In Defense of "Screens"

One of the most controversial topics I ever touch on is the issue of “screens.” There are a lot of strong feelings on the topic, but it probably won’t surprise anyone that I fall squarely on the side of more options rather than less, fewer limits rather than more. Seeing as this topic is a big one, though, I wanted to take some time to explore why I feel the way I do, how electronics fit into unschooling, the importance of self-direction, and some reasons why screens might not really be so scary. I hope that, whether you agree with me or not, you find some thoughts worth considering and links worth reading in this exploration of the important place screens can have in a child’s life.

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When I think about the distinguishing features of unschooling, one of the first things that comes to mind (I would think unsurprisingly) is that learning is self-directed, which means the learner themselves is deciding what activities to pursue. When self-direction is the goal, a myriad of options are usually given by the adults in a child’s life, a variety of tools made available. Unschooling, to me, is all about providing more options, more choice, more freedom in learning. So I find myself puzzled when some choose instead to narrow options, allowing children to “self-direct” only in a range deemed acceptable by concerned adults. While it’s undeniably important for adults to provide help, support, and guidance, choosing to cut out--or severely limit--one of the biggest available windows into the wider world seems counter-intuitive.

My sister and I are part of the first generation to grow up with easy access to the internet. My family got our fancy dial-up service when I was 5 or 6, my sister a couple of years younger, and we delighted in Neopets and other online games, the ability to make our own pages and blogs, to search out any questions we had (though admittedly there was a far smaller database of information to be had 20 years ago), to chat with friends, and to find communities of people who shared experiences and interests that I didn’t have access to in my daily in-person life. My life was intimately shaped by this new technology in overwhelmingly positive ways, and it most certainly lead to friendships, real world connections to local groups and events, and important discoveries--like my love of blogging and my sister’s love of fiction writing.

Sometimes people, in their advocacy for a screen-free childhood, say some variation of can’t you feel what it does to you? And I can. I feel it opening up possibilities.

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While some people are convinced that there’s solid science on how awful screens are for children (no thanks to the prevalence of scare-mongering pop-science pieces that show up with startling regularity), the reality is a lot more complicated, and there is no scientific consensus that Screens Are Bad. Even the American Academy of Pediatrics backed off of its hardline--and severely outdated--guidelines on screen use for children last fall, as evidence of the positive aspects continues to build. For the most part, the fear around screen use seems to be the same old fear that crops up any time something new comes into popular usage, and while there’s still plenty to learn about how current technology affects us, the decisions people are making around “screens” seem to have far more to do with fear than science. This article, though a few years old, still does a very good job of addressing the “history of media technology scares, from the printing press to Facebook.”

Even when it’s accepted that all screen use might not be bad, the narrative remains that while some people might be fine with “screens,” others will become hopelessly “addicted” if not rigidly controlled. To start with, I’m really uncomfortable with how casually the term “addiction” is thrown around: in the same way an overly controlling boss isn’t “OCD” and a friend who gets upset faster than expected isn’t “bipolar,” a child who spends more time online than their parent would like isn’t “addicted.” It’s important to note that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) includes “video game addiction” only in the section reserved for subjects which need further study, and while the DSM certainly isn’t infallible, that’s a good sign of how little evidence there currently is to support the addiction argument. Undoubtedly almost any activity can be taken to unhealthy extremes, but to single out any one activity as being more dangerous without sufficient evidence seems unreasonable. And while parents certainly want to help their children make good choices, their children will eventually--sooner rather than later if they’re in their teens--be making ALL of their own decisions, so shouldn’t the ultimate goal be to learn self-regulation? And if the goal is self-regulation, doesn’t it make sense to let children get as much practice at making their own choices as possible, before they’re out on their own for real? As one of my favorite quotes from Alfie Kohn says, “'The way kids learn to make good decisions is by making decisions, not by following directions.” Or put a different way by Mimi Ito: “The longer parents play time cop, the longer it takes for kids to learn self-control.”

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It’s undeniable that the internet provides access to a repository of information unlike any other in human history, and with that in mind, deciding children are better off screen free seems extremely limiting. But even beyond that, “merely” playing on computers (or gaming devices, or phones…), one of the biggest targets of anti-screen rhetoric, is also a positive part of many people’s lives. In a truly excellent piece by Peter Gray, he references studies showing some of the effects of gaming: “Repeated experiments have shown that playing fast-paced action video games can quite markedly increase players' scores on tests of visuospatial ability, including tests that are used as components of standard IQ tests. Other studies suggest that, depending on the type of game, video games can also increase scores on measures of working memory (the ability to hold several items of information in mind at once), critical thinking, and problem solving. In addition, there is growing evidence that kids who previously showed little interest in reading and writing are now acquiring advanced literacy skills through the text-based communication in online video games.” He further elaborates on the social aspects of gaming, pointing out that “Other research has documented, qualitatively, the many ways that video games promote social interactions and friendships. Kids make friends with other gamers, both in person and online. They talk about their games with one another, teach one another strategies, and often play together, either in the same room or online.”

The image many have in their minds of lone individuals glued to their screens like zombies, cut off from all interactions with others, just doesn’t reflect reality in the majority of cases. Whether it’s gaming, TV shows, social media sites, blogging, or anything else, “screen time” is usually “social time” in one way or another.

A frequently expressed “socialization” concern in regards to school-free learners is that they won’t share common experiences with their schooled peers, and yet I’ve often thought that shared culture--shared arts and media--is a better point over which to bond than shared institutionalization. While culture is experienced in different ways, both online and off, it most certainly includes TV shows and video games, web comics and YouTube channels, social media sites and blogs. Finding people who love the same things you do is one of the great joys of the internet, and is often the spark for friendships online and off.

On the other side of things, parents of school-free learners often express concerns over negative content in popular media: racism, sexism, homophobia and the like. While that’s certainly a big issue, I’ve always thought the best way to learn to think critically about the media we consume is to interact with and interrogate it, to have thoughtful discussions about what is done well and poorly in any given show or game (or book, for that matter). I’d never suggest that adults leave children to fend for themselves, without involvement or guidance, and instead I think parents can help their children learn to think about what they’re playing or watching by playing and watching it with them, and having those discussions from the time a child is young.

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Some of the most frequent questions I get about my unschooling experience are about passion: What were your passions? How did you discover your passions? What did your parents do to help you find your passions? And my partial answer to the last of those has to be that they didn’t treat my interests with fear and disdain. They let me have my own interests--my own passions--even when they didn’t understand or “get” them.

You can’t choose what someone else cares about. It doesn’t matter if they’re your children; their minds are their own, and if you’re serious about self-directed learning, then their interests must be allowed to be their own as well.

Right now, I love makeup. Love it. I spend hours watching YouTube tutorials and unboxings, reading product reviews, sorting through my makeup collection, putting on my makeup… For me it’s a form of artistic expression, something I can get lost in, by all judges a true passion. Yet to many people this would seem like a mind numbingly boring pursuit. They’d find it shallow and pointless.

On the other hand, I’ve never been very into video games: I find them uninteresting, and even when a game initially seems interesting, I find it bores me incredibly quickly. But that doesn’t mean I see them as a lesser pursuit, or see my interests as in any way superior.

It’s often hard to see, from the outside, what someone else is getting out of an activity or interest that we don’t share, but rest assured that they are getting something out of it, or they wouldn’t be doing it. And if you try and get involved, or talk to someone about the things they care about, you might just start to see why they’re so passionate.

Or you could just dismiss it out of hand, miss an opportunity to get a window into someone else’s world, and crush a budding passion.

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Sometimes I spend too much time scrolling endlessly through Facebook, or watching YouTube videos, or reading a really long piece of investigative journalism. I consider the time spent to be “too much” because my leg falls asleep from sitting too long, or I regret staying up as late as I did, or I wish I’d gone out to the garden while the sun was still up. But as an adult--and as a teenager who didn’t have “screen limits”--those decisions are mine to own and the consequences are naturally occurring (as opposed to punishments, which some parents name “consequences” in order to make themselves feel more justified). Once again I return to the concept of self-direction being crucial to unschooling, and to be truly self-directed is to sometimes direct ourselves into choices we regret. That’s just part of learning, no matter what age we are.

I also see a big difference between parents intervening in an actual problem, and parents creating arbitrary limits in order to feel some control over possibly preventing future problems (which may never manifest). There’s a difference between saying “you’ve been playing that game for a really long time, let’s go do something different now” and an inflexible rule that children are only allowed two hours of screen time per day. And there’s a difference between deciding not to let a 2 year old spend time playing on a tablet versus deciding that the bulk of childhood should be spent without access to a whole category of play and learning.

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In deciding that screen time is automatically damaging--or at the very least suspect--and casting almost any other activity as better, a whole bunch of unneeded conflict arises: suddenly it’s screens versus books, screens versus outdoor play, screens versus family time. Electronics become the forbidden fruit, made more tempting by its exclusion from a list of acceptable activities. In pitting activities against each other in such a way, the supposed “good” activities can be made to feel like a chore (something I explored recently in my post Summer Rules?). A child is told they have go outside for an hour before they can go online. This then becomes an interminable hour where all they do is kick at leaves and wander around restlessly, unable to think of anything but how much they want to talk to their friend who’s only online for a couple more hours, because they live on opposite sides of the globe in a very different timezone…

Then there’s the matter of how frequently hypocrisy comes into play, when a parent spends all day inside on their phone and the computer, yet kicks their children outside and admonishes them to “go play!” instead of allowing them to spend a similar amount of time on their respective devices. If you want to instill a joy of the outdoors (or reading, or anything else you deem important) you have to show that you take joy in it, yourself. As Lori Pickett said in a wonderful post on screen time:

Whenever you make it about “give up this thing you really love,” you are probably going to lose. Even if you win on paper, you are still losing in the ways that count. You’re losing credibility. You’re losing their attention. You’re losing their trust. 

You are sending all kinds of subtle, between-the-lines messages about what’s broccoli and what’s candy. You’re sending those messages every day when you choose how to spend your free time, too. Before they learn how to velcro their shoes, kids know when your words don’t match your actions. 

We have to change our entire approach and start saying, “If these things are really important to us — as a family, as a community, as a society — then we need to start enjoying them, together.”

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Whether people are delighted by the technology available to us or concerned by its rising prevalence, the reality is that it’s here to stay, and has become a vital tool in virtually every sphere of life. Children growing up today need to understand it because they need to have the skills to navigate this world. There’s beauty in balance, but what balance means to each individual is something they have to figure out for themselves, and while caring adults should be ready to offer guidance to the children in their lives, ultimately those children are their own people, and need to to be making their own choices--or at least moving in a direction of increasing freedom of choice. Self-direction is such a powerful thing, and when adults can move past their fear, there’s such a wealth of learning and fun and connection to be had with those oft reviled screens. So many opportunities! Almost limitless options. Personally, I’m grateful to have always had so many “screens” in my life.


*I put screens in quotations because I find it a very reductive and misleading way to talk about a whole range of different devices.

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Regulating Unschooling? Only If There's No Testing Involved

As unschooling in particular and homeschooling in general become ever more widespread, the rumblings of unease from everyone not unschooling (or homeschooling) also seem to get louder: wait, why isn’t there more oversight? These families could be using this as a cover for educational neglect. Shouldn’t someone be testing these kids?

Ah, testing. Again and again it comes up as an answer to better controlling the homeschooling population. After all, isn’t that the best way to compare school free learners to those in school, and make sure they’re getting a real education?

It makes sense. If, that is, you believe that testing is an accurate judge of education… And that’s increasingly being called into question not only by fringe groups of educational radicals, but by ever more mainstream groups of people--teachers, parents, children, and concerned citizens--who see how increased standardized testing is harming learning and stressing children to the point of illness. The “opt-out” movement has gained traction across the US, and in it’s New York epicenter the last several years have seen over 20% of students refusing to take standardized state tests. In countless op-eds and articles educators, parents, and students expound on the flaws and failings of our mass cultural reliance on standardized testing.

If testing itself is failing in schools, institutions built by their very nature to standardize education in order to test it’s supposed efficacy, then why on earth would it be a good idea to export standardized tests to school free learners, as well?

The reason people choose to forgo schooling is because they want a different type of experience, one they’re not able to achieve in a traditional school setting. While some homeschoolers will re-create the trappings of a school education outside of the institution, many more (unschoolers most of all) are looking to leave schooling itself behind, believing that our modern method of education largely ignores the importance of self-directed learning, free play, internal motivation, building respectful multi age relationships, authentic work, and all the other marvelous benefits available to a child with supportive and available adults in their lives. When life and learning are inseparable, testing seems like an absurd intrusion on a natural process.

But how do you know they’re learning? critics cry. Well, that’s actually pretty simple. Firstly, a lack of curriculum doesn’t mean a lack of (learner chosen) goals, whether stated or not: to be able to read well enough to enjoy getting through Harry Potter; to go to space camp; to learn Japanese. Secondly, when not being taught to the test children will engage in authentic and clearly visible projects and activities: planting their own garden; writing a novel; building a video game. Thirdly, and most importantly, when engaging in adult supported self-directed learning there are strong relationships formed between adult and child, and the adult(s) sees the learning happening: in enthusiastic discussions; activities practiced together; books read aloud and shows watched together; in narrations of whatever was done in science club/book club/Scouts/4H/art class/martial arts, etc. When you live and learn together with children, you can’t stop seeing the learning happening.

This isn’t to say I’m 100% against any regulations of school free education. I’m just against any regulation that takes the model of schooling as an unquestioned success, and deems anything different to be suspect. I understand that self-directed learning seems strange and unmeasurable to many, and in all fairness it usually is unmeasurable and is sometimes strange (depending on your definition)! And I can understand fear of school free learning being used as a “mask” for child abuse, at least in that I’d hope that we all want children to be safe and happy, and would be concerned at anything we think might not support that. But in looking to regulate home educators, I think there are some important things to consider (and here I take inspiration from what my province’s largest secular home education organization is recommending to the Quebec government as it prepares new legislation):

1. Most parents are deemed innocent until proven guilty. This makes sense, because the majority of parents are essentially decent. Yet when it comes to school free learning, suddenly some view parents in the reverse: guilty until proven innocent. There is no proof that school free children are at a greater risk for abuse, and in fact plenty of people turn to home education precisely because their children are experiencing abuse in school (from either other children or teachers). It seems pretty hypocritical to single out school free learners for scrutiny. Instead assume good intent: that the parents or guardians want their children to be happy and gain the skills needed to function in society, and only investigate if there are signs this isn’t the case/a complaint is made to the local child protection service. Bonus? Enact laws that protect all children from physical violence by outlawing corporal punishment, whether practiced in schools (still legal in many US states) or by parents.
2. Recognize that there are many different “methods” practiced by school-free learners, and while it’s perfectly reasonable to expect parents to be able to express to an official why they choose not to send children to school and the type of learning environment they hope to create instead (whether they have a name for it or not), it’s not reasonable to expect home educators to recreate school at home. Doing something different is precisely why families are home educating, after all!
3. Separate the stereotypes from reality. In many parts of North America home education is synonymous with conservative religious practice, but that’s never been wholly accurate, and is becoming even less accurate as ever greater numbers of families are choosing home education for secular reasons (whether they’re religious or not). If there are risk factors associated with certain groups--for instance the popularity of the horrifically abusive Pearl parenting method among certain segments of evangelical Christians, for whom homeschooling is also common--focus on that, not the entire home education demographic.
4. Home educators frequently make good use of any and all resources available in their community. Isolation is the exception, not the rule, and many school-free learners would be quite happy to have access to resources in local schools as well. Think band, sports, labs… School boards are only the enemy when they insist on trying to get school-free learners to conform to a common curriculum, instead of respecting the differences inherent in an educational alternative.

In a world where education is--ever so slowly yet ever so surely--becoming more diverse and more individualized, school-free education is going to keep on growing. I think it now falls on those of us comfortable speaking out about our experiences to share them, and those who worry to truly listen, and begin the process of questioning their assumptions about education. Standardized testing in elementary and high school levels has never and will never be an accurate method for establishing whether authentic learning is happening, even inside of schools, and unschoolers as a whole want no part of it. Unschoolers seek to work with children, instead of against them, and perhaps it’s time the rest of society to take a page from our playbook and start working with educational alternatives instead of shutting them down. I have great hope that, with the progress alternative education ideas have made just in my lifetime, real change isn’t only possible, but inevitable.

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There's No Such Thing As "Self-Taught"

The term “self-taught” is bandied about a lot in self-directed education circles. People learning outside the strictures of formal institutions, classes, or tutors are deemed have taught themselves, taken on the internal role of both student and teacher.

And yet “self-taught” is not really a term I like or use myself.

To me, self-taught implies that learning happens in a vacuum. Alone, without external influences, without help, without the plethora of human resources available in this world. Unschooling is too often viewed, in my opinion, as something both insular and perhaps even lonely (that age-old “socialization” myth), along with being almost arrogant in nature: you think you know enough to teach yourselves? You certainly have a high opinion of your skills…

While there are really great aspects of independence that life learning obviously provides--after all, the whole point is self-directed learning, making your own decisions about what you choose to do with your time--I think there’s an important distinction to be made between independence and isolation. Between learning which is self-directed, and knowledge which is supposedly self-taught. The reality of unschooling is that it functions best within community, with the support of myriads of different people--sometimes even teachers! Besides, being “self-taught” may not even be possible. After all, even if you learn something from books, YouTube videos, or observation, someone wrote those books, filmed those videos, and is practicing their skills in a place you can observe them.

I’ve said it before, but as far as I’m concerned it bears frequent repetition: unschooling is about opening up more of the world to children than they’d generally encounter in school, not less. Spending time around a wider variety of people (ages, backgrounds, skills), not fewer. Life learning is truly a community venture, rooted in the unique places we inhabit, not a solo-expedition in self-teaching.

What do I personally like to emphasize, instead?

Delight-driven: Learning that starts with a spark, building curiosity, a burst of inspiration, excitement, delight.

Inquiry-based: Finding the answers to a question (or a hundred questions), the solution to a real problem, exploring the world with interest and thoughtfulness and wonder.

Self-directed: Choosing which pursuits are worth pursuing, who you turn to for support and direction, what you spend your time in doing.

Life learning doesn’t seek to turn everything into teaching, whether by yourself or others, and it certainly isn’t about going it alone and lonely (at least if you can possibly help it). Instead it’s about taking advantage of any opportunities available to you, if they seem important or interesting, and shaping a collaborative, self-directed education.

Doesn’t that sound a lot better than self-taught?

"That's Not Unschooling!" Tips on Sharing Unschooling Advice Kindly and Effectively

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Something I see sometimes that makes me scratch my head: "We use a curriculum that's really unschooling friendly!"

...Which seems to be missing the point more than a little.

If a child chooses to do a curriculum of their own free will (as in, there wasn't strong parental pressure to do it) that IS still unschooling. But if the adults involved have chosen a curriculum and are forcing their children to in any way adhere to it--even if it's a “relaxed” curriculum, even if it allows children to choose from a list of pre-determined activities--that's still, well, schooling.

There is a strong cultural story of what school looks like. It has separate classrooms; separate teachers; knowledge is transferred in a neat one-way direction from teachers to students; there are clear distinctions between periods; clear separations between subjects; there’s a cafeteria and recess and homework to do afterward…

So when people choose to break away from this vision of school, and don’t create an exact replica of school inside of their own homes, I think it can be easy to think that what they’re doing must be UN-schooling. And I mean, it almost certainly IS better than school! An important step (many steps) away from mainstream schooling!

But it might not be unschooling just yet. And if a parent is enforcing any type of curriculum (no matter how loosely) on their children, it definitely isn’t.

This isn’t a criticism, so much as an observation of just how deeply we, as a culture, have internalized How Education Works based on a model of forced schooling, so that even when someone has shed the most obvious trappings of schooling (the classrooms, the periods, the different teachers for every different subject), they’re still usually harboring a lot of schoolish ideas. They’re still looking at things, as I once pointed out, through “school coloured glasses.” There might not be a whole cadre of professional teachers, but an adult still has to be planning lessons of some sort. There might not be periods divided by that old fashioned ringing of the bell, but there are still “learning activities” and activities from which children are apparently not learning (video games, anyone?).

For prospective unschoolers, it often takes a whole lot of deschooling, an unpacking of all the myriad beliefs of what learning is “supposed” to look like, and a gradual understanding of how freeform and ever present life learning actually is.

For those of us who are further along on that journey, whether by a little bit or a lot, I find myself often wondering--even after many years now interacting with new unschoolers myself--how to gently point out what isn’t unschooling, and suggest a change of direction to those who are looking to embrace life learning. It’s a continuous process of learning to do better, and I think I will always be working on being clearer and kinder in my communication, but there are some things I try to keep in mind. Note that I’m talking specifically about people who WANT to unschool, who are interested in learning more, and just don’t have a very accurate grasp of just what unschooling is yet. I am not talking about people who stubbornly insist they want to call their homeschool unschooling even when it’s anything but, and have no interest in moving further in a self-directed direction.

Now that we have that out of the way…

Be gentle. Maybe instead of a straight up “that’s not unschooling,” a softer yet still clear approach is better: “Unschooling is all about adult facilitated self-directed learning, so if you’re making your kids follow a curriculum or do workbooks when they haven’t chosen to do so themselves, I’d consider that to be eclectic or relaxed homeschooling. If you and your family are happy with that, then that’s fine. But if you’d like to move in a more unschooling direction, I’d love to share some resources with you or tell you a bit about how we do life learning in my family.”

There are so many great resources to share. Some of my personal favorite sites right now are Living Joyfully With Unschooling; Unschooling Mom2Mom; Offtrail Learning; and of course my own archives may also prove helpful.

Talk about your own breakthrough moments and successes. That time you realized your child had started reading without you ever trying to teach them to do so; how much more happy things became--and how much more learning you observed--when you ditched your curriculum; how focusing on relationships instead of “education” lead to a wonderful family project… Whatever it was that made unschooling “click” for you might help someone else in their own breakthroughs, all while keeping it focused on things that work for you, instead of telling the person in question what they’re doing wrong.

Give concrete suggestions. If someone is actively asking for help with a difficult situation, or bemoaning the fact their attempts at unschooling (based on their potentially flawed views on just what it is) isn’t “working,” it can be really helpful to make some suggestions. Unsolicited advice is usually a bad idea, but when people are looking for help, so many unschoolers have so much wisdom to share. And in my experience, phrasing things in the form of questions is often the most effective approach. “Have you tried looking at things from her perspective? I wonder how she feels about X thing?” “Are you focusing on your interests, too? It’s great for children to see their parents passionate about their own activities, and maybe he’d like to join you!” “Have you talked to them about how you’re feeling, and asked them how they feel? If you work on having open lines of communication, it will probably be easier to find a solution that works for everyone.”

I think there will always be times when we find ourselves frustrated with misunderstandings of how unschooling works and what it even is, but for those who want the benefits of a truly life learning educational experience, we’re in a wonderful position to share our own experiences and help all the new folks find their own unschooling groove, in a way that’s both kind and effective.

Unschooling Helps Raise Critical Thinkers

When asked what education is supposed to do, what it’s supposed to instill in the minds of growing humans, one of the most common answers is “critical thinking.” After browsing through definitions from various dictionaries, all of which amount to essentially the same thing, I found Google’s version to be the most succinct: “the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment.”

That seems reasonable. We all want the people around us--and we want ourselves--to look at issues thoughtfully and come to conclusions through careful consideration, instead of snap judgements based on little knowledge.

But how do you foster that type of thinking? And are schools really the best place to do so? You can probably guess that my opinion on the latter would be a big “no.” So how do you encourage critical thinking outside of school? I have a few thoughts on the subject that have proven true in my own life...

When others make choices for you, there’s no critical thinking. Or as Alfie Kohn put it, “The fact is that kids learn to make good decisions by making decisions, not by following directions.” By giving children greater control over the everyday choices in their lives and including them in the realities of family decision making you’re automatically introducing them to the art of critical thinking.

Experiencing differences. Neighborhoods and school districts are often made up of a roughly homogeneous group of people in similar socio-economic brackets and racial backgrounds. This isn’t always the case, of course, but too often it is. If you value critical thinking (not to mention social justice), this is bad news. Exposure to a range of different people is generally understood to be a good way to build empathy for others, gain a more nuanced view of different experiences, and figure out where you stand on important issues. In other words, experience with other people and other views helps build critical thinking. Funnily enough, this is one that unschoolers--all school free learners, in fact--are frequently accused of doing a poor job of. Plenty of times that’s true, but it’s every bit as true of schools.

With all of the above, I don’t mean to imply that entertaining bigoted or abusive views in the name of “respecting different opinions” should be the goal. Certain views are considered unacceptable for a reason, and don’t deserve respect. I’m just trying to touch on the importance of joining or building many different communities, not only spending time with people who are exactly the same as you.

Talking about and learning to recognize biases in the world around you. While the term “fake news” might be being bandied about a bit too loosely, it is important to understand that not all sources are equally accurate, and even the best sources are still not wholly unbiased: everyone perceives the world through their own set of prejudices, and even a journalist doing their best to report accurately is going to be subtly influenced by their unique set. So how do unschoolers--or anyone, for that matter--learn to recognize bias? You talk about it! Or at least, that’s what I learned to do. What unquestioned beliefs underlie this storyline? What identities does this reporter hold that might tell you something about their perspective? Is there a reason the creators of this film might want to influence your thinking in a specific way? I ask myself these types of questions all the time, and I discuss them with family and with friends. This type of deconstructing is contagious, spreading among friend groups and instilling habits of questioning everything in the children in your lives.

Looking at studies, not headlines (and looking at those studies critically). I’m sure all of us have posted an article a time or two without verifying the accuracy of its claims. I know I have! But as a general rule, I try to look past the headlines and figure out what exactly is behind them. For instance, while scientific research or surveys are often sensationalized in headlines, the breadth of the study, its quality, what the conclusions the researchers reached actually were, and any caveats they share in their own overview is very rarely (wholly) reflected in mainstream press coverage. So I generally make a habit of looking over whatever part of the study in question is available for free, and looking over it thoughtfully. What I mean by that is that the very first things I ask myself after getting some basic ideas about the methodology of the study, the demographic groups surveyed, etc. is “how could the choices the researchers made have affected the results?” How long were the study participants followed? If a wider range of demographics were surveyed, might the results have been different? Too often we learn to see experts as infallible, and while there are certainly many areas where I respect the knowledge others have as greater than my own, that certainly doesn’t mean I can’t turn a critical eye to any and all things I read, and use my own reasoning to decide how reliable it is.

Emotions are as important as rationality. Sometimes people like to take the idea of critical thinking to mean “feelings don’t matter, stop acting like emotions are important and coddling people.” Critical thinking is about knowing what elements exist in any given situation, and considering how they do or should affect the outcome. In human culture and human interactions, emotions will always be an important consideration. The whole debate about content warnings in university syllabi come to mind. On one side, you have people ranting against “political correctness run amok,” and higher institutions no longer being about that all important “critical thinking.” Yet all students are asking for is more information. What is going to be covered in this course? Critical thinking is all about gathering as much information on a topic or situation as possible in order to make an informed decision (in this case, that decision would be, “is this the right course for me, my goals, and my needs, or not?”). Those who oppose content warnings in academia or in online spaces seem to have no similar problems with the content warnings on films and TV shows. You can’t make good decisions if you don’t have all the relevant information, and whether a movie has PG rated violence or R rated violence is going to make a big difference in who you choose to watch it with (your 10 year old nephew or your friend who can’t stand gore are not going to be a good fit for the latter). Our emotional lives and limitations are part of critical thinking and making good decisions for ourselves.

This is, of course, just an overview of some of the things I’ve found helpful to incorporate into my own life, and though I certainly don’t always do as good a job as I’d like, I have managed to grow into a person who is mostly used to dissecting the media I consume, having thoughtful conversations with friends, verifying sources, and all that other good stuff. And that holds true for a large portion of the adult unschoolers I know as well! When you grow up with a lot more self-determination, it tends to create an environment that fosters what everyone claims to want in children: critical thinking.

A Personal Manifesto On Learning Bravely

Most of what I share is advice and theory, deeply rooted in my personal experiences, but not often about my own learning journey. So as the new year starts--and thanks to a bit of inspiration from Sue Patterson’s unschooling manifesto--I wanted to sit down and consider what types of attitudes I want to cultivate, and what pieces of advice I want to give to myself, as I continue my own grown-up unschooling. These are not so much specifics: “read more books” or “take up running,” these aren’t new year's resolutions (easily made and as easily broken), but instead I hope will act more as my own mini-manifesto for the coming year, a year in which I hope I can work on growing, healing, and learning bravely. Here goes!

My unschooling mug! (Society6)

1. Recognize when I’m stuck, and don’t let myself stay stuck for too long. 
2. Get help when I need it. Professional help, support from friends, classes, whatever. I’m not a one-person island, and reaching out for support, in whatever way is needed, is a good thing.
3. Push outside my comfort zone. This is one of my biggest goals for this coming year! As a person with generalized anxiety disorder, pretty much EVERYTHING is outside my comfort zone, and the longer I stay in my little zone, the smaller it becomes. I need to always be expanding it, step by step, little by little, outwards if I want to do better.
4. Fun is important. Really important! It’s okay to enjoy something even if it doesn’t have an immediate, obvious “point.”
5. Quiet times are good in moderation, but a balance needs to be found. I love daydreaming and enjoying the small things of everyday life: --a good cup of coffee, a good cuddle session with my cat, a wonderful new novel. However, I can get so wrapped up in them I become isolated. Other people need to be a regular part of my life, too.
6. Stop comparing myself to others, and finding myself lacking. If I truly believe what I say about each person having their own unique timeline, I can’t keep thinking I’m at the “wrong” point on it.
7. Don’t ever be embarrassed to share what I’m interested in or excited about, even if--or maybe especially if--it’s something that I know some people would dismiss as unimportant.
8. Celebrate every tiny little success as if it’s a Big Deal, because it IS a big deal! It’s important to recognize progress, whether it’s big steps forward or small ones.
9. Despite what I tell myself, coffee does not actually help me do anything. Use it in moderation.
10. Inspiration doesn’t usually just pop up all on it’s own. Finding inspiration is work, a deliberate practice of paying attention, doing new things, engaging in conversation with others, and being genuinely thoughtful about what I read and see and hear. 
11. Being brave in my work doesn’t only mean talking about my struggles (with anxiety and depression, mainly), it also means branching out with my writing, choosing topics that interest me, but I don’t know if others will want to read. It means creating more things in mediums I haven’t explored much before (video, audio). It means saying “yes” more to interview requests. 
12. Productivity is a self perpetuating cycle. While it’s okay to not be productive sometimes, and my value as a human being is not attached to my productivity, when I do more, I feel better. And when I feel better, I do more. Once the ball starts rolling, I have to keep it rolling, even when things are hard. Doing only a little bit feels a whole lot better than doing nothing.

If you choose to join in and write your own mini-manifestos, please share the links in the comments. I’d love to read them!

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"Ideological Nonsense" or Revolutionary Education? 5 Outrageous Things I've Learned as a Practitioner of Unschooling

Negative mainstream media articles about unschooling--like the tides, the changing seasons, and election years--are a perennial phenomena, as familiar in the autumn as falling leaves for those of us who keep an eye out for such things. Sometimes, though, it’s not even an article about unschooling, and instead the snide remarks--or in some cases even outright calls for governmental bans--are tucked into a wider-ranging piece. That’s the case in the recent article from The Guardian titled Is the state sometimes wiser than parents? Starting out with a defense of the state sanctioned body shaming of children in the UK (based on the extremely unscientific BMI), it quickly moves on to the topic of home education, broadly, with special mention of the horror that is unschooling:

Some may be getting an adequate education – we just don’t know. But it is clear that some parents are subjecting their children to ideological nonsense that they term “non-schooling” or “delight-based learning”, in which there is no curriculum, structured learning or testing; instead, children are encouraged to “learn through living”. This is an outrageous state of affairs. We rightly argue that children worldwide have the right to attend school, so why not here? Home-schooling should be banned in all but the most exceptional of circumstances.

Frustrating? Yes. Funny? That too! I had to crack up at the “outrageous state of affairs” bit in regards to children--gasp!--learning from living. I could get into the author’s wider point about what role the state versus parents should play. As a (collectivist, anti-capitalist) anarchist my own views on the matter should be clear: I’m for children’s rights above parental OR state control, and am in favour of anything that contributes to children’s rights to bodily autonomy, freedom of thought, self-determination, and safety, and against anything that hampers those things. But instead, I’m going to keep things focused on life learning, and how very effective and delightful (another thing education apparently shouldn’t be!) it is.

5 Outrageous Things I’ve learned as a Practitioner of Delight-Driven, Inquiry-Based, Self-Directed Life Learning (a phrase I even put on a T-shirt, by the way)

Fun is as important as education, and the two tend to go hand in hand. In “progressive” education circles the term “play-based learning” has become very popular, and while play needs to be recognized for the incredible importance it has in learning, too often what is meant by that phrase is nothing like true (self-directed, collaborative, spontaneous) play. Instead it’s adult-directed activities designed to “educate” young minds, which usually isn’t that much fun at all, and even when it does manage to be fun, still doesn’t have the same benefits as children’s play. Unschoolers get LOTS of time to play, to have fun, to do things simply for the joy of them. Every single activity doesn’t have to be justified by it’s supposed educational value, and instead children--and adults, too!--can do their best to live an enjoyable life, confident in the knowledge that learning is ever present.

A curriculum has no place in real learning. When adults in power decide what every single child at a given age needs to know (and what they don’t), where the lines between subjects will be drawn (and that there should be lines between them), and how those subjects should be fed to children (regardless of the differences in how each child learns), children are robbed of the sense of excitement, discovery, and freedom found in self-directed life learning. Children have the right to make their own decisions and their own mistakes, to think their own thoughts and choose where, how, and with whom they want to spend their time, in an age appropriate way, and within reasonable constraints of family, community, and finances. What stands out to me about my own unschooling upbringing is how flexible and collaborative it was, something I never would have been able to experience within the constraints of a curriculum.

Solitude is as important as socializing. Arguments that unschoolers (and more broadly all home educated children) are lacking in socialization is predicated on the idea that there is one ideal level of socializing time that is right for every single child… Which is pretty absurd, when you think about it! Unschoolers can figure out, with help and support from the adults in their life, what type of and how much “socialization” is right for them and their unique personality and needs. Just as there’s no one-size-fits-all curriculum, there’s no one-size-fits-all model of socializing, either.

Boredom and downtime are essential parts of learning and living. When every moment of a child’s life is planned, organized, and monitored, they lose out on the time needed to process experiences, daydream, and find creative ways to fill their own time. No emotion should be vilified in the way that boredom frequently is, and when it’s instead embraced as simply part of the experience of being human for many of us, it becomes easy to see all the benefits it brings.

Children and adults can work together as equal partners in the adventure that is unschooling. In schools there is a very clear hierarchy, with teachers making up the ruling class and children the very clearly ruled. When you learn outside of school, you have the opportunity to re-imagine what child-adult, teacher-student relationships can look like and be. Children have different needs than adults, are smaller and less experienced, and are at a different developmental stage than older people. But different needs don’t mean lesser ones, and respectful relationships between caregivers and children make up the backbone of unschooling. It’s through cultivating trusting relationships, open communication and good time spent together that a learning partnership is formed, where all parties can work together to pick activities, learn exciting new things, and reach chosen goals. Life learning isn’t neglect; it’s about living and learning together.

It can be easy to let negative media exposure get you down, but instead I choose to just re-iterate, again and again, what unschooling actually is, how it works, and the role this philosophy can play in transforming the way we, as a culture, look at education. There are a lot of misconceptions out there, and sadly there will always be people whose reaction to not understanding a lifestyle is that it should be banned. But while change will always seem threatening to some, the reality is that unschoolers--along with other self-directed learners--are doing something truly revolutionary, and pointing the way towards a future of greater respect for children, and greater understanding of the way humans best learn and grow. Which I’d say is outrageously delightful.

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So You've Started Unschooling... Now What? Tips On Not Stressing Out As You Start Your First Unschool Year

For the majority of people, a new school year has just begun. But for a small yet growing portion of the population, there’s none of this “back to school” thing happening. Instead, they’re celebrating a new year of school-free life learning, and for some of you, this will be your first ever NOT back-to-school year, as you embark on a new unschooling adventure.

I’m a grown unschooler, so I’ve never experienced this through the lens of a parent, but as someone who has been writing and speaking about unschooling for over eight years, I’ve become very familiar with the types of concerns and worries new-to-unschooling parents have. With those in mind, I wanted to put together a post on how not to worry (too much) in these early days.

So if you’re new to unschooling, take a deep breath and read on!

You’re doing this for a reason

Your friends keep looking at you with reproach, your extended family thinks you’re ruining your children’s lives, and everyone around you keeps talking about the importance of schooling. The panic might just be starting to set in. But the thing is, you didn’t make this decision on a whim. You chose to start unschooling for a reason. Maybe your kids were struggling in school, or maybe they were bored. Maybe you feel as if your family has become disconnected, and you want the time to build stronger relationships. Maybe the lack of freedom in schools seems stifling, and you want your children to learn to trust their own judgement and make their own decisions. Maybe it’s all of the above. But whatever led to your choice, they were darn good reasons. Focus on that. Remember why you’re doing this.

This is YOUR choice. Set boundaries when dealing with friends, family members, and assorted concerned citizens

Think about how much you want to share or explain when talking to family, to friends, and to strangers. Talk to your kids about ways they can respond both to concerned friends and nosy neighbors. If you know what you’re comfortable saying (or not saying) ahead of time, have some answers prepared, and are ready to politely but firmly shut down the conversation when it gets too intrusive or judgmental, then dealing with the inevitable reactions to your unconventional choices will quickly become less stressful.

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

You probably won’t find your groove right away

When you decided to unschool, you probably had an idealized image in your head: children driven to learning by excitement and delight, the whole family reading together, exploring local museums, jumping head first into volunteering, whatever. And maybe things aren’t looking quite the way you thought they would. Your kids just want to watch TV and play quietly by themselves, and no one even seems to want to leave the house! Well, here there are a few things to consider:

1. What's happening, in part at least, is deschooling. Pam Laricchia, one of my favourite unschooling authors and bloggers, explores just what this is and how to deal with it on her website, which I highly recommend. The (very) short version? If your children were previously in school, they need time to recover, to relax, and to know that they really, truly can decide to do what they want to do with their time now, whether that’s TV or otherwise.
2. Your children are not you, and they’re not necessarily going to make the choices that you would make, or do the things that you think they should be doing. One of the most defining aspects of unschooling is trust, and now is the time to start practicing that by trusting that they’re making the choices they need to, for themselves, at this time. Suggest and offer, by all means, but respect that you’re now creating a partnership, not acting as a teacher, and your children get to learn how they want to learn.
3. Learning happens all the time and everywhere. Just because it doesn’t look the way you expect learning to look doesn’t mean it isn’t happening!

See also: Fun Is More Important Than “Education” and The Role of Boredom and Dabbling in Pursuit of Passionate Learning

The goal is creating a great unschooling experience for your family, not re-creating a different family’s experience

Some of your expectations of what unschooling would look like probably came from other unschoolers--a family you know in your town, a blogger who inspires you, etc. Gaining inspiration from others is great, and looking to more experienced unschooling parents can be so helpful! But ultimately, you’re not re-creating someone else’s unschooling experience. You’re creating your own. Each family and each individual is different, and so every single unschooling family--every unschooling lifestyle--will also be different. This is good. This is great! Genuinely individualized living and learning is something few people are lucky enough to experience. So embrace it, and work on creating an unschooling lifestyle that is a perfect fit for YOUR family.

Find mentors and supporters

That said, it is important to have support! You need people who understand your choices, and people who have more experience with unschooling can be really helpful. See if there’s a homeschooling or unschooling group in your area that suits your family, join Facebook unschooling groups in which experienced unschooling parents are ready and willing to give suggestions and advice, go to an unschooling conference. Wherever and however you find it, make sure you get that support.

Experiment, and prepare to be flexible

Congratulations, you now have the ability to tailor your lifestyle to your own family! But what exactly is ideal for your family? Now’s the time to experiment, and I use that word not in the “try it and drop it if it doesn’t work out at first” way, but in the “try lots of different things and see what works and what doesn’t” sense. How much time at home or out is ideal for your family? What do each of you enjoy doing, and how do you most enjoy doing it? What are the different needs of each family member, how do they compliment or clash with each other, and how can you best handle things so that everyone feels heard and respected? I think that one of the things I’ve always loved the most about this lifestyle is the ability to be flexible, to change things up when they’re not working, and to allow your daily routine to evolve and change as you and your children grow and change. It’s likely going to take a lot of trial and error, but it is most definitely worth it.

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

Focus on the here and now, not the future

It’s so easy to get caught up in the “what ifs:” What if your kids want to go back to school? What if your kids want to go to college? What if you’re not preparing them well enough for the future? Schooling is very focused on building future adults, not nurturing the little (or not so little) people who are actually there, and the idea that education is only or primarily a preparation for the future is so pervasive in our culture, that it’s easy to let that attitude slip into our personal lives. But, is that really what you want learning--and life--to be for children? A race to the finish line that is adulthood? Instead, you can focus on the here and now, the person who exists right in front of you. Build strong relationships. Learn. Do your thing. And handle the “what ifs” as they become relevant, instead of panicking about the future long before it’s arrived. After all, children can always do the necessary academic work to “catch up” if and when it's needed if they choose to go to school; teenagers can always study for the tests they need to take to get into college or university if they decide that’s a goal of theirs. Outside of school, without the busywork and classroom management, and with genuine desire and motivation behind their choices, children and teens can usually gain the academic knowledge and skills they need in a much shorter amount of time, and with a great deal less stress.

Enjoy each other

As Pam Laricchia has said: "There is a foundation of living and relationships and connecting and trust that lies in the foundation beneath the learning. So instead of focusing on the learning, when we focus on creating that strong foundation, learning naturally and beautifully bubbles up." So let that be your focus. Step by step, work on building relationships, connecting with each other, creating partnerships. No one is leading or following. Instead you’re just doing your best to create a rich life, one with joy, one in which you share conversations and closeness through both the good and bad that gets thrown your way.

It won’t always go perfectly. But with commitment--and yes, excitement, joy, focus, all those good things--it will probably be pretty darn great.

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Support Your Friendly Neighborhood Unschooling Blogger

The work I do, writing this blog for over eight years, and maintaining an active accompanying Facebook page with 14,000+ followers, means so much to me. It's challenging, and enjoyable, sometimes frustrating, but always rewarding. It's also WORK. Struggling to write a post that truly conveys what I'm trying to get across; finding good things to share on the unschooling Facebook page on a daily basis, and moderating the sometimes contentious discussions that spring from what I share. Even in the more fallow times, I'm still spending a lot of time thinking about what I want to write and share, making sure the Facebook page never gets too quiet, and trying to get better emotionally so I can get back to writing, because my emotional wellness has a very direct impact on how much I'm writing.

And all of this? It hasn't felt really sustainable for a long time now. I love what I do, and no matter what, I plan to continue for as long as I can, as much as a can. But trying to support myself financially through writing, while also struggling with mental illness, has not been easy.

So after thinking long and hard about it, hemming and hawing and going back and forth on whether it would be a good idea, I decided to open a Patreon account. What is Patreon, and why have I decided to use it, you ask? Here's an excerpt from my very own Patreon page:

Patreon allows people like you--readers and supporters--to become "patrons" by pledging a recurring monthly donation in the amount of your choice, whether that's $1, or $20 (or something in between). Your generosity can help ease my stress around finances, thus allowing more energy and time to be spent on doing the work I love; it can help me seek out much needed healthcare that isn't covered under the public insurance I have; and it can help me to find greater independence and security in my everyday life.

And I wouldn't want to ask for something for nothing, so I'm not.

I've committed myself to writing two posts a month for I'm Unschooled. Yes, I Can Write., and along with that, by becoming a patron you gain access to a bunch of perks like early access to those regular posts, as well as access to a patron exclusive monthly post on a topic voted on by you; exclusive interviews (audio, video, and written) with my family, unschooled friends, and contacts with interesting things to share about self-directed learning; live Q & A's with me; behind the scenes peeks at what's happening with my work; exclusive access to the text of any speech I write; and my endless gratitude! I believe strongly that ALL supporters, no matter how much or how little they choose to contribute, are important and greatly deserving of my gratitude, so all perks will be available to all patrons, whether their pledge is $1 or $20.

Or you can also watch my welcome video, where I explain in brief who I am and how this all works:



Do you like what I'm doing, and feel like you might want to support me in this way?

Become a patron. Help me to continue doing what I do.

And know that whether you choose to become my patron or not, I am so incredibly grateful for your comments, shares, and all the other ways you show your support. I wouldn't be here without you all!

This weeks schedule of special events:

• TODAY, September 5th, my Patreon page launches! The page will go live at 11 am EST, and I'll be around all day to answer questions: just message me on Facebook, or post on my Facebook wall. 
• WEDNESDAY, September 7th, I'll be doing a LIVE Q&A on Facebook. Ask me about what it was like growing up unschooled, or being an unschooled adult; about my writing; about Patreon; about anything you want! Just head over to the page at 1 pm EST on the 7th and join in. Q&A will run until 2 pm, unless there are still lots of questions, in which case I'll stick around for a while longer.
• FRIDAY, September 9th, I'll be sharing my first Patron exclusive article, something I wrote a while back but that's never been published before... It's about quitting, and why it can be a good thing. So if you choose to support my work through Patreon, at any pledge amount, you'll be able to read it (don't worry if you choose not to become a patron. I plan to be posting twice monthly on this blog, so there should be plenty to read here!)

The Importance of Solitude: When Socializing Isn't All It's Cracked Up to Be

One of the greatest sources of so called “concern” when it comes to school-free learning is “socialization.” It often seems that at least 50% of the questions we get asked as home-learners boils down to “but what if they don’t have any friends?”

There’s plenty of rebuttals out there--I wrote a long one a while back myself--but I find myself wanting to explore a different counter-argument, and that’s whether or not we really need as much of this socializing thing as many folks seem to think…

Firstly, I’d like to be clear about what I am--and am not--talking about.

The word “socialization” carries some heavy baggage, and though the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition is--for the most part--pretty innocent, in regards to homeschoolers specifically the word has come to signify something more like “assimilation” or “obedience to authority,” with “what about socialization?” being quickly followed by “how will they learn respect for authority?” and ”how will they learn to stand in line??” Not really what most unschoolers, at least, are going for.

So instead I’m speaking of socializing, “to talk to and do things with other people in a friendly way,” according, once again, to the good old Merriam-Webster.

That’s what we want, I should think! But, then comes the big question: how much of this do children really want, or need?

Distraction and focus

I can’t read in the Doctor’s office. And I have to say, I love to read. I read very quickly. I have been reading lots very quickly for over 15 years. And yet, surrounded by rustling bodies and quiet conversations, buzzing cell phones and names being called, I can read the same paragraph a dozen times over and still be entirely clueless as to what, actually, I just read.

In the simplest, most “education”-oriented way, being surrounded by lots of other people makes it quite difficult to focus for a large percentage of people. Whether I’m reading a novel, or learning about the chemistry of lacto-fermentation, or figuring out how many cans of paint I need to fully cover my bedroom walls, I need a calm, quiet environment to truly focus on what I’m doing. That’s been the case all my life, and while I’ve enjoyed learning some skills with others (choirs and dance classes and the like), French class and history class (taken by choice through a local homeschool co-op) were far from successful.

Some people have no trouble focusing when it group settings. For others, though? It’s nearly impossible.

Energy in, energy out

We’re all familiar by now with the “introverts” and “extroverts” model, and while I’m definitely part of the crowd that questions the accuracy achieved when making two broad categories and attempting to fit the whole, complicated mass of humanity into one or the other, it at least provides a good starting point. Because some people do mostly find they gain energy (or recharge) when by themselves, while others generally feel they gain energy by being with others. Still other people recharge best with a select few people for company; ambivert socializers might find how and when they recharge to be entirely dependent on context...

Which is really just a long way of saying that there are a whole lot of people who find spending eight hours a day, every day, surrounded by people to not be the best match for them.

As an example? Me. I love spending time with people! But not for too long (I start to feel drained); and not in noisy and bright and busy environments (a side effect of a mental illness I’ve struggled with since early childhood is the experience of “sensory overload,” which can cause me to basically shut down, lose all focus, and find even the simplest of decisions very difficult).

I might be a more extreme case, but the fact remains that for many people, spending a very large portion of their childhoods surrounded by whole classrooms worth of other children is not their ideal situation.

Isolation and loneliness

When people fuss about school-free learners and our supposed lack of socialization, what they’re often really saying is that they fear children will be isolated. And it’s true, that’s bad! And to their credit, I have met home learners--often from either very rural (aka isolated) areas, or those whose families believe that their children should only interact with people of the same religion as theirs--who ARE isolated. However, those are generally the outliers, and furthermore, school doesn’t really provide a successful solution.

It’s not the solution because, as I think all of us have experienced at least a couple of times in our lives, it’s quite possible to feel completely alone when surrounded by dozens of people. Along with isolated home learners, I’ve met people who felt profoundly out-of-place in schools, who lacked friendship and support and a feeling of belonging every bit as much as those isolated homeschoolers. And in my experience, there exist a lot more lonely children in school than isolated ones outside of school.

To me this problem goes beyond education, and seems likely a result of a culture which does its best to shut children away from the real world--effectively isolating them--leaving even school-free learners sometimes struggling to break into the communities around them. 

Choice in learning means choice in socializing

Not only do we all have different needs when it comes to how much time we spend with others, but also what type of socializing we like to do. Some people love big groups and parties, others prefer smaller groups or one-on-one interactions. Some people want to do things with friends: attend a pottery class or have a Risk night. Others just want to quietly play together as children, and just hang out and talk as adults. Many people want all of these things, in varying proportions.

Unschoolers are learning the ways in which they function best in the world--with the help of supportive adults--which means they’re learning how and what they want to learn, and they’re also learning how to build a healthy social life for themselves, which first means figuring out what IS a healthy social life for them!

It’s not often thought of in those terms, but a one-size-fits-all education system also encourages a one-size-fits-all social model, that leaves many children feeling lonely, or drained, or pressured to be who they’re not and do what they don’t want to do.

Being alone can feel really, really nice

Being alone feels like having time. Time to think, to process, to daydream, to plan… In a culture where both children and adults spend the bulk of their time in school or at work, arriving home exhausted and drained, too many people of all ages are missing out on the true benefits of being alone.

Instead of fearing unschoolers aren’t receiving the necessary amount of socializing, perhaps we should be worried that the majority of people aren’t getting enough time by themselves.

Loneliness versus solitude

Yes, we are social creatures. But we are also complex creatures, infinitely variable in both our inner and outer lives, with vastly different needs and desires. We all need both solitude, and time with people, but the balance tips in different places for each of us. As Paul Tillich said:

“Our language has wisely sensed the two sides of being alone. It has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word solitude to express the glory of being alone.”

And if we can let go of the fear of our children being alone (or being alone ourselves), and work to embrace the glory of solitude, we could probably all do a better job of creating social lives that actually meet our needs.

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Everything Doesn't Have to Be a "Passion:" Why Half-Assing Things is Fine, Too

Passion. We hear the word constantly. Parents and teachers want children to “find their passion,” adults are encouraged to find theirs (as if everyone has just one in the first place), and every new interest found is met with excitement: maybe they’ll be good at it people think. They can monetize it, start a blog about it, get good enough to compete, even! Each interest or skill, then, is thought of as a means to an end. They might go somewhere with this one, an adult thinks with pleasure, as they look fondly on their child’s new coding hobby. “You could start a business!” someone exclaims with excitement to their friend upon trying their cupcakes for the first time.

But, maybe that’s not what everyone wants. At least not some of the time. Probably not most of the time. Maybe not ever.

Because I’m here to share an important piece of knowledge I’ve learned, and it is a very simple one: it’s okay to half-ass things. It’s fine to not be good at something. And even more importantly, it’s fine to not want to be “good” at something!

Sometimes we can just...be, without striving for anything greater than that.

Here’s the thing:

We don’t have the time to be good at everything, which means we’re going to prioritize some things over others.

Those world class musicians, Olympic athletes, and top notch actors? That’s all they do. For years. Every day is spent practicing, honing their craft, striving for greatness. For most of us, that’s just not what we want. We’re more generalist than that. And even when it comes to the things we do want to invest a lot of our time and energy into, we only have so much of that time and energy, so we have to prioritize what we love and want the most. As my sister recently said, “writing and Ninjutsu are part of who I am, but playing ukulele is just something I do.” Or as I believe she put it, “you can’t full-ass everything!”

Things can still be fun, enjoyable, and exciting even if they’re just hobbies, and not something we want to get serious about.

My sister loves being able to play ukulele well enough to strum along while she sings. It’s something she gets joy out of. She just doesn't happen to want to get better for the sake of being better. She’s fine with the place the ukulele holds in her life right now. This is true for all of us, and isn’t something to be ashamed of. Why do we think we need to be serious about everything? Why can’t we do something just because it’s fun?

People’s misplaced expectations cause pressure, and pressure frequently makes things not fun.

Say you’re a young adult who just picked up a gardening hobby. Really you’re just dabbling so far, dipping your toes in, seeing if you like it. But every time someone asks you what you’re up to, and you mention gardening, suddenly it becomes Something Big. Your mother wants you to sign up for a permaculture course. “You can start a landscaping business!” Your neighbor suggests with enthusiasm. “Do you know the city has a best garden award? I bet you could win it if you worked hard!” your uncle says with a smile. Everyone has big ideas for your gardening greatness, but really, you’re new at this, and you’re already starting to think that you’ll be happy if the extent of your gardening is just growing half a dozen tomato plants. Or maybe not even that, because you’re getting so tired of people turning what was a fun hobby into something you just don’t want it to be.

Outside pressure that has not been agreed to frequently makes people feel uncomfortable, and is far more likely to lessen motivation and interest than to increase it.

Yes, sometimes hobbies or interests will turn into great passions, or paid work, or great renown.

But it’s not our job to decide what will or won’t become a big part of someone else’s life. Not if they’re a child, a teenager, or an adult.

And yes, sometimes people need encouragement.

If something’s hard, someone might give up due to lack of confidence: a belief that, even though they really want to pursue something seriously, they’re just not good enough. I don’t mean to say that people--and children especially--don’t sometimes need encouragement, offers of classes or special interest groups, and suggestions of ways they can take their interests in new directions, or to a higher level. Consider this merely as a reminder to tread carefully, and make sure we’re helping others--be they children or friends--achieve their own goals, not superimposing our goals or expectations onto them.

In conclusion? Having a real passion for something is great. But so is just having fun!

And what’s even better? Being the ones who get to decide where are own interests are going to take us...or not.