Getting know where: Public school kids explain why it's better than homeschooling

When a society loses its memory, it descends inevitably into dementia. Mark Steyn

November 12, 2011
Getting know where: Public school kids explain why it's better than homeschooling

Check out this NYT discussion on homeschooling. Children are asked, "Would you want to be homeschooled?" Answers are in the comments.

Those of us who argue that our kids learn more at home, in spite of their untrained, non-unionized teachers and limited budgets, can take the rest of the day off. The public school kids' comments have rendered argument on that score unnecessary. A sampling from the young scholars:

In my opinion, i would never turn to home schooling. When you are home schooled, you automaticly loose the whole social experience of school. In the real world you need to be social. Otherwise you’re going to get know where. I understand that the learning education might be to an advantage while homeschooling because its all one on one and you are the only student reciveing all the help you need whenever you need it. I would never home school my child because I would be holding them back from friends and the social life they will need in the feature. I would never even consider home schooling.

***

I don’t think homeschooling can prepare children for a real world because when your home schooled, you’re away from the real world and you probably wouldn’t know how to communicate with other people. School is where you learn how to work with others and communicate but if you don’t have no one else but your parents with this type of education, it would be hard when they release you into the real world. But if you’re home schooled, you wouldn’t have to be pressured with drugs. I also disagree with the writers mother when she says that working at one’s own pace and following one’s genuine interests is the best way to learn.

***

I would never want to be home schooled because you are not able to socalize with your friends at school. If you dont meet or talk to anyone, people might start to make fun of you because you have no friends that hang out with you. You might be smarter if you are home schooled but you still will not know how to make good friends if you get accepted into a college where you are met with other kids. If your are home schooled and you go to college you will fell as if the class is going too slow or if you know something before other kids then you will be frusterated that you are learning the same thing and nothing new. Overall I think that home schooling is not something that you should consider because you are not social with other kids, and later on in college you will not learn as much as you should be learning.

***

No I would not like to be home schooled because then I wouldn’t have a chance to meet any of my friends that I know now and I wouldn’t be going to the awsome school that i’m at now. I also think I wouldn’t be able to stand my mom for the six hours.

***

I would not want to be homeschooled because I would like to be friends with people. I would also want to play sports in highschool. It is better to get out of the house then to be locked in.

***

no, because is boring

***

I think I wouldn’t want to be home schooled because then I wouldn’t have any friends and I wouldn’t have a life and just stay home all the time. I also need to get into a good college to have a career and I think if I’m home schooled than I wouldn’t be able to do that at all because now for college even if you have a high average and you wouldn’t be able to get into a good college because you need to be involved in school such as clubs and after school activities. Although if I was home- schooled it would probably be because I am an actress or movie star.

***

When you think about it, home schooling only encorages children to stay at home, instead of preparing them to leave. It gets them used to the comfortable living arangements at home more than usual. Other then that, if they do go outside, they have no personal confrontations with other children, so they will not easily develope speaking to other people, which means no friends, no girl/boyfriend, no husbands or wives, their lives would be pretty much empty.

***

I think homeschooling is dumb. I think homeschooling doesn’t prepare kids for the real world. they don’t learn how to socialize with other people. Some parents may sugar code the kids. So they might not know everything there suppose to know. no i do not agree.

Sugar-coding the kids -- is that an experiment in one of those crazy homeschool chemistry books? We haven't tried that one but it sounds like fun.

The themes:
School is where our friends are (bullies included) and its institutional character prepares us for the grim "real world."
Home is an isolating, lonely place.
Friends are vastly more important than family.
"Socialization" is a necessity and can only take place in school.
"Socialization" is more important than learning.
Conformity is more important than learning.
Learning shouldn't be too pleasant an experience.
Herding us into groups is what we deserve.
Outside the institution of government school, personal advancement is not possible.

Here we have young people who can barely imagine what life would be like without school, or how they could possibly learn or make friends apart from this government institution. Their obsession with "socialization" attests to the breadth and depth of the peer-attachment epidemic.

I'm not sure what the poor things mean by "the real world," but I get the feeling they think it's going to be even bleaker than the current conveyor belt they're riding. Passivity and conformity have been bred into them from day one and all they can do is praise the system that is crushing them. It's not their fault; they never had a chance.

Page two features comments from homeschooling kids and parents trying to explain what it's all about. But it's like trying to describe daylight to the blind. In addition to the obvious leap in literacy, and at least as important as that, is the vitality evident in the homeschoolers' testimonials. They aren't blindered drones repeating what they've been fed since kindergarten.

One homeschool student:

I homeschool and I am *IN* the real world daily. I am not cloistered and learning from a pre-approved, test-ready curriculum created for a myriad of students. I learn from the real-world and its many examples across the subjects.
Today I spent my afternoon in an art museum learning not only about the art around me, but about the collectors of the art and why they choose to spend their money collecting art.
On Monday, I, with a group of homeschooled friends, dissected a deer brain, heart, and trachea harvested by a hunter friend.
Tomorrow I am playing golf with a public-schooled friend because he has the day off for Veteran’s Day. But we won’t go until after my dad and I put up our own tree stand and prepare for hunting Saturday morning.
And next week, I will gather with friends for handwork and hanging out. I’ll also go to work with my dad where I participate in and watch him operate a very successful manufacturing business.

From a homeschooling parent:

All of the anti-homeschooling comments are symptomatic of the negative mythology about homeschooling.
Homeschoolers do not sit at home. They are out in the world. They take classes, join clubs, attend dances and parties (yes, homeschoolers have dances, often more frequently than their schooled peers. They take community college courses, they hold down jobs (my homeschooler got a job teaching martial arts when she was fifteen), they do everything their schooled peers do. They just don’t sit in a classroom six-plus hours a day.
There are many ways to homeschool. The article was about one family. It’s unfortunate that so many readers lack the creativity to think outside the box. But that’s what happens when one surrenders one’s life to a system that can’t accept any other way to educate.

One more:

This is amazing…a bunch a comments from non homeschooled kids, speculating about why homeschooling is bad. These comments say nothing at all about homeschooling, but are a stark illustration of an intellectual poverty and lack of critical thinking skills that are a shameful artifact of our current educational practices.

Yes, their intellects have suffered. But school has also damaged their spirits. If children emerge from their thirteen-year institutionalization with any measure of curiosity, creativity, initiative, or independence, it's in spite of public school, not thanks to it.

***

Thanks to Rod Dreher for linking here in his piece. Don't miss the astute comments. Here's one from Publius Cato