If You're a Homeschooler, How Do You Socialize?

I was reading about homeschooling in Italy and I kept getting pricked by how good homeschooling was and how comparatively poor public school was (particularly in America.) It's a thorn in my side that homeschooling's illegal in 28 countries including Germany. I just had to vent. I had to get the steam out of my system. If you're not homeschooled, this post is not here to insult you, attack you, or offend you. It is here to convince you.

Well, let's look at public school (or even private school) socialization for a moment, shall we? You're in a classroom with a bunch of other kids your age, and little chance to interact with kids older or younger than you. You have to ask permission to go to the bathroom. You have to pack a lunch or eat what cheap food the cafeteria has for sale.

In public schools you'll be judged based on how you dress, who you hang out with, and how you act. The exclusive clique are ever-present, looming over any attempt of yours to reach out to people. If you don't suit the exact preferences of  a group of kids, you'll never be on the 'in' crowd with them, and have little chance to ever get to know them. If you settle into one clique that seems to suit you, you are immediately labeled, stereotyped, and judged by your label. Sit with the jocks and you're just another jock. Sit with the nerds and you're just another nerd.

The boundaries are frustrating, especially for those who care about being open and kind to everyone, treating everyone like they're important, and reaching out to anyone who might desperately need a friend. In public schools there are often left out kids; the loners. There are a shocking amount of suicides in public schools. Usually they kids who commit suicide are loners. Even more shocking are cases such as one in a simple, small-town school in the mountains of Colorado. Even in such a comparatively tiny, close community, a band of around six kids made a pact with each other that they would all commit suicide. That kind of 'socialization' was made possible because of a public school and the elements in it, and because of the rift created between parents and kids who spend all day away from home.

In addition, children in public schools are bombarded with bad influences. Teachers with bias. Teachers who are unkind or don't care about their students' education. Students who don't care about their own education. Bullying, school fights, drugs, sex and alcohol, swearing and crude behavior. A public schooled kid is constantly bombarded by these influences, and even if they resist behavior that goes against their religion, worldview, morals, conscience or upbringing, those influences will very often creep into the student's behavior, desensitizing them to what's right and wrong, clouding their judgement, and changing them.
Public school is impersonal. With so many students in a class the teacher can only get to know them so well. The teacher has a couple hours with them per day for one year of their life. What kind of an investment is that for someone who's training a student for the future, shaping what they know, how they think, and how they learn?

In a large classroom and larger school they are only another child in a sea of faces. How difficult does that make it to form personal, meaningful relationships with teachers and friendships with students?

Students are forced to work at the pace of everyone else. That means if you have a slow teacher, your class will drag out, and time will be wasted. In any class there are necessarily long pauses, waiting for everyone to leave the room, enter the room, open their books, catch up, and on and on. Students who are slow slow the class down. They feel pressured to hurry and work outside of their comfortable pace, just skimming by and barely learning, forgetting what they do learn. Intelligent students are slowed down, being taught what they already know over and over, and boredom sets in.

Often a whole day goes by in which the students haven't learned anything. Students goof on on phones during class. They doze in class. They talk during P.E. They chat while waiting for the teacher to get with the program. They are completely at the mercy of the teacher during class. If the teacher wants them to watch an arbitrary music video, they must do it. If the history teacher wants to talk about something that has nothing to do with the subject, they must listen.

Finally, after a long day riddled with wasted time, they return home with a load of homework on their backs. They have just spent 6-9 hours in a classroom, and now they will have to spend 1-? hours more on homework.

Traveling every day is exhausting. Everything they need for the day had to be packed daily and lugged around.

If a student has sports, band or a club after school (their main source of socialization, and a cliquey one, honestly), it takes up hours more of their time, and a student may not get home till dinner or after, and when they do, they’re often exhausted.

What happens to family time? The people in their life who are or should be most important are neglected. They spend only a few hours a day with them total. They lose one of the most valuable pieces of life when they spend so little time with their family. The precious image of the family is falling apart, and we wonder why?

Ok. I’ve been pretty harsh with public school. It might sound like I’m attacking or ‘hating on’ it. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m simply presenting it as it is. It has advantages which I haven’t mentioned. But I must be allowed to lay bare is disadvantages, which are so often being ignored and taken for granted. And I must present the advantages of homeschooling to those who have no concept of them. Listen to this.

Homeschooling is done in the home. It’s in a comfortable environment where students free to move about, sit where they like, work where they like. Many or most homeschoolers have several siblings with a variety of ages. They grow up with the responsibility to help with the younger ones, which is training for being a parent, for understanding others, for working with difficult people and for learning from each other. Their minds are opened to see that they can be friends with anyone, regardless of age. This is practical, hands-on experience that helps the children grow and become more mature.

Within a homeschooling family there are no cliques (or if there are, they are scarce). A family is a family. It’s smaller and closer-knit than a school. Each person knows the other on a personal level, and working together constantly forces students to get over their differences and learn to live in unity.

Often, homeschoolers attend a co-op. Moms and dads teach classes everywhere from high school physics to how to write a story to how to sing, and homeschooling students attend. In an area where homeschoolers are scarce, this may happen every 1-2 months. In an area thick with homeschoolers, this may happen once a week or more. This co-op has all the benefits of a day at public school and none of the downsides. Cliques virtually dissolve in a co-op. It’s a small, friendly environment. It can have 700 students or 6 students. It doesn’t matter. There are usually enough kids in a co-op for students to experience a variety of encounters and make a variety of friends. And yet, the very atmosphere breathes friendliness and openness. Everyone knows everyone. The moms love to talk to each other. The students make best friends and close friends and acquaintances. There is more social time and when the students are in class, they are actually learning and experiencing.

In homeschool, kids are nurtured and guided directly by their parents. Their parents know their needs and are there to talk to them. Their parents love them and care about their education. They can monitor the child’s schedule to keep them on track and see any changes that need to be made. When confused a child can take their every question to their parents.

A beautiful advantage is choosing your curriculum. For each class the student learns from a book, video, online course, or something different. Courses are custom-tailored to fit the student. Imagine if teachers could be custom-tailored to fit each student’s needs.
No more will students be dragged down or rushed. If a student is fact-minded, they can switch to a practical math book for algebra. If a student is creative and left-brained, they can switch to a free website like Duolingo to learn languages in a visually memorable way. If they’re distractible, they can watch history on a set of lively videos. If they’re brilliant, they can read a difficult, fast-paced physics book. If they are slower, they can take a simple, quick, easy-to-understand course on geography, and their mom can help them.

Not only can a student choose their curriculum. A possibly even greater blessing is that they can choose their schedule, especially as they get older and busier. Their parents may limit their schedule - for instance, be up by nine and get to bed by ten-thirty; some are stricter, some are looser -but the students are given amazing flexibility. If they want to get up early, work hard and fast at school and focus hard, they can be done with a day’s school work before noon. If they choose to sleep in, they can finish school in the evening or afternoon. If they need to take a field trip or a shopping trip, they can take one any time, and make up the work when they get home. If their friend spontaneously invites them over, they can go, even in the morning, and finish school the next day or in the afternoon. Traveling? No problem. They can take time for vacation even in midwinter. They could take three months off to travel and simply make up for lost schoolwork in the summer.

This gives the student freedom to volunteer, get a job at any hour, play outside when it’s nice out and work inside when it’s not, keep up with their friends, and become involved in any number of clubs, lessons, and social activities they would never have otherwise been able to do during school hours.

If a student slacks or gets behind on school, they are only taught by their mistakes. They learn responsibility and self-discipline like public schoolers don’t, because they must learn to master their schedule with wisdom. This prepares them for college and equips them to be adults working on their own. Rather than living under the shadow of a controlling parent, like some people might picture, they are taught to govern themselves with prudence.

In a homeschooling environment, something beautiful takes place. School and life become so intertwined that they are almost indistinguishable. Learning and life go hand in hand. A student whose hobby is art can add whatever art classes she wants, and get high school credit just for doing what she would normally have done anyway. Her hobby takes on a new level as she pushes herself and educates herself. A student who is a history geek and spends hours researching online in his free time finds that he’s learned just as much as or more than any public schooler would and that he qualifies for an extra credit of history. Playing outside with your siblings becomes P.E. Cooking for your family becomes a culinary class. Rather than growing an aversion to anything called ‘school’, students grow to simply love learning, and to see school as a chance to learn, not just an obligation.

Homeschoolers are not anti-social. As a general group, they’re not shy. In fact, homeschoolers are forced to be open to the world and reach out to people. They learn how to seek and find friends, rather than just sliding into a clique or picking a handful of friends out of a thousand others. Since they are not bombarded with people every day, people become something significant to them. Something special. Something to be noticed, appreciated, and given attention.

Homeschool students are involved. Often they go to church or youth group. Many go to such an event three times a week. They have relationships with their siblings that stand out in a crowd of teenagers who hate their siblings. Many teens dual-enroll in high school, taking a class or two for a semester or two in their local college, which further prepares them for the real world. At the store, on a walk, at the library, at the pool, there are so many chances for homeschoolers to meet and make friends.

Not to mention the internet. With the world wide web to connect them, homeschoolers can contact people from anywhere. The internet renders homeschoolers’  contact with the world unlimited. Whatever their interests, they can find people who share those interests.

They make friends within co-op. They make friends outside of co-op. They know their neighbors by name. They befriend their friends’ friends’ and their friends’ families. If any homeschoolers lacks in connections, it’s their own fault, not the fault of homescooling.

Homeschooling transforms life for the student. It opens their mind, pushes them to new limits, teaches them at an efficient pace, creates bonds between friends and family like no other. It is a gift from God.