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The "Weird Socialization" of public schools


TouchMeFall21

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Public school broadened my experience and has broadened my kids'. I would never, ever have met another person of a different race till I went to college: my parents didn't socialize with any; we didn't have any in our church; and we certainly didn't have any in our neighborhood. The only opportunity I had to know children of other races and other religious backgrounds and even lower socioeconomic groups than my own was public school. My own children are lucky in that their parents are a bit more broadminded in their own relationships than their grandparents were; still they get positive exposures at school that I could not provide them without quitting my job--and then possibly still not. Kids may be stratified agewise, but the other socialization they receive is, to my mind, invaluable.

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He's against public schools, but no mention of public universities? Oh wait, he has three degrees (BA, MBA, law) from public universities.

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Don't get on the internet until you are paying for it (and your roof) yourself from your full time job. Don't get on the FreeJinger site ever.

Quit.

Fucking.

Talking.

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He speaks as if children lived at school. Children who go to school outside of home get to interact with other ages and adults outside of school hours.

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He speaks as if children lived at school. Children who go to school outside of home get to interact with other ages and adults outside of school hours.

Exactly, and having kids separated for learning by grade level makes sense. I was looking at the example ATI chapter and wondering, "WTF age group is this supposed to be for?" It was a hot mess, and just all over the place in subject age-appropriateness.

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I do think the separation of kids in middle school/junior high (depending on where you are) is a hideous horrible idea. Everybody is going nuts from the hormones but there is nobody younger or older in the school setting to set a more sane example. I am so not against public schools. I'm sure it wouldn't have been all rainbows and sunshine if there had been older or younger kids in the same school when I was about 11-14, but I can't help but think the emotional abuse/bullying (I wasn't physically bullied, and in retrospect, that'd have been preferable) I got might have not been so intense.

I've always gotten along better with people older than me. That's still true, and I'm in my mid-30s! Some age separation is appropriate, but in my case it was more of a disaster than anything when I got out of elementary school.

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My kids go to a publc high school with 1100 students. They go to class with their own age group but are involved in drama club, band, orchestra, choir, Christian Youth club and debating club with students from all school years. (Ages 11-18.) There are students from many backgrounds including Aboriginals, Whites, Sudanese, Nigerians, Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, Dutch any several others. There are Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and who knows what other religions.

My sister home schools her kids. They spend five days a week with only each other for company. They have one day at church and one day at home school activities with other families, all middle class, all white and all having the same religious beliefs.

I am so glad (sarcastic!) Frothy has let me know it is my kids that are getting "weird socialization" and that my sister is doing the right thing. Here I was thinking that her kids were going to have no iea how to cope when they step out into the real world but, according to Frothy, it is mine that will have trouble. :roll:

@Distantstar - interesting comment about middle/high school. Here we have primary school (age 4/5 to 11/12) and high school (age 11/12 to 17/18).

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I do think the separation of kids in middle school/junior high (depending on where you are) is a hideous horrible idea. Everybody is going nuts from the hormones but there is nobody younger or older in the school setting to set a more sane example. I am so not against public schools. I'm sure it wouldn't have been all rainbows and sunshine if there had been older or younger kids in the same school when I was about 11-14, but I can't help but think the emotional abuse/bullying (I wasn't physically bullied, and in retrospect, that'd have been preferable) I got might have not been so intense.

I've always gotten along better with people older than me. That's still true, and I'm in my mid-30s! Some age separation is appropriate, but in my case it was more of a disaster than anything when I got out of elementary school.

I was bullied in high school worse than in middle school, so I doubt combining them the two would decrease bullying. However, my school had a big issue with senior boys having sex with freshmen girls (including some pregnancies), so I'd hate to add middle school girls into that situation.

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Yeah, most US public schools have elementary schools, which run something like ages 5-11, then middle school/junior high school which is 11-14 (the district I was in, it was 6th through 8th grades) and then high school which was 14-18. I was much happier in high school, especially after we moved halfway across the country when I was 16 so 11th and 12th grades were in an entirely new school with nobody who knew me. I even had a boyfriend during my senior year, which was unimaginable before.

Please don't anybody think I am in any way defending the crazy type of homeschooling. I just think putting all the kids hitting puberty at once in their own school is cruel. Yes, outside of school you will see people of different ages, but at that point, you're still a kid and school is your life. If I was treated at my job the way I was treated in middle school I would be making $$$ from sueing the bastards.

ETA: I see your points, valsa, at least where sexual exploitation is concerned. I guess everybody must think that whatever age they were bullied at was the worst. I still think there are some major things in the system that ought to be at least looked at if not changed, but I am well aware of how complicated these issues get.

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From Meet the Press...

http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski ... on-childre

Per Frothy's 2005 book, It Takes a Family...

It's amazing that so many kids turn out to be fairly normal, considering the weird socialization they get in public schools. In a home school, by contrast, children interact in a rich and complex way with adults and children of other ages all the time.

:doh:

This may be a little OT, and I haven't read all the responses. One thing I noticed and am curious about, however, is fundie-Catholic homeschoolers like Mr. Frothy. I have noticed this trend among more conservative Catholics (I have a Catholic background and went to Catholic HS myself), but I always thought of religious homeschoolers as more likely to be fundie Protestants. Catholics do have a really strong tradition of parish schools, even more so than Protestants it seems. Is it that people like Frothy feel that the schools just aren't Catholic enough for them? Lack of money? I know one blogger said she homeschools b/c she wants to be able to have more time with her children. And there's the "weird socialization" argument, which could have a tiiiny bit of merit, if conservative homeschoolers were likely to expose their children to a diverse variety of people. Again, though, I never thought of homeschooling as such a Catholic thing, and I wonder if these peops are just "more Catholic than the Pope."

Any insight?

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That would be... open mouth- insert foot. Or... use pen to create space for foot.

I'm a homeschooler who takes offense to his statements.

No, just plain chop off both feet and shove boulder down throat entirely.

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Whatever. My kids are in activities that include all the grade levels at their school. Also, my sons' high school is 79% Hispanic, 15% white, 5% African-American, 1% Asian. 60% of the students at my sons' high school are "economically disadvantaged," which I assume means they qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. We are white and comfortably middle class. I really do not worry about diversity in my kids' socialization; it's obvious that my kids have abundant opportunities to learn to get along with people who are not like them.

My fanatical homeschooling cousin, however--her kids only ever spend time with the children of the few other families that they "church" with (all white and apparently middle class), and as far as I can tell, they aren't learning much in their homeschool lessons since my cousin writes diatribes about how awful subject-divided education is, by which she means that her kids can do Legos and make videos all day every day for their entire education, and they don't learn any math or science whatsoever.

But yeah. Her kids are going to be so much better prepared for adult life than mine. /sarcasm off.

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I've heard that argument about school being divided into subjects. My response is that I am a music teacher. My husband is a university chemistry lecturer. There is no place for my music in his chemistry lessons and there is no room for his chemistry in my music lessons.

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This may be a little OT, and I haven't read all the responses. One thing I noticed and am curious about, however, is fundie-Catholic homeschoolers like Mr. Frothy. I have noticed this trend among more conservative Catholics (I have a Catholic background and went to Catholic HS myself), but I always thought of religious homeschoolers as more likely to be fundie Protestants. Catholics do have a really strong tradition of parish schools, even more so than Protestants it seems. Is it that people like Frothy feel that the schools just aren't Catholic enough for them? Lack of money? I know one blogger said she homeschools b/c she wants to be able to have more time with her children. And there's the "weird socialization" argument, which could have a tiiiny bit of merit, if conservative homeschoolers were likely to expose their children to a diverse variety of people. Again, though, I never thought of homeschooling as such a Catholic thing, and I wonder if these peops are just "more Catholic than the Pope."

Any insight?

I'd go with the more Catholic than the Pope thing plus the desire to super-shelter their kid from any possible school issues (bullying, etc.). Some also think that public schools are brainwashing kids with some not-quite-defined secular agenda, and I've seen the assumption that that carries over to private and parochial schools too.

It's fascinating, that's for sure.

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He's against public schools, but no mention of public universities? Oh wait, he has three degrees (BA, MBA, law) from public universities.

Dickinson was private until 2000.

But regardless, he is nothing if not a hypocrite.

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I had such horrible experiences in a public school I was suicidal by the age of 10 and had to be pulled out of school. Then I was put in a private school. At the first, the adults were unapproachable, and at the second, we were all spoken to like adults and could confide in the adults. But not all public schools are like that. My husband's mom works at one, and she has students from so long ago she doesn't remember their names who see her in public places and go up to her and hug her and thank her for all she did for them. She works for a great district where that's common to happen.

It just depends in the end.

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Santorum is a jerk. He needs to just shut up, already.

My 7th grader goes to a public school and all the grades are mixed in classes. The 8th graders mentor to the 6th graders. Math and science classes are based on skill level, rather than grade. Arts classes are mixed such as band, dance and drawing. And while I'd prefer k-8, its been a great experience for him so far. He still talks to his mentor from last year, and gets to hear about her experience in high school (which I think is helping to prepare him for his freshmen year).

And my 4th grader's public school has lots of activities for mixed grades as well as a 'reading-buddies' program 3rd graders read to kindergarteners, 4th read to 1st, 5th read to 2nd. There are a lot of oppurtunity for children to mix with different age groups. That's the least of the weird social situations that happen at school.

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And Santorum implying public schools are like 'the old factory model'. And 'people are stuck in classrooms all day' - well, that's ridiculous. That may happen in some schools, however, my experiences have shown me that concept is completely false. Schools have changed, and are continuing to change all the time. In fact, you might say they've been going through an evolutionary process for quite some time.

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And Santorum implying public schools are like 'the old factory model'. And 'people are stuck in classrooms all day' - well, that's ridiculous. That may happen in some schools, however, my experiences have shown me that concept is completely false. Schools have changed, and are continuing to change all the time. In fact, you might say they've been going through an evolutionary process for quite some time.

Sadly though more and more schools are cutting time outside the classroom to fit in more instruction time because of the testing. With school funding tied to test scores, many districts are concerned less with recess and more with testing, and all that's happening is kids are burning out too young. I know not all schools are like this, but it's quite alarming how low US students rank compared to many other countries.

Not that many of those from SOTDRT are doing so well.

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And Santorum implying public schools are like 'the old factory model'. And 'people are stuck in classrooms all day' - well, that's ridiculous. That may happen in some schools, however, my experiences have shown me that concept is completely false. Schools have changed, and are continuing to change all the time. In fact, you might say they've been going through an evolutionary process for quite some time.

A lot of people seem to think school hasn't changed since the day they left. I have home schooling relatives and friends, all around my age (mid 30s) who criticise the school system but they talk about school as it was in the 1980s-90s. I am a teacher, working in three schools and my children attend another school. I thought my own schools were good but the schooling my children have experienced and the schools I work in are a hundred times better. I wish I could convince these people to come and do a tour of a school so I can show them what we do in 2012!

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Sadly though more and more schools are cutting time outside the classroom to fit in more instruction time because of the testing. With school funding tied to test scores, many districts are concerned less with recess and more with testing, and all that's happening is kids are burning out too young. I know not all schools are like this, but it's quite alarming how low US students rank compared to many other countries.

Not that many of those from SOTDRT are doing so well.

Sadly this is what my state does teaches for the test instead of looking at each child and their needs. This is one area where I do believe that homeschoolers have the advantage, because the teacher can make the schoolwork fit the child instead of the other way around.

I also firmly believe that if I had gone to Public School, I would have been labeled hyperactive or add because I needed stimulating hands on work and always needed to move around. I am not hyperactive by any means and I don't believe that all the kids that are labeled are either.

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My primary school was very big and they did this thing called 'split classes' where they would put children born at the end of the school year in with children who were the oldest in the year below. I was in with the younger ones because I had a summer birthday and I hated it - I felt babied and wanted be with everyone my own age. I don't regret going to a 'normal' school for a moment though.

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Sadly this is what my state does teaches for the test instead of looking at each child and their needs. This is one area where I do believe that homeschoolers have the advantage, because the teacher can make the schoolwork fit the child instead of the other way around.

I also firmly believe that if I had gone to Public School, I would have been labeled hyperactive or add because I needed stimulating hands on work and always needed to move around. I am not hyperactive by any means and I don't believe that all the kids that are labeled are either.

This is why we need to do away with no child left behind. It means that no children get ahead. I think that there are better ways to help children who are struggling academically. Schools today dont have the money to give these children the resources they need. We need to increase school funding and come up with a way to help the struggling students stay at grade level while encouraging advanced children to get ahead.

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I did feel very age-segregated in school. In junior high, you could get in trouble for, say, using the eighth grade stairs if you weren't an eighth grader. High school was better in that sense, because the building was divided by subject rather than grade, and many classes had people from at least two different grades. But socially, you didn't speak to anyone who wasn't in your grade. I had choir friends who went to by high school but were a year above or below me, and at choir we could be best friends, but if we passed each other in the hall at school, we didn't even acknowledge each other. I always thought it was stupid. I don't blame the school or the school system for that, though, since I assume it was something we imposed on ourselves, for whatever reason.

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I went to public schools from K-12. K-5 was age segregated when it came to academic classes, but the elementary schools I attended had after school clubs that mixed grades. I did have some friends in different grades but most of my friends were in the same grade as me. When I entered middle school in the 6th grade, some of my classes were mixed with students from different grades and I got more friends who were either a year or two older than me. In high school, the only classes that were mostly age/grade segregated were English, Sciences and Social Studies. Math classes depended on which classes individual students took in middle school. When I was a freshman, I was taking Geometry while some kids my age were taking Algebra I because they their math abilities were a bit lower and they didn't take Algebra in middle school.

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