I know a lot of homeschoolers. Some had great experiences. Some had truly terrible experiences. But regardless, they turned into functional, developed adults at about the same rate as publicly schooled kids.<p>I think it's important for parents to realize that a lot of these choices are mostly about enjoyment and convenience, and they don't need to beat themselves up if they feel like they are failing because they can't put a square peg through a round hole.<p>Although, that said, I think one trend I <i>do</i> see is that successful people had the ability to move on when they were ready. I for one was lucky enough to get to go to college early (I hated high school). I can't think of how many kids had to be stuck in the system because they were forced into a timetable.
I want to homeschool my future kids but it is still illegal in my country (illegal as in: if you attempt it, the government will arrest you and send the kids to an orphanage)<p>Thing is: public schools here outright suck, teach lots of bullshit and are dangerous.<p>Private schools are crazy expensive, and although they are more useful they still teach a lot of bullshit.<p>Also the educational style of all schools here is outright awful, there is an article from 1950s I believe written by Richard Feynman and it still applies 100%
Such a great interview. It's fascinating to see how different education styles can have such a big impact.<p>While homeschooling isn't the right fit for everyone, I was homeschooled and it had a huge impact on me. My habits now for constant learning, working to complete tasks quickly, building projects with my hands (remodeling, woodworking, etc), and my desire to start companies all came from the time and energy that my parents put into crafting a unique education for me.<p>I'm so excited to see more and more parents considering homeschooling their kids.
Hi guys! This is Laura :) - everyone here is really cool and I can't believe this made the front page of HN so just wanted to drop my email here in case anyone wants to catch up on longevity stuff or other cool science discussion - ldeming.www@gmail.com. Sorry, I just really love geeking out and this seemed like a good place to find more thought buddies. Anyway, I love talking about most interesting things (physics / how computers work / all the stuff I don't know) so if you're down for it drop me a line!<p>(not sure how to verify but that's the email associated w all my public stuff / twitter posts so hopefully that's enough)
Given that her family inherited the Murphy Oil fortune (Tulane's Department of Medicine is named after them), it's not that surprising she would have exemplary homeschooling resources
> But with longevity and other deeply existential problems, the horror of what’s happening has been tragically normalized.<p>I will never understand this attitude. Why don't we see how valuable aging and death are? How can we possibly reframe this as a "horror". The horror is this idea that personal identity can go on indefinitely. Aging is a process of coming to terms with death. None of this is being "tragically normalized". What's being normalized is the idea that we can have everything we want all the time forever without any spiritual or material costs.
"Laura Deming, founder of the Longevity Fund, on being an heiress with nearly infinite resources to pursue her dreams".<p>I think the homeschooling is likely second to being rich in terms of her world view and success.
>I grew up homeschooled in NZ with a hilariously small amount of context for what the real world was like.<p>kind of a blunt take here but yeah, homeschooling will do that because its limited to what your parents know. Public schools work to immerse kids in a diverse environment with many people from many different walks of life. they work to build soft skills like empathy, listening, and conflict resolution. she says she taught herself "calculus and probability and statistics, and French literature and history" betraying her heritage. The wealthy are notorious francophiles (Fussell, Paul, "Class: A Guide Through the American Status System")<p>Homeschooling may have played a part in her success, but money likely played an even more prominent role in getting a twelve year old into UCSF and MIT from half a world away. The average homeschooled kid is much more likely to miss social cues, stumble through a difficult interaction with feckless ineptitude, or even parrot their parents own myopic stereotypes or falsehoods. Schools may teach "bullshit" to some, but they also arm kids with critical thinking skills. the conflicting role of educator, caregiver, and lawgiver projected by homeschool parents virtually guarantees kids will never rise to challenge the education theyre given. Theyll learn only what theyre told.
I was homeschooled and it worked out well for me. You have to be intrinsically motivated and have a deep curiosity about the world. Actually, all kids are born curious but they lose it over time as adults get annoyed with all their questions! I appreciated the freedom to blow an entire day learning about something just because it was interesting. This turned out to be super valuable for my career. Being homeschooled gave me the chance to play with computers all day and I started coding at age 10. This gave me a huge head start on my peers who didn't start coding until college. I also credit homeschooling for teaching me to think outside the box. As a kid I always complained about the social aspect and the lack of team sports. I found ways to interact with other kids, but it took a lot of intentional effort. My mom was an English teacher and my dad was an engineer, so they were reasonably equipped for the task of giving me an education. It's not for everyone, but I'm thankful I was homeschooled.
Is homeschooling actually better once you control for the types of people who are capable of doing it? I would imagine a good chunk of people who homeschool their children are incredibly active in their children's education, by definition. These children I would argue, would be fine with or without homeschooling.<p>Homeschooling also just seems unsustainable. Modern society generally requires two parents to be working. Can an average family afford to homeschool their children? At least in the USA, most indications give a pretty firm "no."<p>That being said, I really enjoyed this article. People definitely should have more control over their education and how it relates to their own children's needs.
Homeschooled, myself. Academically, I have a MS CS. My sibling has a PhD. It worked, academically.<p>I don't particularly recommend it for anyone without substantial need. I would put genius-level children at that level. We weren't geniuses.<p>I can imagine an... alternative... schooling coop which would work well. But there are whole volumes of good behavior that I had to intake as a teen & young adult that homeschooling had no ability to teach me.<p>Parents of homeschooled kids don't notice, I think. Because this is about <i>peer</i> behavior and interaction. Not child-parent interaction.
>My dad just always told me that I was exceptional<p>I was under the impression that this runs contrary to current thinking.<p>i.e. Tell kids they're the best and they stop taking risks for fear of failure. Rather encourage effort & persistence.<p>Anyway...sometimes I think the whole elite private schooling model are the sweet spot. Actual effort goes into the teaching without the social isolation that (often) comes with home schooling.
We homeschool our 5 kids but sometimes I think we shouldnt. Something I tell my wife, kids, parents, well wishers, hecklers and friends is that parents get both too much and too little credit for how their kids turn out.<p>Stay involved. That's what homeschooling (done well) forces you to do. Ask questions, allow failures, try (you WILL fail) to practice detachment, and understand that you do not.
I was homeschooled and I have mixed feelings about it. I turned out very well socially adjusted and I am very gainfully employed. I don’t have a specific direction for this comment but I’m happy to answer questions if people have them.
I live in an area where homeschooling is fairly popular. There were some snide remarks before Corona, but these days it seems like it's not looked down upon so much.
A lot of people talk about repairing decrepitude of the body, but what about decrepitude of ideas and world views?<p>What if advancement depends on the death of people with outdated ideas?
I also grew up in NZ idolizing Faraday. I feel sad to see obviously smart and passionate folks like this with deep technical interests end up in venture so young.
I think the homeschool movement has become too extreme. You can do homeschool if you want. But you also need to learn from others. The school system does help. I went to a 4-year university. I got a degree in Computer Science. I think it's very valuable. It helped me build a good career. I would say half of the professors were solid.<p>At school, after lectures, we have to do homework. It's a practice to get a deeper understanding of the knowledge. Then we have to take test. It's a validation of our understanding. People certainly cheat their ways through college. But if you are into learning, you can learn a lot.<p>Laura Deming mentioned that she had a hard time with entropy. I think this is because of not having a formal education. Entropy is an overloaded term. It means different things in different fields. In physics, it means one thing. In information theory, it means another thing. If Laura had gone to a university to study the concepts in different classes, she would have grasped the concepts. Laura is likely a generalist thinker, polymath. That's why she has a hard time digging into deep concepts. To really understand them, you need to practice (homework) and validate (test).<p>I work in cryptocurrency space. Vitalik is another generalist, polymath thinker. He makes some wild claims like quantum computer can break Proof of Work. If you study Computer Science, you'd see how dubious this claim is.<p>You don't know what you don't know.<p>Schools are good for teaching you what you don't know. Both Vitalik and Laura come out of the Thiel Fellowship. When you are young and got chosen by a billionaire, it may have gotten you hype up about your intellect. You buy into your billionaire's view. You think professors are idiots. Nowadays, social media give people a microphone. So they get even more indulgence. They see themselves already successful.<p>I think the young generation, like Laura and Vitalik, is talented. But they live in the fame bubble too early. Albert Einstein had this problem. He was an early achiever. He made his important discoveries when he was young. Those achievements became burden. He had a hard time with quantum mechanics. He spent endless time with the theory of everything. He was miserable in his later life.<p>I teach my kids at home after their public school time. When they grow up, I hope there're still good universities for them to go. Go to school, take some test, you'd see how much you really understand.
Homeschooling is a very important freedom for parents to retain. Otherwise, parents are increasingly at risk of not being in control of how their children are raised. Schools and colleges are increasingly politicized and are being used by politicians and activists to instill certain values into children early on. Those values are derived from whomever has the most power in a given jurisdiction.<p>For instance, in Seattle there is a push from activists to introduce progressive politics into schoolrooms, to influence children's culture and values beyond what is appropriate. It started with the NAACP pressuring Seattle Public Schools to introduce ethnic studies into their K-12 curriculum (<a href="https://www.king5.com/article/news/education/seattle-school-board-passes-ethnic-studies-resolution/454537210" rel="nofollow">https://www.king5.com/article/news/education/seattle-school-...</a>). Then the school board proposed converting subjects like math into propaganda channels for social justice politics (<a href="https://reason.com/2019/10/22/seattle-math-oppressive-cultural-woke/" rel="nofollow">https://reason.com/2019/10/22/seattle-math-oppressive-cultur...</a>). Now they're planning to include gender identity material as early as Kindergarten (<a href="https://mynorthwest.com/1676789/rantz-mandatory-sex-ed-kindergarten-washington/" rel="nofollow">https://mynorthwest.com/1676789/rantz-mandatory-sex-ed-kinde...</a>). In each instance, I see that the parents' role is being overridden by the state, going far beyond the mandate of core education and clearly into the realm of controversial politics.<p>I am not trying to just single out Seattle or progressive politics, mind you. It's just what I'm most familiar with. In Arkansas some schools teach that the age of Earth is a controversial topic (<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/01/creationism_in_public_schools_mapped_where_tax_money_supports_alternatives.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...</a>). And outside the US as well, governments use education as a means to undermine parents and steal away their children's minds, turning them into willing adopters of the government's values/culture/politics (<a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2020/03/04/chinas-bilingual-education-policy-tibet/tibetan-medium-schooling-under-threat" rel="nofollow">https://www.hrw.org/report/2020/03/04/chinas-bilingual-educa...</a>).<p>Homeschooling and school choice more broadly (like charter schools) are the antidote to having children propagandized. Homeschooling is generally very successful, to the point that it is viewed by some as a threat to public education (<a href="https://reason.com/2019/01/22/homeschooling-produces-better-students/" rel="nofollow">https://reason.com/2019/01/22/homeschooling-produces-better-...</a>) and now there are activist researchers claiming that homeschooling is vector for child abuse despite evidence to the contrary (<a href="https://www.educationnext.org/harvard-law-professors-attack-on-homeschooling-flawed-failure-terribly-timed/" rel="nofollow">https://www.educationnext.org/harvard-law-professors-attack-...</a>). I hope people take note and fight to retain their rights as parents.