They certainly can find things like patterns in numbers interesting. I just found a blog post I wrote when my daughter was a few weeks short of seven that says she found simple sequences interesting. "She was instantly fascinated, and thought that trying to figure out the rules of each sequence was a wonderful game. Whenever I ran out of ideas, she pestered me for more sequences."
You replaced the rote recitation of faceless homework with engagement from an authority. She was not interested in the sequence of numbers, but interested in your interest. She loves you, and is reflecting your engagement back at you in hopes of getting more validation. Children do that a lot.
You describe the homework as
> basically lots or practice in basic arithmetic
Which is absolutely what you need for these sequences to have any meaning. There is no "pure math" to have a game about, without the "pathetic" examples of Lucy's 5 apples and Tom's 2. If somebody hadn't (brutally) drilled the concept of numbers into her skull, the sequences of random symbols would not mean anything to her.
Engaging with your child, who has already been partially socialized, is not proof that this socialization wasn't necessary. For that, you would have to have locked your daughter in the basement for those 7 years, and then find that she was spontaneously able to do multiplication. That is not going to happen.
> No, you really, really should not be brutal to little children.
I hope you understand that _brutality_ as spiritual. It's the brutality of going against nature, of putting a monkey in a suit and locking it in an office for 8 hours a day to feed itself. You don't beat math into your children, but they sure as hell don't learn it from eating candy and watching Minecraft let's plays.
> You replaced the rote recitation of faceless homework with engagement from an authority. She was not interested in the sequence of numbers, but interested in your interest. S
She was quite capable of expressing what she was not interested in. You are just refusing to take experiences that do not match your preconceptions.
There is a huge different between engagement and "being informed by an authority figure" which implies they have no choice.
> She loves you, and is reflecting your engagement back at you in hopes of getting more validation. Children do that a lot.
Read the blog post. She demanded more of things she enjoyed rather than what I wanted her to do (finishing her home work). That is not seeking validation.
> If somebody hadn't (brutally) drilled the concept of numbers into her skull, the sequences of random symbols would not mean anything to her.
No, nothing brutal needed to drill the concept. You can teach very gently and make it fun.
> Engaging with your child, who has already been partially socialized, is not proof that this socialization wasn't necessary. For that, you would have to have locked your daughter in the basement for those 7 years, and then find that she was spontaneously able to do multiplication
Strawman. I did not say socialisation was not necessary, I said it did not have to be brutal.
> I hope you understand that _brutality_ as spiritual. It's the brutality of going against nature, of putting a monkey in a suit and locking it in an office for 8 hours a day to feed itself.
Who gets locked in an office?
> but they sure as hell don't learn it from eating candy and watching Minecraft let's plays.
That would be neglect. no one things complete neglect is bad.
> I hope you understand that _brutality_ as spiritual. It's the brutality of going against nature
> they sure as hell don't learn it from eating candy and watching Minecraft let's plays.
I learned math from flash cards my mother was using for my brother. He got M&Ms for getting them right, so of course I wanted to learn and join in. Many years later, I graduated with a degree in math.
So you absolutely can learn math from eating candy. I did.
> India's lead in pharma manufacturing is because of their willingness to ignore US patents
US patents are only valid in the US. India is not "ignoring" anything by not following foreign laws. Can someone with an Indian patent enforce it in the US?
"A PCT application does not itself result in the grant of a patent, since there is no such thing as an "international patent", and the grant of patent is a prerogative of each national or regional authority."
> We have great home school programs here, and with our family members we have the education and qualifications to teach most of the core subjects (lots of retired teachers in our extended family).
These days you can find online courses and tutors. Lots of one to one adult attention helps a lot but kids can teach themselves a lot too. One problem is qualifications. Here in the UK our kids can just do the same exams school kids do. I think its more complicated in the US?
I think a large part of the problem with schools (and this is why its a problem across many countries) is a greater focus on metrics.
Forgejo (the Codeberg-maintained Gitea fork) is essentially becoming an EU-based community of familiar compatible alternatives to GitHub.
It's not quite a federated/decentralised platform in the traditional sense, but the decentralised nature of Git makes it a close enough equivalent, & the fact they're built upon a shared platform makes them very easy to navigate. So setting up public instances for each government or org makes a lot of sense.
Codeberg even maintains a list of alternative pubic Forgejo instances[0], some of which are explicitly pro-AI.
If the kid would rather be scrolling instagram then solve the underlying problem. They will not have a good life if they will only do anything constructive when forced to by an authority figure.
Bring kids up is not easy. There is no magic button, but its far better to solve a problem, even if its difficult, than to work around it. Forcing unengaged kids to study is like quick fixes to software that runs up technical debt,or like avoiding proper of maintenance of machinery when you it will cause more long term damage.
Its a weird stereotype of home education that people with no, or limited, experience have of it. It is far better preparation for the "real world" than schools are.
I got the benefits of letting kids go at their own pace etc. at a fraction of the cost but with a bit of (mostly fun) effort by home educating my kids. Tutors for two subjects (three in exam terms as English language and literature are separate GCSEs), both Oxford graduates in those subjects. No AI but lots of books and other resources.
Most kids are motivated given the right environment. Enjoying learning is natural.
The AI element of what you describe does not appeal to me. The weekly testing and assignment to grades sounds a bit rigid too.
Considering how much one to one human tutoring 40k an year could buy that does not sound like good value.
The big advantage is that you can tailor to your kids needs and interest. I dislike the term home school because its not like school, and its not all done at home. Doing school at home is IMO combining the worst of both.
Maths and English (assuming you are in an anglophone country) are important because you need them for other things. You can make them fun and not involve too much study. Reading for pleasure, maths fro and of games, all sorts of things. You need far fewer hours of studying to learn the same amount so do not aim for school like hours.
Encourage self-discipline and motivation. This really pays off in the long term. Have confidence and feel your way. You need to spend a lot of time with them, not teaching but guiding, encouraging, and knowing where they are. I am also love conversational learning.
Until they need to study for exams avoid a fixed curriculum. Do lots of hands on stuff. We made circuits and soldered things, had lots of hobbies and activities. One of my favourite stories is that a senior electronic engineer worried about whether universities neglected practical skills asked a room full of junior ones when they first held a soldering iron and my daughters answer of at the age of eight startled everyone.
Its a bit easier in the UK because home educated kids can sit the same exams as everyone else at 16 (which is the end of compulsory school here). My kids then went to a sixth form college to do A levels. You need to think about paths to qualifications and university. As they get older courses tutors and exams can get expensive but a lot cheaper than a fee paying school.
Thank you! This is exactly the experience I'd love to have. I'm not thinking of using home schooling as a shortcut for certain things or to avoid interactions. I am aware that I will have to be present and, as you said, meet them where they are and guide them through it.
One question: how did you find tutors and were they meeting physically or also online? And what subjects did you find needing tutoring?
Classes for drama,music and dance and some sports.
For GCSEs/IGCSEs (UK exams schools do at 16) English literature for older one. English language and literature for younger one. Its a hard subject to mark for exam prep. Close friend who was a teacher and briefly home educated her daughter for health reasons. Also classical civilisation for which I found a tutor through recommendations. A lot of teachers make bad tutors because they find it hard to switch from classroom teaching.
Enthusiastic subject specialists are great for older kids. Both our tutors went to Oxford - and my younger daughter starts her degree there in next month.
I did not mean to imply you were looking for shortcuts or to avoid interactions, but wanted to emphasise the importance. The extra time with your kids in incredibly rewarding too.
My girlfriend was homeschooled and she would definitely have preferred to go to regular school (which she attended for high school).
Home schooling sounds good in paper, but as much as school can suck, it is also an irreplaceable opportunity to learn to socialize, which is a much more valluable skill than knowing pre-university curriculum.
UK abortion clinic laws go a lot further than banning demonstrations.
1. Holding up a sign offering help to any women being coerced into an abortion is illegal.
2. Standing silently on the road near one can be illegal.
3. parking a car with a bumper sticker near one can be illegal.
The whole paragraph about Musk and rape gangs is nonsense, of course. The biggest rape gang ever convicted in the UK was entirely white. Musk and his ilk only care about rape when the rapists are not white. On average immigrants are slightly less likely to commit sexual assaults (obviously averaging across many different groups).
> What did she say? The article does not elucidate.
She called for hotels housing asylum seekers to be burned. I think she is a nasty racist but I also think the sentence was excessive and I am not convinced it was a serious incitement to violence (and that was not what she was convicted of).
> US free speech absolutists seem to vehemently disagree until you say something unkind about Charlie Kirk or ICE.
Not American, and I entirely support the right of anyone to make unkind comments about anyone else. You are right that many people apply different standards to their own side, but right wing Americans are are from alone in that.
I also think it was excessive but the judges sentencing remarks[0] add some context. The primary issue is that the categorisation of the offence was high, but she could have done a better job of showing remorse. She didn't clock that they'd be able to read her WhatsApp messages.
>>The whole paragraph about Musk and rape gangs is nonsense, of course. The biggest rape gang ever convicted in the UK was entirely white. Musk and his ilk only care about rape when the rapists are not white.
They only care when the rapists are coming from outside the UK, and being protected by the authorities.
>>On average immigrants are slightly less likely to commit sexual assaults (obviously averaging across many different groups).
I think that is called picking your sample carefully. No-one is worried about EG the Chinese or the French.
Musk and his ilk care about dog whistle topics that can be used to trigger people into supporting them.
The emphasis on 'rape gangs', 'immigrants' and 'asylum seekers' isn't just objectively untrue, it's cynically manipulative. It's fundamentally a toxic and calculated form of marketing and branding.
And also a cynical distraction from - for example - the Epstein story and Musk's appearances in it.
There was a lot of this around Brexit. Many supporters voted to 'stop them coming over here'.
The government then ramped up immigration - a lot. For some reason the press failed to report this.
Brexit was about stopping unskilled EU immigration. The leaders of both the official leave campaigns said they wanted more skilled immigration. Farage said Indian doctors in the NHS in the 70s as an example of the sort of immigration he wanted.
I would have thought immigration was mainly a factor of the immigrants, not the government. Do people not support free movement? In China you're assigned to a city or rural zone and you can't leave that area.
> In China you're assigned to a city or rural zone and you can't leave that area.
The last time it worked like that was in the 1970s. You can travel and move anywhere you want but you can't legally work, rent a state owned apartment, get social benefits or send you kids to public school unless you get a stamp from the local authorities. It's the same as migrant workers anywhere else.
Of course it's corrupt and unfair and they should stop doing it but "can't leave your area" is a big exaggeration.
https://pietersz.co.uk/2009/10/schools-maths-wron
> when the reality is that socializing children is a brutal exercise in fitting them into norms.
No, you really, really should not be brutal to little children.
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