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Comment by sejje | Hacker News Reader

I used to work at a YMCA, and the local homeschool group asked us to do a PE class, which I taught.

I had the kids doing swimming, rock climbing, and all kinds of traditional PE games.

I worked with "normal" kids most of the time, and I will say the homeschool kids stuck out. They're more awkward around kids their age, but far less awkward around adults. They know how to speak and act, in large part. And they were disproportionately ahead of their peers academically--though I think that's probably a selection bias for the parents seeking out homeschool PE classes.

This was in the early 2000s, before Facebook. I'm sure the avenues to connect have only grown with social media.

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> They're more awkward around kids their age, but far less awkward around adults. They know how to speak and act, in large part.

This is another argument that "by age" is not the best way to find one's academic or social peers.

Some people in 2nd grade should be in high school. Some people in high school should be in 2nd grade. (And, academically, sometimes that's different by subject; some people need to be in 2nd grade math and high-school reading.)

I was a TA/lab-assistant at the community college I was attending. I spent a lot of time talking to and helping out people, universally older than me, who had gotten out of high school and needed to figure out where in a multi-year curriculum of remedial math they should start.

This is one of the most insane comments I’ve ever read on a hackernews story. Age is very much important when finding one’s social peers as a child.

Why?

Under 18, the mind is closer to those +/- a few years from you, developmentally (and generally speaking). At least, that's what the know-it-alls were telling me when I was listening. Both pro and con home-school "zealots". Age peers is a thing

Peers in what sense? There are clearly examples of kids that are both erudite many years beyond their age and kids that excel in technical subjects well beyond their years. Clearly a distribution exists and it’s wider than +/- a few years even if that covers 1 or even 2 standard deviations.

For what it’s worth I’ve even met adults who can’t regulate and control their emotional reactions. They often have a prison background which either caused it or why they ended up in prison.

Age. I said "age peers"

I think you completely missed the point I was trying to make. Age peers are an illusion and only appears like a thing because most people follow a standard distribution; but this does nothing for the people who are further away from the mean.

Yeah, I routinely took classes with students 3–8 years older than me before going to college. "Age peers" are an illusion. However:

1. I mostly only cared about school w.r.t learning. For most kids, school is primarily a place to socialize.

2. If it took you two years to achieve the same level as what took someone else ten years (going with the 2nd vs. 10th grade example from a few comments up), I don't think you're going to get an appropriate pacing by just moving into the same class as them...

Maybe you missed when I said "generally". However you seem to be aware of standard distribution (ie generally) and then go on to talk about the edges (again).

I'm not missing your point at all. I'm talking generally and you're just stating (the obvious) that curves (spectrum?) exist and that some (~30%?) are outside the middle of the bell. Neat.

Since we agree there is a range of personalities and intelligence, maybe we agree that wide exposure to others (such as classmates) is, generally, a good thing.

Take a second to think through why it might be bad for a 2nd grader to seek high schoolers as social peers.

Take a second to think through why it might be great for a fourth grader to seek out college-aged people as social mentors (with the right barriers).

That was me.

With your condescending broad-speak.

Per HN's Comment Guidelines, I'd assume that Josh meant sorting students by both physical age and subject skill levels. The physical/emotional differences between 2nd graders and HS kids are obvious enough.

OTOH, one of my grandmothers spent her education career in a one room school house, teaching all subjects to grades 1-8. With the right social context, it can work very well.

It seems like a great way to foster a sense of community.

Our peers are more than people our age. They are the people older and younger than us too.

> It seems like a great way...

It was a small town, in the early 1900's. Everybody knew everybody, including the kids - who freely roamed the town when not doing chores or such.

I'd agree that it was very good for the kids' social development...but "foster a sense of community", in the present-day context, sounds like an express ticket to expecting far too much from it.

:) Perhaps.

Diversity of peers is generally a win. Children aren't supposed to be learning how to act based on what other children are doing - it is a crowd where no-one has any idea how to behave. Kids by nature are supposed to be developing in the company of adults.

Assuming you are in the US, consider that your perspective may be influenced by the modern (since second half 20th century) education system which so strictly stratifies by age. It actually is much stranger to me that we would expect peers to be exact age. There is a lot to learn from older kids, or even other (non-teacher, non-parent) adults.

> I'm sure the avenues to connect have only grown with social media.

The rise of social media has led to a massive increase in lonelyness and alienation of young people, not the contrary.

I had the mind of a home-schooled child in the body of a public-school student. Never clicked with peers until college, to be frank. Perhaps I could have made actual friends in high school if I gave up on associating with students of higher social status.

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