There has been a rather lengthy thread on a friend's blog about homeschool vs publics, socialization, stay at home moms, etc. As this blog is kind of a flushing of ideas for me, I decided to post some of my reflections on the mater without adding fuel to a raging fire.

One of the most difficult aspects of the homeschooling vs public school issue is that people have had radically different experiances. I think given the circumstances the sample from which my friends come from is severely limited by the fact that we all attended Rose, thus each and every persons education had to be fairly good. This rules out the vast majority of public schools if one is to take the population of Rose and split up the groups: private, public, and home. Naturally the private and home are of significantly larger percentage then if you were to look at a public university. Most of those from public schools are from high ranked public schools, which leads me into what I think the greatest problem with the whole thing is: the public school system is not homogenous. There are no two schools even a county appart that are the same. There is hardly any regulation at all. Here I will make a small digression into my own personal life. I went to a public school in southern california for two years (never did kindergarden) I could count up to 5 in 6 different languages, but didn't know my ABCs, got sent to the principle's office for informing my teacher that kids were setting of fire crackers in the bathroom. Obviously the school had some priority issues. I was then homeschooled by my uncle till I was 16. But of course at that time the whole homeschooling thing was facing significant resistance in southern california, so my cousin and I took many standardized tests (of our own volition, for us they were kind of fun), including when I was about 12 or so the high school teachers certification exams. Needless to say we passed in the 90th percentile range. Because of the number of teachers needed, the government has reduced the requirements so low that anybody really can get into a teaching position which is why it is so difficult to judge the entire system. Of course it is a well known fact that the government spends more money on a child in a public school than a parent does sending their child to a private school. Something doesn't jive.

Socialization. All I have is a story about a guy that talked to my uncle about the importance of socialization. This guy told a story of the dog he had, naturally it had started to get possesive of its yard and wouldn't let other dogs or people onto the property. So the dude decided to take the puppy to doggy socialization classes (remember its southern california). Eventually the puppy/dog had no problems at all with other dogs or people, in fact loved to be around them. Granted there was a much greater detail in the story which time has made me forget. But my Uncle suspected a truely different ending asked what had happened to the dog. The guy wasn't too happy about answer but did anyways and said that the dog couldn't be alone anymore, in fact it would bark and howl all day long and piss all over the inside of the house, so they had to take it to the pound.

The systems are broken, and each person needs to decide for themselves what they believe the correct path for their children is to be. Sometimes there will be a good public school around, sometimes not. Socialization too early could create a dependence on others that will lead later in life to who knows what kind of mental illness such as depression. None at all will create somebody with no ability to function in society. Parents have personalities that can wear off on their kids, children naturally have personalities that will make them more or less susceptible to the ills of comunity in which they reside.