Unschooling is based on the belief that children learn best when they are internally motivated. Unlike homeschooling which is essentially doing school (following a curriculum) at home, unschooling allows children to explore their interests and learn without the restrictions of a curriculum.
Teacher and author John Holt — one of the founders of the modern homeschooling movement — coined the word “unschooling” in 1977 to mean “learning that does not look like school learning, and learning that does not have to take place at home.” He believed, “there is no difference between living and learning…it is impossible and misleading and harmful to think of them as being separate.”
Pam Sorooshian explains unschooling like this:
“Unschoolers simply do not think there are times for learning and times for not learning. They don’t divide life into school time or lesson time versus play time or recreation time. There is no such thing as ‘extracurricular’ to an unschooler – all of life, every minute of every day, counts as learning time, and there is no separate time set aside for ‘education.’”
There are many other names for unschooling including ”natural learning,” “life learning,” “experience-based learning,” “delight-driven learning,” and “independent learning,” and there are a ton of resources available online to learn more about it. Here are just a few:
- Joyfully Rejoicing: Joyce Fetteroll
- The Natural Child Project: Jan Hunt
- Exploring Unschooling email series: Pam Laricchia
- Radical Unschooling: Sandra Dodd
- Radical Unschooling: Dayna Martin
Over the past couple years we started our own unschooling journey, which I plan to write a lot about in the future – including how we began on this path. However, I first wanted to provide a little bit of a background information to explain some of the ideas behind unschooling.
I welcome your questions. I absolutely won’t have all of the answers, but I enjoy a challenge and the opportunity to think about why I’m doing what I’m doing.
Don’t miss a single CDG post, subscribe to my blog.
Stumble it!
Sonja says:
I’m so glad you’re back in blogland! I’ve missed you.
My oldest is turning 5 in July, so while I’ve been loftily talking about educating him at home for years, I’m currently wrestling with the decision of where and how to school him. I’m looking forward to hearing more about your schooling choices.
March 7th, 2013 at 10:53 pm
Crunchy Domestic Goddess says:
Hey Sonja,
It’s good to be back in blogland. :)
I can’t believe your oldest is turning 5 already! Didn’t I post your birth story as a guest post on my blog way back when? :)
March 7th, 2013 at 10:59 pm
Katie H says:
How do you deal with state laws and unschooling. The idea is very appealing to me (oldest is only 2 1/2 so we have a bit to figure it out) but I know there is stuff in our state (Iowa) about having to turn in hours, spend so much time engaged at the home base, and have “check-ins” from a state appointed teacher. How do you get around regulations like this?
March 8th, 2013 at 1:04 pm
Crunchy Domestic Goddess says:
Katie H – I will get back to you about that. Maybe I can even include it in a future post. :) Thanks for the question.
March 8th, 2013 at 4:28 pm
Crunchy Domestic Goddess says:
Katie H – here’s some info to get you started… http://unschoolers.com/iowa.html
March 8th, 2013 at 4:53 pm
Katie H says:
Looks great! I’ll be watching :) Thank you!
March 10th, 2013 at 11:29 am
Deanna West Piercy says:
Unschooling rocks! You will be forever changed by the experience. Oh, and the kids will be, too. ;)
March 13th, 2013 at 10:56 pm
erin k says:
I am intrigued by unschooling and will be interested to read about your experiences. We have embarked on our own homeschool journey, but are taking a very different path (a classical approach), and I am so enjoying the freedom and togetherness it has provided for our family.
March 16th, 2013 at 8:59 am
Crunchy Domestic Goddess » Just when ya think you’ve got it all figured out… says:
[...] What is Unschooling? [...]
March 26th, 2013 at 5:12 pm
anti cellulite body wrap says:
Ludicrously excellent article. You should consider writing full-time.
Short question however, how do you fight against spammy comments?
My website is flooded every minute and my wordpress plugin is not doing
a great job of sorting the good from the bad. Any suggestions?
March 29th, 2013 at 5:51 pm