“There’s a somewhat dichotomy between schooling & unschooling because one is where one is really well defined and the other is more open ended. Both are testament to their pedagogical nature.”
This came to me in a couple of Tweets yesterday. First of all, I hate the word pedagogical. It doesn’t really roll off the tongue nicely. It causes sort of a gagging sound in the back of my mouth and causes me to try and keep repeating it until it doesn’t. When I looked it up for verification I found that pedagogy is the science of instruction, and often refers to instructional style. While I can’t wrap my brain around the term “science of instruction” I do understand different instructional styles. Unschooling is not an “instructional style”, and really should not be classified as one of them. The problem with this is that most people can not see past adults having authority and control over children. It’s extremely foreign to the mainstream to think that children might actually be anything but students. The mainstream educational system incites many parents into thinking that children do not want to learn, will not and can not learn outside of a mainstream curriculum. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Unschooling children and teens learn in much the same way that babies and toddlers do before they are stuck in school. Naturally, organically and through their own curiosity. It is near impossible to *NOT* learn in today’s society. This is the age of information and technology!
One of the problems with trying to define Radical Unschooling is that there is no simple answer. If you give someone a definition you inevitably leave some other aspect out. Some definitions give the wrong impressions, like child-led learning. I don’t really like this one because I’ve heard of people not offering up anything interesting to their children because they think the child needs to think of it. Some think unschooling is simply the lack of curriculum and freedom of academics. But how can a child exercise his innate curiosity if he isn’t given the same right to explore life and be free from others control?
There is no one right way to unschool. In timely fashion, Danielle Conger said on a list this morning, “…no such thing exists. (If someone says it does, I say they’re selling you snake oil.)” You can’t give an instruction booklet to living life. If you closed your eyes, and imagined a world where institutionalized schools did not exist in any form, what would you see? I see freedom. Real freedom. It’s not a theory or a feeling, it’s real and the freedom to learn whatever you want, whenever you want is undeniably valuable. Still, it’s not just learning, it’s doing, seeing, touching, hearing, tasting, and feeling. It’s living.
Radical Unschooling is less about an educational philosophy and more about freedom and not rehashing all those mistakes our parents made on us. It’s living a full and interesting life, and not getting in the way of our children’s passions. It’s providing our children with as much information as we can without the expectation that they learn it. It’s about supporting their passions and going the extra mile to make sure they have access to what they need to explore that passion to the fullest. It’s about the individual child, and knowing that he/she is a human being and cannot fit into a mold. It’s about parenting, remembering what it’s like to be a child, and working hard to not spew the nonsense that was spewed upon us as children. It’s about learning from others before us, and passing the knowledge to those after us. It’s an organic life. It just happens and it’s near impossible to not enjoy it.
Learning happens all the time and there is no reason it needs to be separated into neat little subjects. Learning doesn’t have to be named or even noticed. *GASP!* It just is. It’s happening, whether you like it or not. When learning is forced upon children, they lose that curiosity and that zest for life. They stop asking questions and start looking for a way out. Life doesn’t stop at 3pm, so why should learning?
I’m watching my newly turned 5 year old learn to read. He’s not learning alone, yet I am *not* teaching him. He asks a lot of questions about letters and their arrangements. He recognizes the shapes of some words. He asks other adults in his life or that we meet together. He is learning by using the computer, and playing video games. He is learning to read because he lives in a text rich society with literate people. He is learning to read right on schedule… HIS schedule. It’s because he *wants* to read and he knows just how to get the information he needs, and he is needing it now. Some children do not need this information until they are 10 or maybe 12. They are all different and require different information at different times. It is amazing, yet foreseeable because I trust that he will learn to read, when he needs to. If I did not trust him to read, he would know that, and I would be getting in his way of his learning process.
Just like life, Radical Unschooling cannot be defined in simple terms. It is there, to be contemplated, to be discussed, to be learned, and to be questioned. It can be simple at times and more complicated at others. We can learn from ourselves and we can learn from others. We should not and most of could not being doing it alone. The only common factor is our children and our unquestionable devotion to our relationships with them and their well being.
People who get their knickers in a twist over an 11 or 12 year old not reading yet really crack me up. Because those same people would not be able to tell my 16y.o. apart from any child that learned to read at age 4 or 6 or 8. He was 12 before reading “clicked”. People have to see all learning as valuable, just as you stated, before trust can happen. Jared can easily pick apart grammar and spelling and read as well as any adult these days… but those school-focused lenses would only have allowed a person to see him as “illiterate” and us as “negligent” parents not too long ago. I just sigh…..and smile. Unschooling is the best kept secret really…even though we all keep trying to explain it.;)
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awesome post, Heather!
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You rock Heather!!!!!
My always unschooled kids read at different ages too, I didn’t teach them
My dd is 10 and just starting to click, woohoo!
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Ha! I’m glad my digital discussion on twitter has created more discussion. I guess my use of pedagogical was more Paulo Freire-like and referring to the method of how learning occurs from one person to another, and didn’t mean it just strictly as the study of the teaching profession, if that makes sense?
My inclination is that by ‘naming’ things, we can find ways to connect others to it. If we can give a bit of description and definition to things, we find ways to join together with others who are interested or apart of the same thing. With this, I am not advocated the academic defining of ‘unschooling’ because really, the people from within that community of thought should be doing the ‘naming’, which does happen often with ‘unschooling’.
Yet, ‘unschooling’ can come up with a number of definitions, which is perfectly fine. But there are a few main streams of thought about what ‘unschooling’ is. There’s semantics about calling it something else, or referring it to something prettier, but essentially the principles and critical-of-the-school part or ‘anti-school’ part is inherent to ‘unschooling’ too.
If education is also used in a way to mean the process of giving and receiving knowledge, unschooling would have an educational philosophy. That philosophy just happens to believe in the abilities for humans to be a learning animal, and how we can be functional, contributing, and creative members of society by following our passions and interests. That seems like a philosophy to me, and starkly different from typical compulsory schooling methods.
Very cool post though. I like the dialogue.
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Heather Reply:
January 27th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
Dustin – I very much agree. Often I meet people who are “home educating” and are unschoolers to me, yet they reject the label. I embrace the label of unschooler because it enables me to find other like minded individuals to connect with. It also gives a starting point with which to describe. I also prefer “in the absence of school” to “anti-school”. While many unschoolers certainly are anti-school, many are not, and many even give school a try.
Kate – incidentally, my oldest (11) learned to read in school (Kindergarten and half of first grade) and hates to read books. Go figure.
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Ha! I hate the word pedagogical! It sounds so gag-reflexish:)
Love your thoughts– and also, I do believe the picture of your kiddos (you, know with sparks in their eyes and joy in their faces) says it all. And my eldest, who was ready to read at just about 10, went from nothing to Harry Potter in matter of weeks. When they are ready, they are ready. And the beauty of waiting for that time? Your children will love to read. There was no force or stress or feelings of failure to get in the way of that. And that, is learning at its finest:)!!
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Great post. I’ll have to come back to read the comments when I have more time. I particularly loved this:
“Learning doesn’t have to be named or even noticed. *GASP!* It just is. ”
I’ve found the only way to describe what we do is through face-to-face conversations. Civility rules in person, tones can be detected and understood, questions can be answered more clearly and I’ve never had a face-to-face convo (with an intelligent, albeit skeptical person) end in disagreement. It’s always led to eye-opening revelations on both parts and understanding on their part at least that there is more than one way to raise and “educate” a child.
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Beautiful. Thank you!
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Heather Reply:
February 1st, 2010 at 2:03 pm
Thanks Julie! I don’t post much on the message board, but I read everything that goes through. It seemed like the right time.
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“Pedagogical” IS an awful word.
The rest of your post had a lot of other true things, too, but that one really spoke to me.
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I think a major problem with explaining “unschooling” is that most people can’t imagine what it looks like at all and that has their thoughts going all over the place. Asked to imagine “school”, fine, everybody knows what that looks like and our thoughts will be fairly similar in most ways; “homeschooling” – that’s like school at home, right? Asked to imagine something that *isn’t* school – hmm … what could that be? Anything really to people who’ve never thought outside of, “You have to go to school or you’ll never learn anything” (an overheard comment from years ago when my son was in school!).
I’ve even encountered a few people who seemed to believe that living without school means adopting some kind of Amish or gypsyesque lifestyle. In 2010?
“Pedagogical” is a truly awful word. So’s “autodidact”. Personally, I hate the sound of that one too.
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Heather Reply:
March 7th, 2010 at 8:38 am
I think it’s *super* important to remember that it’s completely alien to a lot of people.
Autodidact doesn’t bother me, but I don’t use the word in conversation either. It usually means I have to explain the definition of the word!
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Isn’t ‘unschooling’ just parenting??? We learn together day and night.
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Heather Reply:
August 8th, 2010 at 7:11 am
Is it just parenting to me? No, it’s a lot more than that. Anyone can be a parent, and do the parenting thing. It’s how that is important.
In a nutshell Radical Unschooling is respect for the whole child ( and person), recognizing and loving them as a free individual who can and will learn what he/she needs to know without coercion or force.
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I completely agree! To me this is parenting! This is what parents should be doing. I have some questions though, how will you teach a child about skip counting by 2′s or 5′s, or odd and even numbers, or about the rules for spelling when most parents don’t know the rules for spelling or why words are spelled not by sounding them out when children don’t know these concepts even exist. I am new to unschooling and want to learn more! I love all your posts! Thanks
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Heather Reply:
August 10th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
@Emily – I won’t be teaching any child to skip count, odds and evens, or spelling rules! These are all things they will learn when they are ready and want to. Learning these things isn’t about “rules” and “methods” these are all things that occur in everyday life. My middle child, Milo (5) loves to count and play with numbers. I can remember my oldest child Skylar (now almost 12) wishing he could count faster and using skip counting. As far as spelling rules… I can’t think of ONE that is a hard and fast rule.
Joyfully Rejoycing
On the left side of Joyce’s Website you can find more math questions and well… a whole wealth of other things.
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Heather, thank you so much for pointing me to the Joyfully Rejoycing website! It answers a lot of my questions. I do have another question…It seems most of the parents who are choosing unschooling for their kids came from formalized schooling; are able to live in a single income household to have a stay at home parent to unschool; and to get a job that pays well enough for this lifestyle they needed a high school diploma, college, a great resume to get an interview and get hired. This same formalized schooling also produced great, independent thinkers for you to choose this lifestyle. So I’m confused on if formalized schooling created great independent thinkers, why are you so against it?
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Heather Reply:
August 10th, 2010 at 8:56 pm
Like who? Maybe they are great and independent in spite of schooling. There is nothing about school that teaches great independent thinking. That’s something that comes from within.
My husband has never been to college, actually worked FOR Middlebury College in VT, and got all his experience in his current field outside of school.
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Heather Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 7:22 am
@Emily – Have you seen this? I just put it in my must reads section. It’s awesome.
High School Valedictorian speaks Out Against Compulsory Schooling
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Heather-I don’t mean to be challenging your beliefs, so please take my questions in the fashion they are meant…my thirst to learn more. Isn’t true that our experiences make us who we are, so all the pleasant and not so pleasant experiences from our childhood help to form our ability to creatively think about ideas and form our own ideas. Isn’t that what unschooling parents are doing…taking their childhood experiences and forming their own new ideas based on the knowledge they have. There is so much more to formalized school than just education; forming relationships, choosing your own friends based on their family beliefs, experiencing diversity, being exposed to a wide range of topics and different ideas, all these new experiences help children to become self-confident, independent thinkers in spite of the unpleasant experiences.
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Heather Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 11:10 am
Ask all the questions you want.
I like answering questions about Unschooling!
“taking their childhood experiences and forming their own new ideas based on the knowledge they have.” Sort of. These aren’t new ideas though. New to a lot of people yes, but it isn’t new to respect and honor the freedom of a human child.
I see what your saying, but school is a compulsory and coercive environment. Children do not have a say in when and if they go to school, what they learn, or who they hang out with. I completely disagree, school does the exact opposite of creating self-confident, independent thinkers. It creates children who can follow directions and children who think they are failures because they cannot follow directions. Oh and diversity? In school? I don’t think so.
Unschooling IS “forming relationships, choosing your own friends based on their… [own] …beliefs, experiencing diversity, being exposed to a wide range of topics and different ideas” without compulsion, coercion, and those nasty unpleasant experiences.
Children do not need to be taught how to learn, they already know how. School stifles real, natural learning and puts fabricated “methods” in it’s place.
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This is so interesting to me! We are both on the same side as wanting whats best for our children, just different paths.
Thinking long term for our children when they will enter the work force, or about our husbands working every day, are they able to go to work ‘when and if they want to’, (I know my husband has to be at work at 10am) a choice in ‘what they learn’ (my husband has specific job duties he must do) ‘a choice in ‘who they hand out with’ (my husband didn’t choose his coworkers). My husband also has to ‘follow directions’ from his boss and get along with clients he may not like or respect very much. This is the real world of working that we live in. I think it will be shocking for kids if they aren’t exposed to the real working world until they are forced into it. Not that young kids need to be exposed but at some point they need to gradually gain the experiences that will help them from age 20ish-60ish.
My husband and myself (and the majority of people we know) were able to choose our careers based on our wide childhood experiences, learn through college which opened more doors for us to get jobs that we love going to every day of our life. Instead of limited choices and settling with jobs that are not our passion but we have to earn a living some how.
You say unschooling is ‘forming relationships and choosing their own friends’ but with who? Unschoolers are with their family most of the time or designated play dates with parent approved families. Except for playing with neighborhood kids, unschooled kids are not exposed to a group of kids to choose and not choose friends (based on family values) to build and change relationships over a long period of time. Even art or swim classes are still a superficial friendship group because it is based around a single interest, the ability to pay, and a short amount of time (1 hr lessons 2x a week) and there is very little freetime to play with each other to form long term friendships within the structured hour class.
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