7 ms·

I think probably a better solution is some sort of combination between home schooling and public school. Homeschooling alone makes it hard for children to lear

by jaawn 11y ago

I think probably a better solution is some sort of combination between home schooling and public school. Homeschooling alone makes it hard for children to learn peer social skills, and it makes it more difficult for them to relate later on to the majority of people who have had 13 years of primary/secondary education in a public school environment (in the US at least)

jt2190 11y ago
> Homeschooling alone makes it hard for children > to learn peer social skills... I think you meant to say "Keeping your child at home alone..." "Homeschooling" does not exclude socialization with other children.
- jaawn 11y ago
  No, I literally meant homeschooling. Not all types of socializing are the same. The main thing home-schooled kids miss out on is being put in rooms with a diverse set of people, some of which are likely to be very different from them. The friction of dealing with people you disagree with, and the broader worldview gained from exposure to different ideas/cultures/attitudes are what I'm referring to. Setting up playdates with the other home-schooled kids, or being on the church basketball team, etc... will involve selecting your peers, which is something we rarely get to do in "real" adult life.
  - jt2190 11y ago
    The argument that the only way that children gain exposure to people with different backgrounds/ideas is to attend public school is dubious. Contrast that with public schools in the U.S. which are highly socially stratified. (Kids from wealthy neighborhoods attend schools that are populated with kids from the wealthy neighborhood... Not really the perfect ideal of "diverse".) (edit: The argument that children educated outside of the traditional school system find it more difficult to acquire social skills is also dubious.)
    - jaawn 11y ago
      Where did you find data about the social stratification of public schools? I just attempted to find this information and found nothing... Also, I don't think public school is the only way to get this exposure, but creating it elsewhere seems to be very difficult.
      - gress 11y ago
        Why is it hard to send a kid to a summer camp, or a community program? There are all kinds of groups children can attend. I see zero evidence for the idea that it's 'very difficult' to expose home schooled kids to diversity. Indeed it's much easier to do so than with public schooled kids.
        jaawn 11y ago
        Those types of things will definitely help, but it is a constant concern which is why I considered it difficult. A summer camp or community program which attracts all kinds of kids would be ideal, but it is a relatively short period of time compared with the 9 months of daily melting pot sessions in a typical public school. Additionally, if "summer camp" means a highly specific camp (like art camp, or theater camp, or Southern Baptist Christian camp), the benefits will be lesser. So, the difficulty is not in finding some amount of diversity, it is matching the level many public schools offer.
        gress 11y ago
        What are these 'melting pot sessions' you are talking about, and how do they teach social skills, empathy, and conflict resolution?
      - jt2190 11y ago
        > Where did you find data about the social > stratification of public schools? Here's one: http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2013/01/18/economic-disparity-in-state-public-schools-is-growing/ http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2013/01/18/economic-disparity...
  - Retra 11y ago
    Regular schooling isn't that diverse in most places. When I went to public school my entire class consisted of white lower-class children all within a year of the same age. That's not diversity.
    - jaawn 11y ago
      I don't believe this is true. I attended a total of 7 different schools in 4 different cities in 2 different states during my primary/secondary education. Only one of these schools was notably non-diverse. I was very often exposed to children of other cultures/attitudes/backgrounds, as well as other ages. It is possible that my experience is exceptionally different, but it doesn't seem like it. I tried to find some research on this, but unfortunately everything I find is an aggregate across all schools, rather than diversity within each school.
      - Retra 11y ago
        'Most' may have been an exaggeration, but even without, you still have social isolation in public schools, and no guarantee of it outside of them. The children in your neighborhood aren't going to be significantly different from the ones at your school.
  - Practicality 11y ago
    Possibly, but is "socializing" children what school is for? Is a homogeneous society where everybody has a similar "socializing" experience really what we want? http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/docs/stopstealingdreamsscreen.pdf http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/docs/stopstealingdreamsscreen.pd... I always thought it was for learning. I would rather my child have an excellent education and potentially have some adult social lessons to learn as an adult than to be well socially integrated and poorly educated.
    - jaawn 11y ago
      I don't think a similar socializing experience = homogenization. I have been encouraged by a lot of my teachers throughout my life to "dream" and be curious. I have attended 3 elementary schools, 1 middle school, 3 high schools, 3 public universities, and 1 community college. There was at least one teacher at every school who encouraged "dreaming" for me. All this talk of socialization is not meant to suggest that it is the main purpose of school, merely that there are specific types of social interactions that children encounter a lot of in public school, while very little in a home-schooled environment.
  - brockers 11y ago
    But couldn't this same argument be applied to students at private, parochial, and specialized programs like Montessori schools? All of these are types of self selection. Additionally your argument even per-supposes non-incidental socialization. For example, my brother home schools his kids but they are rarely ever "at home." For example last week looked something like this for them: --Monday they attended a city library survey of Shakespearean tragedies. Then they attended the community chess club that evening. --Tuesday the university museum of modern history has a weekly K-12 program open to both public and home schooled students. They go almost ever week. --Wednesday was the robotics club at the community center. The home school association soccer program. And a STEM program (they are doing game development and working on their robot for the club competition) through a local STEM academy. --Thursday is back to the university where a number of the individual colleges have courses for home school students on history, science, and math (my understanding is that these programs are open to anyone, but home schooled students make the largest block of attendees, followed by elderly retirees.) --Fridays are at home for papers, research, and computer classes. I guess I am saying that your perception of home schooling might not be a broad as it could be.
    - jaawn 11y ago
      I agree that the same issue, to different extents, applies to all non-public schools. I don't think the issue arises from being "at home" necessarily, I think it stems from the natural bias introduced by choosing activities/settings/groups to socialize in. Home school doesn't inherently reduce "exposure" in a general sense, as you have illustrated. But it makes it easier to stick to your (or your parent's) comfort zone. If a parent is committed to not shying away from uncomfortable social situations, and enthusiastic about engaging people with different views, they can probably provide this exposure to their child. I am just saying that is definitely a challenge that should be acknowledged and accounted for. Based on many people's descriptions of home-schooling, this is a concern that is often overlooked unintentionally.
      - jt2190 11y ago
        > Based on many people's descriptions of home-schooling, > this is a concern that is often overlooked > unintentionally. Where did you find people's descriptions of home-schooling that describe this?
QuercusMax 11y ago
Home school co-ops are the answer, as are non-academically-oriented groups, such as churches, as well as sports and/or music. I was home schooled from 2nd grade through high school, and I was involved in all those things. The old trope of all home schooled kids being antisocial shut-ins needs to die.
- jaawn 11y ago
  That still causes issues. Co-ops are still extremely insular. It isn't an issue of being anti-social, it is an issue of being exposed to a vast and diverse set of different people with different biases, backgrounds, and abilities. Home-schooled kids aren't permanently crippled and unable to succeed or something, but the range of people they are able to relate to and understand is diminished I think. Non-academic groups are definitely good, but many of those often involve a great deal of like-mindedness (such as church groups, or groups sponsored by church groups). I don't expect you or other people who were home-schooled to be shut ins, but I do expect some extra difficulty in empathizing with those who are significantly different from you. (Not that it is impossible or something, just more difficult)
  - jerf 11y ago
    "It isn't an issue of being anti-social, it is an issue of being exposed to a vast and diverse set of different people with different biases, backgrounds, and abilities." School is a homogenization factory, by design. I'd be more confident in homeschoolers meeting people with different "biases, backgrounds, and abilities" than in traditional school. It's worth remembering that schools are an incredibly artificial construct that are barely a hundred years old, and school as we know it is younger than that. It's cognitively tempting, but wrong to treat schooling as the obviously-correct "default answer" against which everything else must strive to be measured... in reality, it's a fairly new idea with at best a mixed track record, and if viewed with historically-informed perspective, one with a lot of serious problems, not least of which is the observed fact of systematic squashing of intellectual curiousity. And remember, when observed fact and theory clash, observed fact wins. It doesn't matter that theoretically school shouldn't do that. It does. (In fact, to the list of school's crimes personally I'd add that it has created an entire society trained to trust academic theories over observed fact. But that's another discussion.) Further, there are plenty of people who come out of school exceedingly poorly "socialized", which can also often be traced back to the artificial social conditions of school itself, combined with the cohort system's effect of requiring each new class of kindergarteners being required to construct a new social system from scratch, which is, of course, inevitably a very childish and immature one compared to one in which younger children are folded into a richer social structure formed by children of many ages. I reject the idea that schooling as we know it produces "perfectly socialized" children. It produces school-socialized children, which isn't the same thing. It's a great deal of the reason why we seem to be infantalized at an older and older age and this failed "socialization" is one of the major reasons I believe the current school system needs to be fully replaced... the "socialization" the current system produces is not a triumph but one of its major glaring flaws.
waiquoo 11y ago
I don't understand this response. Whenever homeschooling comes up, someone always says that homeschoolers are unsocialized. I don't even know what that means. Do you think homeschoolers never have friends or enemies growing up? Where did this prevailing belief come from? I say this as someone who was homeschooled all the way through highschool and attended university and grad school. Even if homeschoolers are 'less socialized' than public/private schoolers, have you noticed that there are the oversocialized people as well? I'm talking about the ones who were popular in highschool, and end up deriving their self-worth from what everyone else thinks of them. Is that not also as big a problem? I don't disagree that socialization is an important part of growing up, I just disagree with the notion that homeschoolers are savages that live in caves until they're 18.
- jaawn 11y ago
  I didn't say they are "unsocialized," I merely said it is more difficult for them to develop peer social skills. Let's not devolve the discussion to black & white thinking.
  - whitehouse3 11y ago
    This is an important distinction. I was homeschooled until college yet still had plenty of friends (I'm not unsocialized). But I still experience culture-shock with my peers - and they with me - because my childhood and teenage years were alot different than theirs. It's not a dealbreaker for homeschooling - but parents should beware and plan appropriately. I agree that a homeschool/traditional schooling hybrid would be ideal.
    - Ollinson 11y ago
      I'm curious how you interpreted this culture shock. Was it that you regretted not having similar experiences?
- jsutton 11y ago
  Public/private schools provide environments and situations that are important for social growth, and which are hard to achieve when homeschooling: unplanned and uncontrolled contact with peers, diverse student populations, etc.
Clanan 11y ago
It's a two-way street. Public school yields its own social issues as well: the separation-by-age dynamic, odd social bubbles, bullying, etc. I've had a professor remark that he easily recognizes homeschoolers - they're the students who know how to converse with adults!
- jaawn 11y ago
  Indeed, which is why I said a combination is the best solution. The benefits of each can be emphasized, and the issues of each can be more effectively mitigated.
- whitehouse3 11y ago
  Homeschooled here. Can confirm. The issue moving into adulthood is that now the adults are my peers and it's as hard to relate with them now as it was 15 years ago.
greggman 11y ago
Do you have any stats to back that up or is it just a feeling? My own "feeling" is actually the opposite is true. My 6 home schooled friends are far and away the most socially adept people I know. Super friendly and able to talk to anyone. The 5 home schooled kids I know are similar. If they were at high school you'd expect them to be among the most popular people as they are so friendly and outgoing. Here's another anecdote of you care to listen http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/177/american-limbo?act=1#play http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/177/a... Here's reference to one study that claims home schooled kids are indistinguishable from public schooled kids http://www.pbs.org/parents/education/homeschooling/socialization-tackling-homeschoolings-s-word/ http://www.pbs.org/parents/education/homeschooling/socializa...
- jaawn 11y ago
  Simply "being social" is not what I'm referring to. Of course home-schooled children can still be social and have social skills. There is a specific subset of these skills which I am arguing that represent more of a challenge for them. It is not impossible for them to still obtain these skills/exposure, simply more difficult. It also isn't life-ruining to be deficient in the specific skills I'm talking about. However, I personally think these specific skills are very important for the diverse, interconnected modern society we live in. It is an important concern to evaluate before advocating for 100% homeschooling, which is what started this whole debate.
  - gress 11y ago
    Why don't you say what this precise subset of skills is, and present some evidence or even narrative about how public school assists students in developing them?
    - jaawn 11y ago
      I have done this in several other comments/replies on this post, so I chose to omit that here to reduce redundancy.
ChuckMcM 11y ago
This entire concept is completely wrong. In the situations where it has been studied, home schooled children are actually better integrated socially than their non-home schooled peers (in the US at least). Part of the reason this narrative persists (other than the teacher's unions pushing it :-)) is that people who haven't home schooled children or met them, sometimes believe it is a 1:1 activity, they visualize the public classroom but with 1 student and 1 teacher. The reality is that home schooling can be much more like going to university than it is going to public school. People who home school their children get together and plan enrichment activities (like going on geology field trips) or book clubs, or math competitions. Learning isn't the "bad" thing, "Oh, I have to go to school." it's a more life long thing, "Try to calculate how fast you'll go on your skateboard at the bottom of this hill given what we've learned about force and acceleration." Hard subjects are broken down into a pace that works well, easy subjects are zipped through without getting bored or waiting for others to "catch up." Interests are pursued. It isn't for everyone, not everyone can afford to have one of the parents around to "own" the education responsibilities of the children, but it doesn't turn kids into anti-social monsters. Middle school does that :-)
- falcor84 11y ago
  This is a great comment, but it just really begs for some citations. Where can I read up on long term results of home schooling (preferably not paywalled)?
  - ChuckMcM 11y ago
    The lack of a paywall is a challenge :-) and to be honest since I did my own research in 2000 my references are out of date, but just typing 'homeschool socialization' on scholar.google.com returns such gems as this: "Compared to children attending conventional schools, however, research suggest that they have higher quality friendships and better relationships with their parents and other adults. They are happy, optimistic, and satisfied with their lives. Their moral reasoning is at least as advanced as that of other children, and they may be more likely to act unselfishly. As adolescents, they have a strong sense of social responsibility and exhibit less emotional turmoil and problem behaviors than their peers." -- http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0161956X.2013.796825 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0161956X.2013.796... When I was doing my research (prior to homeschooling my three daughters) one of the things I did was sit in the Stanford Library and download various journal articles on the positives and negatives. If you do the same (and I'm a big fan of people being critical thinkers) you may come to the same conclusion.
mercer 11y ago
While I'd err on the side of caution toward the benefits of homeschooling, I can also see how homeschooling might have some downsides. Perhaps a big difference for me is that my homeschooling was of the Third Culture Kid (TCK) variety, where quite likely the negatives of homeschooling were balanced out by (often) rather extreme interaction with wildly different people and cultures. That said, you've been all over this thread arguing this point. And it seems reasonable in a common-sense sort of way. However, the counter-points also make sense to me (and are closer to my personal experience). Could you point me to research, or better explain why you seem to feel so strongly about this point? It seems to be more than a hunch or a common-sense thing for you from the way you're arguing the point, and I'd really like to know what the basis is for that. EDIT: Let me add that I have no strong opinion about this particular argument. I consider the damage done by public schooling to vastly outweigh the negatives, social or otherwise, so even if the negatives are significant, I'd probably homeschool my kids if I had to choose.

by jaawn 11y ago

jt2190 11y ago

> Homeschooling alone makes it hard for children > to learn peer social skills... I think you meant to say "Keeping your child at home alone..." "Homeschooling" does not exclude socialization with other children.

jaawn 11y ago
No, I literally meant homeschooling. Not all types of socializing are the same. The main thing home-schooled kids miss out on is being put in rooms with a diverse set of people, some of which are likely to be very different from them. The friction of dealing with people you disagree with, and the broader worldview gained from exposure to different ideas/cultures/attitudes are what I'm referring to. Setting up playdates with the other home-schooled kids, or being on the church basketball team, etc... will involve selecting your peers, which is something we rarely get to do in "real" adult life.
- jt2190 11y ago
  The argument that the only way that children gain exposure to people with different backgrounds/ideas is to attend public school is dubious. Contrast that with public schools in the U.S. which are highly socially stratified. (Kids from wealthy neighborhoods attend schools that are populated with kids from the wealthy neighborhood... Not really the perfect ideal of "diverse".) (edit: The argument that children educated outside of the traditional school system find it more difficult to acquire social skills is also dubious.)
  - jaawn 11y ago
    Where did you find data about the social stratification of public schools? I just attempted to find this information and found nothing... Also, I don't think public school is the only way to get this exposure, but creating it elsewhere seems to be very difficult.
    - gress 11y ago
      Why is it hard to send a kid to a summer camp, or a community program? There are all kinds of groups children can attend. I see zero evidence for the idea that it's 'very difficult' to expose home schooled kids to diversity. Indeed it's much easier to do so than with public schooled kids.
      - jaawn 11y ago
        Those types of things will definitely help, but it is a constant concern which is why I considered it difficult. A summer camp or community program which attracts all kinds of kids would be ideal, but it is a relatively short period of time compared with the 9 months of daily melting pot sessions in a typical public school. Additionally, if "summer camp" means a highly specific camp (like art camp, or theater camp, or Southern Baptist Christian camp), the benefits will be lesser. So, the difficulty is not in finding some amount of diversity, it is matching the level many public schools offer.
        gress 11y ago
        What are these 'melting pot sessions' you are talking about, and how do they teach social skills, empathy, and conflict resolution?
    - jt2190 11y ago
      > Where did you find data about the social > stratification of public schools? Here's one: http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2013/01/18/economic-disparity-in-state-public-schools-is-growing/ http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2013/01/18/economic-disparity...
- Retra 11y ago
  Regular schooling isn't that diverse in most places. When I went to public school my entire class consisted of white lower-class children all within a year of the same age. That's not diversity.
  - jaawn 11y ago
    I don't believe this is true. I attended a total of 7 different schools in 4 different cities in 2 different states during my primary/secondary education. Only one of these schools was notably non-diverse. I was very often exposed to children of other cultures/attitudes/backgrounds, as well as other ages. It is possible that my experience is exceptionally different, but it doesn't seem like it. I tried to find some research on this, but unfortunately everything I find is an aggregate across all schools, rather than diversity within each school.
    - Retra 11y ago
      'Most' may have been an exaggeration, but even without, you still have social isolation in public schools, and no guarantee of it outside of them. The children in your neighborhood aren't going to be significantly different from the ones at your school.
- Practicality 11y ago
  Possibly, but is "socializing" children what school is for? Is a homogeneous society where everybody has a similar "socializing" experience really what we want? http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/docs/stopstealingdreamsscreen.pdf http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/docs/stopstealingdreamsscreen.pd... I always thought it was for learning. I would rather my child have an excellent education and potentially have some adult social lessons to learn as an adult than to be well socially integrated and poorly educated.
  - jaawn 11y ago
    I don't think a similar socializing experience = homogenization. I have been encouraged by a lot of my teachers throughout my life to "dream" and be curious. I have attended 3 elementary schools, 1 middle school, 3 high schools, 3 public universities, and 1 community college. There was at least one teacher at every school who encouraged "dreaming" for me. All this talk of socialization is not meant to suggest that it is the main purpose of school, merely that there are specific types of social interactions that children encounter a lot of in public school, while very little in a home-schooled environment.
- brockers 11y ago
  But couldn't this same argument be applied to students at private, parochial, and specialized programs like Montessori schools? All of these are types of self selection. Additionally your argument even per-supposes non-incidental socialization. For example, my brother home schools his kids but they are rarely ever "at home." For example last week looked something like this for them: --Monday they attended a city library survey of Shakespearean tragedies. Then they attended the community chess club that evening. --Tuesday the university museum of modern history has a weekly K-12 program open to both public and home schooled students. They go almost ever week. --Wednesday was the robotics club at the community center. The home school association soccer program. And a STEM program (they are doing game development and working on their robot for the club competition) through a local STEM academy. --Thursday is back to the university where a number of the individual colleges have courses for home school students on history, science, and math (my understanding is that these programs are open to anyone, but home schooled students make the largest block of attendees, followed by elderly retirees.) --Fridays are at home for papers, research, and computer classes. I guess I am saying that your perception of home schooling might not be a broad as it could be.
  - jaawn 11y ago
    I agree that the same issue, to different extents, applies to all non-public schools. I don't think the issue arises from being "at home" necessarily, I think it stems from the natural bias introduced by choosing activities/settings/groups to socialize in. Home school doesn't inherently reduce "exposure" in a general sense, as you have illustrated. But it makes it easier to stick to your (or your parent's) comfort zone. If a parent is committed to not shying away from uncomfortable social situations, and enthusiastic about engaging people with different views, they can probably provide this exposure to their child. I am just saying that is definitely a challenge that should be acknowledged and accounted for. Based on many people's descriptions of home-schooling, this is a concern that is often overlooked unintentionally.
    - jt2190 11y ago
      > Based on many people's descriptions of home-schooling, > this is a concern that is often overlooked > unintentionally. Where did you find people's descriptions of home-schooling that describe this?

QuercusMax 11y ago

Home school co-ops are the answer, as are non-academically-oriented groups, such as churches, as well as sports and/or music. I was home schooled from 2nd grade through high school, and I was involved in all those things. The old trope of all home schooled kids being antisocial shut-ins needs to die.

jaawn 11y ago
That still causes issues. Co-ops are still extremely insular. It isn't an issue of being anti-social, it is an issue of being exposed to a vast and diverse set of different people with different biases, backgrounds, and abilities. Home-schooled kids aren't permanently crippled and unable to succeed or something, but the range of people they are able to relate to and understand is diminished I think. Non-academic groups are definitely good, but many of those often involve a great deal of like-mindedness (such as church groups, or groups sponsored by church groups). I don't expect you or other people who were home-schooled to be shut ins, but I do expect some extra difficulty in empathizing with those who are significantly different from you. (Not that it is impossible or something, just more difficult)
- jerf 11y ago
  "It isn't an issue of being anti-social, it is an issue of being exposed to a vast and diverse set of different people with different biases, backgrounds, and abilities." School is a homogenization factory, by design. I'd be more confident in homeschoolers meeting people with different "biases, backgrounds, and abilities" than in traditional school. It's worth remembering that schools are an incredibly artificial construct that are barely a hundred years old, and school as we know it is younger than that. It's cognitively tempting, but wrong to treat schooling as the obviously-correct "default answer" against which everything else must strive to be measured... in reality, it's a fairly new idea with at best a mixed track record, and if viewed with historically-informed perspective, one with a lot of serious problems, not least of which is the observed fact of systematic squashing of intellectual curiousity. And remember, when observed fact and theory clash, observed fact wins. It doesn't matter that theoretically school shouldn't do that. It does. (In fact, to the list of school's crimes personally I'd add that it has created an entire society trained to trust academic theories over observed fact. But that's another discussion.) Further, there are plenty of people who come out of school exceedingly poorly "socialized", which can also often be traced back to the artificial social conditions of school itself, combined with the cohort system's effect of requiring each new class of kindergarteners being required to construct a new social system from scratch, which is, of course, inevitably a very childish and immature one compared to one in which younger children are folded into a richer social structure formed by children of many ages. I reject the idea that schooling as we know it produces "perfectly socialized" children. It produces school-socialized children, which isn't the same thing. It's a great deal of the reason why we seem to be infantalized at an older and older age and this failed "socialization" is one of the major reasons I believe the current school system needs to be fully replaced... the "socialization" the current system produces is not a triumph but one of its major glaring flaws.

waiquoo 11y ago

I don't understand this response. Whenever homeschooling comes up, someone always says that homeschoolers are unsocialized. I don't even know what that means. Do you think homeschoolers never have friends or enemies growing up? Where did this prevailing belief come from? I say this as someone who was homeschooled all the way through highschool and attended university and grad school. Even if homeschoolers are 'less socialized' than public/private schoolers, have you noticed that there are the oversocialized people as well? I'm talking about the ones who were popular in highschool, and end up deriving their self-worth from what everyone else thinks of them. Is that not also as big a problem? I don't disagree that socialization is an important part of growing up, I just disagree with the notion that homeschoolers are savages that live in caves until they're 18.

jaawn 11y ago
I didn't say they are "unsocialized," I merely said it is more difficult for them to develop peer social skills. Let's not devolve the discussion to black & white thinking.
- whitehouse3 11y ago
  This is an important distinction. I was homeschooled until college yet still had plenty of friends (I'm not unsocialized). But I still experience culture-shock with my peers - and they with me - because my childhood and teenage years were alot different than theirs. It's not a dealbreaker for homeschooling - but parents should beware and plan appropriately. I agree that a homeschool/traditional schooling hybrid would be ideal.
  - Ollinson 11y ago
    I'm curious how you interpreted this culture shock. Was it that you regretted not having similar experiences?
jsutton 11y ago
Public/private schools provide environments and situations that are important for social growth, and which are hard to achieve when homeschooling: unplanned and uncontrolled contact with peers, diverse student populations, etc.

Clanan 11y ago

It's a two-way street. Public school yields its own social issues as well: the separation-by-age dynamic, odd social bubbles, bullying, etc. I've had a professor remark that he easily recognizes homeschoolers - they're the students who know how to converse with adults!

jaawn 11y ago
Indeed, which is why I said a combination is the best solution. The benefits of each can be emphasized, and the issues of each can be more effectively mitigated.
whitehouse3 11y ago
Homeschooled here. Can confirm. The issue moving into adulthood is that now the adults are my peers and it's as hard to relate with them now as it was 15 years ago.

greggman 11y ago

Do you have any stats to back that up or is it just a feeling? My own "feeling" is actually the opposite is true. My 6 home schooled friends are far and away the most socially adept people I know. Super friendly and able to talk to anyone. The 5 home schooled kids I know are similar. If they were at high school you'd expect them to be among the most popular people as they are so friendly and outgoing. Here's another anecdote of you care to listen http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/177/american-limbo?act=1#play http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/177/a... Here's reference to one study that claims home schooled kids are indistinguishable from public schooled kids http://www.pbs.org/parents/education/homeschooling/socialization-tackling-homeschoolings-s-word/ http://www.pbs.org/parents/education/homeschooling/socializa...

jaawn 11y ago
Simply "being social" is not what I'm referring to. Of course home-schooled children can still be social and have social skills. There is a specific subset of these skills which I am arguing that represent more of a challenge for them. It is not impossible for them to still obtain these skills/exposure, simply more difficult. It also isn't life-ruining to be deficient in the specific skills I'm talking about. However, I personally think these specific skills are very important for the diverse, interconnected modern society we live in. It is an important concern to evaluate before advocating for 100% homeschooling, which is what started this whole debate.
- gress 11y ago
  Why don't you say what this precise subset of skills is, and present some evidence or even narrative about how public school assists students in developing them?
  - jaawn 11y ago
    I have done this in several other comments/replies on this post, so I chose to omit that here to reduce redundancy.

ChuckMcM 11y ago

This entire concept is completely wrong. In the situations where it has been studied, home schooled children are actually better integrated socially than their non-home schooled peers (in the US at least). Part of the reason this narrative persists (other than the teacher's unions pushing it :-)) is that people who haven't home schooled children or met them, sometimes believe it is a 1:1 activity, they visualize the public classroom but with 1 student and 1 teacher. The reality is that home schooling can be much more like going to university than it is going to public school. People who home school their children get together and plan enrichment activities (like going on geology field trips) or book clubs, or math competitions. Learning isn't the "bad" thing, "Oh, I have to go to school." it's a more life long thing, "Try to calculate how fast you'll go on your skateboard at the bottom of this hill given what we've learned about force and acceleration." Hard subjects are broken down into a pace that works well, easy subjects are zipped through without getting bored or waiting for others to "catch up." Interests are pursued. It isn't for everyone, not everyone can afford to have one of the parents around to "own" the education responsibilities of the children, but it doesn't turn kids into anti-social monsters. Middle school does that :-)

falcor84 11y ago
This is a great comment, but it just really begs for some citations. Where can I read up on long term results of home schooling (preferably not paywalled)?
- ChuckMcM 11y ago
  The lack of a paywall is a challenge :-) and to be honest since I did my own research in 2000 my references are out of date, but just typing 'homeschool socialization' on scholar.google.com returns such gems as this: "Compared to children attending conventional schools, however, research suggest that they have higher quality friendships and better relationships with their parents and other adults. They are happy, optimistic, and satisfied with their lives. Their moral reasoning is at least as advanced as that of other children, and they may be more likely to act unselfishly. As adolescents, they have a strong sense of social responsibility and exhibit less emotional turmoil and problem behaviors than their peers." -- http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0161956X.2013.796825 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0161956X.2013.796... When I was doing my research (prior to homeschooling my three daughters) one of the things I did was sit in the Stanford Library and download various journal articles on the positives and negatives. If you do the same (and I'm a big fan of people being critical thinkers) you may come to the same conclusion.

mercer 11y ago

While I'd err on the side of caution toward the benefits of homeschooling, I can also see how homeschooling might have some downsides. Perhaps a big difference for me is that my homeschooling was of the Third Culture Kid (TCK) variety, where quite likely the negatives of homeschooling were balanced out by (often) rather extreme interaction with wildly different people and cultures. That said, you've been all over this thread arguing this point. And it seems reasonable in a common-sense sort of way. However, the counter-points also make sense to me (and are closer to my personal experience). Could you point me to research, or better explain why you seem to feel so strongly about this point? It seems to be more than a hunch or a common-sense thing for you from the way you're arguing the point, and I'd really like to know what the basis is for that. EDIT: Let me add that I have no strong opinion about this particular argument. I consider the damage done by public schooling to vastly outweigh the negatives, social or otherwise, so even if the negatives are significant, I'd probably homeschool my kids if I had to choose.