What On Earth Is 'Unschooling?'
A primary education is a foundation for the rest of your life.
The fundamental skills we learn in school will last a lifetime. Reading, writing, the basics of math and science, and even the social skills learned through collaborating with other students in class are crucial for success in our modern world.
These skills are the reason humanity excels as a species. Without this knowledge and the ability to apply it to the world, we would never have gotten past early Stone Age technology.
Compiling and sharing information in a structured way can be valuable, as it can benefit as many people as possible. It ensures that every student has the minimum groundwork required to build off of should they seek higher education and pursue more academically demanding careers.
Somebody, please explain that to the parents following the 'Unschooling' trend.
Unschooling is what it sounds like: a form of home-based learning in which there is no curriculum and no teacher, and kids are encouraged to learn based on their own curiosity and allowed to learn whatever they want.
Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. Kids should be allowed to follow their curiosity, and letting their interests guide them to learn new things is great!
Finding ways to use a child's interests to engage them in a lesson is a fantastic way to improve learning. My parents leveraged it pretty heavily when I was little.
My mother taught me how to count money by taking me to a corner store with a handful of change and getting me to do the math on how many bags of my favourite candy I could buy with the cash I had.
It took me a while, but I figured it out. I struggled with gauging based on the prices because I had difficulty calculating tax. But I would buy one bag, count what I had left, and figure the rest out from there.
Making the lesson a part of getting something I wanted was a great way to make it stick, even though I loathed math with every fibre of my being.
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There are drawbacks to working off of an official curriculum, too. We see an extreme example of these drawbacks in the States, where some State education boards approve ridiculous concepts like teaching kids the 'benefits' of slavery.
Yikes. It's no surprise that parents want to avoid putting their kids in that situation.
Except for the racist creeps who homeschool because they don't think that the school is going far enough...even bigger yikes.
But Unschooling isn't about using a kid's interests to encourage them to learn; it's about letting kids decide what they learn and when.
What if kids aren't curious about the subjects they need to learn? What if they don't enjoy reading? What if they don't express interest in learning how to count?
If I'd been allowed to do only what I wanted and not pushed to learn things I didn't enjoy, I'd never have learned even basic addition and subtraction. I hated math. I despised it and actively avoided it whenever I could because of my learning disability.
I'm still not good at math, but can you imagine where I'd be if I'd never been taught the basics? Even so-called 'unskilled labour' like working at a coffee shop requires basic math and reading skills.
There's this narrative that you can teach yourself how to do these things.
For example, when I was little, I 'taught myself to read.' What actually happened was that my parents read to me, holding the book so I could follow along. I was surrounded by letters and kids' books that explained the alphabet, and I eventually started picking it up.
When I went to school, I was miles ahead of my grade in terms of reading level.
I didn't teach myself to read; my parents created an environment where I had all the necessary tools to learn that skill. As a result, I started school with advanced language skills.
If they'd left me in a room with a book and no instruction on what words or letters were, there is no chance I would ever have magically understood what the random squiggles on the page stood for.
Without the foundation they provided to me, I'd have been entirely in the dark.
Self-directed learning in this style is a terrible idea, and it sets kids up for long-term failure. We know that because, despite what you might assume about my generation, Unschooling is not a millennial or Gen Z thing.
This trend goes back to the 1970s.
And I know what some of you may be thinking: "Sam, not all kids learn the same way, and standardized schooling doesn't work for everybody!"
You're right. I'm one of them. I'm autistic, and I have a learning disability; I didn't learn the same way as my peers or at the same speed. I learned some things faster than others and some much slower, and I often found one-on-one instruction much more helpful than classroom learning.
But leaving me without dedicated, intentional instruction would have been an unmitigated disaster.
Education is not necessarily one-size-fits-all; that's a perfectly fair critique of our modern schooling system. Parent-directed homeschooling isn't a perfect fix, either.
Parents have jobs, and most aren't taught how to successfully create lesson plans and gauge their child's level of understanding. It's challenging to homeschool effectively without outside help, and it doesn't help that government oversight for homeschooling is lacklustre at best.
This is true in the United States, and it's also true in Canada, and there may or may not even be Provincial or State-wide standards for which curriculum your kids have to learn.
Want to teach your kid that evolution is junk, the Earth is 6 thousand years old, and God made humans and dinosaurs to live together at the same time? You might be allowed to do that, depending on where you live.
Please don't.
Homeschooled kids are not guaranteed to meet the same educational milestones as other kids in their age group.
Unschooled kids are even worse off. Without direction, how can children magically acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to become fully functional, independent adults?
Frankly, in my opinion, it's a form of neglect. It's setting your child up to fail.
School doesn't have to look the same for every kid, but children need structure and guidance to reach their full potential. Without it, they'll choose the fun things and ignore the hard ones, even if it hurts them in the long run.
Kids can't grasp the lifelong consequences of ignoring complex facts. It's the job of adults to teach them.
All of this brings me to this month's creator highlight.
When discussing education and how children learn, my go-to content creator for informative video essays is Zoe Bee.
She's got it all; she's a teacher, a poet, and a brilliant speaker who can condense complex topics into simple language everyone can understand. Considering her day job, that's a precious skill to have.
On the subject of how children learn and how to improve the education system we use in North America, her video explaining how grading works and why it sucks is particularly fascinating.
What I love about this essay is that it doesn't just tell us 'why' the modern approach to schooling sucks but also explains how to fix it.
Her approach to teaching follows some of the same thought processes as those of Unschooling parents—centring the intrinsic motivation of a child's natural curiosity above the extrinsic motivation of grading and rewards.
This method bridges the gaps, allowing kids to explore ideas and learn in a fluid way that benefits multiple learning styles but maintains the structure and guidance of a curriculum.
It's a research-based teaching method that offers actual results and doesn't sacrifice a child's long-term growth and academic development.
Give Zoe your support, and enjoy her relaxed and cozy teaching style! Even as grown-ups, it's good to keep learning.
Solidarity wins.
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