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."