Question: School at home!?

by Peter Porumbachanov

 

When I share that my wife and I are teaching our three kids at home, the people react in three different ways. The first group is quick at apprehending what I am saying, because the people in that group have always searched for an alternative, but nobody has told them that what they have in their mind is exactly what I am talking about. The second group (the largest) is made up of those that think longer, and subsequently accept or deny the idea. Very often the people of that group do not undertake anything, because they are afraid of everything new, and they are unlikely to take the initiative. Sometimes they need a lot of time and effort to do something that normally sounds good to them. But those of them, who later accept that the homeschooling is the right choice for their children, are always turn out to be prudent and analytical people, who just want to weigh up everything in details. And finally the third group. These are the ones that reject definitely the homeschooling concept, because it is their way of life to evade the responsibility, and besides, they do not like to ask such questions, whose answers have to be found by themselves. It is easier when somebody else answers on their behalf. That sort of people prefers rather to quote the others, than to express their own opinion.

 

Let me state my thoughts about these three groups of people, mentioned above, beginning with the largest one – the second. The first question, asked by that kind of people, after hearing about the homeschooling alternative, is this: What about the socialization? The answer, that is very appealing to me, belongs to a lady, that homeschools her children: “What do you mean by that, the socialization or the socialism? For the sake of truth the socialization is one of the main reasons to educate my children at home.” The true question is not socialization versus no socialization, but socialization with whom? And everyone has to give the answer of that question by himself, of course.

 

Let’s see, whom do I want my children to socialize with? Other children – I think not. Kids always socialize with their environment. What happens when we surround the little ones with others like them? What happens mostly is that we alienate them from us – their parents – in the age, when they need mom and dad at most.

 

The humanists’ idea that children are pure beings, that we need to learn from, is obviously beneath criticism, not to say a total failure. It is evident, that the children need instructions of adults, because if they are left on their own, that “purity” would lead them to self destruction. Kids are happiest when they are with their parents, and need them while they grow. Perhaps you have witnessed the following heartbreaking scene: a stubborn mother and a frowning father drag their 2-or-3 year’s old infant to the kindergarten, and the kid cries and reaches out his hands for them, with the same drama as the kid in Chaplin’s masterpiece.

 

The parents decide what is best for their children, and in that case they are confident they are doing a great thing, when they expose the little kid to a stress in age, when he can not even talk or feed himself alone. It is clear that the people from the second group have already bristled and are armed with a lot of excuses that they called reasons. For example: “Who is going to work?” or “I can give birth, but there are professionals for their upbringing” or “Frankly speaking, the children are a hindrance for my career” or “The people have provided it for our convenience, and the child will go through it” or… But, it seams those people fail to clarify one question: “For whose sake they entrust the whole childhood of their children to the hands of the unknown “professionals”? For the sake of child’s happiness or for the sake of personal comfort?”. The answer is clear-cut: “Because I want to have no troubles.”

 

When somebody has children, he or she has obligations to them, and subordinates his or her career to the fact of parenthood. It should not be the opposite, to subordinate the children to the fact, that we have a career. Man has to make a clear choice – career or children?

 

Yet, the people from the second group are not satisfied, for the socialization is a pending question.

 

There are also parents, most often mothers that are sending their children in kindergartens, even though they do not work. It is for the socialization sake: the children are “socialized” in the children institutions, while their mothers are “socializing” with the local gossipers in the neighborhood.

 

My explicit answer: The children socialize with their parents; there is much they can learn from them. They are not going to be socialized with other children – in that case they are being unsocialized, because in 100% of the cases the other children do not think as parents. The socialization in the educational institutions, bound with submission to the rules of the group and life for that rules, is not a socialization, but socialism. The individual education trains man to think independently, and to base his or her opinion on well-grounded personal conclusions.