Comments on: Home schoolers are “socially retarded”

By: ltbugaf

ltbugaf — Wed, 15 Feb 2006 21:12:09 +0000

Kim: Quite right.

Kris: Mildly funny.

By: Kris

Kris — Wed, 15 Feb 2006 21:07:00 +0000

LOL…that reminds me of a quote from a movie…”cheerleaders are dancers gone retarded”. Heehee.

By: Kim Siever

Kim Siever — Wed, 15 Feb 2006 19:55:28 +0000

On the flip side, I assume some of the home-schooled kids may be home schooling, in part or in whole, because they are socially retarded.

By: ltbugaf

ltbugaf — Wed, 15 Feb 2006 19:22:28 +0000

I’ve seen home-schooled kids who were socially retarded and home-schooled kids who weren’t. From my own experience, I’m betting that there’s no statistical correlation between home schooling and social retardation.

However, that doesn’t mean that home schooling is never a cause or factor of social retardation for a particular child. I assume some of the home-schooled kids who are socially retarded may be that way, in part or in whole, because of their home schooling.

The only thing this shows is that the differences between individuals tend to outweigh the differences between groups, and that parents have to make their own best judgments about the children they’re raising.

By: Krista

Krista — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 08:14:01 +0000

A poem about “socialization” in school:

Back in the Playground Blues

I dreamed I was back in the playground. I was about four feet high./ Well the playground was three miles long and the playground was five miles wide./ It was broken black tarmac with a high fence running all around,/ Broken black dusty tarmac with a high fence running all around/ And it had a special name to it, The Killing Ground.

Got a mother and a father, they’re one thousand miles away/ The rulers of The Killing Ground are coming out to play/ Everybody thinking: ‘Who are they going to play with today?’

Well you get it for being Jewish/
And you get it for being black/
Get it for being chicken/
And you get it for fighting back/
You get it for being big and fat/
Get it for being small/
Oh those who get it, get it and get it/
For any damn thing at all.

Sometimes they take a beetle, tear off its six legs one by one/
Beetle on its black back, rocking in the lunchtime sun./
But a beetle can’t beg for mercy, a beetle’s not half the fun./
I heard a deep voice talking, it had that iceberg sound:
‘It prepares them for life’–but I never found/
Any place in my life worse than The Killing Ground.

-Adrian Mitchell (1984)

By: Kim Siever

Kim Siever — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 03:28:00 +0000

Actually, it reminds me of an experience I had about a year or so ago, when I received a ride home after a bishopric meeting. Somehow the topic of homeschooling came up, and the person who gave me a ride asked me if we were going to give our teenage children the choice to go to public school for home school.

I thought this was an odd question, as I doubted he would give his children the choice whether to go to public school or be home schooled for their high school years.

By: Kim Siever

Kim Siever — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 03:18:32 +0000

I agree. In fact, I said as much 1.5 years ago.

By: harpingheather

harpingheather — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 03:14:10 +0000

I’ve been a part of that discussion already. Yes there are some families who home-school for the wrong reasons or at least without a clear enough idea of what they’re doing.

On the other hand, would you call the kids in the ghetto gangs, all products of the public school system, nicely socially adjusted? There is much more than school, whatever kind it is, to socialization. Sadly, there is no magic box in which you can stick your child and have them come out well-educated and well-adjusted. Neither home school nor public school is “The” answer. Families and children are different. Public-schooling parents shouldn’t look down on home-schoolers any more than home-schoolers should look down on public-schoolers.