What About the Social?

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One of the first questions everyone asks about homeschooling is, “What about the social?”  Given how homeschooling may have been perceived up until recently, this is an important question to ask—and, an encouraging one to answer.

 

How Social Matters

Nearly everyone can agree that social matters.  So rather than reinforcing a point we already support, let’s look at howsocial matters to education.  Many readers begin from the vantage point that combining social with academics is desirable, so let’s start off evaluating that assumption by peeling the two apart. 

 

What would it look like to divide a school day, one half devoted to study and the other half to opportunities with friends?  For a wide spectrum of students, this can be beneficial.  Separating studies from play does two things.  

First, there are academic benefits: students are able to engage the content in a more focused way without distraction, pursue it at their own pace and needs, and learn without concerns about standing out from their peers.   The ratio of teacher to student at home is highly supportive and adaptive.  Certainly, traditional schooling provides opportunities for group projects, class presentations, and collaboration, but none of that of that is limited to traditional school.  In fact, many afternoon social learning activities can be selected by homeschooling parents to specifically address those needs.

 

The second is that, outside  of that concentrated home learning space, the student is then able to fully engage with peers in sports, co-ops, play dates, and activity clubs that are more conducive to collaboration and socialization.  So, it is not a question of if homeschoolers engage with peers, but when.

 

Beyond that is the benefit of exposure to diversity. Homeschoolers are often lauded for their ability to engage in conversation with adults and children of all ages, because that is what they do every day. Rather than pair our student to classmates largely on the merits of being born within 6-12 months of each other, it is far more successful to learn practical communication and collaboration strategies by working and playing with people from diverse age groups and backgrounds.  This is especially true if what a student is learning is a better fit given her intelligence, ability, and maturity instead of a grade level based on birth year.  Homeschooling creates an organic space to develop a lifestyle of learning within our community, engaging content and people at a variety of levels.

 

For many, the trade-offs and opportunities in a traditional school will outweigh the challenges—and that is great.  As I have said countless times in various publications, there are many ways to get an education—homeschooling is just one of them.  

 

That said, it is worth reconsidering how we chose to combine school with friends as it meets each child’s needs.  All kids need social.  All kids need academics.  But, they don’t necessarily need to be combined simultaneously to build a healthy student into a capable, relatable adult.

 

The question of how to meet social needs outside of the academic must be answered intentionally.   Homeschooling as a method of educating children is in a significant time of expansion.  With an entire generation of former homeschooled students having grown up to lead healthy, bright, productive, culturally relevant adult lives, and many millions of families launching into homeschooling currently, I suspect at some point this concern will diminish because the social adaptability of homeschoolers will be normalized across the population.

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