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The word "socialization" has two distinct, yet related meanings.  
 
so·cial·i·za·tion  
1. the activity of mixing socially with others.  
2. the process of learning to behave in a way that is acceptable to society.  
 
Schooling primarily focuses on definition #2, the learning of behaviours that are acceptable to society. There are very specific social agendas historically built into the system that are largely driven by the need for the population to be good consumers, good workers and obedient to government. Yes, we educate as well, but that's almost the by-product within that framework. I'm not saying school is bad - my kids are all enrolled in school - but we send our kids to school for education without necessarily realizing the larger framework from which it operates.  
 
John Taylor Gatto, a famous unschooling advocate, states that while we talk about schools failing, they are in fact a spectacular success precisely because they do such a good job socializing us, which is the ultimate goal (Gatto was also a school teacher who won NY State Teacher of Year not once, but twice).  
 
When you look at it from that standpoint, the situation you describe shows that the socialization process is indeed very successful. Screens = consumerism in our culture. It also provides a medium in which to influence large segments of the population.  
 
Ultimately, the first and primary unit of socialization for a child is and should be the family. But when we are also socialized in the same manner as our children? How do we overcome that programming?  
 
It's a tricky situation to navigate.

Just because someone manages to get into University I do not think that changes their feedings of "Me First - Me deserves it" at all  
 
A couple of years ago I was co-teaching a University of Manitoba course with a Professor who actually had taught me in 1970 to 72. We gave 3rd-year students a commercial computer program specific to the lesson, 3 hours of hands-on teaching of how to use the program and then assigned what would have been in the real world a couple of very simple exercises as a homework project.  
The students went to the department head and said it was too hard and too much work and they did not want to do it.  
Lazy, self-centered students. The professor said in all his years this was the worst class he ever met. He retired never to teach again and I never went back.  
Students have changed their attitude and focus over the last few decades, and not for the betterment of themselves or society.

I don’t know how education works in any province other than Manitoba, but it’s not good here. My son graduated in 2014. He’s not an academic kid, hated school, we struggled to keep him there to get his grade 12, but he did it. In grade 11, the teacher for his essential math class (who was also the principal) told me that the whole class would not finish all the work required by the end of grade 11 and would be starting grade 12 finishing off the essential math from grade 11. Some s$&t hit the fan somewhere within the school division over the summer and come September, the principal had been moved to another school within the division and we had a new principal. And suddenly the entire class had passed!  
 
The rest of my kids are still in the school system. We have been incredibly lucky with their teachers, they are all doing well and like school. But....comparing the education to that in the UK, where I went to school, it is not hard to see why things are below standard. In the UK, at least when I went to school (1984-1998), we started a year earlier and took our first lot of high school exams at age 16 (grade 11). These were in many subjects, some compulsory and some optional. After that, we were free to leave to go to work or stay on to complete grades 12 and 13 to take further courses in 3-4 specific subjects with a view to what we wanted to study at university or we could start an apprenticeship or vocational courses. For those high school courses with exams taken in grades 11 and 13, teachers NEVER EVER set their own exams if those exams were to be counted towards a final grade. There are exam boards who set the curriculum for a given subject, they set all the coursework and write and mark the exam papers. There are many exam boards, so a school is free to choose which board they want to use. There’s none of this business that we have here where if a teacher has not managed to get through all of the course material, they just don’t i:nclude questions on it in their exam. The exam boards write the exam papers and all of the curriculum can be in that exam, so teachers HAVE to finish teaching the course or all their students will get bad marks and their job would be on the line. Exam papers are delivered to the schools in tamper evident packaging and are not opened until all the students are sitting in the exam hall. At the end of the exam, they are collected, sealed up again and sent back to the exam board for marking. If a student misses an exam, there is no sitting the same paper the next day or week. They have to wait until the next sitting of that exam and take a different paper.  
 
Courses chosen in grades 12 and 13 are equivalent to the first couple of years of university here meaning that students then go straight from grade 13 into the degree program of their choice provided they make the grades.  
 
My high school age daughter told me that for one of her subjects last semester, they did not complete all chapters set for the course. Yet she still managed to pull off a 94% in the exam. I’m pretty sure the teacher simply did not i:nclude questions from the chapters that had not been completed in the exam or else even students that usually do well would have got low marks and the fact that the teacher didn’t finish teaching the course would have been obvious. This allows standards to remain low with no consequences. Combine that with that fact that everyone gets a medal and no one can fail because it might hurt their feelings and it is no wonder things are as bad as they are.  
 
I would be interested to know the school system works in provinces that perform better than Manitoba. Do any of them use exam boards to administer their high school courses?

blame the parents who cried to the school boards and education system back in the late 90's. They are the ones who started this dumbing down of the kids education. The no one is left behind, kids can't get hurt, bubble-wrapping, participation medal generation of parents. So many of those parents are now in their 40's, 50's and early 60's.

The qualifications for top tier professionals will never accept or qualify bottom tenth percentile students..but yeah...I actually would like a socially intelligent surgeon, are you saying you wouldn’t? Do you know how difficult it is to become a lawyer? You need high 90’s and tons of other extra curricular qualifications just to get into the classes for those careers. You need to be saying “do you want a socially intelligent friendly nutritionist or massage therapist, etc. my answer to that is also yes”

So then who monitors if a student is socially acceptable enough for higher education?.... well I guess public school system should introduce standardized testing for that one too.... lol... this is ridiculous, the idea that homeschooled kids are more socially awkward is a very wrong opinion, and is a complete stereotype. Oddly enough, it's becoming more and more normal for universities to actually accept homeschoolers over public schoolers. Why you may ask? Because by the high school years, most homeschoolers are self learning and self motivated which is exactly what secondary education is all about. It is a huge pitfall from compulsory education.  
 
The idea to send kids to school for 8 hours a day for the main idea socializing is totally ridiculous , we can understand it isn't for education, otherwise our Manitoba schools would be ranked much higher... hats off to any homeschooling families that are giving their kids a great education. Statistics prove that homeschoolers have an average of 85th percentile and public school students are an average of 50th. That is fact and for some reason no one wants to talk about that HUGE difference.  
 
Homeschoolers dominate the statistics on every level when it comes against public schoolers, so why do we not as a society stand behind them? Instead we are all here complaining about how they will be oh-so socially inept... lol they are going to be filling up those university seats and moping the floor with us as they do it. LOL  
 
Edited by SuperheroAmongYou, 2020-02-09 08:36:14

Consider this quote by John D. Rockefeller, philanthropist and one of the masterminds behind compulsory schooling:  
 
“I don’t want a nation of thinkers, I want a nation of workers.”

I am not a teacher. I am not an educator. But what I can say is this seemingly pervasive "kids are SUCH spoiled snowflakes!" attitude is not at all helpful. It's hilarious really, considering how most of these people spewing this nonsense seem to forget who exactly RAISED those children.  
 
A comment from a former educator earlier had it right. Do some research into what works elsewhere, and how we can translate that into our curriculum.  
I don't CARE how old people "just sucked it up and walked 20 miles to school after 5 hours of chores". I don't care what worked for YOU. Things change. And if used correctly, technology can be a helpful tool. The world can be the classroom (instead of just a flawed person and a standardized book).  
 
I'm reminded (oddly enough) of a conversation I walked into between a few writers who "didn't get" people who only read fiction. I don't recall now exactly what the reasoning was (hopefully not perceived ignorance), but the whole thing struck me as very narrow-minded.  
In the realm of the word, background topics that make up both fiction and non-fiction are not exclusive. With some imagination, you can use the vehicle of fiction to shed light on an issue in the realm of non-fiction (I'm in the midst of such a project, myself).  
 
Maybe not entirely pertinent. However, when I read "I taught A(!) class a few years ago and all the students were lazy, therefore all the young are lazy!", it tells me more about your bias than about that class.  
 
If I use my case, my brain is much more capable than I gave it credit for when I was young. I can't credit that to the Manitoba education system that I dropped out of in grade 12, even though I graduated 3 years later. I was more compelled by an introduction to philosophy, and the way such makes one look at the world in new ways.  
 
No, I'm not going to advocate philosophy in school. I' de love to, but I know where that usually leads ("as if kids don't navel-gaze enough as it is!").  
 
My point is more, we need to think outside the box. The old way is not working anymore. So instead of blaming the patient, let's have a look at the treatment.  
 
Edited by Simonwalcal, 2020-02-09 09:04:47

I am wondering if you could link some of the sources regarding statistics of home schooled children vs public school. I would very much like to read that info as that does seem like a huge gap. You are correct in that if the difference is that significant, it should definitely be talked about more.

It is, in fact, incredibly easy to find info about it, a quick 2 minute google search would get the same answers I can provide. Although I wil attach 1 link I had off hand:  
 
-The home-educated typically score 15 to 30 percentile points above public-school students on standardized academic achievement tests... A 2015 study found Black homeschool students to be scoring 23 to 42 percentile points above Black public school students (Ray, 2015)."  
 
 
It is that large and significant of a gap.  
 
https://www.nheri.org/research-facts-on-homeschooling/

To me I think homeschoolers probably don't want this information blasted from the hilltops, because I'm sure they know as soon as that happens people will be sticking their sticky fingers into their business and starting to put unnecessary regulations onto the whole "home education" thing... if I had a gold mine, I wouldn't want to tell the world, because then we all know it would be robbed

I do find this interesting. I think you make a good case for homeschooling in certain situations. Lumping all homeschooling together is problematic as there is considerable difference between structured and unstructured home school practice. It is the students in structured home schooling programs that excel. Given this, it would be interested to know if this higher performance is do to learning in the home, considerably more one on one attention from the parent/teacher or a combination of both.

Not to distract from the point of this thread, but 80% of the research information on the attached link is by the author of the website - ie the website is proving its point by citing research done by themselves. I'd be more accepting of this if more peer-reviewed references were cited.

This was one source, there have been many many studies and lots of research done on this topic, no need to try and discredit something that, like I've said before, a quick google search and you could have piles of sources....

Here's an idea, if you want change, elect it. Stop voting for cuts to education funding and then blaming it on children.  
 
The comments in this thread are REALLY highlighting the issue we have in this province with education outcomes.

I will counter the funding argument by saying that funding "cuts" have been significantly exaggerated and by indicating that, even when funding cuts were not a talking point, our education levels were in decline.  
 
https://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/finance/frame_report/2018-19_frame_budget.pdf  
 
https://www.cbc.ca/manitoba/features/education-rankings/

One thing we have to understand is that literacy rates have been in a constant decline for a very very long time. This isn't a problem of cut funding or anything of that sort, the system itself is broken! Why on earth would North American schools (US and Canada) both be BELOW the average in literacy , math and problem-solving! That's crazy! Canada is ranked "C" as a whole! Awful! Manitoba is worse off then even that! These are facts....  
 
But then we have to remember, schooling was never brought in to EDUCATE, it was brought in to "school." There is a huge difference... the system is broken if we look at it as a job in educating, but if we look at its job at schooling, it's doing exactly what it was created to do....

From the executive summaries PISA 2018  
Canada appears to be doing a fantastic job educating our youth.  
 
PISA is the study that this thread is based on.  
The countries are listed by performance.  
 
Edited by loeog, 2020-02-11 08:38:48

In response to the PISA scores, here is an article:  
 
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/theconversation.com/amp/why-canada-fails-to-be-an-education-superpower-82558  
 
Interesting enough, just because we look higher doesn't mean we are doing any better than past years  
.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2019/nov/pisa-education-ranking-naming-canada-superpower-misleading  
 
QUOTE:  
 
"When looking at the PISA data the researchers found that only around half of 15-year-olds in Canada were covered within the PISA assessment compared to 90% or more of 15-year-olds in Japan and South Korea. One of the reasons fewer students took part was because schools in Canada were more likely to refuse to take part. This was a particularly big problem in Quebec, where less than half the schools approached agreed to participate. Secondly, Canada was much more likely to exclude pupils from taking the PISA assessment for reasons such as special educational needs – a group who are likely to be very low achievers. In total, 7.5% of 15-year-olds were excluded in Canada compared to 2.4% in Japan and less than 1% in South Korea.Finally, students in Canada were less likely to actually sit the PISA assessment – even within schools that agreed to take part. The figures show that one-in-five Canadian teenagers were counted as absent on the day of the PISA test compared to less than 3% of those in Japan and South Korea."  
 
Sure we can score high when only the high ranked students attend, but that doesn't give a clear true example of our education program, in fact it makes us look even worse ! We exclude low ranking students to make us look better!! Lol how horrible is that!? If we were so good we would have to manipulate the system to our benefit  
 
Edited by SuperheroAmongYou, 2020-02-11 09:05:32

I just thought I would add my two cents to this discussion.  
 
I have several perspectives -my kids homeschooled, my kids are now going to public school, and I substitute teach.  
 
On socialization -I agree with 'superheroamongyou'. Also, when my eldest daughter went to high school for the first time the biggest problem with socialization was that every single kid stared at their phone during their downtimes. My daughter didn't grow up staring at devices and only used them sparingly (also -no social media). The only social problem she had was that no one was actually socializing! I actually encouraged her to get instagram just so that she could make some contact with these kids. She ended up deleting it off her phone after a few months because she found it too addicting.  
 
On grades -all of my kids have excellent grades in school after homeschooling for many years. My eldest homeschooled almost her whole education and now has all A+ in high school. Her work ethic is incredible. I attribute it to having my one-on-one attention and having freedom to spend as little or as much time needed on any given topic. Plus being surrounded by loved ones all day can't hurt!  
 
Classroom environment -I just started subbing (in Wpg). I am blown away at how the classroom environment has changed since I was a kid (or at least how I remember it). The kids never stop talking! I spend a considerable amount of time quieting the kids down so that we can get back to learning (which should be fun -because it is music class). I know I am a sub, so it goes with the territory -but many of kids told me that they behave like that for their regular teacher as well. I feel so bad for the kids who want to learn -and for the kids that find the noise overstimulating (I sure do). My own kids have complained about the noise in their classrooms as well. My youngest says the noise in some of her classes gives her headaches. Anyway, I am contemplating bringing paper and pencils to give my students so that they can write notes to each other like the olden days -at least it would be quieter! Anyway, as a sub teacher I am not going to give up. I have to crack the code as to how to get the kids engaged and keep their attention.  
 
Just my two cents!

It's pretty sad that my 19 year old nephew whose still in high school, and he can't read/understand a 3 page article and write 2 paragraphs of his own thoughts on it.

If you are aware that Canada is listed as an education powerhouse by the PISA study this thread is based on, why did you post the following  
 
“Why on earth would North American schools (US and Canada) both be BELOW the average in literacy , math and problem-solving! That's crazy! Canada is ranked "C" as a whole! Awful! Manitoba is worse off then even that! These are facts.... ”  
 
Canada has an amazing educational system. Even with Manitoba’s results, Manitoba compares very high compared to world results.  
 
See attached chart for real PISA world rankings by country

Want to home school your kid? Go for it. Your 19 year old nephew is a little dim...why don’t you take some time and teach him to read instead of shaking your head? At the end of the day you know all the grumpy old adults were all saying the exact same things about us when we were in school, right? You know all the adults working minimum wage jobs all went to the great schools you’re all trumpeting...

This response made me chuckle. You are very correct. I mentioned earlier in the thread that many of these responses are pointing fingers at teachers and students but are failing to take responsibility for the education of the children around them as well.  
 
Maybe parents can't teach calculus but they should be teaching how to cook, clean, organize, stay motivated, change a tire, critical thinking, etc etc. Though I suppose it's hard to teach those things to your kids if you don't know how to do them yourself.

We've been talking about how the world has been going to hell every 30 years since Neanderthals figured out how to differentiate between whoops and grunts. Most of the people who tell you all these stories about how incompetent kids are today, needed those same kids to set up their phone that morning.  
 
To be fair...those kids that had to set up their grandmas cell phone also talk about how out of touch and useless their parents/grandparents are, now that all the technology that powered the world up until the mid 90's is obsolete..along with the teaching, learning and all around ways of thinking that went along with it.

In response to the comment directed at me. PISA is a bad representation of truth about Canada's education system because not all students partake, and the "lower" students aren't even allowed to take it. So really, if we only allow the elite to take a test, does it really show our true standings? No. If you look at the ranking of Canada's education by the Conference Board of Canada you'll see that we really we score A's in "student resilience" (what?!), "high school" attainment (we push kids through, so that's no achievement ) and "equity in outcomes"...... in reading, writing and math Canada scored D's and C's across the board. Those "fluffy" A's raised our score, but our actually education is failing

It's "naysayers" not neigh sayers. Unless you are literally speaking about horses.