There was an interesting article about Unschooling on the front page of today�s New York Times. I�m kind of fascinated by unschooling, a subset of homeschooling that puts the children in charge of their own educations. In principal, I�m opposed unschooling in its unadulterated form as a sole method of education, because I think kids need some guidance and balance and I think there are some kinds of things best learned in school, although these things are not necessarily related to the curriculum. Schools are possibly the best place to get a sense of how our society at large functions with all of its strengths and weaknesses. Regardless of how you feel about the society in which we live, our kids need to learn how to function in such a society as much as they need to learn how to read and write and add. Kids who grow up thinking they always get to decide what they will do will have a cold awakening when they try to function in an entry level job or even in college. I don�t think we do them any favors by failing to introduce them to the notions of hierarchy and bureaucracy. I also feel strongly that kids need to learn to build relationships with adults unrelated to them and with children while away from their parents. This latter item can be accomplished in other ways, but generally isn�t.

That said, though, I like the way unschooling builds a sense of autonomy for children � something they sorely lack much of the time, even more so than when I was a kid. When we were kids, we could come and go as we pleased (as long as our homework was done) and could run around the neighborhood with our friends (as long as we didn�t cross the busy street at the end of our block). And I love the way it makes education just what a kid does, it is pleasure and entertainment, not a chore, not something that removes a child from his comfort zone against his will. The rules probably make more sense because they�re designed just for the children in question and not as a way of keeping chaos at bay in a large class of children with wildly different backgrounds. And for kids like AJ � or me, as a child, for that matter � following their lead is a great way to get an education. AJ�s interests have led us to study math, science, reading, writing, history, music and art. And who knows, maybe all kids would be self-motivated if given the right tools and the chance.

And there are definitely problems with our experience of school so far, namely that it encourages social conformity, something that, we have learned, has AJ at times pretending not to know things he does know so that he fits in. I try to reinforce at home that he should never sell himself short, he should stand up for what he believes and what he knows, but part of me doesn�t believe it. I remember what school was like. Often it was easier � better � to be camouflaged.

In some ways, you could say that we are unschooling AJ. Although he goes to school, we tend to think of school as day care and Socialization 101. I would never want to homeschool or unschool an only child in any case � it puts too much intensity on the family unit. But for the last few years, I�ve pretty much followed AJ around with stuff to help him learn. If he so much as mentions a question about, say, the stars, I show up with a book about stars, a star chart, a telescope. We take a trip to the library for more books and videos. We go to the Planetarium. It may sound like a lot of work � it probably is. But it doesn�t feel like work; it�s fun for both of us.

When I was a kid, I used to fill the yawning summer vacation with my own projects. The summer before fourth grade, for example, I remember checking out a bunch of books about Russia and some books about the language. I spent the summer teaching myself to read Russian. I didn�t get beyond anything very elementary and I forgot it later when we moved overseas and I had new things to do. But the process of having figured out a topic for myself and figured out on my own how to find out more about it was invaluable. It was, in fact, probably a major factor in my choice of my present line of work.

The thing both AJ and I have in common is a certain amount of resources. We don�t have a ton of money, but we have some and we choose to spend it on things like books and music and things to keep our lives interesting. One thing I noticed about the Times article is that even as it seemed to be only half-heartedly trying not to call unschoolers crackpots, the pictures that accompanied the article seemed to speak something different. The cover photo shows a bunch of children in a pile of books on the floor, as the youngest one tries to pull still more books from a canvas bag on the sofa. The books are colorful, interesting, varied and the kids look absorbed. Another photo showed an orderly apartment full of interesting things to look at, including an abacus that a child in the foreground is playing with. They looked inviting, exciting, stimulating. Who wouldn�t want to learn in such an environment? What�s crackpot about that?

Unschooling isn�t unschooling if the parents don�t have the resources to back it up; it�s negligence. Unschooling only works for a very few. You need parents who are home with their kids, parents who are well educated and innovative in their thinking. You need parents with the financial ability to supply the educational tools and materials their children need, not only things to follow up on their educational pursuits, but materials that help encourage children to want to find things out in the first place. Strangely, the article, for me at least, had the affect of both giving me more respect for unschooling and also for schools.

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