On being social/a social being

I walked four miles with Felix in the sling today. I have not done that for ages but today was just the most beautiful day of the year so far. Blue skies and white clouds and glorious sun, sun, sun! I feel sun deprived like I've been some mama bear asleep in a cave all winter. The air was cool enough to whoosh thrillingly up my nose and lift the air from the back of my neck, but the sun walmed my back so deliciously. I stood against a tree wondering what type it was, Fe and I picking at the ground until we had unearthed some brown chestnut shells and and so my wondering was over. Snug in a nook of trunk was a whole 'conker'. Fe was so excited by it, he held it in his fist for the rest of the walk. Later he might solemnly place it on the nature shelf. Or hurl it there too (or into an entirely different place), there is always that.

Now, people are still always asking me the dull questions pertaining to Isaac's lack of formal (institutional) schooling. (Because how on earth could he receive any type of an education without a teacher telling him what he needs to know?) The main question which folk seem to think is the biggie, that they get stuck on is the 'Oh my god, what about socialisation?' Isn't he going to be a social misfit, an anti-social freak who won't be able to hold a conversation with the 'mainstreamer' ? I suppose, I sometimes answer (very slowly -and in a very friendly way- although that gets trickier depending on how many times I have to say it and to whom, yk?) that it all depends on what you think socialisation means. For me it means the ability to get along with a wide variety of people; different ages, different backgrounds etc. And, I really don't see how this could be achieved in a classroom setting where 20-30 four year olds are herded each day. What variety! My teacher friend tells me that the social aspect of schools would be the one thing above any that would be her driving force to homeschool. That as soon as kids are ushered in to the classroom - like any other mammal they establish a pecking order, the best (conventionally speaking) looking kids and wealthiest at the top, the rest falling away behind. Those poor and ugly kids (this teacher tells me) get the least attention from everyone, even the teachers who are supposed not to be biased on such things, but the others take up more of their time and then when it is time for streaming and the seperating into academic sets these stragglers get put at the bottom (where she speculates they probably stay for the rest of their schooling). These kids are those most likely to be bullied. This does not mean the pretty and rich kids are spared the daily torments of bullying either though, anyone remember how it was a cyclic thing? How it was one girl one week and then another the next, clothes, hair, eyes - anything could be subject to ridicule. In this classroom setting. Where boredom and inactivity and bouts of ridicule induce frustration. Anyone remember coming home from school and taking out the daily pent up emotions on siblings, parents? My teacher friend also tells me that the social interactions going on amongst the children in her classes were all involved with who went to who's party and what toys which person had and who wore what... She said the triviality and pettiness often stunned her. Why were these children interested in such things? Lots of reasons of course, down to parenting attitudes and commercial advertising etc but she said these kids whom she got to know all, crowded as they were (rather unnaturally for any mammal, especially a highly sensitive mammal such as a human being) into one room, were constantly competing with each other (and for her, their only teacher's) attention. In such subtle ways, never truly trusting each other, but only ever having each others opinions and favours. The classroom was their life and not a very good one. Did she have time to answer their questions? (Personally I hardly have time (would a teacher even have the constant inclination?) to answer one four year olds constant questions never mind another 25 children's!). If it is indeed true that children learn through imitation then the social niceties that we hold so important can hardly be imitated through imitating another four year old! I just read an article from another teacher who talked of the daily violence children carry out and receive, all of which is regarded as 'normal' by student and teacher alike. This teacher speculated that this unacceptable level of physical violence totally desensitised children. Their own pain was never taken seriously, they never regarded anyone else's as being important or significant either. Teachers regarded it as general 'messing around' and it was so widespread as to receive little attention. I am nodding and remembering myself a boy with his legs stretched open and hammed against a tree, some boys pulling his legs, the other behind him pushing, laughing all the way. This boys could not walk or came back to school for days. But everyone still laughed about it. Teachers included.

This is not an environment which I would want anyone I know to be a part of, never mind the beings I love and cherish most in the world.

Socially - I have one of the most social people I have ever met in my life living with me right now! He is not afraid to talk to anyone, regardless of age, he see's himself as being able to have interesting conversations with adults and honestly he is amazing company. I can think of many many anti-social adults I know - they all went to school. The socialisation 'issue' for me is just a non-issue. I see and converse with school children I know and there is a hesitancy there in talking to me - I am the 'other', the adult, the one who is known to withhold and punish and who tells them what they 'need' to know. That barrier was still there for me until I five years ago when I became a mother! I met Don's parents still feeling this way and hardly wanted to speak to them, they were 'the other' and asked, asked, asked me questions..... Now I realise the only barrier there is one created by the teacher. The parent. So I am trying, that socially me and my sons can experience life together as equals. This is an ongoing challenge for me. I have not experienced life this way. Until now. So I am born anew with each of my children and try to discard the older skin of 'the other'.