I was ‘unschooled’ in an unstructured homeschooling setting until I entered grade nine in the public system. So, for pretty much my entire life, I’ve been answering people’s questions about what it means to be homeschooled and how it works to follow an unschooled model for elementary education. With so many parents considering homeschooling this year, and with some of them at least curious about unschooling, I thought I’d take a minute and summarize some of the most frequent questions I’ve been asked throughout my life.
What does ‘unschooling’ mean?
Like much of the homeschooling experience, ‘unschooling’ can mean different things to different people and even the term itself is somewhat controversial (some folks object to a label that only speaks to what it is not and/or grounding the term in the concept of school itself). Generally speaking, though, the term is used to refer to unstructured learning which can occur in a homeschooling setting or alternative education program.
There are degrees to which different homeschooling parents choose to unschool. Some go with the ‘radical unschooling’ model which means to allow freedom and independent choice in almost all areas of life (i.e. no bedtimes, no rules about food or screen-time etc.). These parents trust that their children know what they need and will learn naturally as they move through life. Others who unschool, in my estimation the larger proportion of unschoolers, may have more family rules and/or use some form of school-like curriculum in combination with more unstructured learning.
In whatever form it is utilized, the similar thread for unschoolers is a trust of children’s natural instincts and drive to learn about the world around them and a decision to allow their children the freedom to explore their own learning paths without a lot of external regulation, assessment, or directing.
How does it work exactly? How do kids learn when they’re unschooling?
In most unschooling households, it means that the children have the freedom to choose their own activities and follow their own interests. Unschooling kids learn when life presents the opportunities to do so. Baking brings lessons in math, wanting to know how to play a new board game requires reading, going on a family hike offers a chance to explore geology or local history etc.
Unschooling parents become masters of the ‘teachable moment’. In doing so, they are not ‘playing teacher’ and turning life into a series of lectures or lessons but offering information and helping their children explore the world around them, seeking out answers and new experiences. Some parents like to include some regular work on core subjects like math and reading while others may have those materials on hand to offer as one of several different activity options for the children to choose between.
As unschoolers get older they may take on volunteer or intern positions in the community to support their interests and passions. Some embrace project-based learning or explore the arts, trades, or learning a foreign language. When supported with opportunities and encouragement, unschooling tweens and teens can end up doing an astounding amount of fascinating activities.
But what do you do all day?
When asked this as a child, my response was usually, ‘whatever I want’ which was essentially true. There were some constraining factors, most of which centred around the safety, well-being, and enjoyment of everyone else in the family. Looking at it now, I like to borrow from A.S. Neill, the founder of an unstructured school in the UK, and frame it as the idea that we were free to do what we wanted as long as our freedom didn’t impinge upon the freedom of others.
What that means for a day-to-day experience was that we didn’t have a certain time we had to get up, we ate what we wanted (within reason) when we were hungry, and we chose what we wanted to do based on the available opportunities at that moment.
Sometimes I chose to do math from a workbook, sometimes I wanted to do imaginary play with my older cousin. Often, I chose to read by myself. When we were all in the middle-grade range (6–10), my mom would read to us for a period in the afternoon, that was the one consistent academic-like activity that occurred, but even that was optional, no one had to sit and listen. At other times we took on projects or invented wildly detailed imaginary worlds in our Lego cities or spent hours building characters for Dungeons and Dragons games we never actually played.
We played a fair amount of computer and video games, or watched movies, and these were just regular activities for us, seen as no more or less valuable than doing math or science. Our family did a fair number of outings, going to places like the library, the Ontario Science Centre, various local conservation areas etc. as well as ‘extra-curricular’ activities like sports, swimming lessons and art classes.
Some unschooling families have more of a daily schedule used to help provide some structure to the day but still offer the ultimate choice of activity to the children (i.e. 1–2 is quiet time but how you spend that time is up to you etc). Like all homeschooling, unschooling is different for all families and it’s up to each family to determine what works best based on their specific needs, expectations and abilities.
But how do you learn to read?
For me personally? I don’t know how I did it, I don’t remember ever not being able to read. One day my mom was reading a book to me and after being interrupted was looking for her place on the page when I pointed it out and said ‘“that’s where you stopped”. She had no idea I was reading along with her, that I was capable of that.
Like I did, lots of unschoolers naturally come to reading when they reach a spot of combined personal desire and cognitive readiness. Listening to the written word, playing games with words and letter sounds, or singing songs, all contribute to a child’s understanding of language and their ability to eventually read.
Then again, lots of unschoolers also learn with more specific instruction or support from parents or others but the key tenant of unschooled learning is that it comes from the child’s own motivation. Unschooling doesn’t mean the parents never teach anything directly, it means the child chooses when, and usually how, they want to learn something. As such, there are a tonne of resources out there for parents who are helping their children learn to read when they are ready.
It can be hard for parents to be patient and wait for a child’s desire to focus on something as important as reading our world is one in which reading is necessary and this necessity will create the drive in all children to learn at some point.
Is ‘deschooling’ the same as ‘unschooling’?
No, and it’s a term actually used to refer to two different things. It was originally coined by Ivan Illich who used it to describe a societal process of moving away from the power and dominance of the school model of education.
When used by homeschoolers, however, most often it is used to describe the process by which children get used to the freedom of unschooling after being in school. This process can take many forms and last for various lengths of time.
After so much emphasis placed on learning in school, getting good grades, and the importance of doing well in that system, it can be confusing for a child to be suddenly told that they’re not going to do it anymore and their learning will be totally different from now on. Most unstructured schools expect children to go through ‘deschooling’ for about one month per year of traditional school they attended previously but it can vary wildly depending on the individual child and their personal experiences, needs and abilities.
Deschooling can look like: anxiety, frustration, boredom, anger, lethargy, sibling conflict, social withdrawal or a number of other conflicting emotions. Parental patience and understanding, and creating space for lots of discussion and reflection about the child’s feelings can help lessen the impact of deschooling on the family.
It is important for unschooling parents to recognize the process of deschooling and support their child through this transition rather than seeing it as a failing of the unschooling itself. In maintaining that support parents should know that it is not a linear process in which every child moves from A to B and then is ‘deschooled’ forever. Anxiety and tension around learning can return or increase because of a wide range of factors such as experiences of judgement or pressure from outside the family, especially as children get older and start to compare themselves to their schooled peers.
The deschooling process can pertain to the individual’s level of stress and uncertainty but also to how they see and approach learning. Even after just a short time in a traditional school, some kids will internalize a great deal about what ‘counts’ as learning, how learning should be accomplished and at what rate certain academic skills should be mastered.
To help support the deschooling experience, when children express worries about their learning, unschooling parents can offer support and encouragement, express their trust in the child as a natural learner, and help them problem-solve any specific issues they may be facing.
What makes unschooling so appealing to parents, why do they see it as a better option than structured learning?
I can’t speak for all parents here but my perspective on this is that it matches children’s natural learning processes and offers truly individualized learning which, in turn, offers a deeper engagement with what is learned as well as a host of other ‘soft’ skills and benefits.
I like to use the puzzle analogy: when doing a puzzle, if you have one corner already built (that’s your current understanding of the world), and someone hands you a piece, or a couple of pieces, and tells you they go in another section of the puzzle you haven’t gotten to on your own yet, you can put them in the correct spot and see where they will eventually belong but they’re disconnected from the full picture still. As you continue in this manner you will have patches of the puzzle completed but will only sometimes see how they connect to each other and, if you don’t know what the full picture is, they won’t really make sense nor help you with your understanding of the bigger image until later. If instead, you can seek out the next pieces to build out from what you already know of the bigger picture, each new extension will be grounded and linked to your broader knowledge of the puzzle which allows you to make further connections and add other pieces more easily as they come along. In this way, learning that is motivated by the individual’s curiosity or desire will be linked to their perception of the world, building from that foundation, rather than dropping in an unrelated skill or knowledge they have no use for in their own life.
When children are allowed to follow their own curiosity and build from the questions they have about the world as they experience it, they benefit from a deeper sense of ownership over what they’ve learned, a greater ability to extrapolate and use what they’ve learned, and a stronger sense of engagement with that learning.
This is why I support unschooling; it makes learning personal and relevant to the child resulting in not only deeper learning but also more self-awareness, creative thinking, and personal development. Not to mention less conflict over learning activities and expectations than when following an externally driven program.
Other benefits and skills supported in unschooling include, but are by no means limited to a sense of confidence in their ability to learn and take on new topics and hobbies, independence, project-completion and organization skills, problem-solving, self-motivation and discipline.
Do you have other questions? Post them below and I’ll do my best to answer them!
Originally published at https://www.livinglearning.ca on August 14, 2020.
