Myth: Children Need Socialization and Peers

The original goal of the common school and later the public school was education, not socialization. Years of compounding failure by the public school has created a need to grasp at straws to justify its continued existence and the massive infusion of tax dollars.

Without the alleged need for socialization there would be little reason to go back to the well year by year seeking more money for the public school program. There would be no justification for attacking homeschooling families. Therefore it becomes ex­tremely important to the educational establishment and to the parasitical organizations it supports that the al­leged need for socialization be shouted from every soap box.

For those reasons it is perhaps the most touted myth which parents who are beginning home education will hear. I don't know who first invented the concept, but plenty of people arc firmly caught in the deception. I do know the ones who stand to profit most from state education, accompany the parading of that paper tiger with their extremely loud roaring. Regardless, fact remains that children do not in any way develop good character from each other. Good character is developed in a child by learning God's way and by learning to obey Him.

I don't know if I should, but I am going to ask anyway: if children need to be in a gang of peers their own age why didn't God have them bom in litters?!

Now on the other hand there is the high risk of negative socialization. That occurs when poorly trained, or undisciplined children corrupt other children.

Three or four years after Virginia and I, with our brood of nine, moved to Arkansas, a respected life-long resident of the South, then in his seventies, told me about the losing struggle to maintain local control of education. The occasion he spoke of took place during the 1940's while the Second World War was yet raging and many of the native sons were still fighting in Europe against a man maddened with many wild claims, one of which was that the children belonged to The State.

A wise old farmer raised his voice to protest the con­solidation policy being pushed upon the people by the department of education. It was during those last days of the little one room school houses, which then dotted the Ozark Mountains of Northern Arkansas. He pro­tested, "It won't work. You put a sheep killer in with your pups and they will all become sheep killers." His protest fell upon deaf ears and the subsequent record. now posted under the lengthening shadow of crime. drug abuse, and overflowing prisons, speaks for itself.

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