the usual basics skills, but I'd also like to teach formal logic, Latin, computer skills/coding, and handwriting.

I think there was also a recent thread about homeschooling experiences on here... I'll have to dig that up as well.

I apologize in advance because what I'm about to say isn't what you asked for but I think it's important to comment.

Independent of how good of an idea homeschooling was in the past, I think it is going to become a much worse idea in the future.

One of the joys of my job is that I get to see every single slice of the population and something I've noticed is that young people are nervous wrecks theses days (especially post-COVID)...this is known - but also that a lot of home schooled kids are a lot worse.

I suspect this is due to decreasing opportunities for independence and socialization and regular school is one of the last bastions of that. This trend will likely continue to worsen as people spend more time online and less time touching grass.

I'm sure the research will catch up at some point, as it has with social media and COVID pauses, but at that point some people's lives will still be fucked.

There are plenty of reasons to avoid traditional school (safety, poor quality, woke bullshit) but the benefit is probably worth it and if you are going to home school you'll need to dig out chances for your kid(s) to socialize adequately.

if you are going to home school you'll need to dig out chances for your kid(s) to socialize adequately.

This was always the case. If you're going to homeschool, you have to make sure you socialize your kids in other ways. When I was growing up, my parents did that through groups with other homeschoolers, through church, and through other youth activities (scouts, 4-H, etc). I don't think that it's worse than before or anything, I think that this was just something you always had to do if you were going to homeschool your kids.

I agree it was always important but my fear is that it is going to be increasingly harder to do. :/

I see... I misunderstood your comment.

I don't know how clear I was - what I see oncoming is an increase in anxiety disorders (for instance) and that will likely be way worse for homeschooled for non-home schooled (but both will be bad).

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