Life without school v. Just life

No. 19

Hello friends,

I’m not managing to write these with any regularity, which is kind of annoying, but there we go.

Here are some thoughts I had after some recent conversations I’ve been having with more seasoned unschoolers about what life without school can truly look like.

For a few years, I felt that the role of school was very much a back-up role. School has been there, on the sidelines, ready to sub in; it’s been something to bash but also kind of maybe look towards in moments of doubt; it has been the person prompting when the actor forgets their lines, as if our life were a play and I were a rather forgetful actress.

It’s been very much there as a presence. For “one day,” or “when they want to go back,” or “when the time comes.”

And here is the problem with that: schooling is already so ubiquitous, that actively holding it in the background of your life, when what you’re trying to build is a life WITHOUT schooling, can be unhelpful.

The truth is maybe, that life without school you’ve been imagining, will never happen. Because you’re always sort of looking over your shoulder at little old school, just sitting there, biding its time. All patient-like. Because it knows you’ll come running back some day. It knows it will be there when you inevitably can’t hack it anymore.

But here’s the thing: if we go on the premise that what we are doing - living without school - is rooted in millennia of doing that exact thing (except it was just called living, back then), then school just doesn’t enter into it.

We aren’t living without school, because school just isn’t even part of what we’re doing.

We’re living as if school had never happened. We’re just living.

You might point out that that’s impossible, because school HAS happened, and schoolish ideas are part of us, and to actively live without school we need to almost live in opposition to schoolishness. And yeah - I think initially, we do.

But I also think we can get to a point where we have stopped trying to be the opposite of school, and we are just being what we want to be, regardless of school.

I’m not sure if this makes sense. I’m still figuring it out. But it’s beginning to take shape for me, and I’m enjoying it!

It is allowing me to re-think and co-construct education with my children, separately to whatever education looks like in schools, or anywhere else!

So like, imagine schooling is the sun. Life on earth revolves around it. You can decide to wake up at night and go to bed when the sun rises, and to do the opposite of what most people do (live during the day, sleep at night), but you’ll still be living in opposition to the sun. The sun will still play a central role in your life, even if it’s an oppositional role. The sun will still be telling you when to wake up (at sunset), and when to go to bed (at sunrise).

I don’t want to do that, anymore.

I want to be a human on Earth living however I feel like it - regardless of what the sun is doing. I want to just ignore the sun. To acknowledge it’s there, and just carry on.

I don’t want to live without the sun, I just want to live.

Other stuff:

• I have a brand new website and a brand new post called Rethinking Consent-based Education. Go check it out!

• I feel super honoured to be Ambassador for the How to be an Awesome Homeschooler summit. It is free and you can check out speakers and sign up here.

• New Podcast Episode RIGHT HERE. I chat to Sara of the blog Happiness is Here - the most-read unschooling blog in the world! It was so fun to speak in person, and I hope you enjoy listening to it.

I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week!

Fran x