Defining What We Do

by Beverley Paine, Aut 2012, revised Jan 2020

I am often asked what is the difference between homeschooling and unschooling?

What is the difference between homeschooling and unschooling?

I find that I used to use the term homeschooling more often than any other descriptor because people seem to instantly understand what I'm talking about. I now prefer the term home education as a generic term but even now still get a few blank or confused looks. In the last few years unschooling has become a popular term and some think it is the same as homeschooling - it isn't.

Home educating is taking responsibility for and control of your children's education personally instead of delegating it to a school or teacher. You select from a huge range of pedagogical approaches and learning materials and resources. Unschooling may be one of these. As is homeschooling, or as it sometimes known, 'school-at-home'. With homeschooling you proceed as your child's teacher, with your home as a resource-rich classroom, usually using the whole community as a resource too. You might organise lessons for your children in the different subjects, have a time table or schedule, and generally follow the curriculum in a sequential, organised manner.

Unschooling is quite a bit different: it is a rejection of the traditional reasons for schooling children and the methods used to educate them. That is, segmenting learning into chunks and spoon feeding it according to a set timetable as though children are passive receivers of knowledge and skills. Unschooling is respecting children and young people as individuals and capable learners. It is trusting in their innate natural learning ability. Instead of teaching children what we think they ought to know because someone else says they should, we help them learn what they need to learn in order to grow and develop. It's much more than an approach to the education of children, it's a way of life.

Natural learning, sometimes used as a way to describe unschooling, is simply celebrating the fact that everyone learns all the time and that by reflecting on the processes by which we learn we can become more focused in meeting our learning needs efficiently, achieving our goals and purposes in our own way and time frame.

Radical unschoolers take the principles of unschooling and apply it holistically across all areas of life, not just to the 'education' of their children. It's not simply living without school and the whole school paradigm of education, and it's way more than living without 'boundaries' and 'rules' - it's living with trust and respect, relationships and connections as the drivers of all actions.

All of the above are effective and successful ways to approach the education of your child.

The aim of The Educating Parent is to help others deschool (question and challenging our conditioning about the role and purpose of education) so that they can fully enjoy learning at home with their children no matter what approach to education they adopt. As educating parents we will find that what, how and why of what we're doing constantly changes as it meets the changing needs of our growing children and our family circumstances.

See also About Home Education