Unschooling

What is Unschooling?

Have you ever described ‘red’ to a person who is color blind? Sometimes, trying to define unschooling is like trying to define red. Ask 30 unschoolers to define the word and you’ll get thirty shades of red. They’ll all be red, but they’ll all be different. Generally, unschoolers are concerned with learning or becoming educated, not with ‘doing school.’ The focus is upon the choices made by each individual learner, and those choices can vary according to learning style and personality type. There is no one way to unschool.

If you don’t do school, what do you do?

Read, play, sing, dance, grow things, write. All of these things and more are things unschoolers do. We do them because they interest us and bring us joy or because they help us accomplish our dreams. We do the things that have meaning in our lives and contained within those activities is real learning.

You mean I’m supposed to let them run wild?

Unschooling doesn’t mean not being a parent. Children need loving adults interested in helping them grow and learn. Choosing to build a lego village will include the opportunity to learn math and culture, maybe even history depending on the type of village. We do chores, have a family life, and participate in the wider community. The children are actively engaged in living and learning during all of this.

But what about math?

It’s easy to see how children can learn many things without using traditional, formal methods of teaching, but many people see math as a huge stumbling block, mainly, because most of us have learned to hate math because of the way it was taught in school. There are a great many ways to encounter math in the real world. Geometry can be found in quilt making, algebra in painting a room. Shifting perspectives, from textbooks to the real world is sometimes difficult, but math that is actually used is math truly learned.

Is this legal?

Yes. Each state has its own specific guidelines that many unschoolers choose to live within. Some, like NY, are more difficult than some others, but there are unschoolers in every state in the union. Below is a link to the law for each of the 50 states. Choose your state to see the law and for information on how unschoolers are meeting that law.

How do you know they are learning?

You will know by listening to them speak, by watching them play, just by being with them. You will know they are leaning at 8 the same way you knew they were learning at 18 months. You will see them use their skills and knowledge. This does take some effort on the part of the parent. The information is not contained on a worksheet or within a report. It is not all nice and neat and tied up with a grade. It’s spread out over the course of the day while the children are living their lives. You have to be observant and tuned into your child, in order to know. The nice thing about this is that it’s great fun to observe your children so closely, to be so in tune with their lives. It brings contentment to both parent and child to know each other so well.

What about discipline?

What most people mean when they ask about discipline is not the external system of punishment and rewards, but of an internal understanding of self discipline. Jumping through onerous academic hoops will not necessarily lead to self discipline. Our children gain a sense of how important self discipline is by watching us. Our ability to model a self disciplined life is much more powerful than handing in book reports in time. Helping children reach their own goals will mean there will be plenty of opportunities to discuss stick-to-itiveness, follow through, and how sometimes it’s worth doing the things that are no fun in order to reach the desired goal. These lessons have much more meaning when they are in conjuction with goals the children set for themselves.

Can unschooling be structured?

It depends on what you mean by structure. Imposing external structure onto the learner, by specifying materials and methods, is not unschooling. A person creating structure to suit his or her own purpose, that is unschooling. Some people are by nature methodical, and we want our children to respect and work with their own internal rhythms. Our job as parent is to help them create what they need. For example, it is entirely possible that one child will learn everything in a more relaxed, free flowing way, except for one subject- perhaps history. With history that child may want a time line and a access to materials in chronological order. If it works for the child and is created at the behest of the child, then structured, methodical learning is also unschooling.

Adapted with permission from the Unschooling.com website. All content copyrighted.