Education or Propaganda? Why Remembrance Day Needs to be Re-Examined

CONTENT WARNING this post contains multiple references to and mentions of genocide, rape, the murder of children, and other disturbing topics related to war.

When I was a child, I was taught to observe Remembrance Day the way most children in Canada are. We would watch the ceremony in Ottawa live on TV, complete with solemn music, speeches about sacrifice and heroes and freedom, and the recitation of In Flanders Fields (a poem I memorized, because memorizing poetry was very much my thing).

But as I grew older, and as my political understanding grew along with my knowledge of history, I started understanding that what I had learned, the ideas I’d been inculcated with, were not merely neutral and apolitical, but a deliberate interpretation of history and current events, a deliberate shaping of individual and national identity. What I had been taught was nationalism, and once I saw that, it became startling to me how many people--many of them quite a bit older than myself--refused to engage in any deeper consideration of the whys involved in the wearing of a poppy. What are the stories that are being internalized, and should they really remain unquestioned?

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I’ve started referring to November as Poppy Hell season. 

Photo by James Wainscoat on Unsplash

There's a reason I react this way to Remembrance Day in particular: you won’t see me write something negative about, say, D-Day commemoration ceremonies, or monuments to soldiers who died in WWII, or anything like that. Recognizing specific losses, from specific conflicts, is something I know can be really important for survivors and those who love them.

Remembrance Day is something different.

There are multiple reasons I feel this way. First, the idea that soldiers "fought and died for our freedom" needs to be examined. That is one of those phrases that is absolutely meaningless outside of its purpose as propaganda. Who's "us"? What "freedom" and for whom? Was the Korean war, the Gulf war, or the Afghanistan war even remotely for "freedom" for literally anybody, never mind Canadians? Of course not. Those were wars fought for oil, for political gain, to support allies engaged in imperialistic pillaging (and for the Canadian state to do some pillaging for themselves).

Many people bring up WWII when defending the valorization of soldiers and wars, because it's one of very few conflicts where it clearly was right to join. Most people who aren’t fascists know that fascism is extraordinarily dangerous, violent, and needs to be fought on all fronts. However, I am deeply disturbed by how simplistic the role Canada played has become in popular memory. Again, reiterating that I am very glad that Canada fought the Nazis, and that fascism is a true horror, I still think it's important people go far past the idea that the allied countries were benevolent liberators. It might make people feel good to think that way, but I think often instead about the Canadian state’s deliberate exclusion of Jewish refugees leading up to and during the war. How the Canadian head of immigration at the time bragged about how good he was at keeping Jewish people out. That of the 800,000 Jews who fled Nazi controlled countries in the 30's, Canada accepted under 5,000, leaving so very many who were turned away by country after country to die a horrifying death. I think about how popular eugenics was as a philosophy in North American governments and the UK. I think about how impressed by Hitler many European and North American leaders were, including prime minister Mackenzie King (he wrote in his diary of Hitler that "He smiled very pleasantly, and indeed had a sort of appealing and affectionate look in his eyes. My sizing up of the man as I sat and talked with him was that he is really one who truly loves his fellow man and his country ... his eyes impressed me most of all. There was a liquid quality about them which indicated keen perception and profound sympathy (calm, composed) - and one could see how particularly humble folk would come to have a profound love for the man."). I think about how much world leaders underestimated the threat posed by a fascist Germany, because they liked fascism. A "strong Germany" was seen, for a while, as a good thing, until they started realizing that Hitler's expansionism threatened them too, not only the people they didn't give a shit about.

Considering that's the political context of the second world war, it should be clear that it was not fought for any noble reasons, it was just a war of self-protection, and in Canada's case a war to support Britain.

And going back to that phrase, "fought and died for our freedom," I want people to consider for a moment the conclusions that are reached when that's your starting point. If soldiers are heroes, who fight and die for something as noble as freedom, well then, if they're fighting somewhere, anywhere, it must be for freedom. If they're heroes, they must be doing good wherever they're sent.

Repeat it often enough, and people believe it without question. Soldier heroes fighting the good fight for our freedom! It's a cudgel used by the state to justify any conflict they choose to engage in. What? You say this war is bad? What are you, against FREEDOM? You claim war crimes were committed? How dare you! Don't you know that soldiers are HEROES?

It's a toxic, dangerous mentality that works to foster a nationalistic, militaristic attitude in the general population, where soldiers are above reproach, and wars, while regrettable, are fought for the “right” reasons.

Equally dangerous is the call to "support our troops." The "our" assumed in that is yet more phrasing that, when you actually look at it, is far more about playing on emotions than a meaningful statement in itself. How are they ours? What say do you and I have in what conflicts are waged? The closest we get is voting for the party that will possibly, if we're lucky, engage in less war. That's an utter perversion of the idea of "choice."

They're not our troops, whether we personally know any soldiers or veterans or not. They're a weapon of the state, most often used to prop up the imperialism of the US and UK, or to support the economic interests of Canadian corporations.

I suppose you could say that Remembrance Day isn't about the leaders and their reasoning, or why a war was entered into, it's about soldiers. But while I'm happy people fought the Nazis, I still think it's a dangerous flattening of a nuanced reality to name all veterans martyrs and heroes. Allied troops, including Canadians, participated in the rape of tens if not hundreds of thousands of German women after Germany surrendered. I saw a Facebook friend relating on this day that his grandfather, a WWII vet, had told him how Canadian troops shot Italian children in the street for sport. Wars don’t produce any heroes. They are universally a horror that lead to some complicated mess of victims, survivors, and perpetrators. The way so many veterans who survive end up changed forever by that incredible trauma is a tragedy. But they're still not heroes.

I also take a big issue with the messaging around Remembrance Day that treats war as tragic but necessary and unavoidable. As if war is a natural disaster, something no one has any power to prevent and must merely be endured. This lays the path for future violent conflict, when a populace is told again and again that wars just… happen. As if there aren’t hundreds, thousands of steps leading up to a conflict, countless choices to be made, options that might mitigate harm or even stop the course of war entirely. We can’t know what may or may not have happened had people made different choices in the past. But I do know that the way people talk about war now will lead to more war. As if it’s inevitable. As if that’s just the human condition. As if we have no power to stop it. As if the powerful don’t benefit immensely from ongoing conflicts (never forget that Canada is still selling arms to Saudi Arabia, who are almost certainly using them to murder Yemenis).

All Remembrance Day is, is an opportunity for the state to twist people’s understandable grief and horror towards a nationalistic agenda, to make sure their path towards any future wars they want to engage in or support remains smooth. It’s an empty gesture that pays lip service to “peace” while taking absolutely zero steps that could actually contribute to peace. Those who don’t perform patriotism by wearing the poppy and gushing piously enough about freedom and heroes are met with social censure, especially if they’re people of colour, as evidenced by Don Cherry’s tirade last year (thankfully, after years of racist rhetoric, he was finally fired). If this day was REALLY about peace, people would look at the horror of war without the comforting veneer of catchy propaganda phrases, and without telling stories that prop up Canadians' sense of a positive national identity. Instead we would look at history and current engagements with clear and critical eyes; immediately cease all sales of weapons and armoured vehicles; cease the support, either material or diplomatic, of British and American “interventions” in foreign countries; and make the legal changes necessary to require a referendum before this country is allowed to engage in any military conflicts.

With all the violence, at home and abroad, that the Canadian state has enacted and been complicit in, that still wouldn’t be enough. But it would be a start, a sign that this “remembrance” could actually be part of an attempt to do better, instead of the act of war-worshiping it is now.

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When you know better, you have the opportunity to do better. It’s easy to repeat simple stories--Canada as peacekeepers (just don’t look too hard at the peaceful machine guns “our” soldiers are carrying), Canadian soldiers as liberators (who, along with the rest of the allies in WWII, sent “liberated” gay men straight from the concentration camps to prisons)--but these stories, as comforting as they might be, are half-truths and distortions. Children deserve truth from the adults in their lives, deserve people who will ally with them in learning that goes beyond the surface, in thinking critically and questioning the motives of the powerful. And far more so the world deserves people who do not repeat the same justifications for colonialism and imperialism, who do not support their country in it’s exportation of war.

I don’t have an irrational hatred of poppies. I just hate the way this holiday acts in service to violence.

12 Unschooling Misconceptions (and Why They're Wrong)

There are a lot of misconceptions out there about what unschooling is, how it works, what people mean when they use the term... So I wanted to do a post on the topic addressing some of the biggest misunderstandings that seem to crop up repeatedly.

Misconception #1: unschooling is just a synonym for homeschooling.

While unschooling falls under the homeschooling umbrella, it is its own unique approach, lifestyle, and understanding of how learning works and how children should be treated.

While "homeschooling" frequently means school-at-home, unschooling is delight-driven, interest-based, self-directed life learning. It's children owning their own education, learning what, where, when, how, and with whom they want (within reasonable constraints).

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Misconception #2: Unschooling is just educational neglect.

Unschooling does NOT mean abandoning children to their own devices. Adult carers take an active, involved role in the lives of unschooling children, acting as guides and partners in learning, finding resources, and creating environments that foster exploration,. Their role is just collaborative, instead of that of "teacher."

Misconception #3: Parents must just be sneakily "teaching" their kids, then.

Nope! As I said recently on Facebook:
“[That belief] seems to rest on the assumption that children directing their own learning is such an absurd idea that there MUST be a mastermind carefully crafting the process behind the scenes…

And while there is certainly a great deal of parental involvement, it's not through subterfuge.

Unschooling as a philosophy is about respecting children, not tricking them into learning. They WANT to learn, they just need the resources and support to do so.”

Unschooling requires a shift in understanding about what learning is and how children should be treated. Trusting and respecting children is central to unschooling, and trying to manipulate children into doing what the adults want would completely undermine that. 

Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash

Misconception #4: You can unschool part time.

The assumption behind this claim is generally that weekends and summer break can be for "unschooling," after the REAL learning has taken place in school. But as I hope is becoming clear, unschooling is a lifestyle, it's a whole different way of approaching living and learning with children. It's not something you stuff into spare moments, and it can’t be done without challenging dominant ideas about schooling.

See Why Can't You Just Unschool Part Time? 

Misconception #5: Unschooling is just a way for parents to isolate their children from the wider world, to keep them away from the "wrong" sorts of people and influences.

I think it's hard to convey to those outside of the community just how wide a schism there is between religious and secular homeschooling/homeschoolers. The ideology is NOT the same.

Members of the fundamentalist and evangelical homeschooling movement often DO want to isolate their kids. Unschoolers, though, tend to fall heavily on the secular side of reasons-for-homeschooling (whatever their personal beliefs or religion are), and do not want their children isolated at all.

I tend to make the distinction between those who want kids to have MORE access to the world than school provides, vs those who want kids to have LESS access. Generally more = good, less = bad in terms of the experience kids have.

See Homeschooling the Right Way: More of the World, Not Less 

Misconception #6: Unschooling means you stay at home all the time.

I mean, right now most people are home all the time. But NORMALLY, and expanding on the above point, that is not at all the case.

Unschoolers usually see plenty of other people, have friends and activities, and spend lots of time out and about. At various points my sister and I had Sparks/Brownies/Girl Guides, nature club, homeschool co-op, Air Cadets, classes on a wide variety of different topics, lots of informal gatherings… Unschoolers are plenty "socialized."

See The Ultimate Unschooling Socialization Post 

Photo by Andrew Seaman on Unsplash

Misconception #7: Kids (and people in general) are inherently "lazy" and won't learn unless forced to. 

I feel like there are two components to address here. The first is "laziness" as a concept, which... I do not think exists. 

I also think that the fantastic article "Laziness Does Not Exist (but unseen barriers do)" by Devon Price is a must read on the topic. 

But the second part of the misconception is that kids, being "lazy", must be FORCED to learn, with the inherent assumption that learning must be hard, and that no one would willingly do it.

In reality, schooling is the unpleasant thing that many children resist, finding it stressful or boring or de-motivating. That's the part that kids don't like. Schooling and learning are not synonyms, and learning does not have to be that way.

Unschoolers know that living is learning, and that children just need supportive and resource filled environments in which to thrive. As long as their needs are met, they will learn enthusiastically, joyfully, fiercely.

Misconception #8: Children will never do hard things on their own.

Obviously similar to misconception #7, but I thought this one still deserved its own attention. Because obviously... Learning CAN be hard!

Learning new things is often difficult: sometimes it's joyful work, but frequently it’s also frustrating. The thing is though, that people--children included--will do hard things if they feel there's a good reason to do so. If they’re excited, or see how it will be useful in their lives, or they feel it contributes to an important goal of theirs, they will put in the work.

Certain things need to be in place to make hard things more manageable (a topic I’ve gone into more thoroughly in the past), but ultimately, it doesn't require force. It just requires support.

Photo by Tamarcus Brown on Unsplash

Misconception #9: Kids will "rule" the household if adults aren't busy controlling their every move.

This one... Well, it seems to be coming from people who have a wildly different, very negative view of human nature in general and children in particular as compared to unschoolers.

If you see the world through a starkly hierarchical and authoritarian lens, if you think people need to be ruled, and that homes should be run like miniature dictatorships, unschooling might seem like it could never work (respect and trust children?? Surely not!).

The fact it DOES work, that there are lots of parents trying to undo their own authoritarian conditioning and create non-hierarchical models based on consent in their homes instead, which children then thrive in, shows that those doubters do not understand human nature as well as they think they do.

Unschoolers of all backgrounds (including those whose parents made the decision and those who left school themselves as teens) show that not only do parent-child relationships not have to be based on control, but teacher-student hierarchies can also be disrupted. 

People of all ages really are capable of cooperating, collaborating, and learning together in ways that aren't based on coercion and control.

Misconception #10: Unschooling means no teacher, textbooks, classes, or structure.

Here is where it's important to emphasize the self-directed aspect of unschooling.

The idea isn't to do away with any and all school-like trappings, it's to respect that the learner gets to call the shots in their own education. This means unschoolers are absolutely free to utilize a variety of resources, including classes and teachers, which many choose to do.

At various points I was in classes ranging from French, to history, to principles of aviation, to doll making. Structure is in no way incompatible with unschooling, as long as that structure is freely chosen by the learner.

This is probably a good time to point out that unschoolers can also choose to go to school! It's not at all uncommon for unschoolers to move in and out of the school system over the years, sometimes trying out school briefly, sometimes going and staying. The important part is self-direction/choice.

See No Classes, No Teachers, No Books? The Reality of Structure in Unschooling 

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

Misconception #11: Unschooling will only work for "motivated" children.

Honestly, I hate this one SO much. I hate the hierarchy, the division it creates between the supposedly "smarter" or "more motivated" and the supposedly... Less. As if there are some children who deserve more respect, trust, and freedom, and some who don't, which seems like such a profoundly broken way of looking at other people.

All children, if given the needed support--a safe environment, caring adults, access to a variety of resources--are capable of self-directed learning. There isn't some special type of kid who deserves to learn more freely than others.

Access is a whole different thing: because we live in a capitalist hellscape, most people don't have the financial means to unschool. Because our society does not value children, they are segregated from the rest of society instead of being a crucial, integral part of daily life.

But all children can and should be trusted and respected, and in any revolutionary vision of a different society the needs and rights of children should be considered of utmost importance.

I also think there are a lot of models (agile learning centers, homeschool co-ops, free schools, etc.) that provide inspiration for what could be, if they were fully publicly funded and accessible to all children who don't have the option of unschooling.

Misconception #12: Unschooling is elitist and incompatible with "social justice".

I feel like I started to address the issue of privilege in my previous point, and now I want to shift focus a bit and point out that schooling is incompatible with social justice. 

I don't personally see unschooling as any type of solution in a vacuum: I think the necessary changes to create a truly just society (societies?) are revolutionary. I don't think any tweaking of the current system will ever be enough.

However, I absolutely agree that unschoolers (along with everyone else) need to understand how power, privilege, and oppression function in order to start chipping away at their own oppressive views and actions, and take steps towards greater justice.

I just feel very strongly that treating children badly, in controlling and disrespectful ways, is, you know, bad. Ageism is an oppression that needs to be addressed, and I think unschooling can be a way to combat that.

I also think it's completely counterproductive to try to teach children to be anti-authoritarian and anti-oppression by treating them in authoritarian and oppressive ways.

I talk a lot more about my understanding of the ways unschooling and "social justice" relate in Yes There ARE Things Every Kid Should Know. 

Photo by Rachael Henning on Unsplash

Okay, I think that covers it! I hope this clarified some issues you may have been wondering about, and gave you a better understanding of what unschooling can be all about. It’s an approach to living and learning with children that I think can provide a lot of inspiration if people simply understood it better.

Happiness, Productivity, and the Fall of Capitalism (or We All Deserve to Live Joyfully)

Do parents care about their children's happiness? I think it's an easy answer to say overwhelming they do, very much so. And yet, they don't necessarily prioritize it in the daily lives of their children.

I feel like a lot of parents erroneously believe that academic success will lead to happiness, and that if they can just keep their kids on the "right" path they will eventually be happier for it. This belief in future gains lets them absolve themselves of the need to make sure that their kids are happy NOW.

While there are plenty of people out there who will inform you with great indignation that kids these days want everything now, I think it’s actually the reverse: our society has a delayed gratification problem. We’ve come to believe that happiness is something best deferred to a later, more convenient time and date. After school hours. After you’ve finished your homework. On the weekend. During summer vacation. In your one week of vacation from work. After retirement…

Capitalism has forced this situation onto people in a material way, but too many have also internalized it, and come to take a strange sort of pride in stealing joy from themselves, in working hard not only out of necessity or for a worthy goal, but treating constant busyness, productivity, and even stress as some type of merit badge: proof they’ve earned their place in this world through labour.

This attitude is then extended to children. They, too, are treated as if they have to earn their joy, their free time, their play, their right to make their own choices. Happiness is something you only get to experience once you’ve done everything “essential,” a situation made even worse by the fact that judgement of just what IS essential is always made by the adults in a child’s life, not the child themselves. 

This could be the place to point out that, as Jean Piaget said, play is the work of childhood. I could point to research that free play improves children’s social skills and grades. But to do so seems to be using the logic of a toxic culture in order to justify healthy, essential human behaviour that doesn’t--or certainly shouldn’t--need any justification. When we make those types of arguments, it allows us to stay safely inside the framework of our current system, which is why I think we have to go deeper than that, and question why it is we’ve been taught to value productivity (sometimes masquerading as “good grades,” “good jobs,” “hard work,” and “success”) above all else. 

We are not placed on this Earth to serve the interests of billionaires, we do not need to prove ourselves worthy of simply existing, and children should never have to meet adult demands in order to earn what they should be able to enjoy freely. 

I don’t pretend to know the steps necessary in dismantling capitalism, but I do think part of it has to be examining the ways we’ve internalized and enacted ideas which are actively harmful to ourselves, our communities, and the environment. We need to start sorting out what values should truly be at the heart of our lives, and what we communicate to children about how they should live their lives.  

Doesn’t happiness seem like a better goal than being good at capitalism? And I don’t mean “happiness” in a shallow or individualistic way, I mean it expansively, generously, a communal effort to re-organize society in such a way that everyone can live well--can, hopefully, be happy.

It’s a mistake for parents to prioritize productivity. And if they prized their children’s happiness instead, perhaps that could even be a little bit revolutionary.

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Education Outside the Fishbowl: Observation, Evaluation, and How Children (Really) Learn

If a child learns in the forest, and there are no adults there to see it, did they really learn at all?

The summer my sister turned 13 was spent in a patch of woods--one of the few semi-wild spaces near us to be spared from development--with a group of neighborhood kids. They dragged in used furniture found on big-pickup trash days, set up complex political systems, and built and played from when they staggered out of bed in the early afternoon until everyone got too hungry and made it back to their respective houses for supper. There was arguing and conflict resolution, wild creativity and hands on problem solving. Sometimes I’d tour the small world they’d created, hidden away behind suburban backyards (though being an entire 2 ½ years older than my sister, I was definitely too cool to participate myself).

This was long enough ago that a group of 11 to 14 year olds disappearing all day, unsupervised, was considered pretty normal by everyone’s parents (something it seems is increasingly unusual now), but I think my mother was probably the only one of the lot who saw what was happening as learning. All the other adults seemed more likely to see it as kids just messing around, albeit in a harmless way, which was fine and definitely better than, I don’t know, drugs or partying or any of those other things parents start panicking about as their children ease into teenagehood. So they got to spend their summer days in peace, playing and learning under the trees.

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I have to believe that most adults realize, at least on some level, that learning happens outside of the classroom (after all, that’s the way most of them have been learning since they left school). Yet they often behave as if they don’t. “Every week without learning is causing a lifetime’s worth of harm!” cry the politicians and pundits, eager to “reopen” an economy in the midst of a deadly pandemic, and parents nod along in concern. How can you just let kids not-learn for so long, after all? Isn’t that irresponsible?

Learning happens all the time, as any unschooler will tell you. Yet to many, it’s invisible. Their eyes slide over it. They can’t hear its rhythm in joyous laughter or in focused silence. “Learning” is supposed to occupy a specific place, to conform to a certain shape, and to follow all the correct rules (in the proper order). Learning, to them, means schooling. Anything else is a distraction.

I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to guess that the reason many parents don’t see learning when it happens for their children is because they don’t see it for themselves. They may learn informally, but without an official stamp of approval, I wonder if that learning remains invisible, too. One of my favourite John Holt quotes reads: “To trust children we must first learn to trust ourselves...and most of us were taught as children that we could not be trusted.”

This (mis)understanding of what learning is and how it happens has lead to the strange phenomena of seeing learning (with all its incumbent change and growth) not as something arising primarily through a learner’s experience, play, socialization, fascination and dedication, but as something done to children by properly certified adults. If, as Paulo Freire said, students are seen as “vessels to be filled” then when left unattended, they’ll simply sit empty. 

Learning, though, is not only something which must be done to, it must also be seen by. If learning isn’t witnessed by an appropriate expert, or if it can’t be evaluated by those same experts in an easy to measure way after the fact, does it really count?

If a child learns in the forest, and there are no teachers there to see it, did they really learn at all?

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School isn’t a place where students get much privacy. In fact, every effort is made to make sure they get as little time away from prying eyes as possible. Some of this is genuine concern about what harm might be done to students by each other when no adults are watching. But I think it goes beyond that, as well. To know that learning is happening, children must be observed. If they’re not being observed, they’re probably not really learning (children, remember, cannot be trusted).

To be contained in a school building is to be almost constantly watched, assessed, and judged. Carol Black refers to the “evaluative gaze” of school, noting:

“There is something profoundly deadening to a curious, engaged child about the feeling of being watched and measured, or even, some studies suggest, the anticipation of being measured. Sure, some kids seem to dig it. They preen and pose for it, they compete with their friends for it, they want to be better than everybody else. But everybody can’t be better than everybody else, and this business of being constantly scrutinized and compared to others does something insidious to the life of a child. I've seen kids drop what they're doing in an instant when they realize they're being observed in an appraising way. A wall goes up. The lights go out.”

It’s always been clear to me, in my own life, that I need a lot of privacy to learn something new. I need to be able to struggle and make mistakes--to forget important facts and miss important steps--without the weight of eyes on me, correcting and judging and getting in the way. Even as an adult, to know you’re being evaluated can make you shrink, become stilted and overly cautious, the focus no longer on discovery or improvement but on not making any mistakes. The goal shifts to that of performing competence in a way that makes you look smart and accomplished. Actual learning, in all its messiness, gets shoved behind stage, where the audience can’t see any missteps.

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Learning can be both shared and social, deeply private and personal. Sometimes it starts as one and morphs into the other, or switches back and forth based on an individual’s comfort (and other people’s openness and ability to withhold critique unless asked for). The role of teacher and mentor can be important (as can that of friend, parent, neighbor, librarian, peer), and there is definitely a time and place for evaluation of one sort or another. But when and where and how much and what sort and by who? Those are all important questions, and the answers should often be when a learner asks someone for their opinion or assistance, and in situations a learner has chosen to be in, and much less, and varied and flexible, and by people the learner respects and trusts. But the default, the normal, the everyday of childhood should not be one of scrutiny and evaluation.

We as a culture have come to believe that learning is something which only happens in captivity, in carefully controlled environments and under the keen observation of experts.

But that’s not the way learning really works. It’s not the way children grow best, not the way any of us feel the most confident and brave and excited and free, not how we live our best lives.

When we go to the forest--wandering through dappled shade, identifying frog calls drifting in from nearby wetlands, standing very still so as not to spook a nearby woodpecker, and plucking sumac berries to chew on--the learning is real and true, no matter who’s there to see it.

Children deserve to learn in peace, wherever it happens.

Homeschooling in the Age of COVID-19: Advice from Six Unschooling Parents

We are living in difficult times. Around the world, people’s lives have been upended as everyone struggles to deal with this crisis. And one of those changes has been that suddenly, countless people who never expected to be in such a position are doing some version of homeschooling.

Before I go any further, I’d like to make it clear that this is not what homeschooling normally looks like, not how it’s supposed to be. The “home” bit doesn’t mean that school-free families are used to being chained to their houses, as homeschoolers generally take full advantage of various classes, homeschool co-ops, organized sports, community centers, museums, parks, clubs… And you’d be hard pressed to find a group more broken up over library closures. It’s an isolating time for all of us, most definitely including those who normally don’t go to school.

Photo by David Clarke on Unsplash

But at the same time, there ARE aspects of our current reality that are more familiar to families who practice homeschooling of one sort or another. The no school bit is self-evident, but also spending a great deal of time together as a family, and plenty of unstructured time. 

With that in mind, I hoped it would be helpful to share some thoughts and advice from several different unschooling parents, people who practice self-directed life learning outside of school. There is overlap in what they have to say, but also some interesting divergences, and I hope at least some of their words will resonate with you, will give you ideas or comfort.

It’s a trying time, and I just hope we can all make it through it with as much kindness and calm as possible.

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One of the defining characteristics of our current western society is separation. So many families - whether out of choice or necessity - spend the better part of our days separated from each other.

Often, with separation comes disconnection.

This prescribed physical/social distancing has gifted us with togetherness. But togetherness, when we’re used to separation, isn’t always easy. So we need the other C - compassion, as we learn to be together, to find a common rhythm as we dance around and with each other.

So dance! Dance and delight in being with your children. Forget the online lessons and the infinite lists of activities that sustains continued separation and embrace connection instead.

These lists have value. As tools. Not goals.

Make your own lists. Lists of the different ways to build connection in your family.

There are as many ways to build connection as there are people. Connection looks like conversations, telling jokes, making favourite foods, sharing dreams and secrets, playing fantasy games, creating, sitting in silence, sitting in togetherness and sitting in solitude. Connection looks like finding the shared language for you all to advocate for you needs, for your mental and spiritual health. But mostly connection comes when we toss judgement out the front door and expectations out the back door and we just be with our children and embrace what emerges.

Zakiyya Ismail, parent of three unschooling kids aged 21, 20 and 13. You can find her on her website Growing Minds, on Twitter and on Instagram.

Photo by Johnny Wall on Unsplash

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1. Relax. I know it is tempting to replicate school at home, but I would suggest parents find their own rhythm and groove as a family. The coronavirus has put us in uncharted territory, and we honestly do not know what tomorrow will bring. This uncertainty gives us the opportunity to disconnect from the ways school does things and do things in the way that’s most beneficial to our individual children.

2. Enjoy them. What do you enjoy doing with your children? Making a special recipe? Playing video games? Having conversations? Drawing pictures? Reading together? Whatever you like doing with them, do more of it now. Your bonds will be strengthened through the time you spend with them. Play with them and let them play. Let them play more than you think they should. Children learn a vast amount through play. Make time to laugh with your kids. It won’t just help you feel more connected to each other, it will also help ease their anxiety during this confusing time.

3. Let them learn through life. Children are remarkably resilient, and they understand far more than adults usually give them credit for. Right now, they have a freedom they normally only have during summer vacation. Now is the chance to let them be curious and self-directed in their education.

Finally, my advice to unexpecting homeschool parents is to contemplate how you want this time to be remembered. Maya Angelou famously said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Your children will forget the content of the worksheet packets and virtual learning websites they had to do during their homeschooling experience, but they will not forget how it felt being home with their family during this time. They will remember how their parents responded to the situation because they are watching you and learning from you how to deal when things are unpredictable.

Tiersa McQueen, parent of four unschoolers aged 14, 12, and 9 year old twins. You can find her on Twitter.

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This pandemic is really a mirror showing us all the inequitable facets of our society, including this part where it has become acceptable for adults to wield control and power over children. It’s not a judgment on anyone as a person but an important social commentary I needed to give because if anything good should come from this, it’s that we can use this opportunity to reflect on all of the things this crisis is shining a light on. Only then can we start creating something new.

If you can sit with the discomfort you feel from all of that, here’s my unpopular advice:

Just let your kids play.

Yep, just let them play! It’s already a stressful time for all. Skip the strict Coronavirus schedule I see being shared left and right among parent groups. Please! Don’t replicate school at home.

Don’t squander this opportunity to give your kids unstructured time and space to just be.

Right now, your kids may not know what to do with all that freedom, especially the ones who have been institutionalized longer. Your kids are used to having a schedule and having someone else decide what they should spend their time doing.

So give them this gift of freedom.

Give your kids the gift to just play, to explore what they would do with this newfound spaciousness, discover a new hobby, find things you would truly want to do with them together. Let them direct their day. Let them be bored. Boredom is such a gift. It is amazing what emerges out of boredom.

If complete freedom to let kids just be gives you high anxiety, then create flexible and loose rhythms that feel good for everyone.

Do life with them.

Trust that your kids are learning all the time.

And here is the most radical idea of all: Let them CHOOSE.

Vina Joy Duran, parent of two unschooling kids aged 11 and 4. Vina kindly allowed me to share this excerpted/edited version of a longer post that she published on Facebook.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

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These are uncertain times. A lot of people are scrambling trying to figure out childcare, or where their next paycheck is coming from. If you do find yourself with the opportunity to suddenly be at home with your kids, be thankful! It is an opportunity not available to many. While your child’s school may be sending home assignments, or switching over to virtual classes, your job is to just enjoy. Treat it like a vacation. Enjoy having your kids around. Enjoy getting to spend this one and one time with them. Enjoy having this brief moment of time that you otherwise wouldn’t have gotten. Take this time to connect with them. Watch them play their favorite video games (and ask lots of questions!), read with them, bake with them, play board games, do crafts, make a big batch of popcorn and watch a movie, play music together, let them teach you their favorite Tik Tok dances, make silly videos and take lots of selfies. Talk to them about their lives and their friends and their classes. Assuage any feelings of fear or uncertainty they may have. Remind them that they are safe. Get to know them on a whole new level. Meet them where they’re at. Shift your focus to one of gratitude rather than one of panic. This unexpected time with your kids is a blessing, not a penalty. Take this time to truly see your kids, to truly appreciate and enjoy them, and do not worry about what they may be “missing” in school. This is a strange and confusing time in their lives, and what they’ll be getting from you, the person they trust more than anyone in the world, is so much more valuable than anything they could be learning at school.

Jennifer Vogel McGrail, parent of four unschoolers aged 23, 19, 15, and 12, and author of the blog The Path Less Taken.

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Most of us have been conditioned to compartmentalize the lives of adults and children. Adults usually go off to do adultish things, children go off to do childish things, and never the twain shall meet except during the few hours of chaos before bedtime. Adults know how to control children, entertain children, “educate” children, and keep children occupied, but we really don’t know how to simply live life with children without doing things to them.

The situation with COVID-19 is scary and overwhelming, but it can also be an opportunity for us to practice being with children in ways that honor their agency, boundaries, individuality, interests, and needs…as well as our own.

Here are some thoughts about how we can begin practicing BEING WITH rather than DOING TO:

Connect. Don’t worry too much about academics. In these uncertain times, the last thing that matters is whether or not our child can add fractions! Instead, make relationship and connection our goal over “productivity.” Hold space for all the big emotions that may arise.

Respect their autonomy. Staying emotionally connected doesn’t mean we need to be attached at the hip. In fact, it can mean that we are more comfortable doing things independently because we trust each other. Instead of trying to micromanage and schedule every minute, give children the freedom to decide and self-direct their day. Support them if they need ideas or structure, but avoid coercion and ultimatums.

Communicate boundaries. Have a family meeting about how to keep everyone safe and how to get everyone’s needs met. Brainstorm together about win-win solutions so that kids and adults both feel valued and respected. How can the kids experiment with papier-mâché without making a huge mess that you’ll have to clean up? How can you have peace and quiet for your online meeting when the kids want to play Nerf tag in the house? When we as the adults are willing to compromise and listen to our kids, they’re usually willing to do the same.

It is a radical paradigm shift to learn how to have relationships with children that are based on collaboration and connection rather than coercion. Now is as good a time as any to begin practicing.

Iris Chen, parent of two unschooling children aged 12 and 10 and author of the blog Untigering.

Photo by Eye for Ebony on Unsplash

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Besides the economic and practical adjustments that affect us all, the thing I'm seeing most schooling parents and carers worry about is their children being bored, or their children "falling behind" on schoolwork.

I see a lot of unschoolers responding with a version of, "don't worry, just chill out, take time to relax" and of course as lifelong unschoolers I know what is meant by that. My family has been “homebound” in that sense for almost twenty years - and we've never been "bored" nor fallen "behind"! But the fact is, schooling families are used to schooling concepts and attendant lifestyle and worldviews. Parents and children are experiencing a lot of anxiety right now and many adults won't be able to confidently switch to an unschooling mindset under this kind of strain.

Confidence is key, and confidence can be in short supply in times like this. My suggestion would be for parents to practice self-care, tune into the news for only short durations (then tune back out!), and employ whatever healthy behaviors best care for their bodies and soothe their anxiety. As a parent, it has benefitted me a great deal to care for myself with a dedicated fierceness so I wasn't constantly transmitting my anxiety to my children. We can leave our emotional processing needs for the most part to our safe grownup friends, our support groups, our therapists, and our spiritual mentors. Let's take care of ourselves so we can care for our children.

Most children are connected online and likely have some great communities and friendships to bolster them at this time. The things children and teens need most is a safe, nurturing, connected, and calm home. What can we do to move things in that direction? It's never too early, or too late, to make those kinds of changes.

Kelly Hogaboom, parent of two unschoolers aged 16 and 18, as well as clothier and designer at Bespoke Hogaboom.

Photo by Josh Applegate on Unsplash