A Parent’s Guide to Unschooling

“What is most important and valuable about the home as a base for children’s growth into the world is not that it is a better school than the schools, but that it isn’t a school at all.” — John Holt

Doug and I unschooled Tabby from the first day of sixth grade through the last day of high school. My advice to families beginning their unschooling journey is…breathe. Take a deep breath and trust your child. It’s scary at first because it goes against everything school is supposed to look like. But, once you see it working, it’ll feel comfortable and natural. With that being said however, don’t be surprised if randomly at 3:00 a.m., you wake up in a panic with other people’s well meaning “advice” swirling around your head about how you’re ruining your child’s future and how your child should be in a classroom. During those times, just breathe. Then go back to sleep knowing everything will be okay, and because you’ll need to get up and start farm chores in a couple of hours.

what unschooling is and isn’t

Unschooling is not dropping out of school or not learning. It is absolutely the opposite of those. It is natural learning (yes, some days are spent learning while still wearing pajamas). The philosophy is built on the premise that children are born with a deep sense of curiosity and desire to learn. They want to learn about, and explore, the world around them. Think about your toddler learning how to walk. Nobody gave her a book and told her to study it to learn. A teacher didn’t assign her a five-page report about learning how to talk. She took that first step and said that first word on her own by observing others in the world around her.

Traditional classroom schooling suffocates the natural desire to learn. Children don’t need textbooks, standardized tests, or worksheets to learn how to read, do math, or learn science. They don’t need strict blocks of time during the day devoted to these subjects. They need time to jump down a rabbit hole and go after a subject they’re interested in. Before you know it, and in the most unexpected ways, that rabbit hole will lead to reading, math, science, technology, and anything else schools attempt to teach in rigid forty-five-minute blocks throughout the day. That rabbit hole is the premise of unschooling.

Here at The One Room Schoolhouse, we don’t divide our days into blocks of time for each subject. We live our lives and learn from our experiences and our mistakes. We let the schooling find us.

what unschooling looks like

Unschooling looks different for each family. Some families travel the world to explore ancient sites. Some families stay closer to home to explore their community or backyard.

This is what unschooling looks like at The One Room Schoolhouse:

invitations, not assignments

Instead of assigning worksheets and book reports on botanical anatomy, we place magnifying glasses, notebooks, and a basket of leaves and twigs gathered from the backyard on the kitchen table. We invite our children to notice the objects. After all, real learning happens when a child is truly curious.

the world is the classroom

Math happens when measuring ingredients for a loaf of bread. Science happens as the yeast rises the dough and the oven bakes the bread. Planning, gratitude, accomplishment, and science happen when a child plants vegetable seeds, nurtures them through the summer months, harvests the bounty in the autumn, and helps prepare it for dinner. History happens through local field trips and folklore of our ancestors.

embracing your child’s inner Alice and following the rabbit holes

If your child becomes completely obsessed with how spiders spin webs. Read every book you can find at the library on arachnids. Build giant yarn spider webs in the living room. Study the science behind the strength of spider silk. Visit an insect museum, zoo, or your local pet store to see spiders in person. Your child is learning how to research, analyze, and think critically. Jump down the rabbit hole with your child and be amazed at where it leads you.

how Tabby’s passion set the course of her unschooling

Since she was a toddler, Tabby has always been passionate about animals. During her high school years, she formed Save a Soul Animal Rescue. We worked together and got 501(c)(3) designation for the rescue. She learned not only how to care for different species of animals in a professional setting, but she also learned how to navigate the IRS and Colorado rules and regulations pertaining to nonprofits. She became an expert at bookkeeping and public speaking. This is how she spent her high school years.

After high school, she attended the state college, graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a 4.0 GPA, and now successfully runs Save a Soul Animal Rescue while working full time as a lead zookeeper at an aquarium. She didn’t drop out of school and compromise her future by unschooling. She charted a course for not only the rest of her life, but for our family. Her passion lead us down a rabbit hole that has become a way of life for our family.

what about socializing?

As a homeschooling family, this is a question you will get asked at least a hundred times. Everyone knows that socializing is important. There’s no question that in order to function in society, you have to know how to interact with others. But, in school, did you ever get in trouble for talking in class? If so, how many times did your teacher say you were there for learning, not socializing? I thought you could only learn how to socialize if you were in a classroom? Obviously, that’s not exactly true.

Homeschoolers, and unschoolers, have the remarkable ability to carry on a conversation with people their own age, as well as with people older and younger than them. They communicate with people of all ages and backgrounds through daily life. They aren’t clumped together with people their own age and told they can’t talk with each other forty hours a week in a classroom.

socializing opportunities all around

More socializing opportunities are becoming available for homeschooling families as homeschooling becomes more mainstream. The possibilities are endless! My local library system has art and learning programs specifically for homeschoolers. The YMCA near me has a homeschool p.e. program. Look into getting a zoo or aquarium membership and visit regularly to explore how the animals prepare for the changing seasons. Join homeschooling or unschooling support groups or start your own. Sign up for swim lessons. Volunteer. Go hiking. Visit nature centers. Visit museums. Join the Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts. Check with your church. A lot of school districts in Colorado have homeschool enrichment programs – school districts near you might have them too.

There are so many opportunities for socializing. If you don’t see anything available, create your own so other families can benefit from them too. Every Monday we hosted Movie Mondays where we invited eight to ten homeschool friends over, made popcorn, and watched a Disney or Pixar movie together. When we were unschooling, we were out of the house socializing and doing activities three to four days a week. Most of the time the activities were free or very cheap. Ask your child what she wants to do, get creative, and get out and have fun together!

will my child learn?

How many things do you still remember today that you had to memorize for a test when you were growing up? Probably not many, unless you were specifically interested in the subject. We have been led to believe that learning only happens if it is painful, stressful, and judged by another person. Children don’t learn by memorizing facts. They learn by experiencing things around them. True learning happens when something has immediate context and real-world application. Learning how to milk a goat, candle chicken eggs, hold an animal who is passing away, aid in the birth of a goat kid, budget for animal feed, grocery shop and prepare the meal for a special family dinner, balance a checkbook. These experiences have life-long impacts and are truly learned because they are remembered and felt – physically, emotionally, intellectually, and/or spiritually.

Laying in bed reading a book for fun or watching a movie is just as important as doing messy science experiments at the kitchen table. Children need to learn self-care as much as adults do. It’s okay to have a day to just be still and quiet. That’s probably one of the greatest gifts that unschooling gives. Not only the gift of learning about the world around them, but being allowed to develop the self-care of the world within them.

a note from my unschooling heart to yours

You don’t need a teaching degree to provide a deep, meaningful education for your children. You just need to be curious alongside them. They will pick up on your excitement and enthusiasm. Put away the textbooks and worksheets, step outside into the sunshine, and remember to the trust the process because it does work. But most importantly, remember to breathe.

homeschooling resources you might be interested in

Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA)

John Holt – Growing Without Schooling