The Myth of Socialization: Part One of Meditations on Effective Teaching

OK…I realize I have been away for a very long time, but – I’m on the rebound! Get ready for some straight-from-the hip TRUTH about education as it exists in America today.

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I recently had a conversation with a friend over a particular dilemma I had. It involved an attempt at homeschooling that another friend had initiated on behalf of an elementary-school-aged relative. I expressed my frustration at the uncertain, disorganized nature of this endeavor; nothing about this homeschooling attempt appeared to be thought-out or organized. Several months ago, I had been invited to be an established member of the network of instructors (one of the better features of homeschooling is to include knowledgeable people in the instruction), and I had readily agreed. Now, at the beginning of a new school year, the effort – though continuing – was in shambles, and my input was unwelcome.

My first friend had offered that the problem was “socialization” – the theory that children learn best in a corporate environment, and that their education suffers severely if that factor is not included in the educational plan.

I couldn’t disagree more.

For one thing, up until the likes of Horace Mann (who is something of an Educational Saint in the eyes of American Academia) advocated corporate education in the 19^th Century, American homeschooling had been the acknowledged key to eventually profitable involvement in society. In the day of the Founding Fathers, precious few children learned in any kind of corporate environment; the Fathers themselves were products of advanced education, to be sure, but their foundational studies were conducted at home – mostly by the mothers. After the child was old enough to be directed into a career, he became an apprentice or attended college – studies which were often directed towards leadership in society, arguing law before a court, or ministry in a church (pretty formal and precise careers).

It goes without saying that, before the twentieth century, “socialization” for women took the form of being courted, marrying a “good” partner, keeping a household running, producing and nurturing children, and responding correctly to the status of a woman’s husband in society. Nothing more could be expected from females; even Saint Horace wasn’t “enlightened” enough to campaign for women’s rights in society beyond their expected roles in that era.

There was just one minor flaw in Mann’s educational manifesto, a sort of fly-in-the-ointment: He strongly advocated that education be directed away from religious instruction. He did not like Bible readings and the ilk, believing them to be antithetical to free thinking (sound familiar?). While he is touted as offering “sound” principles for the education of the masses of future American citizens, he surreptitiously preached secular dogma instead of biblical doctrine. And we in the 21^st Century know where that has led us!

What Horace Mann could not accomplish in his lifetime, a man named John Dewey espoused and figured out how to implement: the total secularization of American education. A contributing – if not central – author of the Humanist Manifesto (all 3 versions), he realized that complete withdrawal from biblical instruction was only possible if the “normal schools” (schools and colleges where teachers were trained and certified) were secularized. Just as Saint Horace turned what seemed to be reasonable theories into educational facts, Saint John declared – forcefully enough to convince the highest-ranking normal schools – that purposeful humanism was the only way forward in shaping a loyal (and compliant) “educated” populace. Along came B.F. Skinner and other psychological clinicians, who were allowed to “prove” that humanism and science were the pathways to True Education. (Does this readership know that Skinner experimented on his own children, keeping his newborn and toddler children in bubble-wrapped isolation, forbidding direct human contact with even their own mother?) The entire journey to where we are today in public education has many more details, but suffice it to say that the idea of “socialization” is one more step in transforming American children into something they might not have been designed by God to be.

Let us take a step back and define what “socialization” means in the 21^st Century. Again, the idea is quite complex, and this essay is designed to be brief and to-the-point. In theory, this concept is that children learn from one another; in engaging in corporate studies, children are stimulated to learn more educational concepts at deeper levels. I have sat in workshop after workshop, where this flawed idea is touted and forced down more experienced teachers’ throats. Over a decade ago, a colleague and I sat next to each other in a blisteringly-hot school lunchroom (the air conditioner had been turned off because it was “too noisy”), listening to two presenters who authoritatively asserted that we had to introduce “more fun” into our teaching. These two presenters then produced two beach balls, and encouraged the (profusely sweating) audience to bounce the ball around the room, answering inane questions from the two smiling presenters.

My colleague and I just sat there, folding our arms and giving questioning looks at one another. All of the teachers in the room had just completed a full academic year – including lecturing, demonstrating techniques, planning, teaching, testing, recording grades, etc., for four different quarters. No one – to my knowledge – could bring themselves to believe what they were witnessing: the complete denial of good classroom order. (Why study, when a classmate will bounce a beach ball at you and give you the answer? Why concentrate, when there was so much “fun” to be had?) While many people in the room responded in the politically-correct way with gentle laughter and murmurs of approval, I did not see one beach ball in any classroom the following school year. (We all used to substitute for one another, giving up planning and lunch periods whenever the Powers That Be appeared at our doors with “lesson plans” – and beach balls are hard to hide!)

But each and every year, we all sat through multiple workshops and explanations of old-tired-educational-theories-dressed-up-as-brand-new-ideas.

Including “socialization.” Of course, there are no recesses in high school and college. Instead, the chance-to-chat was advocated in each subject, and lunchtime – though supervised – became a general free-for-all (closely resembling the episode of Star Trek where the citizens of a faraway planet were allowed – yea, required – to yield themselves to orgy and mayhem whenever the leader dictated such was to take place).

A thought occurs to me: Beginning with the first mass-shooting in schools (Columbine, April 20, 1999), how many of these deranged killers can we demonstrate were fully “socialized”? Was it one? Many? All? (The trend nowadays is to immediately analyze how these murderers were “marginalized” and “ostracized,” but a self-imposed exile is not a true marginalization.) In each and every case over the last 23 years, the killers had every opportunity to be “socialized.” I have seen hundreds of pathetic attempts to explain how society “failed” each perpetrator – be they teachers, administrators, parents, siblings, acquaintances – the list goes on.

However, this “socialization” god does not speak logically of its own doctrine! Furthermore, the god’s temple attracts worshippers with no answers.

Allow me to return to my friend’s basic assertion that homeschooling “fails” because it does not allow for proper “socialization” of the individual student. First, let us define this sloppy and vague concept. "Socialization" involves contact and / or interaction with fellow human beings. Does “socialization” begin at the school bus stop (which has proven to be a dangerous place for children from traffic that does not safely stop and other children – bullies – who can’t keep their hands to themselves)? Does it begin at the school door (where pushing and shoving often occurs at the classroom threshold and at the lockers)? Does it mainly take place in a crowded classroom (where everyone wears masks and cannot recognize -- much less hear  -- one another)? Does it involve “woke” teachers who display BLM and rainbow flags and bully conservative students into “woke” compliance? Does it extend to the lunchroom, where children deliberately taunt and victimize other students behind the lunchroom monitors’ backs?

Sounds rather negative to me. Does socialization even exhibit positive benefits?

OK, let me ask you another question: Where does this sort of negative “socialization” end?

We don’t really want to answer that one, do we?

Having asked questions that might have uncomfortable answers – even answers that we fear – I will close this essay with a thought:

What ever happened to goal-oriented planning – the kind that produces wonderful citizens?

It’s been buried deep in this “socialization” nonsense.

More later.