I was a product of public schooling, the my way or highway attitudes of some teachers, the social isolation, cliches, bullying, teasing, all severely stunted my social development until I was a teenager and began competing in sports team environments, working jobs, and interacting with the public outside of school.
After a couple years I was far more developed socially than anything the school environment provided in the decade prior to that.
When I hear this reason often used, I fear it’s from people who enjoyed their social life in school due to reasons not actually involving the school, and place too much value in those social dynamics, ignoring the really ugly parts of it that hamper growth for a lot of students, including themselves.
My own experiences show they lack any real application to life outside of school. I’ve never had a decent job that worked socially like any school environment I’ve been in, and the one or two I did have were quickly left.
Based on the data I've seen, what I describe is a typical or even better-than-average public school experience.
Private school was infinitely better once I started going, and my homeschooled friends (who I met at university) are, on the whole, vastly better adjusted than the people I attended public school with.
Let's be honest - public schools' primary functions are to act as a daycare center and subsidized food distribution site. If you child is at all intelligent, you're probably better off leaving them at home with some books than sending them off to PS17851. I know I would have been better off that way!
Would you have been though? There's a core curriculum that I really doubt most kids would learn if they had their own way. Even with intelligence there's lots of stuff kids would never learn as it never interests them. What are the odds that a child is interested in Shakespeare, civics, biology, and trigonometry? We're drug through a lot of it kicking and screaming (to an extent), but it has value to have gone through it.
Insofar as kids learn (and retain) things at all, chances are they were going to learn it on their own anyway.
The preponderance of evidence suggests that it basically doesn't matter what you forcibly try to teach kids between the ages of zero-13; their later academic outcomes aren't going to change much anyway.
This matches my anecdotal experience; kids who end up being good in some field are always way ahead of what public schools (which are forced to cater to the lowest common denominator) can teach them anyway, and kids who end up not being good at a field will probably pick up the same information they're being taught naturally, at a more natural and less painful pace.
> What are the odds that a child is interested in Shakespeare, civics, biology, and trigonometry
High? Lots of kids choose to read books on various topics with their free time and focus, which they would have more of if they weren't swamped with pointless make-work.
Plus, it's not like you're actually going to get a comprehensive or even useful understanding of any of those things from the bottom 80% of schools.
> but it has value to have gone through it
Even if this is true (but I suspect the "kicking and screaming" might actually be net counterproductive), I really doubt it's worth the cost of spending something like 25% of your waking hours in Factory Labor Simulator for the first 13 (or whatever) years of your life.
On the flip side, I can't possibly imagine how an average parent can homeschool their child in advanced calculus or chemistry. The knowledge simply isn't there. And saying it can be replaced with videos or books is missing the point of education.
We did notice! How have you not noticed? Almost everyone comes out of public school marred in some way that they then have to unlearn as a young adult.
It's just a rough, toxic place. Sure, while it is harming you (some mildly, some significantly), it also delivers some benefits. But it is a net loss.
Because in fact I learned bullying in (high) school. How to be bullied and how to bully others. (I actually remember being given a informal class about how to to it properly, by other pupils) There were allways at least on person in class who was the bottom of the social order, who would get everything. But everybody got its share, who showed any weakness or lack of "coolness" which could mean anything at that time, like not smoking.
And I know many people who never sing anymore, because they have been traumatized in the school singing presentation. Likewise with other presentations. I could always sing without problem, as I learned singing from my mother, but others whose parents did not sing with them, were always scared of the singing and embarrasing themself in front of everyone, but accepted that as a 2 times a year ritual and just reinforced their trauma every time.
But in compensation I got a trauma with presentation. I don't know exactly how it started, but probably with a teacher who liked to destroy childrens self confidence, if they were not perfectly prepared for the boring assignment and a class who was either sleeping or annoying. Got me a stuttering habit, too.
Today I can give presentations, but I had a really hard time learning it later in life.
So I am not sure what I will do, once my baby gets old enough, as I am located in germany and germany does not like homeschooling and I also would want other homeschoolers to be around, because I also think, that learning in small groups mostly beats learning alone or one on one.
Have you seen evidence that schools contribute more to social skills than their alternatives might? I'd like to agree with you, but I am a little skeptical.
No idea why that would be but of the 12 or so I've meet they've stood out as above average.