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Socialization, in practical terms, is teaching someone how to behave around people in the world they live in. The world I live in is full of people of all ages, cultures, and economic backgrounds who have varied skills, careers, and hobbies. In a quality homeschool environment children interact with the whole spectrum of humanity.

Homeschoolers learn skills from their older siblings, help care for younger siblings, do chores for their neighbors, visit behind the scenes of various occupations, and learn the practicalities of life from buying groceries to building houses. Putting a seven-year-old child in a room with two dozen seven-year-olds only teaches that child what seven-year-olds know. The teacher's main job is crowd control and a specific student is lucky if they get five minutes of individual time a day with their instructor. If you want to teach a child how to eventually become an adult member of their society, you need to let them grow up as a contributing part of that society. Socialization will take care of itself.

American public education was designed in the age of industrialization to take a diverse mix of children (many of whom had recently immigrated to this country with their families) and make them ideal factory workers. Schools were designed around the assembly line ideal with the child as the product, advanced from one grade to another. Weld on some language skills here, screw on some basic math bolts there, and after some testing, pass the product into society as approved for work in the factory. Even our factories (and my homeschooled children have toured many different types) are not looking for workers who can mindlessly follow the pattern. From interviews my children have had with employees factories are looking for people who think "originally," are "self-motivated," and who can relate to a wide variety of people and situations.

My children have learned their school subjects in the course of living life: working, playing, traveling, exploring, experimenting, researching. Their calendars are full of birthday parties, sleepovers, and outings to everything from the movies to bowling. They make friends their own ages at church, at hobby or sports-related events, and at work. New friends can be found on almost any outing because my children are not intimidated to go up to somebody at the bookstore who seems interested in the same type of books as they are and introduce themselves. But in addition to peers, they have friends of all ages. After

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