fett on 21/4/2009 at 20:30
Right on. That's the purpose of being involved with a co-op, plus sports, plus neighborhood kids, etc. The real problem with most homeschool parents is that they want to protect their kids from the world and the people in it. We've just started to feel that public school is actually doing exactly that, compared to the experiences and people they would encounter if we had them for the 7+ hours a day. There's no shortage of peer-group opportunities outside of public school, so long as the parents don't board up the windows and only let the kids go into the world for church.
(How did we get on this subject?? Need a homeschooling thread...)
Just as an example, our 7 year old's fall schedule looks like this:
Monday: Ice skating lessons/hockey practice
Tuesday: Mad science class/ Early natural science class (at co-op)/soccer practice
Wednesday: co-op library/field trip (sometimes, otherwise, nothing)
Thursday: piano/soccer game
Friday: Fencing or Taekwando
Saturday:Soccer or Hockey game
Sunday: nothing
As you can see, the majority of those are peer activities. At the same time, most of that stuff only takes 2-3 hours of the day, so the rest of the time, they'll be doing stuff that's not directly peer-related and hopefully engaged with a wider variety of people.
Using Conservapedia as a picture of homeschooling is like using Kleibold as a picture of public schooling. Both are extremes, and the majority of kids end up somewhere in the middle. Exactly where in the middle seems to be largely up to the parents in the early years.
Besides, how much socialization is "enough?" 40 hours a week?
june gloom on 21/4/2009 at 20:47
I don't think you can put a number on it.
I hesitate to use myself as an illustration since I wasn't actually homeschooled, but here goes. I went to a private Catholic school for deaf children. Like the rest of deaf culture, the place was largely insulated from the outside world, it was its own little bubble. (Deaf culture is basically "I don't know jackshit about the real world but the world should cater to me because I'm deaf so fuck you.") When I transferred to a public hearing school for 9th grade it was a very rude awakening and a rather nasty shock. I wasn't happy there at all so I went back; but eventually I started going to a vocational school. The place was basically a high school for misfits and troublemakers, with the idea that they would learn valuable technical skills there because they couldn't handle regular book-learnin'. It wasn't until I'd started going there that I actually began to develop the capability to actually deal with people. The social structure was just as twisted as in regular high schools, but the divides went along different faultlines, mostly racial (i.e. you had the black kids, and you had everyone else) but also based on given vocational paths. The HVAC kids didn't as a rule hang out with the audio/video kids, for instance, and don't ask the Oracle kids to give the automotive kids the time of day. Some of us were switched around here and there- I and a few guys from the IT section spent our junior year math class with a bunch of HVAC and automotive kids and it was insanity. It was all male and it smelled horrible and the teacher pretended we weren't all making dick jokes. Ah, memories.
fett on 21/4/2009 at 20:56
Hmmm...interesting, but I'd say your experience isn't indicative of either homeschooling or public schooling - it's an odd mixture of both, but not quite. :confused:
I think you're still mixing up real life relationships with the social dynamic in the cocoon of an average high school. There are a million reasons why the two are not the same, and another million reasons why so many people don't succeed at the former, or in their given field/aspirations, and many can be traced to the artificial dynamic of public school. Equally, we could point to homeschool horror stories. The difference is that while it's entirely possible to successfully socialize homeschoolers, it's nearly impossible for a public school student to receive the same amount of academic attention, variety, extra time, and self-discipline of a well-directed homeschool. Again, I think it comes down to whether or not the parents have their shit together.
jtr7 on 21/4/2009 at 21:28
Quote Posted by Starrfall
When people talk about school as socialization don't they usually just mean in the sense that it exposes kids to lots of other kids their own age? It probably doesn't HAVE to happen in a classroom. Seems like the big problem with homeschooled kids being weirdos is that a lot of them never see anyone but their parents and siblings (and it seems like that's usually because the parents are religious freaks who don't want their children coming into contact with the secular population).
Or maybe I'm just basing this on the poor kids who lived next to us when I was in high school! At halloween the family would put up a sign on their door that said halloween was the devils holiday so they weren't participating.
You're still going to let your kids play with other kids and celebrate halloween, right?
I found interaction with my peers at school an ugly situation, and the most informing and interesting aspects for me were discouraged, while bullying was often encouraged, with the victims getting in trouble for standing up for themselves. When Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" first came on the radio, I had experienced that crap to the extent that by 5th grade
I had learned adults and authority figures were as often wrong as they were right. The only positive social interaction came from--get this--neighborhood friends I was already friends with, whom I interacted with outside of school--gasp!--on weekends and when we weren't doing homework! I know it's hard to believe home-schooled kids socialize or learn how to interact, but...uh...they do. Over-protective parents are found on both sides of that fence. Socially inept kids are found on both sides of the fence, and there are a hell of a lot more in schools from the sheer numbers. There are brilliant students who can't help but not relate to the embarrassing percentage of struggling students that carry their lack of knowledge into the next grade.
I begged my parents to home-school me, even though I understood their jobs kept us all clothed, sheltered, and fed. My greatest learning experiences came after I got the hell out of the system, and I'm far behind. It's a common fallacy that the public education system perpetuates that home-schooled children don't socialize. My parents took me to social events, corrected me when I lacked appropriate social graces, and we went out into the public where I had to interact with people of all ages, in formal and informal situations, and there's no reason to believe home-schooled children are somehow deprived.
Most people who receive an education are publicly-schooled and there are still a high percentage of assholes, selfish turds, ignoramuses, and uncouth jerks everywhere. Everywhere--in all tiers of society. At least home-schooled kids have a greater chance to actually get a real education that they can use, even if they end up lacking social skills. The worst part of my job on a daily basis are all the people that lack empathy, live in their own little bubble, have no sense of community, and lie, cheat, and steal as their only sense of power, and DAMN, there are TOO MANY!
If the survival skills one is supposed to acquire in school are lying, cheating, stealing, manipulating, and more uncivil garbage, then fuck that. Or what is it exactly that is supposed to be acquired? No environment have I ever been in for such a sustained period with that level of oppression, controlled input of inaccuracy and falsehood, bullying, hatred of inquisitiveness, and confusion over right and wrong. The cosmic irony here is that my childhood church (which closed its doors after the pastor retired) was never like that, but I will allow you to pick out the "inaccuracy and falsehood" from that list, as is your right. I never knew I enjoyed learning until I graduated. I thank certain teachers and the general system for giving me the tools to self-educate, but little else.
Lastly (at last!), far more of my socialising and interaction with peers happened during summer vacation. In my 12 years at public schools, socialising and interaction were severely looked down upon in the classroom, except for the rare days when the curriculum called for group activity) and they taught me how to be cold and harshly judgmental--traits I've been only partially successful in purging. Yes, the schools, not the church of my formative years.:laff:
june gloom on 21/4/2009 at 22:04
For what it's worth, fett, my experience at the deaf school was basically the worst of both worlds. Not only did I not get the education I deserved for the money we paid to send me there, it also severely stunted my ability to interact with people (or even have basic knowledge of pop culture- I was sheltered at home and nobody cared at school.) Babes in the woods and all that. I didn't even start college until I was 19 and I'm still there.
That year I spent in a public school is why I understand how horrible schools are. That school was, at the time, host to some of the worst people on earth. I'm certain there were at least a few serial murderers in the class of 2000. I barely made it and only because I left after the first year there- and of course the school fought bitterly against me leaving, but it was just too much for me and my parents were getting a divorce etc. etc. etc.
I fucking hated school, and I fucking hated being sheltered. I don't believe in home-schooling because far too many people use it as an excuse to indoctrinate their kids. I've only ever met one person who's come out halfway normal, and not for lack of trying. In my opinion, the best argument for public schooling is to reform it. Break the social structures. Change how we teach kids. And most importantly, you have to teach the parents as well. You have a new system, the parents were taught under the old system- they have to be shown how the new system works.
The_Raven on 21/4/2009 at 23:52
I guess that only thing I can participate in this discussion, that other people haven't more eloquently explained elsewhere, is that public school helped teach me how to deal with assholes. I still have problems dealing this them, and still to my fair share of things that only exacerbates the situation, but public-school helped me realize that these people are out there, they can't always be avoided, and that you're going to have to learn to deal with them.
fett on 22/4/2009 at 01:46
But you also encounter assholes on the ball field, in your neighborhood, your extended family, etc. They aren't confined to public schools. It seems like we generally acknowledge that the public school system is failing on many levels, the Columbine incident being partly an evidence of that. The reform it needs is so sweeping and absolute, that it won't get fixed in time to save my kids from working at McDonald's for a career. Now that we'll have time to do a better job, how can I not? If the only risk I take is them missing out on getting beat up in the bathroom, I think I'm willing to make that sacrifice. :erg:
june gloom on 22/4/2009 at 01:50
That's just it, fett. You can walk away from assholes in the park or at the pool. But in school you're basically bottled up with total shitbags 'til 2:15 and it's sink or swim. When you go to work, guess what? You get to spend your entire 8 hour shift with total shitbags! At least in school you get the training you need for dealing with these shitbags when walking away from them isn't an option, without having to worry about your actions affecting you later on.
I need to stop saying shitbags.
Scots Taffer on 22/4/2009 at 01:54
Quote Posted by dethtoll
AR Master: the poor man's PigLick.
Telegram for dethtoll: Stop. Stop.
Taffer36 on 22/4/2009 at 03:09
Quote Posted by EvaUnit02
Shut the fuck up, AR Asster. Stop fagging up serious thread with your bullshit posts.
Anyway, this tragic event directly influenced Gus Van Sant's Elephant. Lovely little film that.
Columbine also marked Marilyn Manson's downward spiral into a non-entity that spews out truly garbage records every couple years.
That movie was complete shit.
Quote Posted by fett
Koki: Keepin' ttlg
edgy.
I've been thinking a lot about the high school social dynamic thing. We're getting ready to start homeschooling our two boys, not because we think public school is evil, but because we're going to have time to do it ourselves, and we're going to get to travel a lot and let them actually experience life instead of being chained to a desk doing inane worksheets about it.
Everyone's big objection is that they won't have any socialization. I can't think of a more unrealistic social setting than a school classroom though. After high school, you rarely sit in the same room with 20 people exactly your own age, doing the exact same work. Unless I'm training my kids to grow up to be telemarketers, I'm not sure what they'd be missing. The social dynamic in high school is fucked up anyway.
I don't really think that's the point of public school. Now, I'm not saying you're doing something terrible or anything ridiculous and it's pretty cool that you're willing to devote that kind of time to your kids, but I'm just doing a bit of a brain dump. IMO, public school is great for kids socially because it is a good situation for them to be interacting with people
on an equal basis. That's why it's important, IMO, that the people are their age. When you get older age differences somewhat mesh together, and more or less everyone's an adult so there's a certain degree of equality there. But as a child, I would think that it's pretty important since age differences are pretty drastic when growing up.
