Unschooling Thoughts

I wrote this a long time ago, but realized I never shared it here on the blog, so here goes:


There are two days about which nobody should ever worry, and these are yesterday and tomorrow.
Robert J. Burdette

Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are. Marianne Williamson

Unschooling is a terrible term to use to describe what I envision our life with our children to be. The focus on the "un" brings up a negative connotation from the start. And the word "school" emphasizes the exact opposite of what we will be living. "Unschoolers" have gotten into the habit of defining what they do by what they don't do. This tends to look like we are running away from something (the school model), rather than striving towards something (living and learning as inseparable). It makes us look like we are basing our decisions on fear of school rather than simply choosing differently.

For me, it is about choosing a lifestyle for our family that can offer so much more than the public school model. It is about allowing our children the opportunity to figure out Who They Are and then live that Truth. Starting Now, not some distant time when they are set free to "find themselves", as so many young people seem to need to do once they get out of school.

Unschooling allows our children to discover and learn freely, when the interest strikes and as they come upon new things, not according to some predetermined schedule set by someone else. The learning is more real and the "lessons" are forever. When you think of the things that you have learned in your life, I would bet that most of the learning that you actually use in your life is the stuff you have learned on your own or that which you were already interested in when it was taught to you. How much of what you learned in school do you even remember, let alone make use of in your life?

Unschooled children will most likely not learn the same things that their peers in school are learning and they will learn similar things at different times. This is okay because unschooled children will be learning every day the things that are important to them and the things that are relevant to their lives. They learn the things that they need to accomplish their goals according to their passion. Over time, this leads to a vast repertoire of knowledge that they can actually use in their lives. During this effortless process, they are learning the most important thing of all, how to think.

Learning to think for your self is a crucial skill and unschooling is an excellent way to "teach" this skill. If you don't know how to think for yourself, you are forced to let others do the thinking for you and are therefore under their control. It is a common practice of some organized religions, in order to protect their dogma/tenets, to encourage their followers to avoid questions about their faith. Do you know why? It is because the dogma does not hold up to critical analysis. It usually does not even pass the internal BS meters of the followers of the faith, as evidenced by the infinite individual interpretations of the tenets. For example, the Catholics who think that birth control or abortion are okay, a belief that is directly contrary to the teachings of the church. Why is it so important that everyone follows the dogma, or at least keep their mouths shut about it if they don't, and not trust anyone who questions their beliefs? Power. Plain and simple, it is an issue of power for the institution of the Church. It affords the institution power and therefore control over the followers.

The institution of school has power over us for the same reason, although maybe not so overtly. But we generally do not question the necessity of school. And if our children do question us, we silence them with dogma about how it is good for them and how they won't succeed without a good education. Most of us have not stopped to question our motives and goals for sending our children to school. We go along with what we were taught, what everyone else is doing, and never stop to think that there might be a different way, let alone a better way.

It is imperative that our children learn to think critically, lest they be controlled their whole lives by the institutions of our world; church, school, medicine, etc. They must learn to march to the beat of their own drummer, to know and follow their hearts, to seek and meet their life purpose and goals. The best way to do this is to ask themselves, as they encounter new ideas, "Is this what I believe?” "Does this support Who I Am?” "Why, why, why?” Otherwise they will live unexamined lives, pushed along by the groupthink, never truly happy, never knowing what it all means.

And this brings me back to unschooling. This is the hands down best way for children to grow up knowing Who They Are. It requires living in the moment, leaving out fear of a future never actually experienced. The future is truly a figment of our minds. When the future gets here it is then Now. Now is All There Is. If now is all there is, then there is no sane reason to spend all your time preparing, and poorly at that, for a future that will never come. This is school. You work so hard to learn the stuff someone else has decided is important for your future (and risked being judged poorly if you do not "learn" it well enough). No one can know what you will need in the future, not even you. All you have is the now, and all you can do is be in the present moment. All you can do is use your resources, both internal and Divine, to act appropriately in any given life situation. The more present you are, the more effective your actions will be, unmuddied by fears of the future or weighed down by thoughts of the past.

Unschooling allows for living in the moment, pure and simple. That is what unschooling is. You live your life, now, and along the way you learn. You follow your passion, now, and it leads to a successful life. If you define success by the amount of Love, Joy, and Peace in your life, not by how much money you make, that is. Fortunately, for you skeptics out there, a life filled with Love, Joy, and Peace tends to include all the money you need.

It is an exercise in faith and trust to unschool. As the saying goes, faith is stepping out into darkness and knowing you will either find solid ground beneath your feet or you find that you can fly. Unschooling is leaping off the cliff and finding you can soar to heights never dreamed of while standing at the edge.

Copyright 2004 by Miranda Demarest