At least the bearer of this shirt has mastered her school’s most fundamental principle:
so·cial·izeplay_w(”S0525600″)
1. To place under government or group ownership or control.2. To make fit for companionship with others; make sociable.3. To convert or adapt to the needs of society.v.intr.To take part in social activities.
I’ll let you pick which you think is most relevant. I think the public school system has embraced all three definitions and thus has succeeded in becoming a place to take part in social activities.
Kathleen Lyon, spokesperson for the National Education Association, makes particular note of the importance of adapting children to the needs of society:
Too often missing from the debate on home schooling are the benefits that public schools provide children, advantages that most common measures of education success overlook. Educating children to live and work in a global society where they will have to interact with people from different races, economic status, backgrounds, and ethnic groups is best taught by experience. Public schools provide such experiences. Further, public schools offer students the opportunity to sharpen essential skills that are required in the job market today, such as problem solving in cooperative groups. The Homeschooling Revolution
And I must ask, too often missing? That is the only part of the debate I ever hear. At least my children’s apparent lack of opportunity at socialization seems to be the only objection anyone ever has to our educational choice.
The funny thing is, public education is not really about introducing a child to his culture and his society nor helping him adapt to it. It is about creating a new society through education. It is about desocialization.
So maybe I should go back to Sears and pick up that shirt for my daughter, after all.
Photo credit: Sears.com
Principled Discovery is a place to stop and discuss news and information related to faith, family and particularly education. Pour yourself a cup of tea and join the conversation! 
When I read the quote from Ms. Lyon, the first thing I think about is the community I live in. It is suburban/rural. There are maybe 5 black families, and (other than Hispanic) no other ethnic groups. When I take my children to the public library (in another community) they interact with Indians, Asians and Middle Easterners.
Then, I think of our friends who took their severely dyslexic son out of public school because he was in special ed and not learning a thing, or interacting with anyone aside from the other special ed kids. Or the family I know with a son with aspergers. He’s very smart, but they didn’t do a thing for him “socially.” This boy is now homeschooled and one of my sons buddies.
If i am completely honest, I will admit, sometimes I wonder about my oldest son and what he’s missing. This year all his football buddies are playing middle school ball and he sits on the sidelines watching. It’s sad. He understands though, that public school is not for him.
What is important to us socially is that our children are polite to all, even their “enemies.” That they have basic manners at all times, especially in public
It is important to us that they look adults in the eye when they are talking and being talked to.
If this is their only argument, bring it on.
I think it is only natural to question…after all, most of us were educated in the public schools, and most of us receive somewhat constant, albeit subtle, criticism for homeschooling. Every parent struggles with this to some degree because raising our children is the one thing we do not want to mess up.
Homeschoolers just have the ready-made concern of worrying about whether we are doing enough educationally as well.
I do not really think the “socialization” argument is about getting along with those who are different. It is about developing common values. That is the only reason I can think of that “they” are so intolerant of homeschoolers. After all, if they really were learning social skills in school and how to work with diverse groups of people, why would they be so dismissive of homeschoolers and so willing to judge a group based on a single person they knew at some point in their lives?
This particular argument really irritates me. I went to public schools in TX, and our schools were quite ethnically mixed, especially after integration and bussing, which took place when I was in fourth grade. Prior to that, I had no non white friends, although did have two black teachers. So prior to integration, they weren’t doing the job they claim to be doing now.
After integration, though, things weren’t much different. If you were to look at the cafeteria in my high school, you wouldn’t see African American, white, Hispanic, and Asian students all happily mixing and interacting. You would see a cafeteria so segregated by race, class rank, economic status, subculture, and clique that you might think it was enforced. My table was the mixed one. My two best friends were Chinese and Indian. I did have few friends who were pretty different from myself, but that I credit to the influence of my family and church. I had those friends because I made the effort to get to know them because of my personal beliefs and interests, not because of the school environment; otherwise the cafeteria would have been very different.
The fact is that the so-called interracial and inter-class interaction that takes place at school is very formal and superficial at best. Sure, we have to work on a group assignment together, or play on a team together, but at the end of the day, we go out for pizza with people like us; we share our hopes and dreams and troubles with people like us. One or two real friendships with persons of a different race, culture, or social class does far more for real concern and understanding than a jillion superficial contacts. Americans are known for living in foreign countries and never learning the language, never assimilating, never stepping outside the expat community. So the common school hasn’t done much for our cross-cultural skills. And cross-cultural skills are what is required to bridge the gaps schools purport to bridge.
Very true, Rebecca. When I was in high school, we had a section of the building known as “Little Africa.”
This all goes back to Horace Mann and his idea of the common school to create his great society. But it doesn’t work. First, it denies the heart of the issue. People are not perfectable. Second, it is not really the state’s job to decide what our society should look like and work toward that.
We had “nerdy” kids in my homeschool group when it was still together. The only difference I noticed between the kids in the group as a whole and kids in public school, however, was that no one seemed to know those kids were “nerdy,” even those kids. They did not assume their socially accepted place on the outskirts of the goings on and no one treated them unkindly.
I know what would have happened to them in the public school environment. And it had nothing to do with being homeschooled. Some kids are just different, and different does not fair well in environments created for “socialization.” Because socialization is the enforcement of standards of thought and behavior by a group…peer pressure.
You know, only my father and sister have brought up the socialization issue. My father more as a genuine question, my sister questioning but with a bit of attitude. Anybody else who has inquired about why D is not in school hasn’t mentioned it at all and I was all prepared to tackle the question head on LOL
As for the T-shirt, I say definitely buy one
Shawna, I don’t hear it a lot in person, either. The last lady that asked me seemed to be genuinely asking, too. She wasn’t attacking like some.
But it remains the only criticism I have received in person (the socialization issue). No one tackles the academic issues or graduation or even accreditation issues. It is “What about the prom?”
I’ve recently been in situations with private school parents whose school is expanding to middle and high school grades. The first questions these parents raised were not educational ones. “Is there a field to play on?” “Will the kids have laptops?” “What extracurricular activities will be offered?” Interesting.
Sometimes I get asked what curriculum I use in homeschooling, and it’s a funny question to me because I’d be willing to bet that the person asking it has no idea what curriculum their child’s school is using. I’ve often been asked the “what about socialization?” question. After reading about John Dewey, I understand where that question comes from. Still, it’s an annoying question because it seems to presume that I’ve given no thought to it. Far from it! I’ve thought long and hard and deeply about that AND education AND preparation for college and beyond AND many other aspects of my children’s education. I have to bite my tongue to not be a smarty pants and answer with, “What? Oh no! I never thought of that! I’m going to have to re-think EVERYTHING now!”
That t-shirt is certainly tempting!
I’m surprised that you don’t hear that in person. (Are you sure you are socializing enough?) I hear it all the time.
I don’t know about Shawna’s case, in particular, but I wonder how much the question has to do with where you live and how old your children are.
Most of the conversations I have had deal directly with prom, homecoming and events like that. If that is the only redeemable feature of public education, I think we have a greater problem in our education system than I would have ever said!
But my oldest is just getting old enough that people know that she should be in school (she is also sort of petite for her age). And I live in a community where homeschoolers have been around and out and about quite publicly for awhile.
So while I do run into the question occasionally, it is not often…not as often as I would have expected.
Everyone talks about school being this place where kids learn to get along with those that are different. In my experience nothing could be further from the truth. Small social cliches are a common occurence, and deviating from them to those who are “different” is social suicide. Isn’t that the entire plot behind High School Musical in fact? Bullying is too common, and not just in the take your lunch money kind of way. Show up to class in clothing outside your prescribed norm and you learn how well kids have learned to get along: by mocking and mentally torturing you back into your preferred role.
I’ve still yet to see this happen in homeschooling groups.