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To: Kosh5
I will also deal with the socialization issue since someone will undoubtedly bring it up. The best response I have ever heard: have you ever read The Lord of the Flies?

You don't want to go there. The boys in Lord of the Flies were *private school* students - an elite English boarding school (which the British call "public schools.") The choir was the worst of all - under their leader Jack they became first the hunters, and ultimately the crazed murderers who ended up setting the whole island ablaze.

I happen to like William Golding's writings very much, but this story is *not* the one to drag out about "socialization" and homeschooling. The boys wind up on the island in the first place because there has been a nuclear war - their plane crashes during the evacuation. At the end, they are rescued by a British navy ship - but the quite plain question at the end is, who is going to rescue the grownups? That's Ralph's final, bitter insight.

While I don't know if Golding was a Christian in later life, he was raised in the church and had a definite sense of original sin (which is really what this book is about.) If you want to really draw an analogy between LOTF and homeschooling, consider all of the homeschoolers in the past two years who have been arrested for beating, starving, abusing children etc. Yes, they are a small minority, but *everyone* has the capability for evil in them, no human system is perfect, and the grownups need rescuing too.

18 posted on 10/26/2002 8:20:25 AM PDT by valkyrieanne
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To: valkyrieanne
all of the homeschoolers in the past two years who have been arrested

You realize child abuse rates for legitimate homeschooling families are far lower than for the general population, right?

67 posted on 10/26/2002 3:31:50 PM PDT by d101302
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To: valkyrieanne
I happen to like William Golding's writings very much, but this story is *not* the one to drag out about "socialization" and homeschooling. The boys wind up on the island in the first place because there has been a nuclear war - their plane crashes during the evacuation. At the end, they are rescued by a British navy ship - but the quite plain question at the end is, who is going to rescue the grownups? That's Ralph's final, bitter insight.

Well, yes. That's precisely the point. Golding's story is about the shark tank socialization of the common schoolyard, and where it would lead if left to run its course unhindered. It's precisely that sort of socialization that the homeschooler avoids...and precisely why it's the topic to bring up when people ask about the socialization of homeschooled children.

139 posted on 10/29/2002 12:30:52 PM PST by Oberon
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