Better that we dispense with the on-line phony home schooling. The kind where:
"…here’s your assignment today : housework. You: you walk the neighbors dogs & bring me the money. And when you’re done, ring all the neighbors doorbells to drum up business.
You: your assignment is to walk up and down the street and to look in all the car windows. Report to me if you see anything valuable.
You: You tell me what changes are going on. Whose moving in, whose moving out, who I can sell your labor to. And those game-cards you got at your birthday party? Talk up selling them. Stop the parents getting off of the bus from NY if you have to, but you sell them.
If you sell them all today, I may let you keep 1/3 of the money. Say, you know what 1/3 is? We talked about that yesterday. Now, Sell those Game Cards!
And you. You’re a musician. Here’s you’re cardboard sign and your bucket. You’re dong the PATH trains today, so you better make enough to cover Metro Card, gas, and tolls. I Don’t Care if you’re cold; wear a sweater.
Now, all you boys bring me mah money. Thats your lesson. Now, get out of the house…!"
I’ve always looked at any form of home-schooling with nothing short of disdain. Best to leave these things to the professionals. Just because a parent thinks he or she can teach the kid doesn’t men they can. I think you’ve got to be a little loopy to begin with to try this.
My daughter has been doing video editing, starting at the age of 10, so she is quite familiar with technology… and cannot STAND the one e-book we bought for her. She says the ability to memorize is affected by the medium and that paper is better… and her friend Katie agrees. So we spent another $180 on the Geography textbook.
She loves going to school, gives her life structure and purpose, and while we only hear about the complaints, if you told her she wouldn’t see her friends daily, she would be horrified.
I think having to endure the suckiness of institutional settings during one’s formative years is essential for developing mental toughness in adulthood.
You got a teacher who hates you? Wonderful. Because later in life, it will be a boss who hates you, and your parents won’t be there to make you feel better. You just gotta learn how to deal with it. Just like you have to learn how to deal with the mean girls and boys on the playground and learn how to get over the fear of pooping in the public john and learn how to face the embarrassment of giving a book report in front of the classroom when you didn’t read the whole book.
I don’t believe that things should be needlessly hard, but hard things are valuable. Kids need to experience the full gamut of emotions and stress, and the best way to ensure this happens is to take them away from the comfort bubble of their homes and parents for a significant portion of the day.
It seems to me there’s been a surge in social anxiety among young people. I can’t help but to think it has something to do with the fact that everyone is so busy with “virtual” socializing that they aren’t learning how to deal with the awkardness of “meatspace” social interactions.
My son hates school - and the year we spent homeschooling him was in some ways wonderful for both of us, but he was really excited to get back to school and see people his own age with more regularity.
Homeschooling took him a lot less time - because once you sit down and do it with no distractions, you cover the material really fast - but even though it was far more efficient (for him, it was a ton of work for me), he would rather be in school.
Most posters are still ignoring the potential of VR. Now, I admit that VR still has a long way to go, and there is no guarantee that the potential will ever be totally fulfilled; but it might be.
Assuming that VR becomes good enough and cheap enough, then ALL the objections listed above go away. That’s what I meant earlier, when I referenced Star Trek. I was hoping that people would figure this out on their own, but very few of you did.
Johnny and Susie go into a room in their house that is a dedicated VR (or “telepresence,” to use an older term) room. Voila! They are transported to the “school” without leaving their house. They greet their teacher (a professional, by the way–I don’t understand why anybody would think that that would change); they get their assignments; they watch the teacher write out problems on the board; they talk to their classmates, etc.
To repeat, they ARE IN SCHOOL, without ever leaving their house. Why is this concept so difficult for so many people on this board to understand???
Because it’s never going to happen for the vast majority of children, unless we evolve into a society where most parents get paid competitive salaries to stay at home. It could definitely be an option for home-schoolers. But it’s not like we will ever wake up one day and not have school buildings in our neighborhoods.
And you have still not answered my question. Mrs Piper and I both work outside the home. We cannot leave an 8 year alone in the house from 8 am to 5 pm. If bricks and mortar schools are eliminated in favour of your VR option, one of us would have to give up our job.
It would be even worse for a single parent who works outside the home.
Your flippant comment about the holodeck does not answer this point. Yes, there is a VR teacher there on a holo-screen in the VR room on your scenario.
And what happens when the Cub and his 8 year old classmates all get bored and walk out of the VR room to go play with their toys? The VR teacher can’t reach out and pull them back to the VR room.