Probably like most parents, we started thinking about Ella's education when she was 2.5 years old. Where would we send her to preschool? Because everyone knows that two years of preschool is imperative to a successful year of kindergarten...right? So I started to research preschools: Montessori preschools, the Waldorf method, play-based preschools, junior kindergarten, and much more. However, the more I read, the more anxious I became at the thought of sending my barely-old-enough-to-use-the-toilet little girl off to school all by herself. After all, I only get five short years with my kids until I have to ship them off to kindergarten, so why should I start right now? I wanted to savour all the moments I could before then. So we decided to hold off on preschool for a year.
The next week (at least that's what it felt like), she was 3.5 and I started thinking about preschool again. Surely we should send her this year. How would she ever survive kindergarten without going to preschool first? But as much as I tried, I just couldn't get my thoughts past all those reasons we had come up with the year before. She was still so little! And I loved her even more this year than last year! There was no way I could let her go yet, so preschool was out.
All of a sudden, however, she was 4.5, kindergarten was looming and my anxiety was returning. So I began researching all over again. I looked through the provincial records for the public schools in our area, I thought about French Immersion, I researched the new "outdoor school" in our district, I considered Christian school and private school. I even found an amazing private school, but with three kids and a yearly tuition of $13,000 per child, I knew that was not an option. So I just tried not to think about it, and figured I'd end up in the line-up at one of the best public schools on kindergarten registration day, just like everyone else.
But then I had a conversation that shook up our world and challenged my thinking. A good friend had just decided that she was going to homeschool her children, and as we were chatting one night, I asked her about it. Honestly, at first, I wondered why anyone would want to do that. It seemed like a lot of work, and you wouldn't get a break from your kids, EVER. But she was very patient with all my questions and explained why it was the best choice for her family. I knew that she was right and that her lovely children would thrive at home.
Out of curiosity, I asked my friend what homeschooling was actually like, since I hadn't ever thought about it. I assumed that it was just like school, except the kids could wear pajamas and get their work done faster because there weren't other kids to hold them back. That is when I first heard the term "unschooling." She explained to me that they wouldn't be using a curriculum at all. No workbooks, no tests, no grades, no assignments. Basically, no school. That is when I really started to ask questions. If there was no curriculum, what would they learn? If there were no tests, how would you know if they were learning? If there were no grades, how would they graduate? It just didn't make sense to me.
So, of course, I did what I always do when I come across something that I don't understand: I started to research. I looked at website after website, read blogs, found research studies, read books, and watched videos and documentaries. The simplest definition of unschooling I have found is from Sandra Dodd, who said, "Unschooling is creating and maintaining an atmosphere in which natural learning can flourish." That's it. No requirements, no curriculum, no tests, no workbooks, no pressure. Just create a fun, engaging, loving, accepting home environment, and learning will happen. Focus on building a good relationship with my kids, and learning will happen. Introduce them to new, exciting, interesting things (and people), and learning will happen. Play with them, be with them, talk to them, trust them, and learning will happen.
The more I learned about unschooling, the more sense it made to me. I don't think I would have ever considered homeschooling (because if you're going to learn the same stuff at home, you might as well do it at school), but unschooling was different: My kids could learn what they wanted when they wanted. Why should they have to learn about pond life in grade 4, or Ancient Egypt in grade 7? Why should they have to wait until grade 8 to read Shakespeare?
Essentially, for me, it boiled down to this: we go to school to learn how to learn. Once we are finished with school, we need to know how to learn on our own (just like I learned about unschooling). By sending our kids to school to learn how to learn, what they are actually learning is:
1) you only need to learn what the people in charge tell you to learn,
2) you only need to learn what will be tested,
3) after you are tested, you can forget what you learned,
and 4) the reason for learning is to get into the next grade, the next class, the next school, the next job.
Unschooling teaches kids that learning is intrinsically good, enjoyable and useful. It allows them to fail without feeling the pressure to succeed (and some excellent learning happens when we fail). It gives them the freedom to explore what they are interested in. And, most importantly for us, unschooling allows the family unit to remain intact; instead of going our separate ways for 80% of the day, we are able to live together, learn together, grow together, be together. My kids are best friends, and I love that. We, as their parents, are the primary influence on their development, and I love that. I get to be there every time they have an "eureka" moment, and I love that (you know the feeling you get when your baby takes his first steps, or says his first word? I get that feeling every day when my kids finish their first Sudoku puzzle, read their first book, or solve their first math equation).
On top of all this, I also read a lot about the compulsory school system, and I did not like what I heard. Basically, I learned that the purpose of our education system is to raise up compliant, mediocre employees. It teaches people to submit to authority, it kills the desire to learn, it treats all students the same, it puts kids in competition with each other from the age of 5, it is a toxic environment for socialization, and so much more. I was horrified. Not only did unschooling sound great, but school was starting to sound worse and worse. (As a side note, I encourage EVERY PARENT to learn more about the education system; Weapons Of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto is an excellent place to start, and you can order it from your library.)
In conclusion, after all that I learned, I could not imagine ever enrolling my kids in school. I see no benefit to school, and the damage it could do to my kids is far too great a risk. I love my kids, I love our family, and I know with all my heart that this is the best choice for us.
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