What is Unschooling Anyway?

This is what I, Lehla mean by Unschooling.

I do find it tricky having a label slapped on anything. So for the purpose of basic communication we are ‘unschooling’. But what does that actually mean?

For me unschooling means many things but mainly these things listed below.

Not going to school.

Our hope is that our kids remain open, independent, curious, playful and questioning.

Following the children’s desires and wants as best as we can by guiding them towards self directed learning.

Unschooling for me, is what starts from minute I wake till the moment I go to bed, the opportunities to learn are endless and learning moments come up at all times, even when I am trying to get the kids to switch off and go to sleep and they ask me a really interesting profound question…like what is sleep??!! The process does not stop, so as an unschooling parent it is not ‘unparenting’ it is being with the kids throughout the day, the week, the month their childhood. It is being available to help with their learning, their projects, ideas needs etc. For me it is also balancing the fine art of managing my own stuff, ie my internal scripting around how education should be and learning how to manage my own boundaries with regards to my own personal bit of time and space.

It is a process of learning in an organic way. Our son is very good at grabbing mathematical concepts, however if I sat him down and made him ‘do’ maths he would be achingly slow and resistant and seemingly not good at it. But if I try and follow his maths in a game which he has invented called ‘Coob’ he is beyond quick, it is actually a game about maths and war. (Gulp!) So if he drives the learning process through his desires and needs he learns very quickly. If I drive it, it is like sucking all the petrol out of a car and expecting it to move forward.

The girls also like to learn on their own and they show me things that they have done. I look at their work, books, pictures etc for what they are and do my best to not clamp down their learning process. So if they show me a fantastically illustrated cookbook, which they have just done and I see it is glaring with really huge spelling mistakes, I ask them if they want me to correct the mistakes. Sometimes they say yes sometimes they say no. Either way I am more interested in the process of their learning than the detail of having to get every word right.

The other day whilst working on ‘Coob’ (an invented maths/war game) I said to our son maybe you need to write out the rules because I am getting lost. And he said ‘Yes, good idea’ he sat down and wrote out the whole rule sheet. Whilst I was internally was doing my own personal Mexican Wave and trying not to show it on my face. Our boy was writing, and he wasn’t even aware of it.

For me unschooling to us is keeping the kids open and curious and in a bigger community of people. In Africa they say ‘it takes a whole village to raise a child’. For us Unschooling is keeping them in a big village as best as we can. Whether that be through their friends, other families, their circus school mates, their grandparents, visitors or people that come and help us throughout the year. Just keeping them open and connected and curious to learn from what other people have to offer, everybody who crosses their paths has something to offer, for me this is what unschooling is about.

This is an excerpt from Jump, Fall, Fly which is available in the UK from here

Or in the US here

Or directly from us here