Everything is a construct!

And why this makes unschooling make sense.

Hi!

Before I get to the post, I’d like to share a thing:

On the poll I did last week, 66% of those who voted read these posts in your email.

And while I love that you’re opening and reading this (thank you thank you!!), I would like to encourage you to download the Substack app and read my posts on there.

But seriously, why Fran?! Who needs another app right now?

I hear you. No-one does. EXCEPT. The Substack App is not a time suck, AT ALL. Trust me, I’m the most app-averse person you’ll ever meet.

But with Substack, you go in and get all your newsletters in one place, AND you can access Notes and Chat way more easily. And share things. And find other writers you love too. And spend less time scrolling (maybe, I can’t prove this).

THERE ARE ONLY UPSIDES TO THIS. I promise.

So I’m just popping this here for you ;)

Back to the post: Have you noticed how people often say they don’t “get” unschooling or that it doesn’t make sense?

I have a little theory about this and here it is.

I think part of the reason some people fail to truly “get” unschooling - and by "get” I don’t mean they necessarily agree with it or want to do it, but just that they understand what it is and why it might actually work for some - is that many people refuse to accept the fact that everything is socially constructed.

Part of the reason people are even still asking “But what about Math?” and “How will they learn?” and “How will you teach them?” and all sorts of other questions, is that perhaps they haven’t had a chance to reckon with the fact that so many of our ideas and practices - that we take for granted, that are a given in our society - are entirely fabricated.. by us.

Perhaps they’re fabricated for a reason, and perhaps those reasons sometimes hold. But they are nonetheless made up. Just made up!!

I’m not sure we do a very good job talking about this. I know I don’t, mostly because I tend to stay away from these conversations - they’re not particularly easy or comfortable!

But if you’ve been wondering, this is what many of us mean when we say we’re “letting go” or we’re deschooling: we mean we’re recognizing everything we believe is a social construct, and considering whether we actually need it in our lives. Is it still serving us, like it served one of our ancestors (or a bunch of other people) way back when? Because a lot of these constructs were made up “way back when” and we’ve just carried them through generations, without questioning or doubting them, to the point that they became “normal.”

They become the way things are done.

And unschooling is all about disrupting The Way Things Are Done.

I’ll give you an example of a construct that I’ve grappled with in the past: Children need specific things at specific ages.

First of all, let’s look at the whole narrative of “needs.” We love talking about what children need. Love love love it! Of course children aren’t really involved in these discussions - but doctors and psychologists and educators are!

I’m gonna rewind right back to the fact - FACT! - that the psychological narrative of child development is a social construct ie. just made up. I talk more about that here:

Can child development be about control?

Once we understand that child development came to be through a specific lens (that is predominantly a Euro-American, patriarchal one) we can also understand that a lot of our conversations around what children need, are rooted in the science of child development, and come about through this same lens.

And so while I’m not denying that there are basic needs all humans have, I also think this narrative gets co-opted by adults to control children.

Children need boundaries. Children need a mother. Children need attachment to one caregiver. Children need independence. Children need socialization. And on and on - a bunch of “needs” that are based on our understanding of child development as a universal, linear, age-based and staged trajectory, and our view that there is an “average” child, and one way to develop and grow.

Unschooling asks us to question all of that.

To question whether child development and conversations about “needs” are actually as objective as they claim to be - both Gail Sloan Cannella and Priscilla Alderson, two early childhood researchers (and not unschoolers), critique the language and narratives around children and needs that we are still sold as absolute truth. We could learn a thing or two from their writing!

Unschooling asks us to question whether it is an absolute fact, or a product of time, place and groups of people and currents of thought. To question what it is that children actually need and want - and that perhaps we should be consulting them?

Unschooling asks us to question whether Maths actually exists as a concept, or whether we made it up - or both! And in which case, who says it is best learned in a specific order or at a specific age? And if someone is saying this: why are they saying it? Based on what?

Is it socially expected we learn Maths a certain way? Yes, clearly it is.

Is it a universal human truth? Is it the same for all humans, everywhere? Not even close.

And when were we ever trying to be socially acceptable, as unschoolers? Like, never.

Unschooling asks us to really deeply deschool: to take any idea or concept or even what we may believe is a truth - and actually pick it apart. Research it. Question its validity and use. Figure out how we came to believe it. Figure out how ‘objective’ anything can ever be - and recognise that every idea or concept or theory or opinion or assumption, every. single. one. is constructed by us.

Not only by us as individuals, but by us as products of a society, a culture, a place, a time, and so on.

(Yes, some things are facts. But a lot of what we believe is fact, is often not. Case in point: Piaget’s theories of child development were used for decades as facts, and guidance around child development and child rearing was based on them, and sometimes still is even though they have been widely questioned. Another example is the bias inherent in a lot of medical and psychological (and other) research, when for decades much of it was carried out on predominantly white Euro-American men, and then touted as the truth about most people.)

Unschooling then, is divesting from a mindset that blindly follows what is socially constructed, and perpetuated by the school system, touting it as “the absolute truth about knowledge and learning.”

And recognizing we can change narratives or ignore them, because we constructed them! We get to reject them, or draw on different narratives and ideas, or co-create our own (read the linked piece about unschooling as decolonizing education).

And from this point of view of deconstructing, decolonizing, critically examining - deschooling (the process of breaking it down) and unschooling (the process of building something back up that actually serves us) make SO MUCH SENSE. So much. You may still not want to engage with it. But it makes rational sense.

Will it be difficult? Might it cause problems or misunderstandings in society? Well, maybe. And perhaps we’re not willing to face that. Or perhaps our child wants to do things the ‘normal’ way.

Or perhaps, we just want to be ‘realistic’ and cover all our bases because social constuct or not, we feel our kids need to learn to live in today’s world.

There are a million reasons we might see it all as socially constructed, and yet decide unschooling isn’t for us - FAIR ENOUGH.

(Also I will say that you can DESCHOOL everything and still decide you’re not going to unschool your children. The two can happen at once.)

But. Making a conscious, as opposed to fear-based, decision to not unschool doesn’t stop you from understanding what it is. From admitting that actually, unschooling has a point. From seeing it’s just as legitimate of a way to live as conventional schooling. Right?

And I feel like that last piece is lost for many. People aren’t willing to make that leap and actually try to understand unschooling. And by people, I mean people out there, not just homeschoolers. I mean educators and teachers and all sorts of other adults too.

But actually I feel like if more people understood what it was - it could only inform what they do!

Instead I’ve noticed there’s a lot of dismissing, eye-rolling and just general bafflement about what unschooling is, as if it’s either ridiculous or too “out there.” It’s not out there at all - it is rooted in breaking down socially constructed truths. Something that many academics and writers and other people do regularly, but have perhaps never thought to do with regards to schooling, children and education (and that in itself betrays their own biases towards younger humans!).

And here’s another way unschooling is different to any pedagogy or any other philosophy: it’s not a pedagogy or a philosophy!

It’s not really anything that you can pin down. What it is, is a gradual understanding that some or many or all of our socially constructed ideas about children, learning, education, humans and life in general, no longer serve us. And with this understanding comes at least a partial stepping outside of these constructs and living life on our terms.

There is no manual for this, there are no bullet points or checklists. You just do it, and it looks different for everyone, at any given time. So in a way you can’t really be “against unschooling” because unschooling isn’t a fixed thing. It’s not another man-made construct!

It’s an awareness of everything we just made up, and a conscious keeping of the things that serve us, and letting go of the things that don’t. AND, it’s also often the creation of other, new stuff (and perhaps this second bit is in fact a construct too, because when we reject one construct we might replace it with another one!! Is this getting too meta?)

But the point is nothing I make up for our family is going to be imposed on your family - there is no ONE unschooling. And so in this sense, unschooling isn’t really a fixed construct.

There is no single, concrete unschooling to reject. There are as many unschooling ways as there are people! That is the point.

In summary: everyone should at least try to understand unschooling, and nobody can really reject it because it’s not one thing - it is the questioning of all things!

Deconstructing, breaking down into the smallest parts, and tracing ideas and assumptions way back to their origins. And pointing to the massive blind spots in so many of our current mainstream assumptions.

I suppose if you’re very socially conservative and against change and questioning, you might not think unschooling is such a great idea - but you can still UNDERSTAND it, intellectually.

It is not out there, or weird, or somehow incomprehensible. It is in fact pretty simple.

Thanks for reading! I always love to hear from people, so feel free to comment below or email me, or reach out to me on instagram.

Fran x

A few bits & bobs:

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