Lesson 1: Natural Learning
The unschooling approach to homeschooling is also known as self-directed, child-led, interest-driven, and natural learning. It’s not a new method of homeschooling, as you will see, but a flexible approach that has been practiced since before traditional schools were established. This lesson includes sections on natural learning, early academics, learning styles, and homeschooling types.
Introduction
The unschooling approach to homeschooling is not a new approach to learning. It’s the way we learn naturally when left to follow our interests. It’s also the way most children learned before modern compulsory schooling. Unschooling is not a method, as you will learn, but a flexible approach for individual families and individual children.
Unschooling acknowledges that we learn all the time, that all learning is important, and that learning occurs within the learner. It cannot be caused to occur or prevented from occurring, but a child’s natural curiosity and love of learning can be inhibited through the use of coercion.
This lesson includes sections on natural learning, early academics, learning styles, and homeschooling types. Throughout the course, I’ll quote several unschooling advocates including John Holt, Patrick Farenga, Susannah Sheffer, Matt Hern, Mary Griffith, Sandra Dodd, and Grace Llewellyn, as well as other educational philosophers whose ideas complement unschooling philosophy.
