Ask Lemmy

I was "homeschooled", along with my many siblings, by Southern Baptist parents. I couldn't really read until I was 9, and my younger siblings until even later. My older siblings had it marginally better, but not by much.

I was horrendously under-socialiazed, and I still struggle with debilitating social anxiety to this day. Although I should emphasize that a couple of my siblings are very socially competent and relatively well-adjusted, so I'm not sure how much of my issues in that domain are nature vs. nurture.

It always made me feel awful and dumb to hear peers at church talking about school-related things and what subjects they were learning, because I had no idea what they were talking about, which exacerbated my social difficulties. In my teenage years I started to understand what was happening, and I practically had to beg my mother for any kind of instructional material. I taught myself algebra with the help of internet friends. I still distinctly recall how utterly unscientific and creationist-bent was a biology textbook I got; it was so bad that even I was questioning it at the time.

My younger siblings were eventually allowed to participate in a homeschooling "coop" after my younger brother begged for something. Homeschool coops involve homeschool families getting together to have some semi-structured classes, usually something like once a week. Said brother took a "psychology" class there, the textbook for which was written by a guy with a business or economics degree and no background in psychology, and it said mental illness was the result of sin.

Home schooling in my state is ridiculously under-regulated. All you have to do is be registered with a private school as homeschooling and submit transcripts that comply with the state education requirements. That's literally it. My mother fabricated them - the records say I took Spanish in high school, but I couldn't have told you much beyond "hola".

I went to college with what was essentially a fake high school diploma. I languished in my 20's. I got a master's degree in my 30's, but I was lucky and happened to be gifted when it came to academia; most homeschool kids aren't so fortunate. Most of my siblings have not managed to actualize their potential. I myself could have been doing much more much earlier if I hadn't gotten a woman pregnant during college because I'd never had anyone tell me to use a condom. In retrospect, my parents' duress at learning that I was having a child out of wedlock is almost comical for having been essentially self-induced.

I don't know if homeschooling should be banned outright (as I'm aware of select cases where some parents weren't neglectful and it was actually a better option for some kids due to various circumstances), but something needs to change. At a minimum, I think homeschoolers should be required to do the same state standardized testing as required in public schools in order to ensure they're not being outright neglected like I and my siblings were.

My child is attending public school, which has had it's own set of issues (bullying and a shocking amount of violence, for starters), but it's a marvel to me the gap between what she knows and what I knew at her age. She's learning things that I still haven't. She's better off for it.

Tl;Dr: don't homeschool, do improve public school.