(A post in which I rant and do not bother to cite specific support for all my extreme claims)
When I tell people that I am planning to homeschool Katherine (or talk about homeschooling in general), the question often arises What about socialization?
The term "socialization" makes my stomach turn. Having it's origins in the 1800s and having no accidental etymological relation to "socialism" and "socialize," my first response to the question about socialization is that I hope to God my children are never socialized!
A few educational theorists who had a hand in piloting some of the first experimental public schools in the U.S.A. made no secret of their social-Darwinistic persuasions and their full intention to use public schools as a way to sever the bond between children and their parents so that the children would be "made fit" for service to the larger economic machine. Severing the familial ties is just the beginning of the process of socialization which results in producing blue-collar to middle management workers, the cogs in the wheel, who don't think outside of the box, don't rock the boat, and, in their non-work functions, are happy little consumers who fall into the buying patterns that perpetuate our national economic ease. This is what was meant by "socialization." (And I contend that this is a persistent, not-always-conscious goal of compulsory government schooling.)
You can see that this socialistic meaning is in fact associated with the word "socialization." Just take a trip over to the OED for the down-low on socialization, socialize, and socialism.
Now, I don't know about you, but, as I see it, my job is not to render my children fit for living in a particular social system, much less to make them consumers and clogs who keep the economy going. My job, as God steward, is to help my children be holy and to be transformed into Christlikeness through the acquisition of the Holy Spirit so that they actualize their potential to enjoy fellowship with God and all God's creation. In short, my job is to help them be all that God designed them to be, to flourish. If they happen to achieve easy mobility within their particular society as an accidental consequence, that is wonderful. But that, historically, has not been the result of faith in Christ—as the first couple centuries of Christianity aptly demonstrate, not to mention the ongoing persecution of Christians throughout the world.
Getting back to the question, I acknowledge that the unwitting folks who innocently ask about "socialization" do not have any malicious meaning in mind. They probably mean to ask about "sociability" (a word that has a much earlier, non-Darwinian origin) or, simply, relational health.
(You may think that I am merely splitting hairs by making a big deal about the word choice between "socialization" and "sociability." I maintain, however, that language and meaning matter. I hope to do my part to avoid contributing to the rape of the English language.)
Folks are rightly concerned that children learn how to relate in a healthy manner to others. And I share that concern.
But why would anyone think that the best way to help children acquire relational health is to separate them from their families and natural, multi-generational neighborhood and church communities, siphoning them off into narrowly age-bracketed, institutionalized, highly programed classrooms for the majority of their waking hours for the majority of their formative years?! Think back to the historical origin of the American compulsory government school system for a clue about how this brilliant idea came about (and why we still use the term "socialization" to describe it).
We forget, because we weren't there, how radical this change was. Now we do not question it because "that's just the way things are." It's how we experienced school, how our parents experienced school, how all our friends (pre-homeschool boom) experienced school. It's all we know.
Why would we think to question it? Have we become good clogs who do not rock the boat?
As for me and my house, we will homeschool. ;o)
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
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13 comments:
"But why would anyone think that the best way to help children acquire relational health is to separate them from their families and natural, multi-generational neighborhood and church communities, siphoning them off into narrowly age-bracketed, institutionalized, highly programed classrooms for the majority of their waking hours for the majority of their formative years?!"
Preach it, sister! Have you seen an article by Sally Thomas on First Things that touches these matters? On "socialization"--by which she means something more along the lines of relational health, as you say--she writes:
"I suppose they didn’t ask how we expected our children to be “socialized” because there the children were, in front of everyone, doing their best impersonations of socialized people. The nine-year-old talked to the grownups about Star Wars, the four-year-old helped to carry dishes to the table, the three-year-old played nicely on the floor with our friends’ baby granddaughter. The twelve-year-old, away at a ballet rehearsal, proclaimed her socialization by her absence."
Also in a followup blog to the original article, she has a smart point at the end about contributing to the culture of the neighborhood, an observation she cites in support of her larger argument that "in withholding our children from the public schools, we have not withheld them from the world"
Conversations about
Ladybug, thanks for the link to Sally Thomas' article. I love it.
I especially like the following statement in relation to what I was saying in my ranting post:
"A child in school almost inevitably has a separate existence, a “school life,” that too easily weakens parental authority and values and that also encourages an artificial boundary between learning and everything else.
. . . At their best, our days are saturated with what school merely strives to replicate: real, substantial, active, useful, and moral learning."
And I love her description of their homeschooling life and how it is integrated and ordered by prayer. Her ending image is powerful. Great stuff. I wish I knew her.
I am at your feet. You are my girl wonder.
Nina
Ooh...a woman after my own heart. I agree wholeheartedly.
socialization = enculturation which means roughly "transmitting group norms about right and wrong"
I wrote some thoughts here awhile back if you are interested.
been trying to explain this to friends and relatives for years--usually it degrades into a discussion of the etymology of the word instead of what I intend, so I give up. What I find shocking is how few teachers actually pay attention to their "History of Education" class, a class I found shocking in it's constant contradictions with what I was told regarding why public education was important. Most of my fellow students yawned their way through the class--if they had paid attention they would have been shocked.
Perhaps the whole "socialized"/"sociable" debacle would be solved and the distinction more broadly recognizable if people had been homeschooled themselves. Seems like an important distinction to me!
Education is so much more than acquiring information that can be regurgitated later. Acquiring information & knowledge is a piece, but not the only piece. As you say, it is to "help [my children} be all that God designed them to be, to flourish".
Wonderful post. Go, home schooling!
Nina,
I love you, too. Everything I've learned I've learned again from your example. ;o)
Dana,
Thanks for stopping by and for providing the link. The quotations you and Dr. Sanity share are indeed frightening, especially the one about children being "insane" and in need of a cure being attached to parents, God, and country.
Heather,
What's even more depressing is that my education program (at a Christian university, no less) doesn't even require (or regularly offer?)a history of education class! Apparently only the current is relevant.
Thanks for visiting!
Kirsten,
Didn't realize you were a strong homeschool advocate. Cool!
I didn't realize I was until recently. I feel fortunate as to have "survived" public school and come out a [relatively -- though it's definitely up for debate] sane person.
It's been a discussion with several folks lately and the more I learn, the more I'm convinced I wouldn't want to subject any children of mine (hypothetical though they may be) through the cogs of the machine that are our public schools!
So rock on, sister!!
I've been reading Rachel Gathercole's The Well-Adjusted Child: The Social Benefits of Homeschooling and am finding it an interesting read. She covers many different aspects of the topic and includes the perspectives of homeschoolers themselves.
Isn't it funny how the assumption is that you have to go to school to learn how to be "socialized"--but your teachers were always telling you how "we're not here to socialize"! LOL
I'm planning to post a response on http://armsopenwide.wordpress.com/ on Thursday. Maybe we can have a dialogue about it. Here's a preview (I think this can be seen): http://armsopenwide.wordpress.com/?p=233&preview=true
I did a House of Studies thesis on a narrow aspect of socialization.
Many years, Bill (Ephrem) Gall
Ephrem,
Thanks for the heads up. I look forward to hearing what you have to say.
Thanks for stopping by!
I just changed my 6/19/2008 post "Summing up 'Living Stones: Socialization.'" (I decided to wrestle with the relationship between deification and socialization.)
I suspect you just visited, and I know my sweeping conclusion was inadequate and had been thinking about changing it which I just did- a more qualified endorsement of a very specific definition of socialization. Please give it a second look, if you like. (Bill Gall, "Arms Open Wide"
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