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.

Homeschoolers and Radical Unschoolers Making News—in a Good Way

One of the great pleasures I've had while traveling and speaking recently has been reconnecting with some old friends. I had a great time in Chicago at the InHome Conference, where I spent time with David Albert. Besides the usual interesting insights into homeschooling that David shares, he also described his work with the group Friendly Water for the World. They note:

Right now 900 million people around the world drink, cook, and wash in untreated water full of harmful viruses, bacteria, worms, and parasites.  

* 3.5 million people die of water-related diseases every year.

* A child dies of a waterborne disease every 20 seconds.

* In the past decade, more people have died of water-related causes than from all wars combined.

This group is not just about providing clean water, but about teaching people how to build, and train others how to build, eco-friendly, low-cost biosand water filters. This filter, currently in use in India, Kenya, Burundi, and Mexico, removes 99% of bacteria and viruses, as well as metals, from contaminated water.

David notes that despite lots of development aid, fresh water and proper sanitation are often overlooked. For instance, David says the schools built by Greg Mortenson's group in Afghanistan do not have clean water for washing hands nor do they have sanitary toilet facilities. Rather than wait for a major water pipeline and purification facility, these biosand water filters are built with common, low-cost household technology and can be put into use very quickly. A training session will be held on July 2 - 6, 2011 at Olympia Friends Meeting House, 3201 Boston Harbor Road, Olympia, WA 98501. You can request more information by emailing:

info@friendlywaterfortheworld.com.

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Homeschooler Hannah Newsom, is a finalist in the 2011 Google 4 Doodle. Here is her impressive entry, titled Illustration.

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I had a blast at the Unschoolers Waterpark Gathering in Sandusky, OH earlier this week. The biggest indoor waterpark in N. America is truly something unique, especially if you enjoy water as much as I do. Among the many interesting people I met for the first time was Zoe Bentley, now 14, and her family. In 2010 Zoe was the second place winner of the 2010 USA Today/NASA "No Boundaries" National Competition for her website Exogeology ROCKS!

Here is a television feature about Zoe and her family.

On Unschooling, Parenting, and Video Addiction

The topic of video addiction came up on an unschooling list I read. I was surprised by the response given to people who, out of desperation about what to do or in reaction to their own admitted video addiction, were seeking ideas or validation for what they did. Instead, they were greeted with an unsympathetic reply largely along the lines that they were wrong to limit or deny their children unfettered access to video games, and that if there was an addiction issue it is because they weren't unschooled or they didn't do unschooling properly. Here is what I wrote:

As someone who has considerable experience in unschooling, as a friend of John Holt, publisher of Growing Without Schooling, and a father of three girls, I want to add my perspective on this discussion about video addiction.

There are no studies about whether unschooling and unfettered access to video games has a positive or negative effect on child development. However, there is considerable evidence that an unhealthy attachment to anything, be it videos, food, or getting perfect grades, can stunt emotional and physical growth and if a parent feels that such an attachment is hurting their child and seeks to do something about it they should not be banished from unschooling for doing so. If watchful waiting is no longer an option for the parents, then they should try something else and see if that helps the child and them live better together.

I support parents who decide to allow their children unfettered access to video games and I have published stories in GWS about the success of this strategy; I vividly remember one we published in the 1990s when a boy who could play videos as much as he wanted eventually decided to sell all his video games because he decided that they prevented him from spending time doing other things he wanted to do. However, I also support and published stories about parents who dealt with this issue differently, because their personalities, beliefs, and family situations are completely different, yet they, too, found a way to unschool their children. Just as one size does not fit all in school, one size does not fit all in unschooling.

Unschooling is first and foremost an educational approach. Unschooling was not created by Holt, nor propagated by my colleagues and me since Holt’s death in 1985, to be an ideological parenting method, though I think unschooling certainly informs one’s parenting. Just as we trust children to discover and learn things in their own way, so, too, can parents be trusted to figure out how unschooling will work in their family and adapt it to their relationships with each of their children. There are varieties of unschooling, such as radical unschooling, Christian unschooling, and so on, and they are all important developments for people seeking ways to learn without schooling. But the common, broader element that unites them all is the word “unschooling,” meaning we are not doing school at home with our children. That’s what unites us and makes unschooling an educational movement, as it has been since Holt coined the word in 1977. To claim that only one particular way of parenting and raising one’s children is unschooling does a disservice to Holt’s work and to all the people who are seeking, however imperfectly, to do something more meaningful with their children than schoolwork.



Unschoolers Will Not Learn To Do Things They Don't Want To Do

I think the unschooling segment I appeared on with the Yablonski/Biegler family on The Good Morning America TV show probably caused more heat than light today. There were so many important points to make—schooling is not the same as education, lack of curriculum is not lack of instruction, how and why different scopes and sequences for learning work—but, in the total 4 minute segment, it was all I could do to mention that children are natural learners from birth. As you can see, today’s interview didn’t have the negative edge of yesterday’s presentation, so at least that’s an improvement.

But yesterday's damage is done; unschooling is just a version of hookey that produces uneducated kids to those viewers, not a genuine way to help children learn and, as the host kept implying, it should be more regulated. If only we could have spoken about how kids can do serious work without being coerced into doing so, how learning can be rich and non-linear when it occurs outside school, how unschooled kids fare in college and the world of work. There are plenty of books and videos and studies we could have discussed, but instead it all got bogged down in the refrain, "Isn't it the job of the parent to teach the child to do things that they don't want to do?" What a negative way to think about learning and work: "I have to do things I don't want to do only because someone with power over me tells me I should." So much for self-starters, questioners, think-out-of-the-box employees; no, according to this concept we want to primarily educate our children to become adults who Obey. The world is full of opportunities that teach us how we must sometimes do things we don't want to do in order to accomplish something we do, so I don't think that's a lesson parents, or schools, need to endlessly drill into kids. I think the job of parents is to show how joy for life and love of learning can be sources of discipline and hard work, not fear, bribery and misery. Children do help out with chores around the house, cooking, and more without bullying them into it. In fact, I read about a study that shows altruism is inherent in children as young as 18 months; kids really want to join in and help and we can work with that ability instead of quashing it so they'll only help when we command them to do so. There's much more to say on this topic, but I'll get off my soap-box now.

On another note:

I recently listened to a podcast entitled John Holt: Libertarian Outsider, by Jeff Riggenbach. It is an interesting portrayal of Holt’s work, with some excellent quotes from John’s books, particularly Freedom and Beyond. Sponsored by the Mises Institute, the 20-minute presentation often makes John seem like Captain Ahab, pursuing the education whale with monomaniacal intensity. As a result, Riggenbach neglects to mention Holt’s other causes and interests, such as music, fiction and ecology, but this is a minor matter. If you want to learn more about John’s work and speculate about why Holt didn’t become a “capital L Libertarian,” as John used to say or, as Riggenbach notes, a “Movement Libertarian,” this is a good place to start.



Unschooling on Good Morning America

ABC TV did a segment about Radical Unschooling on its news show, Good Morning America, and it was pretty negative. However, since response was so strong the producers decided to do more on the topic tomorrow. They have invited the Biegler/Yablonski family featured in the story to be interviewed live in the studio and I'll be chiming in from Boston via remote hookup. I'm told our segment will air around 8AM EST tomorrow.