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Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 7, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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I've always found myself rather confused by the uniquely American obsession with homeschooling.

Without getting into the Culture War aspect of it, in most of the places I've been, the very idea would warrant confusion and raised eyebrows. At the least, people would assume you had way too much time on your hands if you could afford to tutor your kids in that manner.

India has pretty poor schooling, even at prestigious institutions like the one I went to. You see, the teachers at schools know really well that the majority of students are going to be receiving private tutoring outside the school, and thus don't really teach rigorously enough to do a good job at covering the syllabus; leaving aside the very large class sizes. This paradoxically only increases the need for private tutoring, since parents know their kids ain't learning shit at school.

When I speak of private tutoring, we have both 1:1 coaching, as well as academies that offer larger lectures. The former is still quite affordable to the middle and upper end of the middle class, and the latter is quite cheap all considered.

Honestly, a lot of people go to sham schools that don't actually teach or take attendance, using that time to go study at those places for far more personalized and thorough instruction.

(In hindsight, my then undiagnosed ADHD would have made me do much worse if I didn't have a tutor watching me like a hawk, so I'm grateful for that much!)

How long was your school day in India? Ours is ~7:40 - 15:40. Including the bus ride to/from school. Were we to add tutors, that would eat into unstructured time that I think is important. When my wife was in school in Germany it was only a half day, but with a much heavier homework load than our children have. Even my elementary school in the mid-80's in California had much more assigned homework.

If I had to include the bus ride for my school it was 7 am to 3 pm. You could shave off maybe an hour if your school wasn't as far as mine.

And sadly, a child's free time is the first of many casualties when it comes to running the academic rat race. I had at least 1 hour of tuition a day till high school, when it became common to attend 2 to 3 hours on top of regular schooling most days a week.

Not as bad as Korea or China, but same energy really.

India also has, by Western standards, a very strong culture/very strong cultures and family structures. North America has basically no traditional culture at all and is extremely socially atomized, which makes school the chief influence on kids after Tiktok. So if you care about transmission of cultural values, public schools are unattractive and will in many cases actively work to subvert the values of the families whom teachers consider their culture war enemies. I am a teacher, and I see it every week, if not every day. Add to this the fact that schools in North America are expected to teach nearly nothing, and fail even at that, and homeschooling starts to look okay.