Over the years, I have been writing about misconceptions regarding the schooling process. The purpose of these posts is to explain why I disagree with various comments that I have heard people make about schooling. These are meant as personal thoughts rather than conclusive proof, and I will admit that I'm not always the best at explaining my thoughts. Regardless, I have decided that I should be willing to share these posts when I encounter someone online who makes an argument that I have already discussed.
One of the biggest criticisms of homeschooling is that conventional schooling does a much better job at developing social skills. A lot of this is based on a flawed literal interpretation of homeschooling. For this post, I'm going to focus on the supposed better job associated with conventional schooling.
When I was in school, teachers expected children to sit down and shut up. We were only allowed to speak when explicitly granted permission. Opportunities to socialize were actually quite limited.
In elementary school, we at least had lunch and recess. This was always a small part of the day, and we socialized with the same people. In middle and high school, we didn't even have recess. The only time we were free to socialize was during lunch, and we had to split that time with eating.
On paper, I graduated from a monitored homeschooling program. In reality, this was only how I ended my school years. It's absurd to blame my social issues when I clearly had problems before I was chased out of the conventional model. My problems were developed inside conventional schools.
Perhaps I should have been homeschooled. Better yet, maybe I should have been unschooled, which is oddly thought of as a form of homeschooling. It's hard to imagine that approach would have been any worse for my social development than dedicating my childhood to sitting down and shutting up.
There are obviously different possibilities for the anti-social stereotypes of homeschooled children. I will not go into detail at this time. What I will say is that the stereotype is not due to the superior performance of conventional schools. Sitting down and shutting up is not a valid approach for developing social skills.
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