Wow. Quite the bold tirade there, Forrest. Let me just say: I’m thrilled to see you’ve based your entire manifesto on the laughably narrow premise that the only reason tech people homeschool is so they can “opt out of average people.” How profound! Certainly a sweeping generalization is the best way to prove your intellectual rigor. You do realize it’s possible to want a more flexible, creative, or personalized education for your children without harboring a burning hatred for “the masses,” right? Homeschooling parents—tech or otherwise—tend to be about as fixated on squashing the rabble as they are on teaching trigonometry to their preschoolers. (Hint: not so much.)
But do go on. I’m sure your questionable recollections of “Creation vs Evolution: The West of the Story” are absolutely pivotal to understanding modern homeschooling trends. And your oh-so-scandalous time as a Spelling Bee champ? Clearly the apex of human achievement, and apparently the root of your assumption that everyone else is forging the same tortured path to homeschool weirdness. News flash: not everyone is frantically shielding their kids from commoners or worshipping 7-day creation timelines. Some of us—brace yourself—just want a better system than “sit, memorize, regurgitate, repeat.” But hey, keep telling yourself it’s all about a legion of socially inept techies cackling in their bunkers, teaching their future geniuses to sneer at the peasants. Whatever helps you sleep at night, I guess.
The interest in homeschooling goes beyond tech workers. It’s a broader trend that is accelerating given the disruption that COVID brought schools a few years ago.
Education itself is needing a rethink given how technology has evolved, just like all institutions and industries. Remember traditional American Public schools (primary and secondary) are just a version of the British system that dates back about 200 years. What underpins the system is uniformity of knowledge and memorizing a static group of facts and rules. While that approach served many generations, it’s unclear how it functions or prepares students in 2025. What is the value of memorizing facts when search engines that are far more accurate and always in hand?
Will the public school system be able to reinvent itself over the next 10-20 years? Not sure, but I hope that we provide the investment needed given that we have 70 million children of school age in the US. If not, homeschooling is one alternative model for families that I’d expect to see continue to grow. It’s not immune to the change dynamics that are impacting the rest of society.
Agree public school is in need of a rethink, but change is hard. Especially since teachers are pretty much isolated in their classrooms. No im not bashing teachers I think they are hero’s with a very difficult job. Try teaching 20-30 kids of different abilities and interests the same thing in a 45 minute period.
I went for my Masters in Math Education, wants to teach Computer Science but you couldn’t get certified in that. My one professor was Robert Davis who started one of the main new math programs (teaching kids how to create math for themselves rather than how to calculate) in the late 50’s/60’s. He went from teaching math at MIT to helping teachers and kids taking “remedial” math classes.
He was amazing!!! One reason was he had a deep understanding of Mathematics and the underlying principles. I asked why did the program not take off. The response I got was, that even if all the people who graduated with a degree in math went to teach there wouldn’t be enough math teachers.
Firstly, I totally agree with Rob here (and the others), like yikes, get a life.
Secondly, I went to public school, and had ALL of your emotional issues, and then some, so that is a big fat zero.
Thirdly, we homeschooled our kids and they not only were highly socialized (like, geez, where do you get the idea that all homeschooled children are locked in a dungeon somewhere??), but my son was self-taught in computing and is currently making 5x what I earned as a Senior Research Engineer with 8 years of college to boot. Go figure.
Fourthly, seems like you have an atrabilious attitude about your life. (That word was the one previous to your winning spelling bee word, "plethora")
Fifthly, Home Schooling has been a BIG 'thing' in the U.S. since, like, 1985. (prior to that, it was still a 'thing', but politically much more difficult)
Interesting thoughts. As someone who was homeschooled, I can attest to the struggles of being post-homeschooled. But even so, we have decided to homeschool our 3 kiddos and are loving it! 😀
1. Classrooms don't run at the average person's speed. They run at the speed of the *group*, which is (a) set by maybe the 25th percentile, and (b) would be slower than one-on-one speed even if everybody were exactly "average", just because groups inherently go slower than individuals.
2. I went to regular schools. I wasn't even allowed to skip grades, quite explicitly because my parents wanted me to "socalize within my age group and learn to relate to the average person". That meant that everybody around me, except maybe in certain accelerated programs, seemed like a complete idiot [on edit: and I was acutely aware that I was being bored out of my mind because of their speed limitations]. Which was really alienating. I ended up with pretty much the personality type you describe for yourself, plus a *really serious, blatant, open* contempt for the average person that took a decade or two to *mostly* shed. Familiarity breeds contempt, or something.
3. My kid went to regular schools; she needed the structure. It was best for *her*. *I* would have been better off locked in a library alone. Which was more or less what I sought out when I wasn't in school. In only a handful of courses did schools teach me anything I couldn't have learned faster and better on my own... and in fact I knew the other stuff before they started trying to teach it. Had I homeschooled my kid, I could have taught her the stuff that *did* benefit from interactive teaching both faster and more deeply than schools were able to teach it to *me* . Moral: *people vary*.
4. Who cares about changing the world? It's more about not being stuck in an environment full of pointless busy work.
Literally lol’d at “…undoubtedly above-average kids.” Reminds me of Lake Wobegon from A Prairie Home Companion where all the children are above average.
Having watched my wife wrangle her class of 3-5yo who were at home, doing 'school' (over MS Teams) during COVID I'm a little surprised that there's not some kind of (tech enabled) platform emerged to provide a hybrid of old skool and home school.
I'm also depressingly sure that the leadership vacuums we see in tech (and all over the place elsewhere) track back to kids being told to sit down, shut up, and do as they're told. The present school system seems well adapted to the needs of 19th century factory owners, but pretty poorly aligned to today's world and work.
We homeschooled our 4 kids. One through 12 grade the other three to 9th grade then to school. My wife brought up the idea and since I was always bored in school I thought why not. There are many ways to homeschool (we took the mostly unschooled approach letting kids follow their own interest and using those as learning vehicles) and many reasons to homeschool. Our kids have turned out fine. Besides all going to college and doing well, one other benefit is they grew up together and have strong bonds (not that that can’t happen if your kids go to school and I’m probably biased , but they seem to have better relationships). They also had to teach each other, which helps a lot in learning.
Other BIG benefit is you can go on vacation when rates are lower and places like Disney are less crowded).
Biggest questions we got, was how do you make sure they socialize? I’d respond by saying “ Yeah, that’s a problem. They have too many group activities with homeschooled and non-homeschooled kids.” They all seem to socialize well annd have friends, even my introverted son.
It’s a personal choice and many possible reasons for doing it (some good some not so good). It’s also is NOT easy and a lot of work.
Anyhow, it's simple. Tech people, which you think are intelligent but are usually behind the social curve big time, are realizing public schools are garbage. They teach garbage in public schools. Especially in California. 64 gender garbage... The religion of communism.
Wow. Quite the bold tirade there, Forrest. Let me just say: I’m thrilled to see you’ve based your entire manifesto on the laughably narrow premise that the only reason tech people homeschool is so they can “opt out of average people.” How profound! Certainly a sweeping generalization is the best way to prove your intellectual rigor. You do realize it’s possible to want a more flexible, creative, or personalized education for your children without harboring a burning hatred for “the masses,” right? Homeschooling parents—tech or otherwise—tend to be about as fixated on squashing the rabble as they are on teaching trigonometry to their preschoolers. (Hint: not so much.)
But do go on. I’m sure your questionable recollections of “Creation vs Evolution: The West of the Story” are absolutely pivotal to understanding modern homeschooling trends. And your oh-so-scandalous time as a Spelling Bee champ? Clearly the apex of human achievement, and apparently the root of your assumption that everyone else is forging the same tortured path to homeschool weirdness. News flash: not everyone is frantically shielding their kids from commoners or worshipping 7-day creation timelines. Some of us—brace yourself—just want a better system than “sit, memorize, regurgitate, repeat.” But hey, keep telling yourself it’s all about a legion of socially inept techies cackling in their bunkers, teaching their future geniuses to sneer at the peasants. Whatever helps you sleep at night, I guess.
Wow, your response was sarcastic enough that it actually sounds like it was written by a homeschooler. (I was also homeschooled)
Obviously AI generated reply.
The interest in homeschooling goes beyond tech workers. It’s a broader trend that is accelerating given the disruption that COVID brought schools a few years ago.
Education itself is needing a rethink given how technology has evolved, just like all institutions and industries. Remember traditional American Public schools (primary and secondary) are just a version of the British system that dates back about 200 years. What underpins the system is uniformity of knowledge and memorizing a static group of facts and rules. While that approach served many generations, it’s unclear how it functions or prepares students in 2025. What is the value of memorizing facts when search engines that are far more accurate and always in hand?
Will the public school system be able to reinvent itself over the next 10-20 years? Not sure, but I hope that we provide the investment needed given that we have 70 million children of school age in the US. If not, homeschooling is one alternative model for families that I’d expect to see continue to grow. It’s not immune to the change dynamics that are impacting the rest of society.
Agree public school is in need of a rethink, but change is hard. Especially since teachers are pretty much isolated in their classrooms. No im not bashing teachers I think they are hero’s with a very difficult job. Try teaching 20-30 kids of different abilities and interests the same thing in a 45 minute period.
I went for my Masters in Math Education, wants to teach Computer Science but you couldn’t get certified in that. My one professor was Robert Davis who started one of the main new math programs (teaching kids how to create math for themselves rather than how to calculate) in the late 50’s/60’s. He went from teaching math at MIT to helping teachers and kids taking “remedial” math classes.
He was amazing!!! One reason was he had a deep understanding of Mathematics and the underlying principles. I asked why did the program not take off. The response I got was, that even if all the people who graduated with a degree in math went to teach there wouldn’t be enough math teachers.
Firstly, I totally agree with Rob here (and the others), like yikes, get a life.
Secondly, I went to public school, and had ALL of your emotional issues, and then some, so that is a big fat zero.
Thirdly, we homeschooled our kids and they not only were highly socialized (like, geez, where do you get the idea that all homeschooled children are locked in a dungeon somewhere??), but my son was self-taught in computing and is currently making 5x what I earned as a Senior Research Engineer with 8 years of college to boot. Go figure.
Fourthly, seems like you have an atrabilious attitude about your life. (That word was the one previous to your winning spelling bee word, "plethora")
Fifthly, Home Schooling has been a BIG 'thing' in the U.S. since, like, 1985. (prior to that, it was still a 'thing', but politically much more difficult)
Interesting thoughts. As someone who was homeschooled, I can attest to the struggles of being post-homeschooled. But even so, we have decided to homeschool our 3 kiddos and are loving it! 😀
1. Classrooms don't run at the average person's speed. They run at the speed of the *group*, which is (a) set by maybe the 25th percentile, and (b) would be slower than one-on-one speed even if everybody were exactly "average", just because groups inherently go slower than individuals.
2. I went to regular schools. I wasn't even allowed to skip grades, quite explicitly because my parents wanted me to "socalize within my age group and learn to relate to the average person". That meant that everybody around me, except maybe in certain accelerated programs, seemed like a complete idiot [on edit: and I was acutely aware that I was being bored out of my mind because of their speed limitations]. Which was really alienating. I ended up with pretty much the personality type you describe for yourself, plus a *really serious, blatant, open* contempt for the average person that took a decade or two to *mostly* shed. Familiarity breeds contempt, or something.
3. My kid went to regular schools; she needed the structure. It was best for *her*. *I* would have been better off locked in a library alone. Which was more or less what I sought out when I wasn't in school. In only a handful of courses did schools teach me anything I couldn't have learned faster and better on my own... and in fact I knew the other stuff before they started trying to teach it. Had I homeschooled my kid, I could have taught her the stuff that *did* benefit from interactive teaching both faster and more deeply than schools were able to teach it to *me* . Moral: *people vary*.
4. Who cares about changing the world? It's more about not being stuck in an environment full of pointless busy work.
Literally lol’d at “…undoubtedly above-average kids.” Reminds me of Lake Wobegon from A Prairie Home Companion where all the children are above average.
Having watched my wife wrangle her class of 3-5yo who were at home, doing 'school' (over MS Teams) during COVID I'm a little surprised that there's not some kind of (tech enabled) platform emerged to provide a hybrid of old skool and home school.
I'm also depressingly sure that the leadership vacuums we see in tech (and all over the place elsewhere) track back to kids being told to sit down, shut up, and do as they're told. The present school system seems well adapted to the needs of 19th century factory owners, but pretty poorly aligned to today's world and work.
We homeschooled our 4 kids. One through 12 grade the other three to 9th grade then to school. My wife brought up the idea and since I was always bored in school I thought why not. There are many ways to homeschool (we took the mostly unschooled approach letting kids follow their own interest and using those as learning vehicles) and many reasons to homeschool. Our kids have turned out fine. Besides all going to college and doing well, one other benefit is they grew up together and have strong bonds (not that that can’t happen if your kids go to school and I’m probably biased , but they seem to have better relationships). They also had to teach each other, which helps a lot in learning.
Other BIG benefit is you can go on vacation when rates are lower and places like Disney are less crowded).
Biggest questions we got, was how do you make sure they socialize? I’d respond by saying “ Yeah, that’s a problem. They have too many group activities with homeschooled and non-homeschooled kids.” They all seem to socialize well annd have friends, even my introverted son.
It’s a personal choice and many possible reasons for doing it (some good some not so good). It’s also is NOT easy and a lot of work.
Waffle much?
Anyhow, it's simple. Tech people, which you think are intelligent but are usually behind the social curve big time, are realizing public schools are garbage. They teach garbage in public schools. Especially in California. 64 gender garbage... The religion of communism.