I've been struggling with this as well. I feel like my kids go into elementary school and spend ~7 hours (most of the day) not really learning anything. They come home and do "home work" only for myself and my spouse to teach them only for them to eat, sleep and do it again the next day.
I feel like it has eradicated much of the family time for bonding. The only reason we hesitate to take them out of school is the socialization aspect.
I've met a lot of people who spent most of their lives at school and still end up with social issues. I understand where you're coming from; just pointing out that school is not always good socialization or the only way to socialize children.
> that school is not always good socialization or the only way to socialize children.
Typically it is the option within reach.
We've eradicated free ranging & natural adult-free peer time. What's left are adult-built programs. They're artificial constructs and they take real time and money to be reliably available.
I had 5 kids. I spent 10x time (per child) parenting, compared to my parents. My kids had a busier life than I did but they were still shortchanged.
Every home-schooled person I've ever met, I didn't need to be told they were home-schooled because it was obvious after a few minutes that they were, and a few minutes later they wove it into the conversation.
They've also almost universally been incredibly smug, self-righteous people who talked to everyone around them like we were unwashed, unenlightened souls who were to be pitied for having gone through a public school education.
> The only reason we hesitate to take them out of school is the socialization aspect.
You really hit the nail on the head for me here. I see that kids need to work with large, consistent, groups of their peers for years to learn all of the skills needed to be socially competent (work and play). Many don’t get this and it can really show when they move into adulthood.
It is interesting that the OP wrote "not really learning anything", then talked about the social aspect. That _is_ learning. For most people in this world, they won't be on the STEM track. In these cases, having well-developed social skills is crucial to your adult life. And, even the STEM track, those with better social skills are usually more successful, excluding the extreme minority of "head-down" STEM types who barely need to talk with anyone to be very successful.
Well-developed social skills matter for kinds on STEM track as much. It is not just that you get more successful if you don't have them, it is that you become impossible to work with.
Everyone I know who was homeschooled in grade school went to college and learned how to socialize like an adult there. That's an environment that's ideal for learning how to socialize. Not a few brief minutes a day on the bus or in between classes.
I don't think an authoritarian regime with one adult and 30 other children of the exact same age cohort provides as much socialization benefit as people think it does. Kids rarely get much time to even talk to each other in grade school.
All the research I've seen in this area indicates it would be far better for kids to be in mixed age classrooms that are democratic with several adults, but that costs more and no one wants taxes to go up.
I know many homeschoolers, they had a smidge of difficulty adjusting in college, and then they learned to socialize in that environment which is much more effective for learning how to socialize.
> Kids rarely get much time to even talk to each other in grade school.
This is not true, at least in our school. They interacted quite a lot. It is not like they would had 7 hours straight of learning and nothing else, there was quite a lot of literally dedicated playtime where teachers done only general supervision.
That's true that little kids get playtime, but that tapers off pretty quickly before adolescence. You don't see 12th graders with significant time to talk and play unless they are in after school sports.
Which is kind of my point, one could homeschool for academics and then supplement with after school sports for socialization.
I feel like it has eradicated much of the family time for bonding. The only reason we hesitate to take them out of school is the socialization aspect.