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by mbustamanter·3y ago·view on hn ↗
I grew up in Santiago, Chile, a city with a population of 7M and lived and went to school in the very center of it. Today I have nothing that resembles a social life and school was torture (never bullied, just bored to tears). I was only interested in math, programming, machines, and infrequently reading literary classics. Did this and that, standardized evaluations got me first place into college with a scholarship, even represented my country at international math contests. Good grades but hated every minute of school.

This, coupled with high prices for owning a house and crime in a dense city has prompted me to daydream everyday about going to the country and building my house. Even so far as entertaining the idea of becoming part of a religious group. Maybe someone needs to ground me? But every reason people mention (working hard, social life, school) doesn't change my mind, which worries me since it shows my bias might be too strong. I haven't mentioned the religious thing to my parents who are both atheists, they'll think I'm crazy.

EDIT: Teachers assigned fucking Hunger Games as reading, and people still do triangle similarity and solving second degree equations well into HS. I wish was homeschooled.

2 comments
You're assuming your parents would've been good at homeschooling.

That's the biggest issue with it, very few people doing it are trained teachers.

Source: my wife wanted to homeschool, I gave it my best, realised we were failing our children.

Such large cities are a real problem, especially in poor countries, but even in wealthy countries I would not want to live in them as an adult, let alone as a kid.

As for religious communities: be careful what you wish for.