Is Educational Freedom Really So Hard To Understand?

So by now anyone involved in the homeschooling community has heard about the homeschooling piece produced on Good Morning America, which was specifically about unschooling. If you haven’t seen the video, here’s the link.

After this aired, they received such a response, they had the parents back on and they were able to explain a bit more about unschooling and what they do. Here’s the link for that interview.

Then Joy Behar interviewed them which gave them yet another chance to explain their view of the unschooling philosophy. Here’s the link to the Behar interview.

All of this created a lot of action online. What I found most interesting is how so many people were making definitive judgments about a topic based on a 5-minute news story based on a single family.

The judgmental people exhibited no inherent curiosity to learn more, to dig into the topic further in order to get a broader understanding of what to them was a completely new idea about learning and education.

And that in itself says all we need to know about the present-day state of education. Our system teaches students to react exactly in this manner. To listen to a 5 minute lecture from the "teacher" who is the "authority" and supposedly gives them everything they need to know about the topic.

However, I know there are those out there who do understand that learning about something new takes time and requires looking at a variety of resources.

So that’s why I wanted to do these interviews, to create a fun and comfortable place where people could grab just a glimpse of what it’s like to live with lots and lots of educational freedom and see how differently it plays out in each individual family.

Many people who have responded to my interview request are self-proclaimed unschoolers, but the most important thing is not unschooling, it's freedom.

Freedom is what creates the specific educational environment that works well for each family.

That’s the main lesson I would like for the general public to learn.

Was John Holt Libertarian?

Finally, finally, finally, someone did a "history" of sorts on John Holt and his developing philosophy as he studied and analyzed the topics of learning and education.

This video discusses Holt and how he "reasoned himself into libertarianism," which was something that I always thought must be the case, and also because I feel as if I did the same thing and it began by reading many of Holt's writings.

I highly, highly recommend this podcast for everyone whether you think you know all about John Holt or somehow have never heard of him until now.

None of Her Children are Wired To Code: Laureen Hudson's Interview

For this interview, we are going to visit Laureen Hudson and her family who live in the San Francisco Bay area. Well, to be more exact, they actually live IN the San Francisco Bay - on a boat. She blogs at The Excellent Adventure and also has some homeschool writings here.

In addition to living in the Bay, Laureen and her family are planning a round the world voyage. In the meantime though, they are teaching people a thing or two about real-world socialization...


1. How long have you been homeschooling (or if finished, how long did you homeschool)?

Officially, just two years, but y'know, learning begins at birth.

2. One of the main benefits of homeschooling is the freedom and flexibility it allows. Can you give us a few examples of how this freedom and flexibility benefited you (your family)?

This is so completely huge, that it's hard to narrow down to just a few things. Here's my top three:

1) Unschooling the world

We live on a 47' catamaran, and are planning a round the world voyage. That's completely impossible to do in a traditional schooling framework. And I can't see trying to maintain a standard learning path while being in the middle of a journey like we're planning. They'll be immersed in such a wide range of topics; meteorology, navigation, oceanography, biology, mechanics, physics, language, culture, food, topography, physical education...

I can't see trying to slow that down or alter it to fit what a group of strangers think is "appropriate" or "typical" for kids of their ages. What they'll be doing with their lives isn't typical, so it seems sorta Procrustean to try to make their education fit a typical mold.

2) Unschooling nurture

We have three children, three years apart. I deeply believe that learning to be a family, to be together, to care for little ones, depends on actually doing it, being there in the thick of it with siblings. I feel that age-segregating kids into classrooms might be a big contributor to how completely disconnected we are from how to nurture.

And at the other end of the spectrum, my father died this last year, and we were able to drop everything and rocket out there to be with him for a few weeks before the end, and be with Mom for a few weeks after. You can't do that kind of thing when the all important school schedule controls your life.

And I can't help but think that being removed from those sorts of life experiences is part of why our culture handles them, generally, so poorly. Before school, kids were part of the entire range of life experiences through their family and their neighbors, and now, most people have never seen a birth or a death. My kids have seen both, and I fully believe it's more enriching than memorizing prepositions.

3) Unschooling our lifestyle

None of my kids is wired to code. Part of that is because of our liveaboard lifestyle.

At 4, Rowan was totally capable of disassembling our space heaters, cleaning them, and reassembling them. It's not on the preschool curriculum, um, anywhere, but it's a talent he has.

Kestrel has a really amazing emotional intelligence; he actually seeks out people who are sad or withdrawn, and draws them out. Again, not a curriculum item, but a talent he has.

I cannot see any rational person placing making paper chains above these kinds of real world, practical skills.

3. Another benefit of homeschooling is the fun factor. Can you give us a few examples of some especially fun times you had as a result of homeschooling?

Every single morning, we hang out on someone's bed, and cuddle, and talk about our days and our dreams, and sip tea and hang out. We only have to rocket out of bed, eat breakfast, and dash off someplace if there's a previously-agreed-upon adventure that requires it. And maybe my sights are really low, but I think that those mornings are the sort of fun you look back on and say "Life? Life is good."

I love being able to say "yes!" Let's go. Let's do. Let's. Yes. These things are fun, and fun is good. =)

4. We all have funny experiences while homeschooling. Can you share one of yours with us?

We live in a marina currently, and a marina full of liveaboards is a lot like an oldtime small town. Everyone knows everyone, everyone is sort of in everyone else's business. Every so often, we have bonfires up at the firepit on shore, and the whole marina comes out to hang out and socialize together. And it's the sort of thing where I feel totally comfortable letting my kids loose, because everyone kinda looks out for them.

One person had brought a friend of theirs to the event, who did not know my children. Being thoroughly social, both my boys pounced on the newcomer, dragging him around introducing him to people, offering him food, generally being the welcoming committee.

Eventually, the topic of homeschooling came up (as it does), and this newcomer, with a totally straight face, said to me, "But, if they're not going to school, what about socialization?"

One of our neighbors literally punched the guy in the arm, and said "What are you, stupid? You've been interacting with those kids for three hours, clearly they're more socialized than you are!"

Free Range Learning: Laura Weldon's Interview

Laura tells us that her family is a bit odd but I don't think so. Just look at these quite normal photos she sent me:







See what I mean? A perfectly normal fun-loving homeschooling family. Laura and her perfectly normal homeschooling family live in Ohio, on a small family farm they call Bit Of Earth.

After you read her interview below, you might want to have more fun by visiting her website/blog where you can learn more about Laura and her new book coming out this spring, Free Range Learning: How Homeschooling Changes Everything.

But first, let's hear Laura expound on the finer points of growing toe bacteria...

1. How long have you been homeschooling (or if finished, how long did you homeschool)?

We’re going on our thirteenth year.

2. One of the main benefits of homeschooling is the freedom and flexibility it allows. Can you give us a few examples of how this freedom and flexibility benefited you (your family)?

More and more I see that following our interests (mine too!) is an extraordinarily powerful way to learn.

For example, my daughter got interested in forensic science when she was around 12 or 13, probably due to mysteries she’d been reading. Because she was interested she did the following, all generated by her own passion to learn:

• She read anatomy and pathology books, even contacting some of the authors with follow-up questions.
• She did dissections on her own and with other homeschoolers.
• She performed necropsies on animals that died here on our farm (it’s actually quite helpful to know that a chicken died of a blocked oviduct and not a respiratory disease).
• She conducted a systematic study of decomposition by watching a muskrat over a period of weeks as it went from road kill to dust and bones.

The phase of intense interest passed but this powerful introduction to science served her well when she entered college. She’d never taken a “real” science class or lab before becoming a college student, yet graduated summa cum laude with a degree in biology last year.

Our interests lead us all over. Because the rest of us are less disciplined than my daughter we pursue one thing or many things for a while, then drift off in other directions. I tell my kids nothing we learn is wasted. Skills and knowledge gained while pursuing interests stick with us.

The creative intensity and precision my son brought to making his own rocket designs from balsa when he was eight years old now benefits him as he delves ever farther into electronics, geology, music, photography and his other current passions.

3. Another benefit of homeschooling is the fun factor. Can you give us a few examples of some especially fun times you had as a result of homeschooling?

All of us are odd and sarcastic and completely ourselves, not caring much what others think of us. We’ve come up with homeschool projects that appalled our friends, such as the time we grew cultures from bacteria we swabbed between our toes. Yes, it became a competition as we checked on those petri dishes and no, we haven’t really looked at the winner’s feet quite the same way since.

We also suffer from the ridiculous idea that what we find fascinating could be fascinating to everyone else if we just explain it sufficiently, so our dinner table conversations are a zigzag of topics that tonight included caddis fly mating habits, plasma welding techniques, the best socks for backpackers and a Supreme Court ruling.

4. We all have funny experiences while homeschooling. Can you share one of yours with us?

I’ll admit to dragging my kids around to a few art galleries one day, sure they’d find something thrilling. They weren’t entranced by the armadillo made of repurposed catcher’s mitts or the screens playing cartoons backwards.

They were, however thrilled to see me run full speed ahead toward the meter maid approaching our van with ticket book in hand. Justice had been served in their eyes. Now when I mention art galleries they remind me cheerfully the meter has expired on experiencing culture.

Learning Happens Spontaneously: Beatrice's Interview

Beatrice and her family live in Hamilton Ontario and she's been involved in Radio Free School, "an all volunteer weekly radio show by, for, and about, Unschoolers/Home-based Learners."

1. How long have you been homeschooling (or if finished, how long did you homeschool)?

I have three daughters ages 14, 12 and 11. My two older girls started public school a little over a year ago. Prior to that they had never been to school. My youngest is still at home with me.

2. One of the main benefits of homeschooling is the freedom and flexibility it allows. Can you give us a few examples of how this
freedom and flexibility benefited you (your family)?

Even though my oldest two go to school now, we still practice 'freedom in learning' at home. I let them sleep in and skip school if they so wish to and they can tag along if there's a particularly fun outing we are planning. This happened just the other day when daughter no 2 skipped school to go cross country skiing for her first time with daughter #3 teaching her how it's done.

They had a great time together making snow angels, throwing snow balls at each other, climbing trees really bonding as sisters-something we miss when she goes to school.

With my youngest we are able to plan our day (given some restrictions such as my work and her scheduled classes) as we see fit. If we decide to go to the art gallery, or ice skating there is no one to stop us! It's great because learning happens spontaneously in this way.

We are talking for example, and then the question comes up in the conversation "how long do turtles live?" We go straight to the computer and find out. We don't need to wait for a teacher to answer the question.

This leads to other questions, related or not, so we have a picture of what authentic learning is like-it is meaningful to the learner herself. We can delve into information as deeply or as little as we like. Keeps learning and being in this world fresh and engaging.

3. Another benefit of homeschooling is the fun factor. Can you give us a few examples of some especially fun times you had as a result of homeschooling?

Fun is always good and I personally am guilty of not having enough of it!

Still when I see my daughters laughing together with their father over a youtube video of crazy trampoline mishaps or when we get together with other families for skating and hot chocolate while other families are off at work and school, it makes me feel lucky we have this kind of a lifestyle.

4. We all have funny experiences while homeschooling. Can you share one of yours with us?

When we still had the weekly radio show we put on for over 7 years, we had the opportunity to visit an archaeologist at the local university and held a 2 million year old piece of poo from a cave in China! Not funny exactly but we had a lot of fun joking about it!

I Heard Aboout It First On School Sucks Podcast

I just finished listening to an episode on the School Suck Podcast series titled, The Decentralization of Information and Communication. I really liked this episode. It was filled with such optimism about the future of education now that we have so much opportunity because of technological advancements.

In this episode the host Brett Veinotte interviews the creators of a new website called Alekese. This is just one project of many out there of people experimenting with online learning and making connections with others for learning.

This post is titled as it is because Brett likes the potential of this particular project so much that he predicts it's really going to take off and change education and information access for the future.

The site is pretty new but it still includes quite a bit of interesting information. It's useful for those in the homeschooling community not only for the obvious reason of a method of freely accessing information on learning a topic in an organized fashion, but also for those who have developed expertise in a certain topic because anyone can start a "tree" of information.

Who knows, Brett may be right and it may indeed explode so go check it out and see what you think.

Living the Homeschool Adventure in an RV: Tonya's Interview

Tonya and her family are from Ohio but for the past 4 years she and her family have been traveling around together in an RV. She writes about their travels on her Live The Adventure blog.

Here is a photo she sent in that shows, from Left to right Joshua, 14, Nickolaus, 16 and Chelsea 13, taking a break from an important creek exploration endeavor:


Let's see what other activities they've done during their explorations traveling in their RV...

1. How long have you been homeschooling (or if finished, how long did you homeschool)?

My husband and I have homeschooled our three children for the past 11 years. With the exception of preschool for the older two, they’ve never been in a typical school setting and only attended preschool that one brief year because I had a panic attack and decided that NO Way could I ever homeschool my children.

At the time I simply did not realize that homeschooling would have been just more of the same things I was already doing with my children, reading tons of picture books, counting Cheerios, creating beautiful tiny masterpieces using finger paints, riding bikes and exploring nature at the park. So away to “school” they went, one of the biggest mistakes I’d yet to make.

They spent the year sick, with every imaginable ailment they could catch from the snotty nosed 4 and 5 year olds. I spent the year immersed in homeschooling how to books, websites and catalogs and just bided my time looking forward to the adventure ahead.

Since my children are so close in age, they all started school at the same time. So though only one was of compulsory age, the other two begged me to homeschool them as well. So I did and it’s been all fun and games since then….well…not exactly….

2. One of the main benefits of homeschooling is the freedom and flexibility it allows. Can you give us a few examples of how this freedom and flexibility benefited you (your family)?

I’m grateful that homeschooling has allowed me flexibility, especially in the curriculum and methods I’ve used over the years. Like many who have been raised with a public school background, what I detested became a blueprint for our homeschool. I bought textbooks, workbooks and a school desk and thought the more structured we were the better. Well, it wasn’t long before we were all in tears and my boys wanted to go back to preschool where school was fun.

I realized that I needed to put some fun in our school. I remembered what I had read in my research and decided we’d try a unit study, then we’d follow the philosophy of Charlotte Mason. Eventually we decided to unschool. If you ask me now, I’d say we take an eclectic Charlotte Mason/Unschooling approach to school.

I’m a huge fan of reading and believe that if my kids can read, they can learn anything they need or want to know. But reading did not come easy to my boys. I struggled in vain to teach them for years before we finally found a reading specialist that suggested they see a special eye doctor. It turned out that they both needed extensive vision therapy, though one has 20/20 vision. Their eyes just don’t focus the same way mine do. I don’t know how many times the specialists I saw told me to be thankful that my boys were schooled at home. They would have easily slipped through the cracks in a public school setting- plus, we’d have to deal with other issues that could go along with that, such acting out and other behavioral problems.

Finally, homeschooling has allowed my family the benefit of traveling full-time with my husband’s job for the past four years. Had we chosen not to homeschool, this never would have been an option for our family. My family would have been split apart as my husband traveled and the kids and I were left at home. Now we don’t have to wait to see him on weekends for a short visit, we are with him wherever he goes. This lifestyle has really enhanced our homeschooling experience because not only are we able to travel with my husband, we are able to see things that before we’d only read about in books.

3. Another benefit of homeschooling is the fun factor. Can you give us a few examples of some especially fun times you had as a result of homeschooling?

I just love to be with my kids- I think they’re fun! My daughter jokes that she brings ‘fun-tertainment’ to the family; and she’s right, she certainly does. Living in the close quarters of our motor home, we certainly all need to have a sense of humor.

When I asked my children for their opinions on what's been fun, they reminded me of many of the trips we’ve taken. When we were learning about early America and the Revolutionary War we were able to visit Jamestown, Yorktown, Colonial Williamsburg and many other historic sites in Virginia.

We found a lost kitty at the lost colony of Roanoke, camped at the site of a Civil War battle and read the journal of a soldier who fought there while studying bullets and other artifacts that had been found on the grounds, and spent a terrifying night amidst the Wild Ponies at Assateague Island National Seashore after reading Misty of Chincoteague.

When my children think back to their homeschooling experience, they’ll remember many of the trips that we’ve taken that have become a way of life for our family.

4. We all have funny experiences while homeschooling. Can you share one of yours with us?

I’ll never forget how fun our unit study of Ancient Egypt was about five years ago before we began traveling. While we were home, I was the Queen of Projects so we completed just about everything I could think of during the course of our unit.

One of our favorite activities was to mummify an orange and apple. After carefully, ceremoniously wrapping the mummies in muslin dipped in a water/glue solution, we placed the mummies on the front porch to dry and headed out to run some errands. Imagine our surprise to find an entire flock of black crows pecking at our mummies upon our return home! The kids were horrified and then made jokes about their mummies not making it to the afterlife.