Agreed, and again this image problem is entirely on the media focusing on the wannabe puritan crazies and how most of those kids were poorly socialized because they grew up in total wacko families who deliberately kept their kids from interacting with the "sinful" and "degenerate" world as much as possible.
The Duggar-type homeschoolers are definitely in the minority of homeschooled kids, but they get all the media attention. It's sickening, really.
People think homeschooled kids are weird because they only notice the weird ones. Your average person knows a ton of homeschooled people but they act normal so it never comes up.
That said, I had a close friend who was homeschooled and the main source of her awkwardness was just how fucking
caring and compassionate she was. She never had to develop the defense mechanisms your average public school student does. This left her a little naive to danger, sure, but I was consistently blown away at how kindly she treated people after not having that natural care as thoroughly stamped out of her by the cruelty of other kids and the indifference of adults in authority.
This is all off topic, but the one thing I’ll add is that if all most students have come fall is virtual study, it’s going to be an unmitigated disaster. We know this because the tail end of the 2019-2020 school year
already fucking was. My sister is in her second year as a public school teacher at a moderately low income high school and her online class fell apart as soon as it started, and pressure from the department meant she had to pass students who did an astonishingly low percentage of the coursework. She barely was able to keep kids on task in her classroom, once even the pretense of expectations and accountability was gone, the most vulnerable students were a lost cause, and everyone else struggled. It was largely a combination of kids being incapable or unwilling to work absent an authority figure directing them, and a tragically large portion of her students that had to share limited computer and internet time with their siblings and often parents working from home.
And that’s saying nothing of the other teachers who will fold, give up or do half-assed work when those same networks of accountability are removed. Again, we know this because
it already fucking happened.
So yeah, the whole idea is idiotic from the ground up and even if kids want to learn, they are absolutely going to need better access to technology. Your charity is better spent there then on any of the violent social issues that have flared up over the summer.
