Arctic Light

I haven't actually tried this in the real world, but I found this link on convincing reluctant friends/family to get the vaccine extremely helpful.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/20/opinion/covid-19-vaccine-chatbot.html

(Goes to NYTimes, so might be paywalled.)

It's in the form of an interactive chatbot where you pick answers and then see how that plays out. Obviously real-world results may vary. But I think it's not just useful for talking about Covid, but other political topics as well - at least, with someone you want to convince, whose mind you have some hope of changing. And what it made me realize is that most of your reactions in a situation like that are wrong. You don't want to try to pressure them; appeal to their sense of duty, responsibility, or shame; or dazzle them with statistics. Apparently what works best (and I've heard this other places, too, for talking about political topics) is to ask them exactly what they're worried about, listen and restate that back at them, and then basically cushion the worry with a lot of reassurance and a few carefully chosen, simple and reassuring statistics on the parts of it they're worried about. Some people might want more information after that. But apparently what most people want is just to be listened to and reassured and have their worry taken seriously, and then they're a lot more open to listening to you in return.

This is a post I've gone back and forth on making to the point where it's probably pretty useless for people now, given that we're almost done with the school year (edit: here in the US - I appreciate the reminder in the comments that the US school year is not universal!).

Anyway, I've dithered about writing it because I have absolutely zero experience homeschooling children as an adult, or in the modern world with computers and email. I don't even have kids! The other reason why I've been reluctant to talk about it is because ... well. You'll see. But basically, I'm the furthest thing from an expert.

The thing is, though, I have a lot of personal experience with it from my childhood in the 1980s and 90s. Basically, my siblings and I were homeschooled for our entire school-age lives. We used a curriculum provided by the local school district - they emailed us packets of material, we did the assignments and sent them back. Alaska had several options like this in the 1980s. We started out doing it through the state, and were kicked out and given to the county [borough] because of my parents' terminal inability to actually give us the work; see below.

( Extensive talk about Lessons Learned from my own homeschooling experience below the cut )