I’m aware of many conventional reasons…er…excuses…. Have you ever really thought about it?
I know that a lot of parents put limits on their children; it’s pretty typical in mainstream families because they rule and control everything. They use it as punishments and rewards.

Many unschoolers that I know of do not put artificial limits on their kids. I believe that if you do that you are greatly reducing their access to valuable resources. I’m not talking about sharing and taking turns, that’s real and something that needs to be worked out.

Our kids have always had freedom to use electronics.

I’ve heard parents say… My kid is addicted and if I let him he will play all day and never do anything else…Do you really believe that?  Have you actually tested that false theory? You probably have not. If you let go of the controls for a few days or even weeks I bet they would play every minute they could stand because they didn’t know when it would be taken away. Then you would panic and put the limits back on them again, so both of your fears would come true.
But…Your kids are different….Of course our kids are different, they aren’t controlled.

If you really let go of the reigns I’m sure they would play as much as they could but eventually they would see that you aren’t taking it away from them and they would feel safe in leaving it to do other things.

Our boys have been saving for an XBOX 360 since Christmas. They all put their money in and bought it last month along with several games. At first they played quite a bit but really not as much as I thought they would and they even took turns. Now they only play it once in awhile because they know it’s there whenever they want it.

Now technically they own it. We did not purchase this and have no claim to it. But honestly just because you purchase something for your kids it doesn’t give you the right to limit it and take it away at your whim. We own other game systems that we bought for the kids. We have never taken it away from them.

I really believe that setting up adversarial relationships with our children just causes stress, strife and rebellion. I believe in partnership parenting, parenting with our children, not at them or over them but beside them.

Video games are not evil, they aren’t the enemy, and TV isn’t brain sucking and mind numbing. Some people may use it that way but they weren’t unschoolers raised in a respectful environment. Computers are part of everyday life now. Information is at our fingertips. If you trust children to learn then why would you limit their access to the world?

Lately our youngest son has spent more time on the computer than ever before. He is working on creating video games and it takes time and it involves some frustration as well. After he’s been on awhile he gets up and runs laps through the house to expel the energy that builds up. Even though he is spending a lot of time on there now he does do other things and I believe it’s temporary. As all interests go he is invested in this right now and it’s important to him. I don’t want to take that away from him.

I help him out as needed, I’m here for him answering questions and watching all of the cool things he is creating.
I firmly believe that if these things are limited or used as a reward or punishment then there would be some sort of power given to them. As it is they hold no power and they are just another tool or resource, they are also a form of entertainment and learning.

Written by Stephanie Waldron

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I believe that people are born with an innate desire to learn. Look at a baby eager to move, reach, bat a toy, roll over, sit up, babble, crawl, walk, talk etc… They are curious about their world and want to navigate it.

Unschooling isn’t just an educational philosophy, it’s a way of life, it’s living and learning naturally. It’s imperative to  be our children’s partner in life.

I believe that children learn what they need when they need it.

We need to BE with our children, unschooling with young kids is very hands on. As they grow and become more independent they will look up answers themselves. As parents we provide the environment and facilitate as needed. We watch for cues on when to step in and when to step back.

It’s important to build a solid foundation when they are young. We need to connect with our kids and be open to question everything we were raised with. When we know better we do better. Try to say yes more, it can be a knee jerk reaction to just say no.

As our children grow and develop and reach new stages in their life we are right there with them. I have learned so much from observing my children.

When you’re unschooling the early years, kids learn through play… They want to PLAY, PLAY, PLAY, that’s what kids do, that’s how kids learn, they imagine, create, explore, build, research, draw, ask, tell, act, be, do, live, laugh, love, PLAY, did I say PLAY…

When people truly learn, they remember, it has a purpose,  that is why they learned it in the first place. There has to be a want, need and desire to learn, it needs to be intrinsically motivated, external motivation produces short term results but it’s not authentic learning.

Learning is as natural as breathing when one hasn’t been stifled by schooling. It’s especially important for children to be able to learn without force, coercion, scopes, sequences, tests and grades.

Our kids have always followed their own interests and learned in their own way and time. I do not believe that every child can or should learn the same thing at the same age.

Take reading for example, two of our kids read at age five, one at nine and one at ten. I did not teach them how to read, I provided the environment for learning.

Unschooling young children requires you to be available to them, provide resources and materials and answer countless questions.

Play games: board games, cards, video games, computer games, imaginary games. Read books, newspapers, magazines, cook, build, play with toys, explore inside and outside, dress up, create art, watch TV, collect things.

Whatever the child is interested in, allow them to explore it, help them as needed and be amazed at all they learn.

Trust in the learning process, trust your child and trust yourself. They know how to learn, they know how to think. We are here as mentors, facilitators and guides. Talk to them, listen to them, kids are so insightful.

Have fun, laugh a lot and live the best you can. Learning happens, you can’t stop it. Kids are born to learn.

Written by Stephanie Waldron

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Anyone who has spent any time at all exploring unschooling, likely knows there’s a variety of ways people define unschooling. The labels vary, depending on how far from mainstream methods a family has moved. Unschooling runs the gamut, from those who simply choose to let go of curriculum but keep more mainstream parenting methods, like bedtimes, chores, screen-time or content controls, all the way to people who have let go of all the traditional controls we’ve been told we must enforce to be responsible parents.

I’ve seen labels ranging from ‘academic unschooler’ to ‘radical unschoolers’ and, recently, even ‘rabid unschoolers‘ pop up in conversations about unschooling choices. My husband, Gary, has never liked the label radical unschooling, because for him the word radical connotes extremism, and he doesn’t feel we’re really extreme. When I use the word radical, I find myself feeling defensive about trying to explain why I’d want to be thought of as radical. So, over the years we’ve been unschooling I’ve looked for a phrase that better describes the way we live.

Although I’d prefer not to need a label for our methods, it seems we need some kind of phrase to explain it to those who ask. In recent months, I’ve begun to think of us as whole life unschoolers. I find it much more descriptive of who we are. What do I mean when I say we are whole life unschoolers? We don’t use a curriculum, have set bedtimes for our sons or assign chores. Our kids watch whatever they choose on tv, play video games of their choosing as often as they want, play whatever in-person games they wish, don’t have a curfew, eat what they want when they’re hungry.

What is it we DO? We trust, because we believe that it’s simply not possible to live even one day without learning something, that we will all learn all we need to live the life we want. Just as we trusted, and have seen happen, that our children would learn to read simply by living in a home where reading was natural and joyful, we know that they can also learn to sleep when their bodies need rest, to eat the foods their bodies need. Our boys learn how to be in relationship with others by sharing their lives with others, both in our home and in the larger world outside of it; we are their facilitators in finding their way, wherever we go. We answer questions on topics ranging from history, religion, health, science, nature, math and more. Sometimes the answer is “I don’t know. Let’s find out.” which leads to searching for answers, meandering conversations and sometimes unexpected discoveries. We also share our outlook on the world, and strive to provide good examples in the way we treat other people, including children.

It hasn’t always been this way. There was a time when we had limits and controls. We enforced bedtimes to fit our oldest son’s school schedule. When he was young I tried to force the ‘right’ diet, I limited tv shows (no Simpsons!); I even assigned chores. At the time I felt I had no choice but to listen to those around me, telling me what I ‘must’ do, even though in my heart I could see that it wasn’t working for us. It wasn’t just that those methods didn’t work for our children, they didn’t work for us as parents either. Imposed limits and demands make people unhappy, so of course, the same limits and demands make children unhappy. Being controlled certainly didn’t add to their happiness, and I wanted happy children. I was heartbroken at what that did to our relationship with our kids. Not only that, it made me ask why I was treating them this way, especially since I wasn’t convinced it was necessary to limit and control them.

When I found unschooling, I also found parents who had managed to create the family life I wanted; parents who weren’t frustrated by trying to control their children. They had happy children, who were kind and capable, and they had this without fighting or punishment. As I started to let go of my fears about how our boys would turn out if I ‘broke the rules’ I found we were all happier. And happier is good.

In our culture, there’s a pervasive belief that happiness will be ours someday. We grow up being told that someday we’ll be happy, when we’re adults it will be ‘our turn’ to have things our way. Why wait for that elusive someday? Why not be happy today? How can we help our children be happy today? Is it fair or loving to tell children they must wait for their turn to be happy? Why wouldn’t a parent want their child to be happy; to feel, to know deep in his soul, that he’s loved and celebrated and supported and completely free to revel in what brings him joy?

When I’m asked “Why whole-life unschooling?” my answer is because, ultimately, we can’t imagine any other way of living. It’s only natural when something brings as much joy, freedom and wonder as unschooling does, that we would want to extend that to all areas of our life.

Written by Sylvia Toyama

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Imagine waking up on a Monday and driving up to Berkeley to check out a new art gallery opening. That night you play some video games and crack open a book before hitting the hay. Think this sounds like a day off for a college student? It’s actually the school day of a 9-year-old. No, it’s not a fantasy Ferris Bueller-style: It’s a daily reality for thousands of young learners who call themselves “unschoolers.”

Unschooling. Some call it a counter-culture, but others just call it natural learning. It’s an offshoot of homeschooling coined by educational philosopher John Holt, but it varies from traditional homeschooling in the sense that there is no curriculum. None. No math, no English, no science, no history. You just live.

It’s the freedom to express yourself in any way at any time,” said Kevin Greene, a 15-year-old unschooler. “If you’re an artist you can paint, you can let your mind wander.” It may sound difficult to wrap one’s head around — to just live and fill a life with knowledge? This is shocking to most Americans who have attended school their entire lives. But for those who practice unschooling, it’s not that crazy. The idea is that people have a natural curiosity and can learn from living, and this is what will fill up children’s days. “It doesn’t really seem necessary to have people be in an institution to learn,” said Pam Tellew, mother of two unschoolers. “I think libraries are about a zillion times more important than schools.” The Internet is a tool that is especially supportive to unschoolers, Tellew added.

So what does one do all day if there’s no school? The question may be flawed. “You sound like you’re talking about learning about one specific thing… That’s not really what we do,” said Jesse Boss, an 11-year-old radical unschooler. Radical unschoolers like Boss often have no limits on what they study, how much dessert they get and no bedtimes. “There is no typical day,” said Annie Twist Lubke, a mother of two unschooled boys, Cortland and Caedan. “[One day] we’re traveling up to the city, San Francisco and Berkeley, to get together with other unschoolers. Another day we’re over chopping wood at [the boys’] grandparents house so we have fire. Our days really go wherever the interest is and whatever’s on our schedule.”

Another idea behind unschooling is that all information is interconnected. It’s not that the children aren’t learning, parents say; it’s just that information is not divided up into a curriculum. “The thing is that we don’t create it as this big subject,” Lubke said. “It’s not this big scary thing — it’s just part of our day.”

She explained that her sons, for example, learned multiplication figuring out the square footage of a shed. Unschoolers and parents insist that this sort of learning will make education pleasurable, as opposed to creating fears of inadequacy. “It’s been really interesting because it just confirms what I’ve felt all along — anything is an avenue to learning, anything that engages you teaches you something,” Tellew said. This can be anything from soccer to the video games which one of her sons plays avidly. And for television fans everywhere, 11-year-old Boss had this to say: “I’m pretty sure my little brother learned math watching television.”

The theme of interconnectedness does not stop at pedagogy. Unschooling expands to breed an idea of jointness throughout life, information and social systems. It’s simply about knowing how to live. “So much of the focus on schooling is academic information. I’ve come to understand that, yes, all that’s good, but the critical thing is that you know how to learn, how to think, how to communicate,” said Mike Boss, Jesse’s father. Boss considers unschooling more of a form of parenting than just an educational philosophy.

Parents play multiple roles in unschooling. They are not just teachers, but facilitators in a system foreign to most of them, since almost all attended school. At a large gathering of unschoolers in Boulder Creek, only one parent had been unschooled. The revival of this movement is just now seeing its oldest off to college. For parents, it’s a struggle at times to maintain an open mind. “Every once in awhile I get a bug in my head saying, ‘Gosh, I don’t think I know that this is out there in the world,’” Tellew said. “I started telling them about math and they didn’t really care.

Pushing that kind of stuff is what gives people that resistance.” She would rather her children follow something that excites them. In this case, parents act as the school themselves — many families often register with the state of California as a private school in order for their children to receive credit for their education. Others work with the local school board or with the HomeSchool Association of California (HSC) in order to get their requirements squared away with the state. Studies have shown that this type of learning as a family dynamic has proven effective. Dr. Doris Ash is an assistant professor in UC Santa Cruz’s education department and has researched science learning in informal settings like aquariums and zoos.

“The family for me is a stand-in of a social unit that can collaborate together,” said Ash, who watches families as they interact and learn from their environment. “Some kind of exquisite mix happens between what people already know and the activity they’re learning. What kind of knowledge does [the family] build collaboratively? It’s always the case that they know more together than alone.”

Unschooling and home schooling have been growing in popularity during the last few decades. An average conference of unschoolers can pull in as many as 700 to 800 individuals. Other alternative educational systems have gained popularity as well — notably Montessori Schools, which emphasize self-directed child activity, and Waldorf Schools, which stress interdisciplinary learning. These schools, and unschooling, are an antidote to what some see as the rigid standards surrounding education and evaluation. Dr. Ron Glass is a philosopher and an associate professor in UCSC’s education department. Much of his research focuses on the moral and political philosophy of education and the ideology of education.

“The notion that learning should somehow follow human nature has been around since the time of Rousseau,” Glass said. But the schooling we’re all now familiar with, he explained, is relatively new. “The school system that we have now was invented in the late 19th century and had very explicit models: factories, railroads and the army,” Glass said. “So they took features from each of those areas and created a school system. The school was designed to basically rank and sort people into the economic, social, ideological order.” But the 21st century is a very different time than the Industrial Revolution, with few remaining factories. “Before there was all this standardized curriculum and testing — all that began in the late 19th century — there was no such thing as school failure,” Glass said. “People just went to school or they didn’t.” Now that the curriculum has become more rigid, it has begun to create problems. Glass said, “It’s the system that produces winners, losers, those who pass, those who fail, those who count as somebody and those who count as nobody.

”Many are beginning to react against the current schooling system. The change, however, is slow. “I think schools have become so tightly connected to economic, political and social opportunities, and because of that people aren’t willing to abandon the standard model,” Glass said. Still, he continued, people are beginning to push back. Unschooling and the revival of home schooling are two examples of such a change. “[People are] trying to find a way to have schools be of good quality and give people real opportunities, but without hurting people along the way,” he said.While these new options are helpful, Glass pointed out that for the time being they are mostly available to families of solid socio-economic ranking. Children with two working parents must attend school.

While questions about lower education are soothed, many still worry about college. How will children transition into the real world? How will they go about applying to college? The reality is that it’s not so difficult. Many unschoolers begin to attend community colleges around the age of 15 or 16, and others have specialized in areas of interest, something looked upon favorably by many private schools. Much also depends on personal goals. “If [the kids] decide that they want to go to college, they’ll get themselves ready for it,” Tellew said. “What I’ve also seen is people growing up this way and saying, ‘You know, this isn’t what I want.’ It’s more about finding something that’s meaningful to them and meaningful to the world. They don’t care as much about the trappings of [societal definitions of] success.”

But the unschoolers themselves aren’t worried. In fact, they see things a little bit differently. A group of unschoolers met last week for a campout in Boulder Creek sponsored by the Homeschool Association of California (HSC) for all homeschoolers in California, where they found good luck with weather — they camped out under the first week of sun in almost a month. When asked about the perks of unschooling the kids counted friendliness, ease in communication and vivacious curiosity among the benefits.

“Not getting caught up with everything,” said 16-year-old Teamo (pronounced “te amo”) Gregori. “You can just learn and figure things out your own way.” “Another advantage is getting up a little later,” Jason Ramos said. What time did he wake up that day? 2 p.m.Ramos stood among a group of boys aged 8 through 16, all of whom were enthusiastic, well-spoken and appeared to be having a great time. Inside, children and adults were walking around together, playing outside or sitting engrossed in card games. A man playing cards wore a blue shirt proclaiming the famous Mark Twain quotation “I never let my schooling interfere with my education.”

It’s clear that something has begun, and the kids know it too.

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Let me tell you about a ten year old child that had freedom of choice. That child is my daughter Jacqueline.

I hear all the time…”If I let my kids have freedom over their food, they’ll eat chips all day” or “If I let my child have freedom over video games, they’ll play 24 hours a day”. Sure….if all they know is control and someone else making their choices for them, OF COURSE they’re going to choose to eat chips all day because they think they’ll never get the chance to eat what they want again.

Back to Jacqueline…..

A child that has freedom of choosing her own bedtime, chooses to go to be around 9:30 and gets up on her own about 7:30. There are times she stays up later or wakes up later, but she found her own bodies sleep pattern and she listens to it. When I first gave her the freedom of choosing her own bedtime, she chose to stay up really late for a while, because it was new…but that wore off and she got herself into a pattern.

A child that has freedom to eat what she wants, when she wants and how much she wants, chose today to buy a Granny Smith apple, with her money, while we were out shopping. She enjoys ice cream and candy, but she enjoys grapes and celery just as much. She is learning to listen to her body. She is able to choose healthy foods because she is able to make that choice. She wouldn’t be able to do that if I made her choices for her.

A child that has freedom to choose when she plays video games, chooses to also read, play on our trampoline and go bike riding. Video games don’t hold a special power over her because to her, they’re treated the same as other fun activities.

A child that has freedom over what she watches on TV, chooses to watch documentaries and shows about how volcanoes form. She also enjoys The Price Is Right, Hannah Montana and America’s Funniest Home Videos. She’s not a zombie, sitting in front of the screen. She’s actively listening and learning.

Start small. Say “yes” more. Play video games with your child. Model the behavior you want. A child that has freedom of choice…is a free child. Freedom! What a great gift to give a child.

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