Who should be responsible for a child’s education, the parent or the child? Is learning an active activity that needs the learner’s cooperation? Is it impossible to force knowledge into a child without resorting to teaching methods that ultimately destroy their natural love of learning? Is forced learning real learning? Is it better to unschool and let children learn what’s important to them? But if we choose unschooling, will our kids, one day, accuse us of side-stepping our duty and not providing them with a good education?
In primary school, I had two teachers whom I loved: Mr White and Miss Desnowski. At lunchtime, I followed Mr White around the classroom, helping him make paste for craft projects, and sometimes I’d pass him bricks as we’d construct a kiln in the school playground where we’d fire our clay pots.
Miss Desnowski was beautiful, gentle and kind. She always listened carefully, valuing what we had to say. One day, several friends and I asked if we could sing a song in front of the class, and she said, “Of course!” And then she took great delight in our performance even though only one of our cool girl band could sing.
Mr White and Miss Desnowski were our heroes. (Hopelessly romantic, we hoped they’d get married.) They always had time for us and valued who we were. They noticed our curiosity and answered questions, inviting us to share their work. They inspired us to learn, not with threats of punishments or offers of rewards but with love. Oh yes, we loved our teachers. We wanted to be just like them. And we loved learning.
Then, one day, the magic of learning ended. As I got older, I discovered school was a serious business with no time for curiosity. Each day, I ran between classes, throwing myself onto chairs as far away from the direct gaze of the teacher as possible, hoping she wouldn’t fire questions, designed to prove I wasn’t listening, at me. And I watched the clock, unable to believe how slowly the hands moved. When would it be time to go home?
Despite the futility of it all, I did well at school because I did what I was told, not wanting to be labelled stupid or lazy. I achieved high enough grades for me to go to university to study for a bachelor of science degree. But university was like school. Once again, I hurried between classes. I tried to sit still, listened, made notes and stored information in my short-term memory to pass my exams. And I continued to watch clocks.
This time, there were no threats of punishment or shame or offers of reward to stir us to learn. Our education was our responsibility. We were expected to be self-motivated and eager to gain knowledge. But, for me, it was too late. I’d lost my curiosity and sense of awe and wonder. They had been stolen by well-meaning people who’d assumed I wouldn’t learn unless they forced me to. Maybe they were right: why should I learn what others thought was important in tedious ways that almost brought me to tears? I learnt because those who believed they knew best said I needed good exam results to get a good job and live a good life. (That didn’t turn out to be true.)
I was determined my children would have different experiences from mine. I didn’t use shame, rewards or punishments to motivate them to learn, relying on curiosity instead. I allowed them to be responsible for their learning. Did that mean they only ever did what they liked? Did they avoid the more difficult challenges of life? No. They realised there are sometimes good reasons for doing things that are hard or tedious or make us uncomfortable. So, they chose to do them.
Sometimes, parents express the fear that if they unschool, their kids will, at a later date, accuse them of not giving them a good enough education. Parents say it’s safer to stick to the traditional learning methods, even when they can see these methods aren’t always effective and may involve conflict and unhappiness. And I understand this decision because who will blame us for choosing a path for our kids that’s been travelled by millions of people before them? It’s just the accepted way. There’s safety in numbers.
But unschooling? It’s different. It recognises that everyone needs to be responsible for their learning. It belongs to them. Our children are in the driver’s seat. We’re just there to encourage, suggest and support.
Because unschooling involves taking responsibility for our learning, an unschooler won’t blame a parent for unschooling them. They won’t find fault and act like a victim. If they do, then they weren’t truly unschooling. Despite appearances, the parent was still in charge.
Children are very perceptive. They sometimes see things more clearly than adults. When my daughter, Gemma-Rose, was eight-years-old, she said, “You can’t make me learn anything I don’t want to learn.” She was right. Here’s that story:
Making Children Learn What They Don’t Want to Know
I’ve learnt a lot about learning by examining my own experiences:
Unschooling and University: Learning from Our Own Experiences
What People Are Saying About Self-Directed Learning
If you Google the words ‘self-directed learning’, you will discover many articles and books written not only by unschoolers but school and university educators as well. There are personal experience stories from parents and teachers and scholarly research papers written by academics.
It seems many people see the advantages of this way of learning. It’s not a strange or weird idea created by unschoolers.
As well as books, there are numerous videos, including many TEDx talks. If you’re interested in self-directed learning, you could disappear down a rabbit hole for weeks, hopping from one interesting article or video to another.
I’m including a few self-directed learning resources here to get you started, but you might like to do some googling of your own.
Nothing Worth Learning Can Be Taught by Peter Gray
Crash Course in Self-Directed Education from the Unschooling School website, a list of links to many hours of video. Here are several of those videos:
Eddy Zhong – How School Makes Kids Less Intelligent
Peter Gray – What Is Self-Directed Learning?
Sir Ken Robinson – Bring on the Learning Revolution
Unschooling and Self-Directed Education: How Children Learn Without School and Homeschool by Judy Arnall, a book and video presentations.
The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit Life and Get a Real Life and Education, a book by Grace LLewellyn.
The Podcast Version of this Post
Photos
Photos by Annie Spratt, Unsplash
What You Could Do Next
♡ Check out the above resources
♡ Take a look at my books, Curious Unschoolers, Radical Unschool Love and The Unschool Challenge.
Part V of Curious Unschoolers is about How Children Learn.
The Unschool Challenge is packed full of step-by-step challenges designed to increase understanding of unschooling and put it into action.
♡ Stop by and share your learning story and thoughts about self-directed education. Should we allow kids to be responsible for their learning? Is this the most effective way for them to learn? Or does letting children have control feel too risky? Do you worry you’ll have to bear the blame if a child feels his education was inadequate?
♡ ‘Like’ this post – if you liked it – to encourage me to keep writing. You could share it too!
