There is homeschooling where your mom teaches you from home and there is homeschooling where your mom buys you a bunch of high school level books and says, "you have a test in six months." It's not illegal because I passed the test every year. I taught myself from 4th to 8th grade and surpassed the state's expectations. I don't know what kind of social reinforcement I missed. Anyone care to enlighten me? It seems like everyone else here learned that less fortunate countries get a free pass on stealing.
Careful now sean. I don't think 'everyone' thinks that the less fortunate should be held to a different standard than anyone else. Though some home school 'programs' do teach essentially that. I'll assume your home schooling did not have any religious component to it, not so much as learning about religions, but as teaching from a religious point of view.
In any case, I don't know what kind of social reinforcement you missed, but I also have been around enough to know that this nefarious social reinforcement is the boogy-man you seem to be scared of. Oh, it exists, and it can be problematic, but it's not so simple as to say 'you went to school, thus you were indoctrinated in <whatever it is that Sean is afraid we were indoctrinated in>'.
Schools can be good or bad, kids can be good or bad, parents can be good or bad...
You can have a good kid at a bad school with good parents and still get results. You can have a good kid at a good school with bad parents and still have a waste of humanity. There is nothing inherently evil about public education, or indeed, the educators.
On the other hand, I do agree that American society (and maybe others, but I can't speak as well for them) has dropped the ball on expecting *anyone* to actually take responsibility for their actions. This is not something limited to schools, and, indeed, in some schools they are actually trying to buck this trend, yes, even public schools, at least the ones my kids have attended. Of course it only really works when the majority of the community supports such a goal. Down the highway in our closest 'rival' school district the trend is the opposite, and the parents seem to be just looking for reasons to sue the schools, or otherwise make excuses for their utter failure to raise their kids with any sense of personal responsibility. [that should be taken generally, not everyone in that district behaves that way, though, those who do not tend to try and send their kids to the district I live in...]
