Homeschooling's socialization snobs
Posted: July 05, 2008
1:00 am Eastern
© 2008
Note: This column includes adult language.
Ask any homeschooling parent why they homeschool, and you're likely to receive as many different replies as there are families. Some of the common reasons include religious freedom, academic improvement, one-on-one tutoring and increased family closeness.
But for us, the single biggest reason we school at home correlates to the single biggest criticism homeschoolers get: socialization. Yes, it's largely due to the "socialization" children get in public schools that convinced us to homeschool.
Homeschooling allows us to be socialization snobs. We can filter out kids whose behavior offends us. We don't discriminate on the basis of race, creed, nation of origin, or other such nonsense. No, we discriminate on the basis of morals. If your kid insists on talking about the number of boys she slept with in the last month, I really don't want her around my kid. Call me fussy.
It's been said that too many rats locked up together in too small a cage will soon start tearing into each other. Same with kids. Schools force children to associate with other children based strictly on age. They are locked into cages containing dozens of rats … er, kids with one powerless and overworked teacher who is expected to be psychologist, counselor, nanny, babysitter and, oh yeah, teacher all rolled into one.
Manners are not expected and certainly not reinforced. If one child gets snarky with another, the other children encourage him until the snarkiness turns to meanness, which often leads to violence. This is the breeding ground for public school socialization.
I've been to homeschooling groups with up to 30 kids ranging from older teens to newborns. Everyone associates with everyone. Teens dandle babies. Twelve-year-olds play gentle tag with 5-year-olds. If one child gets snarky with another, there are five or six moms (as well as older kids) around to see the bad behavior and instantly correct it, so it seldom gets out of hand. Manners are expected and reinforced. This is the breeding ground for homeschooling socialization.
Why is this concept so difficult for the critics to grasp? I don't get it. I don't get it at all.
Recently, my husband came across a blog entry by a middle-school teacher that was so shocking that he waited until our kids were out of the room before calling me over to read it.
The blog entry [warning: obscene language] related a conversation this teacher overheard as she left school one afternoon. She passed a group of several boys and one girl (about 13) waiting for the bus. One of the boys had a plate of cookies. The teacher heard the girl say, "I'll give you a blow job for one of those cookies."
(Pause for a moment to marvel at how the heck a 13-year-old girl even knows what a blow job is.)
My husband e-mailed the teacher and expressed sympathy for the toughness of her job. The woman e-mailed back a weary verbal shrug and said it was all in a day's work.
Yes, all in a day's work to hear a child offer an intimate sex act in exchange for baked goods. And what does "all in a day's work" imply? That this type of social interaction is nothing unusual. Pretty typical, in fact. The teacher was just as horrified as we were, but she saw no solution. And people still have the gall to criticize homeschoolers for their … socialization skills? Or to criticize us for our parental desire to protect against this kind of exposure? I don't get it.
OK, so meanness, lack of manners and precocious sexualization are some of the "socializing" factors rampant in public schools. What about peer pressure and bullying?
We all remember bullying from our own school days. The fear of gym class. The avoidance of certain parts of campus such as the cafeteria, bathrooms or locker areas. The stomach-clenching dread of facing yet another day in which you were teased, threatened, snubbed or beaten up.
Kids have it tough. The desire to conform to peers is strong – strong enough to overcome parental influences, particularly when those parents are removed (by choice or by state) from being active in their children's lives. But even the children of good, involved parents can get mixed up with the wrong crowd at school simply because they desperately want to fit in. If you're not bouncy and pretty (as a girl) or athletic and handsome (as a boy), then you'll do whatever it takes to be accepted by the bouncy/pretty/athletic/handsome types, even if those types are bad influences in other respects.
"Homeschooling" implies that someone is at home. There are no latchkey kids. There are no after-school hours of "free time" before mom gets off work during which a 14-year-old with burgeoning hormones can get in trouble. Homeschooled kids are guided through the time of life when they have adult bodies but childish minds, a time when they can mature into competent adults or descend into horrifying mistakes. And yet people still have the gall to express concern over homeschoolers' … socialization.
Homeschooled kids don't live in a vacuum. While their publicly schooled peers are locked in a classroom for most of the daylight hours, homeschooled kids are out interacting with adults and children, picking up useful, well, socialization skills. And remember, one of the chief purposes of education is to teach children to become adults – productive, mature adults that contribute to society.
Academics are important, and studies demonstrate that homeschooled kids excel in this area. But there's more to life than academics, and that's one of the "balance" things homeschooled children learn in abundance. These are things like faith, honor, morals, patriotism, volunteerism, responsibility, family values, self-control and citizenship.
We sometimes hear the criticism that we cannot duplicate the benefits schools offer children, whether it's sports or music or chemistry labs. To which I reply, "You're right. We cannot duplicate your environment. We are merely trying to exceed your results."
Especially the results of socialization.
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Patrice Lewis is co-founder of Don Lewis Designs. She and her husband have been in business for 14 years. The Lewises live on 40 acres in north Idaho with their two homeschooled children, assorted livestock and a shop that overflows into the house with depressing regularity. Visit patricelewis.com.
3 comments:
The author of this piece seems a little paranoid about sex if you ask me, but of course, no one asked me.
Three reasons stand out in my mind as central to my wanting to home school.
1. I don't want to miss anything.
A professional teacher might teach better than me, but I can't imagine giving up the opportunity to be a teacher to my children. When I'm an old man, I want to be able to look back and draw from a huge trove of rewarding memories. If my children were in school all day, some random teacher would have all those memories of those bright and cute things my kids said, and not me. I don't want to give those moments away. Life is too short for that. I may not be the best teacher, or even a good teacher, but they are my kids and I'm planning to enjoy them as much as possible. This is the same reason I wanted my children born at home. I think that bringing children into the world and raising them are some of the greatest moments in life and I just can't see farming those great experiences out to some professional.
2. I think it's my responsibility.
God didn't give my children to someone else. He gave them to me. I think that God in His infinite wisdom brought Virginia, Miriam and Reuben safely through the perils of birth and into my hands because he wanted them to be discipled by me. If he had wanted random public school teacher to disciple them, then I think they would not be my children.
3. I'm appalled by the nationalism of the public schools. (this is even worse in many of the Christian schools)
Nationalism, or the idea that our country or our people are the greatest or the most important in the world and that the US government or it's symbols is something a child ought to be pledging their dying allegiance to, is in my opinion very much opposed to the gospel of Jesus. A recent California court decision stated that the central problem with homeschooling was that it was not as effective in instilling national loyalty in children as the public schools were. The state wants children who are loyal to the state. The state wants children who will grow up and kill other people when the state says to. No matter if those other people are Christian or not (of course, that shouldn't make a difference, but it's most discouraging to read of Christians taking up arms against their brethren in the name of their silly state. I want to teach my children loyalty to the gospel, not the flag, to the church, not the state. I want to teach them to be like Jesus. To lay down their lives for others; to give away their substance rather than defend it, and to practice forgiveness instead of preparing for war.
o.k. I know I'm the black sheep in the family and this will just prove it again, but I hate homeschooling and think that kids need the social interactions of life in school. I know sean is only 15 months old and all you guys will be like " oh you'll understand when your kid is older" maybe he will struggle with the peer pressure in school but just because some of us don't have the luxury of being able to stay home with our kids.doesn't mean you guys have to preach about how wrong school is. you can't keep your kids in a plastic bubble forever. as much as you try to protect them they are going to find out about real life one way or another. I beleive sheltering them away from stuff will only cause rebelling down the road because thats what happened to me.as soon as i was able to get out of the house when i was 17 i went crazy and had to try everything that i was told was sooo bad growing up.
so i believe if kids are in school around social peer pressure as long as there is a supportive family at home that they are not afraid to come talk to about anything that happens in school than they will be better for it.
but who knows, i guess we will find out who is right in about 17 years.
Julia, what is real life? If I'm not living a real life I think I need to know. Why can real life only take place inside a government building? How did people live real lives for thousands of years prior to the invention of "schooling"? No doubt many homeschoolers are crazy fundamentalist-legalist types but that says nothing about a problem with homeschooling.
And you don't have the luxury of staying home?
Hmmm.. I wonder how much your car payment is? I'm a poor man. But I've chosen to make my children and thus homeschooling a priority for me. What are your priorities?
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