SOCIALIZATION? Regular readers have long known what that means, and whether or not it's useful. Time, anyway, for a refresher course. Joanne Jacobs has picked up a defense of the common schools that has drawn fire from homeschoolers clear on the concept. Here's Woody's Roundup.

Quite frankly, the way so many parents are raising their kids today, I really don't want mine socializing with most of them.

No doubt some education theorist would gripe about the hegemonic biases in that post. Imagine suggesting that the common schools ought be teaching the lower orders how to behave. The horror! Natalie's Nexus quotes a letter to the defender that gets socialization.

And socialization -- don't even get me started! No matter how many play dates and group classes or field trips a homeschooler participates in, there are so many lessons that a child can only learn on a public-school playground! This is where kids learn to stick up for themselves, where they discover their place in society, and where they find out who their real friends are.

The good news is that playground society is not necessarily prefigurative of adult society. Life after college ... sorry to keep repeating myself, but apparently the academic establishment is full of slow learners ... is the revenge of the nerds.