Education as socialization

[Magical Realist]

What I see as the most beneficial result of those years of goin to school is NOT so much what I learned from textbooks as what I learned from socializing. Socialization is the primary goal for every child growing into a teen. To allow them to learn their true nature thru interaction with this representative strata of normal society surrounding them for 12 years. Here they learn what it means to express themselves. To bond with similar students. To feel the effects of ostracization and bullying. And to conform or rebel to the status quo of what is considered great and worthy of admiration. There is a relentless indoctrination into the cultural values and narratives. But by far the most lasting effect of schooling is learning to become who you are and finding your own moral compass in a world of peer pressures and conflicting social influences. When I dream I don't dream of the ideas and lessons I learned in school. I dream of the people I met and came to know thru all those years. I am a creation of my social relations. I am defined by how I am regarded by my larger social sphere. This is all entrained in us for 12 crucial years of our lives.

[C C]

Raises the question of how social development in homeschooling compares. In the past, I vaguely recollect a few occasions of treatises outputted by historians contending that the assorted behaviors and attitudes today associated with youth sub-culture didn't become typical until the advent of the formal education's environments (and their spending that vast time under it).

Homeschool vs. Public School: Who’s Better Socialized?
http://www.offthegridnews.com/how-to-2/h...ocialized/

EXCERPT: I’m sure you’ve heard the arguments a thousand times from your critics: Homeschooled kids are anti-social, they don’t know how to cope in the real world, or even that homeschoolers are social outcasts. If you are already homeschooling your kids, you know better. If you are in the process of considering homeschooling, rest assured that the naysayers are not right. Sure, you have the power to make your kids social pariahs, but with a little thought and planning, your kids can be just as socially adept, if not more so, that those who go to public or private schools....


Socialization: Tackling Homeschooling’s “S” Word
http://www.pbs.org/parents/education/hom...gs-s-word/

EXCERPT: [...]For Fridkis, homeschooling gave her the freedom to immerse herself in her community—and to develop relationships with people who were outside of her age group. When she was 12, she started visiting regularly with an elderly woman in a nursing home; by 15 she was a lay clergy member in her synagogue and auditing a course at Princeton University. “People for some reason define socialization for kids as interacting only with kids, but if socialization means only interacting with kids that are exactly the same age as you, then that seems pretty narrow,” says Fridkis....

[Magical Realist]

Homeskoolers are probably ok as they have Jesus and their guardian angel to socialize with while learning science from their Bibles. That and hangin out with nursing home patients.

[Ben the Donkey]

Bah.
You were doing fine until you came out with that last post, MR.

[C C]

Homeskoolers are probably ok as they have Jesus and their guardian angel to socialize with while learning science from their Bibles. That and hangin out with nursing home patients.

Only slightly reminiscent of the tradition-irreligious hippies and counter-culture folk who originally triggered the home schooling trend, there's been an uptick in atheist home schoolers. But they're still a small minority at this early stage.

On the negative side there are of course the paranoid druggie parents who hold their kids out of public schools from fear that they'll rat on them or inadvertently blab once they get exposed to classroom substance abuse propaganda and anti- pusher / dealer sentiments. Plus just plain abusive parents holding their children captive, regardless of whether the parents' monster-hood is the result of mental illness or drugs / alcohol.

Neutrally, there are parents who had children with social difficulties / disabilities to begin with. Thereby being the reason itself that they took the home schooling route to give them a less stressful learning environment (or avoid bad consequences for other students should they be anti-social personalities tending toward bullies).

[RainbowUnicorn]

I am defined by how I am regarded by my larger social sphere. This is all entrained in us for 12 crucial years of our lives.

Culture...
when culture teaches the child to find self worth in the social ego reflected i the public projection of others, then yes. i would agree.
however i think that is culture not nature.
what is "entrained" in us is the cultural imperative generically speaking.

i find it interesting that you frame morality as being something highly subjective while in relation to an educationall evolution for normative conditioning.
probably a different discussion, sufffice to say that if public education of children is devoid of morality, then school is a place to learn profesional skills, not to form social normative dynamics.
though i do note your reference to organic concepts of human interaction such as interpersonal group violence.
are you aware there are some schools where bullying and violence in general are highly unacceptable and not tollerated or normalised by the school or the society ?

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Raises the question of how social development in homeschooling compares. In the past, I vaguely recollect a few occasions of treatises outputted by historians contending that the assorted behaviors and attitudes today associated with youth sub-culture didn't become typical until the advent of the formal education's environments (and their spending that vast time under it).

Homeschool vs. Public School: Who’s Better Socialized?
http://www.offthegridnews.com/how-to-2/h...ocialized/

EXCERPT: I’m sure you’ve heard the arguments a thousand times from your critics: Homeschooled kids are anti-social, they don’t know how to cope in the real world, or even that homeschoolers are social outcasts. If you are already homeschooling your kids, you know better. If you are in the process of considering homeschooling, rest assured that the naysayers are not right. Sure, you have the power to make your kids social pariahs, but with a little thought and planning, your kids can be just as socially adept, if not more so, that those who go to public or private schools....


Socialization: Tackling Homeschooling’s “S” Word
http://www.pbs.org/parents/education/hom...gs-s-word/

EXCERPT: [...]For Fridkis, homeschooling gave her the freedom to immerse herself in her community—and to develop relationships with people who were outside of her age group. When she was 12, she started visiting regularly with an elderly woman in a nursing home; by 15 she was a lay clergy member in her synagogue and auditing a course at Princeton University. “People for some reason define socialization for kids as interacting only with kids, but if socialization means only interacting with kids that are exactly the same age as you, then that seems pretty narrow,” says Fridkis....

you need to remove the bias of the parents to get clean data.

generaly what i have noticed is that homeschooling comes in 3 basic groups
1 isolation = remote areas where group schooling is not possible
2 ideological escalation = generically very intelligent parents who seek to educate their children far in excess of what the formal schools can offer.
3 ideological retardation = generically religious ideologies where the parents wish to deny the childs access to information and expereinces.

now if you then go and mix these 3 groups together while some person seeks to promote a personal financial reward for a specific outcome of the data you get quite a chaotic set of data.
the majority of these types of studys are done to serve the ego of the parent or some public official or private charter school profit.

[Carol]

What I see as the most beneficial result of those years of goin to school is NOT so much what I learned from textbooks as what I learned from socializing. Socialization is the primary goal for every child growing into a teen. To allow them to learn their true nature thru interaction with this representative strata of normal society surrounding them for 12 years. Here they learn what it means to express themselves. To bond with similar students. To feel the effects of ostracization and bullying. And to conform or rebel to the status quo of what is considered great and worthy of admiration. There is a relentless indoctrination into the cultural values and narratives. But by far the most lasting effect of schooling is learning to become who you are and finding your own moral compass in a world of peer pressures and conflicting social influences. When I dream I don't dream of the ideas and lessons I learned in school. I dream of the people I met and came to know thru all those years. I am a creation of my social relations. I am defined by how I am regarded by my larger social sphere. This is all entrained in us for 12 crucial years of our lives.

When were you in school?  I think all that was a goal of education in the US but not what is happening in schools today, with the test-driven education focused on advanced technology.  This education does not seem adequate for preparing those for the arts, who are gifted in the arts but are not gifted for college education and high tech. industry.   Neither do I think today's education is preparing the young for citizenship?  But I have not actually researched what schools are doing now, just going on a few news stories.