Ask HN: How do we build the new remote education system
I was a homeschooling parent for some years. The world would probably do well to look to what homeschoolers know about educating children at home rather than trying to replicate classroom schooling via computer connection.<p>I was also Director of Community Life for The TAG Project for a little while. So I joined email lists that supported homeschoolers and discussed this stuff with experts, etc.<p>Public school is about eight hours a day because it&#x27;s &quot;free daycare&quot; for working parents. One article I read years ago indicated that a parent went and observed their child at school and found that the kind only really was actively learning about one to two hours a day. The rest of the time was spent taking roll call, changing classes, having lunch, etc.<p>At the time, I was in California and one of the ways to legally homeschool was by hiring a tutor for three hours per day. Not eight. Just three.<p>My very first blog began because of interest in what I was saying on homeschooling lists via email. A friend wanted to publish something I had written and it grew from there. And then I started another site because people were asking my permission to forward my emails and I was like &quot;Oh, I will just make it a website and then they can share the links and don&#x27;t need to email me.&quot;<p>So I&#x27;ve never really gotten good traction and yadda, but when I see some of the frustrations people have with the current situation, I&#x27;m like &quot;Yeah, I should maybe do something about that...&quot;<p>Only, I mean, everyone seems to want me to help them for free, because I &quot;care,&quot; and then almost no one &quot;cares&quot; when I can&#x27;t pay my bills. So I don&#x27;t feel very excited about the idea that, &quot;Oh, this is a thing I know a bunch about (and could potentially <i>help</i> people with this).&quot;<p>But, really, there is a wealth of knowledge that already exists concerning how to teach kids at home. There are lots of books, email lists, etc by, for and about homeschooling and homeschooling is best done in a way that doesn&#x27;t actively try to recreate public school classrooms because a lot of the methods used in public schools are used precisely because it is a means to wrangle 20 to 40 students by a teacher who will have 20 to 40 new students every year and that&#x27;s not the case if they are your kids in your home.