Teenagers, Friends, School and Unschooling: An Interview

A couple of years ago, I interviewed my daughter Sophie. In the video, Self-Directed Learning: An Unschooling Interview, we talked about teenagers, friends, school and unschooling:

What does it mean to be a self-directed learner? Does Sophie know everything her school friends know? If she doesn’t, is this a problem? How will she get into university (if this is what she decides to do) if she doesn’t cover all her bases by learning everything in the school syllabus? What if she doesn’t have the necessary prerequisites for a course? Why do some unschooling teenagers decide to go to school? Do they think they don’t know enough? Will Sophie ever come to me and complain that I have ruined her future because I didn’t take control of her education and make her learn certain things?

Here’s a transcript of the video interview. I made some modifications to the wording to make it easier to read.

Sue: Sophie, you’re 14 and you’re a self-directed learner. What does self-directed learning mean to you?

Sophie: When I’m learning, I’m driven by my interests and passions.

Sue: Nobody decides for you what you are to learn?

Sophie: No.

Sue: Do you get any help when you’re learning?

Sophie: Yes.

Sue: Tell me more.

Sophie: I pick what I want to learn, but you help me find the resources that I need to follow my passions and interests.

Sue: I don’t think that’s exactly true. I’ve seen you researching on the computer, finding your own resources. You don’t need me to find them for you. I look for resources to tempt you, to expand your horizons, but when it comes to your passions, I think that you are motivated to find your own resources. You actually share what you find with me because we share a passion for photography, don’t we?

Sophie: Yes.

Sue: Except that you are much better at photography than me and you’re teaching me!

Do you think that you learn things in a deep way? Or do you just drift from thing to thing as it occurs to you?

Sophie: I learn things in an obsessive manner. If I’m interested in something like photography, when I’m researching, I just keep going and going and going and going and digging deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper.

Sue: You think you’ve got a pretty good knowledge of photography? I know photography is a big subject and it’s going to be hard to get to the end of it, but do you think you know quite a lot about photography?

Sophie: I know a fair deal. I do read an awful lot about it.

Sue: Is that your only subject?

Sophie: No.

Sue: So there are other things that you dig deeply into?

Sophie: Yes.

Sue: I happen to know that you’ve done a coding course. You didn’t just drift in and drift out of the course. You actually sat down and worked on it until you finished it. Why did you do that? Is that a passion?

Sophie: Coding isn’t a big passion of mine. I must admit that there are things I enjoy much more than coding. But I had a need for it. I wanted to do the course so that I could use coding for my bigger passions such as blogging.

Sue: So you know how to stick with things?

Sophie: Yes.

Sue: And you know how to research?

Sophie: Yes.

Sue: And you have a good knowledge of various topics?

Sophie: Yes.

Sue: You’re not just a one subject person?

Sophie: No, life would be boring if you limited yourself to one subject.

Sue: So you like to learn about other things apart from your passions? You’re always looking for interesting things to learn about?

Sophie: Yes.

Sue: Do you ever compare yourself to school kids?

Sophie: Only in a good way: I’m grateful I’m not a school child and I don’t have to go to school each day. That’s the only time I really compare myself to school kids.

Sue: You know some school kids who go to the same St John Ambulance group as you, don’t you? You meet up with them once a week. So you do know what school is all about. You’ve never been to school, but you do know what school kids do.

Sophie: I’ve heard the tales!

Sue: Do you think that school kids know some things that you don’t know?

Sophie: Yes.

Sue: Does that worry you?

Sophie: No.

Sue: Do you know some things that school kids don’t know?

Sophie: Definitely! I do know a lot of things because I’ve been given the freedom to follow my passions and dig as deep as I want into a subject and spend as much time as I need on a certain topic. School kids have to learn maths, science and such things and they have a certain amount of time to do this in a day. And then once they’ve done all the set things, they move on from that topic.

Sue: So you’re not worried that you don’t know what they know?

Sophie: No.

Sue: Do you think what you know is more valuable to you?

Sophie: To me? Yes. It’s what I need to know.

Sue: What you need to know right now?

Sophie: Yes.

Sue: What if you find out that you don’t know something that you need? For example, you’re online and you stumble across the perfect university course. You look at the requirements to do it and you find out that you need a subject that you haven’t even touched upon. Are you going to come to me and say, “Mum, you should have made me do all those other subjects like they do at school? Now I can’t do this course because I don’t know this topic.” Are you’re going to do that?

Sophie: No! I will just go out there and dig deep into that topic and teach myself what I need and then I’ll do the course.

Sue: What if it’s a topic you’re not really interested in? Will you do it anyway so that you can get on the course?

Sophie: If I want to do the course and it means that much to me then, sure, I’ll do it.

Sue: So there’s no problem there. You’re not going to come back and moan at me because I didn’t cover all your bases, just in case?

Sophie: I direct my own learning.

Sue: It’s your responsibility?

Sophie: Yes.

Sue: But is it a responsibility I should let you have? Perhaps it’s irresponsible of me to let you have so much freedom because you don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. You’re only young. Perhaps, because I am the parent, I should make you do certain things.

Sophie: I don’t think so. I know what I need. I have a better idea of what I’ll be doing later on in life than you.

Sue: Yes, but sometimes kids change their minds.

Sophie: I can build up my hobbies. I can study what I’m interested in. And I’ll dig deeper into any topic I’m interested in than a topic that you tell me I’m supposed to learn. So overall, I’ll learn more than if you tell me what to learn.

Sue: Do you think that it’s never too late to learn something?

Sophie: Yes, it’s never too late. You don’t stop learning just because you become an adult.

Sue: I think parents get a bit worried that their children have to know everything by a certain age. By the time they get to 18, they’ve got to have enough knowledge to move on to the next stage of life. But it’s never too late, is it? And there’s no age where you can say, “Look, she’s got behind. She’s never going to succeed.”

Sophie: Oh no. Definitely not.

Sue: Now some unschooling teenagers (I have heard) say they want to go to school. Even though they’ve had the freedom to self-direct their learning, they decide they want to go to school. Why do you think this is?

Sophie: A lot of the time they say they want a social life. They say they don’t have any friends and they want to see people every day.

Sue: Do you think you can have a social life outside of school?

Sophie: Definitely! School isn’t the only place where you can meet people and make friends. Gemma-Rose and I go to St John’s even though we’re not school kids.

Sue: So there are other opportunities for meeting people?

Sophie: Yes, you can hunt out groups to join, places other than school. You can find friends through your interests.

Sue: You might actually find some friends with something in common with you instead of just being thrust together with a lot of other kids your age at school.

Sophie: Talking about St John Ambulance, obviously I have an interest in first aid. Each of the teenagers who go there, I’m assuming, also have an interest in first aid. And so we all have a common interest and therefore a lot of things we can talk about.

Sue: Friends or unschooling? A choice has to be made. You can’t have a social life unless you go to school. What would you choose?

Sophie: Unschooling, definitely!

Sue: You’d do without friends rather than go to school?

Sophie: I’ve got sisters and family and a million billion passions. I’m not about to give that up.

Sue: So you’re quite happy?

Sophie: Perfectly happy!

Sue: Wanting a social life isn’t the only reason that some unschoolers decide they want to go to school. I’ve heard that some teenagers want to go to school because they feel they don’t know enough compared to school kids. We’ve already just talked about this and we can agree that some unschoolers don’t know everything that school kids know. And you’ve decided for yourself that this is not a problem. Why do you think other unschoolers decide it is a problem?

Sophie: One reason is that they might not properly value what they’re doing. For example, If they are photographers, they might not value their photography like I do. They might think that they’re wasting time when they’re following their interests.

Sue: Where would they get such an idea from because you are obviously very passionate about your photography, and you think it’s very important to you. It’s one of your talents.

Sophie: I think how kids feel about their interests is influenced by how parents and other people think about them. A lot of the time hobbies come last. You get your schoolwork done and then you can do your hobbies. Whereas that’s not the case with unschooling. Hobbies are valuable and they are part of your learning.

Sue: So you think that these kids have got this idea – that their interests aren’t important – from other people? The things they like working on, their passions, aren’t learning? Nobody values them but them, and that the real learning is the academic subjects studied at school?

Sophie: Yes, the real learning is when you’re doing the maths and the science and the history and the set book work.

Sue: What if parents start to worry about their kids getting into university?

Sophie: Then a child will become worried too. She could say, “I might not know enough. My parents think that I don’t know everything I should know.”

Sue: So a parent’s worries affect a teenager?

Sophie: Yes.

Sue: But we don’t worry about such things, do we? I think that you’re going to get where you want to go because you’re passionate. You’re driven. You’re motivated. I really think that you’ll learn all you need to know to get where you want to go. And that’s self-directed learning, isn’t it?

Sophie: Yes.

Sue: So you’re not going to come back to me and say, “Mum, I wish that you had made me do this or that because now my future is ruined.”

Sophie: “Oh no! That will never happen!

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If you’d like to watch the original video, here it is!