The Purpose(s) of Education, Public & Private

[Alan Leigh Armstrong]

>Jim Henderson writes:
>>
>> In a home school with which I am familiar, freedom of thought, individuality,
>> creativity, pursuit of personal study interests, expansion of appropriate
>> friendship communities are all encouraged, and are pursued.
>>
>I would indeed be astonished if the "typical" home school exposes the
>children to more heterogeneous ideas than does the "typical" public
>school.  The hooker in Mr. Henderson's comment, of course, is what
>counts as an "appropriate" frienship community.
>Sandy Levinson

This sounds like a variation of the standard argument that home school
students do not get the social education that happens in the public school.
How much social education do you get by being exposed to 20 or 30 children
your age and one adult for 6 hours each day? Aside, During the baby boom,
many neighborhoods consisted of families with children all about the same
age and parents all about the same age.

Whether a parent has a student at home, public school or private school,
the parent needs to involve the child in other activities for social
education. Church or synagogue, with its variety of ages and, presumably,
values consistent with the parent's, is one place for that education.
Boy Scouts with its use of older boys teachng the youger helps.

Alan


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