I find it incredibly ironic that one of my biggest hang-ups about homeschooling has become one of the things that most excites me. Socialization is often cited as being among the most important reasons to send kids to school - there is the idea that kids need the social structure of the school system to learn how to function in society at large.
Yet, I think a red flag is quickly raised when we talk to kids about life "in the real world." "One of these days," we tell them, "you'll be done with school and you'll have to face the real world." I've never been very comfortable with that notion. First of all, it seems to say that there is something about the way we spend the first 18 years of our lives that is artificial - that it is not a true representation of the world we live in. If this is true, does the socialization of school really teach us how to function in our society or is it more the case that in school we learn to function within the school system and we learn a new set of rules when it's time to function as adults in society at large?
Second, this idea of school vs. real world somehow seems to underalue the worth of our kids during the +/- 13 years they spend in compulsory education. It seems to present this idea that life begins after graduation. And yet, as adults we tend to look back at childhood and think that those were the years for really living.
I'm excited for a different kind of socialization. I'm glad that our decision to homeschool will allow our kids to spend time with people of all ages. They'll learn alongside their siblings, their parents, their aunts and uncles and grandparents. They'll learn with and from friends of all ages. They can learn science and math from a book and they can experiment with their dad in the garage, their grandma in the kitchen and their grandpa at the job site. They can read about sociology and they can spend time volunteering at organizations that serve the needs of people in different backgrounds. They can read about history and we can take vacations or field trips to learn more about historical people, places and events. We won't be confined to classrooms or desks or rules that are necessary to maintain order in a school system. We'll be free to explore and learn in whatever setting will work best.
And there is nothing to say that life won't really start until they are 18. Learning and work can be intertwined. The chores they do around the house, the ideas they have to serve others and the interests they decide to pursue can be real contributions to our family and society, not just practice for when they grow up. Really this can be true for any kid. It's more a lifestyle decision that one of curricula. But, homeschooling will give us the freedom to make our own priorities and choose to place emphasis on the things that are most important for our kids at any given time.
Still, what about friends of their own ages? There will be plenty of time for playing with friends and participating isn all kinds of activities. No homework to get in the way! If we decide to send our kids to school, we would have seriously limited the amount of "extra-curricular" activities we would have allowed them to be involved in. We wanted to make sure our kids weren't stressed out from being always in a rush and always having places to go and homework piled on top of it all. Now, because the kids will be able to get their "school work" done in a fraction of the time it would take them in a traditional school setting, they will have more time to pursue different sports, arts and other kinds of play.
I'll post a little more later about specific plans for meeting our kids' social needs. But, with such a social little guy leading our young pack, I think making sure our kids spend time in the social settings they need will be less of a challenge than it would seem.
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