Sent to Michael Martin (micheal.martin@oireachtas.ie) on hearing him state "I’m not a great fan of homeschooling. I think children need to socialise.” Thank you Issy from Stark Raving Dad for some useful material with which to write this.
Dear Sir,
I greatly appreciate your work for the country of Ireland and your passion to help make the world a better place. My family moved to this great country almost 3 years ago and look forward to becoming citizens one day. One of the big motivators for us to live in Ireland is the approach to homeschooling, enshrined in the Constitution, the support for which we did not experience as much in the United States.
My family was saddened to hear your expression about the lack of socialization you believe homeschooled children experience when you stated "I’m not a great fan of homeschooling. I think children need to socialise.”
This sentiment could not be further from our experienced truth, that experienced by the other homeschooling families with whom my family is well connected, and by research into this subject. Our experience of homeschooling includes constant interaction with people of all ages in many environments, across our community and world. Kids in our community travel extensively, see the world far outside the four walls of a schoolroom, and are regularly figuring out how to work with, learn from, and help those older and younger than they are, rather than being confined to a cohort of only their age group.
If you ever have the opportunity, I invite you to observe homeschooled children living in the world. I would like to offer you the chance to see them out at the local library, in the skate park, at the pool, art gallery, museum, cultural heritage site, street market, beach, improvisational acting class, dance group, international affairs discussion seminars, university level classes as they naturally interact with all the different people in these spaces - librarians, skaters, lifeguards and surfers, gallery curators, market stall owners, park rangers, museum staff, actors, professors, etc. May you see them surrounded by other children passionate about the same things they are, see the varied ages, backgrounds, cultures and worldviews of all the people with whom they engage every day, and the natural environments in which they are experiencing these interactions.
Maybe, if you witness these things, you may come to understand how strange it sounds to hear officials say these experiences offer less social development and life experience than spending years in a classroom.
I would like to quote a fellow homeschooling dad, who writes about this topic regularly:
The assumption is that by attending school, and attending a classroom, children will automatically be given a path to becoming balanced, confident, well-socialised adults. And if they don’t have that experience, they won’t.
But let’s just make sure that idea actually stands up.
Let’s take a 10 year old child as an example here. When that child first enters their classroom to start the year, what does that environment look like from a social development perspective?
Well, we know it’s where they’ll spend a lot their time for at least the rest of the year. That’s their base now. We know that the main interactions they will have, day to day, will be with the same group of children who are also arriving at that classroom. We know they’ll interact with their teacher, and maybe other teachers here and there. And we know they’ll probably have access to areas like a playground, and a sports field, and other children of different ages during some break times.
On the surface, they’re going to have plenty of social interaction. Especially compared to a home educated child, who won’t be allowed inside those gates and so won’t have access to any of those people or spaces.
But we’re not here for that surface perception. We’re here to dig a little bit deeper.
So let’s look closer at the environment this child’s social interactions will play out within.
Every child in that classroom is also 10 years old. Or, close enough to it. And every child in that classroom is there because they have been told to be. Maybe, if we gave them all the option, some of them would stay – but most of them would not.
So we have a group of children who had no say in whether they want to be part of that specific group. We have a group of children who are all the same age, whether they actually like interacting with others of their own age or not – and I can promise you, plenty of children don’t.
We have a group of children who must gather and stay in that one room until they’re told they can take a short break, or – eventually – leave for the day.
And then standing at the front of the class, we have the only person who is a different age, and the only person who has actually chosen to be there – more or less – the teacher.
But that teacher doesn’t just get to work with these children however they want. They must follow the plan, and keep up with a very clear delivery and testing schedule. Their interactions with that group of children will mostly – by necessity – be through a lens of needing to develop them against a standard not even they themselves had any say in defining or setting.
Which means, they’re under pressure.
So let’s be clear – this is not a natural social environment. It actually couldn’t be further from it. It’s a constructed space, with rules and guidelines and expectations.
Now let’s exit the classroom for lunchtime. Aside from the fact this is where inequalities are exaggerated more than anywhere – you only need to glance around at children’s lunchboxes, and who is sitting with who, to start getting a sense of that – this is also where all that pressure from within the classroom releases.
It happens in all sorts of different ways – some children express it through running and shouting for 30 minutes straight, others express it through picking on someone they perceive as weaker (which often just means younger) to give them some sort of feeling of control. We could go on and on, here. The mix of stresses and feelings, and the social behaviours that come from those in a playground…we could spend and entire episode on that.
But let’s just say that a playground space in a school ground – while it looks like a fun, relaxed area, and sometimes is – is also something that acts like a pressure valve, one that is released in both positive and negative ways.
And if you’re on the receiving end of that negative type, you cannot choose to leave. And you’ll likely face it again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.
And if you’re the type of child who feels that pressure building, and struggles to control how you release it, you’ll be on that daily rollercoaster for a long time.
So what do we think? Is school – just by default – really bringing every child that walks through the gate a balanced, varied social experience that sets them up for life?
Does most of a child’s time spent in one room, or small number of rooms, with mainly children of exactly the same age offer that?
Does having one or two adults present in the room, but who quite clearly exist as a superior to you, and who are quite clearly under pressure to get you to make progress and to keep you on task, really develop your ability to interact and communicate with all kinds of different people?
Does spending time in a playground, or on a sports field, or in a lunch area, or in big hallways, when you have no choice to leave if things get uncomfortable, or scary, make you a more balanced, social person?
And does being put through all of this with little to no input from the child, really allow them to build confidence within themselves as they relate to other people on their own terms?
So let’s ask the question again: if a child attends school, how are we going to make sure they develop socially – positively – in that kind of environment?
Homeschooled children are not isolated from the real world. They are out there living, interacting, and helping build and shape it.
Thank you for all you do and for your continuing willingness to listen and learn. May we as a community use this opportunity to help the world better understand different approaches to the same challenge, offering personally effective solutions for each individual based on how we each interact with the world in which we live.
I invite you to reach out to me to share this experience, if that is of interest to you.
Sincerely,
Jeremy Strozer