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Comment by slay2k | Hacker News Reader

I've been thinking about how I'd educate my own kids, and currently it's a tossup between the Harkness approach a la Phillips Exeter, the entirely home-schooled approach, and something like this which seems like a hybrid.

If anyone has experience with any of the above, I'd love to hear about it.

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Homeschooling parent here. I need to get more personal experiences up on my personal website.

http://learninfreedom.org/

I've launched one child into adulthood (he is deeply interested in the start-up culture, which is one reason I hang out here on Hacker News) and have three more coming up. Interaction with other curious young people is crucial while growing up. Any school experience that encourages that is worthwhile at least in part, while any school experience that ends up discouraging curiosity (as a remarkable variety of schools do) is to be avoided.

P.S. I finally had a chance to tour Exeter this year while high school shopping. Exeter does have an interesting approach with the Harkness table for all classes and the problem-solving-based curriculum.

Here's what my wife and I are planning to do with our daughter: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1656756

Edit: here's a useful overview of alternative teaching methods - http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/25926

As in most things, people are more important than methods. Now, there is some correlation, as people who care about teaching kids to really learn will tend to be more involved in Montessori or other small private schools or magnet public schools.

But don't decide based on reading and abstraction, go meet the people in the communities you would be putting your child into (including home-school communities) and see if you fit in with those people and if they seem nurturing. And explore more traditional options to see if the people there are exceptional.

My wife works at a small Catholic school (who would have thought?) with an amazing community that fosters intergenerational, self-guided, scrape-your-knee-climbing-a-tree sort of learning. I'm sure most parents drive right by and think "pfft, Catholic school," and their abstractions are leading them to miss a real gem.

DO NOT do full time homeschooling, my mom tried it with me for grades 2 and 3 (as we were moving around) and the results were horrible socially. Do a private school.

DO full time homeschooling; my parents tried it with me and the results were great.

Two can play this game. :)

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