Will My Child Turn Antisocial Because Of HomeSchool?
By Sun Kyu Bae |
Published April 15, 2009 |
Articles |
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Why this is no longer an issue!
Yeah, But…
But, how realistic is it for the homeschool child to get her daily dose of social interaction with her peers, especially when other kids are at school? Well, I’ve already addressed that by stating that peer interaction usually occurs after school when all kids (homeschool and non-homeschool) are done with their lessons. With the entire afternoon available to cover peer interaction, the only time when there is no peer interaction is when core lessons are given during the mornings. But since we’ve already established that individualized attention is best to teach a customized curriculum, which usually occurs in the morning, there’s literally no other time in the day where the common argument is relevant.
But let’s play devil’s advocate for a moment and see where this goes. So, afternoon is available for peer interaction. Fine. But even though individualized attention is important for teaching a customized curriculum, can there be an argument for getting more out of the lesson when peers are discussing and interacting with each other around the lesson being taught?
Let’s see if that makes sense. Let’s say there are 2 peers, Jesse and Cindy. Now, assume we created a customized curriculum for Jesse and will teach a lesson from this curriculum. Does it make sense that Jesse and Cindy will get more out of the lesson if both are interacting with each other? Jesse might since the lesson is geared towards him (we’re sure Cindy will ask some insight questions or make some good comments that would stretch Jesse’s thinking). But what about Cindy…do you think she would get the most out of the lesson when she wasn’t considered in planning Jesse’s curriculum (would it even make sense that Jesse benefits most from the lesson at the expense of Cindy)? Clearly no. And this is where the homeschool critics’ argument above falls flat. They don’t understand that it starts with a customized curriculum aimed at a single student – that is why one-on-one rules the roost during core lessons and this is one of the key reasons why homeschool kids excel academically. Instead, these critics assume there is some standardized curriculum that homeschool kids are being taught, kind of like at…public schools.
So, as you can see, it seems that the supporters of the common argument have a little re-grouping to do before coming up with a better argument that attacks the social abilities of homeschool children.
Again, this perception that homeschool children don’t get enough social interaction is probably (partly) because of the term, “homeschool”, but doing just a teeny bit of research on the Internet or actually (gasp!) meeting and interacting with a homeschool family will be enough to convince anyone that “homeschool” does not only occur at home.
In fact, in today’s world of cyberspace and cell phones, it would be hard NOT to find any homeschool peer interaction activities in your neighborhood. Prove it to yourself. Go to the Internet and type in a search for homeschool communities or groups near your neighborhood and, unless you live in a very remote area of the country, you will be pleasantly surprised at the results. Most likely, you will find a homeschooling community near you that gets together regularly during the week with other home school kids for activities. Join those groups that you feel fits your child’s interests and you will have started off on the right foot to reinforce the fact that your child is learning to socialize with her peers.
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