Socialization: Personal stories
This text is part of: "I would never send my kids to school" by Piotr Wozniak (2017)
For this book, I described a couple of examples of my own negative socialization. As these are rather tangential, I plan to publish those stories incrementally on demand. Writing those texts helped me crystallize the retrospective model of my own socialization. The texts may be less relevant for you. If you are curious though, please let me know.
During my time in primary school, I enjoyed the company of peers far more than the company of adults. There was only one exception: my brother who was 16 years older. My brother showed great interest in teaching me a thing or two about the natural world. Unfortunately, after graduating from college, he moved to places 200-300 km away. In his absence I experienced a great deal of bad behaviors and bad influences, from shoplifting to endangering lives (incl. my own). A great deal of my friends from my neighborhood ended up in prison, in addiction, or dead. Very few went to college. I might have been saved by moving to a better district with new friends and a clean slate at school. My mom, my sister or my granny surrounded me with a great deal of love, but their influence on my thinking seems to have been negligible. From the age of 10 or so, my growth and my direction were largely self-determined. Soon I managed to go straight, and outgrow all negative aspects of socialization at school.
Some stories I plan to write about:
- encounter with a pedophile
- school fights
- students contemplating murder or terrorism
- terrorist organization
- being bullied
- doing the bullying
- shoplifting
- alcohol and tobacco