Unschooling. What is it?

by Beverley Paine

Different people define unschooling differently.

To some it means accepting that children are capable and responsible thinkers and learners from birth and that all we need to do is let them get on with it - get out of their way and let them do what they want. This is also referred to as delight-directed or child-directed learning or radical unschooling. Learning is a social phenomenon centred on individual wants.

To some it means accepting that children are capable and responsible thinkers and learners from birth and that all we need to do is to help them meet their needs, by tuning into who they are as people, getting to know them, helping them create a place for their unique personality and talents within our homes and communities. Learning is a social phenomenon centred on individual needs.

To some it means relaxing about the need to perform to satisfy the desire and goal of strangers within particular time frames that suit management agendas rather than educational and developmental needs. It means being able to select the most appropriate learning tools and resources to match the needs of individual children. It means playing and experimenting with a range of different approaches and resources, picking those that enhance the learning environment and satisfy those learning needs and which reflect our family values.

What I love best about unschooling is that at its heart it challenges the prevailing dogma that education equals schooling. That's the un bit in unschooling. We're all learning naturally all the time: educating our children from home gives us the gift of time to explore and enhance the very many ways we each learn every moment of every day!