Self-Ed 101: 5 Reasons Why You Should Unschool
Anna 
Basics 
101, 5, beginner, five, how to start, reasons, self-ed 101, self-education, should I unschool, starting out, unschooling, why, why unschoolIt’s hard to say when exactly I chose unschooling. Looking back, it seems like unschooling always was my choice. I just didn’t know it. Most of my learning happened outside of school. Even when I was in elementary school I understood that. After a few years I started to question why I even needed to be in school at all.
Like a lot of families, I came to choose unschooling through a gradual process. In my first years at school, I enjoyed it. I loved the opportunity to learn. When the system started working against me, I started to question it. Why couldn’t I learn something the higher grades were learning? Why didn’t we read more than one chapter, if everyone was interested and concentrated on it? I didn’t know the world arbitrary then, but that’s what it felt like: a bunch of rules and regulations with no real connection to learning.
Then I discovered homeschooling. That made more sense to me. I already learned more at home than I did at school. A few years after my discovery of homeschooling, I discovered unschooling. That’s when I realized unschooling was what I had wanted all along.
So here I am.
There are a huge number of reasons to unschool. It’s likely there are as many reasons as there are unschoolers. My biggest reasons were not wanting to be stuck with my grade level subject matter. I wanted more.
Among everyone’s reasons to unschool, there are a few things we all agree on:
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Flexibility
No matter your lifestyle, budget, schedule, or interest, unschooling can work for you. The minimal necessities to a rich unschooling experience are a library card, internet access, and loving parents. Good friends, good experiences, and learning will follow.
The flexibility of unschooling can have a lot of small bonuses, too. Shopping can be done during a quiet hour. It’s easier to travel when tickets are cheap. If plans change, it’s not that big a deal. You can have a family vacation whenever it suits you. It makes a lot of things easier!
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It’s About the Learner
Schools have a lot of kids, teachers, and parents to focus their time on. Unschooling lets the experience focus on the learner and their needs. This puts the learner in a more comfortable and more secure environment. Feeling comfortable enough to seek information, ask questions, try new things, and share experiences is very important to learning. Unschooling does just that.
Knowing that what they need is freely available (entertainment, comfort, food, sleep, etc) lets children be comfortable enough not to hoard those things. Having the freedom to choose early on helps children establish security in the world around them, and make better choices with the experience they get.
Maturity doesn’t come with age. It comes with experience.
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Real-world Experience
Speaking of experience! Instead of just focusing on theory, unschooling gives kids real, hands-on experience. There’s nothing arbitrary about any of their experiences. The things unschoolers learn are put into context (this is important – why do you think schools try to give students stories for math problems?). Their learning is a more complete experience, and is more memorable because of that.
It’s more than just academic knowledge, too. Responsibility and respect are things you learn from experience, and they can’t be forced. Unschooling helps kids learn (and experience) both, without instilling fear (like schools do with punishment, bad grades, and other assessments).
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Families Are Closer
Many parents of schooled children don’t know their children very well, and don’t spend much time with them. On top of work, school, homework, errands, and free time with friends, there’s very little time to sit down and spend time together as a family.
This heart-rending article puts it in perspective: working parents on average spend less than 30 minutes of active time with their children. Unschoolers don’t have that problem.
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It’s Fun!
Unschoolers have the biggest playground of all: the world. Unschooling encourages families to focus on making fun, entertaining lives, because that’s the best way to learn. No matter your age!
Why did your family choose unschooling? Share your story in the comments!
- Be sure not to miss the other parts of the Self-Ed 101 series:
Self-Ed 101: A Brief History
Self-Ed 101: Deschooling
4 Comments to “Self-Ed 101: 5 Reasons Why You Should Unschool”
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What is your response to people who ask, “What happens when an unschooler (or home-schooler) goes to college? If they haven’t been accustomed to focusing in a class, turning in assignments on time, and working in a schedule, wouldn’t that make the college experience difficult, if not impossible?”
I’ve had to deal with people asking me this question quite a bit. At this point, I’m not certain that a college education IS even helpful for everyone, but for some jobs, a degree may be necessary.
@Lyssa: That’s a good question to ask.
Some unschoolers, instead of going to college, have broken into their field just by proving they were good enough. James Marcus Bach did that. He’s just one of many. Thousands of entrepreneurs have broken into their field through skill and interest, without getting formal education in their work.
The point of unschooling ISN’T that there’s no schedule, or structure, it’s that you CHOOSE whatever schedule or structure you do follow. For example, I’m choosing to write this blog regularly. I’m still following a schedule, even though it’s my own choice.
Unschoolers do experience schedules. Most unschoolers get part-time jobs when they’re teens (they have more possibilities to do this, too). A lot of people tend regular activities like clubs and meets. They can take part in plays, choirs, sports teams, etc – all things that have schedules and expectations. Unschoolers have conferences, too – those are certainly scheduled!
Again, it’s about choice. The unschoolers choose those activities. Schedules are a part of life, a very natural one, especially for communities. It’s the way schools use them that’s wrong, not the concept in itself.
College, compared to normal schooling, is a very free experience. Most students, coming from a very structured background in schooling, will have trouble motivating themselves to go to class (most colleges let you choose to attend classes), study, or do their best. Unschoolers actually win points by being motivated and interested in their studies from the start.
Getting into college depends on what the college wants. When an unschooler decides s/he wants to get into a college, taking the right steps is, again, about choice.
A motivated unschooler in college that has deliberately gone through the steps needed to get there will do better than an unmotivated student not used to the freedom of choice, that was forced to go through the basic steps to get into college. Those are two very different levels of appreciation.
Instead of experiencing the freedom of choice unschoolers have always had (not a big deal), students used to structure are likely to hoard things they’ve been restricted in (reason #2, above). There’s a reason why colleges are known for their wild parties. :)
“Knowing that what they need is freely available (entertainment, comfort, food, sleep, etc) lets children be comfortable enough not to hoard those things. Having the freedom to choose early on helps children establish security in the world around them, and make better choices with the experience they get.”
After 10 years of public school, I am definitely hoarding the freedom of unschooling. I find myself choosing not to do so many things (even some enjoyable things) because I finally have the choice.
Lyssa, having seen many unschooled kids grow up, go to college, and succeed by any standard measure, I can assure you there is nothing secondary or low quality about unschooling. Its a method of education that generally turns out bright, self motivated, creative, mentally flexible, highly adaptive, genuine, intelligent, loving, young people ready for the challenge of higher education. In short, unschooling actually works. I know how strange it seems, but it does really really work. What does this say for the years all those institutionalized children spend in institutional school? Unschooling teaches us industrial elementary education is wasted time and unnecessary. You don’t need to spend 13 years at a desk doing work sheets and taking quizzes to learn how to get a well written paper turned in on time. That is a huge fallacy of industrial education.