Item — HN Reader

Yeah, it seems like an anti-pattern. Also, it's supposedly better for children to be educated by a great educator and most parents, like most people, are not.

The fact of the matter is that the implicit assumption of many pro-homeschoolers is that most professional educators - either for individual or systemic reasons - are also not good educators, and would rather take their chances. I can't entirely blame them.

2 comments

Well... If a child is "different" (Aspie, say), or bullied, or had serious health issues, or even just really gifted, homeschooling might be the best answer.

But even if none of those things is true, I keep hearing about classroom size as one of the key determinants of educational outcomes. Well, what's the classroom size for a homeschool? It's however many kids you have. Let's use the standard family size, 2.3 kids. The average school classroom size is around 20 in the US. Well, how much does 2.3 vs. 20 make up for the parent not being a great educator? And what if the person with 20 isn't a great educator either?

I think this point is underappreciated. The key question isn't "Is a parent a better teacher than a professional teacher?", the key question is "Can a parent teach 1 or 2 or 3 of their own children, better than a professional teacher can teach 25?"

It seems like it should be a close call for the vast majority of parents, so at the very least, the question of whether to homeschool should hinge on other considerations.

> Also, it's supposedly better for children to be educated by a great educator and most parents, like most people, are not.

Most teachers aren’t great educators either, speaking as someone who did it for five years. Homeschooling parents have fewer students and care much, much more about them.