Unschooling with Human History in Mind

Why understanding how we learn can ease fears and increase freedom

The term “unschooling” came onto the scene in the late 1970’s based on the work of John Holt. He believed that living and learning were inseparable and the idea that children must go away from home to learn in a different location was not only an inaccurate assessment of how children learn, but “nutty”.

"It's not that I feel that school is a good idea gone wrong, but a wrong idea from the word go. It's a nutty notion that we can have a place where nothing but learning happens, cut off from the rest of life."—John Holt

Holt, a teacher, writer, and lecturer understood that children were born to learn and believed schools and the typical (top-down) classroom style of teaching were impediments to real, lasting learning. He has written extensively on this topic with books like Learning All the Time, Teach Your Own, and How Children Fail, so if you want a deep lesson in unschooling and how his ideas came to be, I highly suggest you spend time reading through his impressive collection. You can also visit The Natural Child Project to read a concise interview he did with a homeschooling mother for the publication, Mothering. He played in the garden with her children while he answered common questions about homeschooling including, but not limited to, his philosophy, how children learn, how children socialize, and the parents’ role.

What I’m reminded of each time I read his words is that learning at home is not the experiment, going to school is.

And while the school experiment has been going on for generations, I believe there’s a sea-change on the horizon. Exact numbers are difficult to nail down, but a survey done during the pandemic by several federal agencies to track how families were doing uncovered interesting data about homeschooling. Steven Duvall of the Home School Legal Defense Foundation dug into this unprecedented data set and what he found was eye-opening. About 5 million families were homeschooling by December of 2020 up from 3.2 million pre-pandemic. It could be argued that this 56% increase was because of the pandemic and not evidence that parents were choosing to withdrawal their kids from school for the long haul. We shall see. There are plans to continue to follow the numbers. I will keep an eye out.

However, what I have noticed over on social media is that accounts devoted to homeschooling resources and support seem to be rising exponentially. When I first dipped my toe into the Instagram waters in 2016, there were plenty of people talking about homeschooling, but it was limited. Unschooling, for that matter, was barely even a hashtag. Now, there are 6.3 million posts with #homeschool, 5 million with #homeschooling, and close to a million posts tagged with #unschooling or #unschoolinglife. And this is just Instagram! If you are paying attention, the growth is undeniable.

What is also undeniable is the deeply engrained ideas about how children learn. The questions new-to-homeschool parents ask make it clear they have been influenced by messages that they are not capable nor to be trusted to teach their own. Naturally, this couldn’t be further from the truth, but I understand why parents feel this way. I was once there myself and I have a degree in education!

When we took the leap into homeschooling, I felt conflicted and worried about bucking the system. The idea that children belong in school so they can learn the necessary information and skills from qualified teachers to become good, productive citizens is part of the American psyche. But why? Is it objectively true that parents are not capable? Is it true that they can not be trusted to teach their own? As you suspect, Holt had something to say about this in his book, Teach Your Own:

Human beings have been sharing information and skills, and passing along to their children whatever they knew, for about a million years now. Along the way they have built some very complicated and highly skilled societies. During all those years there were very few teachers in the sense of people whose only work was teaching others what they knew. And until very recently there were no people at all who were trained in teaching, as such. People always understood, sensibly enough, that before you could teach something you had to know it yourself. But only very recently did human beings get the extraordinary notion that in order to be able to teach what you knew you had to spend years being taught how to teach. (pgs. 40-41)

Because all of us alive today have only known school as the socially acceptable place where children go to “become educated” we have incorrectly assumed this means teachers are well-versed in child development and neuroscience. So, the thinking goes, they not only know what to teach, but when to teach material based on children’s natural brain development. While I can not speak on behalf of all teachers or say with any certainty that they do (or do not) have training in child development and neuroscience, I can say that my experience as a graduate of a master’s in education program plus years of working in schools revealed a disconnect between what is required to be taught and what children are cognitively capable of learning. Much of this is not the fault of the teachers because they are charged with carrying out the standards set in place by school boards and administrators.

Teachers are essentially guided by publishing companies and bureaucrats, not developmental psychology or evolutionary biology.

Now, is it possible that these bureaucrats have training in various disciplines related to child development and neuroscience? Of course. Is it possible that the publishing companies employ well-researched and skilled individuals who make their curricula? Absolutely. And is it also possible that individual teachers present information in a developmentally appropriate way? Yes. But when standards are universally dictated to teachers and programs are mandated to be used without any input, and the children under their tutelage are required to jump through administrative check-lists that are not necessarily in accordance with their own brain development, we can not be serious when we claim that school is the best place for kids to go to become educated.

Unschooling parents, on the other hand, can take their children out of the standardization model and collaborate with them to create an educational experience that is unique to their interests and in line with their development versus presenting information solely based on grade level dictates. I argue that going this route actually prepares children better for their future because they are able to individuate early on and focus on strengths-based learning instead of hoop-jumping to meet the demands of an impersonal, mandated curriculum.

As Holt alluded to, humans have been learning this way for millions of years. Why is this necessary to highlight? Because despite it being true, parents still can’t help but to worry and wonder if they are doing “it” (educating their children) “right” (as in, ensuring their children are learning academics and skills the schools have been saying are necessary in order to become a successful citizen).

Photo by Morgan David de Lossy on Unsplash

Are parents really qualified, though?

Let’s look at another point Holt makes about teaching and competency in his book, Teach Your Own:

In practice, educators who worry about “unqualified” people teaching their own children almost always define “qualified” to mean teachers trained in schools of education and holding certificates. They assume that to teach children involves a host of mysterious skills that can be learned only in schools of education and that are in fact taught there; that people who have this training teach much better than those who do not; and indeed that people who have not had this training are not competent to teach at all.

None of these assumptions are true. (pg. 40)

I have listened to many parents lament that they feel ill-equipped or under resourced to home educate. They point to the fact that they do not have a certificate, degree, or training in education or any other field associated with child development. They have been hoodwinked into believing that one must be anointed by the state or an institute of higher learning to be “qualified” to teach children. Imbedded in this message is that good parents turn their children over to the professionals. No wonder parents feel conflicted. Most parents, I would argue, want what’s best for their children. And if the socially acceptable and highly regarded route to an education is to send kids to school, then it makes sense that parents would think, “Who am I to disagree?”

To this I ask,

• Do you have a degree or certificate in women’s health or are you a licensed midwife who understands all the things around pregnancy and delivery?

• Do you have a degree in infant care?

• How about toddler well-being, language or motor development?

• Have you taken classes on emotional regulation, the psychology of attachment parenting, sibling rivalry, or learning preferences?

Most parents haven’t had any such “training” yet enter into parenthood anyway and learn as they go or seek advice and support from other parents along the way. So why then, when a child turns five to seven-years-old do we suddenly believe he needs to become a pupil of the state in order to learn? Like Holt said, “it’s a nutty notion that we can have a place where nothing but learning happens, cut off from the rest of life."

In their book, A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century, authors Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein take a deeply insightful and well-researched look at the evolution of the human experience. All the topics they cover impress me, but two stand out… chapter 9, Childhood and chapter 10, School. No surprise, right?

This Childhood chapter is one I wish all parents and educators would read. You not only get a glimpse into learning across species and how adaptations are made, but they zero in on how children learn, across cultures, including impediments to learning. Anyone who has a vested interest in children will see why childhood is so important and also why we need to stop interfering as much as we do. They say:

“Spending time as children allows animals to learn about their environment. Therefore, stealing childhood from the young-by organizing and scheduling their play for them, by keeping them from risk and exploration, by controlling and sedating them with screens and algorithms and legal drugs—practically guarantees that they will arrive at the age of adulthood without being capable of actually being adults.”

Unschooling is letting children be children. It is about following their lead, recognizing they have interests, proclivities, and temperaments that deserve to be respected. It is not stealing their time to impose our vision for their life, but observing them and then guiding, supporting, and assisting as needed.

My first newsletter was about the importance of being a guardian of childhood and that is what I believe unschooling is all about. We do our kids a disservice if we take away their agency and control their every move. Children learn by doing and that includes making mistakes, taking risks, and actually living as an engaged member of society, not hidden away in classrooms the majority of their childhood years.

Heather and Bret’s School chapter begins with two quotes. One is from John Taylor Gatto, a former New York State Teacher of the Year recipient, vocal critic of the public school system, and author of multiple books on learning, our educational system, and supporting children. The other quote is from David Lancy, someone new to me. He says:

Children across cultures and through time have managed to grow to adulthood and learn to become functioning members of their society without the necessity of schooling. Jump to the 21st century and we find a world where childhood without schooling is unthinkable.

There are a myriad of reasons why this has come to be. If you want to understand how and why school came to be so prominent in our modern lives, Kerry McDonald does a fantastic job explaining the history of public education in her book, Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom. I theorize we have gone from a family-focused society to a school-focused one because of the dissolution of supportive communities, which includes extended family. Instead of a group of around 100-200 people who are related or connected by a set of values, a unified mission, and economic support, we have fractured into small family units who moved into neighborhoods with complete strangers to pursue the “American Dream”. Economic freedom, while amazing in so many ways, has come with a psychological cost. When we no longer are born into a community we are forced to create or find one. This can be difficult, time-consuming, and quite frankly, depressing for many.

Schools, then, became the primary community for our kids. And while parents were more involved at the beginning of the school experiment, they increasingly pulled back and turned their kids over to “the experts” as the decades rolled on. Some for convenience (free childcare), some for survival reasons (single parent, lack of economic support, overwhelmed), and some because they truly believed school was the best place for their children to get a leg up. Given the increasingly isolated ways we raise our families, I can see how the latter two are especially true. I know my parents chose school for my brothers and me for all the above.

It appears we are coming full circle, though, with the numbers of families opting out of the public school system, including single parents. The call of the soul to get back to what’s natural is strong, but unfortunately, because we have been experimenting with school for so long many have lost their confidence to lead their own. Plus, we don’t have large, multi-generational communities to support us so the fear of “going at it alone” is understandable. This is why it can be helpful to get familiar again with how children learn. To get back to the basics of human behavior and to reacquaint oneself with what we have instinctively known throughout human history.

Photo by Fermin Rodriguez Penelas on Unsplash

How children learn

Much research has been done on human behavior and specifically, how we learn. Developmental neuropsychology, however, investigates the relationship of brain development to children’s behavior and learning. While it goes without saying that no two humans are alike, we have enough practical information to assist us in making sensible decisions about how we approach learning for all children.

For example, we know that early life experiences can hinder or help a child’s development. Creating environments where children feel safe, seen, and heard contribute mightily to their ability to take in new information, take calculated risks, and even feel motivated to learn. A stressed child does not lose his innate curiosity, but it does interfere with his desire to seek to learn. This is because stress, overwhelm, or excessive worry causes us to move into our reptilian brain, the part of our brain that is responsible for keeping us alive. If a child is worried about where his next meal is coming from or is terrified of a parent, doing a science experiment, or playfully creating something out of random materials around the house is likely not in the forefront.

Security and safety allow children’s curiosity to flourish which leads to immeasurable learning.

In Jane Healy’s book, Your Child’s Growing Mind: A Practical Guide to Brain Development and Learning from Birth to Adolescence, she provides a wealth of information on how children learn and develop and how caregivers can support them through the years. While she did not mention unschooling, or even homeschooling, much of what she described about parent input, environments, and child development line up with the foundation of the unschooling philosophy. For instance, she advocates the importance of play and why parents must understand its value. She encourages parents to observe their kids and to interact and engage, but not overwhelm them. Children learn by doing, not being done to. She says:

Explaining things to children won’t do the job; they must have a chance to experience, wonder, experiment, and act it out for themselves. It is this process, throughout life, that enables the growth of intelligence. Babies come with the ‘need to know’; our job is to give them love, acceptance, and the raw material of appropriate stimulation at each level of development. Your own common sense, augmented by current knowledge, is the best guide.

Could not have said it better myself.

Our “current knowledge” along with millions of years of human history is leading us to rethink where we are and where we are going. We know more then ever before about how children learn. The results of scientific inquiry, research, and discovery are showing us much of what we instinctively knew: Children learn by doing, by being in the presence of caring adults who understand the power of leading by example, including when to step back or out of their way, and by creating environments that allow for exploration, adventure, conversations, and questions.

We know our children’s needs and capacity to understand and think critically changes over time. The five-year-old will be different at age 10 and vastly different by age 15 so we, as parents, need to evolve our thinking, our inputs, and our expectations in tandem with their growing minds. We recognize that mentors can be more impactful than simply plopping our children in a class led by someone who teaches the same material every year in order to test and grade a child’s performance.

Unschooling done with intention and awareness is the closest we can get to natural learning and it unlocks us from the rigid schedules and structure of the standard schooling model. It is freedom, it is fearless, and it allows us all to come home…to ourselves.

~Missy

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For more regular discussions on all things unschooling and peaceful parenting, come join me on Instagram @letemgobarefoot. There’s also now a place to PLAY with other parents over on The Barefoot Playground! Here, we put research and theory into practice to raise emotionally healthy and joyful children and teens.