Unschooling Is Not

Unschooling is not unparenting. While we strive to give our children autonomy, we do so within a framework of safety, cleanliness, boundaries, and moral standards. We work together to keep our house cleanish. We take responsibility for our actions. When we commit to doing something, we follow through to the best of our ability. We are kind. We treat each other as we would wish to be treated. We forgive. We ask for what we need. We offer each other what we can. We respect each other, our house, and our possessions and do our best to take care of all of them. 

Unschooling is not non-learning. It is learning through conversing, experiencing, reading, creating, dreaming, asking, doing, listening, and sharing. It's taking a class or attending a workshop when we so desire. It is following our passions and interests where they lead us. It is encouraging our children to make their own decisions and giving them the tools and the desire to learn whatever they want to learn. It's modeling a love of learning to our children and taking interest in hearing about what they've learned. 

Unschooling isn't limited to any required curriculum, to what a textbook dictates as the end of learning about a topic, or by grade level. Unschooling allows for children to learn at their own pace, in their own way, following their own interests. When someone is interested in learning something, they retain the majority of what they learn. When someone is taught something in which they have little to no interest, they retain very little. 

Unschooling isn't socially isolating or sheltering. It is being out in the real world for many more hours a day than our schooled counterparts. It is interacting with a wide range of people of all ages, religions, cultures, and economic statuses. 

For my family, unschooling is participating in church activities, homeschool co-op, theater, puppetry, choir, MTG tournaments, a refugee resettlement ministry, Camp Calumet, and volunteering with various non-profit organizations. It's participating in programs and events dealing with issues like homelessness, addiction, violence, religious diversity, gender diversity ... and not only learning about these issues, but meeting the people affected by them, hearing their stories, and finding out how we can advocate, educate, and make the world a better place. It is getting a three year old a dissection kit and teaching her how to use a scalpel, because that's what she's yearning to do (and because I wouldn't and couldn't get her a cadaver). It's teaching a child to bake because she wants cupcakes. It's buying more Pokemon cards because it's the method one child has chosen as a path to learning to read. It's getting used to a teenager emerging from her room with bloody gashes and bruises because she's into special effects makeup. It's asking a teenager what could possibly be gained from playing an online game and having him come back to you with studies on hand-eye coordination, critical thinking, and other related material in support of his choice of entertainment and, apparently, educational material. And some days, it's being at home, playing on the computer, reading books, playing games, and doing housework, because that's life.

Unschooling is not laziness or bad parenting ... it is discovering over and over how much life has to teach us.