Oh gosh, this: “This is a tough one for me because sometimes the ways we raise our kids are schoolish because we haven’t actually challenged and critiqued the impact of living in a schooled culture on our parenting and education; and other times, we totally have done that and our child still loves to do worksheets or read history books or follow more structure learning programs.”
Having read so many of the books, when I started home educating my youngest (my eldest went through the school system), I was absolutely *convinced* unschooling was the way to go. However, my youngest (like me) turned out to have other ideas. I’d say at the moment we’re more ‘eclectic’ as a result. Sort of semi-structured. Maybe. Who knows. Both she and I are autistic which definitely has something to do with her (and my) need for structure and directness. But I do feel in some online home ed circles there’s an assumption that people like us home ed the way we do because we haven’t deschooled enough. But in other circles, in sort of ‘structured home ed’ circles, I feel like an outlier. Mostly, though, it’s offline, and often in neurodivergent circles, that I feel most seen.
Yessss. I can relate and I bet so many others can. It's like sometimes I haven't known I had more deschooling to do until I did it, and then other times - well, what we're doing works regardless of deschooling! And i recognise the need for structure, for sure. I really resent when I feel people assume I'm somehow behind on the deschooling journey because I just don't think we can judge where we're all at, and whether we even want to be on that journey. I'm so with you on this!
I wish that so many of the “radical unschoolers” were less reactionary …
Anyway, I think what you’re getting at is very much akin to the world of politics in many ways. Like the Democrats and Republicans each attacking people who don’t want to be stuck in a (irrational) binary …
Oooo that’s an interesting way to see it. Yeah I think that’s the case for a lot of unschoolers - they don’t want to be beholden to one way of doing things. And sure, that might make unschooling a sort of meaningless term but I think we’re already past that, honestly. And on a personal note, I’ve found I have more to share with eclectic homeschoolers who are very left-leaning than say, with libertarian unschoolers. So then where does that leave me if I call us unschoolers but actually don’t share a bunch of stuff with others who also call themselves unschoolers? It leaves us in a place where we either define ourselves differently or perhaps just agree that unschooling is a big, catch-all term that we can all sit under without necessarily being beholden to any particular definition.
“I’ve found I have more to share with eclectic homeschoolers who are very left-leaning than say, with libertarian unschoolers. So then where does that leave me if I call us unschoolers but actually don’t share a bunch of stuff with others who also call themselves unschoolers?”
Hmm. I with you on staying open-minded and welcoming. But I feel resistance to the idea of “unschooling on the weekends” in particular.
Similarly, someone might say “I’m vegetarian on the weekends” and I’d think (not necessarily say) “huh, cool, but… isn’t that more of a flexitarian?” And yes it’s great for the planet if people eat less meat, I don’t want to discourage them, and they can use identifiers for themselves how they prefer.
But words matter a lot to my hyperlexic brain that loves to make sense of the world through words. When we are talking about philosophies and identities, I do think it gets muddled and confusing by ideas like “oh, I’m that on the weekend.”
I think people can be unschoolers and their kids can go to full time school. I also think it’s problematic to say “we unschool on the weekend” and to mean “we don’t direct or coerce our kids on the weekend, just the rest of the week.” That doesn’t make sense to me at all.
I hear what you are saying about being more expansive opening up the idea for broader appeal. But maybe that isn’t necessarily what we want, if the term is being co-opted and no longer has any real meaning.
It reminds me of the Vawasai (?) conversation Antonio had with Bria and David about the term SDE being taken over as well.
I hear what you’re saying. I think for me, unschooling has become sort of a catch-all word and so what I was saying is that I don’t feel there is much of a point in trying to define it anymore. But I’m still very keen on keeping some parameters on other terms like SDE or consent-based, just to mention two. I just think so much can fall under unschooling, and yes I’ve rolled my eyes when people told me they unschooled the summer holidays or the weekends or whatever, but also - maybe that’s a window for that person to explore what it would be like? I used to feel much more gatekeepy about the term until I recognised it’s sort of a catch-all term at this point and the more the merrier!
Whenever a community has a label things seem to get judgy (throughout reading this, I kept thinking about the difficulties I have around explaining that I'm vegetarian. That word seems to mean something different with each person I talk to!). The homeschool families I work with now are all over the map. Sometimes, they present themselves as more "schoolish," but turn out to be very open-minded. Some unschoolers act like they are superior, or the only "real" homeschoolers. This could be defensiveness from being accused of not educating their children. I vote for not being judgy and just listening to each other share what is working for us.
Totally! I’m also vegetarian and I find that too, people aren’t quite sure what to make of it and sometimes automatically feel judged just by me mentioning it!
I’ve been thinking lately how I’ve always felt sort of ambivalent to the term unschooling, even though that is what we do. It’s certainly not a term I would use with someone not familiar with it or what it entails - people’s brains seem to glitch a little when I tell them we homeschool our son, so unschooling might send them over the edge! I do prefer self-directed learning, perhaps because it describes what we do/what we’re for rather than what we don’t do/what we’re against. There’s obviously a lot to unpack here, but that’s kind of my thinking at the moment.
Oh yes! I learned not to call myself an unschooler way back in the 90s because my kids and I had a homeschooling habit of working together each day and that structure seemed anathema to the unschooling voices at that time—even though the kids were guiding what they were doing, and we had much in common, philosophically, with unschoolers. I’m writing a memoir about this so it’s all fresh! I finally found affirmation in our style of homeschooling in Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit. I came to appreciate how *structure* is not necessarily a negative thing, that it can actually support creativity and possibility.
Part of what I’m writing about in my book is the irony of how movements supposedly based in freedom--unschooling, attachment parenting--felt very formulaic and gate-keepy to me as a young mother. I really had to tune into my intuition because I wasn’t seeing our style of homeschooling and family life shared much in the homeschooling/unschooling media
All these ideas spinning in my head—I so appreciate reading your thoughts, which sometimes overlap with mine, sometimes push me toward a larger portal. 💕
I always wonder about the great fear of judging and being judged. If we see this as being about various ideas people hold, isn’t judging ideas a necessary part of our learning … and, if it’s insisted upon that all ideas are beyond criticism, isn’t that a kind of moral relativism? How do we separate the ideas from the person holding those ideas? Aren’t some ideas better than others? Thanks for the mind stirring ;)
Oh gosh, this: “This is a tough one for me because sometimes the ways we raise our kids are schoolish because we haven’t actually challenged and critiqued the impact of living in a schooled culture on our parenting and education; and other times, we totally have done that and our child still loves to do worksheets or read history books or follow more structure learning programs.”
Having read so many of the books, when I started home educating my youngest (my eldest went through the school system), I was absolutely *convinced* unschooling was the way to go. However, my youngest (like me) turned out to have other ideas. I’d say at the moment we’re more ‘eclectic’ as a result. Sort of semi-structured. Maybe. Who knows. Both she and I are autistic which definitely has something to do with her (and my) need for structure and directness. But I do feel in some online home ed circles there’s an assumption that people like us home ed the way we do because we haven’t deschooled enough. But in other circles, in sort of ‘structured home ed’ circles, I feel like an outlier. Mostly, though, it’s offline, and often in neurodivergent circles, that I feel most seen.
Yessss. I can relate and I bet so many others can. It's like sometimes I haven't known I had more deschooling to do until I did it, and then other times - well, what we're doing works regardless of deschooling! And i recognise the need for structure, for sure. I really resent when I feel people assume I'm somehow behind on the deschooling journey because I just don't think we can judge where we're all at, and whether we even want to be on that journey. I'm so with you on this!
I wish that so many of the “radical unschoolers” were less reactionary …
Anyway, I think what you’re getting at is very much akin to the world of politics in many ways. Like the Democrats and Republicans each attacking people who don’t want to be stuck in a (irrational) binary …
Oooo that’s an interesting way to see it. Yeah I think that’s the case for a lot of unschoolers - they don’t want to be beholden to one way of doing things. And sure, that might make unschooling a sort of meaningless term but I think we’re already past that, honestly. And on a personal note, I’ve found I have more to share with eclectic homeschoolers who are very left-leaning than say, with libertarian unschoolers. So then where does that leave me if I call us unschoolers but actually don’t share a bunch of stuff with others who also call themselves unschoolers? It leaves us in a place where we either define ourselves differently or perhaps just agree that unschooling is a big, catch-all term that we can all sit under without necessarily being beholden to any particular definition.
“I’ve found I have more to share with eclectic homeschoolers who are very left-leaning than say, with libertarian unschoolers. So then where does that leave me if I call us unschoolers but actually don’t share a bunch of stuff with others who also call themselves unschoolers?”
Sounds like Vawisai fits better.
Hmm. I with you on staying open-minded and welcoming. But I feel resistance to the idea of “unschooling on the weekends” in particular.
Similarly, someone might say “I’m vegetarian on the weekends” and I’d think (not necessarily say) “huh, cool, but… isn’t that more of a flexitarian?” And yes it’s great for the planet if people eat less meat, I don’t want to discourage them, and they can use identifiers for themselves how they prefer.
But words matter a lot to my hyperlexic brain that loves to make sense of the world through words. When we are talking about philosophies and identities, I do think it gets muddled and confusing by ideas like “oh, I’m that on the weekend.”
I think people can be unschoolers and their kids can go to full time school. I also think it’s problematic to say “we unschool on the weekend” and to mean “we don’t direct or coerce our kids on the weekend, just the rest of the week.” That doesn’t make sense to me at all.
I hear what you are saying about being more expansive opening up the idea for broader appeal. But maybe that isn’t necessarily what we want, if the term is being co-opted and no longer has any real meaning.
It reminds me of the Vawasai (?) conversation Antonio had with Bria and David about the term SDE being taken over as well.
I hear what you’re saying. I think for me, unschooling has become sort of a catch-all word and so what I was saying is that I don’t feel there is much of a point in trying to define it anymore. But I’m still very keen on keeping some parameters on other terms like SDE or consent-based, just to mention two. I just think so much can fall under unschooling, and yes I’ve rolled my eyes when people told me they unschooled the summer holidays or the weekends or whatever, but also - maybe that’s a window for that person to explore what it would be like? I used to feel much more gatekeepy about the term until I recognised it’s sort of a catch-all term at this point and the more the merrier!
I came on here to say that Vawisai is the way!!
Haha yep okay, I’ll have to re-listen to that episode ;)
Whenever a community has a label things seem to get judgy (throughout reading this, I kept thinking about the difficulties I have around explaining that I'm vegetarian. That word seems to mean something different with each person I talk to!). The homeschool families I work with now are all over the map. Sometimes, they present themselves as more "schoolish," but turn out to be very open-minded. Some unschoolers act like they are superior, or the only "real" homeschoolers. This could be defensiveness from being accused of not educating their children. I vote for not being judgy and just listening to each other share what is working for us.
Totally! I’m also vegetarian and I find that too, people aren’t quite sure what to make of it and sometimes automatically feel judged just by me mentioning it!
I’ve been thinking lately how I’ve always felt sort of ambivalent to the term unschooling, even though that is what we do. It’s certainly not a term I would use with someone not familiar with it or what it entails - people’s brains seem to glitch a little when I tell them we homeschool our son, so unschooling might send them over the edge! I do prefer self-directed learning, perhaps because it describes what we do/what we’re for rather than what we don’t do/what we’re against. There’s obviously a lot to unpack here, but that’s kind of my thinking at the moment.
Agree, I rarely say unschooling to people who aren’t already familiar with homeschooling!
Oh yes! I learned not to call myself an unschooler way back in the 90s because my kids and I had a homeschooling habit of working together each day and that structure seemed anathema to the unschooling voices at that time—even though the kids were guiding what they were doing, and we had much in common, philosophically, with unschoolers. I’m writing a memoir about this so it’s all fresh! I finally found affirmation in our style of homeschooling in Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit. I came to appreciate how *structure* is not necessarily a negative thing, that it can actually support creativity and possibility.
Part of what I’m writing about in my book is the irony of how movements supposedly based in freedom--unschooling, attachment parenting--felt very formulaic and gate-keepy to me as a young mother. I really had to tune into my intuition because I wasn’t seeing our style of homeschooling and family life shared much in the homeschooling/unschooling media
Yes! So exciting you’re putting your experience down on paper.
All these ideas spinning in my head—I so appreciate reading your thoughts, which sometimes overlap with mine, sometimes push me toward a larger portal. 💕
I always wonder about the great fear of judging and being judged. If we see this as being about various ideas people hold, isn’t judging ideas a necessary part of our learning … and, if it’s insisted upon that all ideas are beyond criticism, isn’t that a kind of moral relativism? How do we separate the ideas from the person holding those ideas? Aren’t some ideas better than others? Thanks for the mind stirring ;)
Hmmm interesting!! I’m gonna have to give this some thought. My first reaction is that judgment is separate from critique or analysis..
This is a lot to digest! Very interesting, as always, Fran.