Tag: unschooling

A Parental Right?

Editor's Pick

Whenever I hear people saying things like “Unschooling obviously wouldn’t work for everyone, but parents should have a right to choose what’s best for their kids,” or one of the hundred other variants on that same sentiment, I always feeling a niggling sense of unease. It’s never a statement I’ve agreed with. But until recently, I wasn’t entirely sure why it bothered me!

Prisms & Paradoxes

Editor's Pick

Unschooling for me conjures up prisms, paradoxes, and unlimited travel. Time well spent and freedom. The “un” in life. Have you ever stood at a window and looked at something happening on the other side? Have you ever thought that it looked inviting and fun? And yet at the same time, you know you cannot enter. You cannot get to the other side. That is school. A place where you are shut up and can only see the world through a dark, twisted, distorted, and foggy window. And your world, your life, is being caged within four walls where it is desperately cold. And you wish you could get outside.

How to Unschool

Editor's Pick

1. Give your love generously and criticism sparingly. Be your children’s partner. Support them and respect them. Never belittle them or their interests, no matter how superficial, unimportant, or even misguided their interests may seem to you. Be a guide, not a dictator. Shine a light ahead for them, and lend them a hand, but don’t drag or push them. You will sometimes despair when your vision of what your child ought to be bangs up against the reality that they are their own person. But that same reality can also give you great joy if you learn not to cling to your own preconceived notions and expectations.

From Waldorf to Unschooling

Editor's Pick

My husband and I have been Unschooling our daughter (age fifteen) and son (age nine) for nearly seven years. I’m a former Steiner Waldorf Class teacher turned Unschooling Mum, as well as an artist and blogger. We are very blessed that my husband works freelance and is a very hands on dad. He’s a filmmaker, editor and all round computer genius which is very useful for our children, who have a keen interested in creative technology.

Why Our Coercive System of Schooling Should Topple

Editor's Pick

I’ve been called a crazy optimist, a Pollyanna, a romantic idealist. How can I believe that our system of compulsory (forced) schooling is about to collapse? People point out that in many ways the schooling system is stronger now than ever. It occupies more of children’s time, gobbles up more public funds, employs more people, and is more firmly controlled by government—and at ever-higher levels of government—than has ever been true in the past. So why do I believe it’s going to collapse—slowly at first and then more rapidly—over the next ten years or so?