Allll the deschooling stuff, in your inbox

Radical Mothering No. 31

Summer is the best time for deschooling - whether you’ve just left the school system and are preparing to launch into a life without school, or whether you’re lifelong homeschoolers or unschoolers, or even if you’re very much in the school system.

For me, summer always feels looser - and loose is definitely the energy I want to bring to deschooling. A general energy of letting go, releasing any control we may be clutching to, shifting to a different lens in terms of our relationships and our own lives, breaking down constructs and assumptions (and recognizing everything is a social construct, even deschooling itself!). Just a generally good time to chill, do more deep reading, take more time and space to reflect.

There is less pressure, and more openness. That’s how I feel, anyhow!

So here we go. I’m going to share some of my favorite definitions of deschooling, and then some of the best posts, pieces of writing, videos, books, resources and courses that might resonate with you on your deschooling journey.

What is deschooling?

Deschooling is a term coined by Ivan Illich in his book Deschooling Society, and it’s now become a term homeschoolers use to describe the transition from schooling to homeschooling. The rule of thumb has always been one month of deschooling for every year your child spent in school: what it might look like is giving your child as much freedom and autonomy as you can possibly bear, to paraphrase Pat Farenga’ phrase, and see where that takes you.

But of course, deschooling is much more than that. And much of it is our work - the adult’s work.

In many ways, it’s so much bigger than gradually shedding our schooled beliefs and behaviors; it’s really about developing a growing awareness of our underlying assumptions that we’ve absorbed from living in society, and exploring whether they serve us, and whether there might be another way.

I love Akilah S. Richards’ definition: deschooling is “shedding the programming and habits that resulted from other people’s agency over our time, body, thoughts, and actions” in her book Raising Free People.

Here are some of the best (in my opinion) and most helpful resources on the internet around deschooling.

I am only recommending resources I’ve personally found helpful! Which means I can’t recommend things I haven’t listened to/read/tried myself. Feel free to add what you’ve found helpful in the comments!

Blog Posts & articles:

Handy little recap about Deschooling on the Fearless Homeschool blog

Unschooling Fears: “I’m worried they won’t learn X” in Happiness is Here blog.

What is the School Wound? by Lucy Aitkenread.

What is meant by deschooling? by Lucy Aitkenread.

The Promise of Deschooling by Matt Hern. Warning: this is a deep, political, radical re-thinking around education, learning and school. It might be extremely triggering to some. I don’t think you need to necessarily feel comfortable with everything Matt Hern says here, but I do think it’s essential to at least consider it.

A Thousand Rivers by Carol Black - I recommend ALL of her writing, it is beautiful, searing and inspiring.

Deschooling by, ahem, me. I wrote this in our first year of unschooling. It is not perfect. But there are lots of cool quotes and references to look up!

Deschooling Reading List by Zakiyyah Ismail, as well as Deschooling as Decolonisation.

Learning to read, the unschool version. I wrote this to break and somewhat deschool the way learning to read happens. I have changed my mind on some of this since, but when I wrote it I was trying to present a balanced summary of what we know (and what we don’t know) about learning to read outside of school.

Podcast episodes:

All the Living Joyfully episodes on Deschooling in one place

What is Deschooling? on the Radical Learning Talks podcast.

Deschooling with Akilah S. Richards on The Unschool Files podcast. Meghan has a couple more episodes on deschooling that are also worth checking out!

The Fare of the Free Child Podcast - I tried to pick an episode but I just couldn’t! Happy bingeing on this one - Akilah S Richards pretty much deschools everything under the sun!

Deschooling on the Honey I’m Homeschooling the Kids podcast. Also lots of other episodes around deschooling maths, deschooling reading, deschooling time, and much more!

Gina Riley on Self-determination Theory on The Off-trail Learning podcast. This isn't explicitly about deschooling but it’s in a way about deconstructing motivation and drive, and the way people learn.

Books (all the links are Amazon - if you are not into that, don’t click! For non-amazon audio versions I highly recommend Libro.fm)

Ok I’m gonna have to restrain myself here haha. Here are my faves if you’re looking specifically into deschooling, deconstructing parenting and reimagining education and learning.

Untigering by Iris Chen - probably my fave parenting book of all time, deconstructing all our assumptions around parenting and children.

Raising Free People by Akilah S. Richards - lots about deschooling in here!

Parenting for Social Change by Teresa Graham Brett

Low-Demand Parenting by Amanda Diekman - great especially for those with neurodivergent children, and so helpful to deschool our ideas of what makes a “good” parent.

Changing our Minds by Naomi Fisher

Sage Homeschooling by Rachel Rainbolt - I love how Rachel looks so honestly at what education means and all the ways it can look like outside of school

Free to Learn by Peter Gray

Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich

Escaping Education by Gustavo Esteva & Madhu Suri Prakash

Escape from Childhood by John Holt - a bit dated, but still so ahead of its time!

Film

Schooling the World - documentary by Carol Black

A selection of short videos about reimagining education

This is a super cool, unschooled-led project that is currently in production, I can’t wait to see it come together.

Online Resources

The Honey I’m Homeschooling the Kids Clubhouse - weekly meetings about all things homeschooling.

Disco Learning - Lucy runs loads of courses and workshops on all things deschooling and unschooling and more. She has an intro unschooling course which I have taken, and really enjoyed. She also has an Unschooling Circle Community.

The Unschool Files Community - Meghan runs a free Discord server for unschooling which is super supportive and inclusive, among many other things.

Nikolai Pizarro runs workshop, has a text community, and does so much accessible work and community-building around decentering school at home (whether you homeschool or not!)

Eloise Rickman writes a regular Substack about children’s rights and parenting - I highly recommend it! She also runs Parenting and Home Education courses, both of which I have taken and absolutely loved.

Sophie Christophy runs a Consent-Based Education course and writes about self-directed education and children’s rights.

ASDE is an organization that provides resources, writing, workshops and a regular online conference centering self-directed education and youth liberation

More Resources (I am sharing these because they might be useful to you, but I want to be transparent and say I have not personally tried them.)

Education Reimagined and My Reflection Matters Village - these are run by Chemay Morales-James and are BIPOC-centered spaces (I believe)

The Deschooling Workbook by Emma Hosfeld

Life Unschooled Ebook - by Missy Willis and Ann Hansen

And lastly, if you would like more support from me on here, I have a paid option you can join for as little as $6/month - you get 4 extra posts a month (that deal with unschooling, deschooling, reimagining education and learning, and parenting in partnership), community in the form of Substack Chat and monthly zoom meetings, and access to my Closed stories on Instagram. You can ask me and the community questions and seek support in a non-dogmatic, non-judgmental way. Sign up by upgrading to paid on this Substack!

Plus you support all of the free work I do, like this piece and my podcast Consent-Based Everything.

If you are doing cool things in this field, please reach out. I’m hoping this will be a living document I can keep adding to!

I’ve probably left out a bunch of resources too, so I’d love for people to comment below or reach out to me with recommendations!

I hope this helps in your deschooling journey.

All the love

Fran x