Unschooling (also sometimes referred to as "natural learning", "child-led learning", "discovery learning", or "child-directed learning") is the term given to an increasingly popular method of homeschooling. Under unschooling education, parents act as "facilitators" and are responsible for having a wide-range of resources available to provide their children with a quality education.

Proponents of unschooling have a variety of reasons to support their position. Some argue that institutionalizing a child in what they consider a factory model public school is an inefficient use of a child's time since it is one size fits all and is oppressive in the forcing of subjects on a child regardless of whether the child is interested. Proponents may also claim that individualized, child-led learning is more efficient and respectful of a child's time, takes advantage of a child's interests, and allows learning and exploration in depth rather than shallow coverage of a broad range of subjects. It is not what subject matter that the child learns that is important, but that the child learns how to learn and learn in depth. Given that, if later, as an adult, he finds there was some subject or nuance that he missed in his education, he will be able to acquire it on his own.

The term unschooling was coined by John Holt, author of 10 books on education. John Holt founded the unschooling magazine Growing Without Schooling.

A similar model is sometimes used in schools, such as the Sudbury Valley School.

Prominent unschooling advocates

• Catherine Baker
• John Holt
• John Taylor Gatto
• Grace Llewellyn
• Patrick Farenga
• Valerie Fitzenreiter

Resources

• The Teenage Liberation Handbook by Grace Llewellyn
• The Day I Became an Autodidact by Kendall Hailey
• Growing Without Schooling defunct magazine founded by John Holt
• How Children Learn by John Holt
• The Unprocessed Child: Living Without School by Valerie Fitzenreiter

External links

• Unschooling.org
• Unschooling.com, website with essays and forums
• History of unschooling
• Growing Without Schooling
• John Holt Bookstore
• Unschooling in France - "to live together" and not "educate" (links in English too)
• Unschooling & Social Change
• Shikshantar: The People's Institute for Rethinking Education and Development
• Unschooling web ring hub
• Unschooler's Network web ring hub
• unschooling resources at Pura Vida