How many times have you heard someone involved in education expound on the importance of "socialization" of our children? I hear it all the time when it comes to "home schooled" kids. Unionized teachers may agree that home schooled kids do much better on tests than public schooled kids, "But" what about their "socialization"? I have hired, trained and fired many people over the past 50 years and I have never hired or fired anyone because they lacked proper "socialization". In no interview have I ever heard anyone ask about how "popular" the person was in school or how many good friends that they had. If the facts are so clear, how do you think our public schools got off on the "socialization" tangent? Today, it is more important to "get along" and be "liked" than it is to learn anything. I always thought that the purpose of schools was to teach the person what they needed to learn in order to deal with "life". Was I wrong?
We now have a new problem and that is "social networking". Our kids and parents too have bought into idea that "social networking" has some value. I think that this whole concept has grown out of the message that our kids have been getting from our public school teachers and administrators. They created a "market" that the electronic gadget makers just capitalized on. If you have not noticed that our kids spend more time on their electronic gadgets socializing with people that they do not even know than with real people including their parents. This is where we need to take a more mature look at what has happened and how it affects other aspects of our lives.
Did you ever hear of the concept, "time thief"? This is something that steals "time". How can you steal time and what difference does that make? We only have so much time and if you shift how you use that time to a new item, it means that you had to "steal" that time from something else that you were spending that time on. Simple concept. What our kids have been doing for thousands of years is hanging around with their immediate family learning their roll. I researched the genealogy of my family and had to dig into a lot of census records. What I found were "families" and these families were made up of a mixture of individuals from children to mothers and fathers and in some cases grand parents. Let's say that the typical family had 6 members made up like this:
(1) One grand parent
(2) Two parents
(3) Three kids from ages 4, 10 and 15
Take the youngest kid who was 4 years old and look at the environment that they socialized in. This 4 year old saw two parents working to earn a living and care for the grand parent and their two older siblings. There was a lot to learn in this environment about the world and how to function in it. Now contrast that to a kid 10 years old who spent most of their family time socializing on an electronic gadget to kids their own age that they never saw. What do you think of the mental growth of that 10 year old of today compared to that 4 year old from the census records? No comparison. For every minute that our kids today are punching their thumbs on those electronic gadgets is a minute that they have taken away from one of the primary methods of historical learning.
I don't know why it is that people today jump to conclusions that they know better how to raise kids or educate them in the fundamentals of life than all the thousands of people and years that came before them. We did not all get here by accident and by methods that were not proven to work. Darwin was there all the time sorting out those methods and people who did not get it right and he did a very good job. Many parents are proud that their kids can operate one of these electronic gadgets at a very young age. They see this as a good thing when, in fact, the valuable parent-child time is being "stolen" by that gadget. I know families who do not allow their kids to watch TV or play with these brain numbing gadgets, but they are few and far in between. I have found their kids very well socialized without the parents being by passed.
The next time that you hear someone make a stupid statement about "socialization", step forward and set them straight that it ranks right up there with Global Warming and Diversity and is only a way to steal you time and money. Tell them that Darwin had it right and that you are "standing with Darwin".
PS---Remember my blog about comfortable shoes and what makes a shoe comfortable? A comfortable shoe is one that requires your foot muscles to do the "least" work. Wearing comfortable shoes eventually will make your feet weaker until you have even more foot problems. It is the same with kids socializing with other young kids their own age. It is the least demanding environment and the kids like it. It is comfortable where the kids learn and develop the least. Hanging with the old fashion extended family is a lot more stressful and like shoes that are not comfortable, they learn more and get stronger. Did you ever hear of a kid who learned how to play the piano by hanging around with young kids their own age? I did not think so.
