#unschooling

[youthlibdaily]

YLN 4 Online Reading : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

YLN 4

[landbacklashback]

Unschooling Is A Problem, Lets Talk About It 👏

Look, I'm an anarchist. I fucking hate the American education system. It's a tool of capitalist indoctrination designed to create obedient workers, it enforces white supremacist curricula, it criminalizes disabled and neurodivergent kids, and it operates as a pipeline to prison for Black and brown youth. The public school system as it exists is violence.

So when I say unschooling is a bourgeois fantasy that abandons kids to educational neglect, understand I'm not defending traditional schooling. I'm saying unschooling is somehow worse.

What Unschooling Actually Is

For those who don't know: unschooling is the idea that children should direct their own education entirely based on their interests, with no curriculum, no structure, and minimal parental guidance. It's 'child-led learning' taken to its most extreme conclusion. The theory is that kids are naturally curious and will learn what they need to learn when they're ready.

Sounds nice, right? Very libertarian. Very 'trust the process.'

It's bullshit.

The Class Politics of Unschooling

First off, unschooling is almost exclusively practiced by middle-class and wealthy white families who have the resources to make it work. You need:

At least one parent who doesn't have to work full-time (or at all)

Enough money to buy educational materials, fund 'interest-led' activities, travel for 'experiences'

Social capital to connect kids with mentors, classes, and opportunities

A safety net so that if your kid reaches 18 without basic skills, they won't end up homeless

Poor and working-class families don't have these luxuries. Single parents working two jobs can't facilitate unschooling. Families in food-insecure households can't prioritize whether little Timmy feels 'called' to learn fractions today.

Unschooling is a privilege that only the comfortable can afford, and it's sold as some kind of radical educational philosophy when it's really just another way wealthy people opt out of systems the rest of us are trapped in.

Disability Justice and Unschooling Don't Mix

As a disabled person with dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia, let me be clear: unschooling is a fucking nightmare for disabled and neurodivergent kids.

You know what I needed as an autistic, ADHD kid with learning disabilities, and multiple mental illnesses? Structure. Routine. External scaffolding. Accommodations. Explicit, systematic instruction that worked with my brain, not against it. Someone who understood my disabilities and could help me navigate learning despite them, not just wait around for me to stumble into education on my own.

Unschooling assumes kids will naturally seek out what they need. But neurodivergent kids often need explicit teaching of skills that neurotypical kids pick up incidentally. Social skills. Executive functioning. Self-regulation. These don't just emerge from 'following your interests.'

And here's the thing about learning disabilities specifically: I have dyscalculia, dyslexia, and dysgraphia. You know what doesn't help those? Waiting for me to become 'naturally interested' in reading, writing, or math. I needed specialized instruction. I needed someone who understood how my brain processed information differently. I needed interventions, strategies, and tools designed for people with learning disabilities.

If I'd been unschooled, I'd have avoided everything that was hard—which was reading, writing, and math. I would have never developed the skills I have now, limited as they still are. That's not educational freedom. That's abandonment.

And let's talk about mental illness. I've lived with depression. Some days, my interests include 'staring at the wall' and 'not dying.' If my education had been entirely interest-led during those periods, I would have learned nothing.

Unschooling also tends to ignore learning disabilities entirely. Kids with dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, or processing disorders need intervention, not the hope that they'll magically become interested in reading or math when they're 'developmentally ready.' That's just educational neglect with a progressive veneer.

The 'Natural Learning' Myth

Unschooling relies on this idea that learning is natural and kids will just... do it. But that's not how learning works, especially not for disabled kids.

Yeah, kids are naturally curious. But curiosity alone doesn't teach you to read, write, do math, understand history, or think critically. Those skills require *instruction*. They require someone with more knowledge scaffolding your learning, correcting misconceptions, pushing you past frustration, and adapting teaching methods to how your brain actually works.

Left entirely to their own devices, most kids will pursue what's easy and pleasurable. And that's fine for hobbies! But education needs to include things that are hard, that you don't initially want to do, that require discipline and effort.

I'm not saying kids should be forced to memorize state capitals or do busy work. But there's a middle ground between authoritarian schooling and complete educational abandonment.

The Parental Ego Trap

A lot of unschooling is driven by parental ego. Parents who want to be the 'cool' parent, the one who 'trusts' their kid, the one who rejects mainstream society. It's homeschooling for people who read The Libertarian Manifesto and thought 'but what if we applied this to children?'

But kids aren't little adults. They don't have the metacognitive skills to design their own education. They don't know what they don't know. And when parents refuse to provide structure or curriculum because they're ideologically committed to 'child-led learning,' that's not respect for the child—it's neglect.

And it's especially harmful to disabled kids, who often need adults to advocate for them, seek out appropriate resources, and provide the structure their brains require to function.

What Kids Actually Deserve

Kids deserve educational liberation, not educational abandonment.

They deserve learning environments that are anti-racist, anti-ableist, and anti-capitalist. They deserve teachers who are paid well and respected. They deserve curricula that teach accurate history, including the genocide of Indigenous peoples and the realities of colonialism and slavery. They deserve accommodations for disabilities and neurodivergence. They deserve specialized instruction for learning disabilities. They deserve to learn critical thinking, not rote memorization for standardized tests.

They deserve schools that are democratic and community-controlled, where kids have real input but also real support. They deserve a system that recognizes education as a collective responsibility, not something wealthy families can opt out of while everyone else suffers.

Unschooling isn't radical. It's not liberatory. It's just individualism dressed up as progressivism, and it leaves the most vulnerable kids—disabled kids, poor kids, kids without stable home environments—behind.

Abolish the current school system, yes. But replace it with something better—not with nothing.

🏴✊

[isuggestyouthliberation]

I want to be clear that this blog considers homeschooling, in the vast majority of situations, abuse. My advocation for unschooling assumes that it is a program in addition to public education, and my advocation for publication for an by children assumes that this is an endeavor also taken on by adults, in collaboration with them.

[unscooled]

being unschooled is just "hi my child. I think it'd be best if you raise yourself from now on. oh? are you struggling to raise yourself? well maybe you should try being more self directed. I will not give you any hints as to what could be missing in your life. happy tenth birthday. :)"

[doomtribble73]

[deathtoskinnyjeans]

A Twitter Thread from David Bowles:

[Text transcript at the end of the screenshots]

I'll let you in on a secret. I have a doctorate in education, but the field’s basically just a 100 years old. We don’t really know what we’re doing. Our scholarly understanding of how learning happens is like astronomy 2000 years ago.

Most classroom practice is astrology.

Before the late 19th century, no human society had ever attempted to formally educate the entire populace. It was either aristocracy, meritocracy, or a blend. And always male.

We’re still smack-dab in the middle of the largest experiment on children ever done.

Most teachers perpetuate the “banking” model (Freire) used on them by their teachers, who likewise inherited it from theirs, etc.

Thus the elite “Lyceum” style of instruction continues even though it’s ineffectual with most kids.

What’s worse, the key strategies we’ve discovered, driven by cognitive science & child psychology, are quite regularly dismissed by pencil-pushing, test-driven administrators. Much like Trump ignores science, the majority of principals & superintendents I’ve known flout research.

Some definitions:

Banking model --> kids are like piggy banks: empty till you fill them with knowledge that you're the expert in.

Lyceum --> originally Aristotle's school, where the sons of land-owning citizens learned through lectures and research.

Things we (scholars) DO know:

-Homework doesn't really help, especially younger kids.

-Students don't learn a thing from testing. Most teachers don't either (it's supposed to help them tweak instruction, but that rarely happens).

-Spending too much time on weak subjects HURTS.

Do you want kids to learn? Here's something we've discovered: kids learn things that matter to them, either because the knowledge and skills are "cool," or because .... they give the kids tools to liberate themselves and their communities.

Maintaining the status quo? Nope.

Kids are acutely aware of injustice and by nature rebellious against the systems of authority that keep autonomy away from them.

If you're perpetuating those systems, teachers, you've already freaking lost.

They won't be learning much from you. Except what not to become. Sure, you can wear them down. That's what happened to most of you, isn't it? You saw the hideous flaw in the world and wanted to heal it. But year after numbing year, they made you learn their dogma by rote.

And now many of you are breaking the souls of children, too.

For what?

It's all smoke and mirrors. All the carefully crafted objectives, units and exams.

WE. DON'T. KNOW. HOW. PEOPLE. LEARN.

We barely understand the physical mechanisms behind MEMORY. But we DO know kids aren't empty piggy banks. They are BRIMMING with thought.

The last and most disgusting reality? The thing I hear in classroom after freaking classroom?

Education is all about capitalism.

"You need to learn these skills to get a good job." To be a good laborer. To help the wealthy generate more wealth, while you get scraps.

THAT is why modern education is a failure.

Its basic premise is monstrous.

"Why should I learn to read, Dr. Bowles?"

Because reading is magical. It makes life worth living. And being able to read, you can decode the strategies of your oppressors & stop them w/ their own words.

[bellwether33]

5 Things I Wish People Understood About Homeschooling

So I’ve gone down the rabbit hole of internet homeschooling content, and I’ve seen a huge shift in right-wing creators being largely pro-homeschooling while left-wing creators are largely anti-homeschooling. As a former homeschooler (18 years, baby!) and left-leaning young adult, here’s some things I wish people considered before taking about this issue online:

1-Homeschooling requires some degree of economic privilege.

This typically involves one parent staying home while the other works, or both parents working part time. Homeschooling not only reduces income in a system build for dual-income households, but creates expenses such as schooling materials, socialization activities, and curriculum supports like online classes. Although most homeschool families will struggle financially at some point, being able to start homeschooling to begin with requires enough savings to support the family during the transition, and a high enough income for one parent to afford the other staying home.

2-Neurodivergence is one of the biggest reasons that parents choose to homeschool.

When a child is struggling in brick-and-mortar school due to neurodivergence, many parents who can afford to do so, will pull their children out either in the short-term or long-term. This could be due to learning disabilities , social struggles, bullying, or burnout from crowded overwhelming environments. I have seen a lot of cases where the child is able to learn more freely, follow their interests, and find more social success within a homeschooling community. I have also seen cases where parents pretend their child is neurotypical, and try to suppress the issues the child faces. When the underlying issues are not addressed, the child continues to struggle, without understanding that they face additional challenges compared to their peers. This is one of the easiest ways to create teenagers with horrible self esteem, anxiety disorders, and major depression.

3- Homeschooling may be motivated by religion, politics, health, learning disabilities, parental preference, etc.

The reason I was homeschooled? Because my mother thought it’d be fun, and wanted to have a strong bond with me. I know people who homeschool because they do not want their children learning about evolution, or critical race theory. I also know people who homeschool because they don’t want their children to learn an inaccurate history rife with racism, sexism, and erasure of minorities. Some parents want their children to have religion as a central part of their education, while others fear their children’s exposure to other religions. As mentioned above, difficulties in school may also cause parents to homeschool, as well as a fear of violence in schools.

4- Homeschooling is NOT abuse, but may enable it.

I believe the largest danger of homeschooling is not social isolation from peers, but isolation from other adults. There is (as far as we know) no correlation between homeschooling and child abuse. However, in cases where a homeschooled child is abused, there are often no safe adults to confide in, no one outside the family who can notice the signs, and no mandatory reporters. CPS will often only take action when multiple calls are made, so even if abuse occurs, the chances of enough people reporting it to launch a full investigation are much smaller than for a child in school. In cases of medical neglect, there is often no way to have the child treated in any way without parental consent. For example, in a teen experiencing a mental health crisis, although many states have laws allowing a minor to access a limited number of therapy sessions without parental consent, they would likely be unable to leave the house or use the internet for said therapy sessions, not to mention the cost.

5- Telling homeschoolers how “easy” or “hard” they have it is incredibly dismissive of our actual experiences.

As a kid, when I’d tell peers I was homeschooled, I was met with two responses: “Lucky! That must be so easy, just sitting around in your pajamas all day!”, and “Oh my God, if I were homeschooled I’d kill myself, you’ve gotta be so lonely and miserable!” I hope I don’t have to say how uncomfortable both of these are to respond to. It’s very invalidating to be told by your peers that you have it easy, are lazy, or live without consequences. Most homeschooled kids are doing the same, if not more difficult work than their peers. And of course, it does not feel great to be told anyone in your shoes would be miserable, especially if you’ve had a mostly positive experience.

I don’t speak for all homeschoolers, obviously. I had a very positive experiences, but know many people who had a very negative experience. As it becomes more mainstream in right-wing circles to homeschool, I beg you to think critically about the reasons people might be homeschooling. That little girl in the long dress who talks too much at the playground? She wasn’t being sheltered and abused, she was hyperfixated on the Oregon Trail. Homeschooling isn’t the devil, nor is it a perfect solution, but I beg you to listen to people before you judge them, or their parents.

[yourfavoritemadman]

I wish I wasn’t completely self taught. I was only taught elementary school level math and language , I didn’t grow up being taught history and science , I’ve had to self teach myself everything since I was 10, now I feel like a god damn failure in college. My grades aren’t even bad yet everyone else is just somehow ahead and better than me.

I feel stupid all the time. I just want to be told I’m not