ABC News has an article about Joe and Dayna Martin’s approach to unschooling titled Unschooling: No Tests, No Books, No Bedtime, in which the reporter seems somewhat aghast at the concept: “They live as though school doesn’t exist. They’re at home all day, but they’re not being homeschooled. They’re being “unschooled.” There are no textbooks, no tests and no formal education at all in their world.”
The writer does concede “It’s a philosophy that makes sense to a small but growing number of parents. Unschooling is legal in many states, and now there are at least 150,000 unschooled families nationwide.”
The comments are as interesting as the article – perhaps more so – from declaring unschooling ‘immoral’ and ‘just plain wrong’ to this insightful question: “How does ABC know that ‘roughly 150,000′ children are ‘unschooled’? It is only estimated that 2-3% of all school aged children are homeschooled at all, and most who homeschool don’t have to declare their ‘method’ of homeschooling anywhere. Where did ABC come up with this number of unschooled children?”
A several minute video clip accompanies the piece. It’s a pretty typical article, but unschooling is not exactly news; it’s every bit as old as the concept of homeschooling itself.