the trouble with home schooling...

While visiting with family this passed weeekend I got the opportunity to catch up with a cousin I hadn't seen or spoken to in about three years. He is a couple years older than I am, is married, and has children ages 6 and 8. They're a good Christian family and early on decided that homeschooling would be best for their children.

Now I agree public schools do a poor job of instilling good morals and respect, however I also feel that missing out on the public school experience also robs children of valuable real-world socialization.

Case in point: Saturday morning my cousin was driving his son and daughter and a 12 year-old little neighbor girl, Lizy, to his son's little league game. Lizy is African-American. En-route to the game my cousin came to a stop at a red light on a corner on which a young African-American male was sitting on his bike. Innocently enough, my cousin's 8 year-old son turns to Lizy and asks, "Hey Lizy, do you know him?"
"No!", responded Lizy with a wabble of her neck and a look of insult on her face.
"He's black...", pointed out my cousin's son as if it weren't obviously apparent to her. Making the assumption that because she's black and the guy on the corner is black that they should have some kind of relation.

In the kid's defense, there are only a handful of African-Americans in their small town. So the odds that there would be some relation, be it relative or acquaintance, are pretty good. However, coming from a little freckled white boy (my cousin married a Caucasian) it doesn't sound right. Good thing my cousin and his wife are considering enrolling them in school next year. Better they ask these ignorant questions and learn now, than as teenagers and they get their asses kicked.