Does it not sound phenomenal? This idea that a person can take everything they dislike about a classroom and throw it to the wind, and yet their child will still learn. That with absolutely no direction a naturally curious child will want to learn their multiplication tables, reading, and grammar all on their own accord. That is exactly what unschooling seems to do. On the surface anyway.
In fact, there seems to be various methods of homeschooling inside the bubble of unschooling. For one, delayed schooling is very parent directed and is simply the idea that most children would do better if they skipped kindergarten all together, waited a year or two, and went straight into formal education. Delayed schooling found its base in a study that showed that children who waited a year to start in public school actually performed better overall than the children who started "on time". Interesting.
Unschooling makes a large leap, however, when one goes from delayed schooling to undirected unschooling. Undirected unschooling is about informal as education gets. Imagine taking your child outside to play and letting him do whatever he wants. Every. Single. Day. He will learn. I will guarantee it. According to this method a child directs his own education. So when your daughter walks into the kitchen and asks you to teach her to read you praise God and get right to it! If that day never comes? I have no idea. I don't know anyone who attests to the success of true undirected unschooling.
Because of the sheer nature of unschooling you may not find many books on the topic. Although I question whether searching for structural norms is permissible in a method that scorns structure. If you do desire more information on this topic, however, John Holt is considered the expert and has written some books that are guaranteed to be interesting reading. "How Children Learn" by John Holt seems to be an excellent book to check out for educating young children. It should be noted that he seems to push the idea of unschooling for mostly young students and not necessarily for high schoolers. Something that may go back to the idea of delayed schooling as mentioned above.
If you have any information, questions, or opinions on unschooling please feel free to leave a comment.
Next Up: Montessori
