Homeschool Article 64: Why I'm Against Homeschooling

Question:
Homeschool Article 64: Why I'm Against Homeschooling I was homeschooled up to halfway through tenth grade. Having never been to school, I had no idea what to expect - although I was quite sure by that point that I would enjoy it more than I had enjoyed homeschooling. Why? Because I was lonely. I was absolutely starved for friendship. I don't live out in the boondocks like the stereotypical recluse homeschooler; I simply had no effective way of connecting. Without consistent exposure to peers, I lacked effective social skills. I was a sad, shy person.

Enrolling in school was the best thing that I ever did. I had the good luck of meeting some excellent friends, and I got into good classes. With some hard work, I've developed passable social skills I am very happy with. A year later, I'm enjoying myself like I never had the chance to before.

I wouldn't recommend homeschooling for any children aged higher than primary school, unless as a parent you feel that you can acclimate them to other children their own age on a regular basis. Those bold letters have a lot of feeling behind them. Many times have I heard proud homeschooling parents brag of their children's busy social lives - conveniently not mentioning that these social opportunities occur infrequently, only in structured circumstances, or with children of widely disparate ages. I'm not saying that children of different ages cannot be mixed. I'm saying that healthy children must be exposed to a peer group, and must have friends - real friends with whom they actually want to associate, not kids their parents have picked out for them to be friends with just because they also happen to be homeschooled.

I pick no fights with homeschooling over its academic prowess. It is obviously usually superior to the public school system. I am speaking out against homeschooling because of its utter social inadequacies. Out of the relatively large group of homeschoolers with whom I am acquainted, I do not know a single one who I would classify as well-balanced or well-socialized. Of course, the parents of these poor kids would have you believe otherwise - but you need only sit in on their homeschool meetings to hear the tales of their unfortunate children being socially rejected when they try to mix with kids from the mainstream education system.

Kids need friends. Before you post irate responses to this thread, please think about your children. Regardless of what they tell you, are they happy? Do they have real friends? Think back to your own childhood. Would you have been happy with the degree of exposure to peers that your children have? You might even ask them if they feel able to join a mainstream activity (sports, after-school clubs) and get along with other kids. You might be surprised.

-A happy ex-homeschoooler

Answer:
-I'm sorry that you had an un-socialized homeschooling experience. You have my sincere sympathy; but surely you know the old maxim: abusus non tollit usum. Your individual bad experience cannot be broadened into a general rule. I can give you a counter-example from my life.

I was a sad, shy kid who went to school from day one. By the end of high school, I had one friend. Lemme repeat that: *ONE* friend. I strongly suspect I could have accomplished that particular school-derived milestone as a homeschooler, rather than a schooled person.

You say that without peer exposure, you won't learn social skills. That statement is wrong. Period. The implication contained in it is even less accurate. You imply that school socialization is how you learn to be a civilized, socialized person. How silly. School socialization consists essentially of two conditions:

1. Peer-to-peer contact. Happens only at recess and lunch within a very narrow age-range and with bullying and pecking order being the most significant social interaction. Yeah, that's really useful and beneficial to a kid's social learning.

2. Teacher-student contact. Useful if you plan a career as a prison inmate or member of an authoritarian cult. Otherwise, this constitutes 6-8 hours per day of sitting on your fundament being harangued by an authority figure, being silent, and being unable to go to the bathroom without permission. That's pretty much just like the life of most adults, isn't it? No?

Homeschooled kids have the same after-school and weekend socialization possibilities of schooled kids PLUS all that other time during the day to actually interact with people of various age groups and social positions. Much more useful and realistic socialization than schoolish peer contact.

We are the only homeschooling family in the neighborhood (suburban - bedroom community of Seattle). Our house is nonetheless somehow the social center of our neighborhood. Kids from 7 to 15 come hang out here when they get out of school. My kids are 12 and 13 and can play happily with the 7-year-olds and the 15-year-olds. I personally find this "better" than them hanging out with only 12-year-olds or 13-year olds. That's my value judgment; yours obviously differs since you place such great value on schoolish peer-to-peer contact. Guess we'll just hafta disagree on that one.

Let's go back to personal examples. As I said, I was shy. My older daughter, as a child, showed signs of being shy, distinctly so. When she was about 4, she wanted to do gymnastics. We signed her up for classes. For the first month, I went down on the floor with her and she sat on my lap for everything except trampoline. During her second month, she left me for tramp and floor/tumbling. It took almost three months; but she eventually went down to the floor by herself for the entire class.

When we started her in school (Yes, she went to school for about three years.), she got in line and smiled and waved good-bye to us. Our very shy daughter had a happy and wonderful day, while other kids cried for hours. I like to think it was because we took the time to allow her to "socialize" at her own pace. As I said, I was a schooled kid. Unlike my daughter's initial experience, however, I puked every morning for the first week of school.

School socialization, for both my girls, was about as I described above. There's very little time in school for socialization and most of that is not what I'd consider "good." YMMV.

We started homeschooling a bit more than three years ago. Lemme give you some socialization examples from my older daughter's "typical" week:

She plays volleyball and has practice twice a week plus a game on Saturday. It's an age-grouped team; so that's peer-to-peer socialization. She'll start baseball practice soon and that'll be similar. She's been thinking about joining my kendo dojo, where she'd be with people from her age through people in their seventies.

She volunteers two days a week for a horse rescue nonprofit (Hope for Horses, Washington state). The people there range from college-age to sixtyish. "Real world" socialization, IMHO, just like in the "typical" U.S. workplace. If you believe that one of the purposes of school is to prepare you for the workplace, then compare her experience as a volunteer to that of the 30-or so kids sitting in class listening to the teacher pontificate all day. Which is more valuable/useful?

This week she spent one day with two other homeschooled kids about her age. Another day, during school hours, she went iceskating with a few homeschooled kids. She skateboards with other board-heads and, like I sad earlier, the neighborhood kids are usually over here after school.

Having said all that, I'll admit that my younger daughter is returning to school as we speak. She applied for, and was accepted to, A. S. Neill's Summerhill School. Of course, this is not a typical school in any sense of the word. Socialization there is much more generic than the typical ageist school socialization. As an educator, you are, I would hope, familiar with Neill?

I agree that kids need friends. Mine have many. Many more than I had as a schooled child. Plus, their friendships are not limited to just their own age-group, which is an artificial construct of the school system and not parallel to anything that happens in "real life."

And that's my $.02, P.S. Who am I? I posted to this website a couple of times a few years ago. I was not comfortable here, so I discontinued posting; but I still read it occasionally. I'm an atheist and a John Holt-style "radical" unschooler; so you, as a mainstream Christian and school apologist, would probably have as many problems with me as you do with these folks, if not more. But this thread is about socialization not educational philosophy.