Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom

Education has become synonymous with schooling, but it doesn’t have to be. Schooling is only one method of education, and it may not be the best one for the imagination age. As schooling becomes increasingly standardized and test driven, occupying more of childhood than ever before, parents and educators are questioning the role of schooling in society. Many are now exploring and creating alternatives. In a compelling narrative that weaves the author’s experience as a mom of four unschooled children with historical and contemporary research on self-directed education, Unschooled spotlights how a diverse group of individuals and organizations are shifting an old schooling model of education toward a new learning one. These education innovators challenge the myth that children need to be taught in order to learn. They are parents who saw firsthand how schooling can dull children’s natural curiosity and exuberance and others who decided early on to enable their children to learn without school. They are educators who left public school classrooms to launch self-directed learning centers to allow young people’s innate learning instincts to flourish without forced curriculum, academic standards and imposed assessment. They are entrepreneurs who became increasingly disillusioned by the teach-and-test approach of traditional schooling and built alternatives that look nothing like school. Unschooled inspires us to imagine education as separate and distinct from schooling and challenges us to redefine learning.