Public School Vs Homeschool Socialization

What Does True Socialization Look Like?

"What about socialization?" This is the first question that pops out of the mouth of the uninformed when they hear about a family who homeschools. They seem to imagine children who act as though they were raised by wolves or who are totally unable to carry on intelligent conversations with those residing outside their own household.

Here is the official definition of the word "socialization":
so•cial•i•za•tion (s sh -l -z sh n)
n. The process of learning interpersonal and interactional skills that are in conformity with the values of one's society.

The public school's primary mission is to educate. Socializing is discouraged in most settings. Children are not supposed to talk in the classroom, in the hallway and in some schools, not even in the cafeteria. Thus, most socializing takes place at the unsupervised setting of the playground; the values most children pick up at recess are not exactly in conformity with the better morals of our society. Issues such as bullying, drugs, sexual talk and actions, and the establishment of an unfair pecking order do not meet up with the expected norms of adult life. What little bit of allowable socializing in the classroom setting is artificial, institutional and generic. Where in the "real world" or workplace are adults expected to interact with 20 to 30 people of one's own age and not those who are younger or older?