Why Unschooling?

Unschooling? It describes what we AREN'T doing but doesn't address what we are doing. I think it is better defined as "life learning." We are no longer creating a school environment in our home because it's an artificial construct created to serve the Industrial Revolution, and I'm not interested in creating more cogs for the machine. My goal is to create an environment where the children can become free-thinking, inspired, and compassionate.

G-Lo started public school in 2007 and we started homeschooling in 2010. Seems like longer. Through the years we have tried different methods, curriculum, plans, groups, and styles. But it got to the point where we weren't having any fun. Home schooling was as much drudgery as going to school. That was never my vision for home education. After researching I found that unschooling resonates with me. Which was disappointing because the version of unschooling in my head is not pretty! I'd never really met any unschoolers (or anyone who admitted they were unschoolers ). I envisioned dirty kids who couldn't read at 18 because they played video games and ate Cheetos 24/7. But reading more about real unschoolers showed me that my ideas are just as inaccurate as the idea that all homeschoolers are unsocialized, conservative Christian misfits. I dug deeper to see that unschooling ultimately lets kids keep their innate love of learning by letting them go and do and be in the way God made them.

It starts with a paradigm shift in the way I see the kids. Are they incapable of learning without explicit instruction? No. Children find everything interesting. That's why three year olds ask "why?" constantly. Curiosity and necessity collide in children if you don't impose your will (or society's standards) on what they must know when and in what order. And the knowledge gained is in my opinion more valuable and usable when it is initiated internally.

So I am on easy street, huh? No more planning or pushing or stressing. Well, unfortunately no. This is more complex because I have to offer opportunities and materials and conversations that may spark an interest. I have to facilitate ways to encourage their interests. And here's the biggest, hardest one of all (for me): I have to let them say no. They can say no to anything they want, and I have to be accept that choice. I trust that when the skill or subject or project is useful to them they will pursue it. Just like adults do. In real life.