This is an older post, but I wanted to add my thoughts since I recently joined slrpnk.

I work in an elementary school, and while I think homeschooling is a great concept, I also believe it should be paired with regular schooling.

I work with 2nd and 3rd graders, and one of the most important things I see them learning isn’t just academics—it’s social interaction. In the cafeteria, I’ve watched kids handle being excluded, figuring out how to blend in, or learning to stay away from certain situations. In the classroom, they have to navigate being paired with deskmates they might not like or deal with someone who talks too much. These are subtle but incredibly valuable experiences. I’ve noticed that adults who struggle socially often lack these skills. Public school, in my opinion, is an important training ground for navigating social life.

When it comes to academics, I think the foundations provided by schools are solid, but they could be enhanced at home. I wish there was an option where kids could attend school for half the day and then be homeschooled for the other half. That way, they’d get the best of both worlds—social learning from school and personalized education at home.

In my classroom, there are 26 students, one teacher, and me, a teacher’s aide. Even with both of us, it’s tough to give each child the individual attention they need. On top of that, most parents in my area don’t make sure their kids complete homework, even when we reach out to them directly. Homework often goes undone.

So, I think a combination of homeschooling and traditional schooling could be a great solution. But the key is parental involvement, which is sorely lacking these days.

We have used an online school since COVID and it has resulted in flexibility, open mindedness, continuity, and opportunities that were not possible in other schools. We’ve seen our kids are above the fray on the playground, and better capable of resolving conflict. They are natural leaders. The school is platform agnostic, so the kids have an iPad and a Debian laptop and go to work.

Public schools: There is no Mandarin locally. The teachers locally are underpaid due to the political system, and it resulted in a brain drain of teachers. The local school board is in a culture war, and spends whatever money they have to fund studies on why books need to be banned. The other private schools are all Christian and still hit their kids as punishment. None of that.

• Francisco Ferrer, The origin and ideals of the Modern School
• Robert H. Haworth at PM Press
  • ed. Mark Bray and Robert H. Haworth, Anarchist Education and the Modern School: A Francisco Ferrer Reader
  • ed. Robert H. Haworth and John M. Elmore, Out of the Ruins: The Emergence of Radical Informal Learning Spaces
  • ed. Robert H. Haworth, Anarchist Pedagogies: Collective Actions, Theories, and Critical Reflections on Education
• Akilah S. Richards, Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work
• Judith Suissa, Anarchism and Education: A Philosophical Perspective