I LIVE
THEREFORE I LEARN: Living an Unschooling Life
By Pam Sorooshian
Unschooling is both easy and difficult to describe. The easy
answer is that unschooling means "not
schooling," but it is a lot harder to
explain what we do instead of schooling.
Unschooling means not depending on the usual
school methods. It means no
lesson plans, no curriculum, no assignments, no quizzes or tests, no required
memorizing, and no grades. It means that the parent does not become the child's
schoolteacher—it means not creating a miniature
classroom in the home.
Instead, unschoolers focus
on living a rich and stimulating life together. Seriously, that's it. We do not
"school," but, instead, we concentrate on living a life filled with
opportunities and possibilities and experiences. Human children are born
learners. Literally. What unschoolers
aim for is keeping that love of learning and intense curiosity alive as the
children grow up.
How do we do this? In practice, it is going to look
very different for each unschooling family. "We
follow our interests," is the unschoolers’
anthem. And, each family's interests will lead to all kinds of
learning—history, math, writing, music, reading, science, and all the other
real-life subject matter that is valuable and interesting. But we won't think
of them as “subjects.” We'll just think of them as interesting and fun and
fascinating and something we want to pursue further or not. One thing will lead
to another and life goes on and kids learn and parents learn and life is full
of opportunity everywhere we look.
It is natural for people to learn—each in their own
way. It is natural for children to want to understand the world around them.
They also want to join the adult world and become competent and capable adults
themselves. They'll strive for this in their own natural ways. Unschooling parents work on creating a home environment
that supports their children's natural desire to learn and grow.
Each child is unique and experiences the world in a
different way than any other person and expresses themselves in ways that are
different
from every other person. There is no curriculum in the
world that is designed specifically and dynamically for any particular child,
but an unschooling lifestyle can, in effect, provide
a 100 percent individualized learning experience. Unschoolers
aren't likely to learn exactly what the professional educators and textbook
publishers think they should—so, in that sense, they will have gaps in their
learning. But they'll learn so much more, too, that is not included in those
lists of "learning standards." What is important for one person to
learn is not necessarily important for another and we don't really have any way
of predicting what will be important to know in the future. We DO know that
learning that is forced or pressured is not lasting and that most of what kids
are "taught" is not truly "learned" in any kind of lasting
way unless it is something in which they are interested.
Unschoolers also have in mind a lifelong timeline for learning.
We don't worry about whether a child is "at grade level" because we
know that children are learning "something" all the time and that
they will eventually learn whatever they need to know for whatever reasons they
have. We don't worry that they'll miss something important because, if it is
important, they'll realize that and find a way to learn it.
A true unschooling slogan
is, "Life is learning, learning is life." 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.
Is unschooling right for
everyone? My answer is, "It depends." I think ALL children can learn
and grow and thrive as unschoolers. But, I also think
it takes an intensity and focus on living life with a great deal of gusto on
the part of unschooling parents. Unschooling
parents work hard. For example, they must develop a very high level of
sensitivity to their children to know what to offer, when to support, when to
back off, how busy they want to be, how much solitude they need, when to nudge
them a bit with encouragement, when to get more involved, and so on. AND
parents need to be able to always have their kids and their interests in the
back of their minds, thinking always about what would interest them; bringing
the world to them and bringing them to the world in ways that "click"
for that particular child. And it takes a great deal of trust that the child
will learn without external pressure.
We could do the curriculum—I could put together a few
hours per day of "school work," insisting that my children do it. But
I've read everything I could get my hands on about learning and I've had 30
years of teaching experience and I know, deep down inside, that any coercion in
learning creates either open resistance, passivity, or apathy, and I don't want
to create any of those in my children. Learning feels good—it might be hard,
but it is also pleasurable. Coercion feels bad and trying to learn under
coercion is not pleasurable, even when we make the best of it. Children who
have only experienced the pleasure of unforced learning show the effect in
their incredible creativity, confidence, intensity, focus, persistence,
self-knowledge, and strong sense of personal responsibility.
Not all parents WANT their children to grow up
strong-willed and truly independent-minded. And, it is fair warning to say:
"Be careful what you wish for." If what we mostly want is for our
children to respect us and to adopt our beliefs and goals, unschooling
may not be for us. Many parents have a general definition of
"success" in their own heads, and what they want is for their
children to achieve their version of success. Many want their children to offer
living proof that they were good parents—they may even be especially interested
in outcomes that will impress friends, relatives, and acquaintances. Again, unschooling is probably not a good fit under those
circumstances.
Unschoolers do have goals, though, that impact our day-to-day
interactions with our kids. We want our children to discover their life's
passions and to jump into them with both feet, with confidence and trust in
life and themselves. We want our children to know, deep inside themselves, that they are strong and capable and can make
their own individual choices. We want them to be willing to buck the mainstream
culture AND buck the counterculture and think for themselves and do what they
think is right and good and worthy and valuable.
I think, most of all, we want them to love being
alive—now and in their future.