Schooling and the Socialization Fallacy
A very good friend who is an educator with understanding of the grassroot challenges of the public education system in Indian tribal belt is facing a dilemma regarding the education of his three (and a half) year old child.
While they did get their child enrolled at one of the branded private franchise pre-school chains, the child, who is a creative person does not want to go there and be bound by the rules. The child cries when he is sent to the school and the parents are not able to come to the agreement over what they need to do.
The father of the child is of the view that he has no issues sending the child to the school but he would not want him to be crying because of this, and if this makes him cry, he should rather be at home and play as it makes him happy. The mother’s main argument is that the child shall go to school as it is necessary for him to socialize. The father tried to find a middle path by asking the school if they could be flexible with the hours, wherein they could bring the child to school for about an hour or so and then him back with them. The school instead suggested that the child will adjust if they stopped accompanying the child to the school and that they should instead get the child to take the school bus for school!
Obviously not satisfied, the father went to another private school (a Christian missionary school) where the principal, a nun, had other arguments ready for him. Instead of talking about flexibility in hours or any other logical child development related argument, the principal said that “as you are aware all humans are animal and they need to be disciplined, to be tamed”, so of course there will not be any flexibility but they will ensure that the child turns out to be academically good. My friend, disgusted as he felt, did not try to further argue with the principal and instead left her office and called me up to tell this and share his frustration about the situation!
Why did he call me to tell this?
We (my wife and I) homeschool our daughter. In fact, homeschooling is a wrong word; we actually try to undertake her educational journey (and ours) at home. Our daughter has never been to school and we have not spent much time on doing things that she does not want to do. My friend knows this and therefore thinks of me as a kindred spirit who would understand his dilemma. I sure do.
Over the course of past 11 years that we have undertaken this journey in India — where homeschooling is not as popular or understood as may be in some other countries — we have been asked numerous times about the “socialization” skills of daughter. “How will she socialize?”, “won’t homeschooling not impact how she will interact with peers?”, “won’t it be detrimental to her development and skills?”, “how will you ensure that she socializes?”, and in many other forms. I understand curiosity but most of the times it I found the tone accusatory.
This has led me to understand the dictionary meaning of socialization.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines socialization as “the process by which someone, especially a child, learns to behave in a way that is acceptable in their society”
The definition intrigues me. It clearly says that socialization is a way of making a child do something that is deemed acceptable in the society. If this is true (and it seems it is), then there is no surer or faster way to get rid of your child’s creativity and ensure that your child follows the behaviour as deemed acceptable! I am not talking about encouraging or condoning any anti-social behaviour, rather about the conformity that the schooling process brings about in a child and as a byproduct gets rids of the creativity and non-conformity for good! So much so that a child forgets what (s)he once loved to do.
Many schools (obviously) and many parents argue that schools are where the children learn to socialize. My initial point is that in India, we do not understand the term socialization (as used in English and the Hindi equivalent is “samaajikaran”) particularly well. When many parents or even schools use this term, they generally intend it to mean something to the effect of “meeting other children in your own age-group.” Notwithstanding the intention of the parents, the schools do try to mould the children in ways that are acceptable to the general society.
Now this post is not about the virtues of home based education. The conversation with my friend spurred me to key in my thoughts through this post. This is about a few arguments that I have about the two main fallacies associated with socialization as a purpose to send our kids to school.
Fallacy #1: School provides children space to socialize:
Schools do provide children with a peer group (same age group children). But do the children get time to socialize is highly arguable. Teachers in the schools generally have a task at hand of classroom management which is to ensure that the children are not talking or gossiping amongst themselves and that each and every question be directed to the teacher. While there may be underlying good for the process of discipline regarding this strategy, however, the entire socialization purpose of schooling goes for a toss. Children are repeatedly told that they are not to talk and pay attention to the teacher. Children are constantly reminded of the need to curb their instincts of talking, gossiping or playing when they are sitting so close to their peer group. The recess of toilet breaks do provide a few minutes of interaction of you are lucky but generally children are asked to focus on their food and eat in silence.
You need to ask yourself if a few minutes a day of interaction is definitely worth it.
Fallacy #2: The school setting provides real socialization:
As a follow-up to point number 1, the school setting is touted as an ideal setting for children’s socialization. Nothing could be farther from truth. Real life socialization, as my wife pointed out to many people who questioned us about socialization of our daughter, happens in real-life settings. What are real-life settings ? A family with members of different age-groups, neighbours, shopkeepers, people in the park or gardens. Basically any setting which is not artificially confined to a single age-group like a child’s classroom could be an ideal setting for socialization.
So it seems that instead of a child’s classroom every other setting possibly is a real-socialization setting and a child observes and learn to interact with these real settings. Diverse social settings also helps child in becoming socially more mature.
Fallacy #3: The school setting teaches children to stand up for themselves:
You do not necessarily have to send your child to the school for them to learn how to stand up or fight for themselves. In almost all the settings that you expose your children to (other than school), you can be sure that your child will have to stand up against something (or someone). The world is full of experiences and as parents if the responsibility of guiding is on you (rather than schools or teachers) our children have better chances to become someone that you could be proud of.
Based on our experience with home-based education, we now know that home based socialization settings are in most ways superior to the school based socialization setting. Parents are the best people to know who their child should be meeting and the people they can trust.
In a home-based setting, parents have control over who the child is meeting and seeing. And as parents you can always provide your child with settings wherein they meet different people. Of course, different people have different lifestyles which will guide the amount of time they have available, but if you can spare some time, socialization will happen without sending your child to school.
And I hope that over time you realize the fallacy of the understanding that socialization can only take place in school!
For you and for your creative child…Amen.
