Un/Homeschooling

Lesson 3: Deschooling Philosophy

Doubts and Fears

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of unschooling is giving up control and trusting our children to learn what they need to learn. For most parents, seeing is believing, and their unschooled children do not disappoint them in this. Learning cannot be prevented. However, it can be hindered by coercive teaching and pressure.

“Traditional thought about parenting has continually focused on ways in which parents can enforce their own agendas about what their children should be doing. If we as parents can learn to listen to our kids on many different levels and can trust our kids from the very beginning to make good and important decisions about what they do and don’t want, we have made a start. Further, if we can learn to structure our language and behavior so as to support our kids’ decisions, we can increase children’s chances of success in creating themselves. And if they are confident and secure, kids will be far stronger and more capable of directing themselves.” - Matt Hern, author of Deschooling Our Lives.

After your children begin unschooling, it is impossible not to see that they are learning, but some parents still fear that their unschooled child will not learn all the subject areas mandated by standard school curricula, and therefore will not be prepared for college or work life. However, unschooling children are proving to parents and evaluators that they do learn the academic subjects through the pursuit of larger learning goals, and that they often learn them better than their schooled peers. For example, one father noted that his daughter learned math, science, history, reading, writing, social skills, and other skills that she required in order to achieve her larger goals of learning sign language, archaeology, and dance. Each homeschooled child is different, so it is important not to compare yours to other kids.

”The unschooled child will not acquire the exact knowledge that a conventionally schooled counterpart acquires during a given year, nor will she acquire the same knowledge as other unschooled children. But over the course of several years, unschooled kids will indeed learn at least as much as more formally educated students and will often far outstrip them in many areas.“ - Mary Griffith, author of The Unschooling Handbook.

Conventional schooling has divided education into a curriculum divided by age and subject category. Homeschooling families have discovered that children each have their own personal learning schedules that often varies widely from those used in schools.

"My children discuss behavior and social interactions as easily as they discuss Nintendo or their own cats and dogs. When I was their age, psychology, comparative religion and anthropology were far in my future. My kids might not have much formal terminology, but they're extremely conversant and certainly can think in those areas without knowing they're too young (by the book) to do so. They understand well that there are many versions of historical events. They understand that there are different ways to act in different situations, and with people who have particular beliefs and preferences. Some adults could use knowing that." - Sandra Dodd, radical unschooling advocate.

By breaking up topics into age-appropriate subjects as schools do, learning is divorced from real life, and therefore limited.

"When I first taught fifth grade, before I had 'taught' the children anything about fractions, or even mentioned the word, I used to ask them questions like this: 'If you had three candy bars, and wanted to divide them evenly among five people, how would you do it?' Most of them could think of one or more ways to do this. But after they had 'had' fractions, and learned to think of this as a problem that you had to use fractions to solve, most of them couldn't do it. Instead of reality and their own common sense and ingenuity, they now had 'rules,' which they could rarely keep straight or remember how to apply." - John Holt, unschooling advocate and author of many books on education.

We may overlook that a topic can be approached from a variety of disciplines, not just from the first subject-category association that we make (based on our school experience.) The subject divisions do not apply to real life because they are interrelated, inseparable. For example, animals can be studied from the perspective of a biologist, artist, farmer, zoologist, veterinarian, animal trainer, animal breeder, animal welfare worker, conservationist, etc.

"When math can be in English—even English that came from Greek, which math terms often are anyway—I can usually remember it." - Sandra Dodd, radical unschooling advocate.

It may be difficult to stop seeing the learning your unschooling children do as fitting into ‘subject categories.’ For example, music can be science and science can be history. In school, all the sciences are grouped together. I received a ‘C’ in my first semester of high school biology. After that, I didn't hold out much hope that I would do better in chemistry or physics (because they were linked in my mind.) Unschooled children are unlikely to think in this way as they would not naturally separate and categorize 'subjects.'

Just because a child attends twelve years of schooling or more, and passes or graduates from those schools, does not ensure that she learned the information that was presented. How many of us who were conventionally schooled can say that we retained the majority of the information offered us? Or that we required it for any purpose?

I and many others can agree with unschooling advocate Patrick Farenga when he says, "Much of what has stayed with us for use in our lives as adults has very little to do with our actual school work." We each have our own strengths and talents and interests. Why should a standardized body of knowledge be required of us all? Who decided this?

“The fundamental concept that informs my idea of what is ‘good’ is that of self-design. I believe it is a worthy and honorable goal for every human to be genuinely able to design themselves–to self-manage, self-direct, and self-evaluate their own lives. This means people, including kids, living their lives according to their own peculiar and unique sensibilities, becoming who they want to be.” - Matt Hern, author of Deschooling Our Lives.

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