Marriage and the Power of Divorce

chaos_sl said:

The teachers in high school follow a strict, State-mandated curriculum. I don't think highly of myself, you are just approaching this as if every high school teacher is an expert in their assigned subject (which often does not correspond with their actual field of study or expertise). That is not my experience and I think it would be hard to defend that position.

Go watch The Edge, bro. What one man can do, another can do. You can do it, doesn't mean it would be easy or anything, but if someone else can do it, so can you.

Click to expand...

Like I said, high school teachers only have to do this for one subject day in day out year after year. You'd have to do it for every subject you're teaching the kid and then start all over again the very next year.

Imagine going back to school while also having to teach your peers the material you are going back to school for. You act like physics and calculus are easy to pick up and teach all at once.

Khane_sl said:

Yeah, the curriculums are set up, and you have to learn it, or re-learn it (for the most part) for a multitude of subjects well enough that you could effectively teach it to your kid.

Click to expand...

Yeah, relearning things isn't all that hard. I had to relearn calculus 15 years later while taking other class and working full time and taking care of kids. I earned very few medals for this.

Organizing the curriculum would be the majority of the problem, I would think. Something like biology is so broad you need to scope that down so A. the kid actually gets something out of it and B. the kid is prepared for what college's/tests expect him to know. The subject itself isn't difficult, finding the correct scope of what needs to be taught would be. That is where I would think the majority of the problems would come, it would be an organizational chore to keep up with 5-7 curriculums at once. But it isn't as if you would be holding down a full time job and doing this on the side, this would be your job.

ZyyzYzzy_sl said:

Khane, I don't know where you went to school, but my high school teachers taught multiple subjects, multiple classes, multiple grades and multiple levels of classes each semester or quarter or whatever the fuck it was.

Click to expand...

Hrmm, well that's much different than my high school experience. Even our foreign language teachers only taught one grade, one level of that language. One for Spanish 1, a different teacher for spanish 2, etc etc etc. None of our teachers taught multiple subjects. I just figured that's how it was which I guess was narrow minded.

Yeah my experience reflected Zyyzyyfsdoyuif's experience as well. I went to three different high schools, all the same way. My Physics and Chemistry teacher was actually an entomologist. My English teacher also taught Typing and the bullshit that passed for Computer Science in the 90s. My History teacher was a coach, my calculus teacher was a coach, etc.

chaos_sl said:

Yeah, relearning things isn't all that hard. I had to relearn calculus 15 years later while taking other class and working full time and taking care of kids. I earned very few medals for this.

Organizing the curriculum would be the majority of the problem, I would think. Something like biology is so broad you need to scope that down so A. the kid actually gets something out of it and B. the kid is prepared for what college's/tests expect him to know. The subject itself isn't difficult, finding the correct scope of what needs to be taught would be. That is where I would think the majority of the problems would come, it would be an organizational chore to keep up with 5-7 curriculums at once. But it isn't as if you would be holding down a full time job and doing this on the side, this would be your job.

Click to expand...

I understand what you're trying to say. But do you really think Physics, Biology and Chemistry aren't difficult? Every single math and science subject comes easily to you? I'm a pretty smart guy and I thought bio and chem were easy peasy but physics was a fucking nightmare for me. Geometry and Trig were a breeze but Calculus was a pain in the ass to learn, etc. I wouldn't be able to teach my children certain subjects to a satisfactory level, and I know that about myself.

ZyyzYzzy_sl said:

I mean my high school was like 400 kids so it wasn't feasible. We also had to bus in diversity. The teacher who taught AP chemistry also taught AP physics. He was the only teacher who had classes that truly mimiced a college level ones.

Click to expand...

My graduating class (just the seniors in my high school) was 302 at graduation. It was 380+ at the beginning of the year and a bunch of kids ended up dropping out. I went to high school on Long Island. I think total from all 4 classes was close to 1400.

Actually, the more kids you have the more feasible it is to have specialized teachers. The classes are larger, more kids means more tax dollars being funneled into the school (theoretically). It's not realistic to expect teachers to be able to handle large classes like that and teach multiple subjects.

My highschool class had similar high numbers to Khane. It was nuts.

Noodleface_sl said:

My highschool class had similar high numbers to Khane. It was nuts.

Click to expand...

That was actually modest for school districts in Long Island. My cousin's graduating class had 1200+ just in her 12th grade class.

Khane_sl said:

I understand what you're trying to say. But do you really think Physics, Biology and Chemistry aren't difficult? Every single math and science subject comes easily to you? I'm a pretty smart guy and I thought bio and chem were easy peasy but physics was a fucking nightmare for me. Geometry and Trig were a breeze but Calculus was a pain in the ass to learn, etc. I wouldn't be able to teach my children certain subjects to a satisfactory level, and I know that about myself.

Click to expand...

Everything comes to me with work. When i had people asking me how I was breezing calculus, it was because I put in work. I practiced daily, I looked things up online, to me everything is like that. I have not encountered anything yet that was so beyond me that I couldn't learn it by putting in the work, and I don't think that makes me special, I imagine the same is true for almost everyone. I never did consider physics difficult, something about it clicked with me, idk. But other stuff, like programming, I have had to invest a lot of time in something I will realistically never use in the world just to get through school, a LOT of time. The concepts just didn't get through to me, but with work I have become pretty damn good. I would not want to home school my kids, but if for some reason I had to I have no doubt that I could do it.

I'm just thinking about this from my own perspective. It makes sense that my high school experience was very different than a typical one in less populated areas of the country. I was in AP classes starting my junior year. My senior year was nothing but college level AP classes. Every single teacher in my school taught one grade, one subject (well, the AP teachers also taught the non AP versions of those same subjects like Physics, Chem, etc). In fact, my school had 2 Calc teachers, 2 Bio teachers, etc. I was a year ahead, got a 1310 on my SAT's (which I considered OK but was disappointed with) and kept a 3.84 GPA overall throughout high school. Smaller, rural area schools don't have the need for as many teachers and in fact probably don't have the resources to support such a system. Most of my teachers were in their 60s and about to retire. They had been doing this for 40+ years. My parents would never have been able to teach me throughout the entirety of high school the way *most* of my teachers could and did.

I want my eventual kids to be smarter than I am. I want them to exceed me in every way. There is a good chance by the time they reach such advanced topics I won't be able to keep up with them. That's what I am hoping for. So I wouldn't even attempt to home school them because I feel I would hold them back. Everything comes to me with work as well. But if it takes that amount of effort how could I learn and teach, all while learning and teaching 5-6 other subjects at the same time?

ZyyzYzzy_sl said:

Wait how was you gpa only 3.84? Shouldn't have AP courses been weighted higher? I ended up with a 4.2 or something due to how different levels of courss were weighed.

Click to expand...

The weighting was different for Valedictorian/Salutatorian status because we were actually a year ahead. In 9th grade I was in class with all 10th graders. We had a full extra year of classes. I forget how they did it.

Yeah, never mind the fact that you only have 1 or 2 students so you can dedicate that much more time to working on the material with them. Home educators are at no disadvantage from professionals in that regard.

Soygen_sl said:

The problem I have with home-schooling is that it's super awkward after you end up banging your teacher.

Click to expand...

Yeah, but at least you get to be both King and Queen of Prom.

Well I think I just had a vastly different experience in HS than most of you. My parents never could have taught me what I learned there. And my Chemistry classes were far more involved than memorizing the periodic table and "blowing shit up". I guess it mostly depends on your kid. If you have an advanced child who is ahead of the curve it's going to be more difficult for you to be their sole tutor as they get into 10th, 11th and especially 12th grade.

Also, you are looking at it from the perspective of you, as an adult with a good career who has gone to college and been in the workforce, constantly studying and learning since you've graduated as being the teacher. You would be able to just give up your careers to teach your kids? Typically homeschooling is done by a parent that has been a stay at home parent for the entire upbringing of the child. They haven't had the same experience in the work force, and more than likely were never on a promising career path in the first place (i.e. they aren't as smart as you or I) or they wouldn't be a stay at home parent (in most cases).

We had dedicated subject teachers, but they taught various classes within that subject. We had math teachers, they'd teach algebra, geometry, and pre-calculus -- and switch every year. AP classes got shipped out to the community college. There were History/English teachers who were largely interchangable. The only teachers that didn't wear multiple hats were the hard science teachers. Biology, Chemistry, Physics. They all had one teacher dedicated to them and that didn't change. He handled all the courses on that subject directly. First year was just "general" science. I think they were sorting us.

Kinda shows where the priorties are.