Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Homeschooling, sweet homeschooling
"Why do we even assume that modern schools are a healthy way to socialize a child and set a standard homeschooling must match? The socialization of our school system is profoundly anti-social. Edmund Burke wrote of civilization as a partnership 'between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.' In the schools, society doesn't even consist of the various generations of the living.
The standard (though rarely articulated) definition of successful socialization is to 'fit in' with a lot of immature little savages raised by television, video games, and the internet. Spending at least 35 hours a week, nine months of the year, with 20-30 kids of one's own age (with a harried adult supervising) is the antithesis of what is needed in order to learn how to function in society.
The problem isn't a lack of funding.
Rather, much of it is due to a fondness for egalitarian gestures. As Christopher Lasch observed, "Given the underlying American commitment to the integral high school – the refusal to specialize college preparation and technical training in separate institutions – make-work programs, athletics, extracurricular activities, and the pervasive student emphasis on sociability corrupted not merely the vocational and life-adjustment programs but the college preparatory course as well." People have varying intellectual abilities, and however much it may offend liberals, half the population is below average. "
The standard (though rarely articulated) definition of successful socialization is to 'fit in' with a lot of immature little savages raised by television, video games, and the internet. Spending at least 35 hours a week, nine months of the year, with 20-30 kids of one's own age (with a harried adult supervising) is the antithesis of what is needed in order to learn how to function in society.
The problem isn't a lack of funding.
Rather, much of it is due to a fondness for egalitarian gestures. As Christopher Lasch observed, "Given the underlying American commitment to the integral high school – the refusal to specialize college preparation and technical training in separate institutions – make-work programs, athletics, extracurricular activities, and the pervasive student emphasis on sociability corrupted not merely the vocational and life-adjustment programs but the college preparatory course as well." People have varying intellectual abilities, and however much it may offend liberals, half the population is below average. "
