Courtesy of PitBullLovers.com

Although I may not agree 100% with all of these, I think it’s good information know and pass along. Anything with an * by it is my personal addition to the tip.

1. Exercise your dog everyday. Pit Bulls are high energy dogs that need some way of burning off that pent up energy. Even a short 10-15 minute walk or game of fetch in the backyard will help burn off energy that can lead to behavior problems. *Separation anxiety is a common behavioral issue with this breed. Daily exercise can severly help the sympotms and make your dog a much happier dog.

2. Never leave pit bulls alone with other dogs (or any animal). Even if you’re dog gets along great 99.9% of the time with other animals the Pit Bull is known for animal aggression and it is possible something will happen. A good piece of advice I received a long time ago was, Never trust your Pit Bull not to fight. *Always remember that if your pit bull gets into a fight, no matter what dog started it, it will ALWAYS be the pit bulls fault due to media and the already bad stigma around these dogs! Good dog owners (any dog) are always on the defensive and prepared for the worst possible scenario.

3. Always have your dog on a leash in public. Most if not all towns, cities and states have leash laws. Obey these laws. This will help people see your dog in a positive light and keep accidents like getting hit by passing cars from occuring. *Because of the breed police are more inclined to ticket you before another breed owner. Also remember the “gang” stigma of these dogs and don’t assist in any more assumptions.

4. Always supervise your dogs and never allow them to roam free. Loose dogs are often hurt by cruel people and accidents can happen as well. Always know where your dog is. *Loose dogs are inclined to be aggressive due to fear and can be a danger to the community, that goes for ANY breed. Imagine how scared your dog would be without you, in an unknown area, with strangers coming after them; thats a receipe for disaster.

5. Supervise your dog with small children. This is a must. Small children are often hurt by dogs not out of anger, but because dogs can scratch them, step on them, and otherwise injure them. * Pit bulls are one of 3 breeds noted for their love of children and therefore can get overly excitable around them. With their size, energy level, and enthusiasm they can knock down and accidently injure children when proper supervision is not provided.

6. Spay or Neuter your dog. Unless you plan on doing something where the dog can not be spayed or neutered get it done. This will reduce accidental breedings and stop roaming males from getting loose. *Spaying and neutering can help with medical and behavioral issues. 3-4 million animals are euthanized every year in shelters, be part of the solution not part of the problem. See your local animal shelter or Humane Society for reduced cost spay a neuter information.

7. Train your dog. Take your dog to obedience classes or hire a private trainer to help you train your dog. This is very important for Pit Bull owners. If you can not control your dog bad things will eventually happen. Get your dog into training as soon as possible. *Proper training and socialization is imperitive for the health and balance of your dog. Do this EARLY, it’s much more difficult to do as they get older. Also remember how other people view your dog as they are misbehaving, this is only adding to the misconception about the breed.

8. Avoid dog parks. Dog parks are a breeding ground for disaster. Young dogs have been killed in dog parks by bigger dogs and taking your dog to a dog park is simply not a good idea at all. A better choice is to enroll your puppy into puppy socalization classes. If you have a rescue dog I would also recommend these types of classes as well. Some trainers do have them for older dogs. Your dog will have a far better chance at proper socialization in one of these classes than at a dog park. *Even the most well behaved dog can react badly when a proper introduction is not conducted. Proper introductions are impossible at dog parks. Remember who will be blamed if a fight does occur. Even 2 of the BEST dogs may not get along.

9. Socialize your dog. Take your dog to as many places as you can, meet new people and while they are young meet as many other dogs as possible. Socializing your Pit Bull will help curb any future problems that might occur. *Do a proper interaction with all dogs (not face to face). START EARLY! This is all about desensitization to exciting and new places, people and dogs. The more they get into new situations, the less exciting it will be.

10. Keep your dog properly confined. Pit Bulls are known to be great escape artist. Make sure you have the means to keep them in your yard and properly confined. Installing a six foot privacy fence is not a bad idea either.

Responsible ownership starts from the time your Pit Bull comes to live with you. Irresponsible owner’s are one of the major causes for all the problems the breed faces today. It’s our hope here at Pit Bull Lovers we can spread the word and educate more owners to take responsibility for their dogs actions.

In order for things to change, we must change the way we look at our own actions and how they effect the world around us *and the dogs we love and live with.

Why do people care so much,

about what other people think of them?

To the point of absurdity.

What will people think?

You’d better be on your best behavior.

And mind your manners.

Be polite.

And remember,

first impressions count.

Always behave yourself.

And don’t give yourself away.

Be anyone, but who you really are.

Because, deep down inside, you’re probably an asshole.

A shallow, empty vessel, with no thoughts of your own.

You are, or have become, what you’re supposed to be.

Ever since you were a child.

It’s all a part of our socialization process.

Our domestication.

And our parents are the one’s to blame.

Be a good girl.

Be a good boy.

Be like everyone else.

Be a drone.

Keep your feelings to yourself.

Or better yet, don’t have any feelings at all.

Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to.

Just stand there and smile.

And keep your fucking mouth shut.

Don’t ask questions,

just do what you’re told.

Don’t embarrass me in front of the neighbors.

Behave yourself at school.

Don’t make a fool of yourself at the party.

I want you to be on your best behavior when our guests arrive.

But whatever you do, 

don’t let anyone know what a little asshole you really are.

No wonder we’re all so fucked up.

We don’t even know who the fuck we are.

We have become what others want us to be.

Instead of becoming ourselves.

We have no sense of self,

or originality.

We’re just another someone, anyone, no one.

Our spirit was killed,

before it even had a chance.

Our candle was never lit.

Have a nice day.

© 2009 OMW

October, November & December are typically loaded with parties. They come with big festivals such as Diwali, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. But we don’t need occasions to party & meet people. Socializing is a common part of our lives. Summer comes loaded with BBQ parties for instance. There are tons of websites and TV programs that give inputs on setting up your space for party, cooking food, etc. But I haven’t come across a good comprehensive list of things to do and not to do. So, here’s my take for guests. Hosts can find their list here. I’d love to hear from you about things that worked well & didn’t work well in other parties.

If you are the guest:

1. Don’t assume your hosts drink & take a wine bottle. There are some teetotalers.
2. Bring a decent gift even. The host is taking a lot of effort to make your get together memorable. Gifts don’t have to be pricey, they just have to be thoughtful.
3. Don’t be more than 30 mins late. If there are other guests to the party, they cannot start eating until you show up.
4. For an office party, don’t be more than 15 mins late.
5. An office party is not a place to get drunk and let lose. Limit your alcohol intake & focus on socializing, not drinking.
6. Do not dwell into minute details of specific topics for a long time. The audience may lose interest.
7. Don’t dig your heels on arguing about a particular topic like you’ve done a PhD about it. Others may lose interest and find you dry. The only exceptions may be when the entire guest list comprises of people with similar background and they are interested in shoptalk.
8. Have some sense of humor. Dry matter of fact talk can be boring. Keep in mind that people get together to have a good time. You can improve your sense of humor by watching comedies.
9. Be current with the news. Something major can be used as an icebreaker when you meet someone new.
10. Know funny things that are a part of the local culture. For example in the US, Sports, Seinfeld, Friends, Lost, The Office, etc make a good conversation topic.
11. If you don’t know something, don’t make it up. Ask about it & show interest. People like to share because they showcase how much they know.
12. Don’t ask the guest to turn on your favorite TV show or music. You are there to meet people, not to watch TV. Plus, you will be distracting other guests in the party. One of the guests asked the party to turn on the sports game. The host also got hooked into it and soon the two were in their world. This left the other guests bored. The only exception is when the gathering is for a game night or a movie night.
13. Snack a little before going to someone’s place. You never know when the food will be served. If you are hungry, then you cannot focus. Also, pre-emptive snacking means you wont be clearing up the entire bowl yourself at the party.
14. Offer to help if the guest is preparing something. When many people show up at the same time, the guest may need help with getting drinks to everyone. They may also need help with setting the table or plates.
15. Don’t hang around the food and the bar all the time. Take time to share your experiences with your hosts and listen to their experiences as well. Be engaging.
16. Often times, simple questions like what is your job role can make them at ease & help you to learn new things.
17. Do not touch their things without asking. Just observe from a distance. Some items may be sentimentally valuable to the guests and despite your best intention you may damage the item.
18. Don’t say anything negative about your host or any other guests. If there is another guest you don’t like at the party, exchange niceties and excuse to get a drink.
19. Don’t complain to the host. In one of the parties that I attended, the guest complained to the host that the cook hasn’t made her food yet. She was upset & the host had to prioritize her order over that of the other guests.
20. If you take your kids with you, take things with you to keep them entertained. Perhaps their favorite book or a drawing kit or something.
21. Make sure your kids are well behaved. If you are doubtful, you may be better off hiring a babysitter. Kids that bang the door and cabinets or damage the house are putting the host in a tough spot. They have to be nice to you because you are guest. At the same time, their property is encountering a damage. Put yourself in their shoes.
22. Say something nice to the host even if you had the worst experience. Their intention is to meet with you & help you have a good time. They may have goofed up the execution. But be kind and complimentary.
23. If you have been invited to their place more than once and you’ve never hosted them, set up a time to meet with them at your place. If you don’t care so much about them to invite them to your parties, then decline their invites politely. They will understand. If you attend their parties but you don’t invite them, its just a matter of time before you stop getting their invitations.
24. If it is a networking event, don’t be tied to one person you meet. Work your way in the room to meet others.
25. Though I haven’t done this myself yet, carry your cards with you. It can be as simple as your name, email ID, and phone number. It doesn’t have to be your professional business card. Often times in a networking event, we meet many people. But it is difficult to get their coordinates given the settings. There are plenty of sites online to get your cards for under 10 bucks.
26. Dress for the occasion.
27. After the event, send a thank you note to the host for taking the effort to organize the party & telling them about how your time was well spent. As a host, this is assuring to know that the guests had a good time.

Social gatherings are a great way to get to know people, relax, and have fun. With some thought, preparation, and planning you can make the most out of it. Have fun.

MySpace was founded in August 2003 and was acquired in July 2005 for $580 million by Fox Interactive Media of News Corporation. Headquartered in Beverly Hills California with Brad Greenspan overseeing Chris DeWolfe as CEO, Tom Anderson as starting president, Josh Berman and a talented team of programmers with many resources at their disposal, MySpace became the mecca for online social networking in the United States by June 2006.

In February 2004, Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook as a way for Harvard students to meet and network with other students. Flash forward to 2006, Zuckerberg allegedly turned down a second billion dollar offer from Yahoo to purchase Facebook. It was a choice rewarded in April 2008 as Facebook boasted a staggering 300 million world-wide users and snatched MySpace’s coveted place of being the largest online social network.

Has Facebook become the new ‘place for friends’? The quite dashing and new chief executive of MySpace, Owen Van Natta implies ‘yes’ in an October 2009 announcement but it all seems to be part of Van Natta’s plan to take over the world…of online music and entertainment.

A glimpse at the MySpace Forums gives more than a slight impression what the majority of MySpace users are interested in. The Music Forum has the most topics with 734,488 threads and the most posts, 8,716,504. The MySpace Feedback Forum topics are the closest second at 609,001. Love and Relationships Forum, an 18 and up forum, has 7,383,009 posts. The Science, Travel and Business Forums hold the lowest counts of topic and posts, which may explain the possible exclusion of a weather and jobs section from MySpace.

As MySpace takes this expected and sturdy stride, including the recent acquisition of the online music-sharing service iLike, Facebook has tried to streamline and clarify its identity in August 2009 by purchasing and integrating the social aggregator, FriendFeed.

But the innovative notion that MySpace and Facebook are not competing in the same marketplace may not have entirely caught on to the masses yet. On November 3^rd an afternoon headcount of the icon Madonna’s MySpace page shows 524,803 friends and grew by only 108 in twenty-four hours. On Facebook, Madonna’s 1,262,806 fans grew by 669. Miley Cyrus’s MySpace friends were 994,917 gaining 328 and on Facebook she gained 2,295 fans from 1,684,433 the day before.

The numbers hold true for the rapper 50 cent, with 1,590,081 Facebook fans and 1,199,685 friends on MySpace. The lovely Beyonce holds 2,587,420 fans on Facebook and 1,480,434 on MySpace. Even Lady Gaga with a mere 793,565 MySpace friends trumps them all with 4,253,870 fans on Facebook.

Amusingly enough, a look at approximately sixty responses to Tom Anderson’s official Facebook page, Facebook has sixteen ‘votes’ and MySpace has thirteen. One person liked both social networking websites, over twenty-five folks were just saying hello to Anderson. One stand-out commenter liked MySpace more, but also eluded people don’t talk on MySpace any longer.

Although it’s hardly a fair comparison because of Anderson’s long-term, near-celebrity status, there are a handful of MySpace accounts claiming to be Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, most sporting a just comment or two and usually only Anderson as a default friend.  

Facebook has stolen the reins and made MySpace’s own social networking obsolete but it did seem to fit snuggly into the business plans of both online communities’ executives. And Facebook may keep hold of those reins for a long time unless MySpace realizes that socializing friends shouldn’t become obsolete if the best advertisement is word of mouth and that as cool as it is to listen to your favorite band, it’s so totally much cooler to listen to and talk about your favorite band with a friend.

I read a story on Yahoo! the other day that set me to thinking, reminiscing.  Apparently, the box, the stick, and the ball are in the toy hall of fame – as well they should be.  As a kid, I spent more hours enjoying those three toys (you can add rock to the list as well) than all the others put together.  I played, moreover, with my brother and sisters, with friends from the neighborhood – not alone in my room.

This story got me thinking about my childhood, and the impact it had on the person I am today.  Am I considerate because I grew up with other kids? Would I be more materialistic if I hadn’t had the most intense fun of my life doing things that cost nothing? Would I be as creative as I am had I not been forced to fill countless empty hours of every day? Would I still think for myself had I not grown up reading, watching and playing the exact same things as everyone else?

I began to reflect on a few sad developments in the world around me: The disappearance of kids playing outside in all but the poorest neighborhoods, the unfortunate conviction of many of my classmates and many of the adults I know that one must have lots of things to be happy, and the utter lack of creativity and balls and heart and generosity and manners in some of my university classmates.

My neighborhood had serious problems when I was growing up. We were poor, there was a good deal of crime, there was a drug problem – but at least we all went outside, played and had a good time. We may not have had the best toys, but we had more fun with sticks and rocks and snakes and fire than I’ve seen anyone have with a video game.

It’s funny that people talk about poor kids as having their childhood taken from them. On the one hand, I know what they mean. Poor kids have to think about things a kid shouldn’t have to. I remember wanting to ask for a piece of candy when we went to a store, but holding back because I knew we couldn’t afford these kinds of extras – this when I was five, six years old.

I remember going without food some days, collecting cans and bottles to buy bread, insisting I wasn’t cold (in Iowa, in January) because I knew we couldn’t afford a new coat for me, not telling my mom when my socks or underwear got holes in them. I had to understand, as a small child, why other kids had all the cool new toys advertised on TV and I didn’t.

So, maybe I was more practical than other kids my age. Maybe I matured faster in terms of an awareness of the world around me, maybe I lost the naiveté that people expect from children a little too early, but I had a far richer childhood than many of the kids do today.

Kids with no free time, these are the ones being robbed of their childhood.  Kids that never had time to be bored are the ones being developmentally stunted.  Kids that never learned to handle the real world without their parents hovering in the background are the ones missing out.

These poor bastards have been forced from the womb to experience the world through someone else’s eyes – adult eyes. They have known the world only as a regimented place. They are afraid to question rules, the status quo – and when they do, they feel like they are in total rebellion and exercise no moderation. I’ve heard of suburban kids with ulcers, burnt out before they get to high school.  These kids are like middle aged men, yet people talk about poor kids missing out on childhood.

A lot of the people from my neighborhood ended up with problems when they reached adulthood, mostly because of the limited opportunities we had. Some may also have simply been too comfortable with questioning the rules. A lot of them are in jail or prison, probably around half graduated high school and, to my knowledge; I am the only one who will graduate from a four-year school.  Still, we developed a creative side,understanding, empathy and social skills that are far less evident in kids who were shuttled from one organized activity to the next, that spent all their time at home with pre-packaged adventures, figments of someone else’s imagination.

If I could choose someone to take a math test for me, to memorize something, or to read a boring 400 page book, I would choose one of my classmates here at the university,  but if I needed help with any problem that required common sense, independent reasoning, creativity or the ability to think on one’s feet, I would trek to my hometown jail and find one of the kids I grew up with.

As a teenager, my friends were not good people.  My best friends sold crack.  Everyone I knew outside my family sold some kind of drugs, stole, slept around, drank too much, smoked, smoked weed, fought too much – but they were far better friends in terms of our day-to-day interactions and in terms of loyalty than the people I now know.

If one of us needed something, the others would break our necks to provide it. If one of us was in trouble, the others would help.  The ‘every man for himself’ attitude that many of the people I’ve met at university share, that my country seems to be pursuing abroad, that voters seem to hold dear, never penetrated my neighborhood.

I’m not saying we all should grow up poor, wild and lawless, but I think parents should be careful not to over-regiment their kids. Structure is important, but some moderation is needed. Send them to school, let them pick a single sport or instrument for them to practice at any one time, let them play around online for an hour, then kick them out of the house and into the real world with a stick and a box.

Every generation makes fun of the next, it seems. With my generation, it was bell-bottoms, long hair and rock music that had adults poking fun.

These days, I find myself as the critical adult; shaking my head at kids walking around with their faces buried in the mini screen of some electronic device. I ask myself, “How do these youngsters learn how to socialize and do they even play with one another anymore?” Not having children of my own has me wondering what kids do to entertain themselves outside of their digital devices. From my vantage point, it seems as though many children rely on gadgets to keep them occupied. As the adults surrounding my generation of the 1960’s asked, “What is rock and roll doing to the minds of kids today?” I’m asking the current generation of youngsters, “How enriching can life be when you’re spending hours and hours playing with electronic devices?”

I recall snickering at a cartoon I saw in a local newspaper depicting a family stuffed in a mini van. They had arrived at the Grand Canyon and the parents were mortified to see their children totally disinterested in the grandeur of the canyon as they frantically popped the keys of some electronic device. Funny cartoon but the underlying notions are two-fold: Electronic games and phones are more important than the outside world and we missed the richness of a real-life encounter.

I’m not a social scientist nor am I a psychologist but I’m concerned what may become of human interaction as we once knew it: more face to face encounters, more experiential with respects to direct environment; visually, kinesthetically as well as auditory. What I mean to ask is, I wonder what synthetic experience takes away from organic experience? Take the neighborhood I grew up in as a case and point.

For one thing, the adults begged us to get outside and play and play we did! The streets I grew up on had kids galore outside playing with one another. We played games we either made up or had been passed down from generation to generation: hide and seek, tag, red light/green light, dodge ball, kick ball, street hockey and the list goes on and on.

From these real time interactive games I believe we learned how to use our imaginations in a real situation, with real people.  This must make a difference in how we deal with one another as human beings, today. For example, consider conflict resolution. With games come cheating and with cheating, arguments arise. We didn’t have the luxury to hit a reset button to start the game over. We had to solve our differences on the spot. The results weren’t always favorable or amicable but regardless, the raw human experience of face to face interaction created bonding. We formed ideas about one another based on how we played. We learned how to earn and give trust to one another and I think that is a huge importance in socialization.

Perhaps the biggest benefit of playing with who and what you have in the real world is economic. I’m sure the latest digital games are expensive! In my neighborhood, we often made things from the ground up further engaging our creative minds. What’s more is we built things that existed in the physical world adding value to the overall experience. For example, my older brother and I built a go-cart out of an old baby carriage. This started a wave of creativity in our neighborhood. Go-carts of every style, function and color began to appear out of the garages of many. We held races, contests and entered the go-carts in local parades. No A.D.D. here! Just plain-old ingenuity and real time fun! Another example of creativity in action: one time, several boys and myself found a trash barrel full of round, blunt-ended curtain rods which of course, became swords. Who brandishes swords? Pirates! We ended up building a pirate ship out of scrap wood and dressed up in total pirate garb and proceeded to create an entire world of characters and scenes based on a simple find in the trash! Another trash “score” had a friend and I spray-painting one another totally silver. From there, we became visitors from another planet and punished for almost “suffocating our skin, which kills aliens” according to Mom. Again, chock up real time exploration to the experience of learning!

Just as my generation turned out “OK”, for the most part, I’m sure the digital age kids will be just fine too. After all, rock and roll didn’t turn us into the total anarchists as many adults believed. However; rock did change my generation to a certain degree. Some would argue rock had a negative influence and some would argue rock was a great way to learn how to question authority. Regardless, it had an effect on an entire generation. I just hope today’s generation and future generations have the opportunities to experience the richness life has to offer outside a blue screen As I finish typing this blog message on my laptop, I realize that I have become “digitized” too. Perhaps we should all pay more attention to real time!

The Internet has brought the next dimension of collaboration to the door steps of organizations, and its name is ‘Web 2.0’. While there is a lot of hype around various concepts associated with the term, little academic research has so far been conducted on the implications of this new approach for the domain of organizational learning.

This paper seeks to conceptualize the link between Web 2.0 and organizational learning through a framework that assesses its adaptability as a learning tool. The paper provides an integrated perspective on the broader contribution of Web 2.0 to organizational learning. The proposed framework can assist organizations in prioritization and evaluation of learning tools. Future research may extend its applicability and understanding by examining the constructs of the proposed framework empirically.

Boateng, R., Malik, A. and Mbarika, V. (2009). Web 2.0 and Organizational Learning: Conceptualizing the Link, Proceedings of the Fifteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, San Francisco, California, August 6th-9th 2009.

Amazingly, we tend to ignore the bulk of human history when considering what is ‘natural.’  How humans lived for tens of thousands of years has imprinted itself in our genes, yet we ignore that programming, instead trying to live by what our culture says is ‘right.’  There are reasons for why we act the way that we do, feel the way that we feel, and they are not the result of the rise of patriarchal religions, or the Industrial Revolutions.  The conflicts that we experience are all too often the result of our genetic programming being at odds with our expectations.

Because humans did not have writing until very recently, little is known for sure about what life was like 20,000 years ago.  Anthropology is making great strides in uncovering the past, but its findings are still colored by modern cultural bias.  Case in point:  Hunter-gatherer societies.  When the European world discovered that there were societies in undeveloped parts of the world which survived by gathering and hunting, the male dominated society of the modern world automatically assumed that the males in those societies were the primary food providers, thus the label ‘hunter-gatherer.’  By studying the garbage of prehistoric peoples, we have discovered that they should have been called ‘gatherer-hunter societies.’  Hunting was not the primary means of getting food, but instead gathering was.

This has tremendous implications on our perceptions of ancient lifestyles.  Women were the ones who primarily did the gathering, from what we have been able to discern.  If women were the primary food providers, they would have been very important in the everyday life of a group.  It was not until the advent of agriculture that men became the primary food providers, which also was the time when male-dominated religions appeared, and the status of women diminished to that of domestic animals.

If a group of people depended on the able-bodied individuals to perform the necessary tasks of survival, that means that people of child-bearing years could not have been the primary caregivers of their children.  Spending time with your children was not a survival trait, because that would have kept you from carrying water, collecting fuel, gathering food, preparing it, and all the other things needed to keep the group going.  Perhaps this explains the affinity of very young children for the very elderly, because we are genetically wired to respond to those who would have been our primary caregivers for thousands and thousands of years.

Certainly, there are many other ways of explaining why parents and their children have so many difficulties, while those same children seem to respond to their grandparents and great-grandparents so much better.  We can attribute the desire of very young children to please the elderly to many things, but isn’t it easier to look at how humans lived for most of our existence?  Of course, this throws the concept of the ‘nuclear family’ as being the natural family unit out the window, which is not going to sit well today.  But the nuclear family is already endangered, as more and more people are raising children by themselves, or with their parents.

Looking at our behaviors in the context of what were survival traits for most of human evolution is, to me, the most logical way of determining what is ‘natural’ and ‘right’, not by using our cultures definitions.  The idea of ‘three square meals a day’ is no more natural than beating oneself with a stick every day.  It arose during the first industrial revolution, when people were only given one meal break during the work period.  Our bodies have evolved to eat small amounts of food all day long, not to process huge amounts all at once.  That is a biological fact, which cannot be changed no matter how much we want to believe otherwise.  I think that there are many more of them, which we have not discovered yet.

Sudah terlalu lama untuk menyebutkan kata benda tersebut “SD Inpres”, ya, SD Inpres yang merupakan SD yang dibangun atas instruksi presiden di Jaman Orde Baru, jaman pemerintahan Pak Harto.

Saya salah satu orang yang sekolah di SD Inpres yang ada di Desa Makam, Kecamatan Rembang, Kabupaten Purbalingga, yang kemudian SD tersebut berubah nama menjadi SD Negeri Makam 3. Saya sendiri kurang tahu pastinya kapan SD itu dibentuk. Yang saya inget, saya masuk di SD tersebut tahun 1982 dan lulus tahun 1987.

SD Makam 3, ya SD yang terletak di pinggir jalan Raya Makam, yang di sebelah bangunannya terdapat sebuah prasasti yang saat ini kurang begitu terawat. Di depan tugu prasasti inilah dulu aku sering bermain bersama teman-temanku. Mau tidak mau harus diakui, kondisiku yang terbentuk saat ini dipengaruhi kehidupanku waktu aku menempuh pendidikan di SD Tersebut.

Suasana, pertemanan, permainan, persaingan dan prestasi yang aku dapat masih dapat aku ingat pasti. Guru-guru, teman-teman, penjaga sekolah dan kepala sekolahnya juga masih aku ingat pasti. Mereka manjadi bagian tersendiri dalam perjalanan hidupku.

Throughout my week I have found a common theme of the importance of social cooperation as a tool in learning.  While on an academic level it is obvious which subjects are taught in school: math, science, reading, etc – there are also subjects taught which are hidden, but not any less valuable.  These subjects, cooperation, conflict resolution, and team building, prepare students for their later roles in society as adults.  These social skills not only teach students to work together and to cooperate, but also show the influences that students can have on one another.  After all, who is a stronger influence than one’s own peers?

In Arthur Ellis’ Teaching, Learning, & Assessment Together, he touches on the importance of both personal and social competence.  Personal competence is the obvious ability to regulate and be aware of one’s own actions.  Social competence is the understanding, developing, and assisting of other students in one’s classroom or environment.  It is the social skills of influence, communication, conflict management, leadership, cooperation, building bonds, and team capabilities that incorporate a student into a meaningful part of a group.  (Ellis, 2001, p. 51)  These social skills have tremendous impact on a student’s reflective thinking capability.  If a group of students cannot function as a socially cohesive unit they will be unable to complete a group assignment.  If, on the other hand, the students can work together, they are likely to even inspire each other to do well on the assignment at hand as they spark one another’s interests and debate amongst themselves.

Johann F. Herbart in The Ethical Basis and Aim of Instruction expresses the importance of cooperation between students in order to be useful in society.  He states, “…every pupil, whatever rank or social status, must be trained for cooperation in the social whole to fit for usefulness,” (Herbart, 1776, p.1).  Booker T. Washington touches on the importance of cooperation and friendship in his exposition “On Achieving Social Equity” from the Atlanta Exposition Address in relation to the equality between races and what each can stand to gain from the other.  Washington speaks of the benefit of sharing unique knowledge and information with others in society in order to create the most “useful and intelligent citizen…Effort or means so invested will pay a thousand per cent interest,” (Washington, 1895, p.2).  He asserts that if social skills are used to build one another up, rather than teach each other down, lives and communities will be enhanced by this new knowledge acquisition.

Finally, in Foundations of Education by Allan Ornstein and Daniel Levine, it was once again reiterated to me the importance of socialization of children to prepare them for adulthood as.  While “school culture” may be the most formal of settings in which children learn, it is one of the most content-rich.  Alongside long division and sentence structure, students are taught to participate in the democracy of a classroom.  Students learn to follow the “rules of order” that prevail in the class and come to interact with their peers in appropriate and beneficial ways.  Students work together to accomplish grander things than most could do on their own, and learn that it is only through compromise and cooperation that these accomplishments come to pass.

While each text I read this week had a distinct purpose and direction, I continually perceived hints back to this idea of the importance of a social life amidst students’ learning.  One of the most important things children learn in school is how to interact with others, whether it is with their teachers or other students.  When students can learn to work together they begin to discover the mutual benefits of cooperation.  This interfacing between students of different cultures and communities is important in helping students understand and appreciate their differences.  “Peers are equal in a way parents and their children, or students and their teachers are not,” (Ornstein & Levine, 2008, p. 298).  Students have a great amount of personality and learning to experience together, and when they do, they are developing skills that will be used throughout their lifetime.  One of the most essential attributes students develop in school is that of good citizenship.  By preparing students to work together in teams, make compromises, and motivate one another, they will be ready to head confidently into the democratic society in the world today.

Citations:

Ellis, Arthur K. (2009) Teaching, Learning, & Assessment Together. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

Herbart, Johann Friedrich.  (1776) Outlines of Educational Doctrine.  Translated by Alexis F. Lenge. (New York: The       Macmillan Company, 1901).

Ornstein, Allan C. & Levine, Daniel U.  (2008) Foundations of Education.  Boston/New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.  Tenth Edition.

Washington, Booker T.  (1895) selections from Atlanta Exposition Address.  “On Achieving Social Equity”

I just read a fascinating article in the December edition of  The Atlantic.  David Dobb’s  The Science of Success  relates the genetics of behavioral plasticity to weeds and hothouse plants:

Most of us have genes that make us as hardy as dandelions: able to take root and survive almost anywhere. A few of us, however, are more like the orchid: fragile and fickle, but capable of blooming spectacularly if given greenhouse care.

Today most of us agree that behavior arises from a complex interaction of nature and nurture.  The goal of behavioral genetics is to understand the complex interaction between genetic and environmental contributions to behavior, and it’s not an easy job.  First of all it can be difficult simply to define exactly what the specific behavior one wants to study involves.  Toss in the additional complicating factors that arise because the expression of behavior, like all complex traits, is born from an intricate dance between genetic heritage, upbringing and epigenetic factors — and you discover that even creatures as outwardly similar as identical twins are as unique as snowflakes.

One of the hot areas of research in behavioral genetics is centered around the idea that specific polymorphisms affecting key behavioral genes can increase our vulnerability to specific mood, psychiatric, or personality disorders.  As Dobbs writes in The Atlantic, genetic polymorphisms have been found that affect our susceptibility to depression, anxiety, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), heightened risk-taking, antisocial, sociopathic, or violent behaviors, and other problems—if, and only if, the person carrying the variant suffers a traumatic or stressful childhood or faces particularly trying experiences later in life.  According to Dobbs’ article:

This vulnerability hypothesis, as we can call it, has already changed our conception of many psychic and behavioral problems. It casts them as products not of nature or nurture but of complex “gene-environment interactions.” Your genes don’t doom you to these disorders. But if you have “bad” versions of certain genes and life treats you ill, you’re more prone to them.

Although the science of behavioral genetics has been around since the 1960’s, the idea that Dobbs refers to as the orchid hypothesis is a new way to think about genetics and human behavior.  It points out that it’s not correct to think of the genes we inherit as being good or bad.  Genes represent potential, and like investments, some are low risk / low reward while others are high risk / high reward.  In a balanced genetic portfolio a species wants to hold investments in both sectors.

Some of the key areas where researchers have found behavioral genetic tradeoffs are in the serotonin and dopamine transmission and uptake systems.  In the 1990’s Klaus-Peter Lesch discovered that there were three different variants to the human serotonin-transporter gene (the short/short, short/long, and long/long alleles).  He found that the two shorter versions of the gene were related to a higher risk of being affected by depression, anxiety and related problems. 

At the same time that Lesch was working on serotonin-transporter genes, Stephen Suomi was studying personality types in Rhesus monkeys.  Dobbs writes:

Very early in his work, Suomi identified two types of monkeys that had trouble managing these relations. One type, which Suomi calls a “depressed” or “neurotic” monkey, accounted for about 20 percent of each generation. These monkeys are slow to leave their mothers’ sides when young. As adults they remain tentative, withdrawn, and anxious. They form fewer bonds and alliances than other monkeys do.

The other type, generally male, is what Suomi calls a “bully”: an unusually and indiscriminately aggressive monkey. These monkeys accounted for 5 to 10 percent of each generation. “Rhesus monkeys are fairly aggressive in general, even when young,” Suomi says, “and their play involves a lot of rough-and-tumble. But usually no one gets hurt—except with these guys. They do stupid things most other monkeys know not to. They repeatedly confront dominant monkeys. They get between moms and their kids. They don’t know how to calibrate their aggression, and they don’t know how to read signs they should back off. Their conflicts tend to always escalate.”

[...]

Suomi saw early on that each of these monkey types tended to come from a particular type of mother. Bullies came from harsh, censorious mothers who restrained their children from socializing. Anxious monkeys came from anxious, withdrawn, distracted mothers. The heritages were pretty clear-cut. But how much of these different personality types passed through genes, and how much derived from the manner in which the monkeys were raised?

To find out, Suomi split the variables. He took nervous infants of nervous mothers—babies who in standardized newborn testing were already jumpy themselves—and gave them to especially nurturing “supermoms.” These babies turned out very close to normal. Meanwhile, Dario Maestripieri of the University of Chicago took secure, high-scoring infants from secure, nurturing mothers and had them raised by abusive mothers. This setting produced nervous monkeys.

The lesson seemed clear. Genes played a role—but environment played an equally important one.

Lesch collaborated with Suomi on genotyping monkeys from the different behavioral groups identified. They were excited to discover that the same three serotonin-transporter gene variants that were known to be important in human behavioral genetics were also present in Suomi’s rhesus monkeys.

The next step in the work was a study conducted by Suomi, Lesch and J. Dee Higley on a serotonin metabolite that indicates how much serotonin an animal’s nervous system is processing.   The results of this work showed that regardless of which serotonin-transporter genotype a monkey inherited, all of the monkeys reared by nurturing mothers processed serotonin in the normal range. This pointed to the vital importance of nurture’s affect on nature.  It also made Suomi wonder if this genetic sensitivity to upbringing was a common feature in all primates.

Suomi made another remarkable discovery. He and others assayed the serotonin-transporter genes of seven of the 22 species of macaque, the primate genus to which the rhesus monkey belongs. None of these species had the serotonin-transporter polymorphism that Suomi was beginning to see as a key to rhesus monkeys’ flexibility. Studies of other key behavioral genes in primates produced similar results; according to Suomi, assays of the SERT gene in other primates studied to date, including chimps, baboons, and gorillas, turned up “nothing, nothing, nothing.” The science is young, and not all the data is in. But so far, among all primates, only rhesus monkeys and human beings seem to have multiple polymorphisms in genes heavily associated with behavior. “It’s just us and the rhesus,” Suomi says.

This discovery got Suomi thinking about another distinction we share with rhesus monkeys. Most primates can thrive only in their specific environments. Move them and they perish. But two kinds, often called “weed” species, are able to live almost anywhere and to readily adapt to new, changing, or disturbed environments: human beings and rhesus monkeys. The key to our success may be our weediness. And the key to our weediness may be the many ways in which our behavioral genes can vary.

This talk of “weediness”, of course, immediately made me think of dogs.  The domestic dog is a brilliantly adaptive species, cheerfully surviving anywhere humans do.  From the arctic to the tropics, free ranging feral or pampered house pet, the dog lives in a wider range of habitats than almost any other animal.

So of course I wondered if anyone had studied the SERT gene and serotonin metabolites in dogs.  I surfed the googles and almost immediately hit pay dirt. 

I discovered that breed-specific patterns of a number of coding single nucleotide polymorphisms of behavior-related genes have been identified in different breeds of dogs.  I read that repeat polymorphisms associated with human attention deficit disorder appear to have the same effect in the Belgian Tervueren.  And I found that the same polymorphism in SLC6A4 found to be important in Suomi, Lesch and Higley’s work on the weediness of rhesus monkeys – has also been found in dogs.

One of the most interesting studies was Våge and Lingaas’  “Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) in Coding Regions of Canine Dopamine- and Serotonin-Related Genes” where they the important relationship in dogs between breed traits like size, color and conformation and behavioral phenotypes was described: 

The large number of canine breeds exhibits an extreme between-breed variation in traits like size, colour, conformation and behaviour. For many of these breeds, behavioural characteristics represent an important part of the breed definition and description. Certain behavioural phenotypes are associated with specific breeds as a result of long-term, systematic selection and limited genetic variation. In a behavioural context, dog breeds are evidence for the considerable impact of genetics on behavioural traits. They are therefore valuable models for genetic studies aimed at revealing basic biological knowledge of genetic regulation of behavioural traits. This can be efficiently performed through crossbreeding and backcrosses of these isolates with strong between-breed contrasts in specific behaviours.

I just returned from a trip to the local cable office where I left off the beloved Moxie box and a standard digital receiver. No more cable. No more triple digit TV bills per month.

We bought a fine little Dell laptop and hooked it up with the big HDTV as a second monitor. We easily watched everything we ever watched but with far less commercial interruption.

This will cut down on the drone TV watching and the MSNBC addiction. I feel lighter already.

There is not enough space in my head to allow all that yacking.

All I’m going to miss out on is Sarah Palin shite and Republican destruction derby. It’s just too sad to watch pompous assholes wave the flag of deevolution.

Some friends and I have started a Tuesday get together called Pie Night.

We take turns bringing a different pie every week.

It’s a kind of a Bellhemian Salon, where nobody speaks French or gets intoxicated — it’s a night of creativity, philosophical exploration and personal sharing.

We get a room full of musicians, artists, writers, and friends together in a circle around homemade pie and a semi structured philosophical discussion, in the spirit of pie and the metaphor of Pi .

We have a great time for new millennium modernists who are not absinthe minded professors.

Yeah, mostly we just talk a lot and eat pie.

Sometimes we just sing and be silly.

Hey, what else are we gonna do in the rainy winter of the Northwest?

Pie makes everything feel like sunshine.

THANK YOU FOR PIE

Click the Pie below to see why I like  Pie…

Recipient of the Alzheimer’s Foundation Center of Excellence award, Iona’s Adult Day Health, Wellness, & Arts Center provides nursing care and activities that stimulate the mind, body, and spirit—all in a supervised environment.  Center hours are M – F 8:15am – 5pm.  Ask us about subsidies for DC residents. For more information call Iona’s Information & Referral at 202-895-9448

This post is the first in a series reviewing the recent articles published in the November 2009 issue of Theory and Research in Education.  The article under review is Michael S. Merry and Charles Howell, “Can Intimacy Justify Home Education?”

Merry, professor of philosophy of education at the University of Amsterdam and author of an important recent book on Islamic schooling, and Charles Howell, a philosopher of education at Northern Illinois University who has published many articles on homeschooling (most of them in Brian Ray’s Home School Researcher), here team up for a vigorous argument for intimacy as a guiding value in homeschooling that can justify the practice.  Here’s the argument in a nutshell: 

Intimacy is a very important aspect of healthy human relationships, especially parent-child relationships.  Intimate relationships are relationships characterized by affection, mutual knowledge, shared experiences, open communication, and trust. People who don’t have relationships like this tend toward “loneliness, increased stress and accelerated physical deterioration.” (p.366).  But people who do have intimate relationships flourish, especially children, who feel secure and enjoy healthy social development.

Now this sort of parent-child relationship assumes knowledge of what is good for the child.  Intimate relationships will be motivated by concern for the child’s well being, not by “unrestrained parental prerogatives or authoritarian parental control.” (367)

The main thesis of this paper, then, is that homeschooling tends to be a tool that will help foster just this sort of intimacy if the proper conditions are met.  One condition is that the parent is the right sort of parent.  Merry and Howell draw here on the work of family psychologists who have found over time five characteristics that make for successful parenting, or what they call attentive parenting.  Here they are:

1. Sensitivity to a child’s abilities, knowledge, beliefs, moods, etc., and a willingness to adapt parental expectations to these things.

2. Warmth, affection, and humor.

3. Clear articulation of parental expectations and justification of them so kids understand the rules and can apply them to novel situations.

4. Sincerity (by which they mean that parents don’t make kids do stuff they won’t do themselves–they’re not hypocrites).

5. Talent for helping kids think through their actions so they can learn how to make decisions and reason through the likely consequences of their actions.

Parents who are good at these 5 things are attentive parents.  Drawing on the work of Gary Wyatt (which I review here and here) they argue that attentive parents tend to be the most successful homeschoolers.  But “harsh, unyielding, insensitive, unexplained, ill-humored, unloving and over-controlling” parents tend to fare poorly at homeschooling and often quit out of frustration.

So assuming that a homeschooler is an attentive parent, the authors go on to assert that the intimacy they enjoy with their children is likely to be enhanced by homeschooling.  Why?  Two reasons.  First of all, given what was said above, homeschoolers have more opportunity for mutual knowledge and shared communication.  Secondly, public schools can actually decrease intimacy.  How?

Three ways:  Failure, bullying, and risk-taking behaviors.  In school a student may suffer a psychically damaging failure, be it academic, athletic, social, or whatever.  While this could become a positive growing experience, often it leads to a child withdrawing inward in a downward spiral that isolates him or her from the parents who aren’t privy to what has gone on in school.  So with bullying.  Merry and Howell cite empirical literature that “clearly indicates that bullying and harassment are widespread in public schools.” (371)  Again, such experiences can lead to withdrawal in children and a downward spiral that decreases familial intimacy.  Finally, the peer setting of public schools can often tempt children into unhealthy behaviors like drug and alcohol use, early sexual activity, and so on that again drive a wedge between parent and child and lead to a downward “cycle of depression, failure, and hopelessness.” (372)

But wait!  Aren’t there good things about schools that may trump this good of parent-child intimacy?  There are.  The authors mention three.  At least in theory, public education may foster 1. critical thinking and autonomy in kids, 2. equality of educational opportunity, and 3. public goods such as tolerance and mutual respect of people who are different.

The authors say that in some situations these goods may trump intimacy.  If it is the case, for example, that parents are not very attentive and the local public school is a model of integration, critical thinking, and tolerance, then their intimacy argument fails.  They are especially critical of the sort of restrictive parent who homeschools out of a desire to limit a student’s exposure to rival worldviews.

But are public schools really models of all of these social goods?  Some may be, but most public schools are not.  Many public schools restrict student expression and exposure to alternate ideas at least as profoundly as do some homeschoolers.  And as for equality of educational opportunity, it has been shown over and over that public schools have long been and continue to be “stratified by culture, social class or race and hence are not as heterogeneous as one may like to think.” (376)  Finally as to public goods, it is not at all clear that public education is good at producing graduates who are models of tolerance and civic high-mindedness.

In closing, the authors are clear that they are not making a generic argument that homeschooling is better than public schooling.  What they are saying is that their intimacy argument shows that homeschooling by attentive parents is better at securing the positive value of intimacy than public education, and that so long as the local public school is not really a model at fostering autonomy, facilitating bully-free relationships, or encouraging exposure to and tolerance of diversity, this intimacy argument beats arguments that would seek to curtail homeschooling liberties by appealing to autonomy, equality, or civility.

I found this a bracing and compelling argument.  Unlike most of what I review on this blog, this article is not really a piece of research.  It’s just a thought experiment.  As such things go, it’s quite good. Some homeschooling parents will not like the authors’ contention that authoritarianism makes for bad homeschooling, even though this is one of their only claims that actually does have solid empirical backing.  The irony here for authoritarian types is that their outlook is usually unsuccessful at doing what they most want to do–to make their kids in their own image.  As Merry and Howell explain, if you really want your kids to end up like you, attentive parenting is the best way to make it happen.  Doctrinaire authoritarianism breeds resentment and destroys intimacy.

The other place where this article actually had a solid empirical base was in its critique of public schooling.  I’ve found in my own encounters with colleagues at academic conferences that an initial skepticism toward homeschooling is softened considerably when I note that some of their fears about socialization or racial isolation apply at least as much to the typical public school.  Most of my colleagues (many of whom write articles and books about the history of racism, sexism, and classism in public education) quickly acknowledge this.

Merry and Howell do acknowledge that homeschooling, like private education, does have the potential negative social consequence of withdrawing the children of the best parents from the public school, which means that those children who remain will be even more likely to fall into the downward spiral of failure, bullying, and risky behaviors.  This was one of the arguments made so long ago by the architects of the 19th century common school, especially Horace Mann.  But as I point out in my book, though Mann made many pretty speeches trying to convince rich and well-adjusted Americans that it was their civic duty to put their kids in public school to help leaven the lump for everyone else, Mann himself had his wife teach their kids at home!  Today’s parents are the same way.  It may be the inescapable truth that most of us can’t help but love our own kids more than those of other people, and we’re not willing to sacrifice the wellbeing of ours for the possible benefit of those of our neighbors.  Said more simply, we don’t love our neighbors as ourselves, at least when it comes to our children.

Let me say in conclusion that Merry and Howell are NOT arguing that parents who don’t do things according to their preferred “attentive parenting” approach should not be allowed to homeschool.  All they’re saying is that such parents would not be able to justify what they’re doing by appealing to this intimacy argument they’ve concocted.  I can hear some homeschoolers retort, “well, why do we have to justify what we do anyway?”  With justification, some might see this article as a clever solution to a nonexistent problem.  But if you’re the sort that enjoys a rigiorous argument, there aren’t many pieces on homeschooling that you’ll find that are better constructed than this one.

First things first, I FINISHED MY SCARF! Here is my lovely scarf with my new fall coat. Doesn’t it match perfectly? Now I’m itching to make a matching hat and mitts. But friends come first right? My best friend has requested a pretty navy blue and white beret. I will try my best to fulfill all orders received.

Here it is! Big reveal!

 

I’m not sure why, but writing a novel makes me want to read more. I’ve been to the library about three times in the past two weeks and have at least fifteen books on my desk. I hardly have time to go to work, eat meals and write, let alone read! I’ve been avoiding writing for too long. Now it’s coming to bite me! I’ve added a  new button on the side -> and you can follow my Nanowrimo progress. It’s kind of nice to see the bar filling up to the final word count of 50,000.

So vampires! Twilight Saga: New Moon movie is coming out next Friday. I’m very very excited to see that. I watched Stephanie Meyer on Oprah this Friday. She explained her humbling story. She is a stay-at-home mom to three sons. She had a dream about a vampire and a girl in a meadow one night. After that she couldn’t stop thinking about it, and started to write. I’m hoping that one day I will have that kind of inspiration. As I read Twilight I could see the movie playing out in my head. It will be nice to see how the movie is in theatres.

Speaking of movies, I saw one of the worst ones in my life yesterday. “The Box” starring James Marsden and Cameron Diaz is supposed to be a thriller/suspense. The trailer looked pretty good and I assumed that such good actors would carefully choose their roles. I don’t even know how they sat through the premiere. I really wanted to walk out, but ended up wasting 2.5 hours of my life on this movie. Please, please don’t see it.  Or do, but be sure to agree with me. It was just as bad as Vanilla Sky with Tom Cruise. I guess a trailer can no longer be trusted, nor can good actors. They take roles and get conned into making horrible movies. I feel bad that I had to waste my SCENE points and my friend her hard-earned money.

Money. Often thought of as a taboo topic. I’ve been part of a little social experiment of my now (totally unintentional) when I purchased a $150 gift certificate as a gift that was to be split amongst 5 people. That’s a simple $30 per person. I’ve been chasing three of my friends for two weeks for payment. My credit card bill came due and I think I have a right to email them and request payment. Upon sharing this story with a co-worker she said her philosophy is this. When she lends money to someone, she thinks of it like giving them a gift. And if they happen to pay back, well then it’s a gift to her! Why does it have to be this way? I’m now wary of lending money to friends or having money owed to me. I really don’t want to have it get in between friendships, but I’m sorry, people just have to understand that when your credit card bill is due and the money is not in your account, I have all rights to act like a money-starved teenager asking their parents for allowance money! How teenagers get through their teen years is just amazing.

Another thing I’ve been wondering about for a long time is the socialization of children, i.e., when do boys and girls start getting segregated? When do we differentiate between them and give them dolls vs. trucks? And even more puzzling to me is how do we learn a language from birth? If Juan lives in a Spanish speaking country, he learns Spanish. Frederic lives in a French speaking place and learns French. I grew up in Canada and learnt English. But how does it happen? I want to know the steps. I was in the doctor’s office the other day and saw a mother teaching her daughter. Mother says “truck” daughter holds the truck and repeats “truck”. Ok, I got this one. But what about more complex things? Like teaching them education, grandfather, poem, home, family, etc. I know a lot of it has to do with facial expressions. From a very young age, babies learn to read their mother’s and father’s facial expressions. But how does the whole process work? What would happen if a child had a multitude of lanugages at their disposal, which one would they learn?

I leave you with a quote: When the student is ready, the master appears.  ~Buddhist Proverb

When you hear about children taking naps at school, do you picture something like this?

I used to.

Yesterday, Girl’s science teacher was out sick, so they had a substitute.  Unfortunately, some of the kids weren’t paying proper attention; but, rather than scream “SHUT UP!” at the kids, the woman turned off the lights and insisted that all of the kids put their heads on their desks for naps.  Then she proceeded to patrol the room, on the lookout for open-eyed non-nappers.

Yep.

“What about socialization?” is a question on the minds of many of my friends who had considered homeschooling their kids. Unfortunately, although they were convinced of the benefits of homeschooling, most of them eventually decided against homeschooling based on this one perceived problem of socialization, fearing that their kids would somehow become social misfits. In my last installment of this series (previous installments are here, here, and here), I’d like to ask the question: Is socialization a real problem for homeschooling or not? Could socialization actually be a benefit of homeschooling?

Some years ago I took a blood test and they told me I had a lot of “good cholesterol.” It was the first time I heard that there’s a distinction between good versus bad cholesterol. I realized that cholesterol ain’t so bad as long as you have more of the good kind. And one has to be intentional in eating more healthy food in order to absorb more good cholesterol.

Most people don’t realize that “socialization” is actually very much like “cholesterol” — there’s a distinction between good socialization versus bad socialization. Children don’t just need “socialization”; they need more of the good socialization but less of the bad socialization. And you be intentional in setting up situations/environments that promote good socialization instead of bad socialization.

I had my American high school experience in my first year in the United States. Studying as a senior in that school, I also got my first experience being discriminated simply because of my race. And I saw how peer pressure could influence people to act in foolish ways. Later I realized that schools can allow a lot of bad socialization to happen. When many misdeeds are overlooked and unpunished, when people can hurt and bully each other unnoticed and without consequences, when schools more concentrate on academic teaching but has little interest (nor authority nor wisdom) in teaching life skills and social skills, the result is kids learning exclusively from other kids on what social behavior is. Proverbs 13:20 says “He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm,” but with children growing up with no guidance on proper social behavior, you are effectively placed among a company of fools.

On the other hand, homeschooling offers parents the opportunity to intentionally seek for good socialization for their children, and they are a constant mentor and guide when it comes to dealing with socialization issues. In fact, often it is because many homeschool families worry about socialization that they seek socialization opportunities for their children all the more. Typically homeschooled children are more involved in their communities, participate in more activities and classes and sports and interest clubs, go on field trips at any time of the year. And these children have the freedom to pursue their interests while parents can be flexible in helping guide them to the necessary resources and means.

Numerous studies have shown that children learn more positive socialization skills from their parents and siblings than from schools. Research data show that homeschooled children are more well-adjusted in life, demonstrate higher self-esteem, are more equipped with leadership abilities, and excel in just about every socialization category. I’ve personally met many homeschoolers who conduct themselves in a respectful manner, show no traces of race-based nor age-based prejudice, and is able to carry on meaningful conversations with adults and children of all ages.

No wonder an increasing number of people are choosing homeschooling because of its socialization benefits. It is still ironic to me that most people are uninformed still think that socialization is the number one weakness of homeschooling, while, to me and to a lot of researchers, it’s actually among the strongest point of homeschooling.

This concludes my four part series on dispelling homeschooling myths. Lois Ding over at dinghome.net is actually just starting a series on Homeschooling Q & As, so I encourage you all to subscribe to it!

Related Links:
dinghome.net: Homeschooling Q & A (Part 2)
Socialization: Homeschoolers Are in the Real World
No, Really — What About Socialization?

When I first moved to Chicago, one of the biggest things I missed was socialization. Those of you who know me, know I LOVE people–all kinds of people, especially those I meet in my Choice Theory/Reality Therapy circles.

When I moved to Chicago, I didn’t know many people and I was really focused on building my business. That meant I was working in my home office often from morning till night. When my one friend who lives here would ask me to go somewhere socially, I would turn him down because I didn’t want to take the time away from working.

But, I was unhappy. My life was out of balance. I began to seek some type of networking group that would meet my social needs but also help with my business. I found a small group of social workers and therapists who met once a quarter for supporting each other and occasionally putting on training for the community.

They were mostly older than, in the field a long time and definitely medical model, not Choice Theory, oriented.  Yet, I felt genuinely accepted there and so I would attend the meetings whenever I could.

Well, I think it’s been a year since I was there last. I’ve missed their last four meetings. I showed up today with a new member and was greeted with literal open arms by the members. I got hugs, kisses and genuine inquiries into how I was doing. It felt so good and I want to have gratitude for this group of special, supportive women.

Where do you get your unconditional support? Where is your safe haven?