Homeschooling: Your Views, Please

[Luissa]

Meh.



Obviously there are always exceptions: Some kids will do very well under ANY circumstances.



I'm pretty familiar with almost every aspect of Texas and Colorado public schools as an administrator, teacher, father, husband-of-teacher, and of course having attended them in Hawaii, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Virginia, and Texas.



They are PUBLIC schools, meaning that the exposure is to quite a wide range of people, many of whom you would not choose to encounter otherwise: And I'm only talking about the teachers!



The common denominator for educational success is not really the quality of the school, but a family's commitment to learning. You can take a Vietnamese (or Polish, or Indian or Haitian or Mexican or Nigerian) kid right off the boat, throw him into any school in the USA, and he WILL SUCCEED despite the odds, not because the teachers were either unionized or not, or paid more or less, or the equipment included the best technology had to offer, or because ACT scores were higher, or because most other students were the same race, but because the kid wanted to please his parents, and the parents valued learning. If you accomplish this, then your kid will learn at home, at public school, or in a tin shack.

So we don't need teachers in your view



tapatalk post

By "we" I assume you mean the both of us.



No, I don't think any teacher could really help you much.

They obviously tried and failed.


Thanked by Rat in the Hat

 

[Pogo]

You know what I consider trolling? More than one post aimed at making someone change their style of posting to suit you.

Then maybe you should have read where TheNutHouse started this shit before putting your foot in your mouth.

Most Noble profession???? Even more so then laying down your life for your freedom???? Oh yea I forget I am talking to a progressive, they hates soldiers

Absolutely they are. Why, think what you could have become had you been exposed to one. As it is you're condemned to tapatalk trolling in between ringing up packs of cigarettes at a convenience store. Be proud. And when you're done ringing up that bag of Twinkies, bite my ass.

No they are not the most noble of professions. Too ******* bad for you I honestly think Soldiers and police officers and EMTs and fire fighter and several more professions to be more noble.

Once again, what you think can bite my ass. What you tried to do is re-engineer what *I* think. Bringing in other professions, into my quote, completely off the topic? Who the **** do you think you are, little man?

So yes you absolutely ARE into the whole fascist thing. That's why your ironic confession flies in my sig line. With a link for all to see your idiocy. Trust me, the day when you get to dictate what other people think is the day pigs fly over frozen Hades.

 

[Esmeralda]

You know what I consider trolling? More than one post aimed at making someone change their style of posting to suit you.

Then maybe you should have read where TheNutHouse started this shit before putting your foot in your mouth.

Absolutely they are. Why, think what you could have become had you been exposed to one. As it is you're condemned to tapatalk trolling in between ringing up packs of cigarettes at a convenience store. Be proud. And when you're done ringing up that bag of Twinkies, bite my ass.

No they are not the most noble of professions. Too ******* bad for you I honestly think Soldiers and police officers and EMTs and fire fighter and several more professions to be more noble.

Once again, what you think can bite my ass. What you tried to do is re-engineer what *I* think. Bringing in other professions, into my quote, completely off the topic? Who the **** do you think you are, little man?

So yes you absolutely ARE into the whole fascist thing. That's why your ironic confession flies in my sig line. With a link for all to see your idiocy. Trust me, the day when you get to dictate what other people think is the day pigs fly over frozen Hades.

There is one difference between home schooling and regular school which I'm not sure has been addressed; I've not read every post in the entire thread.

When you have more than one student involved in a learning situation, you have more than one brain and more than one perspective. Hearing and understanding what others think and how others perceive things, having dialogue with others on any issue, etc., is also part of the learning process. In a situation where you have only one student and a teacher/parent, your dialogue is very limited. In the classroom, students have an immeasurable amount of intellectual interaction with others; this enriches the learning process no end. IMO this is a hugely important issue and suggests to me that the multiple student classroom is far more appropriate for leaning than a single parent/teacher learning environment. One of the most significant ways of developing the mind and acquiring knowledge is collaborative learning, i.e., group work. You don't get that at home with just mom. As well, one of the best ways of learning is teaching, and in group work situations, the stronger students tend to become 'teachers,' which deepens their own understanding of what they are studying. Weaker students become more involved in their learning instead of being passive learners. It's a win, win, win situation which you don't, as I said, get in a one to one learning situation.

 

[Pogo]

You know what I consider trolling? More than one post aimed at making someone change their style of posting to suit you.

Then maybe you should have read where TheNutHouse started this shit before putting your foot in your mouth.

No they are not the most noble of professions. Too ******* bad for you I honestly think Soldiers and police officers and EMTs and fire fighter and several more professions to be more noble.

Once again, what you think can bite my ass. What you tried to do is re-engineer what *I* think. Bringing in other professions, into my quote, completely off the topic? Who the **** do you think you are, little man?

So yes you absolutely ARE into the whole fascist thing. That's why your ironic confession flies in my sig line. With a link for all to see your idiocy. Trust me, the day when you get to dictate what other people think is the day pigs fly over frozen Hades.

There is one difference between home schooling and regular school which I'm not sure has been addressed; I've not read every post in the entire thread.

When you have more than one student involved in a learning situation, you have more than one brain and more than one perspective. Hearing and understanding what others think and how others perceive things, having dialogue with others on any issue, etc., is also part of the learning process. In a situation where you have only one student and a teacher/parent, your dialogue is very limited. In the classroom, students have an immeasurable amount of intellectual interaction with others; this enriches the learning process no end. IMO this is a hugely important issue and suggests to me that the multiple student classroom is far more appropriate for leaning than a single parent/teacher learning environment. One of the most significant ways of developing the mind and acquiring knowledge is collaborative learning, i.e., group work. You don't get that at home with just mom.

Excellent point. I don't think that's been brought up but it's astute, and a powerful argument.

 

[Samson]

You know what I consider trolling? More than one post aimed at making someone change their style of posting to suit you.

Then maybe you should have read where TheNutHouse started this shit before putting your foot in your mouth.

No they are not the most noble of professions. Too ******* bad for you I honestly think Soldiers and police officers and EMTs and fire fighter and several more professions to be more noble.

Once again, what you think can bite my ass. What you tried to do is re-engineer what *I* think. Bringing in other professions, into my quote, completely off the topic? Who the **** do you think you are, little man?

So yes you absolutely ARE into the whole fascist thing. That's why your ironic confession flies in my sig line. With a link for all to see your idiocy. Trust me, the day when you get to dictate what other people think is the day pigs fly over frozen Hades.

There is one difference between home schooling and regular school which I'm not sure has been addressed; I've not read every post in the entire thread.

When you have more than one student involved in a learning situation, you have more than one brain and more than one perspective. Hearing and understanding what others think and how others perceive things, having dialogue with others on any issue, etc., is also part of the learning process. In a situation where you have only one student and a teacher/parent, your dialogue is very limited. In the classroom, students have an immeasurable amount of intellectual interaction with others; this enriches the learning process no end. IMO this is a hugely important issue and suggests to me that the multiple student classroom is far more appropriate for leaning than a single parent/teacher learning environment. One of the most significant ways of developing the mind and acquiring knowledge is collaborative learning, i.e., group work. You don't get that at home with just mom. As well, one of the best ways of learning is teaching, and in group work situations, the stronger students tend to become 'teachers,' which deepens their own understanding of what they are studying. Weaker students become more involved in their learning instead of being passive learners. It's a win, win, win situation which you don't, as I said, get in a one to one learning situation.

You would be correct.....If it was 1994 instead of 2014.

See there's something now called "the internet:" This allows interaction with others on a scale you may not be able to conceive.

Go to your library. They probably have a book about the "World Wide Web" that will explain the subject better.

 

[Dealreal38]

I was home schooled just make sure you stay active and compete

 

[Pogo]

Then maybe you should have read where TheNutHouse started this shit before putting your foot in your mouth.



Once again, what you think can bite my ass. What you tried to do is re-engineer what *I* think. Bringing in other professions, into my quote, completely off the topic? Who the **** do you think you are, little man?

So yes you absolutely ARE into the whole fascist thing. That's why your ironic confession flies in my sig line. With a link for all to see your idiocy. Trust me, the day when you get to dictate what other people think is the day pigs fly over frozen Hades.

There is one difference between home schooling and regular school which I'm not sure has been addressed; I've not read every post in the entire thread.

When you have more than one student involved in a learning situation, you have more than one brain and more than one perspective. Hearing and understanding what others think and how others perceive things, having dialogue with others on any issue, etc., is also part of the learning process. In a situation where you have only one student and a teacher/parent, your dialogue is very limited. In the classroom, students have an immeasurable amount of intellectual interaction with others; this enriches the learning process no end. IMO this is a hugely important issue and suggests to me that the multiple student classroom is far more appropriate for leaning than a single parent/teacher learning environment. One of the most significant ways of developing the mind and acquiring knowledge is collaborative learning, i.e., group work. You don't get that at home with just mom. As well, one of the best ways of learning is teaching, and in group work situations, the stronger students tend to become 'teachers,' which deepens their own understanding of what they are studying. Weaker students become more involved in their learning instead of being passive learners. It's a win, win, win situation which you don't, as I said, get in a one to one learning situation.

You would be correct.....If it was 1994 instead of 2014.

See there's something now called "the internet:" This allows interaction with others on a scale you may not be able to conceive.

Go to your library. They probably have a book about the "World Wide Web" that will explain the subject better.

You actually think cyberinteraction even compares with personal one-on-one? Not even close.

For just one aspect -- you know why the Amish don't use telephones? Because it takes away the visual cues of face-to-face communication. You don't have to be on a site like this for half a day to see that (a) interactions are approached in radically different ways, and (b) those interactions are (here) selective in a way they cannot be in real life. So sorry, I find this comparison absurd.

 

[P@triot]

Then maybe you should have read where TheNutHouse started this shit before putting your foot in your mouth.

Once again, what you think can bite my ass. What you tried to do is re-engineer what *I* think. Bringing in other professions, into my quote, completely off the topic? Who the **** do you think you are, little man?

So yes you absolutely ARE into the whole fascist thing. That's why your ironic confession flies in my sig line. With a link for all to see your idiocy. Trust me, the day when you get to dictate what other people think is the day pigs fly over frozen Hades.

There is one difference between home schooling and regular school which I'm not sure has been addressed; I've not read every post in the entire thread.

When you have more than one student involved in a learning situation, you have more than one brain and more than one perspective. Hearing and understanding what others think and how others perceive things, having dialogue with others on any issue, etc., is also part of the learning process. In a situation where you have only one student and a teacher/parent, your dialogue is very limited. In the classroom, students have an immeasurable amount of intellectual interaction with others; this enriches the learning process no end. IMO this is a hugely important issue and suggests to me that the multiple student classroom is far more appropriate for leaning than a single parent/teacher learning environment. One of the most significant ways of developing the mind and acquiring knowledge is collaborative learning, i.e., group work. You don't get that at home with just mom. As well, one of the best ways of learning is teaching, and in group work situations, the stronger students tend to become 'teachers,' which deepens their own understanding of what they are studying. Weaker students become more involved in their learning instead of being passive learners. It's a win, win, win situation which you don't, as I said, get in a one to one learning situation.

You would be correct.....If it was 1994 instead of 2014.

See there's something now called "the internet:" This allows interaction with others on a scale you may not be able to conceive.

Go to your library. They probably have a book about the "World Wide Web" that will explain the subject better.

Actually, she/he wouldn't be correct in 1994 either. It's utterly absurd to state that "learning" improves because of the views of an 8 year old (who know almost nothing about the world and how it actually works).

What he/she is actually talking about is her/his of indoctrination while trying to mask it as "learning". Liberals love the mob-mentality and they fear losing that if children are homeschooled.

 

[P@triot]

There is one difference between home schooling and regular school which I'm not sure has been addressed; I've not read every post in the entire thread.

When you have more than one student involved in a learning situation, you have more than one brain and more than one perspective. Hearing and understanding what others think and how others perceive things, having dialogue with others on any issue, etc., is also part of the learning process. In a situation where you have only one student and a teacher/parent, your dialogue is very limited. In the classroom, students have an immeasurable amount of intellectual interaction with others; this enriches the learning process no end. IMO this is a hugely important issue and suggests to me that the multiple student classroom is far more appropriate for leaning than a single parent/teacher learning environment. One of the most significant ways of developing the mind and acquiring knowledge is collaborative learning, i.e., group work. You don't get that at home with just mom. As well, one of the best ways of learning is teaching, and in group work situations, the stronger students tend to become 'teachers,' which deepens their own understanding of what they are studying. Weaker students become more involved in their learning instead of being passive learners. It's a win, win, win situation which you don't, as I said, get in a one to one learning situation.

You would be correct.....If it was 1994 instead of 2014.

See there's something now called "the internet:" This allows interaction with others on a scale you may not be able to conceive.

Go to your library. They probably have a book about the "World Wide Web" that will explain the subject better.

You actually think cyberinteraction even compares with personal one-on-one? Not even close.

For just one aspect -- you know why the Amish don't use telephones? Because it takes away the visual cues of face-to-face communication. You don't have to be on a site like this for half a day to see that (a) interactions are approached in radically different ways, and (b) those interactions are (here) selective in a way they cannot be in real life. So sorry, I find this comparison absurd.

Pogo - your entire point here doesn't hold up. First of all, webcams are a major part of technology today. All online learning (or, most anyway) includes webcams so that the instructor and the students can see each other.

Second, the data shows that homeschooled children actually do exponentially better socially than public school children. Just look at the data...

“A recent study shows that homeschooled kids score almost twice as high on exams as public school students. Other studies show that homeschooled kids score 72 points higher than the national average on SAT exams.(15)

Homeschoolers are more likely to attend college, are more likely to graduate, and have higher college GPAs (Grade Point Averages) than other students.(16)

The old wives’ tale spread by the teachers’ unions (who are afraid of competition) is that homeschoolers are not “socialized.” Well, the facts are in. Homeschoolers are almost twice as involved in their local community or church as public school students, and almost three times as involved in politics.(17)

Homeschooled children also have far fewer behavioral problems.”(18)

Excerpt From: Wayne Allyn Root. “The Ultimate Obama Survival Guide.” Regnery Publishing, 2013-03-26. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.

Check out this book on the iBooks Store: The Ultimate Obama Survival Guide

Citations:
(15) Do Homeschool Kids Really Rate Better on Standardized Tests?

(16) 15 Key Facts About Homeschooled Kids in College - OnlineCollege.org

(17) Homeschool World - Articles - The Facts Are In: Homeschoolers Excel - Practical Homeschooling Magazine

(18) HSLDA | Socialization: Homeschoolers Are in the Real World

 

[Pogo]

You would be correct.....If it was 1994 instead of 2014.

See there's something now called "the internet:" This allows interaction with others on a scale you may not be able to conceive.

Go to your library. They probably have a book about the "World Wide Web" that will explain the subject better.

You actually think cyberinteraction even compares with personal one-on-one? Not even close.

For just one aspect -- you know why the Amish don't use telephones? Because it takes away the visual cues of face-to-face communication. You don't have to be on a site like this for half a day to see that (a) interactions are approached in radically different ways, and (b) those interactions are (here) selective in a way they cannot be in real life. So sorry, I find this comparison absurd.

Pogo - your entire point here doesn't hold up. First of all, webcams are a major part of technology today. All online learning (or, most anyway) includes webcams so that the instructor and the students can see each other.

I'm only addressing "virtual socialization" here, if we want to call it that -- the idea that cyber-interaction is the same thing as reality interaction. The rest of your post seems to be about home schooling analyses, which is a separate issue.

Whether webcams are common is irrelevant; the point is their capabilities. An image on a screen, two-dimensional, cold and lifeless, is in no way in the world comparable to being in the same room with that person. That screen cannot express nuance, which is why television is such a failure as an information tool. It completely misses all context of the setting. It cannot adequately convey the small visual cues, body language, even smells that are part of human communication. It cannot in any way facilitate the shared experience that runs as a kind of rhythm track behind those experiences, and colors the entire process.

It's completely artificial, makes no pretense of being anything other than artificial, and strips out every ingredient that tells us we're in a room conversing with this person. It's a fake experience, and as such is ingested as a fake experience. The dry facts and figures may be there but the emotional rhythm track, a psychic glue serving to hold it all together and give the experience form -- isn't.

Go to a baseball game some time, and then watch a game on TV -- and try to tell me the two experiences were the same thing. I dare you.

Up to now (AFAIK) we hadn't been discussing the idea of cyber-instruction. I believe the assumption was that social interaction both within and without the education aspect of the home schooled, was still human -- the parent(s) or tutor doing the instruction, the peers (other kids) interacting personally after those lessons. But this is a whole 'nother smoke. I don't think cyber-interaction is particularly healthy. Not that it's UNhealthy (it can be) but it provides no more nutrition to the soul than Wonder bread provides to the body. It's a pale echo of the original and can never be more than that. The day we accept the belief that it's the same thing is the day we surrender our souls and become full-fledged robots.

 

[Samson]

There is one difference between home schooling and regular school which I'm not sure has been addressed; I've not read every post in the entire thread.

When you have more than one student involved in a learning situation, you have more than one brain and more than one perspective. Hearing and understanding what others think and how others perceive things, having dialogue with others on any issue, etc., is also part of the learning process. In a situation where you have only one student and a teacher/parent, your dialogue is very limited. In the classroom, students have an immeasurable amount of intellectual interaction with others; this enriches the learning process no end. IMO this is a hugely important issue and suggests to me that the multiple student classroom is far more appropriate for leaning than a single parent/teacher learning environment. One of the most significant ways of developing the mind and acquiring knowledge is collaborative learning, i.e., group work. You don't get that at home with just mom. As well, one of the best ways of learning is teaching, and in group work situations, the stronger students tend to become 'teachers,' which deepens their own understanding of what they are studying. Weaker students become more involved in their learning instead of being passive learners. It's a win, win, win situation which you don't, as I said, get in a one to one learning situation.

You would be correct.....If it was 1994 instead of 2014.

See there's something now called "the internet:" This allows interaction with others on a scale you may not be able to conceive.

Go to your library. They probably have a book about the "World Wide Web" that will explain the subject better.

You actually think cyberinteraction even compares with personal one-on-one? Not even close.

For just one aspect -- you know why the Amish don't use telephones? Because it takes away the visual cues of face-to-face communication. You don't have to be on a site like this for half a day to see that (a) interactions are approached in radically different ways, and (b) those interactions are (here) selective in a way they cannot be in real life. So sorry, I find this comparison absurd.

To believe that a homeschooler is completely isolated from, "Hearing and understanding what others think and how others perceive things, having dialogue with others on any issue, etc." demonstrates an amazing ignorance of technology that exists in 2014.

Anyone's expectation that internet and personal interaction should be precisely the same ridiculous. I never said they were EQUAL, but virtual interaction as much a modern reality as pencils were when they outdated the clay tablet

Have you ever taken an online course? I have, and it was before you could Skype. "Immeasurable amount of intellectual interaction with others" happens. Groups can form and interact just as effectively virtually. More importantly, this is ACTUALLY what happens outside academia.



But don't let me stop you and Esse from getting kids up at the crack of dawn so they can ride the group bus, to spend "immeasurably valuable time" working on their group abacus project whist taking notes on slate with chalk before the food fight in the cafeteria.

 

[Samson]

There is one difference between home schooling and regular school which I'm not sure has been addressed; I've not read every post in the entire thread.

When you have more than one student involved in a learning situation, you have more than one brain and more than one perspective. Hearing and understanding what others think and how others perceive things, having dialogue with others on any issue, etc., is also part of the learning process. In a situation where you have only one student and a teacher/parent, your dialogue is very limited. In the classroom, students have an immeasurable amount of intellectual interaction with others; this enriches the learning process no end. IMO this is a hugely important issue and suggests to me that the multiple student classroom is far more appropriate for leaning than a single parent/teacher learning environment. One of the most significant ways of developing the mind and acquiring knowledge is collaborative learning, i.e., group work. You don't get that at home with just mom. As well, one of the best ways of learning is teaching, and in group work situations, the stronger students tend to become 'teachers,' which deepens their own understanding of what they are studying. Weaker students become more involved in their learning instead of being passive learners. It's a win, win, win situation which you don't, as I said, get in a one to one learning situation.

You would be correct.....If it was 1994 instead of 2014.

See there's something now called "the internet:" This allows interaction with others on a scale you may not be able to conceive.

Go to your library. They probably have a book about the "World Wide Web" that will explain the subject better.

Actually, she/he wouldn't be correct in 1994 either. It's utterly absurd to state that "learning" improves because of the views of an 8 year old (who know almost nothing about the world and how it actually works).

What he/she is actually talking about is her/his of indoctrination while trying to mask it as "learning". Liberals love the mob-mentality and they fear losing that if children are homeschooled.

 

[Pogo]

You would be correct.....If it was 1994 instead of 2014.

See there's something now called "the internet:" This allows interaction with others on a scale you may not be able to conceive.

Go to your library. They probably have a book about the "World Wide Web" that will explain the subject better.

Actually, she/he wouldn't be correct in 1994 either. It's utterly absurd to state that "learning" improves because of the views of an 8 year old (who know almost nothing about the world and how it actually works).

What he/she is actually talking about is her/his of indoctrination while trying to mask it as "learning". Liberals love the mob-mentality and they fear losing that if children are homeschooled.

I wasn't even gonna touch that one; I thought it committed effective logical hara-kiri all by itself.

 

[Samson]

You actually think cyberinteraction even compares with personal one-on-one? Not even close.

For just one aspect -- you know why the Amish don't use telephones? Because it takes away the visual cues of face-to-face communication. You don't have to be on a site like this for half a day to see that (a) interactions are approached in radically different ways, and (b) those interactions are (here) selective in a way they cannot be in real life. So sorry, I find this comparison absurd.

Pogo - your entire point here doesn't hold up. First of all, webcams are a major part of technology today. All online learning (or, most anyway) includes webcams so that the instructor and the students can see each other.

I'm only addressing "virtual socialization" here, if we want to call it that -- the idea that cyber-interaction is the same thing as reality interaction. The rest of your post seems to be about home schooling analyses, which is a separate issue.

Whether webcams are common is irrelevant; the point is their capabilities. An image on a screen, two-dimensional, cold and lifeless, is in no way in the world comparable to being in the same room with that person. That screen cannot express nuance, which is why television is such a failure as an information tool. It completely misses all context of the setting. It cannot adequately convey the small visual cues, body language, even smells that are part of human communication. It cannot in any way facilitate the shared experience that runs as a kind of rhythm track behind those experiences, and colors the entire process.

It's completely artificial, makes no pretense of being anything other than artificial, and strips out every ingredient that tells us we're in a room conversing with this person. It's a fake experience, and as such is ingested as a fake experience. The dry facts and figures may be there but the emotional rhythm track, a psychic glue serving to hold it all together and give the experience form -- isn't.

Go to a baseball game some time, and then watch a game on TV -- and try to tell me the two experiences were the same thing. I dare you.

Up to now (AFAIK) we hadn't been discussing the idea of cyber-instruction. I believe the assumption was that social interaction both within and without the education aspect of the home schooled, was still human -- the parent(s) or tutor doing the instruction, the peers (other kids) interacting personally after those lessons. But this is a whole 'nother smoke. I don't think cyber-interaction is particularly healthy. Not that it's UNhealthy (it can be) but it provides no more nutrition to the soul than Wonder bread provides to the body. It's a pale echo of the original and can never be more than that. The day we accept the belief that it's the same thing is the day we surrender our souls and become full-fledged robots.

You do realize how ironic it is to be interacting through a message board, and stating that you "don't think cyber-interaction is particularly healthy. Not that it's UNhealthy (it can be) but it provides no more nutrition to the soul than Wonder bread provides to the body. It's a pale echo of the original and can never be more than that."

I spent plenty of time in public school, and there were LOTS of times that I did not believe it was "particularly healthy." I'm not even going to attempt to decipher whatever you may mean by "provides nutrition to the soul," other than to comment that your public school experience must have been a very unique one. If the soul needs nutrition, there are PLENTY of ways to receive it OUTSIDE public school.

 

[Pogo]

You would be correct.....If it was 1994 instead of 2014.

See there's something now called "the internet:" This allows interaction with others on a scale you may not be able to conceive.

Go to your library. They probably have a book about the "World Wide Web" that will explain the subject better.

You actually think cyberinteraction even compares with personal one-on-one? Not even close.

For just one aspect -- you know why the Amish don't use telephones? Because it takes away the visual cues of face-to-face communication. You don't have to be on a site like this for half a day to see that (a) interactions are approached in radically different ways, and (b) those interactions are (here) selective in a way they cannot be in real life. So sorry, I find this comparison absurd.

To believe that a homeschooler is completely isolated from, "Hearing and understanding what others think and how others perceive things, having dialogue with others on any issue, etc." demonstrates an amazing ignorance of technology that exists in 2014.

Anyone's expectation that internet and personal interaction should be precisely the same ridiculous. I never said they were EQUAL, but virtual interaction as much a modern reality as pencils were when they outdated the clay tablet

I don't think that analogy really works; the pencil, like internet tech, made information conveyance easier, but the pencil could do more than the clay tablet. That's not true of its counterpart; cyberinteraction, I would argue, does far less. And by less I mean the psychic intangibles.

Have you ever taken an online course? I have, and it was before you could Skype. "Immeasurable amount of intellectual interaction with others" happens. Groups can form and interact just as effectively virtually. More importantly, this is ACTUALLY what happens outside academia.

Yes. And before there was online, mail-order lessons. Both of them boring as hell and, it comes to mind, devoid of another element conducive to learning, and that is the discipline that comes with the shared experience with real, visible, tangible cohorts. One part of the learning experience, it seems to me, is that shared experience including witnessing how co-student X came to understand or not understand some aspect, and where she is now, and how her experience related to mine. At the risk of übersimplifying, I'm arguing for the inclusion of the right brain in the experience, i.e. the context, and not just the left (the raw material). Because like any experience, there's a lot more to it than the nuts and bolts of facts and figures; there is the process.

Some parts of any learning experience are always going to be challenging enough as to need incentives, and this is where the artificial method falls flat, IMHO.

But don't let me stop you and Esse from getting kids up at the crack of dawn so they can ride the group bus, to spend "immeasurably valuable time" working on their group abacus project whist taking notes on slate with chalk before the food fight in the cafeteria.

You don't have to stop me; that's already a non starter. Read my first post in this thread.

Being against AI instructing doesn't mean being for institutionalized instructing. It just means being for human interaction.

 

[Samson]

You actually think cyberinteraction even compares with personal one-on-one? Not even close.

For just one aspect -- you know why the Amish don't use telephones? Because it takes away the visual cues of face-to-face communication. You don't have to be on a site like this for half a day to see that (a) interactions are approached in radically different ways, and (b) those interactions are (here) selective in a way they cannot be in real life. So sorry, I find this comparison absurd.

To believe that a homeschooler is completely isolated from, "Hearing and understanding what others think and how others perceive things, having dialogue with others on any issue, etc." demonstrates an amazing ignorance of technology that exists in 2014.

Anyone's expectation that internet and personal interaction should be precisely the same ridiculous. I never said they were EQUAL, but virtual interaction as much a modern reality as pencils were when they outdated the clay tablet

I don't think that analogy really works; the pencil, like internet tech, made information conveyance easier, but the pencil could do more than the clay tablet. That's not true of its counterpart; cyberinteraction, I would argue, does far less. And by less I mean the psychic intangibles.

Have you ever taken an online course? I have, and it was before you could Skype. "Immeasurable amount of intellectual interaction with others" happens. Groups can form and interact just as effectively virtually. More importantly, this is ACTUALLY what happens outside academia.

Yes. And before there was online, mail-order lessons. Both of them boring as hell and, it comes to mind, devoid of another element conducive to learning, and that is the discipline that comes with the shared experience with real, visible, tangible cohorts. Some parts of any learning experience are always going to be challenging enough as to need incentives, and this is where the artificial method falls flat, IMHO.

But don't let me stop you and Esse from getting kids up at the crack of dawn so they can ride the group bus, to spend "immeasurably valuable time" working on their group abacus project whist taking notes on slate with chalk before the food fight in the cafeteria.

You don't have to stop me; that's a non starter. Read my first post in this thread.

Being against AI instructing doesn't mean being for institutionalized instructing.

Happily, there is the alternative.

Now that it exists, why not give it a try? If a kid's not doing well in traditional school, his soul is certainly not going to shivel up and die from nutritional deprevations. Send him off to the Buddist temple, or Catechism, Synogog, or local Coven, whatever floats his boat.

 

[P@triot]

You actually think cyberinteraction even compares with personal one-on-one? Not even close.

For just one aspect -- you know why the Amish don't use telephones? Because it takes away the visual cues of face-to-face communication. You don't have to be on a site like this for half a day to see that (a) interactions are approached in radically different ways, and (b) those interactions are (here) selective in a way they cannot be in real life. So sorry, I find this comparison absurd.

Pogo - your entire point here doesn't hold up. First of all, webcams are a major part of technology today. All online learning (or, most anyway) includes webcams so that the instructor and the students can see each other.

I'm only addressing "virtual socialization" here, if we want to call it that -- the idea that cyber-interaction is the same thing as reality interaction. The rest of your post seems to be about home schooling analyses, which is a separate issue.

Whether webcams are common is irrelevant; the point is their capabilities. An image on a screen, two-dimensional, cold and lifeless, is in no way in the world comparable to being in the same room with that person. That screen cannot express nuance, which is why television is such a failure as an information tool. It completely misses all context of the setting. It cannot adequately convey the small visual cues, body language, even smells that are part of human communication. It cannot in any way facilitate the shared experience that runs as a kind of rhythm track behind those experiences, and colors the entire process.

It's completely artificial, makes no pretense of being anything other than artificial, and strips out every ingredient that tells us we're in a room conversing with this person. It's a fake experience, and as such is ingested as a fake experience. The dry facts and figures may be there but the emotional rhythm track, a psychic glue serving to hold it all together and give the experience form -- isn't.

Go to a baseball game some time, and then watch a game on TV -- and try to tell me the two experiences were the same thing. I dare you.

Up to now (AFAIK) we hadn't been discussing the idea of cyber-instruction. I believe the assumption was that social interaction both within and without the education aspect of the home schooled, was still human -- the parent(s) or tutor doing the instruction, the peers (other kids) interacting personally after those lessons. But this is a whole 'nother smoke. I don't think cyber-interaction is particularly healthy. Not that it's UNhealthy (it can be) but it provides no more nutrition to the soul than Wonder bread provides to the body. It's a pale echo of the original and can never be more than that. The day we accept the belief that it's the same thing is the day we surrender our souls and become full-fledged robots.

While I will grant you that it's not exactly like being in person, I venture to say that it is at least 90%.

How can you say that a webcam relaying live feed of a live person is "cold" and "lifeless"? Especially with HD. You can see every nuance, every detail. You can see emotion, expressions, and anything else you would experience in person other than touch.

 

[Samson]

Pogo - your entire point here doesn't hold up. First of all, webcams are a major part of technology today. All online learning (or, most anyway) includes webcams so that the instructor and the students can see each other.

I'm only addressing "virtual socialization" here, if we want to call it that -- the idea that cyber-interaction is the same thing as reality interaction. The rest of your post seems to be about home schooling analyses, which is a separate issue.

Whether webcams are common is irrelevant; the point is their capabilities. An image on a screen, two-dimensional, cold and lifeless, is in no way in the world comparable to being in the same room with that person. That screen cannot express nuance, which is why television is such a failure as an information tool. It completely misses all context of the setting. It cannot adequately convey the small visual cues, body language, even smells that are part of human communication. It cannot in any way facilitate the shared experience that runs as a kind of rhythm track behind those experiences, and colors the entire process.

It's completely artificial, makes no pretense of being anything other than artificial, and strips out every ingredient that tells us we're in a room conversing with this person. It's a fake experience, and as such is ingested as a fake experience. The dry facts and figures may be there but the emotional rhythm track, a psychic glue serving to hold it all together and give the experience form -- isn't.

Go to a baseball game some time, and then watch a game on TV -- and try to tell me the two experiences were the same thing. I dare you.

Up to now (AFAIK) we hadn't been discussing the idea of cyber-instruction. I believe the assumption was that social interaction both within and without the education aspect of the home schooled, was still human -- the parent(s) or tutor doing the instruction, the peers (other kids) interacting personally after those lessons. But this is a whole 'nother smoke. I don't think cyber-interaction is particularly healthy. Not that it's UNhealthy (it can be) but it provides no more nutrition to the soul than Wonder bread provides to the body. It's a pale echo of the original and can never be more than that. The day we accept the belief that it's the same thing is the day we surrender our souls and become full-fledged robots.

While I will grant you that it's not exactly like being in person, I venture to say that it is at least 90%.

How can you say that a webcam relaying live feed of a live person is "cold" and "lifeless"? Especially with HD. You can see every nuance, every detail. You can see emotion, expressions, and anything else you would experience in person other than touch.

Indeed.

There are a wide variety of websites connecting us all to wonderfully warm, lively experiences......




Not that I habitually visit them.

 

[Pogo]

I'm only addressing "virtual socialization" here, if we want to call it that -- the idea that cyber-interaction is the same thing as reality interaction. The rest of your post seems to be about home schooling analyses, which is a separate issue.

Whether webcams are common is irrelevant; the point is their capabilities. An image on a screen, two-dimensional, cold and lifeless, is in no way in the world comparable to being in the same room with that person. That screen cannot express nuance, which is why television is such a failure as an information tool. It completely misses all context of the setting. It cannot adequately convey the small visual cues, body language, even smells that are part of human communication. It cannot in any way facilitate the shared experience that runs as a kind of rhythm track behind those experiences, and colors the entire process.

It's completely artificial, makes no pretense of being anything other than artificial, and strips out every ingredient that tells us we're in a room conversing with this person. It's a fake experience, and as such is ingested as a fake experience. The dry facts and figures may be there but the emotional rhythm track, a psychic glue serving to hold it all together and give the experience form -- isn't.

Go to a baseball game some time, and then watch a game on TV -- and try to tell me the two experiences were the same thing. I dare you.

Up to now (AFAIK) we hadn't been discussing the idea of cyber-instruction. I believe the assumption was that social interaction both within and without the education aspect of the home schooled, was still human -- the parent(s) or tutor doing the instruction, the peers (other kids) interacting personally after those lessons. But this is a whole 'nother smoke. I don't think cyber-interaction is particularly healthy. Not that it's UNhealthy (it can be) but it provides no more nutrition to the soul than Wonder bread provides to the body. It's a pale echo of the original and can never be more than that. The day we accept the belief that it's the same thing is the day we surrender our souls and become full-fledged robots.

While I will grant you that it's not exactly like being in person, I venture to say that it is at least 90%.

How can you say that a webcam relaying live feed of a live person is "cold" and "lifeless"? Especially with HD. You can see every nuance, every detail. You can see emotion, expressions, and anything else you would experience in person other than touch.

Indeed.

There are a wide variety of websites connecting us all to wonderfully warm, lively experiences......




Not that I habitually visit them.

Uh, define "habitually"

Actually, good point. The porno experience (not that that's what you were talking about ) is far more realistic in terms of human interaction than an online instructional course ever could be, probably because it's specifically about specific humans and their human characteristics. Or in many cases hyperhuman, but that's off the point...

But as far as the cyberinteraction thing, 90%? Really? I'd say it's more like 10%. If you think the dry facts on the screen about how that French verb is conjugated or how the Andes were formed is really 90% of the lesson, you just ain't seeing the whole picture. Ironically we speak of these intangibles through a medium that is itself incapable of conveying them, but go back again to my baseball analogy and try to tell me that watching a game on an electronic screen is the same thing as seeing it in person. Don't forget to include how you "saw", through the TV screen, the smell of a cigar to your left and a hot dog to your right, and how it felt when that big dramatic play took place. There's no comparison with actually being physically in the moment -- or better yet, actually participating in it.

Take language for example. You can go buy a Rosetta Stone course; you can take online lessons (I'm signed up for one right now, haven't gone to it in a year) or you can even sit in a class -- none of those are going to give you the same experience as going to a place where your target language is the only one spoken and immersing yourself. THAT is when you learn the language. Context is absolutely crucial.

Cyber-experience essentially strips out the right hemisphere of the brain (the home of context) and purports to reduce everything to a laundry list of disparate elements connected to nothing. All that gives you is - and this was alluded to earlier (by Rottweiler if memory serves, making a valid point about degree-learning versus experience-learning) -- book knowledge of a bunch of facts; it doesn't convey actual communication. It tells the who, what, where and when, but stops short of the why. It can relate what the facts are; it cannot relate what they mean.

While I will grant you that it's not exactly like being in person, I venture to say that it is at least 90%.

How can you say that a webcam relaying live feed of a live person is "cold" and "lifeless"? Especially with HD. You can see every nuance, every detail. You can see emotion, expressions, and anything else you would experience in person other than touch.

Actually you just hit the nail on the head without meaning to:
"You can see every nuance, every detail. You can see emotion, expressions, and anything else you would experience in person..."

The key word is "see". Yeah you can see an image representation of the real. And that's it. You can't feel it; you don't get to grok. All you have is an image, and even that isn't the real image but a representation of an image. And that means you've stripped out vital components of any experience, just as Wonder Bread strips out vital components of nutrition. The brain is wired to manage, and expect, far far more than what it can simply see.

Sorry, watching dancing pixels is just not the same thing as living it. Never will be. There's simply more to it ("it" being anything) than can be rendered on an electronic screen that feeds one of the senses and ignores the other four. Put literally -- there's more to life than meets the eye.

IMHO.

 

[Pogo]

Pogo - your entire point here doesn't hold up. First of all, webcams are a major part of technology today. All online learning (or, most anyway) includes webcams so that the instructor and the students can see each other.

I'm only addressing "virtual socialization" here, if we want to call it that -- the idea that cyber-interaction is the same thing as reality interaction. The rest of your post seems to be about home schooling analyses, which is a separate issue.

Whether webcams are common is irrelevant; the point is their capabilities. An image on a screen, two-dimensional, cold and lifeless, is in no way in the world comparable to being in the same room with that person. That screen cannot express nuance, which is why television is such a failure as an information tool. It completely misses all context of the setting. It cannot adequately convey the small visual cues, body language, even smells that are part of human communication. It cannot in any way facilitate the shared experience that runs as a kind of rhythm track behind those experiences, and colors the entire process.

It's completely artificial, makes no pretense of being anything other than artificial, and strips out every ingredient that tells us we're in a room conversing with this person. It's a fake experience, and as such is ingested as a fake experience. The dry facts and figures may be there but the emotional rhythm track, a psychic glue serving to hold it all together and give the experience form -- isn't.

Go to a baseball game some time, and then watch a game on TV -- and try to tell me the two experiences were the same thing. I dare you.

Up to now (AFAIK) we hadn't been discussing the idea of cyber-instruction. I believe the assumption was that social interaction both within and without the education aspect of the home schooled, was still human -- the parent(s) or tutor doing the instruction, the peers (other kids) interacting personally after those lessons. But this is a whole 'nother smoke. I don't think cyber-interaction is particularly healthy. Not that it's UNhealthy (it can be) but it provides no more nutrition to the soul than Wonder bread provides to the body. It's a pale echo of the original and can never be more than that. The day we accept the belief that it's the same thing is the day we surrender our souls and become full-fledged robots.

You do realize how ironic it is to be interacting through a message board, and stating that you "don't think cyber-interaction is particularly healthy. Not that it's UNhealthy (it can be) but it provides no more nutrition to the soul than Wonder bread provides to the body. It's a pale echo of the original and can never be more than that."

Not only do I realize that, it was forefront in my mind while typing it. A quick dash off to the skankier ghettos of the politics forum (or even, sadly, this thread) reveals in short order how people choose to interact cyberially, that is, when social context is removed. Which serves my point about context; none of us would be sniping at each other in real life the way we do in this fake-reality medium. That's because here, we don't get the whole picture. Because the medium can't do it.

I spent plenty of time in public school, and there were LOTS of times that I did not believe it was "particularly healthy." I'm not even going to attempt to decipher whatever you may mean by "provides nutrition to the soul," other than to comment that your public school experience must have been a very unique one. If the soul needs nutrition, there are PLENTY of ways to receive it OUTSIDE public school.

I'm not clear where you get this idea that I'm a fan of a public (by which I mean institutional) school system. I came in here railing in the most condemning terms I could muster against the idea. None of the present rant is about that at all. What we've been doing tonight, as far as I know, is picking apart cyber-interaction versus human interaction. Whether that happens with or without an institution is irrelevant to the point. It's simply unrelated.

Again, criticizing the cyber model in no way means promoting the institutional one. They're not the opposite of each other.