Speaking Out About the Tight Collar of Curriculum

The idea that knowledge can be divided into subjects and neatly sewn together through curricula that children must pass tests on before moving to the next bit of subject matter is deeply challenged by unschoolers, who do not use any curricula at all or, if they do, use it in scopes and sequences that are not done in schools. Of course, the curricular arrangement of life and knowledge by school was challenged well before unschoolers came on to the scene in the late seventies, but it was usually done by alternative educators in schools, not by parents in their communities.

The notion of keeping children busy with fragmented bits of subject matter fed to them by professional teachers is powerful and unlikely to change during the tenure of our current education establishment. “Look how much the kids are learning!” is easier for adults to support than “Look how much the kids are playing,” even though what is learned through play can be equal to, or more powerful, than what is learned in a classroom. There are many institutions and industries that are propped up through the power of compulsory attendance laws and their hold is tight; they don’t want to lose their grip for any number of reasons, so experimentation with different models, time frames, and ideas is carefully conscripted to fit the existing curricular model. The fact that colleges have seen this problem themselves and haven’t addressed it in a meaningful manner is long-standing, too, as Marion Brady, a school curriculum critic, notes in a recent article in the Washington Post:

I don’t want to do away with school subjects. I want to put them in context and show how they fit together to form a mutually supportive, interconnected whole. Kids do that for themselves (and more) until about third or fourth grade. That’s when the core curriculum starts to really kick in. From then on, schooling is more and more about remembering canned answers to questions which traditionally schooled specialists think they should ask.

 I’m addressing a long-recognized problem:

The Association of American Colleges: “We do not believe that the road to a coherent education can be constructed from a set of required subjects or academic disciplines.” Project On Redefining the Meaning and Purpose of Baccalaureate Degrees, 1985)

Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching: “The disciplines have fragmented themselves into smaller and smaller pieces, and undergraduates find it difficult to see patterns in their courses and relate what they learn to life.” Prologue to “College: The Undergraduate Experience In America,” November 1986

Letting children learn in an interdisciplinary, unforced manner, as they did from the moment they were born, is something education leaders not only do not trust, but do not believe in. They believe you must lead a horse to water and force it to drink. But, as unschoolers and teachers like Marion Brady testify, it does not have to be this way.

Unschooling Research Study Published

Dr. Peter Gray has published the first installment of the results of his research study about unschooling; it explores how the benefits of unschooling are perceived by unschoolers and provides a neat window into our world.

Dr. Gray views unschooling broadly and then classifies unschoolers into three categories based on their responses. Here is his thinking behind this:

In my earlier post, in which I announced the survey, I defined unschooling simply as not schooling. I elaborated by saying: "Unschoolers do not send their children to school and they do not do at home the kinds of things that are done at school. More specifically, they do not establish a curriculum for their children, they do not require their children to do particular assignments for the purpose of education, and they do not test their children to measure progress. Instead, they allow their children freedom to pursue their own interests and to learn, in their own ways, what they need to know to follow those interests. They also, in various ways, provide an environmental context and environmental support for the child's learning. Life and learning do not occur in a vacuum; they occur in the context of a cultural environment, and unschooling parents help define and bring the child into contact with that environment."

In the survey, one of our items was: "Please describe briefly how your family defines unschooling. What if any responsibility do you, as parent(s), assume for the education of your children? [I am asking only for generalities here. I may ask for more details in a subsequent survey.]"

Not surprisingly, we found a range of responses here, ranging from what some have called "radical unschooling" at one end on to gradations at the other end that overlap with what some have called "relaxed homeschooling." We coded the responses into three categories—radical unschoolers, moderate unschoolers, and relaxed homeschoolers—according to the degree to which the parents seemed to play some sort of deliberate, guiding role in their children's education.

I like how Dr. Gray used parent's own descriptions of their roles to place them within the unschooling continuum, and their responses indicate a joyful, if self-selected, group of families who, regardless of why and how they unschool, support their children's individualized learning in ways that school can not, or will not. I look forward to the future installments of this work and how it will line up with some of the other existing research about children who learn without schooling.

Joy in Learning

Joy in learning is rarely addressed as far as conventional compulsory education goes; however, words like “expectations,” “accountability,” and “rigor” have accumulated around education like flies to fruit; now we pay more attention to the flies than the fruit! It also seems that parents have lost trust in the value of children’s play, with pressures mounting to put children, at ever-younger ages, into controlled education environments in the hope it will make them successful adults. In the name of academic achievement we are depriving our children of the vast quantities of quiet time and personal interactions with other people that are needed to create a self, learn how to solve their own problems, master their emotions, and participate well in group settings. These things can’t be easily structured into a state or national curriculum and that is probably why schools discount them. However, homeschooling allows you and your children to own your schedules, so you have the time to appreciate and leverage your children’s natural tendency to play and learn. I hope the stories and articles in this issue help you feel how desirable it is to remain playful through all our life.

The HoltGWS Newsletter 2 is free.

Major Newspaper Stories about Unschooling

Here are two good articles that discuss homeschooling. One, in the Hartford (CT) Courant, focuses on unschooling. Though the headline makes it seem like the article will view unschooling as a way to reform school, the article itself is more about one family and their journey to unschooling, and how North Star and other options can help families with self-directed teenage learners.

The Chicago Tribune did a story about homeschooling, with a focus on unschooling. The article was aimed at non-homeschooling parents, as the subhead indicates: "Supplement your child's education by stealing a few pages off the home-schoolers' playbook." Interesting how both stories intersect on the issue of how non-school activities and places can supplement or replace conventional schooling for children whose parents are not able to fully commit to homeschooling.

Participate in Dr. Peter Gray’s Unschooling Research Survey

Dr. Peter Gray, whose Freedom to Learn blog is well known to many unschoolers and homeschoolers, is conducting a research survey specifically about unschooling. I’ve met and worked with Peter several times, I have reviewed this survey, and I’m comfortable disseminating it. Peter notes:

Attached here, as a Word document, is the survey.  If you are still willing, I ask you to download the document, fill it out by typing directly on it, and then email it back to me, still as a Word document.  My sincere hope is that publications resulting from this survey will produce a greater understanding of unschooling.

If at all possible, I ask that you return this within the next two weeks.

Download the Word document, Unschoolers Survey