Homeschooling And Socialization

"One of my biggest pet peeves as a homeschooling mother is the "socialization" myth. Anti-homeschoolers would have everyone believe that our kids are locked in a cramped house all day, forbidden to speak to outsiders. The truth is, the lack of school restraints gives us more opportunity for genuine socialization. Our kids aren't grouped with only those the same age as them, at a desk in a classroom, being told by a teacher, "You're not here to socialize!" We're out in the "real world" learning real things with real people from all races, faiths and ages. And our children are not exposed to the negative socialization that often is found in the school system.

Now please don't be offended if you're reading this and your kids aren't homeschooled. I'm not knocking your choice, only defending mine against the many critics in the mainstream media. I can't tell you how many stories I've seen done by the media where they bring some "homeschooler" out of the woodwork who's being charged with child neglect and abuse. Only to find out that they were never really true "homeschoolers" in the first place. Their kids were just truant. There was no homeschooling going on, but they want to throw that label on them to hurt our movement.

I remember sitting around with a group of fellow soccer moms in a middle school for a photo session. One of the moms asked me, "Why doesn't Amanda go here?" Then she said, "Oh...that's right..you homeschool." Then she went on about how she could never do that, and I told her it wasn't as hard as it seems. She then said in a very disparaging voice, "Well, I send my kid to school for the other kids." And all the moms around her nodded their heads vigorously.

My blood was boiling and I calmly waited for a chance to defend myself, but they were talking so much about how important socialization at school was that I could never get a word in edgewise. I later found out that the mother who instigated the attack on me is married to the county Superintendant of Public Schools here. Figures.

There's a wonderful story that ran on HeraldSun.com that gives a very accurate picture of what homeschooling is like and how we truly socialize. From the article:

Trash everything you think you know about homeschooling. Forget the images of a small family sitting around a table, working out arithmetic problems. Toss out the thought of children whose only friends are their parents, brothers and sisters. Today's homeschoolers say they are nothing like that. The kids meet regularly with other students for classes and activities. They have extensive networks for support groups, sports and clubs. "Most people don't home-school in a vacuum," says Julie Woessner, who has taught her two daughters from their house in Hillsborough for seven years. "People have the notion that we're weirdos, sitting around a kitchen table. We're not."

AND:

"Sometimes I think I need to clear my social calendar," said Towey, who lives in Durham. "There are so many people home-schooling, you could spend every day in the car going to see them." Towey's three children, 10, 7 and 4, attend Bible study, art and history classes and sports. The kids take dance lessons and practice karate. The association itself offers monthly enrichment, a time of fellowship with activities and playtime for the students and parents.

Then there's this article from CNSNews.com that cites a study that says homeschoolers are actually better socialized than their peers:

The study by the Fraser Institute, an independent public policy organization based in Vancouver, Canada, focused on home-schooled students in North America. According to the study's findings, the typical home-schooled child is more mature, friendly, happy, thoughtful, competent, and better socialized than students in public or private schools. They are also less peer dependent and exhibit "significantly higher" self-esteem, according to the study."

Source





FREE SPEECH A LOW PRIORITY AT COLLEGE

"Write about free speech on American college campuses occasionally, and you quickly come to realize that a good many people honor the concept mostly in the breach. Every column defending free expression generates a number of emails with this basic message: Of course I support free speech, I just don't think someone should be allowed to say that.

The anti-speech sentiment is not always couched quite that explicitly, of course. Usually the caveat is about the need to realize just how hurtful a controversial statement is to this group or that, whose self-image or self-confidence or self-worth will be irreparably injured by hearing or seeing something that offends or angers them. Indeed, when I did a column about the University of New Hampshire's absurd disciplinary action against a male student who put up a satirical poster suggesting that the women in his dorm might avoid the dreaded freshman-year weight gain if they took the stairs rather than using the elevator, even his mild jape, directed at no person in particular, invoked the same response.

You don't know what it's like to have someone make snide comments about your weight, replied some readers. (Actually, I do, having recently been denounced as a fat, pizza-gobbling ''pantload'' by one of the coruscating philosopher kings of the local talk-radio scene. That, apparently, is what passes as wit on talk radio, and in the spirit of the new year, I'd certainly grant that it's half-witty.)

My feeling is that people need to grow a little thicker skin if they expect to survive in this world. And that if colleges operate the way the PC gendarmerie prefer, they aren't preparing students for the real world so much as sheltering them from it.

Unfortunately, however, too often the prevalent notion on campus is that people have a right not to be offended, and that that right, and the goal of preserving an amorphous civility, should trump the right to free expression. David French, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a nonprofit devoted to defending free speech on campus, says the foundation frequently encounters that sentiment among college administrators and faculty. ''One of the most common experiences we have at FIRE is for an administrator or a faculty member to pledge undying loyalty to the First Amendment even while they are censoring a student,'' said French. ''They claim to support free speech, and if you put them on truth serum I think they would still claim to, but they think if a person's feelings are hurt, speech has just gone too far.''"

More here

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

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