I went to public school and would argue it's a terrible place to be socialized. You are socialized by kids your age in an environment that's more akin to prison than the real world.

Yep, high school socialisation is so far removed from real life socialisation it’s funny. When I look back at my public school years I laugh to think we were supposedly learning vital social skills!

What other part of life do you interact with only people who were born in the same year as you were (and, in the case of some schools, only your sex)?

Homeschooled children (in my experience) learn to make friends with kids a lot older and younger than they are. They also learn to look after and teach younger ones, and learn from older ones.

I went to public school myself, my wife was homeschooled (for all but two high school years), and we homeschool our five kids. There’s pretty much no reason I’d consider sending them to school, unless they want to in their high school years (so far our oldest doesn’t).

I had friends from other grades when I was in middle school - was part of sports teams and I trained for an entire summer with kids who were 2 years older than me. Initially they bossed me, but over time they really took me under their wing.

In the neighborhood I lived - had some friends who were 3-4 years older. Maybe my experience is unusual, but those were great times!

Yea, i'd have to agree with you.

What i learned in school was how awful people can be. The extremes where we humiliate and torment others. The mindless churn to be in a clique and simply fly under the radar.

Slight tangent, but: In my view a parents jobs is to let children fail with a safety net. To be there and help them recover after failures are experienced together, to grow from them.

Public School, in my view, does none of this. It attempts to educate, sure, but not in socialization. Likewise parents, even the well executing ones (by my definition) cannot share the experiences. Parents can only see the aftermath and try to mend some wounds.. but the growth is up to the child, in isolation.

I don't know the better solution. I don't have the answer. All i know is that in the context of how i judge parenting, school fails entirely on. School is lord of the flies. Many prosper. Many drown. Many could grow, if only a guiding hand existed.

Clearly i'm a pessimist here. I'm also not having children, which may not surprise you. Hah.

Public school socialization.

Humiliated by teachers.

Bullied by some people.

Small circle of friends.

Adults as the enemy.

All the homeschooled kids I've met seem pleasant, polite, comfortable around other kids and around adults. Of course this is Northern California so elsewhere the story may be different.

Oh, and homeschooling is forbidden in Germany, under a 1938 law.

1938. Get it? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, elbow in the ribs.

Just to see who doesn't like homeschooling.

If we're going with full anecdotes, all the homeschooled folks I've had to deal with have had major issues integrating with wider society. I felt a bit sorry for them, even if they weren't always the nicest or well-meaning people to actually be around. But by the time they're a bit older, I guess it's too late.

How do you know whether people you've "had to deal with" were homeschooled or not? Might that method result in selection effects?

I doubt anyone I work with or meet knows I was homeschooled unless I specifically tell them, and it’s a pretty touchy subject because of the stereotypes people like the parent commenter have. Sounds like textbook survivorship bias, since the only homeschoolers you notice are the ones who are maladjusted. I know many people who were homeschooled and the range of outcomes varies, just like it does for public or private schools.

Some public school experiences can be great. Some homeschooling experiences can be great. Likewise each can be awful. We need more data.

Agreed. I made my point badly. Data is needed, not anecdotes.

True. They had to tell me. Your points stand: they could very well have been a minor subset of the overall population. But also by the same argument, they could have been 100pct of the population. It's why I mentioned it's all anecdotal. Data is needed.

Germany banned homeschooling in 1919. The 1938 law simply standardized the start date and penalties and excluded the disabled. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulpflicht

Of course, in the US things are different when it comes to sending kids to school. Where there is the constant danger of being shot at by some psycho.

So it's better if they stay their kids at home.

I'm German and I'm glad it's forbidden, and not since 1938 but since 1919, and it has its roots not in the Nazi era but in the Prussian system and the European humanist tradition of education which emphasized that education is not just about acquisition of skills, but about civic education, teaching students not just to be pupils but to be democratic citizens and active participants in public life.

> teaching students not just to be pupils but to be democratic citizens and active participants in public life.

The subtext being that homeschooled children grow up into worse citizens than schooled children? What is the basis for that?

Depends on the motivation but I think there are some straight forward reasons. If the motivation is religious, then withdrawal is the explicit goal. The US say, has a long history of sort of apolitical, religiously secluded parallel communities that are deliberately parochial.

Another reason is that if you're not participating in common institutions you have no stake in them. If everyone goes to the same schools (in Germany the idea of the Volksschule), everyone has to participate in civic discourse about what to teach, how to fund education, and how to maintain equal standards. There is a common fabric and shared reality because everyone shares the same space.

That's obviously not to say that literally every homeschooled person is disinterested in public life, or vice versa but I think it's hard to see many other motivations for homeschooling other than to withdraw for one reason or another.

> Another reason is that if you're not participating in common institutions you have no stake in them.

What's wrong with disassociation as a motivation? In a borderless world I don't see a reason for forced participation in a place that one might not even like. So long as everyone pay their financial debts, how they live their life shouldn't be anyone's business.

From what I have been able to piece together about Germans (my wife lived there and we have had several au pairs from there), they don’t understand the situation with religion in America. In Germany, people gradually stopped participating in organized religion, but the social framework has remained largely intact. Last I checked, German public schools are still required to offer religious education under Article 7-3 of the Basic Law.[1]

In the US, secularists have made a concerted effort to scrub every trace of religion out of public life and impose French-style secularism on a country that’s as religious as Poland. And they did that not in the 21st century, but in the 1960s and 1970s, when both Germany and the United States were vastly more religious.

Folks who want to homeschool their kids for religious reasons aren’t the nuts that American media makes them out to be. They’re people who in Germany or Sweden or the Netherlands or many other places would be able to avail themselves of public options that those countries include in the mainstream.

[1] Germany appears much more content to let social mores evolve organically rather than tearing up the social fabric by rushing change. Germany is a much more liberal country than America, but the laws are much more conservative in many ways. A subset of Americans are besides themselves because the Supreme Court overturned a case recognizing a right to abortion until viability (22 weeks). Meanwhile, Schwangerschaftsabbruch I (deeming abortion to be a violation of the Basic Law’s right to life) is still the law in Germany, and decriminalized abortion is permissible only to 12 weeks. Nobody called Angela Merkel a fascist for voting against same sex marriage. Bavaria requires crosses in public buildings and hasn’t been kicked out of the country. Etc.

You (or others reason this thread) would probably be interested in the most recent Serial podcast, "The Trojan Horse Affair", which centers on the intersection of religion and public schooling in Birmingham. Religious education is apparently technically a requirement in the UK as well (though, in many places, perhaps more observed in the breach). If you're Muslim in Birmingham, your public school is probably teaches approximately as much Islam as St. Barnabas taught me Catholicism.

(It doesn't work out great for Birmingham!)

That was the Blair governments terrible idea to give public funding to all religious schools. Coming from northern Ireland where segregation in schools is pretty fundamental to the divide, I couldn't believe the stupidity in implementing this in England.

I would go back much further than Blair. The roots of that situation can be found ultimately in the British empire, which lead to the creation of Pakistan and Bangladesh, and immigration from those countries into Britain (notably from Sylhet in the 1970s).

Crucially, South Asian people are endogamous, meaning that they generally prefer to marry within their communities and moreover within the family: cousin marriage is common. So there has been consistent secondary immigration from the subcontinent as South Asians marry spouses from their communities from their countries of origin and bring them to the UK.

The average Bangladeshi or Pakistani citizen's religious views are about as welcome in Britain as the average Briton's secular views would be welcome in Bangladesh. Which is to say that they are disjoint and cannot be reconciled much at all.

I don't know what you're referring to here, but 51% of Wikipedians believe that religious education (of some form) is compulsory in all UK schools.

> but about civic education, teaching students not just to be pupils but to be democratic citizens and active participants in public life.

As if that happens in American public schools lol.

It does in some more than in others. Oak Park schools did about as good a job with this as any school could have.

And how did that work out for Germany?

More seriously the Prussian system was created after the Napoleonic Wars to ensure that Prussia had a large reasonably well educated population suitable for warfare and for industry.

That system was enforced in the USA later in the 19th Century.

Read http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/

A lot of child comments are pointing out that school kids are often terrible peers and experiences there are not great, and I have had my share of similar experiences, but.. that is part of social growth too.

Making social mistakes, learning the consequences of those mistakes, and experiencing hurt when others make mistakes in interacting with you are all important life lessons.

Part of the reason “the real world” after school is so much better is because those people have already made mistakes and learned their lessons earlier in life. Of course, school isn’t the only way to learn these lessons, and many well adjusted homeschooled kids are those who are exposed to social situations in other ways.

There are many social situations that would never happen in the home, and kids have to learn about them somehow. i.e developing new relationships, dealing with unexpected conflict, meeting someone new, romance, etc.

Have you met many people from homeschooling backgrounds?

I live in a community full of them. Social interaction has not been a problem for them. As adults they're some of the most well adjusted I know. As teens some of the happiest I've ever met.

Academically they vary but I'd say it works better than school for most.

I have. My comment wasn’t a criticism of homeschooling. As I said:

> many well adjusted homeschooled kids are those who are exposed to social situations in other ways.

I was criticizing the idea the school is a bad place to learn socialization.

If you jump off a building you’ll learn not to do that again, but there’s easier and safer ways to learn.

I know not to jump off a building because I’ve fallen smaller distances as a child and I understand the consequences.

You would be negligent to let a child experience their first steps on the roof of a building.

A couple of hurt feelings in elementary school is likewise a low risk introduction to the world of social interaction.

I agree. I was treated pretty terribly at times.

I don’t think we should strive to socialize kids in school. The ones who do okay could probably still do better.

Here in North America it seems like our communities are too fragmented and fractured to facilitate socializing without something like schools, though. No idea how to address and resolve this issue, but I’m not convinced our teachers and the socializing model are anything like ideal for kids.

Not bashing teachers here either. I think they’re often doing their best but are working in the confines of a non-ideal system with limited resources.

I was very keen to get my kids into a private school which had an education model and teachers I was impressed by, but it’s incredibly hard to get in. My kids are eligible to enter, but there’s no space for years. No idea what to do. I’m happy to spend a lot to address this, but even private tutors don’t seem like a viable option here.

I’m just venting at this point. This is a hard problem. My kids are getting a bad education here in Canada and it’s upsetting. I try to do what I can to get them ahead, but I’m a nerd, not a teacher.

> was treated pretty terribly at times.

Most people were. But unfortunately you will get treated pretty terribly throughout your life.

And so you need to develop those social skills at some point.

Absolutely. I grew up with a mild disability so it might have been a little worse than average, which is why I mention it. I went through most of grade 3 with a list in in the top right of the chalk board titled “Stupid List”, and for the remainder of the year after it was written, I was the only one on there. These kinds of experiences weren’t uncommon for me.

My sister is a year older and more evidently disabled, and we were obvious targets for the kids we grew up with.

You’re right though. I lived through it fine, I’ve done okay, and the experience informed me about life and people in truly useful ways that I’ve come to value.

Ideally I’d like my kids to avoid the worst of what I experienced, but I don’t want to shelter them by any means. I think there are some forms of prolonged cruelty from peers that risks being very destructive, in particular.

The "real world" view pretty much depends on the glasses you wear and the observation point.

In public school you get in trouble for socializing

Don’t you think having those skills are important for when you are working and also forced to be around people?

Don't worry, for most people, their workplace will feel like a prison as well.

Those people would do well to learn what the word “prison” means. Your 9 to 5 might suck, but let’s try and have some perspective…

School isn't a literal prison either if you're advocating for sticking with the literal definition of the world.

Pedagogist here-- I don't have the time to gather a huge amount of materials in regard to this but it's worth pointing out that schools actually are designed to be, "like prisons" do to socioeconomic forces that turn schools into, "learn how to job" facilities. It's a natural consequence of neoliberal capitalism. Look into Foucault's, "Discipline and Punish."

http://www.we-aggregate.org/piece/schools-and-prisons https://sputniksteve.wordpress.com/2017/05/07/schools-prison...

(Excuse the relatively, "non-scholar" links; I'll dig into the literature at a further date. It's worth exploring.)

It's kind of true. This isn't going to change in the future. Neoliberalism means, "if you're not 21st century valuable you're going to be 19th century poor" and this has me troubled. The conundrum for me is how you can develop an advanced society without advanced education. It seems like technology becomes a social stratifier despite the, "advantages" that they gain the poor. This has historical precedent-- so far technological advances have done a great deal to correct social imbalances (consider working class life in the 1850s) but they have also furthered that gap between the most and least powerful in society.

It seems that human culture closely follows power laws; it might be possible that, "elites" are a natural consequence of human existence. The question is how this will be managed in a world where elites have near absolute technical powers. It's worth thinking about I thinking about.

This so much. I've met quite a few homeschooled children and almost without fail they lack some pretty fundamental social skills. Things like an apparent inability to interact with children of their own age, or behaving obnoxiously to others in ways that would be rapidly stamped out by peers.

I have the opposite experience. I've met a ton of homeschooled kids (also, I seem to attract them in the dating scene) and by and large I've found they have very sophisticated and healthy social skills, and it's "normally schooled" kids that have very twisted and often destructive social skills, probably derived from mostly interacting in the artificial social environment of "everyone is +/- 1 year from your age". Admittedly it's likely that I am suffering from selection bias based on my own social circles.

(I was traditionally schooled)

I went to a college that actively recruited homeschool students. Lots of experience with homeschoolers who just left home.

I haven’t seen the things you’re describing.

One of the most common things I saw in homeschoolers was a strong “intellectual hobby.”

They had curriculum bashed around them, so if there was a topic they liked, they could study it after year in increasing depth.

Of course, this is homeschoolers who go to college. Not necessarily representative.

How do you know that the parents didn't pull the kids out of school because lack of social skills and unusual but unctronable behavior resulted in peer bullying.

I work in educating young men and women, ages 16 up to around 60. Homeschooled kids almost never make a year in "normal" education. They fail to adjust to a small college, they are no longer the center of attention. They have to wait for others to catch up. They are not team players. It's really hard to watch.

It would be interesting to see actual statistics on this, because that doesn't match my experience at all. I was homeschooled, and went to a D1 state university, as did my siblings and numerous friends who were homeschooled. Both myself and one sibling finished with a 4.0 in dual majors. That same sibling went on to a masters program. I went on to an engineering Phd. The transition from grad school to corporate life was a bigger adjustment than high school at home to university. It just wasn't a big deal despite all the FUD.

I was also homeschooled and adjusted easily to a small college and a Masters at a top 20 university, and agree that the transition from university to corporate life was much more jarring than from homeschool to “normal” school. I only spent one day at a traditional school and honestly it was horrifying, spending 6 hours in a drab room listening to someone talk for 55 minutes, then running to the next one. The socialization issue is a concern, but there are plenty of ways to get kids involved socially while homeschooling. And normal schools also produce plenty of socially maladjusted people, not to mention bullying.

Yeah, I dunno, anecdotally all the homeschooled kids I knew were fine socially.

The world needs lots of corporate cogs who fall in line with the team. Personally I wasn't home-schooled but I can see the upside of being raised in an environment where you're not taught to be subservient to the authority of a school system, nor forced into a system where you're taught physical self defense is to be punished.

Sounds like the home-schooled may have a leg up for some tasks that require ignoring the training to fall in line with the team or authority. Their niche in life may simply be different.

Most of the "homeschool" kids I've met were definitely taught to fall in line, just with their family leaders and not with their peers. Subservience to religious or parental authority is a big reason why kids end up in those kinds of situations.

The rest sounds bad but "they have to wait for others to catch up" sounds like a win for homeschooling.

It's unsurprising that a teacher-student ratio around 1:1 could yield incredible academic results. If that so often comes at the cost of skills necessary to operate in the vast majority of real world environments though, it's kind of useless.

Schools are extremely artificial environments compared to pretty much everything else that comes later in life.

I don't disagree that schools are completely artificial environments. However what matters is that they're able to teach skills that are necessary in most real-world environments.

Have you ever heard of the fable about the tortoise and the hare? Sometimes speed isn't the most important.

Except when they try and get a job, be part of a social group or are in any sort of leadership position.

Everything in life is better when you’re a team player.

Which is why I said the rest sounds bad. But being a step ahead of your peers is something else that makes life better.

Try that with a romantic partner. Not attractive.

In a leadership role, being exasperated by half the team? Not motivating.

Also, the premise is that you are ahead of the bunch. It's also feasible that you are below the local average, and have no experience dealing with that situation. Takes guts to persist in that situation, but that's where you learn a lot.

This is personal opinion and not backed by any study or research. In all the ones I have seen, they easily adapt and actually get involved in civil societies more

As someone who was homeschooled for the majority of my childhood, I fully agree. I was able to somewhat overcome the resulting lack of social development in late high school (which wasn’t at home) and uni, but it wouldn’t be until some time between my mid 20s and early 30s that I felt like a mostly socially functional adult, and I still feel inadequacies in that department even now.

Additionally, I don’t know that I’d ever feel qualified to act as a teacher in as wide of a range of subjects as a child needs education in.

My wife and I were both homeschooled (I also attended private and public schools at various times). With homeschooling, we had a lot of positive social interactions (4-H, history club, co-operative classes with other families, neighborhood kids) and essentially no negative ones. My experience in public schools was quite negative (as well as being educationally weak). Our third son is autistic (probably my genetics) and does very well being homeschooled. Since he is nearly non-verbal, the likelihood that he would encounter abuse in a traditional setting that he could not report is quite high. Of course, having siblings contributes to socialization.

> essentially no negative ones

Negative interactions can sometimes be a help, or a part of life, or whatever is the right phrase. In Jr High one day after school some kids beat me and a friend up (for no reason that I could figure out). Of course, I won't say "it made me who I am today" or any baloney like that but it certainly helped cement a resolve to not be them.

> nearly non-verbal

Yes, for sure the individual kid is the prime thing a person worries about. I am glad to hear he does well.

I still hate bullies to this day, but there's no denying that they made me tougher.

All my life I had been taught that bullies were dumb. Imagine my surprise when I arrived at college and came across the first bully I met who was smarter than me. Much smarter than me. Didn’t make me tougher, but it made me realize even as you become an adult there are simply people to be avoided.

Yeah, I won’t deny that it can work well and produce well-rounded, socially capable adults, but it’s dependent on the parent(s) getting a lot right in doing it, which is anything but a given. Homeschooling isn’t a decision that should be taken lightly, and I think that parent(s) considering it should be honest with themselves in evaluating their ability to pull it off well.

Homeschooling does require a lot of commitment and consideration of your limitations as a parent. For example, I think there is value to cooperative homeschooling for some subjects (e.g., science, which requires equipment). Trying to "go it alone" for everything can be a bad idea. In addition, most states don't provide funding to school at home, so homeschooling parents also face an economic disadvantage.

I think everyone takes until mid 20s/early 30s to become socially functional. I went to normal school, and even day care (parents both worked), and I didn't totally overcome my social anxiety until I was 30 and had kids of my own. I still feel like I could do better.

Of course, I'm slightly biased, as we're probably going to end up going the homeschooling route. We were 50/50 before, but with COVID, we joined our church's homeschool coop, and because of that both our daughters are better socialized than peers their age. They meet every day. Older kids even meet up without their parents there (although there's always someone watching). Parents also hire tutors as groups, more like a 'pod' than traditional homeschooling. I think it'll work for us

> but it wouldn’t be until some time between my mid 20s and early 30s that I felt like a mostly socially functional adult

Just for the record, it's also common for people who attended school to not be really socially functional adults until their 20s-30s (hi!), and many people also never really even manage to realize this about themselves, so you're not necessarily worse off than an average non-homeschooled kid here.

I went to normal school and university, and despite this I still feel socially ackward.

I always blamed my dad, and my raising for my problems. My problems started being solved when I forgave my dad, and all the people that hurt me in the past.

I had to take responsibility and stop blaming others for my problems.

For homeschooled people I believe it is very tempting to blame homeschooling for their problems. It is too convenient. I don't know how to speak to women, homeschool problem. I don't know how to socialize, homeschool problem. I am alone, homeschool problem. Beware its not your case. Regards.

what's your process for forgiving someone?

It was long ago so I don't remember the details, it was part of Church process.

I recommended the following: 1. Understand that you are a sinner and that you wrong people very bad. In other words, recognize that you need forgiveness yourself. 2. Recognize that the other person is sinful as well. 3. Re-live the moment and recognize that it hurts. 4. Realize that the other person fucked up really bad. Don't apologize for them. 5. Forgive them. Thinking that if you don't, the problem will hunt you (not the other person).

Repeat this process several times during several years and you will be able to do it.

You should take the time to enumerate the topics you think a kid should know. I know that once I did this, I found many of the topics in public schooling to be BS. Some have said "the three R's-- reading, writing, and arithmetic" If you cover those extremely well, you can't ask for much more. There should be more, but you decide.

We probably agree more than we disagree, but I'll just add my own daughters as data points. When they stayed home during covid, the oldest (not a good student) did better academically with the lack of peer / social pressures. My youngest (an exceptional student) did better academically too, which has since allowed her to jump way ahead in her studies and finally be recognized by teachers as an academic prodigy, whereas before they saw her as a social misfit.

So - I agree that it is good for kids to learn how to coexist with others, I also think there are lots of ways to accomplish that and that we might all give school credit for social outcomes that aren't a reality.

I think you're confused as to the point of school. We often believe the point of school is the academics, but I would argue it's the social. Studies indicate social skills are more important to future success than academics.

A hurriedly-googled link: https://www.tcscholars.org/social-success/

And I would also argue you need excellent social skills to reach your potential academically.

So, yes, your kids did better academically when they were at home, and that's great. But that's not the point of school.

>I think you're confused as to the point of school

Actually, I think we're both wrong. During the time in my local PTA what stood out to me was the amount of time and money we spent on providing basic social services to kids - think providing meals, clothes, filtering for home and family problems etc. I would argue that in modern America, public schools are there to provide day care for working parents and to provide a modicum of social services, with education being an overarching hope and dream.

I don't think it's just an American thing that schools aren't that useful. Studies such the one linked below indicate that school choice has little impact on educational outcomes. Education is important, but I don't think anyone is particularly better at providing it in classrooms. Private tutoring and small group studies show much more impact. You could argue that is evidence that homeschooling is better, but I think that would only apply if you have subject matter experts teaching topics. Personally I think parents should focus on sending kids to schools that don't overburden children with homework and instead provide many opportunities for extracurriculars.

https://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/schoolchoicel...

> We often believe the point of school is the academics, but I would argue it's the social. Studies indicate social skills are more important to future success than academics.

How much socialization do kids really get in school anyway?

They get 5 minute hallway breaks (if they are lucky) between 7 to 9 periods of classes per day. Maybe the bus ride in/out for 20-30 minutes. Lunch or recess. So how much time is that, again?

Maybe 2-3 hours/day?

I'd say group projects and class group activities with a goal are far more important forms of socialization than free time socialization.

I would argue that it is a lot easier to give a kid who is doing well academically some social interaction much better than they will get at the average public school than to take a child who is doing poorly at the public school and make them successful academically.

I would agree though that most school districts do not spend money with academics as the priority.

>We often believe the point of school is the academics, but I would argue it's the social.

It's neither. The point is propaganda and brainwashing, any other benefits are ancillary at best.

It isn't a coincidence that widespread schooling came about in a time where propaganda, nationalism and centralization and expansion of state power were on a high note, and such trends have only expanded since with the help of the propaganda and brainwashing conducted in those schools.

i can hardly think of a worse place to learn social skills than a classroom. all an intelligent kid really learns in public school is how to be cynical, detached and to maximally cheat the system.

oh and also how to sell drugs. public schools are great for learning that.

> oh and also how to sell drugs. public schools are great for learning that.

total cheap shot. s/public //

drugs follow money

at private schools what do you think you see? more expensive drug habits.

Please remember that not everyone has the same experiences, socially, in school and that for some, homeschooling is the vastly better option in that regard.

I would disagree with this. Those who do best on their own (let's imagine the stereo-typical nerd) are those who most need the social training of school to succeed in life.

Schooling only drove me further and further into hiding who I was, to great detriment. It was only upon leaving school that I got the "social training" I needed to succeed.

> Those who do best on their own

With respect, you said it yourself.

Those are also the most likely to face abuse like bullying in a school environment.

> providing an environment where children can learn to co-exist with others

Do most schools do this effectively? Kids are pretty terrible to each other and abuse is pretty much the norm from my experience. Of course its not crippling for most kids, but I remember getting made fun of, and making fun of other kids and everything in between. School is also one of the only places in life where you're likely to experience violence. It's basically a daycare.

I don't know if there's an alternative. Maybe play dates in small groups?

Public school (at least as I experienced it) is the worst possible place to learn social skills, unless you're hoping to pick up social skills for living in prison.

It's age-segregated, usually monitored by adults, extremely regimented, and often very hostile.

There are a million different contexts where kids can learn better, more useful social skills, like at church events, youth athletics, with kids in the neighborhood, etc.

Yeah I totally agree. The social skills I learned at my parochial school were none of the social needs I needed to succeed in silicon valley, for example.

My parochial school was poor working class. I learned how to talk crassly, 'shoot the shit', be prematurely sexual, to accept fate, etc. I did not learn how to speak properly, be diplomatic, set goals for life, better myself. Those I learned in college when I went to school with much better off kids and realized that all these things were things I could deliberately aim for and accomplish.

So, while attending school gave me a leg up in understanding the typical American 'everyman' (a skill which is severely lacking in silicon valley and in 'elite' circles in society), it did absolutely nothing to help me achieve becoming part of that elite. In many ways it hindered me. It taught me a worldview where everyone was coming to get me, to put me in my place, etc.

If you're concerned about this, you're not the only one, and the good news is that there are many solutions for this.

It is quite common for home schooled kids to be part of co-ops and other groups, where they may take classes together or have other activities together.

In addition, don't underestimate how important it is for children to socialize with trusted adults. Many children don't get adequate socialization even from their parents.

Father of five of which three are homeschooled here. School was oppressive and socialization was limited to minutes per day. Homeschoolers get together and the kids get a lot more time to socialize.

Imagine that there were a government program that taught infants how to walk: the infants enter the program unable to walk, and a year later just about all of them can.

Now imagine trying to kill that program, or even taking your own children out unilaterally: "But walking is so important! How could you be opposed to children learning how to walk?"

Your reaction to that is my reaction to the idea that a state apparatus is necessary for children to learn how to make friends and play.

The socialization of modern schooling is terrible and artificial. Children are age segregated and managed by a handful of adults. Which means they learn mainly from each other, instead of from older kids and adults. It’s the factory farm equivalent of raising children.

Homeschooled kids, of course, can learn social skills because they exist in societies and communities. Our neighbor’s kids are homeschooled. They’re over at our house right now. They play with the neighborhood kids, go to church, and engage in other social activities in mixed-age groups of kids.

Homeschooling without a larger community of kids can isolate the kids. I was awkward and a bit of a troublemaker. Thankfully with a really big high school there were always options to make other friends.

I mostly socialized at church, there are also homeschool co-ops.

I'd credit going to public school as helping me escape the indoctrination of church

I think that is the issue. Even if the homeschooling is completely online, you are saying that the socialization is now an extra demand placed on parents. We already saw how poorly most handled even getting their kids online for a Zoom or Google hangout. Teaching is incredibly hard work and I think we under value it. I think parents don't want this extra load and most have trouble even helping kids with homework and assignments they had specific instruction on.

In my experience (and ours are all different), school taught me a lot of lessons that had nothing to do with academics. There are good teachers and there are bad teachers (just like bosses). Sometimes you have to do work that is dumb or pointless just because that is the rule (just like work). I met kids richer than me and kids poorer than me. I met kids of other races and religions. You learn how to handle people calling you names and you learn heartbreak. Constant time together with friends you've had for years and shared lots of up/downs can't be quantified. I don't think you get the same exposure at a club that is likely socio-economically grouped and a couple of hours per week.

As a person who was homeschooled until age 13, I couldn't agree with you more.

This is what I tell friends thinking they'll take their kids out of school to give them a better education: they'll be socially unprepared in life.

Even if their social needs are supplemented, other kids will ask: what school do you go to school? And not having an answer can cause great embarrassment (I know, I've felt it myself).

The social needs argument is always made by those who went to traditional schools. Always. It's a kind of 'mesearch' argument.

Schools are a fairly recent invention, and at the onset they were meant for those children (from non-aristocratic families) who weren't getting home-schooled (and would otherwise in many cases have spent their days labouring among adults).

Now the 'default' has shifted, from home to classroom schooling, for various reasons, but you seem to confuse this with some 'natural' state.

> Children need to learn how to be in relationship with others

Isn't that what after-school recreation (both supervised and unsupervised) is for?

I always thought that after school (not to mention summer vacation!) was much better than school for interacting with friends, because we weren't stuck in classrooms where we were usually prevented from talking to each other.

I’m not convinced that school does this though, I’ve met tons of people with abysmal social skills who weren’t homeschooled.

Depends on what other kids / environment.

I asked to be pulled out and be put in private school because I knew that the public school system I was in was harming me. Social dynamics can be stunted with bullying, being denied experiences or progression or just thought of as a misfit due to demographic reasons e.g. being different.

> Children need to learn how to be in relationship with others

Can’t that be achieved with activities outside of school like a sports club, the scouts, or whatever else the kid is actually interested in?

Homeschooling itself is intentional. The only problem is when the intention is bad. It should be possible to regulate homeschooling properly to account for the bad apples.

Honestly, when they get their own house in order I'll start to care what these "regulators" think.

https://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/13-baltimore...

Do you seriously think those same students would do better if they were homeschooled without supervision?

I think just about everyone would do better at home than in a Baltimore high school.

> Social needs. Children need to learn how to be in relationship with others, it is the most fundamental need we have and is so important for the future of our planet.

Funny how this argument always comes out wrt. voluntary homeschooling, and not about shelter-in-place policies impacting K-12 and college students...

I heard this argument non-stop from the very start of shelter-in-place.

Old fat people are ruling the world. It's traditional for them to sacrifice the young.

They need to learn how to be in relation to people who know and care about them, not other random kids (some of whom will be abused at home and hence abusive at school) and the teachers, some of whom will be extremely incompetent, emotionally abusive, pedophiles or all of that.

There's absolutely no way sending a kid to school is better for their social life in any way.

100% agree. I am in touch with exactly 1 (yes 1) friend from elementary / middle school. If I stretch, I can say that there are 3 that I would actually want to talk to beyond this guy.

I am a silicon valley executive making mid six figures. They're ... not, and not because they didn't have the same opportunities. Because of terrible life choices that I could easily have made myself, but, by the grace of God, did not. Amongst my classmates there's premarital pregnancies, domestic violence, lots of unemployment, prison time, etc.

The same is true of my brother and sister-in-law. She comes from an extremely poor family, but managed to make something of herself by going into accounting. Yet, her family is filled with pre-marital pregnancy, deadbeat men, and even some violence. This stuff also existed in her schools. She managed to escape by keeping her head down and avoiding trouble.

Honestly, any of us could have ended up in this 'socialized' group, but didn't. That was because we resisted peer pressure. All of us were extremely awkward kids. You'd consider us poorly socialized. Yet, we've 'made it', and the popular kids didn't.

Of course, then I think of my now-wife, who grew up in much more privilege than we did. Her parents were highly educated (post-graduate) and were extremely deliberate in her schooling, her peer group, etc. While not technically homeschooling, my mother in law carefully crafted my wife's friend group and even took her out of classes if she didn't like the kids or thought the teacher was bad. She didn't have to put up with half the crap my brother, myself, or my sister-in-law had to put up with.

I'm choosing the latter method for our kids, even if that means homeschooling them and using the public schools as a backup.

EDIT: since I've seen religion come up here. My mother-in-law was and is a staunch atheist. My parents and sister-in-laws family are devoutly religious. Not all homeschoolers are religious. While I am religious, that is not the reason we are considering home schooling our daughters

Bingo. It seems like people ignore the huge social risks that sending kinds to public entails and write it off as something children should “learn to deal with”.

Do you know who your child is spending time with at school? I hope so, because they will likely have more influence over your child’s development than you.

If your children aren’t going to a highly selective, highly supervised school, good luck. It’s a crapshoot. Maybe they befriend “good” kids…maybe not.

For example, my nephew is 6 and was playing with a female classmate who (for whatever reason) is already using sexual language and her play is inappropriate. Should my young nephew just “learn to deal” with that?

That triggers two memories for me, 1) having a classmate in middle school that would regularly boast about drinking a 'rum and coke' on his way to school in order to start the day off right, and 2) hearing that my child's school was having the 3rd grade GT class (which my child was in) teach the second graders how to read, and of course several of those second graders were older than my third grader.

This is unfortunately all too true. I have relatives that like to think they're exempt from society (witnesses) and pushed that onto their kids, those kids are almost 18 and cannot carry out basic conversations. They are socially about 12 or less. They will never be able to leave home nor persue their own interests.

Home schooling works better when kids have at least had elementary schooling. High school I would argue is where things break down a lot, and for some students there isn't a social experience outside of constant bullying and stress over things that don't matter.