Unschooling

The term "unschooling" probably derives from Ivan Illich's term "deschooling", and was popularized through John Holt's newsletter Growing Without Schooling. In an early essay, Holt contrasted the two terms:

GWS will say 'unschooling' when we mean taking children out of school, and 'deschooling' when we mean changing the laws to make schools non-compulsory...[3]

At this point the term was equivalent with "home schooling" (itself a neologism). Subsequently, home schoolers began to differentiate between various educational philosophies within home schooling. The term "unschooling" became used as a contrast to versions of home schooling that were perceived as politically and pedagogically "school-like," using textbooks and exercises at home, the same way they would be used at school. In 2003, in Holt's book Teach Your Own (originally published in 1981) Pat Farenga, co-author of the new edition, provided a definition:

When pressed, I define unschooling as allowing children as much freedom to learn in the world as their parents can comfortably bear.[4]

In the same passage Holt stated that he was not entirely comfortable with this term, and that he would have preferred the term "living". Holt's use of the term emphasizes learning as a natural process, integrated into the spaces and activities of everyday life, and not benefiting from adult manipulation. It follows closely on the themes of educational philosophies proposed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Paul Goodman, and A.S. Neill.

After Holt's death a range of unschooling practitioners and observers defined the term in various ways. For instance, the Freechild Project defines unschooling as:

the process of learning through life, without formalized or institutionalized classrooms or schoolwork.[5]

New Mexico homeschooling parent Sandra Dodd proposed the term "Radical Unschooling" to emphasize the complete rejection of any distinction between educational and non-educational activities.[6] Radical Unschooling emphasizes that unschooling is a non-coercive, cooperative practice, and seeks to promote those values in all areas of life. These usages share an opposition to traditional schooling techniques and the social construction of schools. Most emphasize the integration of learning into the everyday life of the family and wider community. Points of disagreement include whether unschooling is primarily defined by the initiative of the learner and their control over the curriculum, or by the techniques, methods, and spaces being used.

Dr Peter Gray suggested the term self-directed education, which has fewer negative connotations.

Unschoolers question schools for lessening the parent/child bond and reducing family time and creating atmospheres of fear, or atmospheres that are not conducive for learning and may not even correspond with later success.

Often those in school have a community consisting mainly of a peer group, of which the parent has little influence and even knowledge. Unschoolers may have time to share a role in their greater community, therefore relating more to older and younger individuals and finding their place within more diverse groups of people. Parents of school children also have little say regarding who their instructors and teachers are, whereas parents of unschoolers may be more involved in the selection of the coaches or mentors their children work with and with whom they build lasting and ongoing relationships.

According to unschooling pioneer John Holt, child-led learning is more efficient and respectful of children's time, takes advantage of their interests, and allows deeper exploration of subjects than what is possible in conventional education.

"...the anxiety children feel at constantly being tested, their fear of failure, punishment, and disgrace, severely reduces their ability both to perceive and to remember, and drives them away from the material being studied into strategies for fooling teachers into thinking they know what they really don't know."

Others point out that some schools can be non-coercive and cooperative, in a manner consistent with the philosophies behind unschooling.[7] Sudbury model schools are non-coercive, non-indoctrinative, cooperative, democratically run partnerships between children and adults, including full parents' partnership, where learning is individualized and child-led, and complements home education.[7]

Unschooling is a form of home education, which is the education of children at home rather than in a school. Home education is often considered synonymous with homeschooling.

Unschooling contrasts with other forms of home education in that the student's education is not directed by a teacher and curriculum. Unschooling is a real-world implementation of "The Open Classroom" methods promoted in the late 1960s and early 1970s, without the school, classrooms or grades. Parents who unschool their children act as facilitators, providing a range of resources, helping their children access, navigate, and make sense of the world, and aiding them in making and implementing goals and plans for both the distant and immediate future. Unschooling expands from children's natural curiosity as an extension of their interests, concerns, needs, goals, and plans.

Concerns about socialization can be a factor in the decision to unschool. Some unschoolers believe that conditions in conventional schools, such as age segregation, the ratio of children to adults, or the amount of time spent sitting, are not conducive to proper education.[20]

Unschooling is claimed to broaden the diversity of people or places an unschooler may be exposed to. Unschoolers may be more mature than their schooled peers on average,[21][22] and some believe this is a result of the wide range of people they have the opportunity to interact with.[23] Opportunities for unschoolers to meet and interact with other unschoolers has increased in recent years, allowing unschoolers to have interactions with other children with similar experiences.[24]

• Worldschooling, in which families travel around the world and learn through traveling and experiencing other cultures.
• Project-based homeschooling, which holds that students acquire a deeper knowledge through active exploration of real-world challenges, problems and projects that they can do in their own time.
• Gameschooling, in which board and card games are important to homeschool learning method, and educational philosophy. In addition to developing skills in math, english, history, board games are also used to develop social skills such as interpersonal communication, negotiation, persuasion, and moral character such as good sportsmanship.[25]

Some unschooling families may incorporate the following philosophies into their lifestyles.

• Unconditional Parenting and Punished by Rewards, parenting and education books by Alfie Kohn.
• The Continuum Concept, Attachment Parenting, and Attachment Theory, theories and practices attempting to encourage the child's development.
• Voluntaryism: the idea that all forms of human association should be voluntary, as far as possible. Consequently, voluntaryism opposes the initiation of aggressive force or coercion.

Many other forms of alternative education also place a great deal of importance on student control of learning, albeit not necessarily of the individual learner. This includes free democratic schools, like the Sudbury school, Stonesoup School and "open learning" virtual universities.

Questions about the merits of unschooling raise concerns on its absence of the following qualities, compared to established systems:

• Socialization – schools provide a ready-made group of peers, but unschooled children need other ways to make friends in their age group.[2][26]
• Isolation – a child might not encounter people of other cultures, worldviews, and socioeconomic groups if they are not enrolled in a school. Of course, a school is not necessarily a place that is guaranteed to provide such a range of experiences, either.[26]
• Qualifications – some parents may not have the skills required to guide and advise their children in life skills or help them pursue their own interests.[27][28]
• Development – children won't learn what they need to know in their adult lives.[26][27]
• Standardization – a child may not learn the same things a regular-schooling peer does unless an educational professional controls what material is covered.[28] In a 2006 study of five- to ten-year-olds, unschooling children scored below traditionally schooled children in four of seven studied categories, and significantly below structured homeschoolers in all seven studied categories.[29]

In the United States, each state has the right to set its own requirements for homeschooling, so regulations vary by state.[30] Some states require that the parents conducting homeschooling have a high school diploma or that they be capable of teaching. States might also require that certain subjects be taught or that participants are assessed on a regular basis. Additionally, some may require vaccinations or may prohibit homeschooling by parents with certain kinds of criminal records.[31]

• Unschooling at Curlie