Reflections on Unschooling

When Claire was 5 and Terese was 3 I (Cheri) made a radical choice to home-school It had just become legal in Washington State and I knew of only one other family who had taken the dive. Ironically my big concern was that my children might not turn out normal. Just like other kids. After some consideration I realized that I didn’t want my children to turn out just like the schooled kids. I wanted more for them.

Though I have a degree in education it was not necessary or even particularly useful in the educational path we chose. My degree did provide me with a perspective on the benefits and limitations of our current educational system and gave me the courage to choose a different path. I read as much as I could about homeschooling and discovered another teacher who had bought into the idea named John Holt. Holt, a former ‘Teacher of the Year’ advocated a step more radical than homeschooling he called unschooling.

I read what I could find on unschooling and watched how my daughters were learning. We had bought and were working at a kindergarten curriculum for Claire. But I soon discovered that we would have to hurry up and get to the lessons because Claire was already learning the material in our daily life. Clue 1: Maybe the curriculum was not as necessary as I thought. I researched and pondered and prayed a lot and then decided to give unschooling a try. Was it a scary choice? Yep. But I could see that it was clearly working and way more fun.

When we moved to California we joined a home-school group that had several other unschoolers and we continued our radical unschooling life. Our final move to Colorado put us in a small town where the homeschoolers were unfamilar with unschooling. So we continued our unschooling more on our own.

What is unschooling?

My definition of how to unschool is:

Live in the real world with quality people and follow your dreams.

Unschoolers tend to find a passion and then connect their learning of various subjects to advancing their passion.

To unschool you throw out the formal curriculum and live a full and interesting life. For example:You read good books, and then write your own books. You learn beginning fractions by baking. You learn history by visiting historic locations. You learn about natural science in nature. You learn music by forming a music group. You take advantage of classes in your community to expand your interests.

How did we do it? (Remember:Unschooling varies greatly for each family.)

Our how of unschooling changed as Claire and Terese grew but here are some constants we kept in our life throughout unschooling:

We read the Bible each morning, We read a literature book each day after lunch (when we were home) and Evan (dad) read another story book after supper. We had a “Family Service” each evening we were home. Family service included drama, music, games, art, (they were fun). Yearly we celebrated holidays as educational events. I think that is why God created the Jewish holidays. We had Passover, Purim parties, Rosh hashana, Valentines day with boxes to collect and give valentines, Easter, St. Nick Day, Santa Lucia Day, Christmas. The month of October was our Church History Month where we studied a saint (old or new) and then on Nov.1 All Saints Day we held family a costume/theme party on the selected saint.

Our weeks held activities like: gymnastics classes as students and later coaches, home school group park play days, visits to science museums, trips to the library, helping out an elderly friend, working at the food bank, project time for painting, stamp collecting, writing stories, reading, researching new interests, cooking, sewing, playing math games, playing music with grandparents, science experiments, time to be alone. And yes, doing text books. (More on texts below.)

In our home school groups:

We had endless field-trip and class options provide by our California home school group, to the point we joked it should not be called ‘home’ schooling. Some of the members who attended more activities than we did had their cars equipped with lots of learning activities.

Two samples of programs we instigated for our group that became popular: 1. We published a monthly magazine of original stories by the members. 2. We began “ Theme Days” when our group would gather to give presentations on various topics. Theme Days became very popular in California and we even had a few in Colorado. The kids would propose topics and then agree on one for each few months. We would study the theme at home and then present our findings on the selected day. Theme days were complete with costumes, a potluck of theme related food, and a time for each family to present what we had learned. On Greek day, for example, we met at the Greek theater, ate Greek food, acted out Greek myths, and enjoyed the Greek presentations by each family. Family History Day had each family providing foods and projects based on their own family history.

Our Colorado Home-school group provided us with a formal graduation ceremony (powerful/ tear-jerk-er) and our daughters even had the chance to attend Prom at the local high school and a formal dinner provided by the home school group.

Random Unschooling questions and thoughts:

Can unschoolers get into college? This was a serious question when our daughters were young. Some of our friends were sure we had doomed our home-schooled daughters to a life without college. And they didn’t know the worst of it, we were unschoolers. Now years later we find that colleges are eager to accept homeschoolers. Evan has found the homeschoolers and unschoolers in his college classrooms to be his best students. Our daughters both graduated from college.

Slow learners: Kids who learn to read early or are natural math wiz’s are easy. Slow learners can push the already paranoid parents over the edge. Slow learners, and we are all slow at some things, require special patience and sometimes special assistance And lots of wisdom. I have not seen worry and labeling a child as slow as helpful. Respect children. Encourage their particular strengths.

What about subjects that are missed or need special attention? Keep on the look out. Unschooler parents are unusually vigilant (Boarder: paranoid) looking for missing knowledge. When we spot a subject that is getting over-looked we find ways to introduce the topic; classes at the science museum, games that require math or spelling skills.

What about text books? Text books are easy to acquire Library book sales are where we began. We had many texts on all standard subjects at various grade levels readily available. Our daughters were free to use them whenever they wanted to. When Terese was 7 or 8 she decided to work through a 3rd grade math text on her own. She asked for help if needed but this was her project. When both daughters reached high school they used texts for math and science topics. At age 15 Terese again dug into her own style of formal schooling and used high school and college texts for subjects she wanted to know more about.

A few weeks ago I watched a Ted Talk: Hack-schooling Makes Me Happy. If you are one of those wondering if this kid is for real I can assure you that he is very much like other unschoolers I have related to. I feel pretty confident that he has and will turn out well. It is nice to know they are out there.

Does everyone unschool like we did. Definitely not. I don’t know anyone who did it the way we did. Did we do it all perfectly? No. But I am very pleased with how my daughters turned out. And it was fun getting here.

Is unschooling a good fit for everyone? Of course not. Is unschooling good fit for you?