(originally published in Home Education News issue #89)

Questioning Socialization

When we first went public with the idea of not sending our kids to school , the socialization question was the first one raised by most people. I used to try to answer but over the years have discovered that I didn't always necessarily understand the question.

I have found that asking someone who is concerned about "socialization" just what *they* mean by "socialization" can be a really interesting and revealing experience. Besides, often the person will get so involved in explaining their particular concerns they end up answering their own questions, letting you off the hook. :-)

It has been my experience that when most people talk about "socialization" they are really referring to "socializing". They are concerned that our kids will not have enough opportunities for being with friends and working and playing in group situations.

Most homeschooled kids have very busy and active social lives. Our children have a variety of friends they see because they have common interests. They have some friends in the neighbourhood with whom they share a love of baseball and soccer. They have other friends who they get together with and share a love of strategy and board games or music or series of books by certain authors. A lot of their friends are other homelearners. They find these kids generally more imaginative and energetic and simply prefer their company. They seem to be going to birthday partiesevery other week and have too many sleep-overs, etcetera, just like their schooled peers. They have schooled friends as well, although they find that their friends who go to school have very little time to socialize during the school year.

Other people define "socialization" as the process by which we become responsible contributing members of our community and society. An effective and meaningful way to accomplish this goal is to live and work and play within that community and society, interacting and learning with people of all different ages in all kinds of different real life situations. Homelearners have many opportunities for visiting and exchanging ideas and skills with senior citizens, parents and siblings of their friends, letter carriers, mortgage officers, the neighbourhood veterinarian, and so on.

Sometimes when people refer to "socialization" they are talking about learning to be gracious and comfortable in a variety of social situations. This might be a good time to point out how much more time homelearners get to spend with their families than their schooled peers do. Kids naturally want to emulate the people they care about and trust, and those with whom they spend the greatest amount of time. If we want our kids to behave in socially acceptable ways, they need us around to model that behaviour.

We have observed that our kids seem to be more comfortable with people generally than a lot of the school kids in our neighbourhood who seem almost surprised that adults would want to talk to them other than to issue directives. They often appear mistrustful and at a loss for words when we try to initiate a conversation. One can theorize that being s equestered with only same age peers for such a large chunk of everyday might be detrimental to the development of broad social skills in the context of this definition.

Less often, when someone refers to "socialization" they mean social programming. The conditioning of impressionable young minds to seldom question authority, to always do what they are told in order to please whoever is in charge, to accept the word of "experts" and teachers rather than to investigate their own ideas and solutions is often the result, if not the overt intention of the kind of programming kids are subjected to in the public school system. All this prepares kids to be passive. The nature and structure of institutional schooling does seem to be better designed to "socialize" children in this way than an unschooling situation. I guess it depends what you are looking for.

We often read articles in the paper and hear people talk about the rough language, violence, pressure to "fit in" etc. that kids have to deal with at school. We hear stories about kids having their lunches stolen and being beat up because they are wearing the wrong brand of sneakers. We hear the suggestion that this is "real life" and that kids need to be immersed in it in order to "toughen up". Maybe I’m dense, but I find the logic here a bit skewed. There is an implied acceptance of the status quo in this argument. I submit that this attitude of accepting these negative behaviours as "real life" and therefore somehow "normal" fosters feelings of powerlessness and apathy and inhibits change. A few of the kids who are individualistic in school will emerge as leaders, but most are captive victims for the bullies. They learn to temper and/or subvert their uniqueness or suffer varying degrees of harassment. I’m sure we all know many kids who enjoy school and get along fine, but I have to wonder at what cost to their personal integrity.

Most homeschooled kids are not sheltered from the negative "group behaviours" so prevalent in schools. They just get smaller doses of this kind of exposure on local sports teams, in drama groups, art classes and other such community group activities. Heck, our "character building bully" lives right next door. Our kids are exposed to the negativity in life in manageable bites and in situations where they know they have the option to walk away or seek assistance if things become difficult. There are more adults available to help problem solve, and greater flexibility in approaching difficulties when outside of an institutional setting. There are more opportunities for kids to discover creative solutions to problems without compromising their individuality. There are more opportunities to observe how adults deal with conflict in work or social situations.

Most flavours of socialization are available to homelearners everywhere and all the time. So relax...it's a non-issue.

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