Technically I probably don't have any right to be posting this here. But, I don't know the author so I can't ask permission. This was just something posted on a (public) writing website for homeschoolers (apricotpie.com) that I used to participate in. At one point, the server crashed and lots of writings were lost (including mine). I don't think this member is active on that site any longer (neither am I). But, I had guessed that something like that might happen at some point, and was lucky enough to save this piece for myself, and now I'm going to take the liberty of sharing it, because it so reminds me of MY childhood.
A Girl And Three Boys Installment #1
posted by Andrea on 6/11/2004
A Girl And Three Boys
By: A.E. + D.C. Delgado
Instalment 1: ‘Ingenuity’
“Mom, can we go sledding?” It was a fact, we wanted to go sledding
“Mom, we need a sled.” Another fact, we had no sled. Put those two facts together and you have a first class dilemma. We didn’t have enough money at the time to go out and buy a sled, and the day wasn’t getting any younger, so we tried everything possible to come up with a decent substitute. Just sliding on our behinds was not going to work, the path was anything but smooth and covered in little ruts. We tried old rubber-maid containers, old tires, old plastic.... the best ‘sled’ we could come up with was a cardboard box we had ripped into two pieces, one for me, the other for my little brother and accomplice, Dan. We were nine and eight that winter, and I guess because of our youth the prospect of fun shielded us from any embarrassment we might have felt arriving at ‘The Big Hill’ with only cardboard .The neighborhood kids were in awe, and even asked to have a try. We slid with the best of them– until our cardboard got so soaked it wouldn’t glide. Then the other kids let us share their sleds. We were truly touched by this outpouring of generosity.
I chuckle now, to think of all the times we came up with things as good as or better than the store bought version. I think it was a need to have our imaginations constantly working. We had three of the greatest resources know to ‘child-hood’; our mom, each other, and ‘the ditch’. Our mom encouraged us to think like she did. I’ve never known anyone who was so busy doing or planning, or working on something. I’m sure the majority of our ingenuity comes from living with her. She saw a pile of wood and did something with it, or saw something already made and changed it to suit her need. She had a never ending flow of ideas for when our brains had gone dry. I had my three little brothers, and they had me. I tell you, nothing is as fun with one as it is with four! That friendship was a wonderful treasure. Then, we had our ditch, ‘the ditch’ as we fondly called it. It was really too big to be called a ditch, it was more of a gorge that narrowed and steepened at one end, then widened into a swampy place on the other end. Oh, beautiful treasure chest of both disgusting and wonderful things! All of the trash the apartment dwellers didn’t throw into the dumpsters ended up in our ditch. Full of vile and slimly things, it was a wonderland for my brothers. The wild flowers that grew on the edge and the sparrows and red-winged black birds that nested in the cattails were my fascination. We constantly turned to the ditch for fun, and it produced innumerable chances for adventure and excitement. On the other side of the ditch was a junkyard that supplied us with all manner of robot parts and fuel for ultra scientific study. The swamp practically flowed with frogs, snakes, and mosquitoes. The dry, rocky slope on the northern side was home to our ‘pet’ groundhog, ‘Short and Stumpy’. Short and Stumpy wasn’t a pet of choice exactly, he ate the majority of our garden one year so we decided that if we had to feed him, we could name him and claim him as ours (poor thing).
In the winter the ditch turned into a snowy playground. We sledded on the steep sides, and slid on the frozen swamp. Without all of the tall grass and weeds, it looked bigger and more open than ever. We spent whole days clearing the snow from the ice and any frozen trash that might be an obstruction during our annual ‘ice races’. The ice races were a series of running, sliding, scooting, and dragging competitions. The prizes were cattail heads that were given to those who could run and slide the farthest, who could pull someone (usually the judge) the fastest, and who could fall in the most graceful way.
When the snow and ice would start to melt we were banned from the now fragile ice. We had to think of new ways to keep busy in the ditch. Generally this was the time Short and Stumpy made his appearance after his long winter nap, and we were all somewhat relieved that he did not die in the frozen months. My brothers and I decided one year that we should make a documentary about the life of the groundhog. I had bought an old, old movie camera at Goodwill for two dollars, one of those cameras that was so old, you had to wind a little handle on the side to make it work. We tried in vain to find the kind of film it once used, but I think they must have stopped production in the early 40's. That did not stop us though, we went full steam ahead with ‘filming’ the real-life groundhog documentary that would make us all famous. We spent days watching that groundhog’s hole, sure that any minute the star would appear. We felt that the thought of stardom scared ‘Short and Stumpy’ because he would not come out for anything. We tried setting bait in the entrance of his home, yelling for him, walking past his hole talking about all of the succulent veggies we had in our hands, ready to give to any cute groundhog that would be seen, then went back later to apologize for lying. Nothing worked. A sad end for our film career, but there was too much in the ditch to be done for us to cry over an idea gone sour.
Our great inspiration the summer I was 11 was to build a village in our ditch. We named this brilliant work of child planning and labor ‘Gumbo Limbo’, and believed that it ranked with the great civilizations of long ago. Everyone had their own home and place for work. I was the only woman resident and needed more privacy, so I cleared out a place of long grass under a big tree, had a door, a little ‘stove’ like structure, and a place that went right out into the swamp. We spent all summer trying to build Dan a home. Another fruitless idea. We saw a picture of African grass huts on the savanna, and knew it would be perfect. The farthest we got was a couple of cattail reeds stuck in the ground. Being the sort of ‘roving’ type, Dan didn’t mind too much. Nick’s house was half in the swamp. Whenever it would rain, his home would flood, and he would have to live near Dan’s reeds till the swamp waters receeded. He always said that he had the ‘lake front property’ so he would not move. Jon was truly a wanderer, not really living anywhere, but living with all of us at different times. Together, we made a very nice little community.
Everyone had a profession . I was a reporter/scientist, who doubled as a domestic engineer. It was my job to make sure all food was cooked, and did most of the inventing of things to make life easier. I kept the well, in the deepest and clearest part of the swamp, cleaning it of algae and drawing water for all who needed it. Dan was a hunter/farmer/policeman, in charge of keeping peace and well- being among the people. What he got when he hunted, I’m not sure, but there was plenty to be caught. The frogs were wild and huge, always croaking at such moments to scare us all out of our wits. There were plenty of dragon flies and horse flies, and house flies.... tadpoles in the spring, and salamanders in the summer. There were always little injured things to be saved, and funerals to have when they died. The little boys were too young to think of much on their own but they helped me and fished for useful trash from the swamp.
We all took part in the most vital and important job, keeping Dajun fed. We, the citizens of Gumbo Limbo, lived in perpetual mock fear of the alligator who would come and eat our children and young sick cows. As time went on, I think that mock fear was replaced with a healthy respect for that reptile. He demanded to be fed whenever we remembered, and with the best 49cent fishing lures we could buy. It turned into in kind of ceremony. We all stood on the bank of the swamp with a sort of religious severity, throwing fishing lures into the water. I’m sure anyone who passed by would have thought we were all crazy. It was hard on Dan, who had to buy the lures that we threw in the swamp. I would convince him that he needed to keep buying the lures and we consoled him with the fact that when the late summer came, and the swamp dried up, we’d go and get his lures. Little did we know that in the fall, the lures would be gone, there-by enhancing the belief that somewhere in those cattails, there was a 15 foot alligator, waiting for some poor baby cow to eat.
Dajun was not the only threat to our peace. Neighborhood children came regularly to observe something their video game corrupted minds could not grasp...playing pretend. We tried over and over to explain it to them, but they could not comprehend it.
“Ya’ll ain’t got no allygator in dere!”
One child accused, while another almost ate some ‘stew’ I made from algae and swamp water complete with every bacteria 50 years could supply.
“I know we don’t have an alligator, we’re pretending. Don’t eat that, you’ll kill yourself!” I was at my wits end.
“Ya’ll said dis be soup..liar..ya’ll said dere be an allygator up in dere!” Liar, strange way to describe pretend. We felt bad for these kids that couldn’t keep busy without being in trouble. Their eyes did not see what we saw. They saw just trash, piled up in some places, maybe hanging from a string on a tree branch, but they could not see Gumbo Limbo. It was truly our world. Some days we’d come down and see that everything we had made, the work of a whole week had been destroyed. I didn’t know whether to blame Dajun, or kick some kid. We’d begin again with bigger and better ideas this time. It was all trash anyway, stuff we’d found laying around, or bought for 35cents at Goodwill. That was the way it went, just like all the great civilizations of long ago, destruction, then building again.
We passed much of the time rebuilding, Always searching for new ways to do things, better trash to convert into something useful, bigger frogs, .....there were always bigger frogs....
The summer that Jonathan was 5 we had smaller frogs...
To be continued in Installment #2..... (sadly, it never was)
Friday, June 11, 2004
Thursday, June 3, 2004
What about Socialization?
Having been home schooled, I often get asked a variety of questions about home schooling. One of the most frequent is "What about socialization?" In the beginning, I was puzzled every time someone asked this. Isn't talking a social act? Haven't I just admitted that I'm a specimen of home schooling? Can't you just look at the situation and decide? My position is not very objective, why ask me? Also, the connotations of "anti-social" in the clinical sense make the question almost offensive. It's almost like asking "Are you civilized?" Sometimes people realize this, and add in an afterthought sort of way "although you seem fine talking to me right now." This always leaves me a little confused as to what's being asked.
I generally say something to the effect that home schooling doesn't mean that you're never with other people. There are all kinds of support groups where you are with other home schoolers, plus clubs, activities, and often church. My best friends were other girls in my neighborhood and we played most days after school. Also, spending a lot of time with your family is definitely social interaction, probably better than what you'd get at school. Problem resolution is a must: you can change friends but you can't change families, and you don't necessarily go someplace else at the end of the school day. Furthermore, the lack of age segregation and large peer groups makes relationships more real, personal, and relatively unaffected by negative social pressures. So, yes, I'm socialized. Still, I wasn't really sure if this was answering the question, because it's not the same as being around a peer group for hours, day in and day out. So I started trying to define "socialized."
If socialization means interaction with people, then it seems merely to be a measure of extroversion. However, the way the question is asked would then imply that extroversion is better than introversion. I'd always thought of introversion and extroversion as being neutral personality traits that should not be judged in inferior-superior terms. Or have I really thought that? When I was a kid, I was a very stereotypical extrovert. I had no concept of inhibition. Perhaps my later self was enveloped by an adolescent shyness, but I should have grown out of that - and even so I enjoyed vocal performing during that time. I really think I DECIDED to become more introverted, because I began to see extroverted activities as being somewhat frivolous. So, maybe without realizing it, some people (extroverts) consider extroversion part of maturity similar to the way I have preferred introversion. In that case I'd say that I'm currently not socialized, perhaps by personality, but probably by choice, and I don't see what it has to do with being home schooled. Not to mention that all three of my homeschooled siblings are different from me, having their own distinct personalities and at least one of them is an extreme extrovert. Then again, sometimes people who ask me "What about socialization?" seem to be introverts. So, the definition of "socialized" is still somehow unclear.
Because this is such a common question, my family sometimes discusses it ('cause they get asked the same thing too), and eventually someone came up with a rather funny retort: "Why should I be socialized when we live in a republic?" (and for those who are wondering, we don't technically live in a democracy: "I pledge allegiance to the flag, and the REPUBLIC for which it stands"). At first I just thought of this as a rather comical pun - but then I began to wonder if it really was a pun. Why should "socialized" have a different meaning than "socialized?" The whole idea of having public schools has a very socialist base. John Dewey, usually considered the "Father of Modern Education," seems quite socialist. There is a difference between socialism and socialization, but I wonder if the difference is really relevant in the context of schools? Anyway, if this is the intended meaning, my answer would be a resounding no, I'm not socialized! That's kinda the whole point of being home schooled.
Next, people might ask what's so bad about socialism? Well, to me it seems that the point of socialism is that people should be equal. Socialists often complain that capitalism makes unnecessary class distinctions, primarily based on economic standing, causing people to be unequal and that this is the source of most of the world's ills. America has the Declaration of Independence words to stand on: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." Now, there are some problems with that statement, one of them is that a mounting percentage of Americans don't believe in a Creator. Leaving that one aside for now, here's another problem, why are these truths "self-evident?" In many ways they aren't. In terms of shape and size and color, men - and these days we would also include women - aren't created equal. Or are we? We aren't created identical, that's certainly self-evident, but equality is another thing.
How do you measure equality? Well, as far as I know measurement always implies numbers - but where do the numbers come from? One convenient place is economics. Economics primarily relies on money, and when a person is born their surroundings can be approximately translated into monetary terms so that equality is "measured." Now, perhaps I am giving socialism a very naive interpretation. If so, criticize me. Give me incentive to make a better argument. But, until someone does that, here's how I see socialism: using that quantifiable, monetary definition of equality, people should be born as equal as possible. Communism is actually the ideal way of doing this because if we effectively got rid of money, then supposedly everyone would have equal worth because our differences wouldn't be quantifiable anymore. (…yeah - now we're all worthless.) Basically, equality and identicalness become the same thing because in any naturalistic belief system people must be the result of nature and/or nurture, will and soul having no play.
However, The Declaration doesn't say people should be born equal, it says "…are created equal." There is a difference between "should be" and "are," and there is a difference between "created" and "born." I think what is meant is that people are created with equal worth, that one person is not inherently better than another. However, this means that we would have to define "worth" and "better." I don't mean money, and in fact I don't mean anything quantifiable. I would interpret the intent as saying that people have equal value in the eyes of God. Now, in a population where so many people don't believe in the existence of God in any meaningful kind of way, this idea will certainly not be self-evident. Still, justice obviously flows from this principle, so people want to hang on to the consequences. What comes is a variety of attempts to restate the original statement. These attempts result in ideas like the one I use above: people should be born equal.
In order to try to make people live in more equitable environments, you can put them all together at a very young age. You can teach them the same culture and system of values. You can let unsupervised peer pressure teach them to be embarassed of having anything but the same taste in material goods. You can teach that the whole is better than the individual. In short, you can teach people to be homogeneous. Within a few generations, this homogenous trend compounds, and people start to really be born into nearly equal (and identical) situations. However, they don't always stay that way, although we are getting a more firmly stratified society so that movement between classes is harder. The classes still exist, and the schools actually end up making them more pronounced. Have you ever noticed that one of the greatest predictors of social class is level of education? So, we have homogenization within classes. We didn't get rid of classes but individuality is falling by the wayside. Of course, if you're a naturalist, individuality is just another name for permutation, and there are plenty more where those came from.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not in love with capitalism in practice, it's just that the alternatives seem to do more harm than good. This may be another naïve interpretation, but I've always though of capitalism as being based upon individual initiative. You have private ownership and small government. However, no country is 100% any type of economic system, and the existence of many government programs is testament to the fact that America is not 100% capitalist. It is hard to sort which causes go with which effects. Still, even if America was 100% capitalist I'm sure there would still be problems. Some problems are just a result of not living in a perfect world. A fix would be wonderful, but if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. At least capitalism doesn't claim to lead to perfection.
Now, even though I haven't grown up in a socialist environment, many of my friends have. Also, although things are probably a little different at the college level, I doubt they are much different. Even as a well informed adult who grew up fairly sheltered from social pressure, I can say that it is still TOUGH to resist. How often do I avoid doing something really fun with my hair because I know I'll be the only one and everyone will stare? I used to like doing it BECAUSE everyone would stare. Once again, this might be residual adolescent shyness, but maybe not. Anyway, if something as simple as that causes emotional distress, how can people stand up for really important things? And it must cause emotional stress, because very few people wear their hair differently in a permanent kind of way unless they have friends who are doing it too.
At home grades were pretty much on an absolute scale. Either you knew stuff or you didn't. If you didn't, you did things over until you did know. There was no average to compare to - just the answer sheet. There were no curves, no class rankings, no percentiles. I began to get a taste of that when I started going to our home school co-op, but I never really paid attention or bought into any of it until considering colleges. Suddenly comparative standing became incredibly important, and my comparative standing was pretty high. I have to say that I didn't do a very good job of not letting it go to my head. Not that I was mean to people, but a certain kind of prejudice came over me. I was partially aware of it, and it alarmed me. Still, it put me at the top and I liked that.
Yet in a way, I really didn't like being at the top because I couldn't understand why it was so important to achieve the things I had. Although I rarely admitted it, test scores felt like luck. It was luck I worked for, but I'm sure there are people who worked harder - and isn't that kinda the definition of luck, that it doesn't matter how hard you try? Anyway, the whole idea is based upon value assignment from some outside source. Like money - grades, tests scores, degrees, etc - are just paper. When money isn't tied to a metallic standard, it is only worth what people think it is worth. The same thing goes for "academic merit." I couldn't see any analogous metallic standard for my ranking, and so while I did enjoy the attention I always felt a bit unsure about it. I always believed it could disappear as quickly as it came. But why do people believe it's worth something? The only reason I could come up with is that some larger organization wants people to. Call me a conspiracy theorist - if I don't deserve the title for this theory I have plenty of others - but being praised for academic achievement makes me feel like a pawn. Yes I'm at the top, but at the top of what?
Home schooling, on the other hand, inherently promotes individualism. There's not really a peer group, and although there are family conventions, within a family you expect people to fulfill different roles. There are leaders, but hopefully it's not a situation where some people are promoted as intrinsically better than others. Furthermore, there is a lot of solitude, at least there was for me. In "traditional" schools you are always catering to the average of a large group. As anyone who has studied statistics knows, averages aren't necessarily part of the group, and it might even be impossible in some groups. For instance, suppose we have a set of numbers A such that A={6,7,8}. The average of A is 7, but 2/3 of the group are not 7's. Next, suppose that A={5,6,8,9}. The average is still 7, but this time none of the members are 7's. Lastly, suppose A={5,6,8}. The average is now 19/3. Not only is this not a member of the group, but it is different in kind. Integers are not fractions! Now imagine a school for little integers that is based on the needs of some fraction. THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES!!!!
In "normal" school, nothing is individualized, and much time is spent waiting on other people or fulfilling the demands of bureaucracy. Generally, we were officially "out of school" around noon; basically you were either doing real work or you were done. We didn't have a TV and weren't allowed to say "bored." Our friends were at school, and who wants to spend all their time with siblings? You HAVE to learn to entertain yourself, and THAT involves getting to know yourself and THAT involves becoming an individual. Still, at college being an individual sometimes feels threatening, even though I wasn't raised in that group mentality, and even though I'm an adult who has thought about this. I can't imagine what's it's like to start from daycare age.
As for an answer to "what about socialization?" I'm still not quite sure what to say. Home schooling does tend to promote individualism, so I can only speak for myself anyway. Yet, if home schoolers have anything in common it's that we're different, and perhaps that translates into being unsocialized. If that's the case, then so be it. At least I am lucky enough to have the family I do, and they will always love me. My parents are even still together, married to the only people they've ever been married to... who has that anymore? Still, it's not enough and the more I see of the world the more I think: "There isn't going to be a Shire, Pippin."
I generally say something to the effect that home schooling doesn't mean that you're never with other people. There are all kinds of support groups where you are with other home schoolers, plus clubs, activities, and often church. My best friends were other girls in my neighborhood and we played most days after school. Also, spending a lot of time with your family is definitely social interaction, probably better than what you'd get at school. Problem resolution is a must: you can change friends but you can't change families, and you don't necessarily go someplace else at the end of the school day. Furthermore, the lack of age segregation and large peer groups makes relationships more real, personal, and relatively unaffected by negative social pressures. So, yes, I'm socialized. Still, I wasn't really sure if this was answering the question, because it's not the same as being around a peer group for hours, day in and day out. So I started trying to define "socialized."
If socialization means interaction with people, then it seems merely to be a measure of extroversion. However, the way the question is asked would then imply that extroversion is better than introversion. I'd always thought of introversion and extroversion as being neutral personality traits that should not be judged in inferior-superior terms. Or have I really thought that? When I was a kid, I was a very stereotypical extrovert. I had no concept of inhibition. Perhaps my later self was enveloped by an adolescent shyness, but I should have grown out of that - and even so I enjoyed vocal performing during that time. I really think I DECIDED to become more introverted, because I began to see extroverted activities as being somewhat frivolous. So, maybe without realizing it, some people (extroverts) consider extroversion part of maturity similar to the way I have preferred introversion. In that case I'd say that I'm currently not socialized, perhaps by personality, but probably by choice, and I don't see what it has to do with being home schooled. Not to mention that all three of my homeschooled siblings are different from me, having their own distinct personalities and at least one of them is an extreme extrovert. Then again, sometimes people who ask me "What about socialization?" seem to be introverts. So, the definition of "socialized" is still somehow unclear.
Because this is such a common question, my family sometimes discusses it ('cause they get asked the same thing too), and eventually someone came up with a rather funny retort: "Why should I be socialized when we live in a republic?" (and for those who are wondering, we don't technically live in a democracy: "I pledge allegiance to the flag, and the REPUBLIC for which it stands"). At first I just thought of this as a rather comical pun - but then I began to wonder if it really was a pun. Why should "socialized" have a different meaning than "socialized?" The whole idea of having public schools has a very socialist base. John Dewey, usually considered the "Father of Modern Education," seems quite socialist. There is a difference between socialism and socialization, but I wonder if the difference is really relevant in the context of schools? Anyway, if this is the intended meaning, my answer would be a resounding no, I'm not socialized! That's kinda the whole point of being home schooled.
Next, people might ask what's so bad about socialism? Well, to me it seems that the point of socialism is that people should be equal. Socialists often complain that capitalism makes unnecessary class distinctions, primarily based on economic standing, causing people to be unequal and that this is the source of most of the world's ills. America has the Declaration of Independence words to stand on: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." Now, there are some problems with that statement, one of them is that a mounting percentage of Americans don't believe in a Creator. Leaving that one aside for now, here's another problem, why are these truths "self-evident?" In many ways they aren't. In terms of shape and size and color, men - and these days we would also include women - aren't created equal. Or are we? We aren't created identical, that's certainly self-evident, but equality is another thing.
How do you measure equality? Well, as far as I know measurement always implies numbers - but where do the numbers come from? One convenient place is economics. Economics primarily relies on money, and when a person is born their surroundings can be approximately translated into monetary terms so that equality is "measured." Now, perhaps I am giving socialism a very naive interpretation. If so, criticize me. Give me incentive to make a better argument. But, until someone does that, here's how I see socialism: using that quantifiable, monetary definition of equality, people should be born as equal as possible. Communism is actually the ideal way of doing this because if we effectively got rid of money, then supposedly everyone would have equal worth because our differences wouldn't be quantifiable anymore. (…yeah - now we're all worthless.) Basically, equality and identicalness become the same thing because in any naturalistic belief system people must be the result of nature and/or nurture, will and soul having no play.
However, The Declaration doesn't say people should be born equal, it says "…are created equal." There is a difference between "should be" and "are," and there is a difference between "created" and "born." I think what is meant is that people are created with equal worth, that one person is not inherently better than another. However, this means that we would have to define "worth" and "better." I don't mean money, and in fact I don't mean anything quantifiable. I would interpret the intent as saying that people have equal value in the eyes of God. Now, in a population where so many people don't believe in the existence of God in any meaningful kind of way, this idea will certainly not be self-evident. Still, justice obviously flows from this principle, so people want to hang on to the consequences. What comes is a variety of attempts to restate the original statement. These attempts result in ideas like the one I use above: people should be born equal.
In order to try to make people live in more equitable environments, you can put them all together at a very young age. You can teach them the same culture and system of values. You can let unsupervised peer pressure teach them to be embarassed of having anything but the same taste in material goods. You can teach that the whole is better than the individual. In short, you can teach people to be homogeneous. Within a few generations, this homogenous trend compounds, and people start to really be born into nearly equal (and identical) situations. However, they don't always stay that way, although we are getting a more firmly stratified society so that movement between classes is harder. The classes still exist, and the schools actually end up making them more pronounced. Have you ever noticed that one of the greatest predictors of social class is level of education? So, we have homogenization within classes. We didn't get rid of classes but individuality is falling by the wayside. Of course, if you're a naturalist, individuality is just another name for permutation, and there are plenty more where those came from.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not in love with capitalism in practice, it's just that the alternatives seem to do more harm than good. This may be another naïve interpretation, but I've always though of capitalism as being based upon individual initiative. You have private ownership and small government. However, no country is 100% any type of economic system, and the existence of many government programs is testament to the fact that America is not 100% capitalist. It is hard to sort which causes go with which effects. Still, even if America was 100% capitalist I'm sure there would still be problems. Some problems are just a result of not living in a perfect world. A fix would be wonderful, but if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. At least capitalism doesn't claim to lead to perfection.
Now, even though I haven't grown up in a socialist environment, many of my friends have. Also, although things are probably a little different at the college level, I doubt they are much different. Even as a well informed adult who grew up fairly sheltered from social pressure, I can say that it is still TOUGH to resist. How often do I avoid doing something really fun with my hair because I know I'll be the only one and everyone will stare? I used to like doing it BECAUSE everyone would stare. Once again, this might be residual adolescent shyness, but maybe not. Anyway, if something as simple as that causes emotional distress, how can people stand up for really important things? And it must cause emotional stress, because very few people wear their hair differently in a permanent kind of way unless they have friends who are doing it too.
At home grades were pretty much on an absolute scale. Either you knew stuff or you didn't. If you didn't, you did things over until you did know. There was no average to compare to - just the answer sheet. There were no curves, no class rankings, no percentiles. I began to get a taste of that when I started going to our home school co-op, but I never really paid attention or bought into any of it until considering colleges. Suddenly comparative standing became incredibly important, and my comparative standing was pretty high. I have to say that I didn't do a very good job of not letting it go to my head. Not that I was mean to people, but a certain kind of prejudice came over me. I was partially aware of it, and it alarmed me. Still, it put me at the top and I liked that.
Yet in a way, I really didn't like being at the top because I couldn't understand why it was so important to achieve the things I had. Although I rarely admitted it, test scores felt like luck. It was luck I worked for, but I'm sure there are people who worked harder - and isn't that kinda the definition of luck, that it doesn't matter how hard you try? Anyway, the whole idea is based upon value assignment from some outside source. Like money - grades, tests scores, degrees, etc - are just paper. When money isn't tied to a metallic standard, it is only worth what people think it is worth. The same thing goes for "academic merit." I couldn't see any analogous metallic standard for my ranking, and so while I did enjoy the attention I always felt a bit unsure about it. I always believed it could disappear as quickly as it came. But why do people believe it's worth something? The only reason I could come up with is that some larger organization wants people to. Call me a conspiracy theorist - if I don't deserve the title for this theory I have plenty of others - but being praised for academic achievement makes me feel like a pawn. Yes I'm at the top, but at the top of what?
Home schooling, on the other hand, inherently promotes individualism. There's not really a peer group, and although there are family conventions, within a family you expect people to fulfill different roles. There are leaders, but hopefully it's not a situation where some people are promoted as intrinsically better than others. Furthermore, there is a lot of solitude, at least there was for me. In "traditional" schools you are always catering to the average of a large group. As anyone who has studied statistics knows, averages aren't necessarily part of the group, and it might even be impossible in some groups. For instance, suppose we have a set of numbers A such that A={6,7,8}. The average of A is 7, but 2/3 of the group are not 7's. Next, suppose that A={5,6,8,9}. The average is still 7, but this time none of the members are 7's. Lastly, suppose A={5,6,8}. The average is now 19/3. Not only is this not a member of the group, but it is different in kind. Integers are not fractions! Now imagine a school for little integers that is based on the needs of some fraction. THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES!!!!
In "normal" school, nothing is individualized, and much time is spent waiting on other people or fulfilling the demands of bureaucracy. Generally, we were officially "out of school" around noon; basically you were either doing real work or you were done. We didn't have a TV and weren't allowed to say "bored." Our friends were at school, and who wants to spend all their time with siblings? You HAVE to learn to entertain yourself, and THAT involves getting to know yourself and THAT involves becoming an individual. Still, at college being an individual sometimes feels threatening, even though I wasn't raised in that group mentality, and even though I'm an adult who has thought about this. I can't imagine what's it's like to start from daycare age.
As for an answer to "what about socialization?" I'm still not quite sure what to say. Home schooling does tend to promote individualism, so I can only speak for myself anyway. Yet, if home schoolers have anything in common it's that we're different, and perhaps that translates into being unsocialized. If that's the case, then so be it. At least I am lucky enough to have the family I do, and they will always love me. My parents are even still together, married to the only people they've ever been married to... who has that anymore? Still, it's not enough and the more I see of the world the more I think: "There isn't going to be a Shire, Pippin."
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