Socialization: Homeschooling vs. Schools

[Soldier4Christ]

Socialization: Homeschooling vs. Schools

It was Theodore Roosevelt who said, "To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society."

Many homeschoolers share this sentiment when it comes to public schools, believing that the moral relativism, violence, peer pressure, drugs and promiscuity found inside their gates provide an inadequate setting to properly socialize their children.

Yet 92 percent of superintendents believe that home learners are emotionally unstable, deprived of proper social development and too judgmental of the world around them, according to a California study by researcher Dr. Brian Ray .

What makes homeschool socialization such a hot topic?

With approximately 4 million children currently being homeschooled in the U.S., along with a 15- to 20-percent yearly growth rate, many professional educators and school boards are concerned that this exodus will keep funds from entering the public education system.

Many teachers also believe that successful home instruction by uncredentialed parents undermines their expertise and jeopardizes their jobs.

Questions about inadequate socialization are often brought up as a means to disqualify homeschooling as a viable alternative form of education, but are the arguments valid?

A look at the research on this socialization debate shines further light on the issue.

There's no place like home

Why is there such a dichotomy in the socialization experienced between homeschoolers and conventional students? It all has to do with the learning environment.

The National Home Education Research Institute disclosed that the 36 to 54 hours that students spend in school-related weekly activities make peers and adults outside of the home the primary influences in children's lives - not the parents.

Realizing the harm that this constant exposure can produce, especially if it's not countered by involved parenting, most homeschoolers are well aware of their children's need for close one-to-one contact throughout the education process.

Jesus understood the importance of continual intimate contact with His students, as He ate, slept and fellowshipped with His disciples 24 hours a day. It is unlikely that Jesus would have entrusted their training to strangers.

So how do these different settings affect children? Dr. Thomas Smedley believes that homeschoolers have superior socialization skills, and his research supports this claim. He conducted a study in which he administered the Vineyard Adaptive Behavior Scales test to identify mature and well-adapted behaviors in children. Home learners ranked in the 84th percentile, compared to publicly schooled students, who were drastically lower in the 23rd.

Welcome to the real world

Many school socialization advocates argue that homeschooling precludes children from experiencing real life.

Instead of being locked behind school gates in what some would consider an artificial setting characterized by bells, forced silence and age-segregation, homeschoolers frequently extend their everyday classroom to fire departments, hospitals, museums, repair shops, city halls, national parks, churches and colleges, where real community interaction and contacts are made.

Dismantling the stereotype that home learners spend their days isolated from society at kitchen tables with workbooks in hand, NHERI reports that they actually participate in approximately five different social activities outside the home on a regular basis.

Furthermore, researcher Linda Montgomery found that 78 percent of high school home learners were employed with paying jobs, while a majority engaged in volunteering and community service.

Research presented at the National Christian Home Educators Leadership Conference divulged that homeschool graduates far exceeded their public and private school counterparts in college by ranking the highest in 42 of 63 indicators of collegiate success. They were also ranked as being superior in four out of five achievement categories, including socialization, as they were assessed as being the most charismatic and influential.

Biblical or worldly socialization?

When most home educators and school administrators speak of successful socialization, are they referring to the same thing?

Education researcher Dr. Michael Mitchell found that being popular, aggressively competitive, materialistically driven and self-confident are traits promoted in conventional schools.

His study shows that these campus ideals are discouraged by Christian home educators in favor of building their children's character and dismantling selfish ambitions. Integrity, responsibility, respect for others, trust in God, biblical soundness and an amiable disposition topped the ideal social qualities they desired their youth to embody.

Many Christians who homeschool believe that the greatest socialization their children can have is to be trained to emulate Jesus, who is a servant of man. Home educators examined by Mitchell strive to dismantle any selfish ambitions and self-aggrandizement seen in their children, as opposed to cultivating them.

Getting ahead of one's peers is not consistent with Jesus' urging in Matthew 20:25b-28, which calls for Christians to seek a lowly and servile role to those around them. However, this does not mean that Christians are called to underachieve, as Colossians 3:23 exhorts readers to push for peak performance in every endeavor, but for the glory of God rather than for selfish ambition.

cont'd

[Soldier4Christ]

Pride is also promoted in the public schools. It is often repackaged as self-esteem in programs such as "Here's Looking at You, 2000," in which education researcher Dr. Amy Binder reports that students are instructed to believe that they are "the most important person in the world."

Many Christian home educators assert that the kind of pride being taught in the schools is discouraged throughout Scripture by Jesus and Paul, who preach against lifting oneself up or putting oneself first in favor of assuming a lowly position among others, as seen in Luke 14:10-11 and Romans 12:3.

They often contend that traditional students are driven to achieve high marks in order to attain lucrative and prestigious jobs that can lead to lives of self-indulgence, while the Bible calls man not to be overcome by material concerns.

Even though God enjoys prospering His children, He also warns us in 1 Timothy 6:10 that "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs."

Negative socialization

The mass socialization conducted within schools has brought about a proliferation of delinquent behavior within this nation's youth, reports education researcher, Dr. Michael Slavinski. He notes that student bodies are increasingly riddled with violence, drugs, promiscuity, emotional disorders," crime, contempt for authority, desperate behavior, illiteracy and peer dependency - just to name a few.

Today, parents are not as surprised to see reports of fifth-graders having sex in class; hear about school shootings; find drugs or condoms in backpacks; receive phone calls from the police and principals; or witness defiant, apathetic and unrecognizable tones in their children's voices.

"Live and let learn," say many parents. Most home educators are fine with this, as long as their children's learning comes from mature, seasoned and embracing adults who have the children's best interests at heart - above political or economic agendas. They believe that such training shouldn't come from peers either, which amounts to the blind leading the blind.

When the Direct Observation Form of the Child Behavior Checklist was administered by education researcher Dr. Larry Shyers to identify 97 problematic behaviors in two groups of children, traditionally schooled students exuded eight times as many antisocial traits than their homeschooled counterparts. This lies in direct contrast to claims by public school advocates that exposure to campus life leads to proper socialization.

Light of the world

Many Christian parents are concerned that homeschooling would not allow their children to fulfill the great commission of sharing the gospel with non-believers. They often site Matthew 5:14-16 about being the light of the world.

Some Christian homeschool parents argue that even though young believers are to reach out to the lost, they are not called to immerse themselves daily in a hostile setting that constantly works to influence them in the ways of the world. They recognize that those with strong Christian upbringings are still vulnerable to the ungodly climate of the schools.

In Proverbs 4:11-15, King Solomon realized the vulnerability of his son, proclaiming his responsibility to train him in godly teachings and keep him from stumbling over the vices of this world.

Just as parents know that children are not prepared for war, many Christians believe that youth are not equipped to fend for themselves in the spiritual warfare taking place within schools.

A nationwide survey conducted by The Barna Group shows that 80 percent of Christian families send their children to public schools where their faith is attacked. Based on the study's findings, it appears that their kids are the ones being "evangelized" by the religion of secular humanism. More than half of their Christian teens believe Jesus actually sinned and only nine percent hold to moral absolutes, while 83 percent of children from committed Christian families attending public schools adopt a Marxist-Socialist worldview, reports the group.

For more statistics on Christians in education, click on The Barna Group.

Consistent with these figures, Christian producer and occult expert Caryl Matrisciana reports that 75 percent of public-schooled American youth brought up in Christian households disown their Christian faith by the first year of college. NHERI finds that this is only true for less than four percent of homeschooled youth.

Most home educators would not trade the blessings that homeschooling brings their families and society for the world.

[Brother Jerry]

I agree completely.  And I wish that my wife and I could afford for her to stay at home and educate our children.  One reason I am all for voucher programs as well.  If I could take the tax money I am paying the gment and use it for my own children to either home school or go to a good Christian private school then I would in a heartbeat.

The issue of socialization comes in for homeschooling when as the article suggests, you do not have involved active parents who take their children out for the socialization.  They look at our world today and see that the parents also do not socialize even with their neighbors and that is going to be put upon the children.  And that is an issue today.  I remember growing up we use to block off the street we lived on and have block parties and things like that.  We were always going to the neighbors or having them over for dinner and cards.  But that just does not happen anymore.  We have become an isolated society where we do not talk to our neighbors unless we have too.

[Soldier4Christ]

Many people have found that it costs far less to homeschool a child than it does to send them to a public school. There is an abundant amount of free materials that a person can get off the internet or from the public libraries that work really well.

I homeschooled all three of mine and spent on average about $10.00 per year each. I also assist many in my neighborhood in homeschooling their children. Most of them spend less than $50.00 a year depending on what they wish to school them in and how they want to do so. My oldest son has opted for a specific course put out by a church. Now going that route can cost as much as $500.00 per year per child, so it can get expensive but there are ways to have a quality education for them without that expense.

Some parents complain about the time spent in educating their children. Actually it takes very little time. No more time than a parent should be spending with their children anyway.

 

[Brother Jerry]

Oh I agree brother.  There are the resources available.  But we have the need of the wifes second income.  And unfortunately by the time we get to a point where we will not need it...it will almost be too late. 

I often feel guilty for not trusting in God this aspect of life.  I know that if we trusted in Him and turned this over to Him that He would provide.  He has blessed us in other ways though to compensate for this failing.  Our children are blessed and active in our church family and have thus far stayed clear of things that could cause temptations.  But high school is just around the corner...

Another weakness in this area is both my wife and I's... ability to teach I guess.  I know that my wife is smart and educated but there is much that the both of us do not know or have forgotten over the years.  Neither of us is what we would consider strong in the grammar and English department.  And that is an important aspect of things.  And the math is fine unless they get above a trig level, and then I would struggle and I know my wife would as well. 

Another area in which if we turned it over to God I am sure He would provide.  But with those weaknesses I would love to actually send them to a Christian school, but then that gets into the finances.  I ultimately hate the fact that I am paying taxes on something I wish I could put into something else.  At least while my children are utilizing the system.

[Soldier4Christ]

I thought the same thing about finances until we took the leap of faith. We found that we had just as much extra spending money with my wife not working as we did when she did work. As for the teaching part, one of the people that I assisted into homeschooling is a single mother that had a learning disability herself and could not make it past the 10th grade. I have had less to do with the education of her children than I have with the others, yet her children ar far more advanced than the others. No matter how good a teacher is or is not it depends a lot on the child's ability to assimilate the information given to them. If a parent gets into a real hard place where the material is above them then there are web sites where there are retired teachers that are willing able to assist as tutors and most of them do so for free.

I don't mean to sound like I am putting either of you down for your decision in this. I am simply trying to show that even though many parents think it is impossible that it is not as hard a job as they think.

[Brother Jerry]

Believe me brother, I am not taking any of that as a put down or anything like that.  And if you want to send over some information or links concerning it I would be very interested in reading it.

[Soldier4Christ]

I'll post some more as i dig them out but the first one that I give to anyone that may be interested is to the Home School Legal Defense Association. They have information on homeschool laws that pertain to both federal and state including current bills that are in the works. They also offer legal defense to those that may run into problems with their local schools or other public officials in regards to homeschooling.

http://www.hslda.org/Default.asp?bhcp=1