IG_Semmelweiss 4 hours ago | next |

From the article:

>>>> struggling to put away their laptops when asked

"One of my principles generally is look at what rich people are doing and see whether or not they know what they're doing and that could be more broadly learned. And, you do see this sport red shirt, "academic" red shirting. So, it's for academic reasons, not athletic reasons, but this is relatively common in upper middle class circles. (parents will have their kids restart the grade, voluntarily). And, indeed some private schools do it almost by default. They have a second year of pre-K [pre-Kindergarten]. And that second year of pre-K skews very male".[1]

Rich men like Bill Gates and famously severely restricted access to computers to their kids [2]. Members of the "All In" podcast, including FB exec Palihapitiya do not allow any screen time [3]

COVID turbocharged negative trends, but maybe our leaders could look at what people with resources are doing, then help our kids with simple solutions: Start by taking computers back, away from 6-8 year olds.

[1] Richard Reeves: Author "of Boys and Men" (how boys are completely falling behind)

[2] https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/why-steve-jobs-bill-gat...

[3] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/social-capital-ceo-chamath-pali...

johnea 2 hours ago | root | parent |

I'm not sure if emulating the wealthy is really a path to success for a broad swatch of American children, but I do agree that there is more at play here than the pandemic.

Children who hadn't even started school yet are still impacted.

While the years of missed classroom learning have definitely had a huge impact, the prolonged and unrelenting nature of the downturn in academic progress points to something more persistent.

I think we have to blame "phones" and computer time at a young age for a lot of these problems...

VyseofArcadia 4 hours ago | prev | next |

If we are attributing these results to the the mass homeschooling experiment that was remote learning, what does that say about regular homeschooling that is still practiced?

derstander 4 hours ago | root | parent | next |

> If we are attributing these results to the the mass homeschooling experiment that was remote learning, what does that say about regular homeschooling that is still practiced?

Probably not much? It seems pretty reasonable to expect that people that self-select to homeschool their children are going to diverge from the general population (I.e., people en masse that had no desire nor means to do it).

The story’s probably much the same for people working from home. People that sought it out and had established routines before the pandemic probably handled it a heck of a lot better than the general population that was forced into it with little to no prep time and a lack of equipment and support.

w1 4 hours ago | root | parent |

>> people that self-select to homeschool their children are going to diverge from the general population

Yes, but not necessarily in a way that is correlated with higher educational performance for their children.

Asraelite an hour ago | root | parent |

True, but it's not necessarily not correlated either. So the answer to the question

> what does that say about regular homeschooling that is still practiced?

is still "not much".

EForEndeavour 4 hours ago | root | parent | prev | next |

I would say not much, given regular homeschooling is an intentional choice that self-selects families willing to put in the research and effort to homeschool.

apothegm 4 hours ago | root | parent |

It self-selects some of those families. It also self-selects a lot of families who are paranoid about secular education or fail to understand the value of education at all or of having teachers who know their subjects well and are trained in educational theory and teaching methods.

Probably the homeschoolers on this site largely fall into the former category. The stories you hear from a broader cross section online of home-schooled kids skew heavily toward the latter.

w1 4 hours ago | root | parent | prev |

speaking from the sample size of all the other kids i knew in homeschooling groups, the modal outcome (for my 90s / early aughts cohort) is bad.

lynx23 4 hours ago | prev | next |

So, the learn from home data is starting to roll in. I wonder what excuses the WFH-is-my-god-given-right crew is going to come up with. Fact is, remote is not for everyone. There might be people that like it, for one reason or another. But thats not helpful for the rest that is left behind.

Freedom2 an hour ago | prev | next |

Academically, maybe, but what about spiritually and engaging with piety? Those are core fundamentals of the American public, ones that we deliberately want to promote and encourage in our youth. Can the rest of the world say that they follow our freedoms as much as we do?