Back to School Or Not
Sep. 2nd, 2003 08:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ciroccojWent to the Not Going Back to School picnic at Meech Lake. Very, very nice time, and it made me think even more about doing the homeschool thing.
Daniel was in school, first day of grade 1, and while I hope it goes well for him... I don't feel terribly good about it, on the whole. For one thing, academically, it's a waste of time. He's already functioning at a grade 2+ level in everything except handwriting. For another thing... supposedly what you get in school is "socialization". But... you get socialized into cliques, bullying, shallow social values, materialism, name-calling, violence, rigidly defined sex roles...
This is not what I want for my kid.
Daniel has spent a lot of time with his friends this summer, and in a way I'm glad he has. This is an age where kids need to be with their age-peers, need to define themselves away from their parents. But I really wish there were better age-peers for him to be with. Not that our neighbourhood kids are sociopaths or anything, but all they do is watch TV and play Nintendo. AFAIK, not one of them reads, or is read to. Not one of them enjoys playing make-believe - in fact, when Daniel tries to get them to play pretend, he's taunted for being a "baby" and playing "stupid baby games." He's SIX. The kids who are taunting him are SIX and SEVEN year olds, who have already internalized the attitude that imagination is for babies.
And the shows they watch... Buzz Lightyear is nothing. These 6-9 year olds are watching Ninja movies and Spiderman and Space Rangers and everything on Fox Kids and all sorts of stuff that... I dunno. It wouldn't bother me if they watched a little bit of that, but it's all the time. Constant. Kick! Hit!! Blow things up!! Zap!! KILL KILL KILL!!!
And they're just little kids. Socialized to believe that no other form of play is acceptable or desirable.
Same with interpersonal interactions. Kids can be blunt and honest to the point of being hurtful. But there's a difference between natural un-socialized bluntness, or natural anger that manifests itself as meaness, and meaness for the sake of meaness. For the sake of building up your own social standing. Which is what our neighbourhood kids do all the time, and Daniel's picking it up from them.
Contrast this with the homeschooling kids I saw today. I saw quite a few perfectly normal tiffs and spats, and one full-blown fight, but overall they were able to play in groups of mixed ages (still gendered, but not totally rigidly) without overt meaness. And they actually played. They raced, they made sand castles, they splashed each other, they looked at bugs, they pretended they were explorers... they actually played. Used their imaginations and vocabularies and bodies. Not something you ever see on our street.
I think I'll be taking Daniel out of school and trying to do stuff with homeschooling kids at least one day of the week. I want him to be around other kids like him - who like telling stories, dressing up, and learning. And haven't been stunted into believing all of that is crap.
Daniel was in school, first day of grade 1, and while I hope it goes well for him... I don't feel terribly good about it, on the whole. For one thing, academically, it's a waste of time. He's already functioning at a grade 2+ level in everything except handwriting. For another thing... supposedly what you get in school is "socialization". But... you get socialized into cliques, bullying, shallow social values, materialism, name-calling, violence, rigidly defined sex roles...
This is not what I want for my kid.
Daniel has spent a lot of time with his friends this summer, and in a way I'm glad he has. This is an age where kids need to be with their age-peers, need to define themselves away from their parents. But I really wish there were better age-peers for him to be with. Not that our neighbourhood kids are sociopaths or anything, but all they do is watch TV and play Nintendo. AFAIK, not one of them reads, or is read to. Not one of them enjoys playing make-believe - in fact, when Daniel tries to get them to play pretend, he's taunted for being a "baby" and playing "stupid baby games." He's SIX. The kids who are taunting him are SIX and SEVEN year olds, who have already internalized the attitude that imagination is for babies.
And the shows they watch... Buzz Lightyear is nothing. These 6-9 year olds are watching Ninja movies and Spiderman and Space Rangers and everything on Fox Kids and all sorts of stuff that... I dunno. It wouldn't bother me if they watched a little bit of that, but it's all the time. Constant. Kick! Hit!! Blow things up!! Zap!! KILL KILL KILL!!!
And they're just little kids. Socialized to believe that no other form of play is acceptable or desirable.
Same with interpersonal interactions. Kids can be blunt and honest to the point of being hurtful. But there's a difference between natural un-socialized bluntness, or natural anger that manifests itself as meaness, and meaness for the sake of meaness. For the sake of building up your own social standing. Which is what our neighbourhood kids do all the time, and Daniel's picking it up from them.
Contrast this with the homeschooling kids I saw today. I saw quite a few perfectly normal tiffs and spats, and one full-blown fight, but overall they were able to play in groups of mixed ages (still gendered, but not totally rigidly) without overt meaness. And they actually played. They raced, they made sand castles, they splashed each other, they looked at bugs, they pretended they were explorers... they actually played. Used their imaginations and vocabularies and bodies. Not something you ever see on our street.
I think I'll be taking Daniel out of school and trying to do stuff with homeschooling kids at least one day of the week. I want him to be around other kids like him - who like telling stories, dressing up, and learning. And haven't been stunted into believing all of that is crap.
