Here's a quote from a physchologist being interviewed that I found today:
Socialization is just a process by which we learn to be part of a community. So the question is, what community do we want our young people to learn to be part of? Some parents have said to me, "Aren't school and high school, in particular, very important for socialization?" And my emphatic answer is no, because we do not want young people socializing with each other. We want them to learn to join the community that they'll be part of their whole lives. We want them to learn to become adults. Right now, they learn everything they know from each other-that's absurd, especially since teens in our society are controlled almost entirely by the frivolous media and fashion industries.
If you look through most of human history or you look at many cultures today, you find that teens spend most of their time learning to become adults. Here, they spend most of their time trying to break away from adults.
This just further goes towards the idea that all of my reading has been leading me to. Modern compulsory schooling is an unnatural and negative socialization atmosphere. Socialization is often given as the largest reason against homeschooling, but I feel that it is the best reason FOR homeschooling. Kids need to learn how to be adults, not kids. They learn that by being around adults.
Posted by john at September 3, 2007 10:11 AMbut you can't choose all the people your kids socialize with, right? aren't they, as adults, going to run into a very diverse group of people?
Posted by: kelley on October 10, 2007 01:06 PMWe can choose the vast majority of the people our children socialize with at various ages. As children age, that ability lessens.
As adults, they'll have gained a full sense of themselves that allows them to interact with people from various backgrounds.
Posted by: John on October 10, 2007 04:12 PM