Researchers Say Socialization No Longer an ''Issue''

Christian Post ^ | 5-26-05 | Marion Kim

[RKBA Democrat]

Socialization is no longer an “issue” for homeschoolers, according to some researchers on the long-running debate over public and independent schooling.

Susan McDowell, author of "But What About Socialization? Answering the Perpetual Home Schooling Question: A Review of the Literature,” has researched 24 studies on the socialization of homeschoolers, according to Bristol Herald Courier.

"It’s a non-issue today," said McDowell, who earned Ph.D. in educational leadership from Vanderbilt University. "All the research shows children are doing well."

On one occasion, she was challenged by one of her publishers to find evidence that homeschoolers were socially deficient compared to their publically educated counterparts.

However, she claims finding no one in the academic field with such view supported by research.

Other researchers, such as Larry Shyers, who holds Ph.D. in counseling, support McDowell’s findings. Shyers’ dissertation, "Comparison of Social Adjustment Between Home and Traditionally Schooled Children," won a national award in excellence in research from the Educational Research Information Clearinghouse in 1992.

His studies found that homeschooled children are not disadvantaged when it comes to socialization. He said that those taught at home were more likely to invite others to play with them, they were not as competitive but more cooperative, and they kept their noise levels lower. Homeschooled children also played with peers of both genders rather than with those of the same gender, he added.

Fourteen-year-old Kayla Freeman from Bristol, Tenn. says she knows more people than she did while in traditional school, and she has discovered better friends in the homeschool community.

“Most homeschooled kids I know are outgoing and friendly," Kayla said. "They are the truest friends I have."

Whether it is for religious, social, or educational reason, American parents are, albeit small in number, increasingly withdrawing their children out of public schools and instructing them at home, despite the criticisms laid out by homeschool critics.

The National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES) estimated that 1.1 Million students were homeschooled in the United States in 2003, an increase from 850,000 from the 1999 NHES data.

[Blue_Ridge_Mtn_Geek]

I had no intention (see my post, #99) of taking potshots at IRONCLAD, but just thought he and others might benefit from some background on the history of American public education.

As for this poster's "conservative" credentials, they are of no interest to me, given how incoherent the defn of both "liberal" and "conservative" have become. This is an interesting forum, with a lot of posters who strike me as sensible, and a few who are nutballs. I hang around to benefit from the former and can usually blow off the latter without getting my underwear in a knot. If not, a few deep breaths invariably smooths them out.

[Blue_Ridge_Mtn_Geek]

"What about idiot parents? Most of the parents I meet today I wouldn't trust with an ant farm."
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Yes, and nearly all of them are products of the public schools, whose staff (both teachers and administrators) are the bottom feeders of higher education (administrators worse than the teachers). The NEA ploy of blaming public school incompetence on parents may have had some credibility when public schooling was a new institution, but after several generations of (mostly) products of public education "graduating" to become parents, this excuse is totally bogus.

[durasell]

I've only met a couple of parents who home school. I mentioned Piaget (real basic education theory)to them and got only blank stares in return.

No doubt some of these home school parents know what they're doing. But I would wager there is a significant portion who are complete morons.

[SoftballMominVA]

just that they seem to think they can just go up to adults and criticize them or talk to them as if they are "peers."

Yes--that is it exactly! I do not wish to have conversations with kids not old enough to drive about world affairs and especially anything of a personal nature. Yet, time and time again I hear parents bragging that their kids "get along" better with adults than their peers. More than half the time the reason these kids "get along" better is because the adult is too polite and maintains the conversational line much longer than a peer would. A high school student is not my peer, and I don't want their opinion on nuclear war, Iraq or Chavez. Now, if they have pertinant facts to share from information they have read, then a conversation can happen. But more often than not, I hear "I think" or "I feel" or "In my opinion"

A young teen being able to converse with an adult and not with a peer is not a plus in my book. And it's not a lack of not being able to find intellectual equals. I've seen both of my girls discuss poetry, books, and world events with other teenagers, without the need to insert themselves into the adult side of the conversation.

Then there are the parents that shove their kids into your face so as to brag about how smart they are and to get them to perform in some way... "Show Mrs. H how much you learned about...." or "Recite that poem you memorized..." Uhm, yeah....

[wintertime]

I don't know, I met some VERY cloitered homeschooled kids who couldn't operate outside the little box mommy and daddy set out for him. Some I met were very poorly adjusted.

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If they had been institutionalized for their schooling they would have been even more poorly adjusted.

So,,,,I live in a very conservative red state. As I drive by our conservative red state high schools, I see gangs of kids with tatoos, piercings, outlandish hair, butt cracks showing, dog collars and chains. What can be said about this observable dysfunctional "adjustment"?

If this is a conservative red state, I can't imagine what is going on in the blue states.

To those in doubt about toxic government school "socialization", I advise you to merely park your car outside your local high school and observe the "adjustment" as these kids are let out of school.

The healthiest, safest, and absolutely the most natural place to raise and educate a child is at home. It is too bad that some children can't. They will need to be institutionalized for their education. And,,,,that is a shame.

[brytlea]

Well, they aren't all bad. All 3 of my sons attended public school for most of their schooling (I would have home schooled had I known it was an option, but it didn't explode like it has until they were in late high school). But I do feel bad about some of the things they were exposed to as they were growing up.
susie

[wintertime]

Please don't confuse the institution of school with that of an orphanage. How ridiculous.
( snip)
The point is that nobody should crucify someone for NOT homeschooling their children. There are pros and cons to both. ( snip)
. If it were, then you'd have medical students being homeschooled.
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Institutionalizing children for their schooling is worse than orphanages. Why? Because far too many children are in institutional schooling because of the ignorance of their parents, their parents own government indoctrination, parental government school induced lack of self-confidence, and shear lack of knowledge about a better way. At least with orphanages children are there for a good reason.

There is only a few good reason to institutionalize a child for his education: Their parents are too stupid, too lazy, too dysfunctional, too poor, too sick, too mental ill,too materialistic, too uncaring, too ignorant, etc. The other children would all do better at home. As homeschooling grows this fact will be self-evident.

Yes, parents should definitely feel guilty for resorting to institutionalizing their children for their education. It is past time that were made to feel so.

The medical school argument is a red herring. Medical students are adults learning a trade. Hopefully, they are not immature children although I have heard of a few homeschooling children doing well in medical school.

[wintertime]

inmates.

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Inmates.

And,,,if the child or parent refuses to cooperate with their jailers armed police will soon be at their door. ( real bullets in those guns on the hip)

[brytlea]

And, as a teacher I met some very poorly adjusted public school kids.
susie

[wintertime]

Well, they aren't all bad.

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Yes, they are all bad.

It is unnatural and physically and emotionally unhealthy to be incarcerated with other same-aged children for most of the waking day. Compound the trauma with school bus rides, and inane homework in the evening and it is BAD for the child in every way.

This is true for even the highest academically ranking suburban schools.

[brytlea]

Well, besides the fact that you clearly have a bias, which I will not try to change, I meant not all of the kids they will come into contact with are bad.
You certainly have an opinion, and I suppose you made it by visiting every single school in the nation, so, of course, you're clearly right..... ;)
susie

[wintertime]

You certainly have an opinion, and I suppose you made it by visiting every single school in the nation, so, of course, you're clearly right..... ;)

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I suppose there are exceptions. I challenge any resonable parent to find one. If they do, they are likely charter or private schools.

Any parent sending their child to a typical age segregated institutional school is harming that child. Thankfully, humans are resiliant and most do overcome the dysfunction imposed upon them by their schools and parents. It is sad though, some do not.

[Paved Paradise]

You and I would get along just fine. If an adult ASKS the child what he thinks about any topic, that is one thing, but just as you said, when the kid starts blathering on about his opinions, it's sooooo annoying. Worse, the kids aren't critical thinkers (not that adults are either though). I have a nephew whom I love very much. He had it tough because of a divorce and some other issues. He went off to college (ended up dropping out though) and came home spewing all this garbage. His mom just sat there like she was a dumb mute (which is probably closer to the truth than not) and I just hammered at him with how ridiculous he was re: capitalism is crap; eating meat is evil; yadda, yadda, yadda. Just for the record, I told him that only little rich suburban kids can have mommy go into the local market and buy frozen veggie burgers, etc. and get on their highhorse about the evils of meat. I also told him if there wasn't so much convenience to the vegetarian life (as there is here in the good ol US) that he'd likely NOT be a vegetarian, not to mention that the teenagers in India wouldn't thumb their nose at anything since they aren't spoiled little brats. I got a little more into it than that, but my nephew got the point, gave me a big smile, and shut right up. We get along great but he knows he can't BS his A.G.

[Paved Paradise]

You know, I make typos on here as much as anyone, mainly out of haste, but your post was so poor in that area, it makes me wonder how you can be so full of yourself about knowing what excellent education really entails.

For you to attack any parent that sends his/her child/ren to a traditional school, whether public or private, is outlandish and arrogant and smacks of a true know-it-all, judgmental type (i.e. very scary). Furthermore, there is simply no basis for that argument whatsoever, other than your emotional investment.

You obviously are so biased in favor of homeschooling that you refuse, or are too ignorant, to see that it is not the perfect thing you want it to be, nor is public school necessarily quite the evil you believe it to be.

I fully realize the negatives with public schools, primarily because I have teachers in my family and am, myself, a product of public school -- fortunately, it was an excellent school and I was educated by the old-school teachers. However, you apparently believe that ALL schools are bad. Patently false and ridiculous. I think homeschooling is a wonderful thing and particularly beneficial to certain children. If I had small children I would either homeschool them or send them to a conservative Christian school (one like my church has established), but I am not so black and white on this issue as you so obviously are. I guess I figure that I came out okay and love the Lord with all my heart, mind and strength. God is everywhere you know, not just in homeschooling families.

Oh, and two things: Medical school is NOT trade school, and I was being facetious. Secondly, punctuation is our friend, my dear.

[wintertime]

Paved Paradise,

For the most part, I do have a reputation for carefully written posts. That this one wasn't will be forgive by the rational members of this board.

Here it is again:

Institutionalizing children for their schooling is worse than placing children in orphanages. Why? It is worse because far too many children are in institutional schooling because of the ignorance of their parents, their parents' own government indoctrination, government school induced lack of self-confidence in their parents, and shear lack of knowledge about a better way. At least children are in orphanages for a good reason.

There are only a few good reasons to institutionalize a child for his education: their parents are too stupid, too lazy, too dysfunctional, too poor, too sick, too mentally ill, too materialistic, too uncaring, too ignorant, etc. Those children not suffering in such dysfunctional families would do better being educated at home. As homeschooling grows this fact will be self-evident.

Yes, parents should definitely feel guilty for resorting to institutionalizing their children for their education. It is past time that they were made to feel so.

The medical school argument is a red herring. Medical students are adults learning a trade. Hopefully, they are not immature children although I have heard of a few homeschooling children doing well in medical school.

[wintertime]

That this one wasn't will be forgive by the rational members of this board.

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That should read: forgiven

[wintertime]

I am not so black and white

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I am as "black and white" about institutional schooling as I am about orphanages. I hold that orphanages are NOT the best place to raise a child. I also state that institutional schooling, government schooling especially, is not the best way to raise a child.

Yes, we need orphanages. Yes, we will always need institutional schooling, but no one should argue that either is the best way to raise a child.

[Paved Paradise]

Good job. Keep repeating the same mindless crap. No need to think on your part. BTW, shear means to cut or clip. You mean sheer. I'm rational, but when people can't use the correct words, it drives me bananas.

Sure hope you aren't homeschooling anybody - yikes! English is already going down the tubes.

[wintertime]

Medical school is NOT trade school,

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Medical school is a trade school.

[wintertime]

Keep repeating the same mindless crap.

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Get used to it. Once this idea catches on you will hear it often.

Government schools are to orphanages as homeschooling is to healthy and well functioning families.