[carlob]

> What the hell does that matter?

If you think that homeschooling is fine, but homedoctoring is crazy, then you think that being a teacher is a job that any idiot can do, while being a medical doctor requires a specific set of skills.

I'm not saying that all homeschooling parents are crazy and are doing a horrible job, I'm just saying that people have to study a bunch of stuff before becoming teachers, and even then they work as a team and have different specializations, I highly doubt that most people can do a better job than them on their first shot.

[hawkesnest]

If I can demonstrate that the results of my "crazy" homeschooling is commensurate with (or surpasses) those of public schools, then what difference does it make. Yes, public school teachers have skills. Do those skills apply directly to the homeschool setting? Is there a difference between attempting to teach the one or two or so offspring compared to a classroom of strangers? Are parents incapable of attaining the necessary skills through any means besides university?

If it were reasonable to achieve "doctor" level results of medical care without being a doctor, then I would agree with you. The evidence shows otherwise. If I were getting poor results with my kids, they'd be back in public school.

[jacobolus]

If we spent as much societal resources on elementary education as on healthcare, and schools had teams of intensively trained specialists come in and work with students 1:1 for many hours every week in the area of their expertise, then I would concede your point.

But a single conscientious and patient parent working 1:1 with a child consistently over the course of years is going to beat out a string of generalist teachers managing a 30-student classroom almost every time.

It takes a teacher/class months of overhead at the beginning of each year just to get to know all of the students and figure out what their skills and preparation are. It takes hours of overhead every day coordinating big groups of students, some of whom don’t want to be in a setting that inherently compromises their autonomy and often disrespects them, even in the best case where the teacher is kind and progressive. Feedback on student work is delayed and sometimes mediocre because carefully examining the work of 30 students takes a huge amount of time and effort. Glaring student misconceptions and gaps in basic knowledge and skills are allowed to persist for years. Generally little support is given to help students get over psychological blocks related to particular subjects or activities. Students are frequently cruel to each-other and teachers are often unaware or don’t have the available bandwidth to deal with it.

There is a categorical difference between lecturing to a class of 30 vs. direct tutorial, and the latter is generally much, much easier and more pleasant for both teacher and pupil.

[toasterlovin]

The hard part of being a teacher isn’t teaching the material, it’s managing 20-30 kids. Homeschoolers don’t have to deal with that.