Strange habits you have

[zachary_amaryllis]

I guess I'm the strange one here because I wash everything if it's worn for more than a few hours, let alone the most of a day. I might wear jeans a second time if it was just for a few hours and if it was cool outside, or if I went to a public place (wash it anyway).

I also do this. I am really, really, really paranoid about smelling bad so I won't ever wear something twice without watching it, almost no matter what.  Because of this I also shower for an absurdly long time, scrub myself totally down after I get out as well, and I carry a stick of deodorant with me at all times, usually during the summer I'll apply it like three times in a day while I'm out. If I even feel just a little bit sweaty I also physically distance myself from people. Maybe I'm irrational but I'd rather have the peace of mind of knowing almost for sure I don't stink and I'm not bothering other people with it.

i can appreciate this. i'm a large fella, and my tolerance for heat is very low (i feel hot if its over like 72) so i sweat a LOT.

[texaskdog]

I guess I'm the strange one here because I wash everything if it's worn for more than a few hours, let alone the most of a day. I might wear jeans a second time if it was just for a few hours and if it was cool outside, or if I went to a public place (wash it anyway).

I also do this. I am really, really, really paranoid about smelling bad so I won't ever wear something twice without watching it, almost no matter what.  Because of this I also shower for an absurdly long time, scrub myself totally down after I get out as well, and I carry a stick of deodorant with me at all times, usually during the summer I'll apply it like three times in a day while I'm out. If I even feel just a little bit sweaty I also physically distance myself from people. Maybe I'm irrational but I'd rather have the peace of mind of knowing almost for sure I don't stink and I'm not bothering other people with it.

"I didn't wash today. I wasn't dirty. If I'm not dirty, I don't wash. Some weeks I don't have to shower at all. I just groom my three basic areas: teeth, hair, and @$$hole. And to save time, I use the same brush."

― George Carlin, Brain Droppings

[Roadgeekteen]

He's (still is?...not sure) homeschooled; that's a major chunk of social skills, verbal/visual cues, and social graces missing from one's life. Family can be very forgiving towards, accustomed to, or unaware of social miscues and behaviors, so not "getting things" also isn't terribly surprising.

Sorry to jump in here, but my wife home-schools our children, and some of my best friends were home-schooled.  You seem to be assuming that home-schooled children don't interact with anyone but their families, and that's simply not true in my experience.  Between non-school sports, church activities, family friends and extended family members, and citywide home-school associations–home-schooled children are likely to have quite a bit more interaction with "the outside world" than you might imagine.

Don't ruin my stereotype

I would hate homeschooling.

[Rothman]

He's (still is?...not sure) homeschooled; that's a major chunk of social skills, verbal/visual cues, and social graces missing from one's life. Family can be very forgiving towards, accustomed to, or unaware of social miscues and behaviors, so not "getting things" also isn't terribly surprising.

Sorry to jump in here, but my wife home-schools our children, and some of my best friends were home-schooled.  You seem to be assuming that home-schooled children don't interact with anyone but their families, and that's simply not true in my experience.  Between non-school sports, church activities, family friends and extended family members, and citywide home-school associations–home-schooled children are likely to have quite a bit more interaction with "the outside world" than you might imagine.

Don't ruin my stereotype

I would hate homeschooling.

It's a mixed bag.  I've known great homeschoolers and those that have been so horrible that friends were considering calling CPS (the thin gray line between unschooling and outright neglect).

Sort of like our public education system:  You've got good schools and bad schools...

[Roadgeekteen]

He's (still is?...not sure) homeschooled; that's a major chunk of social skills, verbal/visual cues, and social graces missing from one's life. Family can be very forgiving towards, accustomed to, or unaware of social miscues and behaviors, so not "getting things" also isn't terribly surprising.

Sorry to jump in here, but my wife home-schools our children, and some of my best friends were home-schooled.  You seem to be assuming that home-schooled children don't interact with anyone but their families, and that's simply not true in my experience.  Between non-school sports, church activities, family friends and extended family members, and citywide home-school associations–home-schooled children are likely to have quite a bit more interaction with "the outside world" than you might imagine.

Don't ruin my stereotype

I would hate homeschooling.

It's a mixed bag.  I've known great homeschoolers and those that have been so horrible that friends were considering calling CPS (the thin gray line between unschooling and outright neglect).

Sort of like our public education system:  You've got good schools and bad schools...

Homeschooling allows nuts to teach their kids pseudo science and other fake education.

[texaskdog]

He's (still is?...not sure) homeschooled; that's a major chunk of social skills, verbal/visual cues, and social graces missing from one's life. Family can be very forgiving towards, accustomed to, or unaware of social miscues and behaviors, so not "getting things" also isn't terribly surprising.

Sorry to jump in here, but my wife home-schools our children, and some of my best friends were home-schooled.  You seem to be assuming that home-schooled children don't interact with anyone but their families, and that's simply not true in my experience.  Between non-school sports, church activities, family friends and extended family members, and citywide home-school associations–home-schooled children are likely to have quite a bit more interaction with "the outside world" than you might imagine.

Don't ruin my stereotype

I would hate homeschooling.

It's a mixed bag.  I've known great homeschoolers and those that have been so horrible that friends were considering calling CPS (the thin gray line between unschooling and outright neglect).

Sort of like our public education system:  You've got good schools and bad schools...

Homeschooling allows nuts to teach their kids pseudo science and other fake education.

As opposed to the ones who do it at public schools?

[CoreySamson]

Pseudo science? Fake education? I mean, I don't doubt that a tiny minority of parents teach stuff wrong, but the majority teach things right. Take me for an example. I scored a 1440 on my PSAT and a 1500 on my SAT (on a day when I was overly stressed about a drinking water crisis in my community, nonetheless), and I'm homeschooled. I believe John Stossel had a video recently about homeschooling during the pandemic, and students found learning via homeschool much more intuitive than learning at public school, because their parents could give them the attention they needed.

As for social skills, I'm not as awkward as you may think. I lead worship about every other week in my church youth group and play piano in my church's main service. I referee soccer games during the shoulder seasons where I have to be decisive and deal with coaches, players, and parents. I even once preached a 5-minute sermon in my youth group one night. Am I kinda awkward in certain scenarios? Yes. Do I struggle with certain subjects? Yes. But do I regret not going to public or private school for learning social connections or improving on my weaker subjects? No.

[texaskdog]

We're learning a new system at work.  The only training that works for me is one on one with my supervisor.  While I would have preferred to be home I was treated like trash by the kids in school and really only learned social skills after I turned 18, and joined Toastmasters at 25.  And at home kids get all the oxygen they need.

[Scott5114]

I think of my parents as both being reasonably bright individuals, and they did a fantastic job at teaching me when I was younger (I went to kindergarten already knowing how to read and write), but as I got older they struggled to understand what was being taught to me in school, simply because it wasn't part of the curriculum in the 1960s and 70s when they went to school. (My mom was incredibly enthusiastic about helping me with math homework, to the point she was willing to outright do parts of it for me, just because she wanted to learn it herself.)

That experience gives me pause when I think of the competency of the average adult to do an acceptable job of homeschooling. I don't doubt that it's possible to get good results from, but I don't know if the majority of parents should be trusted to do it capably, especially when a bunch of people with actual teaching certificates fail at it with such regularity.

[Roadgeekteen]

Pseudo science? Fake education? I mean, I don't doubt that a tiny minority of parents teach stuff wrong, but the majority teach things right. Take me for an example. I scored a 1440 on my PSAT and a 1500 on my SAT (on a day when I was overly stressed about a drinking water crisis in my community, nonetheless), and I'm homeschooled. I believe John Stossel had a video recently about homeschooling during the pandemic, and students found learning via homeschool much more intuitive than learning at public school, because their parents could give them the attention they needed.

As for social skills, I'm not as awkward as you may think. I lead worship about every other week in my church youth group and play piano in my church's main service. I referee soccer games during the shoulder seasons where I have to be decisive and deal with coaches, players, and parents. I even once preached a 5-minute sermon in my youth group one night. Am I kinda awkward in certain scenarios? Yes. Do I struggle with certain subjects? Yes. But do I regret not going to public or private school for learning social connections or improving on my weaker subjects? No.

Homeschooling should have strict requirements to make sure that the curriculum is worthy.

[texaskdog]

Pseudo science? Fake education? I mean, I don't doubt that a tiny minority of parents teach stuff wrong, but the majority teach things right. Take me for an example. I scored a 1440 on my PSAT and a 1500 on my SAT (on a day when I was overly stressed about a drinking water crisis in my community, nonetheless), and I'm homeschooled. I believe John Stossel had a video recently about homeschooling during the pandemic, and students found learning via homeschool much more intuitive than learning at public school, because their parents could give them the attention they needed.

As for social skills, I'm not as awkward as you may think. I lead worship about every other week in my church youth group and play piano in my church's main service. I referee soccer games during the shoulder seasons where I have to be decisive and deal with coaches, players, and parents. I even once preached a 5-minute sermon in my youth group one night. Am I kinda awkward in certain scenarios? Yes. Do I struggle with certain subjects? Yes. But do I regret not going to public or private school for learning social connections or improving on my weaker subjects? No.

Homeschooling should have strict requirements to make sure that the curriculum is worthy.

Therein lies the problem

[Roadgeekteen]

I think of my parents as both being reasonably bright individuals, and they did a fantastic job at teaching me when I was younger (I went to kindergarten already knowing how to read and write), but as I got older they struggled to understand what was being taught to me in school, simply because it wasn't part of the curriculum in the 1960s and 70s when they went to school. (My mom was incredibly enthusiastic about helping me with math homework, to the point she was willing to outright do parts of it for me, just because she wanted to learn it herself.)

That experience gives me pause when I think of the competency of the average adult to do an acceptable job of homeschooling. I don't doubt that it's possible to get good results from, but I don't know if the majority of parents should be trusted to do it capably, especially when a bunch of people with actual teaching certificates fail at it with such regularity.

Homeschooling doesn't really work well for high school.

[CoreySamson]

Homeschooling doesn't really work well for high school.

Says who? I'm homeschooled in high school and I'd say it works really well.

[webny99]

Homeschooling doesn't really work well for high school.

Says who? I'm homeschooled in high school and I'd say it works really well.

Homeschooled as in Zoom, or actually taught by a parent or tutor?

It also depends heavily on the student and teacher. It works better for some kids than others, and it can be complicated if a parent is the teacher for some of the reasons mentioned upthread.

[Roadgeekteen]

Homeschooling doesn't really work well for high school.

Says who? I'm homeschooled in high school and I'd say it works really well.

Who homeschools you? What education do they have?

[CoreySamson]

Homeschooling doesn't really work well for high school.

Says who? I'm homeschooled in high school and I'd say it works really well.

Homeschooled as in Zoom, or actually taught by a parent or tutor?

It also depends heavily on the student and teacher. It works better for some kids than others, and it can be complicated if a parent is the teacher for some of the reasons mentioned upthread.

Honestly, I'm 10% taught by my mom, 90% self-taught. Of course, a lot of that self-taught stuff is reading books. This year, I had Hamlet, Crime and Punishment, Three Men in a Boat, Sherlock Holmes, Paradise Lost, Beowulf, the Iliad, and Wuthering Heights, among tons of others. I also read tons of other books and novels in previous grades with my curriculum. And as I mentioned upthread, I scored a 1500 on my SAT (out of 1600, aka 99th percentile), so my math and writing skills are also competent.

I agree that homeschooling is not for everyone. Some people don't have the time (or the money), and it doesn't really work if the student is not used to doing their own work without having a teacher guide them.

[texaskdog]

While I think education is important, the school system sorely lacks things they need to be teaching.  Public Speaking, budgeting, fixing a car, applying for jobs, etc.  People rip on watching TV but I watch a lot of things that educate and read a lot of books.  I choose to learn and learned little in school.

[Rothman]

Homeschooling doesn't really work well for high school.

Says who? I'm homeschooled in high school and I'd say it works really well.

Homeschooled as in Zoom, or actually taught by a parent or tutor?

It also depends heavily on the student and teacher. It works better for some kids than others, and it can be complicated if a parent is the teacher for some of the reasons mentioned upthread.

Honestly, I'm 10% taught by my mom, 90% self-taught. Of course, a lot of that self-taught stuff is reading books. This year, I had Hamlet, Crime and Punishment, Three Men in a Boat, Sherlock Holmes, Paradise Lost, Beowulf, the Iliad, and Wuthering Heights, among tons of others. I also read tons of other books and novels in previous grades with my curriculum. And as I mentioned upthread, I scored a 1500 on my SAT (out of 1600, aka 99th percentile), so my math and writing skills are also competent.

I agree that homeschooling is not for everyone. Some people don't have the time (or the money), and it doesn't really work if the student is not used to doing their own work without having a teacher guide them.

Glad you learned how to take tests.  It'll help you with the GED.

[Roadgeekteen]

Homeschooling doesn't really work well for high school.

Says who? I'm homeschooled in high school and I'd say it works really well.

Homeschooled as in Zoom, or actually taught by a parent or tutor?

It also depends heavily on the student and teacher. It works better for some kids than others, and it can be complicated if a parent is the teacher for some of the reasons mentioned upthread.

Honestly, I'm 10% taught by my mom, 90% self-taught. Of course, a lot of that self-taught stuff is reading books. This year, I had Hamlet, Crime and Punishment, Three Men in a Boat, Sherlock Holmes, Paradise Lost, Beowulf, the Iliad, and Wuthering Heights, among tons of others. I also read tons of other books and novels in previous grades with my curriculum. And as I mentioned upthread, I scored a 1500 on my SAT (out of 1600, aka 99th percentile), so my math and writing skills are also competent.

I agree that homeschooling is not for everyone. Some people don't have the time (or the money), and it doesn't really work if the student is not used to doing their own work without having a teacher guide them.

Glad you learned how to take tests.  It'll help you with the GED.

Do homeschooled kids need to take the GED test?

[kkt]

Homeschooling varies from place to place and kid to kid.  There are indeed some parents who homeschool their kids so they don't learn about s*x or ev*l*tion, but there are a lot of other parents who just do a better job than the schools can. 

Some middle and high schools allow parents to homeschool in some subjects and still send their kid to school for others - if you have a parent with a math or science degree, they'll probably do a better job of teaching math than some schools, but they can still send them to school for subjects that need particular facilities - science where there are labs, or art where there's a ceramics wheel and kiln, or drama where there are other students to perform with. 

Parents can buy books and kits and follow their lessons if they want, or use them as a starting point.  Some homeschoolers get together with other homeschoolers and hire a teacher for certain subjects, so with a small class and hand selected teacher they can do better.  I've been some homeschooled kids with educated, dedicated parents come out of it far better off than public school students because their parent knows what they're capable of and when they're goofing off.

[jakeroot]

While I think education is important, the school system sorely lacks things they need to be teaching.  Public Speaking, budgeting, fixing a car, applying for jobs, etc.  People rip on watching TV but I watch a lot of things that educate and read a lot of books.  I choose to learn and learned little in school.

To me, those are not things schools should be teaching. Parents, in between working themselves, should be teaching those skills to their children. I should not be sent off at 18, 19, etc with no concept of budgeting just because I didn't take "BUDG 101".

The last one is a bit troubling, especially: schools should be about providing the knowledge and skills necessary to maintain and succeed at a job, not apply for a job.

[CoreySamson]

Do homeschooled kids need to take the GED test?

No.

https://www.khanacademy.org/college-careers-more/college-admissions/applying-to-college/applying-as-a-homeschooler/a/whats-different-about-applying-to-college-as-a-homeschooler

[Rothman]

Do homeschooled kids need to take the GED test?

No.

https://www.khanacademy.org/college-careers-more/college-admissions/applying-to-college/applying-as-a-homeschooler/a/whats-different-about-applying-to-college-as-a-homeschooler

Interesting link.  Wonder if the statements said are truly supported.  I can see a decent number of certain institutions that would be open to a handmade transcript from homeschooling (e.g., the likes of Hampshire College or Evergreen State), but I'd also see others raising an eyebrow at them and wanting formalization of the education.

[Roadgeekteen]

Homeschooling varies from place to place and kid to kid.  There are indeed some parents who homeschool their kids so they don't learn about s*x or ev*l*tion, but there are a lot of other parents who just do a better job than the schools can. 

Some middle and high schools allow parents to homeschool in some subjects and still send their kid to school for others - if you have a parent with a math or science degree, they'll probably do a better job of teaching math than some schools, but they can still send them to school for subjects that need particular facilities - science where there are labs, or art where there's a ceramics wheel and kiln, or drama where there are other students to perform with. 

Parents can buy books and kits and follow their lessons if they want, or use them as a starting point.  Some homeschoolers get together with other homeschoolers and hire a teacher for certain subjects, so with a small class and hand selected teacher they can do better.  I've been some homeschooled kids with educated, dedicated parents come out of it far better off than public school students because their parent knows what they're capable of and when they're goofing off.

I do think some kids do do better with homeschooling.

[Scott5114]

While I think education is important, the school system sorely lacks things they need to be teaching.  Public Speaking, budgeting, fixing a car, applying for jobs, etc.  People rip on watching TV but I watch a lot of things that educate and read a lot of books.  I choose to learn and learned little in school.

To me, those are not things schools should be teaching. Parents, in between working themselves, should be teaching those skills to their children. I should not be sent off at 18, 19, etc with no concept of budgeting just because I didn't take "BUDG 101".

The last one is a bit troubling, especially: schools should be about providing the knowledge and skills necessary to maintain and succeed at a job, not apply for a job.

Back in the day basic skills like home finance were part of home ec classes. Mine didn't really cover it–they mostly taught cooking, sewing, and abstinence-only sex ed.

I think a basic financial literacy class would probably serve the public better than one of the advanced calculus or trig classes. Cut one of those and make Finance mandatory to graduate instead. But of course it serves the big corporations better if nobody knows how interest works or how to avoid going into debt, so that's the real reason we don't teach that in school.

Applying for a job would be a kind of pointless class to teach. You can teach basic resume-writing skills as part of an English class, but the actual procedure for applying for jobs varies so much from company to company, and any more you don't even get an interview without your resume and/or cover letter scoring highly on whatever sort of algorithm the company uses to "grade" resumes. There's no good way to teach any of that.