Hey! I finally got around to posting this. The below is a lengthy response I did to people who wondered how parents could "hurt" their children by homeschooling them. (I have only changed this a little by taking out the personalized parts and editing and polishing it to a more general view.)
Many of them had said, "Children need socialization." I pointed out how socialization occured outside of school, but it just wasn't penetrating. They couldn't imagine it. If all the kids are at school, then the homeschooler must be one lonely kid who longs for others to share his/her life with. No boyfriend, no extracurricular activities, no prom. The very thought moved them to tears.
I finally made this lengthy response as it seemed necessary to explain how it was possible to have a social life outside the school system. Some of the points I made are in response to other things said (such as homeschooling parents were a bunch of crazed fundamentalists teaching their children that Earth is only 5 thousand years old, or something like that).
As many of them call themselves liberals, I tailored it to a liberal mind. This includes my suggesting the book below, Dangerous Schools. This book offers many solutions I disagree with, though I think they document the problem pretty well. But it's a book written by liberals for liberals, and I chose to list it as the bulk of those I was addressing would be more inclined to respect such a book.
I don't know if I made any sense to them, as the topic died almost right after I posted it.
Anyway, here's the response I shared:You should not be concerned about a growing child's socialization skills if the said child does not attend a public or private school. Julie Webb researched homeschooled students, and found that their socialization skills were often better than their peers. Since she did her research for 1989 Educational Review, I consider it unlikely that she came to her conclusions out of a desire to "create propaganda" for the promotion of homeschooling.
Furthermore, plenty of people dropped out of school, or did not go to school at all, and grew up to become famous politicians (including many of America's founding fathers), inventors (like the Wright Brothers; even Einstein had difficulties with school), and actors (like Whoopi Goldberg). Such people could hardly be called socially or academically retarded.
This makes sense, as getting kids out of that dysfunctional atmosphere would do wonders to reduce tensions between adults and other kids, both.
Furthermore, many kids are damaged socially within the schools. Many of them don't even survive it as they turn to suicide to escape the bullying and shunning by their fellow students and by their school faculty. Everyone not able to fit in, and fool themselves as well as everyone else at doing so, is at risk. The gay boy, the pagan teen, the intellectually gifted girl are just examples of those that can't fit into the system. They are too different for the school to be able to homogenize them into an easily controlled, comforming group. Worse yet, the faculty often ignores (or even encourages) the abuse the popular (especially jocks and cheerleaders) dump on the unpopular (especially the obviously defiant, such as goths).
However, all of this is well-documented and explained in many books, sites, and other sources. In particular, Dangerous Schools : What We Can Do About the Physical and Emotional Abuse of Our Children by Irwin A. Hyman and Pamela A. Snook explores the emotional (and sometimes) physical damage done to students on an ordinary basis. (This even includes undercover police officers that get teen girls pregnant and get away with it.)
Luckily, a school is not necessary for socialization, any more than it is for an education. My experience suggests that schools are actually harmful to both socialization and academic achievement. One thing I learned in school is that you can be surrounded by hundreds of kids and still be lonely and alienated. Schools don’t make friends for you, after all, or even provide a good environment for making friends in. With all the rules, there’s hardly any time to make friends at all.
A healthy social life requires much more than indifferent daily contact with a few hundred people born the same year you were. It doesn’t come from compulsory herding but from a healthy sense of self-esteem. This is something many schools actively destroy, and from more than just their forced "socialization."
A healthy social life also requires a sense of self-awareness. I suspect school is harmful here too, since so many "socialized" kids seem to be idiots who wish they were people on TV because they don’t seem to know who they are themselves. They also don’t seem to know how to do anything without being told, by their peers or by their teachers.
Friendships are more likely to be formed when no one is forced to "be socialized." Friendships require conversations and helping each other. In most classrooms this is against the rules, as such socialization is considered disruptive, or even "cheating." What is approved by school rules is sitting still, doing repetitive tasks, and suffering bullies silently.
Relationships are not limited to being in a building full of chalk dust -- though it may seem so if this is the only place you ever met people -- but are found everywhere that humans are found. Out in the real world is where people like me and people who have homeschooled or unschooled their entire lives have made friends. Sometimes, they make A LOT of friends (as I did).
Many also become friends with those who are schooled more conventially, especially if they used to go to school themselves. The world is FULL of romance and friendship and intimacy and passion just waiting to happen. This doesn’t require school. It requires other human beings, and friendships happen even easier outside of a school than within it. Why? Because you can find people who share your interests (rather than just the same birth year) and you aren’t restricted from talking and genuine socialization as you are in school the great majority of time. Nor are you constantly hounded by bullying kids and adults obsessed with making sure their supremacy is acknowledged.
If the thought of making friends outside of a school stuns you then you should broaden your horizons. As I took my life and the lives of others for granted, having experienced relationships outside of school firsthand, what I’m about to share seems perfectly obvious to me.
So what goes on then? Other friends (possibly those in a more conventional school setting) visit as always, and you can do your homework/academic projects together (they don’t have to be the same thing, either). Or you could work on a project together such as building something, working on a novel together, or making a video together. Skateboarding, surfing, and cycling (including all kinds of interesting stunts and tricks) are popular activities that can count as good PE (except that it's fun). Of course, simple friendship with some shared music is good enough. You can always set up more formal projects later if you want.
I found that many didn’t apply to work at McDonald’s the way highschoolers often will, but started their own biz. This could be the standard lawn care individuals and groups, but also includes cleaning services, automotive repair, custom-painting skateboards or tye-dying clothes as just a few examples. This leads to further contacts, further socialization, and to more relationships, as well as teaching responsibility and a good work ethic.
Many like to join clubs including (but not limited to) the Society for Creative Anachronism, the Sierra Club, Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and many smaller organizations. I knew some who were tree sitters (the ones that hostile critics say were skipping school? Nope, many of them were homeschooled or unschooled!) There are also many groups devoted to just about any kind of hobby or interest or endeavor including frisbee teams, performance guilds, outdoor programs of universities, drumming circles, mountain search and rescue, and even city planning committees.
Natch, there is always the YMCA/YWCA, the 4-H Club, and plenty of religious organizations (not restricted to Christianity or even monotheism), sports teams, scouts (uh, don’t ask, don’t tell!), youth symphonies and garage bands, and teen support groups and hotlines. Community leagues, colleges, private schools, and church leagues often have groups and sports teams in which unschoolers can participate. (In some places, nothing stops unschoolers or homeschoolers from forming their own teams.) There are plenty of museums, science organizations, and other groups that accept volunteers. I knew some homeschoolers that formed an environmental club (based on books like Fifty Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth). Various activist groups also form connections for many young people to have a life with.
Unschoolers and homeschoolers also make their own groups (have I mentioned that?). Btw, here’s the Not Back To School Camps:
http://www.nbtsc.org/Some even travel the world and become involved in international affairs. You can find books written by or about unschoolers who did just that.
In addition to forming contacts and friendships just about anywhere you go, we are not barred from the standard hangouts. I met plenty of kids at the movies and malls and beaches. It’s hard NOT to form friendships! I wasn’t shunned for being outside of school, either (or if I was, it was a lot less than when I was in school). Many kids thought my unschooling was cool, whether or not they had any interest in leaving school themselves. Nor was I angry and bitter the way I had been in school (and this might’ve helped me to make friends, too). There was also more time to spend with friends who shared my interests. In a way, I had my cake and ate it, too, like so many others.
I had more friends once I left school than I ever did before, too. I think I got invited to more parties outside of school (including by those who still went to school) than I ever did when I was a part of school. I also formed many pen pals and internet connections and have met a few of those people since then, too. This is also a common practice among those who get an education outside of school.
Overall, homeschoolers find their self reliance and esteem enhanced, while the negative effects of peer pressure (including bullying, shunning, etc) are almost completely eliminated. Younger unschoolers (like 12 to 14) find it wonderful not to be expected to be saddled with a boyfriend/girlfriend (or to have sex or do drugs) in order to be accepted.
In an informal group hosted by a few sympathetic adults (including a school teacher disillusioned with public education), we often found our highschool peers immature, inexperienced, and uninteresting. I admit that many who came to our group were sent there for extra credit (which they needed), but having reviewed some sources I see that our perceptions are shared by the majority of other homeschoolers and unschoolers.
One former unschooler adds that unschooling allows teens to stay "young" as long as they want, but also to "grow up" as soon as they are ready. (I would also add that unschoolers have a lot more practice being adults by the time they really are adults, which is no small advantage over highschoolers that suddenly find themselves 18 before they know it, and almost no experience at being an adult.)
Unschoolers can also keep up with any former (or new) relationships with conventional highschoolers (though the fact that highschoolers have a lot less time can be frustrating). They tend to grow closer to their families and start liking their parents and siblings more. While they tend to have fewer casual friendships, they generally develop stronger and closer friendships with those they like. They also don’t have to spend time around those they don’t have a lot in common with (no more than the average adult). Their friends include children younger and older and many adults. They get over any former feelings that they can’t talk to adults. Most unschoolers (including myself) find plenty of adults to act as role models and mentors. Apprenticeships and internships are common. For the first time, many of us form healthy relationships with adults.
Here are what some homeschoolers and unschoolers have to say on the matter (as shared by The Teenage Liberation Handbook by Grace Llewellyn):
"My confidence has grown immensely--I am not judged for reasons such as clothes, money, or my looks.... My social life is better than it ever was at school. I meet people at the YMCA, ballet class, and I have adult friends."
--Suzanne Klemp, YMCA ballet teacher, age 15 "My social life is much more rounded than school kids’; I talk to anyone and everyone the same. I’ve noticed that most kids will talk to anyone younger than them but only superficially, and hardly talk to adults at all except when spoken to. I don’t believe in that and make a point of showing that I’ll talk to anyone about anything. On the track team there’s all ages and I’m friends with all equally. I don’t make a point of talking someone just because of closeness in age. For example, I talk to the little boys in kindergarten because we share a common hatred of the rock group New Kids on the Block. And the coaches ask me quite important things such as make sure so-and-so is standing in the right lane, and sometimes they get so mixed up I have to remind them what they are suppose to be doing (they are grateful for it).
"I have about thirty pen-pals and they range in age from about ten to fifty. I consider these my friends and my social life because you can be social through the mail. I may not have as many friends and acquaintances as other kids but it is not the amount but the quality of friendship that counts."
--Anne Brosnan, 13 "I am friends with the adults who live in the house next door to us....Dick is interested in bicycling and philosophy and Crunch is interested in word games, movies, and sports. These are all things that I am interested in, which is one of the reasons I immediately became friends with them. The other reason is that they take me seriously and respect what I have to say about things. They are a few things that I talk to them about that I don’t talk to most of my friends who are closer in age to me (I’m 13)--for instance, politics and education.
"I don’t think my friendship with them is very different from my friendships with other teenagers, except for the fact that we have better conversations. We often fool around with each other the way I would friends my own age. I think that they are many things I can learn from them, but that doesn’t make me feel that they are necessarily superior to me. They are probably things that they can learn from me also. I do think that we have a very equal friendship, most likely because they respect me in the same way that I respect them."
--Jeremiah Gingold, from GWS (Growing Without Schooling) #74That’s why I don’t agree with the assumption that people who do not go to school are socially damaged--simply because they’re not. I find it sad that some people can only imagine people making friends in a place that they are forced to go to and often aren’t allowed to talk to each other most of the time. If this is the only way you could make friends, you have led a very sad life.
I also wonder how many homeschoolers and unschoolers commit suicide, become pregnant, or addicted to drugs when compared to regular schoolers. I would think the number is much higher among more conventional schools. I have yet to hear of a homeschooler or unschooler who shot anyone as a student, let alone take out a library or family.
To me, asserting that we must send children to our outdated and outmoded schools so that they can fit into society sounds too much like the idea that we must mutilate the genitals of young girls so that they can be accepted into their society. (We wouldn’t want to ruin their "socialization" now, would we?)
Furthermore, the idea that only "They" can teach us how to deal with other human beings (despite the heavy toll on our young people it takes and despite socially retarding policies) sounds as superstitious (and so wrong as to be a sign of insanity) to me as the idea that only the Christian Church (despite its holy wars and teaching that unbelievers, gays, pagans, and sometimes even women are to be pitied or hated) can teach us to love one another and treat each other right.
Some people have come down upon Christian fundamentalists as typical homeschoolers wanting to foist Creationism on their young (stereotype much?). But you’ll find more of them at a casual glance because they are so much more aggressive in this as they are in getting themselves onto PUBLIC school boards or getting Creationism--or what they like to call Intelligent Design-- into the curriculum at public schools.
But they provide at least as many opportunities for learning and socialization as any public school. They just think that schools have become too secular. (Amazing when you consider all the counselors that seem to be looking for signs of satanism in youth, and even kids expelled--I kid you not--for casting curses on teachers.) And I feel compelled to add that religious schools often provide superior academic achievement for their students while such things as school shootings almost never happen at one (as opposed to the 98% of school shootings that take place in a public school). Some homeschoolers I know that were raised in a Christian environment were also more responsible than your typical highschooler.
I will agree that everything bad that happens in school is not the fault of the schools. But as school should not be blamed for everything, neither should they be praised for everything. Life--inside or outside of school--is what you make of it, not what someone else makes of it for you. It is wrong, IMO, to shift blame of anything bad that happens in school onto the student and parents while at the same time make the claim that everything good happens is not because of the parents or student but because of the school. It is not that people learn and have a life in spite of themselves thanks to school, but that people learn and have life despite schools.
This becomes even more apparent as you look at how many teachers, including those who win awards, are heavily involved with the homeschooling and unschooling movements. This is understandable when you find out how the famous teachers that have had movies made about them or showed up on Ophrah have failed to change the school system despite the methods proven to work by these these teachers.
One famous teacher named Jaime Escalante even went so far as to show how schools could be improved, but the real lesson is what the school system did to him as a result:
http://reason.com/0207/fe.jj.stand.shtmlI realize that sharing this with those who have already made up their minds on this (whether to sympathetic to my view or not) is pointless, but for those who are wondering, a social life does exist outside of the walls of a school. EVERY problem and objection anyone can think to raise in regards to homeschooling and unschooling has been dealt with. Teachers that help in both the homeschooling and unschooling paths have written many books that explain how kids can have a social life, have an interesting and active life, join a sports team, gain an internship, and go to college (even Harvard). All you have to do, if you’re interested, is learn about it.
(But if you’re unable to learn without some authority figure putting it in front of you and assigning homework over it, then I guess you’re pretty screwed and should just follow orders. You should also sit up straighter as you read this, too. Now. Should you ever lose your vaunted position as a wage slave, remember the military can always use new people now, and is full of new friends for you. Which is important to keep in mind as you’ll never have friends outside of the military. Hey, I told you to stop slouching! )
It’s possible that my experiences aren't typical (though they are common enough) and that all schools aren’t as toxic as I think they are. But I know for a fact that homeschooling and unschooling aren’t as toxic as others make it out to be. They are perfectly healthy and viable alternatives. IMO, until schools radically change, homeschooling and unschooling will continue to be a better path in learning and in making friends.
I apologize for the length, but it seemed necessary for pointing out the obvious.
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Topic: Of Schools and Socialization (Read 4308 times)