Is “Unschooling” Really a Good Idea?

[CareerJuggler]

Has anyone here actually tried unschooling? I keep seeing people rave about letting kids learn whatever they want, whenever they want — but I can’t tell if it’s freeing or just unrealistic.
I get the appeal of letting kids follow their interests, but part of me thinks most children would just play Minecraft all day if given the choice. How do they learn maths or writing without a bit of structure?
Would love to hear from anyone who’s done it — did it work out, or did you end up bringing some structure back in?

I think you're underestimating children's capacity for curiosity and their fascination with the world. I know quite a few unschooled kids and they are all engaged learners that have special interests in various things and actively choose to learn about all kinds of subjects. Not necessarily things that would be on a curriculum, but a lot of what kids learn at school is relatively arbitrary when you look at it - the important skills such as critical thinking etc are all developed whatever you learn.

Wrt reading/writing/maths - they learn as it becomes relevant to them. Most small kids don't really need to write that much so they tend to learn a bit later when they have stuff they want to read themselves or write down. Same with maths - if they are especially interested in it then they learn it for fun, but if not then they learn as they need to use it, whether that's in real life or to gain a qualification.

Sugatha Mithra has done a lot of interesting work on that front including some Ted talks which are very engaging.

Anyone I know who has tried it has ended up in a panic later on, trying to get their children back into some kind of mainstream schooling to get them back up to speed with exams, curriculum content, academic delays etc. (Bear in mind that you’ll tend only to get responses from enthusiasts with young children, and not from parents with older kids after years of not being in school, or trying to get back in.)

my SIL tried it.

her 19 year old is now doing maths and English GCSEs at a college where he needs to commute an hour because it turns out he was never curious enough to learn the stuff he needs to get onto the courses he needs.

he wants to be a mechanic.

in order to do a car mechanic course he needs a pass on English and maths and he failed them the first couple of times he tried.

I’ve always been curious about it too, but I’m not sure it would work for most kids. The idea of learning through real-life experiences sounds great, but I feel like without some kind of structure, a lot of them would just avoid the harder stuff. Maybe a mix of both makes more sense — some freedom to explore, but still a bit of guidance to keep them on track.

I know a family who tried proper unschooling. At first it looked quite lovely—lots of freedom, outdoor time, following interests, and no pressure. But after about a year, they realized the kids just gravitated to screens and didn’t naturally choose things like reading, writing, math, etc. They did learn bits from everyday life, but it wasn’t enough to build real skills.
They didn’t go back to full school, but they did add structure—like a couple of hours a day of math/reading and then the rest of the day more open. The kids actually seemed more relaxed once there was some routine.
I think some kids can thrive with total freedom, but most need at least a bit of guidance; otherwise, it ends up being Minecraft and snacks all day, and huge gaps start forming. So, in my opinion, a mix seems to work better than going all-in on either extreme.

I think it can work… but probably not in the way most people think. I home ed my kids, so see a few different methods in my kids’ social circle and a lot of unschooling parents are putting in huge amounts of effort into trips out, resources etc, such that yes the children are learning freely but it’s certainly not an accident!

I personally couldn’t cope with unschooling so we’re semi structured - maths/English non negotiable and we do it daily in the morning (not for particularly long but it means I can see progress etc and we’re definitely keeping up with the national curriculum). The rest of their learning I could argue is unschooling and I follow their interests as much as possible, but again we do a lot of trips and reading to expand their world as much as I can so it’s probably not true unschooling.

I think a lot of stuff children learn to be functioning adults is intentionally introduced by parents. Some things they learn by just copying but reading, maths etc takes instruction.

I watched a documentary on unschooling and frankly it was a disaster for those children, children over the age of 9 unable to read as their parents were waiting for them to show an interest. It was neglect tbh. I’m not saying thats most unschooling parents but yeah it was painful to watch. Poor kids didn’t know what they didn’t know.

No.

if you think how many kids emerge from the education system at 16 with the bare minimum of qualifications, and that’s when adults have put the effort in to teach them the basics, the assumption that natural curiosity will suddenly switch on outside school is a weak one.

Educated and motivated parents often make a real success of home schooling, and even unschooling. But the same parents can promote education philosophies from a place of privilege and ignore the reality for the majority of children exposed to this, which is a childhood of screen time and missed opportunities for development and exercise.

I think it can only work if you’re expecting DC to continue to live ‘outside’ the norm as adults as well, for example if you live on a commune where nobody’s going to give a shit if they have a maths GCSE as long as they’re good at weaving or whatever. But if DC are going to live and work alongside everyone else, they will need to have participated in the national curriculum to some extent. (And to be honest, even DC growing up with that kind of lifestyle should at least have the option of stepping away from it if they choose).

It might be good when there young but not when their older try getting a kid into University that doesn't have actual grades

My youngst would be a wizard in MFL, art, music, stargazing, reading, history, dance and cooking if unschooled.

She would spend her days drawing for hours, reading fantasy in other languages eating homemade pancakes. She would watch endless Disney+ programmes about Egypt and mummies. Oh wait it's how her holidays and weekends are spend!

She would if allowed completely ignore math, physics and chemistry despite she is actually good at those subjects. The subjects wouldn't exist in an unschooled world. So no it wouldn't work for us...

I have 15 yr old twins, and unschooling works for us. They are both autistic and without the difficulties that school brings, they have flourished and made so much more progress than expected. They left school when they were in Y5. DS was in special school and DD was in mainstream and failing.

Within our local home ed community, lots of the parents I mix with unschool. Of those, three teens have gone to college aged 14/15, and they are sitting their GCSEs. They've slotted straight in and aren't behind with their learning, despite being unschooled for most of their lives.

Unschooling doesn't mean you have to unschool forever. Some of our children opt to join college to do their exams, either at the same time as their peers, or a bit later. We have other teens within our home ed community who are doing GCSEs themselves at home. Entirely their choice to do so.

A stimulating environment, parental support, and a willingness to enthusiastically enable your child's interests means that it's not the feral approach that so many people think.

It’s educational neglect in most cases.
Most who do it don’t even know what it is or do it properly. To do it properly with more than 1 child, and no household help with cooking and cleaning is basically impossible. It is the hardest way to home educate, in theory. In practice, it’s the easiest because they don’t do it properly and are actually neglecting their child. Even the ‘father of unschooling’ was upset at how people had misconstrued his words!

See also Charlotte Mason. Done properly it’s fantastic. In practice you’ll get lots of blank looks from those who claim to do Charlotte Mason if you try to talk to them about the philosophy, discuss the ‘feast’… my assumption now when people say they are Charlotte Mason or Charlotte Mason inspired is it’s educational neglect with a nature walk thrown in. More people do Charlotte Mason properly than unschooling though. But in the minority of people who claim to follow the philosophy.

I can see how unschooling for a few years early on could really work for some kids in homes without screens but with plenty of things to do. I like the general argument that self-directed learning is more effective and motivating than being forced to study.

However screens are so addictive now that I'd worry gaming and the online world could easily absorb all the time and attention that 30 years ago might have gone completely into that self-directed learning, general curiosity etc., when perhaps some people did unschooling really well.

OK a few kids might cope fine with full internet access (the really naturally focused ones - think the opposite of ADHD), but most probably wouldn’t. So I'd want to set limits, but then would that count as unschooling?

Of course school learning can also be totally screwed up by tech and gaming addictions too, so it's not like that would be a magical solution.

You should ask this on Reddit Homeschool Recovery, OP. There’s lots of adults on there who have struggled to unschooling / educational neglect. Almost all had a very religious home education or were ‘unschooled’.
Quite frankly, the unschoolers are the reason home educators are likely getting less freedom. It’s annoying in that there are some home educators who do it properly and would rather just get on with it rather than extra input from LA… but typically the ones doing good job do see there is a real issue of educational neglect and it’s very necessary.

Round here you can't go to college until post 16. So no 14/15 yos in college.

I don’t understand how children naturally learn French grammar or all those really boring parts of chemistry which you just have to learn. There’s so much of school which is unfortunately just rote learning. But that’s how the majority of sixth form colleges and uni’s assess capability. I think if you tried to get into Oxford with a portfolio of hand drawn posters on the lifecycle, rather than GCSEs, you’d be laughed at. Another thing is very few homes have the resources that schools have, science labs, music studios, full size basketball courts etc.

I think there is a place for "unschooling" within mainstream education.

For instance, it would be great if schools could limit teaching the curriculum to 4 days a week and introduce an "unschooling" day one day a week where children are given the chance to develop their own interests in a supported environment. I know that lack of funding and resources means this is pie in the sky though.

But as a standalone method of education, then no. Most kids benefit from some structure.

Only very select colleges accept home-educated teens from the age of 14 - unfortunately it's not every college. The nearest one we have is in the next town over so about 10 miles away.

Only heard of the term ‘un-schooling’ for the first time the other day, when someone said they were proud of their son getting into uni, after being ‘un-schooled’. How is this different to ‘home-schooling’?

I’m a forced home educator as we can’t find anyone to teach/manage our exceptional child (now age 6). Our home education journey has left no stone unturned, has been extremely hard and comes with the privilege of two successful and dedicated parents. I have an older academic child who was a walk in the park and loved her independent education. Our ‘unschooling’ is exceptionally curated, does involve online learning with a regular maths and English curriculum. We have frequent battles with compromise daily. I limit screens, our days are very flexible. I have a house keeper and a nanny for two days who’s only remit is to play, have fun and give me time off. We enjoy traveling out of school holidays often. It is literally the most crazy situation I could have imagined, it’s almost broken me but now I’m starting to enjoy it and feel more confident. I fully expect my son to be successful, he is now thriving. I think he may go back into regular education as he matures. So far the whole education system has failed him and for a different child like mine, choosing how we educate is a god send. But, we are extremely blessed to be able to do it, even if we really, really didn’t want to. I used to run three companies as a single mum and it was a doddle compared to this!

I think unschooling is when you let the child be for a period after being at school to get over stress and trauma if school was unsuccessful for them. Just let them relax and follow their own interests. I don’t think it’s forever, you then move on to whatever style of learning you choose. I don’t think a child who’s never attended school would be unschooled.

For those asking unschooling is where children learn via their interests rather than using a curriculum (short version).
Mine were unschooled when younger, we didn’t follow a set curriculum and it was very freeing. I will say that I did always limit screens though. As they got older(later primary age) we added more structure in, it happened pretty naturally for us and has worked well.

A lot of people mistake unschooling for just doing not very much at all.

Thank you @MintTwirl and @hibiscusandoliver .

I can see the responsible parent can fully embrace this and make it constructive - the child has an interest in lions so you go to zoos (or Africa). read up about them, draw pictures etc. However the lazy parent will give no direction at all, and leave the child to their own resources.

What’s the reason you want to?

I live in quite a crunchy area and know a few families who do it. One of them doesn’t restrict screen access, which I think makes the child’s life a bit harder because they’d rather play with the screen than do most things. We live in a beautiful place and the child would rather stay home on his iPad than go outside a lot of the time.

(But I say that as someone who doesn’t unschool, but whose children are obsessed with screens and I restrict them very heavily. Perhaps she thinks I restrict too much!)