Unschooling vs. Homeschooling vs. Traditional Schooling

To school or not to school…that seems to be the question these days.   A recent piece that Good Morning America aired last week on radical homeschooling has caught the nation by storm.  After considering how to present this hot topic, I have decided to present the two sides and weigh in myself.

Most of us probably know what formal education looks like as we are probably products of this form of education.  Homeschooling is when children learn at home by their parents and/or tutors usually using some type of curriculum.  There are also “schools” that homeschoolers can attend for different subject matters and use as a network and resource.  Unschooling is the idea that children are not in school and they follow their own interest and are self-directed with no obvious curriculum.

The piece that Good Morning America presented on radical unschooling had a heavy bias against the unschooled movement.    Basically they featured a family that has unschooled their children for about 6 or 7 years now.  It painted a negative picture of what the unschoolers do all day.  This segment received an overwhelming response so they brought the parents back and aired another segment to explain further.

Lee Stranahan wrote a response piece defending the unschooling movement and sharing the experience of his own family.   He describes unschooling as a type of homeschooling that promotes a natural, self-directed learning without the confines of formal education.

What I found interesting about the issues raised on the Good Morning America segment was the lack of any concrete evidence of what unschoolers actually do during their day.   If I had to describe the ideal learning environment for my own children, it would err to the side of unschooling.   There would be learning objectives along with skills to be taught.   We would be able to travel the world and use those experiences to teach them.  We would lead with their interests first and use their strengths to help them learn.  My older son is very inquisitive and loves books and pictures.  My younger son is much more physical and active.  I teach them differently – same curriculum, different execution.  I look at curriculum as skills.  What do you want your child to learn?  Let’s use an example of numbers.  My older son will learn his numbers by counting the birds in the book because he LOVES birds.  He may count the small wooden birds I put in front of him or put the appropriate amount of birds on the correct number.   My other son – no way- wouldn’t sit down long enough for me to get the book open.  He is going to learn his numbers by counting the stairs he climbs or how many jumps it takes to get from one dot to the next.   Better yet, they will both count birds walking through the rain forest on one of our trips.  You can individualize like that in the unschooling model.   You can create really rich experiences.

I am not quite ready to pull my kids out of school yet, but it definitely makes me say hmm?

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