Socialization is a social/cultural problem in a larger sense. The fact that nowadays most people learn their social skills in High School is bound to be problematic. Since we no longer have much of a ritualized, entrenched system for socializing our youth, they largely learn their social skills from other teenagers—the blind, gullible, hormonally confused and deeply irrational leading the blind etc. They go on to carry the resulting status games, irrational behaviour—and scars—into the rest of their lives and the whole of society. This explains much of our (barely) post adolescent culture and politics.
Socializing with their peers isn’t nearly as important as socializing with ordinary folks in society. Schools artificially stick a bunch of kids of the same age group together with one ‘authority figure’; naturally, they learn to socialize from other kids and form ‘kid culture’ and act like a bunch of monkeys.
Rather than go to school and learn how to be kids, it’s much better to let kids meet the neighbors and learn how to be people. Your neighbors may vary.
I will have a similar policy if and when I happen to breed. As Jowibou alludes to, this means I will have to take the initiative in seeking high quality social interactions for my children myself. It may be a better option for my children but it certainly will not be easier!
I know several people who were unschooled. Their parents didn’t particularly ‘take the initiative’ in the sense of organizing ‘play-dates’ or other such things; but the parents did make the children a part of their lives, so the children interacted with ordinary people practically every day.
Well as far as I can tell, they’re all some of the most brilliant people I’ve met, and not socially stunted or anything. And seeing the lack of scars from schooling on these folks really makes them obvious on everyone else.
Keep in mind selection bias. The pool of people who would unschool their children is systematically different from the general population. Aspects of child-rearing unrelated to schooling (at least conventional schooling) and/or genetics probably played a role in determining the adult personality of their children.
Indeed. The eldest of them hypothesizes that it wasn’t so much unschooling that caused the good effects, but more likely other factors, most relevantly “the parents having bothered to make any decision regarding their children’s schooling”, which has been shown to matter in other contexts.
Children of widely different ages playing together are a wonderful but increasingly rare sight. I strongly agree that age segregation within schools is a big part of the problem. But in a sense it’s a subset of what I’m talking about on the scale of the whole culture. I’m not advocating a return rigid to social ritual or an overly formal system—say, the Masai cattle raid or even the Scouts. But something must be found to fill the gap. Groups and subgroups of teenagers are left to make do in a system that merely tries to keep them together, under control—and obediently consuming junk. And the rest of us end up with a social system that mirrors High School instead of schools that reflect society as a whole.
Socialization is a social/cultural problem in a larger sense. The fact that nowadays most people learn their social skills in High School is bound to be problematic. Since we no longer have much of a ritualized, entrenched system for socializing our youth, they largely learn their social skills from other teenagers—the blind, gullible, hormonally confused and deeply irrational leading the blind etc. They go on to carry the resulting status games, irrational behaviour—and scars—into the rest of their lives and the whole of society. This explains much of our (barely) post adolescent culture and politics.
This is amongst the reasons I won’t send my kids to school, and try to discourage anyone else from doing so.
Have you found ways for them to nevertheless socialize with their peers?
Socializing with their peers isn’t nearly as important as socializing with ordinary folks in society. Schools artificially stick a bunch of kids of the same age group together with one ‘authority figure’; naturally, they learn to socialize from other kids and form ‘kid culture’ and act like a bunch of monkeys.
Rather than go to school and learn how to be kids, it’s much better to let kids meet the neighbors and learn how to be people. Your neighbors may vary.
I will have a similar policy if and when I happen to breed. As Jowibou alludes to, this means I will have to take the initiative in seeking high quality social interactions for my children myself. It may be a better option for my children but it certainly will not be easier!
(Care to share your thoughts on the subject?)
I know several people who were unschooled. Their parents didn’t particularly ‘take the initiative’ in the sense of organizing ‘play-dates’ or other such things; but the parents did make the children a part of their lives, so the children interacted with ordinary people practically every day.
In your judgement how well did that work for them?
Well as far as I can tell, they’re all some of the most brilliant people I’ve met, and not socially stunted or anything. And seeing the lack of scars from schooling on these folks really makes them obvious on everyone else.
Could you expand on the “scars from schooling”?
Keep in mind selection bias. The pool of people who would unschool their children is systematically different from the general population. Aspects of child-rearing unrelated to schooling (at least conventional schooling) and/or genetics probably played a role in determining the adult personality of their children.
Indeed. The eldest of them hypothesizes that it wasn’t so much unschooling that caused the good effects, but more likely other factors, most relevantly “the parents having bothered to make any decision regarding their children’s schooling”, which has been shown to matter in other contexts.
The problem may be as much a matter of age segregation in school as it is a lack of a ritualized, formal system for socializing young people.
Children of widely different ages playing together are a wonderful but increasingly rare sight. I strongly agree that age segregation within schools is a big part of the problem. But in a sense it’s a subset of what I’m talking about on the scale of the whole culture. I’m not advocating a return rigid to social ritual or an overly formal system—say, the Masai cattle raid or even the Scouts. But something must be found to fill the gap. Groups and subgroups of teenagers are left to make do in a system that merely tries to keep them together, under control—and obediently consuming junk. And the rest of us end up with a social system that mirrors High School instead of schools that reflect society as a whole.