What Is Unschooling?
Setting the record straight. Trying to, at least.
Defining what it is by what it isn’t
First, a disclaimer — I am no expert in unschooling. In fact, there aren’t really experts. Maybe Peter Gray, John Holt and a couple of others. But that’s really it.
This is because unschooling is not really something that’s so well defined.
There are several definitions and many approaches. The one description I like best is from a 2016 Guardian article: “Unschooling is also known as autonomous, child-led or delight-directed learning. Unlike school, or more traditional types of home education, there’s no curriculum, no imposed learning, no testing. The children set the agenda and pace; the aim is to learn through living.”
Many consider Unschooling a subset of Homeschooling (or Home Education). That’s a valid association, as unschooling is really something that can only be implemented at home and not in schools. At least for now.
Eclectic Homeschooling is an approach to homeschooling in which parents pick and choose the best parts of several different homeschooling resources. Many consider it a partial or more structured implementation of Unschooling, as it is often done based on the choices or preferences of the child.
Now, as for my own personal approach — I don’t believe that complete lack of structure is the way to go. I think unschooling can be combined with more traditional pedagogy practices. But unschooling definitely has its place in combination with what you might already be doing as an educator — whether you’re homeschooling, or you are a teacher with the freedom to experiment.
While unschooling is not formally accepted (in fact, it is in a way the antithesis of formality), it is absolutely not a temporary fringe craze. According to a 2013 study by Boston College professor Peter Gray (the one I mention above), which looked at the outcomes of 75 adults who had been unschooled as children: “Unschooling benefited them for higher education and careers by promoting their sense of personal responsibility, self-motivation and desire to learn.”
There are other studies that prove the benefits of unschooling.
Professor Gray suggested calling it self-directed education, which has fewer negative connotations.
I believe that much of the criticism about unschooling comes from not understanding the implementation of unschooling. Simon Webb, author of Elective Home Education, states:
“If a child is really curious about the world and enthusiastic about learning, he or she can spend as long as needed to explore various topics and pick up valuable life skills. But some parents might not understand this method, so the child drifts, not doing much.”
This suggests that unschooling shouldn’t necessarily be devoid of structure (it might depend on the child’s ability to direct their own learning), but only that it should be led by the child’s interests.
Intense interests
There’s a term in psychology called “intense interests” — a very strong motivation for a specific topic. Many kids have these at some stage throughout their childhood. In some cases, that interest is not extinguished in childhood but accompanies them for a large part of their lives. They are those people who have always had a passion that, in a certain way, has served as a guiding thread over the years.
These type of interests, especially those that demand a conceptual domain, not only make that child have more knowledge about a certain subject but also enhance perseverance, improve attention and enhance skills of complex thinking as the processing of information. It has also been proven that linguistic skills are significantly improved and are an indicator of high understanding.
Intense interests allow kids to change their perspective, consider strategies to discover what they want, find relationships and, above all, learn autonomously directing their learning according to their motivations. In short, intense interests make children go deeper into the world and develop critical thinking, motivate them to seek information and develop a passion for knowledge. (Short report The development of conceptual interests in young children (2008); Planes, Trains, Automobiles — and Tea Sets: Extremely Intense Interests in Very Young Children (2007))
An investigation carried out by psychologists from the universities of Virginia and Yale, revealed that the intense interests in childhood do not seem to be mediated by the interests of the parents, since they usually appear during the first year of life without the parents having encouraged them.
This is essentially what unschooling is about.
According to that same investigation, only 20% of children are still passionate about the same subjects as they grow up. In most cases the end of that passion comes with schooling.
That is essentially what unschooling comes to solve.
Apparently, when children start studying in a formal way, they have much less free time to devote to their “investigations”. They are led by curriculums, educational goals, structured activities and assessment requirements. They understand that the school requires a broader knowledge but also more superficial. Often their interests do not fit within the school curriculum, so they just end up abandoning them.
That’s how schooling can become the death of the passion of finding things out.
Since intense interests are very positive for children — for their wellbeing as well as their learning skills, parents should therefore nurture their kids’ interests, whatever the school environment is. They should make sure that the child has time to continue deepening in what he or she is naturally drawn to.
And that is unschooling, in a nutshell.
“One of the huge mistakes people make is that they try to force an interest on themselves. You don’t choose your passions; your passions choose you.” Jeff Bezos
There are better people to advise on how to implement unschooling, whether it is in your home education, or as an extracurricular activity.
I recommend Leo Babauta’s beginner’s guide here and his blog about it here.
Other resources to check out:
- Mind Shift’s Guide to the Best Homeschooling and Unschooling Resources
- Unschooling Blogs and Websites from John Holt GWS
- The Alliance for Self-Directed Education
- The Innovation Playlist
These articles are a must:
And books to definitely read:
- How Children Learn, by John Holt
- Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life, by Peter Gray
- Dumbing Us Down, by John Taylor Gatto
- The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, by Ken Robinson
- The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way, by Amanda Ripley
- Guerrilla Learning: How to Give Your Kids a Real Education With or Without School, by Grace Llewellyn
- Educating Ruby: What Our Children Really Need to Learn, by Guy Claxton
“Let’s think about what school is about: preparing kids for jobs (and life) in the future … a future that’s probably a decade or more away. Now think about a decade or more of change: how many of us predicted 13 years ago what life would be like today? Did we know about the economic recession, or the changing job market, or the fact that things like smartphones and iPads and ebook readers would be so widespread? And that’s just the start.” — Leo Babauta
What I can say, though, is that the fundamental premise of unschooling is that curiosity is innate and that children actually do want to learn, if only they are not too stifled by structure and requirements.
For more about curiosity as a must-have skill, check out this post.
For starting with WHY, check out What They Should Learn Starts with Why.
“What we want to see is the child in pursuit of knowledge, not knowledge in pursuit of the child.” — George Bernard Shaw.
Our job
On Mind Blown (an online encyclopedia that champions unschooling) we have a collection of topics called Epic Professions. It’s about different jobs from the past, present and future. From gladiators and hunter-gatherers, to professional bridesmaid and bioinformatician, to galactic protection officer and tele-surgeon.
We made a point to include one of the most important jobs in the world — being a parent.
Whether we are homeschooling, or parents with a strong interest in our children’s educational journey, it is our job to help them cultivate their interest, by being available to them when they need our direction and support. While completely in love with a certain subject, they might not know how to research it, how to practice it, how to improve and grow it as a field of knowledge, or as a skill. They might need help organizing their intellectual pursuit, defining milestones, dealing with obstacles… They might just need someone to share the journey with.
As John Holt, considered the father of unschooling, has said: “We can best help children learn, not by deciding what we think they should learn and thinking of ingenious ways to teach it to them, but by making the world, as far as we can, accessible to them, paying serious attention to what they do, answering their questions — if they have any — and helping them explore the things they are most interested in.”
Unschooling’s interest-based nature does not mean that it is a “hands off” approach to education. Parents tend to involve themselves, especially with younger children (older children, unless new to unschooling, often need less help finding resources and making and carrying out plans.) (Hunt, Jan. “Evaluation”. Natural Child. 2013.)
Parents of unschoolers should provide resources, support, guidance, information, and advice to facilitate experiences that aid their children in accessing, navigating, and making sense of the world.
Unschooling parents often share with their children their interest in books, articles, and activities, helping them find knowledgeable people to explore an interest with (anyone from physics professors to automotive mechanics), and helping them set goals and figure out what they need to do to meet their goals.
“Helping children learn to satisfy curiosity through exploration is one of the best skills you’ll ever nurture.” writes Karen Stephens, director of Illinois State University Child Care Center and instructor in child development.
“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.”– Albert Einstein
And we are all teachers. In fact, we are all homeschoolers — our children learn from us so much, whether we intend to or not. Let’s take on this responsibility and joy to its fullest.
How to get started
Here are a few tips on how to begin unschooling…
Give Your kids Choices
Offer your kids the ability to make their own choices when it comes to learning. Choice can be a powerful motivator because it helps to foster their interest and independence. The next time you’re planning an activity, try to have a few alternatives for them to choose from.
Use Technology
Don’t shy away from technology. Our kids are going to live in a high-tech world and it would be wrong to deny them familiarity with these advancements. You don’t need to allow them to have a social media account. There are many other wholesome ways to use devices.
Some of the greatest teachers in the world and in history are available online for free, with their classes on Khan Academy and explanatory clips on YouTube. Mind Blown, for example, is built exactly for satisfying intense interests and lifelong learning — you can “favorite” a subject (we call them collections of interest) and come back every day to discover something new — including thousands of curated videos.
Or use the magic of the digital tools computers and phones have for expression and creativity. From animations and editing video, to coding for any age, to conducting virtual science experiments without the mess.
Flip Your Lessons
The flipped classroom is the idea that students could learn by themselves and then come to the classroom as a place for critical thinking activities and reinforcement of concepts. A related method is called the Feynman Technique (from the Nobel Prize winning Physicist — if you don’t know who he is, we have a whole collection about him on Mind Blown). It is based on the notion that if you want to understand something well, try to explain it simply. When they learn something, they are set the goal of teaching it to someone else (you, for example, or even their siblings?)
Relate Material to Your Kids’ Lives and What They are Interested in
Neil DeGrass Tyson is a superstar astrophysicist. Literally superstar — he has millions of followers and hit TV shows. He is known to relate complicated physical concepts to current events. For example, in one of his famous tweets, he explained how a goal at the World Cup was in fact affected by the Earth’s rotation.
If your kids are already interested in Dinosaurs, it is a great opportunity to teach concepts in biology, and how they relate to these ancient reptiles. Fascinated by robots? Great opportunity to practice geometry and engineering.
Use Unit Studies
Or the term that I better prefer but means the same thing — Thematic Units. It is the organization of a curriculum around a central theme. In other words, it’s a series of lessons that integrate subjects across the curriculum, such as math, reading, social studies, science, language arts, etc. that all tie into the main theme of the unit. A thematic unit can be something like Australia, mammals, or the solar system. Some teaching methods use a new unit each week, while others plan themes for two to nine weeks.
Learn WITH them
This is by far my favorite, and it’s pretty simple. Use the opportunity to expand you own knowledge and satisfy your own curiosity. As Ken Robinson, which I mentioned previously, has said:
“Children learn best when their teachers are learning with them.”
This can help you with the other tips, such as finding the wonder in things in order to make them mysterious and having your child teach you about what they discovered.
If, after all this, your interest is still piqued by unschooling, there are a few more interesting to say about it. Check out the next post in this 2-posts series — A Bit More About Unschooling.
If you’re like to see what I’ve been working on for the past two years — a destination for intense interests — head over to Mind Blown.
