Youth Rights, Community, and Why Everyone Should Care About Children

This past weekend while sitting anxiously behind a table at the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair, watching people walk by, and only very occasionally stop by, I pulled out my new flower-patterned notebook to scribble some budding thoughts.

Sitting at the table, I keep watching people's eyes catch and then skim over the offerings laid out before me. Some of it could definitely be to do with how our table looks. Compared to the DVDs on one side and the rows of books on the other, all new and colourful and shiny, the slightly messy stacks of zines (and a single stack of a free issue of a three-year-old-journal), it might not seem so exciting.

But I can't help but wonder if some of the reason is that our stuff is all about educating children. Our culture doesn't value children very much [or values them only in certain very narrow ways], and I haven't seen much proof that the radical community [or various radical communities I've had any experience with] values them any more so.

Perhaps this observation was born more out of insecurity at all the disinterest being shown in my zines than as a reflection on people's actual feelings on or interest in children and education. Looking around, there was certainly much eye-skimming to be seen, as I think there kind of has to be at any large event with such a wide variety of tables to peruse. What you find personally most interesting is the only thing likely to catch your eye and make you pause for more than a moment when you're faced with such an overwhelming array of things to see.

However, if there's that little interest, not even enough for a brief flip through a book or zine, it seems to show that the majority of people there don't find the educating of children of particular interest. Or, maybe even more than a lack of interest, perhaps many people simply don't believe it to be of particular relevance. One young person said they didn't have kids, so didn't know if there was any point in signing up for more information.

People love to talk about children, child-raising, and education. Everyone's an armchair critic expert on those subjects when it comes to talk of kids-these-days-and-their-disrespect, or how badly parents are at parenting, or the failure of teachers to teach properly. But there seems to be a profound disconnect when it comes to talk of the actual nuts and bolts of parenting or education. Once it moves beyond vague criticism, there seems to be the idea that the only ones who have any interest or stake in the matter is parents. If you're not a parent, why should you care?

This type of attitude seems to me to be all part and parcel with the general disregard for children in this culture. Everyone can agree that children are important ("they're our future!"), yet somehow no one wants to see them in public (unless they're perfectly behaved, never crying or fussing or yelling or inconveniencing anyone in the slightest), or see them on Facebook ("why do parents post so many annoying photos of their snotty kids?"), or have to interact with them in any way ("I just don't like kids!"). And people certainly don't seem to want children to be treated with respect and kindness, or as autonomous young people deserving of more agency than they're currently being given ("More freedom? More pampering?? They already get too much of that!").

I needed a picture of children, so I figured why not use one of me and
my sister? This is us being cute, circa '96 or '97.

To change the way children are treated, it seems to me that people should come to a few realizations.

1. Children are people. Obvious, I know, but it seems like it still needs to be said. All people deserve to be treated with a basic level of dignity, kindness, and respect for their personal autonomy and well-being. Children are a group with different needs than adults, for sure, but that doesn't change their worth, or their right to be treated well. All it means is that more environments should make an effort to be accommodating to the needs of children, not just the needs (or perceived needs) of adults.
2. If you claim to be against any oppression, and then say how much you hate children, then you're not really against that form of oppression. Why? Because children also suffer from all other different forms of oppression. Anti-racism, you say? A feminist? A queer ally? Against ableism? There are children of colour; children who are girls; disabled children; queer children; trans children... Childhood is intimately affected by the identities a child holds (and the identities and experiences of their families), and a child marginalized by some other aspect of their identity is doubly marginalized.
3. The well-being of children is in all of our hands. Whether you have children or want children or want never to have children, whether you're young or old, whether you spend much of your time in the company of children or almost none, it's up to all of us to look critically at the way children are treated and viewed in our culture (and the way we personally treat and look at children), and to work in whatever ways are open to us to make our environments safer and more hospitable to children. 
4. This means caring about children, caring about parents and care-givers, and caring about education. This might mean more intimate personal involvement, it might mean educating yourself about the state of schooling and educational alternatives, or it might mean simply being nicer to hassled parents out in public with unhappy kids.

I don't think everyone should have the same interests as I do (unschooling and radical education), or that a childless person should care as deeply as a parent does about the harm standardized testing is causing (they're just not going to), but I do think that we should all be concerned with how other people are treated. We should all desire and strive for a world that treats everyone with dignity and respect, and where the important needs of everyone are met.

I just think that, when we talk about revolution at the anarchist bookfair, or ways to improve local services at the community center, or about our ideal world with our friends, we should always remember to make children both a subject of and a part of those important conversations.

Unschooling Doesn't Mean There's No Hard Work

One of the biggest criticisms of unschooling rests on a fundamental belief about children (and teenagers) and their ability to stay motivated and do difficult things.

People say that, if not forced to, children will never do hard things. Never apply themselves, practice skills intensively, or push through challenging material.

I suppose if you believe so strongly that children and teens aren't capable of doing anything difficult, then that would naturally make you rather unimpressed with the idea of unschooling. Because the truth is, a lot of things are hard. Often even things we find fun are also difficult!

Take writing, for instance. No matter how much you love the written word, love reading, love finding the perfect turn of phrase to convey exactly the mood you're looking for, or to explain a difficult concept in a way people can relate to, it's also work. Every writer, whether they're a novelist or blogger, is going to be familiar with the dread of an entirely blank page that needs to be filled; the difficulty of finding a word you know you know, but you just can't think of; pushing through when it feels like you have to fight for every single sentence.

No matter how you cut it, writing is hard.

So is cooking, my other main passion. Only with cooking, the "hard" comes with a big physical component: mixing batter, kneading dough, hoisting around heavy pots and pans, chopping huge bowls of vegetables... Though working in a commercial kitchen is the hardest, I'm regularly drained by home cooking and baking, as well. When I finish a big project--an oven full of entirely from-scratch hand-pies, for instance--I drop down, extremely tired, on the nearest cushy sitting surface, my back aching and sore from hunching over food stuffs for long periods of time, and mentally tired from focusing for hours on getting everything just right with whatever I'm creating.

Cooking, too, is hard work.

Butternut squash and caramelized onion galette with cheddar cheese.
Daunting to begin with, and satisfyingly delicious once it was done!

Now, I suppose some could say I'm an adult, and that's why I manage such things now. But my writing started before I hit my teens, and my ability to write as well as I do now comes from years of facing that daunting blank page.

My sister as a child and a teenager wrote (and writes) voraciously; she started playing marching snare drum when she was 12, started taking lessons in highland snare drum when she was 14 or 15, and now plays professionally, for pay; she's been practicing Ninjutsu since she was 16, and has progressed through several belts; she's completed NaNoWriMo on multiple occasions.

All of those things, too, were not easy to do, not things that came without much work and dedication.

Unschoolers, too, can be prone to procrastination, to avoiding doing hard things that need to be done and dropping hobbies they like when they get too difficult. I wouldn't say unschoolers are necessarily more likely to be motivated and work hard at things than people in school (they might be! I'm just not confident enough of that to attempt to make that claim). But what unschoolers do have is the time to really pursue things, to dig in deep and build skills they care about.

There are important elements that need to be in place to provide the best possible environment for managing hard things. One of those elements is having people (often parents, or mentors or teachers or friends or other family members) who are dedicated to helping you learn, who will cheer you on and encourage you when the going gets tough. Who will help you come up with goals, find the resources you need, and get important projects finished. Who will remind you that you said you wanted to practice violin every single day, and that you swore you'd get that chapter you've been working on finished by the end of the week.

It's hard to stay motivated if you've got no one in your corner who's invested in what you're doing and wants you to succeed at whatever you're trying to succeed at. But we do children and teens a huge disservice when we think, with the needed support, that they're incapable of dealing with difficulty.

A whole lot of what feels exciting and interesting is going to come along with a certain amount of difficulty and hard work. That holds true no matter your age. Beyond that all-important support, I think several other things contribute to people working hard:

• Doing things you're genuinely excited about, things that feel joyful and fascinating. I feel this when I'm enthusiastically telling someone about the process behind a fermentation technique I've been reading about, or when I embark with determination and a deep breath on an intimidating yet exciting new baking project.
• Finding meaning in your projects. When you choose what you do, instead of having someone else choose what they think you should be learning or doing, you're doing it because it has meaning to you. It's something you care about, something that actually seems important and relevant to you. You're going to put a lot more effort into something if it has importance in your life than if it's something someone else says you have to do.
• The time to devote to learning and skill building. While deadlines, either self-imposed or imposed by a relevant external force (the print deadline of a magazine, the entry deadline for a contest, or the date for a performance), can certainly prove helpful, if you're tired out and mentally drained from too many things then you're not going to have the energy to truly apply yourself to something. I feel like this is something that gets in the way of school students focusing on what's really important to them. All the hours spent in school, going to and from school, doing homework, and often plenty of extra-curricular activities besides, suck up time and leave little left over for other pursuits. Hopefully some of those extra-curriculars are things the student really cares about, but with too much time taken up by school, it can be difficult or near impossible to focus on what the individual truly wants to be focusing on.

None of this is a guarantee: sometimes unschoolers don't feel challenged enough, are frequently bored, or have great difficulty sticking with things they care about when they get difficult. Sometimes maybe something in the environment or parental approach or personal attitude needs to change for things to improve, and sometimes, because we're human, no matter how good the surrounding circumstances are, hard things are hard.

We can do them, though. Unschoolers are proving every day that you don't need schools, don't need teachers or parents, to force young people to do hard things. Young people are more than capable of working, and working hard, because they care, and want to improve, and enjoy the warm glow you get upon accomplishing something difficult. All that's needed is for the individual to have access to the tools and support to help them in achieving all the things that children and teens are excited and motivated to do.

Learning is exciting, and learning is also hard. Let's start realizing that kids are naturally great at learning, no matter how hard it can sometimes be.

In Praise of The Unexceptional: Because Unschooling Doesn't Have to Be Impressive

In some ways, this feels like an redux of a post of a couple months ago, Uncollege, Hackschooling, and When Success and Profit Hijack the Message. I'm starting with inspiration from two of the same posts that launched the earlier piece, but I'm shifting focus here, and concentrating more directly on ideas of what, exactly, constitutes success for unschoolers, and the pressure we feel to be extraordinary.

There’s an attitude that seems to have been quietly sneaking into unschooling discourse and advocacy. Never outright stated, yet there nonetheless: that unschoolers doing Big Impressive Things is the way to prove that unschooling works. Which seems to imply that it’s only working if it’s, well, impressive.

I suppose it’s not all that surprising this attitude is being found even in unschooling circles, as the idea of there being winners and losers--the winners distinguishing themselves with grand accomplishments, prestigious jobs, and lots of money--is a pervasive and widely held view in our culture at large. Though he's talking about the anger many adults feel at children receiving what they see as undeserved praise, or having it "too easy" in life, I think this recent op-ed in the New York Times by Alfie Kohn still serves as a really good point to illustrate some commonly held attitudes about what success is and how it works. He notes one of three underlying values in how people often view children and success is that “children ought never to receive something desirable — a sum of money, a trophy, a commendation — unless they’ve done enough to merit it. They shouldn’t even be allowed to feel good about themselves without being able to point to tangible accomplishments. In this view, we have a moral obligation to reward the deserving and, equally important, make sure the undeserving go conspicuously unrewarded. Hence the anger over participation trophies. The losers mustn’t receive something that even looks like a reward.”

While no one in unschooling circles is advocating for punishing or putting down those who aren’t obviously “succeeding” in impressive ways, the idea that the proof is in the accomplishments, and that’s what we should be aiming for, definitely seems to be there. Gillian Goddard noted the same thing, saying:

Everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, [is] jumping on the 'self-directed learning' bandwagon these days. And they are bringing to it all the same old bullshit - children who are 'more'. More curious, more motivated, more more more. These children are not circus performers. So stop showcasing who did what at the youngest age, who gives the best TED teen presentations and not think that to me it will look no different except now the child is at home.

This is also something that can be felt very keenly by those of us who grew up unschooling, or who have chosen to forego college in favour of “uncolleging” or otherwise learning into adulthood without institutionalized education. Jessica Barker recently wrote a post on her blog College Rebellion that really hit me hard, where one of the things she said about her own journey was that:

I’ve been really upset for quite a while because try as I might, I can’t live up to all the "aim for your dreams!" mantra I preach on this website, because I feel like I have to as part of the Uncollege Movement. I say "those of us" because the person I’ve been trying to fit into the Epic Box the most is myself – I haven’t allowed myself to accept the fact that I want to live a normal life, that I feel my success depends neither on going to college nor not going to college, nor even what I do in or out specifically. I have dreams, yes: but I also have finally reached the point where I am confident that following certain Big Dreams is actually not the most important thing to me in life.

Whether it’s deliberate or not (I'd say it's almost never deliberate), the attitude that to be successful we have to dream and do big definitely exists, and it definitely does harm.

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I was discussing this article, and some comments people made on Facebook about this post in the works, with my mother today. "I've never said I'm proud of you deliberately, because pleasing me isn't important. I just want you to be happy, and if you're happy with your life, then I'll be happy!" she said. "I hope you haven't wanted me to say I'm proud of you," she continued, looking worried. "No," I assured her, "I'm good."

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So often when people find out you're an unschooler they say "well you must be very smart/self-motivated/brave for it to have worked!" I never know how to point out that that's not the case at all. I'm no genius, I procrastinate like all hell, and sometimes just leaving the house feels like it takes more bravery than I posses. Unschooling is for anyone with the time, support, and resources to be able to do it, not just for special people.

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Me and my sister, (almost entirely) lifelong school-free learners, aren’t exceptional. Sure, we’ve both done plenty of things we’re proud of: speaking in front of people for me and playing music in front of people for Emilie; she's recieved multiple belts in Ninjitsu and I’ve cooked professionally. Some of the things we've done, like my blog and unschooling advocacy work, are things that have gotten a lot of praise and attention from other people. I suppose my blogging/writing/speaking could be considered “impressive,” though it doesn’t usually feel that way to me. That one thing though is the only thing I can think of that could possibly be considered really impressive. I haven’t traveled beyond North America, have never hitch-hiked or bused across the country. I haven’t started my own business (besides the very half-hearted attempt at selling thrifted clothing, which I *do* plan to put more effort into), and sadly people are not lining up to hire me. There are other things I’m good at, for sure. Cooking and baking come to mind instantly. But that? That’s a quiet skill, hidden away in kitchens. Most of my skills and hobbies and interests are quiet, nothing huge or eye-catching.

I love going on road trips, with both family and friends, but they're usually
within a 6 hour drive from my home. Exploring the New England States, into
Ontario to visit family, or Northeast up into Quebec to visit where some
family comes from. Places chosen for their beauty and abundance of good
people, not for a grand and exciting adventure.

But what’s more important for the moment than whether or not I, or my family, fits the narrative of The Successful Unschooler, is just what that narrative is. Us unschoolers are feeling pressure to do more and be more: to become world travelers or successful entrepreneurs, to win prestigious awards or get head hunted by Google. Somehow, through both the greater culture and through those same messages making their way into our own, smaller, unschooling communities, we’ve gotten the idea that quiet skills aren’t enough. That if we’re not doing big things with obvious rewards, then we’re not enough.

That’s why the quote from Alfie Kohn I shared at the beginning of this article, and the article I pulled it from, really resonated with me when I read it. My whole generation, both schooled and not, has been messed up by those messages.

What complicates it for unschoolers is that, well, we’ve got something to prove. Not only unschoolers feel this added pressure: children coming from any “unusual” family, or any type of family likely to be looked at suspiciously by the dominant culture almost certainly also face a similar type of added pressure. We want to show that this unschooling thing works. Parents of unschoolers want to show that it works! So people turn to tangible, big things they can point at: Look! Look how impressive! And people talk about following your dreams, with the implication that “dreams” must be pretty special looking. I think without consciously realizing it, those forces play off of each other: parents and unschooling advocates talk about all the exciting special things unschoolers get up to and can do; unschoolers themselves want to prove with their lives that the way they’ve lived is successful. It goes in circles of lots of people talking about impressive things, unschoolers starting to feel like impressive is the norm, and thus if they’re not doing Impressive Things, then they must be failing, instead.

Which is rather sad, because the reality for many unschoolers, and many young adults foregoing college, is much more complicated. Life looks so different for different people. For many unschoolers life looks like video games, and Google searches, and craft projects at midnight. Playing with neighbors and homeschooling park days and trips to the library. For adult uncollegers life might look like reading lots of books, both non-fiction and fiction, keeping a blog, marathoning TV shows, having email discussions on history with friends, and volunteering at the local animal shelter. Life might feel exciting to the individual (very hopefully it does!), because it’s your life, your interests, your goals. But from outside? It probably doesn’t look that exciting. It might, with TEDx talks and a series of ebooks about travel adventures. There might be aspects of your life that look impressive, and other parts that don't. The impressive activities are every bit as valid as the quieter ones, for sure. But they're not better.

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Laura Parrish had the following to say in a Facebook conversation sparked by my mentioning of this post I was writing.

I've always had a hard time with the language people use about grown children: They "turn out" well. (Or they don't.) We're "so proud" of them. (Or we aren't.) It doesn't jibe with the way we've focused on helping clear the way for our kids to see what's what for themselves and make their own choices. It's not about using a method to produce a superior product. They don't "reflect on me". They're just themselves, and that's enough. It's a lot.

I love that. And I think it points to such an important thing when it comes to unschooling: this isn't a method meant to turn out superior products humans. The point isn't, or certainly shouldn't be, about superiority, about being better, more successful people. It should be about all those far less tangible things: people who are kind, and capable, and enjoy learning. As Stephanie Sims said:

[T]he unschooling path is meant to be a joyful and natural one, not an exemplary one that can be held up as proof as Unquestionable, Absolute Success. At the end of the day, my unschooled children may only look different by their memories and how much they love and expect to love their lives--that's good enough for me.

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Just like everyone else, the lives of each unschooler will vary quite a bit. What unschoolers, no matter their age, share is a similar attitude towards learning. How that manifests in the lives of each unschooler is going to be different, and how closely it aligns with the dominant culture’s version of success (or the unschooling community’s prioritization of travel and entrepreneurship as success) is going to depend on the person you're looking at.

I just hope, as unschoolers, we can hold tight to our shared value of appreciating learning for learning’s sake, whether it’s big or small, sung from the stages of a national singing competition, or curled up in a comfy chair in a nondescript house reading about Arthurian legends or the history of comics. As older unschoolers, we’re going to continue getting a lot of pressure from the general population, both the pressure all young adults face to be productive and “useful” members of society, and the added pressure to prove ourselves as successful unschoolers. The unschooling community doesn’t need to fall into that same trap of judging peoples success by their productivity, or large achievements, or traveling lifestyle. Instead, let's just make sure that we convey, in all our words, in our speech and writing and advocacy, that all learning is important. We need to celebrate all those quiet lives, too.

"I want to unschool, but what if my kids just watch TV all day?"

I did an interview for a new online homeschooling magazine. It will be a while until it's out, and a little while after that before I post the complete interview here on the blog, but until then I figured I'd share this bit. An answer to the question "I want to unschool, but what if..."

I feel like this question almost needs to be broken down into multiple answers.

While watching TV all day every day wouldn't be a very good thing, I do think that people tend to devalue activities deemed worthless, like TV, without realizing that even that is learning, or leads to learning. I can't count the number of times TV shows or movies have sparked Google searches on historic figures or events, discussions of tropes and archetypes in storytelling, the breaking down of harmful stereotypes and discrimination in shows... While TV watching can be something passive, it can also be something very involved, something that leads to lots of thinking, creating of stories (fan fiction is the way a lot of young writers first get into writing!), and interesting discussions. Once you start actually looking for learning in everything, not just thinking of it as something that needs to be deliberately imparted to young minds, you start seeing it everywhere.

I also think people don't full respect the power of boredom. Watching TV all day every day is going to get boring. It just will. And then they'll be looking for different things to do.

Though admittedly, if I got the food network I might just watch
TV all day every day for at least a week or two...

Another important thing to keep in mind is that unschooling parents are not supposed to be in a passive role. It's not like unschooling parents just say "okay, go learn now!" and then proceed to ignore their kids. There are times when kids definitely need their own space to learn and explore, but there are plenty of times they don't. Parents can sit down and watch those shows, initiate those conversations and Google searches. Parents can also provide a wealth of interesting library books and board games, suggest activities and clubs and outings.

Which isn't to say that worries about a child spending tons of time in front of a screen aren't things parents who are unschooling sometimes have trouble dealing with, especially when they first start transitioning to unschooling. Deschooling is an important part of unschooling if you're going from either school or very formal/strict/school-at-home homeschooling, so it's important to leave time for that adjustment to a very different lifestyle. What unschooling looks like when you first start is almost certainly going to be very, very different than what it will look like a year or two later. Along those lines, don't give up too fast! Just because it doesn't seem to be "working" right away doesn't mean something is wrong, it probably just means your child(ren) are adjusting to not having to "do learning."

For specific situations, experienced unschooling parents are going to be much more helpful than I could be, not being a parent myself so never having been on that side of things. All I'm saying is that such a worry is often unfounded, and also that there's a whole lot more to it than just "what if my kid just watches TV all day?"

My Least Favourite Thing About Unschooling

I've answered my fair share of "what's your least favourite thing about unschooling?" questions over the years (most recently in an interview I did for a new homeschooling magazine to be published through Apple Newsstand), and my answer has always been other people. People who aren't unschoolers, don't understand unschooling, and can make your life difficult because of it.

The anonymous critics mean very little, as do the random strangers you somehow end up discussing the subject with, no matter how much you may try and avoid it.

Yet what does mean something, and when it can start to feel kind of scary, is when someone has something you need, and you fear your educational background could cause them to make getting what you need more difficult.

I'm talking about the potential employer asking you questions about your education, even though you have all the experience needed for the job you're applying for. Or when something goes wrong in a big way, and you call the police, knowing that even though you're the victims in whatever happened, that you'll get grilled on the fact your children don't go to school. Or you're looking for a therapist, and fear as soon as they find out you didn't go to school, they'll start trying to blame whatever struggles you're dealing with on your lack of "proper" education and strange upbringing.

It can cause a lot of worry, wondering if someone important, someone with the power to provide you with much-needed support (or money, or information) will start asking those questions, and then start treating you through the lens of their own pre-conceived biases and ignorance about unschooling (and home learning in a broader sense).

Maybe I should bring a handful of the awards I got as a teen to those types
of situations, and just wave them in peoples faces with an air of sort of
desperate exasperation: "See?? I was doing stuff that was recognized by
stuffy people as Important Things while not going to high school!"

Sure, there are other difficulties possibly related to unschooling that can make things unpleasant sometimes. There are times I feel insecure about what I know and have learned, but only in the way I think everyone, regardless of education, does: if you feel someone knows more than you, seems "smarter," it can be easy to feel some insecurity. But generally I feel really good about my skills, knowledge, and accomplishments. They're not the same as other peoples, but that's the whole point. Each person is unique, with their own strengths and skills. Most of the time, I know mine are valuable.

So it's just other people I worry about. People who might not see my strengths or value my experience, because they got side-tracked as soon as they heard that whole "didn't go to school" thing and are no longer focusing on anything else. Sometimes that fear is unfounded, but sometimes, well sometimes it isn't.

Regardless, us unschoolers usually manage fine despite that. But that doesn't mean those types of attitudes don't sometimes make things harder, make you hesitate before seeking help, and create a little kernel of fear when a person who can provide you with important services does that double take we all know well: "wait, you were homeschooled?"

Which is why, until our culture stops thinking schooling is the be all and end all when it comes to "getting an education" and becoming a "productive member of society," the reactions of others will remain my least favourite thing about unschooling.

Unschooling 101 Zine: Printed and Ready to Order!

I've been wanted to make an actual print zine, something physical you can hold in your hands, for quite a while now. So after plenty of discarded ideas, failed starts, and lack of motivation on the zine front over the last couple of years, I finally have a stack of zines sitting beside me as I write this.

What finally worked out was when I thought "hey, wouldn't it be nice if I had an unschooling 101 in a physical form as well? Something that people could actually hand out to a friend, parent, neighbor, or other person who wonders what this whole unschooling thing is about?" Thus this zine was born.

If you click this photo, it brings you to the store page on my website, where
 you can buy your own copy!

I started with the 101 page on this blog, and anyone who's read that will see that that was clearly my outline. But then I started editing, adding bits from other posts I've written, filling in with snippets of original content, making it all make sense and provide complete answers without the benefit of all the links to be found on the original blog page... And at the end what I have is something still similar to the digital version, yet different enough to be truly it's own thing. The unschooling 101 page made solid and zine-like. I'm pretty pleased with it, to be honest.

Continuing in the spirit of it's namesake blog page, it's short. Three sheets of paper folded in half to create a twelve page booklet, with nine pages of text. I was ruthless with the writing of this zine, doing everything I could to keep it short. It's easy to recommend unschooling books to people, but unless they're especially interested or especially invested in you or your children, most people just aren't likely to read a whole book. This though? This can be read in just a handful of minutes. It's short, to the point, and easily digestible, complete with a few author and book recommendations at the end for those who want to dig deeper. I very much wanted this to be the thing even your French class teacher and nosy neighbor would actually be willing to take a few moments to read and think about!

I was so excited about this project I even made a video showing you the zine and talking briefly about it.


Sound like something you'd be interested in? Awesome! I'm so happy already with the amount of interest this has generated thanks to my mentioning of the project (quite a few mentions, really) on the Facebook page and other social media haunts. You can go buy it here on my store page. And if you want to share either this post or the store page on Facebook or Twitter, to help it reach a larger audience, I will be nothing but grateful. 

I'm so happy to be offering my first ever non-digital writing for purchase, and I hope very much that you'll enjoy reading it, and find it a helpful tool in sharing with others the very basics of what unschooling is all about.

While working on this zine, I decided having multiple pairs of eyes looking it over would be really helpful. So I asked, and what I received was some truly wonderful feedback! After each person read it, I changed multiple small things, and I felt like it just got better every time. For helping to shape this zine I want to say a big THANK YOU to Loreto, Sol, Amy, and my sister Emilie. For a whole lot of assistance with the printing and assembling of this zine, I want to thank my mother Debbie. Without her I probably would have just given up in frustration, and you wouldn't all be reading this now!

Grown Unschooler C. Kennedy: "I was unschooled from the day I was born."

A note from Idzie: The first interview with a grown unschooler I ever posted was in 2010. Over the next two years, I was happy to share a total of eight interviews with various adult unschoolers, ranging in age from 17 to 30, and all with such varied and fascinating lives and things to share. Now I'm thrilled, after quite a while without any interviews, to present a new one! The grown unschooler questionnaire still resides under the grown unschoolers section at the top of the blog, and I invite any adult unschoolers to fill it out. Thank you to C. Kennedy for kicking these interviews off once again, and I hope you enjoy reading what she had to say as much as I did!

C. Kennedy is a playwright, puppeteer and Orientation and Mobility Specialist currently bumbling around Philadelphia. In between producing, writing, performing and working for the State of NJ, she enjoys: traveling around the world, learning languages, aerial silks, cooking, reading, and performing as her alter ego, Señor Papos (alongside her partner Jeremy Prouty as La Rosa Peligrosa, Jota). http://cwkennedy.weebly.com for more info.

When did you become an unschooler?

I was unschooled from the day I was born.

How long have you unschooled/did you unschool?

I still consider myself an unschooler. I attended undergrad from when I was 18-21 and grad school from age 25-26. Other than those 4 years, plus one community college class when I was 17, I have never attended any sort of school. 

How old are you now?

29

Do you have any siblings?  If so, did they/do they unschool as well?

One younger brother who was and still is unschooled. He has not been to college.

If your parents chose unschooling, do you know how/why they made that decision?

My mom was the primary factor. She was a grade A student and always considered very bright. When she graduated college she felt as though she knew nothing, and that she had spent her life memorizing things so as to ace a test. She read some Holt, Gatto and the Teenage Liberation Handbook and decided to give my brother and I the option to unschool. My father was supportive. We were both given the option to go to school at any time and chose not to.

What were the challenges you faced, and how did you overcome them?

None really. I had zero problems getting into undergrad or grad school, 3.84 GPA in undergrad, 4.0 in grad school. I have always had lots of friends and activities, a supportive family and have had a really happy life. I'm a theatre artist so I've struggled to make that work financially, but have finally found a part time job where I am financially comfortable and have enough time to pursue my creative work. That doesn't really have anything to do with unschooling though, more to do with how artists are compensated and regarded in our society which is another issue entirely.

What do you think the best thing about unschooling is?

Freedom to pursue your own interests. I love writing/reading and as a child I would read and write for literally entire days. I love that you can manage your own time, which allows you to focus on and accomplish tasks, as well as learn to budget your own time. I'm told by nearly everyone in my adult life that I'm the most highly self-motivated person they know, and that I'm amazing at multi-tasking. I credit this to unschooling entirely.

What do you think the worst (or most difficult) thing about unschooling is?

I don't really have anything negative to say about it. Oh! I was never sitting around bored in class, so I never learned to doodle. I'm terrible at doodling. That is a detriment. My handwriting is also bad because I didn't do handwriting drills. Which isn't really all that bad in our modern computer age, but I do become slightly ashamed of it at times. 

Did you decide to go/are you going to college or university?  If so, could you talk a bit about that experience?

I have an M.S. in Orientation and Mobility. 

Applying for college originally: Took the ACT when I was 15. Got a decent score (26 I think). Decided I would retake only if my college of choice did not accept me. Auditioned for college of choice. Was offered a scholarship based on audition (theater school). Was told I "might need a GED, we are not sure". Took GED and in the meantime, send college a curriculum that my mom and I typed up (basically a book list and list of activities I had done/community college class I had taken). Was accepted into the honors program at the college based on that. Then received my passing GED score which was no longer needed.

Applying for grad school: Took MCAT, scored 96 percentile. Told by admissions that they "love" homeschoolers because they are self motivated. 

Undergrad experience: I was a little nervous at first just because I'd never really written an essay, and had only taken a biology class at community college, no other school-type classes. Overworked myself the first semester and turned in everything way ahead of time/studied frantically. After the first semester I realized I was trying wayyyyyy too hard, relaxed and still continued to get mostly all A's in my classes, without all the freaking out. Didn't really find anything particularly difficult about switching to classroom based learning, although I did find myself easily slipping into "memorize for the test then forget it" type studying. So much easier than actually learning anything! But way more effective in a classroom setting. 

Are you currently earning money in any way?

I work part time as an Orientation and Mobilty Specialist, teaching individuals with blindness or visual impairments travel skills. I also work as a standardized patient, and usually about 2x a year produce a script I've written which doesn't earn me much, but usually breaks even and allows me to pay myself and the performers a small stipend.

What jobs/ways of earning money do you, and have you, had?

Wayyyyy too many. Waitress, actor, acting teacher, HR admin, telemarketer, caterer, haunted trail guide, promo model, standardized patient, orientation and mobility specialist, nanny, and all around craigslist odd job filler.

Have you found work that's fulfilling and enjoyable?

My work as an O&M specialist is fulfilling and enjoyable. I am financially stable and able to save for my future while maintaining flexibility that allows me to pursue my theatre/puppetry work. I find the work challenges me to think about the way we perceive our world, and is highly rewarding as I teach people to travel to the places they want and need to go to in a safe and efficient manner.

Have you found that unschooling has had an impact on how hard or easy it is to get jobs or earn money?

Not really. Being a puppeteer/playwright, yes. Unschooler, no. 

Do you feel that unschooling has had an impact on what methods of earning money or jobs you're drawn to?

Eh, maybe? Hard to say. I'm truly passionate about my artistic life and my life as an O&M instructor. Oh! Sure! I was never content settling for a job I didn't enjoy fully, or wasn't financially secure in. I would say unschooling probably assisted me in not settling for a job I'm not fulfilled by/can't grow in, and also has given me a firm foundation in keeping my artistic life alive.

What impact do you feel unschooling has had on your life?

Nothing but positives. I'm self motivated, and consider myself a lifelong learner. Last year I learned arial silks and trapeze, the two years before, Spanish. This year it's Italian. I try to learn something new all the time.

If you could go back in time, is there anything about your learning/educational journey that you'd change?

I'd make myself start learning Spanish earlier. I wasn't really motivated to do that as a kid. Oh well. I've learned it now and am working on Italian. After that, French. Hopefully German too before it's all said and done. Most people I know don't know a second language, so I don't feel behind. It's just I think it would have been easier to learn when I was younger.

If you have children, are they unschooled?  Alternately, if you were to have children, would you choose to unschool them?

If I do in the future, definitely.

What advice would you give to teens looking to leave high school?

Read the Teenage Liberation Handbook/John Taylor Gatto/John Holt. Educate yourself on what unschooling means, and make an informed presentation to your parents. Find other unschoolers online and have them talk to your parents. Write me and tell me to talk to your parents! kennedy.candra@gmail.com

What advice would you give to someone looking to skip, or to drop out of, college or university?

If college is being paid for in full by a scholarship/amazingly rich parents, then go. Get it over with and get your degree in whatever. It will give you a leg up in applying for anything even outside your field. It may not be the most enjoyable, but if you're not going into debt over it, than it will be worth it. I don't really use my undergrad degree, but I sure am glad I had it when I went to get my Grad degree.

If you have to foot the bill then think second thoughts. What do you really want to do? Does it absolutely require a college degree (med school? law school in most states?)? If it absolutely requires it and you are sure that's what you want to do, then you need to keep going.

If you're not sure what you want to go into/your field does not necessarily require a degree, then hit the pause button. Maybe spend a year interning part time (whatever you can afford. intern one day a week and work the rest, or whatever you need to do) in whatever it was you were getting a degree for, see if it really fits you. Then if you absolutely have to have a degree to go into it, back to school you go. But you may be able to get into the field without a degree.

Take community college courses. Every single one you can. Way cheaper. Make sure the credits transfer to whatever school you're going to.

What advice would you give to unschooling parents (or parents looking into unschooling)?

Trust. Read the Teenage Liberation Handbook/John Taylor Gatto/John Holt. Educate yourself on what unschooling means. Find other unschoolers online talk to them. Write me and talk to me!  kennedy.candra@gmail.com

Unschooling Isn't More Risky, It's Just Less Conventional

"Part of me would like to unschool, but it just seems so risky."

"I can't believe parents would do that! Why are they risking their children's education like that??"

"These kids will just end up working at McDonalds."

People seem convinced that unschooling is a risky choice. A risky lifestyle. Who know if kids will succeed if they're unschooled!

This puzzles me more than a little, because it seems to assume that schooling is a guarantee. That if a child goes to school, they'll become emotionally well-adjusted, learn all they need to function in life, get a job, and become successful.

If you ask any person if going to school is a guarantee of success, they'll say of course not. The majority of the people working in low-paying jobs went to school. There are people who went to school who suffer from addiction and mental illness, face unemployment and homelessness, and otherwise struggle in life.

All going to school means is that you've gone to school. It doesn't come with any guarantees.

Neither does unschooling. Unschoolers, too, can struggle with addiction, struggle to find a job, struggle in life.

It's almost as if we live in a world where it's not easy to "succeed," whether you go to school or are unschooled. Almost as if, in everyone's life, shit happens. See what I'm getting at?

Yes, for some people unschooling is riskier than others. People may be less likely to respect an unschooling education from people who face discrimination already, for whom anything can be pulled out as an excuse to continue that discrimination. But at the same time, the people for whom unschooling may be a "riskier" choice, often find that school is ALSO riskier: marginalized communities often have access only to  poorer schools, which have a lot less resources, face higher rates of bullying and violence in school, and higher drop-out rates. Marginalized people face more difficulty and discrimination no matter what.

On the other hand, unschooling can also make things less risky: removing children from a space they face violence is removing them from risk (in reverse, for children who face violence at home, school can be the less risky environment: that's why I'm not against schools entirely, just schools as they currently exist and function). Outside of school, children and teens can have the opportunity to learn a whole bunch of things not learned in school, tailored to their own personal interests, skills, situation, and community. For unschoolers with a good home life and supportive parents, they can have more of a chance to grow in ways that feel emotionally healthy, in a safe environment, at their own pace. Thus perhaps making it easier for them to deal with the shit life inevitably throws at them.

What's more or less risky will depend entirely on the individual, the family, and their unique circumstances. Only they'll be able to make the choices that they feel are best for themselves.

But sometimes, when people talk about wanting to unschool but fearing doing so because of the potential riskiness, I wonder if it's less about risk and more about fear. Fear that, because of actively making a choice against conventional wisdom, if things don't work out it will be your fault, more than if school had just done a bad job. Furthermore, that you'll be blamed, by society at large (if unschoolers struggle with literally anything, there will likely be a whole bunch of people ready to say it's all your fault for unschooling), and even worse, perhaps by your kids. I believe the fear of being the one responsible for your child's education is a very present thing, and something that makes unschooling feel more risky, even if it isn't actually.

Parents generally want desperately to give their children the best they can in life: they want their children to do well and be happy. Not being a parent, I can't imagine how terrifying the responsibility of making choices for your children, big choices like whether to send them to school, or homeschool, or unschool, can be. As unschooling gains in popularity, I just hope that more and more parents (and more and more teenagers looking to leave school) can find the support networks needed to feel confident enough to make the choices that really feel best to them, instead of basing their decisions on fear of choosing a lifestyle that's just less conventional.