Defining unschooling is a little like describing a color, and every bit as elusive. You can rely on commonly-held descriptions; for example, we generally all agree what blue looks like, but what about cobalt, aqua, navy, cyan, sapphire, azure, indigo, cerulean, turquoise or cornflower? It’s the same with unschooling. There’s a generally accepted definition, but then there are all these wonderful variations…

Unschooling embraces a broad spectrum of learning, and trying to describe and define it has resulted in some of the most colorful and interesting writings on the web. With this feature we’re sharing highlights from some of our favorite articles, resources, websites and more on unschooling!

Articles About Unschooling

Revelations of a Homeschooling Mom by Carol Wanagel – “You can’t give them knowledge or force it on them; they have to reach out and take it. They’ll only do that when their own nature and interests command them to, and then only if they don’t feel coerced.”

The Things I Really Want My Kids to Learn by Sue Smith Heavenrich – “I think I’d put ‘making your own lunch’ at the top of the list.” Knowing how to make a tuna sandwich or whip up a pot of macaroni is as important as knowing how to divide fractions. Maybe even more important.”

On Unschooling and Life by Ruthe Matilsky – “How unsettling it is sometimes when I think that we have scoffed at the script and now we have to take responsibility for how it all turns out. If we’d done what was expected of us, nothing would ever be our fault. Right?”

Becoming Unschoolers by Janet Keip – “Fear kept the artificial vision alive. Fear made me think Jaime would be “left behind” like some hopelessly out-of-date little coal engine on the railroad tracks of life. Fear made me reject my heart vision and follow the common path.”

Compulsory Education vs. Unschooling by Shay Seaborne – “Human beings are hardwired for learning; we have proportionally huge brains, and are born with the desire to explore and learn about our world.”

Peaceful Unschooling by Charlotte Monte – “I simply couldn’t go on. I felt like picking up the phone and calling the local school district to throw him in the nearest school, public or not! I had to save myself.”

My Kids Won’t Let Me Teach by Ann Leadbetter – “I worry about my lack of discipline, my laziness. Am I justifying our lackadaisical approach to homeschooling just because I don’t feel like doing it any other way?”

Compulsory Unschooling? by Janet Lowry – “Well, here is a quandary I hadn’t anticipated. What is freedom, if the individual given it doesn’t want it?”

Waiting for Unschooling to Work by Shay Seaborne – “Am I doing the right thing? How can I tell if my children are learning? And where are those interests unschooled children are supposed to follow with excitement?”

A Gift of Time by Sue Smith Heavenrich – “‘Do you read books together?’ I ask. ‘Play games, go on walks, ice skate? Do you rake the lawn and look at bugs and see who can blow dandelion parachutes the farthest?’”

What My Children Taught Me by Helen Hegener – “I’m pretty certain that I’ve learned much more from my kids than they ever learned from me.”

How’s School Going? by Mary Kenyon – “I, too, plan each summer, order workbooks, hunt down bargains on used curriculum, and start out each year with the good intentions of buckling down and having daily schoolwork.”

Interview with Sandra Dodd by Emily Subler – “Gradually (or just all of a sudden, if you have that ability) stop speaking and thinking in terms of grades, semesters, school-days, education, scores, tests, introductions, reviews, and performance, and replace those artificial strictures and measures with ideas like morning, hungry, happy, new, learning, interesting, playing, exploring and living.”

Five Steps to Unschooling by Joyce Kurtak Fetteroll – “Maybe a few, well-defined steps in the unschooling direction could lead out of at least the very pea-soupiest part of the fog.”

One of Those Days by Deb Baker – “I look at the children and announce, “This is One of Those Days.” They stop and look up expectantly; ready to hear what crazy cure Mom has in mind this time.”

Questions and Answers

Unschooling FAQ Frequently Asked Questions about Unschooling

Questions and Answers from HEM Laura Weldon’s Reader Response Q and A columns

Networking with Unschoolers

HEM Unschooling Discussion list for unschooling readers of HEM

Unschooling-dotcom Discussion list for the Unschooling.com website

Resources for Unschooling

Unschooling resources Collected reviews of learning materials for unschooling

Unschooling.com Articles, news, blogs, resources and more!

John Holt’s Bookstore Books, writings, back issues of GWS

FUN Books Helpful resource catalog for unschooling families

For further reading about unschooling, check out these great web sites:

Best Homeschooling The best advice from seasoned unschoolers

A to Z Homeschooling: Unschooling Ann Zeise’s Home’s Cool

Life Without School An online publication and blogging community

Sandra Dodd on Unschooling Practical and philosophical support for unschooling

Unschoolers Unlimited How to access the real world

The Natural Child Project Articles on Learning, many on unschooling

Unschooling

At our house, the difference between summer and other seasons was the fact that summer brought more children to play with. Sure, the kids might have focused a bit more on some subjects in the cooler months, but they were learning all the time no matter what page the calendar was open to. Having gone to school myself, I always loved summers more than anything. I loved being able to read, draw, hike or participate in whatever activity I chose on any given day. My children had that freedom every season of their life.

I recall others asking if I was spoiling my children by homeschooling them, or damaging them somehow by not forcing them to follow the norm of leaving our home and following a rigid schedule. I don’t know what our interrogators thought our life was like, but we did have a schedule, chores and our own list of what we thought was important in an education and what we would do to help our children achieve their goals and desires. Still, having gone to school, I will admit that when public school let out I sometimes felt a bit less responsibility to make sure I was doing all I could to help my children ‘learn’. However, as the seasons passed, I learned to relax as if it were summer all year and I enjoyed seeing what the freedom to learn, live and explore offers a child and it was delightful. Below are some articles and resources that look at learning.

Playtime – A Time for Children and Parents to Share and to Grow – Amber P. Keefer

Studies show that some of the most creative children are those whose parents have played with them. From my own experiences as the parent of a highly active and resourceful child, I know how important it is for children to channel their creative energies into constructive and rewarding outlets. Child development experts remind us that parents are among a child’s first and best playmates, and for this reason, we must actually involve ourselves in our children’s play.

Learning from My Kids – Helen Hegener

I learned the value of learning, and I think it’s a lesson my kids will need to learn for themselves. Like so many things in life, it’s not something you can just tell someone else and expect to have any meaning , it really needs to be experienced, to have a context all its own.

Early Years Child’s Learning Assets – Linda Dobson

Homeschooling uses childhood energy instead of constantly trying to dam it. Now, curiosity creates interest, interest increases attention to the task at hand, and attention gives rise to learning.

Why Independence Is Essential To Homeschooling – Larry and Susan Kaseman

Homeschooling offers parents tremendous learning opportunities. Thanks to our children and our homeschooling experiences (both the stunning successes and the flops), many of us have developed a new understanding of learning, revisited and recovered from our own difficult school experiences, discovered or rediscovered the joy of learning, and done things that we wouldn’t have if we hadn’t been homeschooling.

A World of Learning by Barbara Theisen

I’ve never believed that the only way to get an education is to sit at a desk with four walls around you. The world is our classroom and our home – a 41 foot sailboat – takes us there. My husband Tom and I dreamed of sailing around the world before our daughters were even born. Their arrivals only increased our desire to live the “cruising lifestyle” – a way of life that has given us the opportunity for lots of quality and quantity of family time.

Educating our two daughters while living afloat on our sailboat, Out of Bounds, has added a wonderful new dimension to our lives. Kate is in sixth grade this year and our youngest daughter, Kenna, in third grade. Homeschooling hasn’t always been easy. But it has been fun.

Five Steps to Unschooling – Joyce Kurtak Fetteroll

And, finally, forget the linear approach to learning we grew up with. For instance, we learned that the way to learn is to read “all the important” stuff about a subject gathered and packaged for our convenience in a textbook and then move on in line to the next package of information.

Self-Inspired Learning - Karen Vogel

But, despite living an unremarkable existence in the depths of suburbia, my kids all manage, at one point or another, to develop an interest in a subject I never bothered to introduce. As most of my friends know, I regularly suffer paroxysms of guilt over my complete neglect of science as a school subject. Aside from having a birdfeeder outside our kitchen window, with a bird identification book handy (well, when we can find it) and a cheap pair of binoculars (which are often missing as well), my children’s parent-led science education is nothing short of woefully inadequate. But my oldest, at the age of nine, followed me around the house with a bird book, demanding that I read it to him. In fact, we ended up buying him the aforementioned birdfeeder for a birthday present. He has since developed an interest in gardening and botany, both subjects at which I am an abject failure.

The Many Faces of Home Education – Tamara Orr

During the summer of 2002 and 2003, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to meet dozens of homeschoolers across the country. I came home filled with their enthusiasm, their curiosity and their wonder. I also came home knowing that no matter how many families I met, not one of them homeschooled exactly the same way. Like snowflakes, they may have had many commonalities, but when it came down to how they actually homeschooled, from day to day, they were each wonderfully unique.

Other Resources

Teach your Own by John Holt
I Learn Better by Teaching Myself by Agnes Leistico

Homeschool Seasons

Over the years Home Education Magazine has consistently offered glimpses into the lives of homeschoolers via articles written by many and closer looks via one on one interviews. Here are a few of those interviews along with a few updated resources.

I recall reading and being deeply touched by Helen Hegener’s Conversation with Michelle Wilbert: Living life “Close to the Root” in the September-October 2004 of HEM. Michelle Wilbert is a midwife, homeschooler and author of Close to the Root: A Handbook of Simple, Sustainable and Earthy Alternatives for Family and Community Life.

As I said earlier, I think that I started out thinking about the potential for cultural transformation that I found in these ideas. Early thinking about homeschooling and midwifery were located within a value system that was home and community centered, democratically oriented, staunchly independent of any ideas of government or public involvement or oversight and really wedded to concerns about changing society for the better and that was true whether people were Christian homeschoolers, hippies or eclectics. They might have had different societal goals in mind, but changing the world was definitely part of the package.

In addition to Conversation with Michelle Wilbert: Living life “Close to the Root” you can read more about and from Michelle Wilbert here:

• Kneelingwoman ~ Thinking, Living and Writing “Out of the Box
• Close to the Root Family and Community Resources

In An Interview with Cafi Cohen by Marsha Ransom we were given a glimpse into the Cohen household. Cafi wrote:

Jeff adds that he would never trade his homeschooling years for high school. He has commented more than once that he never would have been admitted to the Air Force Academy if he had not homeschooled. He feels homeschooling allowed him time to get a private pilot’s license, to act as commander of his Civil Air Patrol squadron and edit their newsletter, to practice piano, to teach piano, to participate on a world-class diving team, and much more. Eventually, it was all those activities (and close to 30 units of college classes taken concurrently with high school homeschooling) that he feels got him admitted.

My daughter Tamara now says, “I wouldn’t change anything about my homeschooling. Despite our easy-going approach, I have attended four different colleges in three different states and encountered nothing academic that I could not handle.” She adds that she loved the flexibility of homeschooling, graduating “early” and earning money to travel on a student-exchange program to Australia when she was 16.

Here are a few more interviews for your enjoyment:

• Interview with Deborah Stevenson - Judy Aron
• Interview with Linda Dobson - Helen Hegener
• Interview with Mary Griffith - Helen Hegener
• Interview with Patrick Farenga - Helen Hegener
• An Interview Leila Giles and Celeste Land – Mary Nix
• An Interview with John Munson – Mary Nix

There are many more interviews and articles from past issues that offer glimpses into homeschool lives, and you can access them via the HEM Archives. To avoid missing any future issues and interviews, you can subscribe to HEM here.

Glimpses into homeschool lives