Socialization

Please welcome our guest speaker; my daughter Morgan-Britney! She is a 20 yr old darling girl and she wrote this post on socialization a yr ago after graduation from our homeschool!

• • Last Friday my family made our weekly trip to the library. As usual, I had a huge stack to check out, and the poor librarian was trying to check them all out and not forget any. As I was organizing my books into my bag, she smiled at me and asked "You are a homeschooler, aren't you?" I smiled back and replied, "Yes, I am. I actually just graduated last year." She chuckled and said, "You can always tell the difference between a public schooled child and a homeschooler. Those homeschoolers are something special."
    
    I agree.
    
    But not everyone does....In fact, many people believe homeschoolers are poorly socialized, inadequately schooled, or secretly abused. Though this may be true in a very small amount of cases, this is not a common event. However, there are quite a few poorly socialized, inadequately schooled and secretly abused children attending public schools.
    
    I hear this question a lot: "Are you socialized?"
    
    So what is the definition of 'socialization'?
    
    Websters definition of Socialization : the process by which a human being, beginning at infancy, acquires the habits, beliefs, and accumulated knowledge of society through education and training for adult status.
    Dictionary.com on Socialization : a continuing process whereby an individual acquires a personal identity and learns the norms, values, behavior, and social skills appropriate to his or her social position.
    TheFreeDictionary : Socialize
    1. To place under government or group ownership or control.
    2. To make fit for companionship with others; make sociable.
    3. To convert or adapt to the needs of society.
    
    Most people, when they ask 'are you socialized' , they are asking if you play with or talk to those of your own age group outside your family. But that is not what the definition of socialization is!
    
    
    According to the definition of socialization, yes, I am very socialized. I also talk to and spend time with others outside of my family--this is what others truly want to know. They want to know- "Are you at home constantly, with no contact with the outside world?" Of course not!
    
    
    In fact, I have yet to meet a homeschooled child who cannot converse well with those of his own age, those younger, and those older, a stranger, or a friend. You will find that many girls my age and younger are very content to sit in the room while their mother's converse. with homeschoolers, you will be hard pressed to find a group of children, all the same age, huddled together, refusing to talk to anyone younger or older.
    That is the type of 'socialization' you get in a public schooled. A child learns naught of the outside world or his culture like the definitions above define socialization as. Instead, he gets to be friends with those of his own age, those he can not learn or glean from. How can he, when they are at the same stage in life as he? However, when I converse with my friend, A, who is 25, I can glean wisdom and insight from her. So, is it wrong to have friends your own age? of course not! But whoever said you must have friends your age only? In my opinion, that is a depressing thought. To only associate with those of my own age, to never listen to a 15 year old tell all about this exciting book she read, to never hear how a 22 year old coped with the loss of a friend. My life would be so lacking in experience and life lessons.
    True socialization is learning to deal with anyone who crosses your path. A 98 year old woman, a 10 year old child. Socialization is not listening and communicating with only your peers. I spent a week with a group of public schooled children. I heard a group of 16 and 17 year old girls talking about the 'kindergartners". Confused, because there were no kindergartners around, I asked her what she was talking about. She told me she was referring to the Junior High girls. I didn't really know what to say, except oh!
    
    
    Once again--my siblings, and nearly every homeschooled child I have ever met is socialized. Homeschoolers actually converse much better with those outside of their age group than public schoolers. Why? We have been taught that those younger than us deserve our kindness and friendship, and that those older than us and those in authority are to be respected. They are to be called ma'am and sir. They are to be treated wit the utmost respect. Why? Because that is what the Bible teaches. And though there are some who homeschool for non- religious reasons, most homeschoolers are either Catholic or Christian. Those in public school are not taught that. They are taught that younger is better, those older than you are stupid and 'behind the times' . (Especially your parents. Aren't they like, so dumb?) They are taught to defy authority, and to 'follow your inner star' My question is, what if that 'inner star' lies?
    
    
    
    
    Another question people ask is
    "Are you getting a real education?"
    
    
    Yes! Just like a public schooled child, I did all 12 grades. I had to correct any mistake on my own. I can read, spell, write, and do math just like a public schooled child. In fact, homeschoolers have been shown to test higher scores than public schoolers.
    Children who have been homeschooled all of their lives outperformed those in a traditional school environment
    Eighth grade students who have been homeschooled for at least one year scored in the 59th percentile
    Eighth grade students who have been homeschooled for two years or more scored between the 86th and 92nd percentile
    The following information was published by SAT and the ACT High School Profile Reports:
    homeschooler's composite scores were 18 to 28 points above their public school counterparts.
    In 1998, graduating homeschoolers had an average score of 22.8 out of a possible 36 on the ACT. The national average was 21.0.
    Interesting huh? So that dispels the myth that homeschoolers watch TV all day and never open a school book!
    I know quite a few homeschoolers that have achieved or are achieving higher educations. I know a young man who is a teacher (in public schools!:). I know a young lady who has recently achieved her degree in music. Another young man is attending college to become a history teacher. I know a young lady who is studying biology, another is a ballerina. To say that homeschoolers do not receive a good education and become a burden on society is an uneducated and ignorant thing to say. Did you know that just over a hundred years ago children were taught at home or in a small school outside town? They received a quality education, so unlike the one many children receive today.
    
    ~More than 20 percent of adults read at or below a fifth-grade level - far below the level needed to earn a living wage.
    
    ~Approximately 50 percent of the nation's unemployed youth age 16-21 are functional illiterate, with virtually no prospects of obtaining good jobs.
    
    ~44 million adults in the U.S. can't read well enough to read a simple story to a child.
    
    ~About three in five of America's prison inmates are illiterate.
    
    ~Nearly half of America's adults are poor readers, or "functionally illiterate." They can't carry out simply tasks like balancing check books, reading drug labels or writing essays for a job.
    
    ~46% of American adults cannot understand the label on their prescription medicine.
    
    ~Since 1983, more than 10 million Americans reached the 12th grade without having learned to read at a basic level. In the same period, more than 6 million Americans dropped out of high school altogether.
    
    You may be wondering why I put only reading statistics up there. Here is the reason. One of the first things you learn in school is how to read. if you cannot read properly, you will not excel at anything else in school. It is not physically possible. How can you do science, history, spelling, grammar, or write an essay if you cannot read?
    
    This actually brings tears to my eyes. Books and reading is so powerful, and without it, doors slam in your face. So much is learned and processed in your brain when you read. did you know that 80% of American households did not pick up or even read a book last year?
    None of these statistics are made up or from a homeschool website. I got all this information from legit, government websites on education in America. apparently, we are doing a poor job of educating American children!
    
    I read to my 15 month old brother. I read to him anything that I am reading, because I want him to develop the same love for books that I have. We recently visited with a homeschool family and I happened to see a book called Culture Warrior by Bill O'Reilly. When I asked who was reading it, the 14 year old son said he was--and he was loving it.
    
    “The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency – the belief that the here and now is all there is.” – Allan Bloom
    
    “When I got [my] library card, that was when my life began.” - Rita Mae Brown
    
    “You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” - Ray Bradbury
    
    The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.
    ~ Dr. Seuss, "I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!" ~
    
    Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.~ Frederick Douglass ~
    
    Did you know these famous people were homeschooled?
    
    ~Sixteenth President of the United States Abraham Lincoln was also the first Republican president and pulled the country through the Civil War, ending slavery. Today, Lincoln is widely regarded as one of the greatest presidents in U.S. history, but he grew up with much humbler roots. Lincoln famously lived in a one-room log cabin in Kentucky and only attended 18 months of formal school. Lincoln mostly taught himself under the guidance of his stepmother Sarah Bush Johnston and the local library.
    
    ~ Scottish business magnate Andrew Carnegie immigrated to the United States when he was a boy in the middle 19th century. He grew up in Allegheny, PA, and began working at just 13 years old, his only real education coming from his uncle back in Scotland. Though he had a history of working his way through menial jobs, Carnegie was eventually sponsored by the Colonel James Anderson, who allowed Carnegie and other promising teenagers access to his extensive library. Years later, Carnegie continued to foster relationships with academics and writers, but he is best known for building the Cargnegie Steel Company, which later became U.S. Steel after a merger. At one point one of the richest men in the country, Carnegie is also recognized through institutions like the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Carnegie Mellon University
    
    ~Woodrow Wilson: Woodrow Wilson served as President of Princeton University, governor of New Jersey and of course as 28th President of the United States, from 1913-1921. As President, Wilson started the League of Nations, which set up a foundation for the United Nations, and helped Europe in its formation of the Treat of Versailles after WWI. Before his life in politics, Wilson was an academic, attending Johns Hopkins for graduate school, and teaching at Bryn Mawr and NYU Law School. But as a child, Wilson struggled with learning and could not read until he was 10 years old because of his dyslexia. Wilson’s father — a professor at Columbia Theological Seminary in South Carolina — took over his studies for the most part until he went to college.
    
    ~Albert Einstein: One of the most famous and influential thinkers of all time, Albert Einstein, is credited with discovering the special and general theories of relativity, relativistic cosmology, quantum theory of atomic motion in solids, and many more scientific theories and laws. Born in 1879 in the German Empire, Einstein eventually moved with his family to Munich, where he attended a Catholic school. But when he was ten, the Einsteins fell on hard times and paid a Jewish medical student named Talmud to tutor Albert in math, science and philosophy.
    
    This is not the whole list either.
    
    Now, am I saying homeschooling is without fault? No. There is no perfect education. I would say though, that homeschoolers seem to be getting a better education then their public schooled peers. The evidence is all there, for you to look up and read yourself, and what I wrote here is not even half of the evidence out there...
    
    Be Blessed!
    ~Morgan
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