I’ve still yet to see this happen in homeschooling groups.

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.

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!

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?”

As for the T-shirt, I say definitely buy one

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.

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.

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?

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.