6 Reasons Why I Choose to Unschool My Children

Many parents with families and people

planning their families have realized

that there are many alternatives to the

mainstream schooling system.

Whether it be homeschooling, unschooling,

Waldorf or Montessori, just to name a few

options, there are so many out there.

Today I am going to introduce you to my

friend, Lucy, at Life Without School

and she is going to share 6 reasons why

she chooses to unschool her children.

Here she is...

Lucy: Hi everybody! I'm Lucy.

I live in New Zealand in a yurt with my

2 children, Ramona who is 9 and Gina who
is 7.

And my partner, Tim.

One of the more radical parts of our life

is that we live a life totally without
school.

In fact, we live a life totally without

any curriculum whatsoever.

Some people call this unschooling, some

people call it whole life learning, but

it's really just living as humans have

lived for millennia. Which is learning by

doing and learning within your community.

Learning from those around you. Simply

experiencing rather than sitting behind a

desk being taught stuff that you're not

really that interested in.

It's really a paradigm that exists totally

outside of mainstream education.

And today I wanted to share with you

6 of the main reasons that we do it.

There's actually loads and loads, but

I've tried to distill them into 6.

When we became parents, one of the main

things we wanted to do is to provide an

environment for our children where they

could just blossom into who they were

inside without any of our molding or

shaping of them. I don't really think

that that is the the job of the parents.

I think the parents main role is to make

space for this unique human that has been

brought into their life. For us,

unschooling is really an extension of that
philosophy.

We just want to support our children and

the way they want to learn and what they

want to learn. Without them feeling any

need to conform to what we expect or what

we think, arbitrarily, they should be
learning.

So, the number 1 reason is that we want

our children to be able to learn in a way

that is free from shame. So, you know,

85% of adults have had an experience of

shaming in their school years that so

effected them that it impacts their adult
life.

That's 85%.
That's a huge majority of people.

And that's because mainstream education

uses shame and punishment as a way to get

such a massive group of kids learning what

teachers think is important. Shame can

have a pretty catastrophic impact on your

ability to really be yourself. So we

wanted to provide an environment where

our kids didn't experience that.

Even when they were learning in a way that

seemed pretty random or messy (laughs),

we could just make space for that

learning and how they wanted to do it.

I think because of the mainstream

education system we've made shame and

punishment quite an everyday part of the

human experience. We've kind of

normalized it and that has been done to

the detriment of our ability to create a

fair, just, and beautiful world.

Okay, number 2. Unschooling is curiosity

based learning. And we embrace that

because all of the studies show that

learning that is done where there is self

motivation, or a kind of seed of curiosity

is one, much more effective for learning

the actual thing that you are trying to

pick up, but also activates parts of your

brain that makes it easier for you to

learn anything that is coming up while

you are in that state. Also, thirdly,

studies show that curiosity allows

learning to be stored in your memory.

So, the learning when you are curious is

like a long term thing.

I can imagine that quite a lot of you

watching understand that on some level,

because how much of your schooling do you

actually remember?

For me, it is very little. I am a writer

and I have to google the difference

between noun and adjective (laughs)

on quite a regular basis.

The 3rd reason that we are unschoolers

is because we want to create a learning

environment that's totally stress free.

Just like learning without curiosity,

learning in a stressful environment is

such a waste of time. Stress has a huge

impact on your amygdala, which essentially

ends up sending information to the wrong

part of your brain, not to your higher

brain where you can rationally look at the

information and create a learning journey.

But it sends it down to the fight or

flight zone when you are in stress, so

your brain actually doesn't know what to

do with information when you are in a
stressful state.

There are some statistics about this,

saying that 65% of 12 year old school

children are stressed because of their

school environment. Obviously, that has

a massive impact on what they are actually

taking in, what information they are

actually taking in while they are in the
classroom.

But also, huge impacts on their mental

health and their physical health.

I just think that trying to raise

children in a constantly stressful

environment, because of testing and

competition, because of shame and

punishment, is just a super unhealthy
thing.

So, a typical day of unschooling might

involve us hanging around here. It often

involves us meeting up with friends and

doing different unschooling groups and

exploring the wild. It's always fun.

There might be conflict, but there is

space to figure out the conflicts so it

doesn't become a genuinely toxic or

stressful scenario. We're joy seekers

rather than stressed out learners.

4, we are unschooling because we believe

that you are learning all of the time.

Learning doesn't begin at 5 and ends

at 18 when you leave formal education

But most parents get this, right?

You don't try to teach your child to walk

or talk, you just know that they're
going to

pick those things up by being in a walky,
talky

kind of environment. And we just believe

that that continues on. Nothing needs to

change when they turn a certain age.

Our kids are 7 and 9 now, and they are

reading, writing, doing art, creating,

making things, doing heaps of math,

like genuine love of math. And they are

just doing it by living. There has never

been a sit down, formal class for my
children.

They always just learn through their

experience of being human. And, actually,

as adults we do this all the time. If we

want to learn something new as an adult

we will just find a way to access it.

In the last few years I have taught myself

how to play the ukulele, I've taught

myself how to make electronic digital

music (laughs). I've built a business.

I've done absolutely loads of things like

moving almost into mastery of some of
those things

simply by accessing the resources that

will help me. Even doctors do this when

they get presented with a case that they

don't really know what's going on.

They might ring some colleagues, they

might look up online, or delve into their

books in order to get to the bottom this

new illness or this new case.

That is really essentially unschooling.

It's learning through doing.

The 5th reason we are unschooling is

because we just trust our children and we

want them to learn that they can trust

themselves. Our children know that their

instincts are good, that their urges are

good, that their needs are valuable.

Whereas I think mainstream education can

really undermine a child's trust in

themselves. They're told to learn this in

this moment, and then a bell rings and

they're told to switch their mind over to

the new thing and learn that thing.

They're told to mistrust their body's

desire to move when it wants to move.

We even ask children, through schooling,

to trespass on their own boundaries, both

mentally and physically, quite a lot

through mainstream education. And through

unschooling we kind of do the opposite

of this. We say, what you are feeling is

good, your needs are good, I trust you and

you can trust yourself.

And that leads me to the 6th reason

that we are unschooling and that's all

about world change. When i first began

this whole unschooling thing I just

thought, ya we're doing this because this

is what works for our family and this is

the path we've been called to. But the

more that I'm immersed in this world,

I've actually come to believe that

unschooling and other forms of alternative

education are really the embodiment of

the just and peaceful, loving world that

I think is possible. I believe that

mainstream education, as it stands, with

it's shame, punishment, testing,

competitive nature...you know, ranking

kids against each other...I believe that

is like the seedbed of some of society's

most problematic issues. We're coming

into this understanding that we are

actually not born competitive.

We're born cooperative, that's our human

nature, I really believe that. I think

through the schooling system we pit kids

against each other and that bleeds into

the rest of society. There's almost like

a collective societal wound from our

school days and it makes itself known in

individuals in a different way. So, some

people are people pleasers, some people

are afraid of authority or afraid to rock

the boat. A lot of people feel that they

are just not intrinsically good enough.

A lot of people struggle to rest and play.

This is all stuff that we learn through

our schooling years, when we are being

shunted from one activity to the other

with our minds placed in somebody elses'

hands. These days I tend to think that

mainstream education is one of the

strongholds of capitalism.

Raising people who are so

unhappy and mistrust themselves so

much with so much mental anguish that we

have to consume and fight in order to

feel okay. Oooh, got a little bit heavy

there (laughs). But for me, that makes

sense, when you place children for 15,

or more, of their formative years into an

institution that's kind of what you get.

Those are 6 of the reasons that we've

chosen unschooling. I'm super happy to

answer any questions that you have and the

unschooling world is very friendly, so if

you want to jump on board this ship we

would welcome you with open arms.

That sounds a bit weird and cult-y, it's

not really like that. There's too much

anarchy for it to be cult-y. (laughs)

Rob: I hope that you got a lot out of that

time with Lucy. If you did, make sure to

subscribe to her channel where she shares

a lot of valuable information on teaching

children in a home setting.

And make sure to subscribe to this

channel, as well, for a lot more great
videos to come.

I love you all very much and see you again
real soon!