Posted on 09/19/2014 7:54:07 AM PDT by Ebenezer
About a year ago, when I first started considering taking my kids out of public school, I wasn’t met with the kind of incredulous questioning that I expected after suggesting something so reckless and foolhardy. For the most part people were excited and supportive and helpful. Many thought we were already homeschooling, in fact. What surprised me most though is that folks who were concerned about the prudence of such a decision weren’t worried that my children might not learn enough or the the right things. They didn’t wonder how my kids would know how to be quiet when they were supposed to or to wait in lines when they have to.
No, the biggest concern among the concerned was: SOCIALIZATION. Ahhhh! Socialize those kids! Learnin’, schmlearning- those kids need to be among herds of other kids their exact age in order to learn how to be normal. In other words: homeschooled kids are annoying and weird, and you don’t want your kids to be annoying and weird, do you?
Annoying and weird.
Well, if someone tries to tell you that their kids are never annoying, they’re lying to you. And if someone else tries to tell you that any child of mine isn’t going to be at least a little weird no matter how they’re educated, they’ve lost their minds.
But I digress.
Why is this perception of the weirdo homeschooler so pervasive? Why is it that despite the clear academic achievement of most homeschooled students, the fear of them “acting like that one weirdo guy I knew when I was a kid” is enough to turn otherwise supportive folks against the idea? I’ve thought about it a lot and the best explanation I can come up with is this: ridicule.
See, everyone is born with a certain temperament. Parents of more than one will all attest to this. Same parents, same environment, same rules….completely different reactions from their children. And some kids- well, some kids are annoying. And what do I mean by “annoying”? I mean what people mean when they say that homeschooled kids are annoying. I mean kids who ask too many questions and know too much information and like certain stuff and refuse to like other things and don’t care what other people think about their silly hobbies and their know-it-all-ness.
When “annoying” kids like this go to a traditional school, they’re ridiculed. They have a hard, or even impossible, time finding their niche. They must either hide their true personality and inclinations in order to be accepted or they’re pushed to the fringes and made to feel abnormal. Not good enough. Made to feel less likable than those who keep their ideas and opinions to themselves or fail to form any to begin with. Made to feel that convictions and fascinations are stupid and that pop culture is the only culture. Not because “normal” kids are mean. They mostly don’t even know they’re doing it, I assure you. They just don’t know what to do with someone who’s so, like, weird. Ya know?
I know. I was one of those weird kids.
My eldest daughter knows. She is one of those weird kids.
But when one of those “annoying” kids is homeschooled, no one makes fun of their outfits that don’t match. Or the fact that they like to memorize things and wish the math assignments were harder. No one looks at them askance when they know every answer to every question and are eager to share their knowledge. When an annoying kid like that finds a new hobby and wants to learn everything they can about it and talk about it incessantly, no one treats them like there’s something wrong with pursuing an interest like that, no matter how dull it may seem to the other members of the homeschool classroom. They are not ridiculed into trying to be who God didn’t create them to be.
“Oh but dweej…that’s real life! You can’t just go around being annoying all the time. Better they learn now than later!”
Better they learn what? That the crowd knows best? That their interests are boring and a waste of time? That they need to wear a certain thing and buy a certain thing in order to be worth people’s time? Better they learn now not to stand up for themselves?
Because that’s the thing. By the time annoying people like that are older, they’re older. They’ve advanced beyond certain stages of childhood and are better able to confidently stand up for what they believe in. The idea of being ostracized by a group of people that they don’t really like anyway no longer sends them into a panic. If they spend their whole childhood trying to be something they’re not or believing that what they are is weird and weird is bad, they’ll enter adulthood with those same perceptions, that same lack of self-confidence.
If, on the other hand, they’re able to cultivate their interests, learn to be comfortable in their own quirky skin, encouraged to achieve as much as their little over-achieving hearts desire, they’ll enter adulthood with the confidence to continue on that path. They won’t automatically wonder if people will disagree or make fun of them when they make assertions or cling to ideals. And if those people do disagree or make fun of them they won’t care. Because they’re not kids anymore. They’re all grown up!
Of course, not every homeschooled kid is like that. Not even every one of the kids who lives in this house is like that. But no one asks the “normal” kids and adults if they were homeschooled. It doesn’t cross their minds. Because they’re so, you know, normal.
But the homeschooled kids who are like that, who are “annoying” are so different, so confident, so willing to allow themselves to be something that the majority of society has labeled as weird, that people can’t help but paint all homeschooled families with the weirdo brush. Because shouldn’t kids like that want to keep their mouths shut and keep their opinions to themselves?
And that’s why homeschooled kids are so annoying. Because no one tells them that the way God made them isn’t cool enough.
Want to raise a SOCIALIST? Public education via Common(communist)Core will accomplish that for you.
Ya know, ya got a point there.
They had a better vocabulary than the their peers.
They could converse intelligently on an adult level and mostly didn't use slang or "street talk".
They had manners and social skills.
They were prepared for the day's activities.
Home schooled children have adults as role models. As a result they grow up when they grow up. They do not add to the millions (and steadily increasing) numbers of physically adult children in America today.
It used to be that children were raised to be adults. Their training from the time they could walk and talk was to that end. They contributed to the family sustenance by the time they were 10 or 12.
Our modern concept of "childhood" and especially "adolescence" is a new thing that came about because we grew rich and could afford to keep children truly dependent til now when children are a net heavy expense to a family rather than the investment they were in less prosperous times.
Now the attitude is universal that we must "let children be children" while we raise the age of entry into adulthood. There is no smooth transition now. It is a line that less and less even gets crossed.
Important point.
bump
Winner of ‘best post in a thread’
I love the ‘horror stories’. “Oh, nos, xYz is under/over socialize”...But, dammit, they can find Scotland on a map, balance a checkbook, calculate, read, etc.
How’s that phrase go “Life if hard, but it’s harder...” Think I’ll take the ‘risk of annoying’
This was my youngest daughter. One Saturday, I was doing laundry, and she was about 2 or 3. She came into the laundry room and asked what I was doing, I answered, she asked a 2nd question, I answered. Now, this went on for at least 5 or 6 questions. I just answered them because I was a stay-at-home Mom, and I was used to her asking all kinds of questions. Sometimes the same one, over and over. But, I could hear my husband laughing in the other room, and so could my daughter.
Well, she went into the other room, and boldly asked her father what he was laughing at. To which he replied; "I'm laughing at you driving your Mother nuts."
Btw, she was not homeschooled, both my girls were given a Catholic education from 1st grade thru 12th.
What public school defenders REALLY fear is that home schooling actually sucks away the BEST students, NOT that home schooled kids will end up as anti-social weirdos and troublemakers. They fear that many of the best kids will be home schooled and that the public schools will be left with all the weirdos and troublemakers with parents who don’t care.
My standard reply to the socialization question was to list all the activities our son was involved in then state “if he were any more socialized we would not have time for school.”.
They .
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I suspect that many, if not most, freepers were NOT homeschooled.
For the most part, we also use our brains, don’t follow the ‘piper’ and look for truth.
Who is more of a bully/ The child who picks on a kid because he is insecure or the thug bureaucrat in the EPA who hounds an entire industry out of existence thereby bankrupting and destroying thousands of jobs? Perhaps they are one in the same.
Ever gone to a school for weird children? My daughters did. One of them is so weird, she was an outsider there, too. Lol. The other one fit in fine with the weird over achievers. But she is so annoying in her know it all ways. :-)
So the writer was an obnoxious, know-it-all kid who never got over it, has similar kids, and wants people to embrace their brand of anti-social behavior instead of discouraging it.
Of course, back then perversion was learned on the play ground. Now it’s an important part of the curriculum.
Perhaps what is being asked is not "How will the children become socialized (if they are homeschooled)?" but rather "How will the children become socialists?"
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