Why You Should Start Unschooling

I'm seeing a tag going around, proclaiming today to be National Start Homeschooling Day. In honour of that, I figured I'd share my top reasons to start unschooling. I understand that, for any number of reasons, unschooling just might not to be doable in your life. If that's the case, I hope you can still glean inspiration for doing your best to devalue standardized assessments and instead place value on passion lead, self directed learning, no matter where it takes place. If, however, you are considering leaving school or taking your kids out of school, I hope these reasons will prove so inspiring that you actually do it!

Building a self-directed education

Forget teachers and standardized curriculum dictating what and how and when you should learn. Instead, learn about whatever really interests you, what you feel is truly important and relevant. Your learning then becomes truly personalized, unique to you and based on what you want and need. You get to spend as much time as you want doing whatever it is that you wished you could be doing instead of sitting in a classroom, bored by the current lecture.

Learning and growing without externally imposed timelines

When you control your own learning, timelines of when certain things "should" be learned become irrelevant. Your child isn't a "late" reader, and you're not "behind" in math when you're no longer comparing yourself or your kids to others, based on what the school system thinks you should be learning. Instead, you can learn and grow at your own pace, and in your own way. We all learn differently, and unschooling allows us to truly embrace that.

Recognizing that we all have knowledge and skills to both learn and share

In school, there are teachers there to impart knowledge, and students attending in order to have knowledge imparted to them. Outside of school, you start to recognize that everyone can fill both of those roles at different times, and that the relationship between those who are teaching and those who are learning can be a cooperative, collaborative, and respectful one.

Improving relationships between parents and children

Parent-child relationships, especially parent-teen relationships, can often be contentious. Fights often revolve around issues of homework, bed time (early school days seem to require one), and other school-related things. When you remove school from the equation, and when parents start striving to trust, respect, and truly listen to their children, relationships can change dramatically, and "teenage rebellion" can become a thing of the past.

Socializing on your own terms

The forced socialization of schools, complete with bullies (both other children and sometimes even teachers), a lack of freedom of choice and movement, and an inability to choose more or less socializing based on each individual's needs, does not exactly promote the development of a healthy social life. As an unschooler, socializing can be based on the emotional needs of each child, and you can build a social life that truly feels good to you.

Learning in the real world

Instead of learning in a single, age segregated building, unschoolers learn in the real world. You can learn at home, in nature, at the library, at museums and community centers and yes, in classes. The world opens up, and you start to see all the myriad opportunities that are all around you for learning that feels relevant and important in your life.

Growing in an environment that feels supportive and safe

For many students--including LGBTQ people, disabled students, and students with mental illnesses--schools can feel anything but safe or supportive. People learn best and are most creative in their learning when they're not stressed and afraid, so if family life is nurturing and loving, home can make a much better base for learning.

Having time to daydream

Instead of being pushed to focus constantly, school-free learning leaves plenty of time for relaxing, processing, daydreaming, playing, and quiet introspection. As an unschooler you can reject ideas of "laziness" and choose to value the whole learning process, including boredom, not only the parts that look most active and productive.

Doing real work

When you're not simply studying for a test or producing a project or paper that will never be seen outside of a single classroom, you can instead focus on work and creation that actually feels real. You can volunteer doing important work in your community, get a job or apprentice in a field that fascinates you, write blog posts and articles for an actual audience, create visual art for a community exhibition, and otherwise share yourself with the world. You have the time to do things that feel genuinely meaningful, and that make a real impact on the lives of others.

All of these are compelling reasons why many of us have chosen unschooling for ourselves or our families. I hope that they encourage you to choose a freer, more personalized, more exciting way of approaching learning in your own lives, as well.

Unschooling Isn't "Unparticipating:" Responding to Attacks on Unschooling

Looking over the writing I've done this past year, I'm realizing how many things, though they were shared multiple times on my Facebook page, never made it onto the blog! For instance, that I was interviewed for an article on unschooling in the Montreal Gazette way back in August (a sidebar to the accompanying longer and more negative main piece), and the reactions lead me to send in a letter to the editor. One particularly frustrating letter lead me to write a long response for Life Learning Magazine, and fellow frequent contributor Jennifer Head was also moved to write a response! Those two pieces were then put together by Life Learning into a lovely free PDF booklet. Here's a sample from my portion of the booklet:

Will children really gain the exposure they need outside of school?

“The premise of the ‘learn what excites you’ is one that we all hold in high regard,” Writes Ms. Sanders, the author of the aforementioned letter. “That being said, we don’t know when we are young what we don’t know, and education is that door opener.”

No, children don’t “know what they don't know.” But where the mistake is made is the idea that a. schools are the only place to gain exposure to different topics, b. that schools provide exposure to the most important things, or the things every single child should know, and c. that schools do a good job of imparting knowledge on the subjects they do expose students to.

I'd counter that all three of those assumptions are wrong. Inside of schools, only a few subjects are taught. Outside of schools, learners have the whole world to choose from when it comes to their learning. It's also important to note that unschooled children are far from alone in this process. Parents, acting as facilitators, seek to provide exposure to a variety of things, and children find interests--find learning--through friends, neighbors, family, the internet, the library, homeschool coops or groups, local classes, museums, travel... The world is a big place, and it's full of a whole bunch of options.

To read the rest of my article, as well as Jennifer's great piece, click on the image below!

Authentic, Personalized, Flexible Learning: Why Curriculum Will Never Be Good Enough

I've always been against the use of any type of curriculum that isn't chosen expressly by the learner themselves, but I found myself wanting to explain why I felt that way. What was so irredeemable about externally mandated educational plans? This is the answer I came up with.

A curriculum is stagnant. It's created as a solid, linear plan, detailing what facts, theories, and formulas an individual should know and in what order they should learn them. It's designed by people other than the learners themselves, it's based on the idea that there is one core body of knowledge and set of skills that hundreds (or thousands, or millions) of children should all have, and that they should all learn it at the same age. It doesn't grow with the individual, it doesn't bend or adapt. It exists as a series of check marks, a string of benchmarks and numbers that have little to do with what's actually best for the learner, what they care about, their unique strengths and quirks and ways of being in the world.

True, deep, and meaningful learning can never be contained in something so stifling as a standardized curriculum.

There are some words and phrases I go back to again and again to describe my own life learning experience. My learning was always authentic, I say, because it was always learning that felt relevant and interesting. It was personalized, unique to me and what I wanted and needed at any given point. It was flexible, because I could always choose to learn different things in different ways with different people.

This kind of learning is pretty much the exact opposite of a pre-packaged curriculum. It's learning that is constantly evolving and changing as the learners themselves evolve and change, alongside their family and communities. It's the ultimate in authentic, personalized and flexible learning, better in my mind than any faddish new curriculum or teaching methodology that's taken those terms as handy buzzwords.

Reading selfie!

If the learners themselves aren't deeply involved in the shaping of their own education, if they aren't able to make important choices about what and how they learn (with supportive adults there to give a helping hand, find resources, play games, and otherwise enjoy the ride), then I don't think learning really can be any of those things. It becomes, instead, a pale shadow of what learning should be, as it's strangled by adults' desire for control over a process they can never truly own, a bureaucratic need for measurable educational progress, and a deep-set distrust of children and their innate abilities.

In this desperate attempt to make learning into something controllable and measurable, not only do we miss out on the richness that comes of learning for the sake of learning, but learning also becomes something that's complicated in really unnecessary ways. The more talk of methodologies and new teaching practices, or the latest curricular advancements and improvements, the more education--and by extension learning--starts to sound like something arcane and difficult, something that must be left in the hands of well-trained experts lest ordinary folks mess it up by not knowing the correct approaches or methods.

This has always bothered me since in my own life, learning has never been complicated. Difficult sometimes, confusing on occasion, but never complicated. You go where you need to go to get the knowledge and skills you want, which means that sometimes turning to an expert for a specific topic or trade is what will serve you best. But the actual process of learning isn't nearly as complex and hard to understand as so many educational experts seem to think (or at least seem to want other people to think).

If you believe that learning is complicated, then you believe that it has to be carefully designed and constructed, which means curriculum. But when you realize how unnecessary and actively harmful a standardized curriculum can be, the whole world opens up. Suddenly there are so many different things you can learn about and explore and do. There's no rush, so it doesn't all need to be packed into a certain time frame; you can learn from many different people, not just teachers.

It's exciting, fun, difficult, sometimes overwhelming, but it is always rewarding. Outside the confines of a curriculum, I've been able to focus on what's interesting and important to me, the things I feel genuinely matter. I feel very good about my "education," because it's mine. It's not the education someone else thought I should have.

That owning of your learning, the authenticity and joy it can bring into your life, can never be replicated by outside forces with big plans. It has to come from you, and your own exploration of the amazing world around you.

A big thanks to Sol, Chantal, and Lua for their editing assistance on this post! 

Socialization, Homeschooling, and Life Lessons

I currently have a very unpleasant cold, so getting something new written for the blog this week hasn't really worked out. But once I realized if you don't subscribe to my newsletter, then you probably don't know about all the writing of mine that's been shared other places over the past month, I figured I would share that content. There's a fair bit of it!

There's a new home education magazine out there, with a terrific layout, and secular content covering everything from books reviews and resources, to thoughtful columns by such writers as Patricia Zaballos. While the magazine is not an unschooling magazine, plenty of contributors to Home / School / Life are unschoolers. Including myself! Or, more accurately, I'm a regular contributor the the Home / School / Life blog. I've been pleased to share two posts on that blog so far, and I'm happy with how each of them turned out!

How to Talk About Homeschooling (So That People Will Listen)

I left kindergarten for a life of school-free self directed learning, so I’ve had many years to get used to talking about home education. Some people are curious or excited, some angry or defensive, but what remains a constant is that almost everyone has an opinion on the topic and some questions to ask. I still freeze up sometimes when asked an unexpected question, or stumble over a simple explanation, but for the most part I feel that I’ve gotten pretty good at dealing with the range of questions and reactions that come from different people. 

The approach I take hinges on a couple of key questions: who is it I’m talking to? And, what’s my goal for this conversation? It all depends on the answers to those questions. (Read more)

How Unschooling Shaped My Social Life

We’re all familiar with the tired old myth of the “unsocialized” homeschoolers, spending their days locked inside, interacting only with their family members. I’ve certainly spent my fair share of time disputing these myths (earlier this year I even wrote a post addressing every possible misplaced socialization criticism I’ve ever heard). Yet while there are plenty of wrong ideas on home education and socialization, I find myself pondering how unschooling has impacted the friendships I make and the communities that I’m a part of now, as a 20-something adult. 

Like many homeschooled families, when I was young my family participated in a range of activities, from homeschool coops to French classes, group hikes to choirs. What set us apart from many other home educating families in my area at the time was just how much input my sister and I had in the activities and outings we were involved in, and on whether we stuck with those activities. I knew that my mother would step in when asked (and occasionally when not asked!) to help solve a problem–such as when the musical director of a production I was involved in was trying to use me, a “good” kid, as a human buffer between the two most disruptive children in the group–and that if there wasn’t a good solution that I was free to quit. If I didn’t like a group of kids, or found that certain adults treated me and other children unfairly, I was never forced to spend time around those groups or individuals. (Read more)

Not only am I now a regular contributor to the Home / School / Life blog, but also to the new website Vermicious, created by author and unschooling parent John Seven. I've only shared one piece on that site so far, but I'm excited to be taking a departure from my usual education writing, in order to explore some different topics. My tagline is "Idzie Desmarais learns from the rituals of life," which really sums it up perfectly.

Lessons from the Dog Park

Last year my family brought a new dog into our house. I’ve grown up with dogs, we’ve

always had them around, but while I still live with my parents, this dog search marked the first one that I truly participated in as an adult. After months of searching, of countless calls and emails and visits to shelters, we finally found an Irish Wolfhound cross named Blue, with soulful eyes, a habit of leaning against your legs to better look up at you with said soulful eyes, and a deep streak of goofiness, who very quickly won all of our hearts. 

This year, in an attempt to help him get the exercise he needed–and hopefully socialize him out of the habit of jumping up and down at the end of his leash screaming at other dogs–we started bringing him daily to the local dog park. 

As human socializing goes, it’s pretty low key. The dog owners sit and stand around a central picnic table, watching their respective furry creatures romp, talking about funny pet stories and pet health problems, discussing which dogs haven’t been seen in a while and which dogs we hope never to see at the park again. It’s pretty telling that I remember the names of a couple of dozen dogs (not just my own dog’s best friends Crystal and Lexi, but also Heaven and Elvis, Bunker and Merlin), yet only know the name of one dog owner. It’s pretty clear to everyone who the truly important individuals in that park are, and it’s sure not the humans. (Read more)

Now I'll leave with an excerpt from another piece of mine that has recently been shared, this time in Home Education Magazine. If you're a subscriber, check out the November/December issue!

How Do We Value Ourselves?

In our culture, it’s very obvious that we value certain knowledge and skills more highly than others. Namely skills that are academic and intellectual, communication skills, and social skills (somewhat less tangibly, seeing as those are harder to test). It seems everything else comes a distant second. 

Schools are all about teaching academic skills to the exclusion of all else (though how good a job they do at imparting those skills is very debatable). 

When we take school out of the equation in our own lives and families, we have the option, the opportunity, to take a hard look at what skills are valued, and decide to broaden what we personally value and encourage. 

But are we taking that opportunity? Too often, I don’t think we are. 

My family didn’t, or at least didn’t to as much of an extent as we could have. This isn’t meant to place blame on my parents; we’re each of us constantly learning and growing, and unlearning ideas that have a negative impact on ourselves and others. My parents did the best they could in the places they were at, and I’m grateful for it. But looking back, it’s very obvious that the skills they were most concerned with me and my sister acquiring were those taught in school. It was subtle, because it was unintentional, but that preferencing of academic skills, at least to some extent, was very much present.

How Unschooling Works: Finding Balance and Learning in Place

When I received a message yesterday from a prospective homeschooling/unschooling parent, I thought that I would respond in the form of a whole blog post. She brings up a couple of concerns I hear expressed a lot, so I wanted to take the time to address them in-depth!

Learning in Place

How do I as her mother give her opportunities to discover things that interest her? S. writes, concerned that as an expat, Many of the opportunities that I would have given her in the US (parks, swimming pools, zoos, museums, and so many other things) are infinitely more difficult [here]. However, there are opportunities [here] that would be impossible in the US. I worry that she may be interested in things that we won't be able to explore as fully...as we could in the US.

Our learning will always be shaped by our geographic location, by our family, and by the communities we're a part of, as well as by our personal interests and goals. The world is full of an infinite amount of things that can be learned, experienced, and explored, and each of us will only ever know a fraction of those things. So I think it's kind of exciting to just work on embracing the experiences, the culture, and the community you find yourself in, no matter where in the world that might be. The unschooling community online looks pretty US-centric (even as a Canadian I sometimes feel kind of frustrated at how US-centric it is), so the examples we see can look similar in a lot of ways. I don't think that says much about what an "ideal" unschooling life should look like, though, and instead just says something about the relative popularity of unschooling in the US! There are travelling families, such as Lainie and Miro, who took their learning on the road and never looked back. There are also families like the Hewitt's who, while living in the US, very strongly value the intense on-the-land learning that's afforded by their subsistence farming lifestyle in rural Vermont. Successful unschooling doesn't depend on being able to have a specific body of experiences and resources: instead, it's shaped by our surroundings, whatever they may be.

It seems that parents often feel a lot of pressure to expose their kids to everything, or at least as much of everything as they can possibly fit in. However, I think exposure is more about quality than quantity, and can simply be having an internet connection, access to both fiction and nonfiction books, some games of various types, some crafting materials... The specific interests expressed by the child can guide any further things you introduce, and beyond that, just exploring what's available near you is enough, I believe. We'll all have different experiences and different educations, but that's largely true whether or not you’re unschooled. School curriculums vary by country and by region, what's taught in a more or less exciting way varies by teacher, and what you actually remember is dependent on what seems interesting and relevant to you personally.

All we're doing with unschooling is embracing the uniqueness of each person's education, encouraging individuals to approach learning with curiosity and joy, and working to value all different types of learning, not just the learning deemed properly "educational" by schools. While lack of access to time and resources can be a major impediment to unschooling, if you have those things, you have enough.

Finding Balance

How do parents balance providing guidance and a certain level of boundaries (based on their greater experience and responsibility to protect) with giving the freedom to learn for yourself? S. asks. I am truly interested in knowing how to find the balance for my family between child led learning and parental involvement in teaching.

I think Pam Sorooshian said it well when she expressed that, instead of unschooling being "child-led learning," it was "more like a dance between partners who are so perfectly in sync with each other that it is hard to tell who is leading. The partners are sensitive to each others’ little indications, little movements, slight shifts and they respond. Sometimes one leads and sometimes the other."

My mother and sister, circa 2010.

It's a very school-based way of thinking that sees one person as a teacher and one as a student, one a leader and one a follower. In reality, unschooling quickly starts to look more organic, more flexible, and more collaborative than any ideas of people having to embody just one role (that of a learner, or one who imparts learning). Sometimes a parent excitedly learns about something alongside their kid, who finds the subject at hand fascinating, and thus initiates the exploration. Sometimes a parent will introduce a subject or activity, and be the main force behind bringing it into family life.

Can it be difficult for parents to find that balance? I have no doubt it can be, and I'm sure unschooling parents would be in a much better position to talk about that difficulty with you! I know that from the perspective of an unschooler, I was pretty good at letting my mother know when I felt she was being pushy about something I had no interest in learning, and I think that's true for most kids. They're pretty good at letting you know when they're not interested!

Experience is Better Than Theory

Ultimately, while I hope the words of unschoolers can be helpful to you, I think actually practicing and experiencing life learning is the only real way to feel out how it works. It's a matter of deliberately and consciously working to let go of schoolish ideas about what an education should look like, and instead focusing on the actual learning and growth happening for your child, and yourself, moment by moment and day by day. It's a difficult process--even for someone like me who spent very little time in school, yet still managed to internalize a lot of bad ideas about successful education--but an infinitely rewarding one.

Wishing you all the best with whatever form life learning takes in your own family!

Valuing a Different Kind of Education

This piece was written back in July, for a writing project that ended up being shelved for the time being. So, I thought I'd share it here instead! A look at how I value (or don't value) the uniqueness of my education.

I had an epiphany about my own relationship to my learning and education recently. This came about after a couple of different minor events.

First, I had a lovely exchange with a reader. They referred to me as a “successful young professional,” and continued to say that “I guess my definition of success (at least what I had in mind when I was writing to you) is that it is based on the connections you've made with the fellow people in your field, the ideas you offer to your field, and your mastery of the subject. Your blog has allowed you to make those connections and get those ideas out there. And considering that you've been unschooling for more than awhile, I assume you are, at the very least, on your way to mastery.” I was taken aback, never having been referred to as a “professional” before, and flattered that someone thought I seemed so successful.

Secondly, after my parents had spent the day with some old friends they hadn’t seen in a while, I nervously asked what they’d said about me and my recent pursuits. How did they make me sound? I wondered did I come across as successful, or a real loser?

The next day, in the car with both parents, I got in a conversation about school and work. I said that I couldn’t see myself taking courses in non-fiction writing through a university, because I felt for the most part they were teaching a style of writing and communication that is somewhat outdated, as I don’t think most universities (and the professors who teach at them) have fully embraced the changes that the internet and blogging has brought. I also talked about how outdated traditional CV’s and resumes are becoming, as increasingly what’s important is building some type of online portfolio, especially when showcasing any type of work that you can fairly easily do without any type of degree or diploma. Experiences are now starting to matter more than degrees, I said.

Later that day, the epiphany came. I thought, wait a second, I say all this, but I don’t actually believe it when it comes to myself. Over the last couple of years, I’ve become expert at making myself sound as traditionally successful as possible. “I worked catering last year,” I say. “I’m considering going to culinary school.” I tell people “I was homeschooled,” and try to assure them that I turned out perfectly fine.

I’ve become invested in making myself seem as normal as possible.

I didn’t set out to do that, and in part I ended up doing so just out of a desire for privacy. Why should I expose my life and choices to the judgement of near strangers? I thought. 

"Normal" sisters? I don't know about normal,
but I think we're pretty cute regardless!

That’s not the only reason, though. There’s a part of me that feels ashamed of my background. Ashamed of what I haven’t done. Namely that I haven’t worked in a “normal” job, ever, or ever been financially independent. Ashamed that, at 23, I don’t have more to show for myself.

This has lead to a series of attempts to at least try and look successful, even if I don’t feel like I’m actually that successful.

I suppose this says something about how deeply embedded these cultural messages are, that someone with my background in education, who regularly talks about how great self-directed learning, unschooling, and skipping college is, can so blithely fall into a trap of judging my own success by such rigid standards.

Not only is this bad for my self-esteem, it’s also bad for my success. If I really believe in everything I say, which intellectually I do, then I need to actually start acting like it.

I have been successful in many ways. I’ve built an extensive online portfolio, in the form of archived blog posts and a personal website chronicling various pursuits and experience. I’ve had my work published in various alternative education magazines, journals, and even a book, and have spoken at several conferences. I’ve turned down some media interviews and accepted others, and I’ve had many people express that my work has impacted their lives in a meaningful way. I’ve met and talked to people doing similar work whom I admire and who provide inspiration to me.

All this is to say that I’ve created a body of work that is appreciated by lots of people in specific alternative education circles, all while feeling really positive and excited about the work I was doing.

In Blake Boles’ book College Without High School, one of the suggested Zero Tuition College “assignments” is to “become a public intellectual.” Expanding on what that entails, he writes: “public intellectuals research, think, talk, and write about a social problem but don’t necessarily hold formal credentials. They spread their messages via blogs, websites, books, magazines, podcasts, videos, and other media platforms.” I told my sister, Emilie, “apparently I’m a public intellectual.” she laughed. “That sounds amazingly pretentious,” she added.

It does sound more than a little pretentious, it’s true. But it’s the first time I’ve seen essentially what I’ve been spending the usual university years doing laid out as a desirable and worthwhile alternative to college or university.

It’s also yet another reminder, among the many that lead to my aforementioned epiphany, that what I’ve done in my life, so far, is not just important and meaningful, but “marketable.”

When I strive so hard to make myself seem more normal, my choices more conventional, and my experiences more in line with my traditionally schooled age-peers, I lose out on an opportunity to not just sound more impressive, but share the genuinely cool accomplishments I’ve made and experiences I’ve had.

My unique background is an asset, not a weakness. A reason people might find me interesting to talk to at the least, or offer me amazing opportunities at the most. The reputation and body of work I’ve built for myself can continue to be both meaningful and challenging, as well as leading to money making opportunities (either through opportunities I create myself, or through a potential employer wanting to hire me based on my experience).

Perhaps all this should have been obvious. Bits and pieces have been, at different times. I’ve been proud of some work, greatly valued some experiences, knew that some of what I had done was important to others.

But I didn’t really value the unconventionality of my lack-of-college experience, or appreciate just how much I’ve gained by doing things differently.

After having the thought that I was ashamed by what I hadn’t done over the last few years, I was quickly flooded by excitement at the idea that I could speak with pride about what I had done.

Such a simple yet profound shift, to go from “look at all I haven’t done” to “look at everything I have done.”

Whether you’re a teen or grown unschooler, an unschooling parent, or a young adult who’s chosen to forego college or university, I think it’s important that we cultivate just such a mindset. It’s so easy to get caught up in comparing ourselves to those who are doing things more traditionally, but we do a great disservice to ourselves when we do that. In focusing instead on the value in the true uniqueness of our experiences and education, we can instead be proud of what we’ve done and how we’ve chosen to “get an education” in our lives so far. Feeling confident in the skills we’ve gained and things we’ve done outside of school seems important to me primarily because of how much better it is for my emotional well being. But it’s certainly also of great benefit being able to share that confidence with others. If you’re secure in the worth of your unique experiences, work, and skills, you’re going to be better able to present yourself and your accomplishments to the important people in your life, and better able to turn your skills into ways to earn money, make important connections with people doing work you admire, and build a life that feels truly successful to you.

The Role of Boredom and Dabbling in Pursuit of Passionate Learning

One of the greatest benefits of unschooling, it's frequently said, is that it gives children the time and encouragement to truly find and embrace their passions. I agree with this, for sure, yet I've noticed that many people new to unschooling or self directed learning, whether they're parents or young adults newly risen out of college, panic when they don't see a passion immediately manifesting itself in their life or the lives of their children. We're supposed to be driven by passion and digging deep into real learning, they think, so what's with all this boredom and flitting from one thing to another?

I'd say that both of those things, instead of being signs of failure, are just part of the process.

Deschooling

"For me, it was probably about a year before I felt like we were truly unschooling, not deschooling. There was no announcement, no graduation ceremony, but one day I realized I no longer felt like I was emulating the lifestyle—we were living it. I was no longer trying to wrap my mind around the principles, instead I was spending my time supporting how those principles were playing out in my unique family." Pam Laricchia, Why Deschooling?

If you're new to life learning, I think the first thing to realize is that it's going to take time. Time to adjust, to move past school ideas about what learning looks like, time to figure out how your new learning path is going to work in your own life. I feel like people tend to rush things, or feel like the change is going to be immediate, when in reality we're all taking things step by step, no matter where we are in our life learning journey. As I regularly tell myself in a variety of circumstances, slow down, breathe, and try not to panic if things don't look the way you'd imagined right off!

Boredom

"What if, I wondered, as I enjoyed the sights and smells of the early morning, more people paid attention to the journey of life, not just the destination? What if they paid more attention to their experiences moment by moment? I suspect they would find that boredom is, as F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, a filter through which emotions, experiences and, yes, solitude can pass, resulting in a soaring of creativity and imagination." Wendy Priesnitz, The Benefits of Boredom

"Out of boredom, interests spring like mushrooms in moist soil. In the autonomous zone we have created, students have the time and support to explore each of these interests as fully as they choose. If that interest pays dividends, if it engages the student in a compelling way, sufficiently meeting her intellectual, emotional, kinesthetic, or other needs, she will stay with it, dig deeper, until she achieves what feels like mastery to her. Then she can apply those lessons of perseverance, effort, and excellence to any other topic, well into adulthood. If it does not meet these needs, if its hooks do not catch, she will let it go and return to the difficult but rich soil of boredom, until the next mushroom appears." Michelle Loucas, Bored? Explore It!

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.” Sir John Lubbock, Lord Avebury

Before I sat down to write this post, I frustrated my sister by chattering, singing deliberately off-key, being melodramatic about everything, begging her to let me have coffee, and otherwise being difficult. In short, I was bored, and showing it by being very exuberantly annoying. Complaining is part of my writing process, I recently said on Facebook, and while I wrote it with a smile, I believe it to be true, because boredom is part of my writing process. It's in the restlessness and frustration of a mind that has nothing else interesting to focus on that a post starts to take shape. It's while I'm lying awake in bed, unable to sleep (which must be the ultimate in boredom), that I start to build a narrative for an article I've wanted to write for ages, or start putting together a menu full of interesting new dishes to experiment with.

Without boredom, I wouldn't be able to create, to be creative. I'd say that's true of most if not all of us.

Not only does boredom lead to creativity in the areas we're already proficient in, but it also leads to new discoveries. Whether you're new to unschooling or not, I think boredom is just a part of life, and while boredom that becomes a continuous and ongoing companion might definitely be an indicator that changes that need to be made, in general, boredom is just the space that allows us to discover new things we wouldn't otherwise discover. It's boredom that leads me to pick up a guitar for the first time in many months and try to learn a new song, or read about a new subject online.

Boredom is an essential element in both creativity and discovery, and should be recognized as the restless stage that proceeds a new project, passion, or breakthrough.

Dabbling

"This is not to say that, when the student finally decides to engage in an activity, it will always be immensely satisfying or long lasting. She may flit from activity to activity for quite some time. She may embrace art for weeks, with devotion and drive, only to drop it unceremoniously one day and lapse back into a painful bout of boredom. Or, she might trade in art for kick boxing, a passion that she adopts fiercely and exclusively for a day or a month, only to abandon it as well." Michelle Loucas, Bored? Explore It!

"It might appear that some children are more prone to 'quitting things' and less able to 'commit' to activities and stick with them – but what if you flip that around and view those children as dabblers, experimenters – open to the world and curious about everything? Those are the children who, if their trust is not eroded by parental control, will try anything once (or more than once). And yes, they will quit more things than those children who dive deep and stick around longer with one activity. But that’s due to the sheer volume of things they try! If you have a child who decides she wants to put everything she has into martial arts and music, and then decides later that she actually prefers martial arts and is tired of music for now, she has a fifty percent quit rate. If you have a child who tries sixteen different things in one year, and ends up liking four of them a lot, that child might have a seventy-five percent quit rate, but he now has four activities he loves, not just one." Lyla Wolffenstein, Dabbling, Digging Deep, and Quitting: The Real Costs of Parental Pressure

 I've gotten more than one message from a parent concerned that their child can't settle on anything, each day drawn to a new interest or subject, forever flitting from one thing to another. As the above quotes point out, this "dabbling" is likely either due to the personality of the individual, or is simply part of the process of finding a passion.

One of the things I've always appreciated about unschooling is that I never had to spend more time than I wanted on any specific subject or interest. There were hundreds--thousands--of questions answered by Google or a quick look at a book from our home or community library. Just because something is interesting, doesn't mean that interest has to last longer than it takes to find the answer to a question, and if it doesn't end there, it may take just an hour or a day's exploration to feel satisfied. Because really, that's what you're looking for: satisfaction, or the discovery that something really isn't for you, which is a satisfying sense of closure in itself.

The way you decide if you want to do something is by trying it. And if you look around and feel yourself excited by the vast plethora of options available to you, then you're probably going to try a whole lot of things. Most of them won't stick, won't be as interesting as you thought or will take up more time than you're prepared to commit, or perhaps just won't feel quite right.

That desire to explore, try new things, and take risks is a very childlike attitude, and one that shows strong curiosity and a joy in learning and discovery that too many people lose as they grow into teenage and adult years. Instead of seeing dabbling as a failure to stick with things, it should be valued, and those who practice it should be recognized as the curious individuals they are.

Dabbling, the same as boredom, is an integral part of exploration. For some, this dabbling style of learning will remain lifelong, and for others it will simply be what happens in between periods of more intense focus on a specific activity or topic. Either way, exploring a wider range of topics and activities is certainly a positive thing.

Play

"For a small child, there is no division between playing and learning, between the things he or she does 'just for fun' and things that are 'educational.' The child learns while living and any part of living that is enjoyable is also play." Penelope Leach

"When we treat children’s play as seriously as it deserves, we are helping them feel the joy that’s to be found in the creative spirit. It’s the things we play with and the people who help us play that make a great difference in our lives." Fred Rogers

"The central problem is that we undervalue pleasure. We live in a culture that is consumed with the Protestant work ethic. Work as work, not work as play, is a powerful pressure against play. In that ethos, pleasure for itself is frivolous. So play is not widely seen as a value in itself for adults. I have learned, to the contrary, that play is, in short, excellent for my health — for brain, mind, and emotions, all of which promote well-being in my life, economically, emotionally, and spiritually. For health, everyone should choose and pursue activities that are playful and truly pleasurable." Bernard De Koven, Reshaping The Brain Through Play

This guy brings a lot of playfulness into my life.

Dabbling in learning, that free flowing exploration without a strict timetable or set goals or an authority figure looking over our shoulders, is learning that's playful. Increasingly, play is being recognized for the important role it plays in learning and health, for children especially but also for adults. I recognize that playful, free flowing feeling when I'm reading a funny piece of history aloud to my sister while we both laugh, or when I'm so deeply immersed in a cooking project, simultaneously focused and relaxed, a bright joyfulness burning in me while I fiddle and create. I feel it when I'm playing with my oversize shaggy puppy, both of us focused intently on each others' body language and vocalizations, completely engaged in communicating and playing together.

All of these activities feel deeply engaging for my brain, as well as being undeniably fun. Yet despite the growing recognition that play isn't just helpful, but an essential part of growing and learning for countless species, humans included, it's still often not seen as "real" learning. Educational things are supposed to look like work, not play, and too few people realize that you can be engaged in both at once.

Passionate Learning

“We learn because we want to learn, because it’s important to us, because it’s natural, and because it’s impossible to live in the world and not learn." Peggy Pirro

When my sister Emilie was young, she was fascinated by Egyptian mythology. Sparked by a love of Yu-Gi-Oh, which takes inspiration from that mythology, Emilie spent lots of time reading about and researching the subject. She'd talk about how different gods changed over time and by region, she made a presentation for a homeschool expo, and when touring the Smithsonian Museum of History in Washington DC, she indignantly pointed out that one of the items in the Egyptian exhibit was mis-labelled. A middle-aged man, acting as a tour guide for his companions, and talking about the exhibits in Cairo that he'd seen previously, looked down at this small child in shock, and said "you're right."

Finding passions to focus deeply on will be an integral part of unschooling for almost all of us. I do think it's an immensely positive and important part of learning for people, at least sometimes and with some things. However, I'd stress that I think that it's an important part of learning, not the be all and end all of unschooling. We need to recognize the important roles of boredom and dabbling, of free play and exploration. Some things will turn into passions that stay with us for years, but many other interests will be dropped after the briefest of perusing. Countless hours will be spent in exploration, yet that exploration will likely be precipitated by boredom. It's all learning, it's all part of the process, and it's all important.

When we embrace learning as a lifestyle, and as a lifelong passionate pursuit, we learn to value the whole package, boredom and all. We learn that the restlessness comes with rewards, that no time spent in exploring is ever wasted, that idleness breeds creativity, and that play is essential. I'm still re-learning these things over and over again, despite how little schooling I've had in my life, and I'm being reminded daily of how important it is to take my own advice on learning to heart. But what I'm striving for, always, is to live a life filled with joyful learning, with all its inherent struggles and rewards.

I hope you'll join me in this passionate pursuit.

Unschooling My Way to a Love of Classic Poetry

I’ve long held that I don’t think “classic” literature is any better than newer literature. I think stories and reading are wonderful things, but I also believe strongly that which of these are good or not is a subjective matter, to be decided by individuals not experts.

I wanted to like the classics when I was young. I had visions of myself curled up in a comfy chair, reading Jane Eyre, and being able to tell people, modestly of course, what my latest reading material was. Amongst the much more traditional homeschoolers I was surrounded by, learning Latin and reading only books older than 50 years was a big trend, and I kind of wanted to include myself in that. I tried, but I just couldn’t do it. I picked up various classics at various times, hoping that this one would finally be the not-boring one, but I never found one that I didn’t have to struggle through.

Finally I gave up, deciding that the classics obviously weren’t for me, and furthermore that the snobbery surrounding reading choices was counterproductive and harmful to readers of all ages. I moved on, and enjoyed years of reading modern historical novels and fantasy fiction.

There was one area, though, where I did find myself enjoying old writing.

My mother, sister, and I developed a ritual of sorts, not one we practiced every day, but a frequent

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees. 

The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas...

occurrence: we’d curl up together on my bed in the evening, along with a stack of poetry books, and take turns reading aloud to each other. My mother’s favourite was The Owl-Critic by James Thomas Fields; Emilie liked The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear; and I was a big fan of The Lady of Shalott and The Eagle by Tennyson, the Introduction to the Songs of Innocence by William Blake, and Walking Through Woods On a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost. Though we all had favourites, together we read countless classic poems by dozens of different writers. We all enjoyed poetry, but it became a special passion of mine.

For a homeschool talent show, I once recited The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes. I loved the melodrama of it and, inspired by the rendition of that poem in one of the Anne of Green Gables movies, I decided to memorize it myself. The audience was impressed, and although I was somewhat pleased by that, the real joy I took in the process were the hours spent alone, quietly reading and practicing. It was relaxing and joyful, an activity that filled me with contentment.

I still believe strongly that there’s nothing inherently better about classic writing, whether it’s in the form of fiction or poetry, but I did eventually find some classics that I was happy to make part of my own life. I’m not sure if children outside of school are more likely to be drawn to classics or not, but I do think that not having to read them means that learners won’t be turned off from them en masse.

When everything is treated as valuable, no matter when or by whom it was written, then classic works become just another potentially interesting option. I could never get into anything by Jane Austen, but I sure did enjoy exploring the works of countless famous poets from the last few centuries. Had I been forced to read those works, to analyse and tear them apart, my experience would probably have been a lot less joyful. Instead, my exploration was done freely and enthusiastically, guided by my interests and whims and determination. In short, it was fun.

That’s the way learning should be in childhood, whether it includes anything classic or not!

Unschooling Isn't Just Self Directed Schooling

I read a nice response recently from Home Education Magazine (a magazine that has a new article of mine in the upcoming November/December issue), answering a question from a prospective unschooling parent who wonders "do you teach them spelling, vocab or math if they’re not really interested in those subjects?"

Her question was answered well by HEM, so I don't want to address that question specifically. What I do want to do is use this particular question as an example of how a lot of people are missing an important point about how unschooling works.

Sometimes it seems to me as if those new to the philosophy only hear the "self directed" bit and then

jump to the assumption that unschooling means you essentially learn the same things in the same ways as you would in school, except that the students miraculously choose to do so themselves. As if which boxed curriculum to use is just chosen by the student instead of a teacher.

Some unschooling kids and teens might learn some school things in a way that looks school-y, but to assume that most unschoolers will first break learning down into all the same subjects taught in school, and then apply themselves to each one, is wildly inaccurate.

This false idea comes from the ingrained belief that schools hold the monopoly on education, and thus that anything "educational," anything from which children are learning, must look like school. It should involve textbooks, workbooks, or at the very least educational games. So if a child isn't going through a vocabulary list or using a math textbook, then they must not be developing their vocabulary or math skills.

This idea is as false as the one I recently saw in an article about unschooling (by someone who knew very little about it), where it was stated that unschooling meant “learning from experiences instead of books or teachers.”

In reality, unschooling is both structured and unstructured, learning is practiced with others and alone, you learn from experiences and the internet, apprenticeships and classes.

If the self directedness of unschooling meant that children would just choose to recreate school at home, then I was definitely doing it wrong in my formative years. My writing (and vocabulary and spelling) was learned because I liked reading, memorizing poetry, and communicating with others through the written word. My math skills developed because I had to handle my own money and because I got really into cooking. Much was learned through doing myself, through watching and learning from others, through asking questions and Googling questions and, sometimes, through playing spelling games with my sisters or looking in a textbook.

The point is to utilize whatever resources the learner finds most helpful in their own life, whether those resources end up looking “educational” or not.

Because of this, there isn't any one way that unschooling should look. Every family and individual is different, so how unschooling develops in each person’s life will be unique and special. The trick is just in letting go of pre-conceived ideas about what learning is supposed to look like, and embracing whatever unschooling becomes for you or your children.

The Language That We Use Matters: Why Schooled People Aren't Sheep

This article was originally published in the July/August issue of Life Learning Magazine, a really lovely magazine filled with unschooling goodness, and it pleases me greatly that I've somehow become a somewhat regular contributor. You can check out another Life Learning original article of mine, When You Unschool You Don't "Unparticipate:" Community Engagement and the Value of Different Ideas, here in PDF form.

I find myself thinking more lately about the language we use when we talk about unschooling, and the way in which we talk about people who are not unschooling.

Often in my reading of unschooling and alternative education posts online (and sometimes in print as well), I’ve found myself wincing in discomfort at some of the language being used.

Drones. Zombies. Sheep. The masses.

I remember, in my teens as well, finding myself feeling uncomfortable at a comment or joke a fellow homeschooler or unschooler would make at the expense of school kids. I remember very vividly thinking one time it’s not their fault.

When we reduce the level of conversation to slinging about words like “sheep,” we’re both being hurtful and obscuring the points we’re actually trying to make. When we use language like that, I think we’re doing a couple of different things that we don’t want to be doing.

The only being we should be calling sheep are, you know, actual sheep.

We’re oversimplify things to a ridiculous extent. It’s not just a matter of people either doing what they’re told or forging their own path. Someone’s ability to choose a path such as unschooling is largely dependent on exposure to the concept (or similar concepts); the resources to actually follow through with it; feeling that their choices won’t be unduly punished due to severe marginalization they already face; and the support needed to maintain such a connected and unconventional way of living.

I hope that someday unschooling can be the way everyone has the opportunity to live, and I support all efforts to make unschooling and life learning (as well as any self-directed schooling projects) more widespread and more accessible. But we’re not there yet. In the meantime, blaming people for not being able to unschool, or feeling unable to do so, makes no sense and is pretty unfair.

Whether someone goes to school or went to school, has criticism of their schooling experience or thinks compulsory schooling is a good thing, it doesn’t lessen them as a person.

When we use negative language about schooled people, it’s alienating. If we really mean it when we say that we want more people to learn about and understand unschooling, and I truly believe that most of us do, then being superior about it isn’t going to help. I’m all for standing up to people who are being rude and aggressive about our choices, but if we start in with being rude and aggressive instead, we never give people a chance to express genuine curiosity and actually learn about our educational beliefs and learning lifestyle.

If we want to be very insular in our way of living, and furthermore have people know us as those rude and judgemental people, then maybe calling others zombie-drones is appropriate. Otherwise? It’s not appropriate, it’s not kind, and it’s not productive.

I’m all for criticizing schools, and compulsory education, and standardized curriculums. I absolutely believe there’s something majorly wrong with those things, and I appreciate the many great critiques out there. I just think you can criticize those things without criticizing the individuals who, through no fault of their own, are forced to attend school whether they want to or not.

I’m sure that the upper levels of institutional schooling (the bureaucracy, the government offices and corporate supplier of curriculum) would like to manage children like sheep, and turn them into drones (you know, good workers), but that does not mean that anyone, child or adult, is a sheep or a drone.

There’s a big difference between those two things.

I know I’ve talked disdainfully in the past about “the masses,” and though I hope I haven’t used any of the other ones, I really can’t swear I haven’t. I know all of us have seen these terms used by others, and most of us have probably used at least one ourselves.

In some of the less sensitive and perhaps less aware writing I did in my later teenage years, my passion for unschooling was often accompanied by anger at the institution of schooling, which is understandable. But what wasn’t reasonable was that it sometimes overflowed into negative feelings about kids who went to school.

So I get it. I get that it comes from defensiveness, and feeling that you’ve been rejected or are looked down upon by schooled people. I get it when it comes to teens and young people. And to some extent, I get it when it comes to adults, who may have similar feelings about judgement, and react similarly defensively. But, as an adult, be aware that the aspersions you’re casting on people who go to school include those who are currently in school. Children and teenagers.

I find the language we use has such a profound affect on the way we think. As I’ve learned and listened more when it comes to a variety of social issues, from racism and classism to adultism and heterosexism, I’ve found myself constantly challenged to look critically at the language I use, the way I write and speak, and what beliefs or prejudices might be lurking behind those words.

That self reflection has definitely bled into all of my writing, including my writing about education. It’s a continuous process of learning and growing, one I’m sure will be ongoing throughout my life. It involves some simple practices of actually listening when someone says “hey, that’s hurtful”; learning about and trying to remain aware of the social inequalities around us, whose voice is given more weight and whose rights are prioritized; and seeking in the way I act and speak and write to challenge these inequalities, and just to be kinder and more considerate.

In my writing about unschooling that meant, and continues to mean, thinking about who has the easiest time unschooling, who has access to the most resources, and paying attention to how I talk about people who aren’t unschoolers.

This isn’t an attempt to dictate how others write about unschooling. What I’m trying to do is merely share some of my own process, point out that some language I see being used too often can be both hurtful and alienating, and to just suggest that people put some real thought into their words.

We want to share this wonderful unschooling thing with others, not to have people think of us as those mean people who think everyone not like them are sheep.

Why Some Learning Isn't Better Than Other Learning: Television and Books Through An Unschooling Lense

TV watching and book-reading often seem to be seen as somewhat opposite activities. Books are seen as worthwhile, good for your brain, a useful way to spend time, and TV a waste of time, useless, a brain-rotting and lazy pursuit.

In my own life, that's never been the way I considered those two activities. I might have made distinctions between fiction and non-fiction, documentaries and dramas, but TV and books have never been an either or, a one versus the other. They've both been activities that have brought me great joy, and yes, led to a lot of learning.

Books

Before I was reading myself, my parents were reading aloud daily. Stories, in some form or another, have always been a part of my life. But when I started reading myself, I dove into the world of novels in a very big way. There were years where I read three or even four short novels a day, and I can still easily race through the newest book in a favourite series in the course of a single day. Novels draw me in, too, and lead to an incredible amount of investment in imaginary people and worlds.

I also like sharing what I read, and it became common practice in my family years ago to tell each other about the stories we were reading. Sharing a book you're enthusiastic about is really nice.

It's not as social an activity as TV watching, though, which I find interesting, considering reading is often considered the more meaningful activity. Reading is often a deeply personal and immersive activity, which has it's own benefits, so this isn't to say that TV is somehow better, just that I'm far from convinced that either is better, and instead feel that both provide a whole lot of positives.

Television

"Are you ready to watch yet?" I ask for the 9th time. I'm not the most patient person around, and a show that's caught my attention is a very big draw. Despite that impatience, and my desire to watch the next episode as soon as I'm able to, I almost always watch shows with other people. The four of us who make up my family watch a variety of British mysteries, genre shows, police procedurals, and assorted dramas. Currently Veronica Mars is big with us, and we've just started season three with great excitement.

To many people, TV watching looks like something solitary, something done in isolation, a passive activity involving no social interaction. My experience could not be further from that.

Not only do I almost always watch TV with family, bursting into laughter together, nudging each other with an elbow at good bits, or occasionally grabbing each other in fear (well, okay, mostly I'm the only one who does that), we also talk about them.

Throughout our watching of Veronica Mars, there have been countless conversations in the car, while washing dishes, and sometimes in the middle of an episode (paused, of course) about what was happening in the plot. Who killed Lily? Who was where, when, and who could have been somehow involved? Every character's actions and motivations were dissected and examined through enthusiastic discussion. It's fun to treat shows--especially mysteries--that way, and it becomes a real bonding experience with the people you're watching with.

By being such a social and involved experience, it's also anything but passive. Watching shows becomes something engaging and social, something that leads to a lot of thinking, discussing, and sharing.

Looking critically at media and pop culture

"I think one of the most important things I've learned is how to critically look at all different types of media," I said in a workshop the other day. The ability to analyze and think critically about what I'm consuming--whether it's novels or non-fiction books, TV shows or movies, the news or a newspaper, comic books or magazines--is an invaluable skill, and one that has brought much richness, lots of deep thought and thoughtful conversations to my life. I learned young from my parents that just because someone says something on TV, even on the news, doesn't mean it's true, and my sister and I learned ourselves as teens to broaden and deepen our analysis of various forms of media and entertainment.

I've had discussions about the subtle sexism in Buffy the Vampire Slayer as well as its major failings when it comes to issues of representation and racism. I've talked about the neo-liberal pro-military bias on a more liberal-leaning news network. I've had good conversations about how the Spiritwalker trilogy by Kate Elliott does a remarkably excellent job in portraying a range of women characters, as well as creating a fantasy world that's both racially and culturally diverse and interesting.

I recently heard it suggested that TV is dangerous simply because it's often considered fluff, junk, unworthy of serious thought, and thus people absorb a lot of messages and prejudices from what they watch, because they're not engaging critically with what they're viewing. That seems more than possible to me, and serves as a good argument for treating TV as important, because it is a part of most peoples lives, and it affects how we think and what we learn.

The same can all be said about books, as they often contain messages we might feel are harmful as well. Once again I feel like books and TV have a lot more in common than many people realize.

Potential negatives

A lot of parents have a lot of worries about screens having a negative impact, health-wise, on their children. However, books aren't without negative consequences, either. In my three-books-a-day phase, and still sometimes when I get too wrapped up in a story, I read to the point of eye strain and tension headaches. Before I got my up-to-date prescription glasses, I'd read to the point of increased blurry vision. My optometrist had to make a point of telling me I had to stop reading every ten minutes or so and look out the window, focus on something far away, for the health of my eyes. I know when it comes to my own physical comfort, I generally find computer screens the worst, reading on page next, and watching TV the most comfortable. Focusing on something a bit further away is easier.

The point I'm really trying to get at here is just that everything is healthier in moderation, but TV isn't necessarily worse, or less healthy, or anything else when compared to similarly stationary pursuits.

I feel like many people might say "well that's all fine, but you're obviously special. My children would just watch TV all day!" Now, while different people have different needs, an easier or less easy time listening to their bodies, and maybe need more or less parental help in figuring things out, I do think parents often sell their kids short in thinking that all they'll ever do is watch TV. That attitude shows a strong and perhaps somewhat misplaced bias against this one form of entertainment and learning, and it also seems not to take into account that no one will want to do only one thing, forever. Boredom starts to set it. It's also important for children, with parental involvement and support, to figure out for themselves what feels good and bad for them, and that's best done by exploring and trying different things and figuring out that sitting on the couch for 10 hours doesn't tend to make you feel so good.

I just caution parents to examine their biases, and consider that if you wouldn't say "you've already read too much this week, do something else," then maybe pause for a moment before saying the same about television.

Developing a healthy relationship to screens and pages

I think a rich and healthy relationship with different types of media is best gained by experiencing it with involved adults, adults who want to hear about the story their child is reading, who talk about and sometimes criticize what they see on TV and what they read in print. Basically, adults who engage in the shows and movies they watch and the books and magazines they read, discussing and thinking about them, will help children learn to be engaged and critical themselves.

Some children will only really be into one or the other. Some will consume media in less common ways, such as listening to audio books instead of reading, whether due to learning or other disabilities or simply personal preferences. If we're going to respect that each individual is different, and will learn about and experience the world in different ways, I think part of that is realizing that placing various activities on a hierarchy of which is best to worst, or most to least educational, is counterproductive to the learning process.  

This isn't to say I'm entirely against parents ever intervening in their children's use of of various media. I'm not. I just think that creating arbitrary distinctions between things like TV and books makes little sense, and isn't an ideal environment for creating excitement about learning in all its forms, including both screens and pages.

In my own life

I love that I can take such intense joy from a new TV show find, or a favourite novel, and that I don't find myself feeling guilty about spending time with either of those things. I love that I can be so critical of what I consume, that I'm able to deconstruct things and have thoughtful conversations about them, as well as just enjoying something without feeling a need to be strongly critical of it.

Armed with the knowledge needed to navigate the media and pop culture around me, without any guilt about what's "useless" bogging me down, I've had a wonderful time exploring the worlds of fiction and non-fiction alike. It's been and continues to be a bonding experience with others, a collection of ways I've learned a lot of cool things and stretched my thinking in new ways, and brought countless ours of fun and enjoyment into my life.

My conclusion? Books and TV are both pretty great.

Breaking Down Hierarchies in Learning: Re-Imagining the Student-Teacher Relationship Through Unschooling

One of the most fundamental, and I believe revolutionary aspects of unschooling, is how it challenges one of the most deeply rooted beliefs about education and how it works in our society. The belief is that teachers are the holders of knowledge, wisdom, and other educational things, and students are the receivers, empty vessels to be filled. As Ivan Illich said:

Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat. This is the “banking’ concept of education, in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits.

I had a short conversation recently with someone on Twitter, where they said that they'd talked recently with someone about unschooling, and that person said he just couldn't see how someone could get interested in something without an inspiring teacher. As an unschooler, this attitude seems mind-blowing to me. I can't quite get my head around how it could possibly make sense to someone to think that way. Yet, when I consider that of all the concerns people have about unschooling, a huge portion of them boil down to "but how can you learn without a teacher?," it doesn't necessarily make any more sense, but it does seem to show a pattern. There are a whole lot of people who literally don't understand how children could learn without a teacher. There are a lot of people who think that teachers are depositors and students are depositories.

This is a sad state of affairs for everyone involved.

I started writing this article months ago. But after just a scribbled paragraph, it got put aside in favour of something else. I have a long list of post and article ideas, not to mention the ebook I'm working on, so it's easy to jump around between thoughts and ideas and writing projects. But when I re-discovered that little snippet, I liked it. And it's really what I'd consider the heart of this post, what I'm really trying to get at, so I wanted to share it here:

By challenging the idea of one person as the learner and another as the teacher, you start breaking down a lot of ingrained ideas about hierarchies of knowledge, and who belongs where on that hierarchy. Realizing that everyone, no matter their age, has things to both learn and share, strengthens individual and community bonds, as well as opening up access to a whole lot of knowledge and skills you wouldn't really have access to if you were only looking at professional teachers. Thus unschooling parents aren't seeking to become teachers, but to learn alongside their children, to both share knowledge and gain it themselves.

By living an unschooling life, we have the opportunity to challenge a lot of hierarchies that many people take for granted. We get to re-imagine what it can be to live together as a family, with respect for children and teens, good communication, and working partnerships, instead of a top-down, authoritarian, parents give directives and children don't question them set-up. It also gives us the chance to re-imagine what learning can look like without the teacher-student hierarchies of the schooling system.

What if children don't have to be forced to learn? What if children don't have to be taught? What if "education" can look like meaningful partnerships where learning is recognized as a collaborative process?

Both older and younger people can share and gain knowledge from each other. This means that mixed age friendships, mixed age groups and classes, friendships with age peers, and groups of age peers can all benefit from relationships of shared learning, and have relationships based on mutual respect and liking, no matter their age. One person doesn't have to take on a Teacher role and the other that of a Student. They can just share and learn and discuss...

Yes, age makes a difference. It often changes the way people relate to each other, older people have had more life experience, and more time to develop mastery in their chosen fields or areas of passion. Thus a mentor and mentored relationship might develop when there's a large age gap between two people, which is perfectly natural. But within that framework, both parties can still recognize that they both have valuable things to contribute: one is not the filler of the pail and the other, well, a bucket.

Free choice can radically change the relationship between a teacher and a student. In a school type setting, teachers are there because it's a job, and while hopefully many care about what they're doing, their livelihood likely depends on keeping their student's test scores up, and not being overly controversial in the material they teach. Students are there because they have to be. Neither part has all that many options.

Outside of a school, even formal teacher-student relationships can change dramatically. As unschoolers, children and teens are choosing to enter into such a relationship, which means they're doing it because they want to, because they're learning about something that matters to them, because they care. And the teachers, instead of having to focus on tests, have the job of best sharing their knowledge in a way that's interesting, enjoyable, and challenging. They're trying to create a good experience for their student(s), and if they don't succeed at that, an unschooled student can choose to simply end that relationship. It becomes about a good rapport between teacher and students, and about actually learning something meaningful, not about standardized results.

It's not all clear cut. The lines between teacher and mentor, teacher and student, friend and teacher quickly start to blur when you take school out of the equation and add in a big dose of free choice. Sometimes monetary exchanges will be involved, and sometimes they won't. Sometimes there will be a class, sometimes a one-on-one lesson, and sometimes a casual meeting. Sometimes a teacher will turn into a friend, or a friend become a mentor as well.

What remains a constant with unschooling is that learning and teaching--how it works, who does it, and when it happens--is being re-imagined, and approached with an attitude of openness. This challenging of existing knowledge hierarchies--who is thought to have "authority" and who not--is to me one of the most radical and important elements of life learning. We're not just re-imagining learning, we're changing how people relate to each other.

This more egalitarian way of looking at learning and at relationships between learners (because really, everyone is a learner) is also empowering for children. If we value what children and teenagers have to share, their ideas, their experiences, and their knowledge, we're showing them that they're valuable, and worthy of respect. They're not depositories, they're people capable of learning from others and making contributions themselves.

What do I hope people will take away from this article? Mainly just that, outside of schools and schooling, there can be a wonderfully diverse amount of learning relationships, and that the role of "teachers" and "students" is much more flexible, has much more fluidity, and is a lot less authoritarian. It even starts to look a lot less like Teachers and Students, and a lot more like just a bunch of people learning from and with each other: a collection of mutually agreeable learning relationships and learning communities.

There is so much richness to be gained when you stop looking at some people as depositors and others as depositories, and instead see that we're all learners, and we're all in it together.

A big thanks to Sarah and Lauren for looking over this post and helping me to fix a few problems. My regular editor (also known as my sister) is away this week, so the help was much appreciated!

The Ultimate Unschooling Socialization Post

I've talked about the socialization of unschoolers a fair bit. It's kind of something I've been forced to address, seeing as how every single school free learner is very familiar with the oh so frequent concern "But what about socialization?!?"

So this is my attempt at having a go-to post to share with people whenever they pull out some variant on that tired old query. Consider it in the same series as my posts about the actual risk of unschooling, and how unschooling is not some newfangled idea.

I saw a comment today on a shared post of mine that I think hits every single socialization "concern." So I've drawn a list from that comment to start, then just continued compiling complaints about un/homeschoolers and our supposed complete lack of socialization that I've seen and heard before, to hopefully put these misconceptions to rest once and for all (yeah, right)! These are the supposed social benefits gained in schools that those outside of schools sadly miss out on, and my rebuttal of the missing-out-on part.

Learning how to deal with bullies and "mean girls" 

I'd like to share something I wrote recently in response to this question.

No, I have never met a bully. I’ve never met anyone I didn’t like. I have lived my entire life surrounded by wonderful people, flowers, cupcakes and unicorns.
Please excuse the snark, but I let myself be snarky just to make a point about how strange these type of questions seem to me. 

Of course I’ve had to deal with bullies, people who are nasty, people who hurt or seek to hurt myself or others. I’ve dealt with way more people than I’d like who have a strong sense of entitlement. I’ve known and know plenty of people who I really don’t like. 

That’s the nature of life. School doesn’t have a monopoly on unpleasant people (unfortunately. That might make things more pleasant for unschoolers, at least during school hours). Another term for what some of us choose to call unschooling is life learning, and that’s a perfect description of how we seek to learn. Life is full of challenging people and situations. As people, we can’t help but have to deal with them, no matter our education. 

That said, I think being able to leave situations or groups that feel abusive/toxic is really important, and that with unschooling, children and teens are granted the freedom to do just that.

To expand on that last part, no one should ever have to put up with abusive and cruel behaviour from others. Ever. Not as a "lesson," not to "toughen them up," not because "they were asking for it..." And lest you think the former two statements are vastly different from the last one, I think they're all a part of a pattern of excusing violent and abusive behaviour. Everyone, no matter their age, should have the right to live a life free of abuse and abusive people.

As I wrote a while back:

[U]ltimately, difficult things are impossible to entirely (or sometimes even mostly) avoid. Your friend groups will have fights and issues, you'll have to support your friend who's going through something really rough, relationships will end, you'll run into abusive people, and sometimes you'll feel that you have to deal with an environment that feels really toxic. 

But what unschooling can do is let you avoid some of the worst situations and some of the unnecessary ones. It gives children and teens a lot of the same freedom adults have, to quit a job with an abusive boss or stop going to that quilting class where people keep talking behind other peoples' backs.

I think that children and teens, when given that freedom, can't help but be at least a bit healthier, happier, and better equipped to deal with difficulties in more intentional ways.

Dealing with other students who didn't share the same beliefs, work ethic, habits, etc.

The world is full of people who aren't like you. In fact, the world contains much more diversity of people, considering that schools are:

1. Age segregated
2. Contain students only from that schools district, which means that as often as not, the student body will be fairly homogeneous in terms of socio-economic level, race, and even religion.

That's true of where you live, as well, so it might not be different outside of school, besides the age-segregation part, but it certainly won't be worse. While there might be some negative stereotypes of the extremely conservative far-right Christian school-at-homers who wish to keep their children away from everyone who doesn't think exactly like them, that's not the reality for any unschoolers I've ever met (when it comes to homeschoolers, sometimes that view is accurate, though more frequently it's not). Unschoolers are out in the world doing things and meeting people, which means you're going to come across quite a few people who don't share your beliefs, work ethics, and habits. That's just a part of living life, and a good part, usually!

Not being "socially awkward"

Here I'd like to reach back to an older post, once again, this time talking specifically of the myth of "social awkwardness" among school-free learners:

Like any other skill set, social skills differ greatly from person to person, regardless of their schooling (or lack thereof). For some people social interaction is extremely easy: they find knowing what to say and when to say it, how to behave around different people, to be second nature. Others have to work hard at it: to make a conscious effort to learn what is socially normal and then work to be that if they want to. How easily those skills come, despite what a ridiculously large amount of anti-homeschoolers have to say, does not make a person any better or worse a person for it. It's simply yet another thing that varies vastly between individuals.

It's also not a skill set that comes easier to schooled people than unschooled ones. I've met unschoolers who have great social ease and competence, and schooled people about whom I'd say the same. And I've met unschoolers who do not have as easy a time socially, as well as schooled people with not as great social skills. The majority of people I've met fall somewhere in between, no matter their education.

Beyond that, should someone's worth, the respect they're shown, really depend entirely on that one thing? I think people should be judged on a much wider range of skills, experiences, and competencies, without all the emphasis on "but are they socially awkward" and shame heaped on those deemed (by some) to be socially incompetent. It's also important to note that it seems disturbingly frequent for people who are neuro-divergent/neuro-atypical, have learning disabilities, mental illnesses, or other disabilities to be stuck with the label of "socially awkward." Maybe think about having more compassion for others and more flexibility in the way you interact with different people.

Having friends 

Have you only ever made friends with people you've met in school? If so, that seems like a sadly limited pool of people to befriend. I'd hope instead that you made friends from school, yes, but also dance class or martial arts, sports teams or a hiking group, by meeting friends of friends or going to a camp, by meeting people who live locally and by meeting people when you're visiting somewhere on vacation... Unschoolers make friends through all these ways, too, just minus the school part and possibly plus homeschool coops or groups or conferences. The world is a big place, and it's full of people. School is hardly the only place to meet them.

That said, making friends can be hard, no matter your education. In my teens I was often lonely, felt out of place in groups of people, felt like no one understood me. My sister on the other hand, also unschooled, made friends wherever she went and was always right in the thick of things. Sounds kind of like the difference between different kids in school, no? The teenage years are often hard, and when you throw in social groups that often feel toxic, struggles with mental illness (I have some anxiety issues), introversion, and a differing world view from many people, it doesn't matter what your education looks like, making good friends will probably feel difficult. There are lonely kids in school and out.

I'm happy to say that as an older teen and now adult, I made quite a few friends, including several close ones. It's all about finding the types of groups where you feel at home, the types of people you feel you can really connect with. I wrote more about this subject in the post The Socialization Question Hits Adulthood: Unschooled Identity and Fitting In.

Having a chance to be in team sports

Believe me when I say I'm not exactly into team sports. Yet even with that, I managed to be on a bowling team (yeah, I know, that's stretching the definition of "team sports") and an ultimate Frisbee team. Being out of school is no impediment to being part of team sports, if you so wish.

Learning to respect authority

When people bring up this one, I kind of just want to tell them that I think we're coming from such wildly different perspectives that I'm just not sure how to even go about addressing it. 

I don't believe in "respecting authority," I believe in not being an asshole. To me those are very different things. The first means doing what you're told. The second means basing your actions on your morals and values, and treating other people with respect; it means being polite and kind unless someone's behavior necessitates a less kind and less polite response; not breaking other people's stuff.; not talking over people, and making space for quieter people to be heard; learning to be aware of the social privileges we each carry that subtly effect how we're treated and how we learn to treat others, and seeking to break down those inequalities through our words and actions... Basically, a whole bunch of things that neatly fit under "don't be an asshole." Or, if you prefer, "trying to be a good person."

Respecting authority, on the other hand, means doing what you're told, regardless of whether what you're being told to do is in line with your values or even basic human decency. It means letting someone else's views of what you should be doing supersede your own feelings about what's best and healthiest for you (or your children). This taking away of peoples' power and choice starts when children are small, and continues on up through schooling, in everything from having to ask to go to the bathroom; having to learn (or at least memorize) things that have no relevance in your life and may even be negative about people like you or your family (I'm thinking of anti-queer and racist comments by teachers, policies in school dress that disproportionately target people of a specific race, and/or women and/or queer youth); having to listen to teachers who might be bullies themselves; and just having incredibly few choices in how you live your day to day life.

I don't think respect for authority is a good thing to be teaching children at all.

Having a shared experience

Never have I heard adults who have gone to different school go "haha, remember what it was like sitting in class/hanging out in the hallways/eating in the cafeteria?" I mean, if you went to the same school as someone else, the two of you might reminisce about specific people or classes or events. But otherwise? Just the act of going to school doesn't provide that much common ground. What you do hear people reminisce about is the music they listened to in their teens, or the movies they watched on a loop as a child, or that ridiculous meme from a few years ago. When it comes to age peers especially, shared culture creates shared experience. You know what else provides shared experiences? Plain old human existence, with all it's difficulties and joys. You can laugh over the annoying habits that your separate family members share, or talk about the struggles of being a young adult in the current economic climate. You can share similar experiences because of a cultural or ethnic identity, sexual orientation, political views, or geographic locations. 

There are a whole bunch of things that can provide common ground with others, and I'd say school is pretty low on that list.

Dealing with peer pressure

This is another one of these things where I just think you do know that people, including people who might try and pressure you into things, do exist outside of school, right? I've been offered drugs on numerous occasions in my life, and never accepted them as a teen (though I may have as an adult... Shh, don't tell). I want to make it clear that I don't think teens who use drugs are bad people, or that marijuana is a particularly dangerous substance, whether used by teens or adults (my body reacts FAR worse to caffeine, and more strongly to alcohol). I'm just trying to make the point that unschoolers are quite capable of making their own choices in the face of peer pressure, and if anything, I think not being in school could help in dealing with it. It's hard to face people every single day who are pushing you to do something, and not feel strong pressure to do it. If, on the other hand, you don't have to see people regularly who push you to do things you're uncomfortable with, firstly that's just making your life freer of coercive people who don't really care about your wants and needs, and secondly it's just not going to matter as much what those people think or want.

To sum it up? People who think it's okay to try and get others to do things they don't want to do are, sadly, a part of life. But unschooling can provide more space and support for choosing healthier social groups and making better choices.

Waiting in line

I almost hesitate to add this to the list, but when I asked people on my Facebook page to share concerned (or concern-trolling) queries they'd received about unschooling/homeschooling and socialization, more than one person had been asked how their children will learn to stand in line.

I don't know, maybe by parents saying "hey sweetie, we've got to stand at the back of the line because those people got here before us, and it's not nice to push in front of people." Also by waiting in line at the grocery store, waiting in line to check out your books at the library, waiting in line for an amusement park ride, waiting in line to get ice cream...

Getting to go to prom 

So, let me get this straight. You can unschool, and spend your teenage years learning things that fascinate and excite you; spending your time in pursuits that feel meaningful and important; volunteering and working; getting to sleep lots, and slow down when you need to; spending time in social situations you actually like, or at least have decided the benefits outweigh the negatives; and just generally enjoying daily life. Or, you could spend all those years sitting in a classroom, and then go to prom. Why is this even considered close to something that would make someone consider school the better option?

Also, some homeschooling groups organize proms, so unschoolers can get all of the party with none of the school.

My question is, do we really want school's version of socialization?

I read my sister one of the comments that sparked this post, and she burst out in frustration "can't people see that school is literally training you for the work force? People say things like 'school isn't really about academics, it's about social aspects. I learned to work with people with poorer work ethics than me, to deal with people who are cruel to me... now that's what I do in my life!' wow, good job, you learned to settle for shit."

Ivan Illich said much the same thing, if with very different wording, when he observed that:

School prepares for the alienating institutionalization of life by teaching the need to be taught. Once this lesson is learned, people lose their incentive to grow in independence; they no longer find relatedness attractive, and close themselves off to the surprises which life offers when it is not predetermined by institutional definition. And school directly or indirectly employs a major portion of the population. School either keeps people for life or makes sure that they will fit into some institution.

My conclusion? Unschoolers generally do plenty of socializing--though with the positive ability to make choices about how much or little time spent alone or with others feels best to them--and many of the concerns others express about the socialization of children outside of school are completely unfounded. However, I also think it's important to challenge the mindset that takes school as a given, as the norm and standard all other methods should be judged off of. Is the purpose of the socialization received in school really something we want for children and teens (ever heard of the hidden curriculum)? It's commonly accepted that schools are failing even at their stated goals, so why should people outside of school be attempting to emulate them in any way? Doesn't it make more sense to make choices based on the wants and needs of the parents, family, communities, and especially the learners themselves, not on how schools would go about doing things?

I'd rather unschoolers didn't "get socialized," and instead just learned to interact with a range of people in the real world, to be kind and polite, yet also to stand up for themselves and others, to follow rules and guidelines that make sense and do good, and question those that seem useless or harmful.

Finally, I'd like to end with some words by Wendy Priesnitz:

Life for children in school is public. They have virtually no time or space to which adults can be denied access. Children who find psychological privacy by daydreaming are labeled as inattentive or disinterested. On the other hand, life for unschooled children - even ones without siblings - is a mixture of personal and shared time, which allows them to get to know themselves, at the same time as they learn to value, yet be discriminating about, the time spent with others. 

My observation of thousands of home educated children over the past 35 years suggests that another factor outweighs any kind of peer or sibling interaction in its influence on social development. Feelings of security and self confidence are created in children who have the freedom to venture into sophisticated social situations at their own speed. This positive self concept is nurtured by warm, loving interaction with parents who respect their children. As the main ingredients in a child's social development, these even outweigh the contribution of continued social contact in creating a child who functions well in society.