What Is Unschooling?

Unschooling goes by many different names such as "experience-based learning", "natural learning" and "independent learning". Ultimately unschooling is a form of homeschooling. Parents are responsible for their children and their children will not attend a traditional learning institution. However, with unschooling, children will not be taught through the use of textbooks, tests, workbooks or quizzes, but through their own life experiences.


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In its most extreme form, unschooling is never making a child learn anything but what they choose to learn. For example, if a child chooses to spend his or her time reading fiction and watching television then this is how they will learn. Whatever they learn from these activities is all they are required to know with unschooling. If they never learn literature, mathematics or science it is said to be just fine. Children are supposed to pursue their interests and learn about those instead of being forced to learn specific subjects that they may not be interested in. Children are supposed to be allowed to express themselves and devote their learning time learning only what they desire to learn.

Unschooling - Cost to families

There may be a financial impact on families in addition to the purchase of school supplies and curriculum materials, as one parent (typically the mother) usually refrains from employment outside the home in order to supervise the child's education. Some compensate by running a business as a family, working from home, or enlisting the help of friends or relatives during the hours in which the adults are working.



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The tangible costs associated with homeschooling are as variable as the reasons and philosophical approaches. Scholastic Achievement and Demographic Characteristics of Home School Students in 1998, Lawrence M. Rudner, Table 2.12, tracked expenditures running from less than $200 to greater than $2000, per student. Notably, the three largest categories were the lowest three levels of expenditure. Students in the $200 or less category were in third – 17.9% of all students – $400-$599 was second – with 21.5% – the largest single category, at 33.8%, was the $200-$399 range. The highest 5 expenditure categories combined – ranging from $600 to $2000 per student – amount to 25.1% of the total, and only 2% of homeschool students lived in households that spent $2000 and over.

All of these levels were well below the U.S. national average expenditure for public school students in 1998; $6200-$6500 per student. The majority utilized less than 10% of public school expenditures.

The study did indicate a relationship between the amount of money spent on homeschool students and academic achievement.

Unschooling

"Unschooling" is a term that can be used with two distinct meanings.
Some use the term "unschooling" to describe methods of education that do not resemble schools, primarily indicating that they do not rely heavily on textbooks or spend much time at desks. The parents actively conduct the children's education, using a variety of resources.



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The term "unschooling" as coined by John Holt indicates that parents do not authoritatively direct the child's education, but interact with the child following the child's own interests, leaving them free to explore and learn as their interests lead. "Unschooling" does not indicate that the child is not being educated, but that the child is not being "schooled", or educated in a rigid school-type manner.

"Unschooling" is distinct from "deschooling," which may be used to indicate an anti-"institutional school" philosophy, or a period or form of deprogramming for children or parents who have previously been schooled.

Holt asserted that children learn through the experiences of life, and he encouraged parents to live their lives with their child. Also known as interest-led or child-led learning, unschooling attempts to follow opportunities as they arise in real life, through which a child will learn without coercion. An unschooled child may utilize texts or classroom instruction, but these are not considered central to education. Holt asserted that there is no specific body of knowledge that is, or should be, required of a child.

Unschooling advocates believe that children learn best by doing; a child may learn reading to further an interest about history or other cultures, or math skills by operating a small business or sharing in family finances. They may learn animal husbandry keeping dairy goats or meat rabbits, botany tending a kitchen garden, chemistry to understand the operation of firearms or the internal combustion engine, or politics and local history by following a zoning or historical-status dispute. While any type of homeschoolers may also use these methods, the unschooled child initiates these learning activities.