life by candlelight

So, part of my job at work is to create interesting displays. It's hard to come up with four displays every month so I have to go to other sources sometimes for ideas. We have this great reference book called Chase's Calendar of Events that gives you every obscure holiday that exists. I had a hard time deciding whether to do a September display celebrating International Gay Square Dancing month or Pleasure Your Mate month. I finally decided on National Homeschool Month since we have a BUNCH of homeschoolers that come to my library.

I got to thinking about homeschooling, though. Most of the homeschooled children that come into our library are very bright and mostly quite polite. But they are all a little strange. I can understand why so many parents would choose to homeschool. You get more individualized attention. You can choose your own curriculum. You can protect your kids. But you also prevent them from experiencing new and different ideas. And you do them the disservice of keeping them from learning to interact with their peers. What will the world be like for these kids who have not developed any social skills or survival skills? One child in particular who comes to the library is beyond precocious. She talks back to adults and is very rude. Her parents tried to send her to camp and she came home after two days because she was homesick and couldn't relate to the other kids. She was used to being the center of attention and constantly coddled.

If people want to homeschool their kids through about fifth grade, I think that's fine. But after that, I think they need to attend school with other kids or they will never successfully integrate.