We unschool, and I support public school

And, I don't think public schools are a bastion of social justice, nor do I think homeschooling is a solution.

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After 4 years of unschooling, I’ve softened my views on all things somewhat. I never believed public school was the evil some homeschoolers think it is, and I’ve always bristled when homeschoolers target public school specifically, because frankly I have more issues with private schools (and issues in general with the school system).

It can feel super classist to bash public school but give private schools a pass. And it is definitely a trait of the more libertarian among us, another thing I don’t see myself in.

That said, the school system is a system and as such, is not beyond critique.

I’m going to write a bit about why I feel uncomfortable hating on public school, while also recognising that some of the narratives we believe about schooling, are simply not true.

I’ll start with some thoughts about why I actually support the idea of publicly-funded education, and I also am not sold on the idea that we can do away with public schools.

Homeschooling is not a solution.

Don’t get me wrong, unschooling is amazing. My children have thrived, and I have loved home educating. We are big big fans.

But I don’t call myself a homeschool advocate because advocacy would imply I am pushing for homeschooling to become a viable solution, and an accessible alternative - and I just don’t think it is.

It can be a solution for some people. It can be the perfect thing for some families! It can also be a band-aid, for some children and some families. It can be the least worst option. But it’s simply not a one-size-fits-all solution because parents need support looking after their children, and home educating provides no such support.

It’s simply not accessible to those who aren’t prepared to make enormous sacrifices, or can afford to live on one income. It’s also just not a desirable option for many parents, under our current capitalistic system. I don’t blame them one bit.

Do I wish people’s minds were a little more open about what homeschooling actually means, what it can look like? Yes I do.

I would like to see government support for home educators - but I also understand why people are reticent to accept support when it comes with strings attached (I’ve written more on homeschool regulation here.)

I wish all of that, while also recognising that homeschooling is not a solution that is going to create systemic change within education, or that is going to solve the issues of inequality, of low numeracy and literacy rates, of child safety, of affordable and accessible childcare, and so on.

Public school, in our current system, is a need - not because we inherently need it as humans, but because it’s the only existing option that meets the majority of working parent’s needs.

Supporting public education should be something we all care about, in the same way we care about supporting public healthcare, and public transport. Is healthcare perfect? Nope! Still, I grew up in a country with free healthcare and my parents never, ever had to worry they couldn’t afford to take me to the hospital. I wish that for everyone, even if the healthcare system is imperfect in so many ways.

I support government-funded education, even while I think the education system is fundamentally flawed.

I support government-funded education, and I wish it looked entirely different to our current system of education.

Right now, we need public school - there is clearly a need for affordable childcare, and school provides it. We could all do with more support raising our children, and I think it’s ridiculous to pretend that even those of us who decide to make homeschooling work, wouldn’t love a few hours or even a day or two of free or affordable childcare.

Most families need the adults to work outside of the home, and so school fills that gap.

And yes, school technically also educates children - but the extent it does that depends on what we mean by education, and how well resourced our local schools are, as well as many other factors.

Not everyone wants to or is able to homeschool.

I mentioned this above, but let me say more.

Homeschooling is hard work, and while I reject that it’s only for the very privileged, I also know that it isn’t exactly accessible to everyone.

Also, some people might see the benefits in home education but simply not want to do it. And that is okay, of course. And their kids need somewhere to go while they are going about their lives.

The point, for me, is the availability of accessible choice - not the imposition of one right way.

We might argue that actually, we’ve been conditioned to believe families should go their separate ways every day, that actually back before industrialisation this wasn’t the case and nobody complained about it (I actually don’t know this for a fact!), but the thing is: it’s just the reality right now. Some parents feel they need a break from their kids - let me rephrase that: ALL parents, at some point, feel they need a break. They deserve a break. Homeschooling can feel relentless at times.

We can blame this on all sorts of things (white feminism and patriarchy and capitalism and hyperindividualism), but in the end it just is: life without an extended family or close-knit support network, means that school becomes even more crucial for parents to pursue their own interests, build a career, work for pay, and just live their lives.

Public school can be life-saving.

Some children need a safe place, and public school is it. Free meal programs make a tangible difference in children’s lives. Some children don’t have access to books, or to the level of knowledge and education that might be available in school. School opens up opportunities for children and young people who might otherwise feel stuck or hopeless.

It is not a magic solution, it’s not even the solution they say it is.

But, sometimes it is. Or in any case, it’s better than not having anywhere to go.

Public school is a way for families to get support for their disabled or neurodivergent children.

This is not always the case, but sometimes entering the school system does help parents get access to therapists and other services to support their children.

There is also the flip side of this: disabled and neurodivergent children can really struggle in school, and so can neurotypical children, and the school system can absolutely fail to support and protect them, they are often pushed out of school for this very reason.

Some kids love it.

I am sceptical about how widespread this is, because being complicit in your own oppression is clearly a thing (look at the rise of the trad wife!), but I also know that some children legitimately enjoy and thrive in school. And for that reason, I still think some families and some kids will always want or need public school - and that has to be okay.

Schools have been a sight of youth resistence, and continue to be at the forefront of our current culture wars.

Young people have gathered and used schools as sights of protest for centuries.

The current culture wars in the US take place largely in schools, and I feel like supporting public schools when they are trying to be inclusive and practice an ethic of love, is worthwhile.

Before I launch into the issues I have with schooling, I want you to know that the issues are not with the families and parents and carers who send their children to school. I was one of them! I know some of you reading will be too. My issue is hardly ever with individual people - we all do what we feel is best in the contexts we live in.

My issue is almost always with systems and institutions, and with things we have constructed and now claim as absolute truth.

Public school is not beyond the pale. It is not the great equalizer we think it is. It should be critiqued.

I have noticed that parents are afraid to criticise public school because it is somehow equated with criticism of teachers and staff. And while those who work in schools are sometimes absolutely complicit, this is often not the case.

School is an institution and we need to face this.

We know that school exists to serve a very specific agenda that is partly to do with the dominant idea of education, and partly to do with serving social and economic interests.

I’m not going to go into this too deeply here, but one thing to bear in mind is the way our “banking system of education,” in Paulo Freire’s words, has conceived of children (as empty vessels to be filled) and of education (as the transfer of knowledge, that is literally poured into the empty vessel and received intact and unchanged.) This implies that children are incomplete until they are educated, that in fact the project of schooling is a project of building future adults, rather than of centering childhood as a unique phase in its own right. It also implied that learning is the tranfer of information, rather than what we know to be true: that learning is an exchange, is co-created, and that the lines between teacher and learner are blurred.

Our school system is founded on the idea that there are some things that we need to know, and others that we do not. This is an interesting piece by Pat Farenga about the hidden curriculum. Education therefore becomes "what we need to know”, and anything outside of it is seen as less important and not worthy of children’s time.

While schooling has always had the purpose of preparing children for a political and economic system where the few ruled and the many obeyed, more recently, with the growth of neoliberalism, school systems around the world operate as economic entities in service of global capitalist interests, and we find capitalist principles embedded within the way schools rub: competition, productivity over play and rest, more testing, a focus on metrics, and so on.

School in the US is the product of a colonial system.

Once we recognise this, it’s ridiculous to believe that school will also inherently promote justice and equity.

School was part of a patriarchal, colonial project to frame education in one very specific way, and spread Western ideas of what it means to be educated and what it means to be successful.

Schooling is essentially a promoter and legitimiser of our most oppressive systems. Children were never going to be taught to question and challenge the very hierarchy that exercises power over them. To quote Assat Shakur, ““No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that that knowledge will help set you free.”

The education system is complicit in erasure.

The school system has been used again and again as a way to erase cultures, especially Indigenous ones. This is an interesting documentary that looks at the ways globalised Western educational models are chipping away at traditional ways of life.

The education system maintains the status quo and promotes one narrative of what success looks like.

We learn what it means to be successful in school, first. It’s pretty clear to everyone who is “doing well” (aka complying, attending and getting good grades) and who is not, and therefore who is “smart” and destined for success, and who is not. Anecdotally, I feel like the correllation between doing well at school and future career success, is tenuous at best, and this piece by Adam Grant puts into question the idea that success at school equals success in life (if we needed proof! which I personally did not.)

The institution of school is fundamentally rooted in coercion.

This is perhaps my biggest issue with the idea of school. It is also an issue we do not want to face. Most of us went to school ourselves, we live in a society where schooling is simply what you’re supposed to do, and we also live in a society that doesn’t centre children’s autonomy or their right to make decisions about their daily activities and their learning (nor do most people believe children even hold these rights).

We don’t see children as deserving of actually choosing where to go all day and what to do there. We don’t see the structural oppression that children live with, in spite of (or maybe because of!) having lived through it ourselvesl

But if we did, then we would be questioning the entire premise of school. Because school is fundamentally founded on the assumption that children don’t have a choice about where to go all day, and what to do there.

Schooling is positioned as mandatory, and its entire existence is predicated on children’s lack of consent (consent regarding whether to go, and consent regarding what to do once they’re there).

And this, I think, is an issue we need to talk more about. This, perhaps, is the biggest ethical reason for school abolition.

I am torn between my understanding that the school system’s compulsory element means it is fundamentally at odds with youth autonomy, and my reluctance to impose my own beliefs and preferences on everybody else. In other words, just because I think school is ethically problematic, doesn’t mean I need everybody else to think that too and agree to abolish school.

School is not the promoter of equity we think it is.

It’s easy for someone whose family has had relatively easy access to higher education, to turn around and bash the role education plays in occasionally pulling people out of poverty, or in fulfilling specific ideas of what it means to be successful for those who are perhaps immigrant families, or have a history of marginalisation. So I won’t be doing that - it’s not my job to critique the ways people choose to seek a better life within a system that is fundamentally designed to make it harder for some, and easier for others.

But if public schools were the solution to equity within society, we would be living in that solution right now. Instead, geographic inequality is increasing in the US, and socio-economic status is actually a much more reliable predictor of outcomes like academic achievement and future psychological health.

And while some public schools are mixed economically and socially, and everybody benefits, many public schools in economically deprived areas are struggling, while those in wealthier areas thrive. School is a punitive institution, and this hurts children of colour the most. In many areas of the US, schools are still segregated.

For many kids, school is simply not safe.

Bullying in schools has always been an issue, and sometimes leads to tragic deaths like the one of Nex Benedict last week.

Black, Indigenous and children of colour are increasingly policed and subject to zero-tolerance punitive policies in schools.

The threat of gun violence is ever-present.

Education, when it looks one way only, is itself an imposition.

When education becomes something that is embedded within a system, it becomes rooted in hierarchy and power over.

Many thinkers have written about the way education, as backed by a system that frames it as THE ONE RIGHT WAY, is actually an imposition. The idea that we are not competent for society until we undergo an education, and that an education needs to look a certain way, is fundamentally rooted in Western ideas of what it means to be “civilised.”

John Holt rejected the idea of education because he saw it as a construct that is fundamentally imposed on us, as inherently coercive. In their book Escaping Education, Prakash and Esteva look at the ways the idea of “an education” has been used to push one single way or truth, and erase all others. They see education as a colonizing force. I recognise this might sound extreme - but if we take education to be whatever school is pushing, then it begins to make sense.

It makes sense why those of us living outside the school system might also need to question the idea of what it means to be educated, and the ways education is something that is done to someone, and learning and living are things we just do.

I have argued that while school serves a role in our current system, it is often not the role we think it is.

Often we come across narratives that feed into the idea that we should simply accept what is, or try to reform it from the inside. I think we should be questioning them.

I’m not convinced that reforming the schools system into a more benign version of itself is a worthwhile long-term aim, because it doesn’t address some of the issue I mentioned above, and that lie at the very root of it.

I am FOR communities of young people and adults.

Grassroots, local, community spaces do not have to look like school, AND they can still fulfill the crucial role of care, togetherness and learning that schools fulfil, without any of the other stuff - coercion, forced learning, punishment, bullying, discrimination, erasure and capitalist neoliberal agendas.

WE HAVE MODELS OF WHAT THIS CAN LOOK LIKE.

ALL WE NEED IS FUNDING.

When people are like, “But it’s not realistic” I push back. It is. It’s not just realistic, it’s REAL. It already exists!!! It just needs more public support in order to become accessible for more people.

It could potentially be cheaper, and relatively easy to put into practice, if we could orchestrate a large-scale mindset shift and somehow mobilize the political will.

Some parents will still choose school, just as it is.

While in my little utopia, people would recognise that treating children in ways no adult would agree to be treated is simply not okay, we don’t like in that world.

So we get to a tricky place of recognising that some adults will still want their children to attend forced schooling, EVEN WHEN GIVEN THE CHOICE.

This is why youth liberation, and children’s voices, matter so much.

This is why we should listen to young people, and centre their autonomy over the needs, desires and assumptions of adults.

This is why I believe that sometimes the rights of parents are in opposition to the rights of young people (although there is nuance here, too).

And this is also why we need options, rather than just one way.

We need funding that can stretch to incorporate more liberatory alternatives, that is not tied to one version of education and one version of schooling, that responds to parent’s needs and children’s needs and not the needs of industry and corporations.

Public school is an absolute need right now, and short-term reform matters. But ultimately, relying on an institution that is fundamentally aligned with our most oppressive and hierarchical systems, and perpetuates and mirrors those very systems, would be a mistake.

In the long-run, we need need an equally accessible and appealing, equally well-funded way that is non-ceorcive, respectful of children and families, and truly geared towards decolonization and justice. Not everyone would choose this way, but we need to have the choice!

I would love to hear what you think about this topic. There’s so much more I could have written but it was starting to get very very long!