What’s the Difference Between Unschooling and Radical Unschooling?

In case you haven’t noticed, our experience with unschooling has had quite an impact on our homeschooling philosophy. This homeschooling method often gets a bad rap because of so many negative associations surrounding it, so I thought I’d clear up a few things.

The term “unschooling” was coined by the late John Holt, former teacher and education reformer, to simply mean “not school.” After his experience teaching in both private and public school settings, he began to firmly believe that the educational system as we know it was doing everything wrong. After years of touting education reform and seeing no concrete changes, he finally started encouraging people to keep their kids home and “unschool” them. (At the time, homeschooling was not well-known.) 

Lately the term has begun to take on an entirely new meaning, which I’ll get into shortly. However, according to John Holt GWS, this is the best definition of unschooling as Holt intended it:

“… the term ‘unschooling’ has come to be associated with the type of homeschooling that doesn’t use a fixed curriculum. When pressed, I define unschooling as allowing children as much freedom to learn in the world, as their parents can comfortably bear.”

-johnholtgws.com

 

On that note, here is a quick (Okay, let’s be honest. Am I ever quick??) guide to the difference between unschooling and radical unschooling.

Unschooling

When applied most closely to its original definition, unschooling is simply a homeschooling method which, in most cases, does not look like school at all. Children are given the freedom to pursue their own interests while the parents support those interests in any way they can. If you think of what a typical weekend looks like in your home, you’ve got a good idea of what unschooling is. It’s just natural learning.

Instead of breaking up a day into “school” and “not school,” learning is seen as completely cohesive with life, so life continues as if school didn’t exist at all. The day may be spent baking, painting, reading, running errands, watching TV, and, yes, even possibly doing some “school work” if a child requests it.

Many unschoolers do use a math curriculum to alleviate any fears they may have in that area (why is it always math??), and while some unschoolers claim that disqualifies them from being real unschoolers, as you can see from the definition above…

“…as their parents can comfortably bear.”

…using a math curriculum certainly falls within the guidelines if the parents feel it is best for the child.

I often call this type of unschooling “educational unschooling” because that is the main purpose for it. Educational unschoolers will more than likely have chores, bedtimes, and other rules their parents expect them to follow. While the children take the lead in their education, their parents are still very much in charge.

 

Radical Unschooling

Radical unschoolers, or whole life unschoolers, have taken the idea of autonomous learning and applied it to every area of a child’s life. Radical unschoolers do not follow what they call “arbitrary rules” such as bedtimes and chores. These children simply go to bed when they are tired, only clean if they choose to, eat whatever and wherever they want, and spend their time doing absolutely whatever they desire. Even rules concerning hygiene are often considered no-no’s.

One thing commonly heard from radical unschoolers is,

“Think about what you say to your child. Don’t tell them what to do. If you wouldn’t say it to your husband, don’t say it to your child.”

In a radical unschooling family, a child has as much say as a parent. I’ve even seen anecdotes of unschooling parents who have missed family events such as weddings simply because their child didn’t want to go, and they couldn’t find a babysitter. Rather than make their child go anyway, they view their child’s autonomy as vitally important- too important to make them do anything they don’t want to do.

It is this type of homeschooling that people often think of when hearing the term, but in all honesty, this form of unschooling has deviated a bit from the original intentions of a term that once simply meant “not school.”

 

Conclusion

I don’t ever, ever , ever want to discourage anyone from trying this wonderfully natural approach to homeschooling. The benefits of this learning method are certainly worth looking into, as long as you can look beyond the stereotypes. Our time spent immersed in this lifestyle truly opened our eyes to how easily a full life can provide an excellent education.

I will never regret a moment we spent doing it.