Hi, I'm Pam Laricchia. Our family is a wonderful web of three teenage children (Joseph, Lissy, and Michael), me, and my husband, Rocco. We've been happily unschooling in Ontario, Canada since 2002. Nice to meet you.
As background, I thought I'd share a bit about my life before, and my journey to, unschooling. Having earned an Engineering and Management degree through a unique five-year university program, I was firmly entrenched in the public and post-secondary education system, as were all my family and friends. Soon after, I was happily married and had children. But even as my parenting began veering from the mainstream, it didn't occur to me to question the system when my eldest reached school age. I do remember thinking it would be an interesting ride when we walked out of Joseph's junior kindergarten teacher interview, during which he didn't say a word to answer her questions. He smiled and explained to me that he didn't feel like talking to her today, but that he'd speak to her once he started school. I laughed and tousled his hair.
In those first years some teachers were more flexible, while others were quite determined to shave off his uniqueness. I researched, I left my career to stay home full-time, and I worked with his teachers and principals to try to help them better understand him. I even gave a presentation about spirited kids at a teachers meeting and donated books to the library for other parents. Most of the teachers understood what I was talking about, but their feedback was that they don't have the time to work with kids outside the personalities and learning styles that mesh with the classroom setting. The kids have to fit the surroundings, not the other way around. It became clear to me that he would not thrive in public school. In my continued quest to find a learning environment that worked well for him, I found a specialized private school. The environment was better—the teachers and staff are being paid to work outside the typical lines—but still not great.
Then, through still more research, I came across the concept of homeschooling and was thrilled to discover it was legal where we lived. Rocco and I discussed it at length over the next couple of weeks and realized that there seemed no downside to trying it out for a year; if it didn't work out they could return to school. It was March Break and none of the kids went back. They were ecstatic with their newly-found playtime and I was now happily researching homeschooling. I soon discovered the notion of unschooling and after a couple weeks of trying to entice them to do some workbooks, I realized I was hindering, not helping, their learning. We spent the next months deschooling and living and having a great time. We still are!
There were five ideas along the way that really helped me to shift my mindset and to understand the potential of unschooling. Of course I didn't know that these would turn out to be such influential ideas for me. At the time I was just deeply immersed in learning all I could about unschooling and living joyfully with my children.
And I loved learning about unschooling! I still do. As I began to more fully understand the common issues surrounding unschooling, I was inspired to help others learn about it as well. I began by developing a website, and named it livingjoyfully.ca because even at that point I understood that that is what it all boils down to for me—that living joyfully, living fully with joy, leads to an immense amount of real learning. For both myself and for my kids.
Eventually my joy in helping others learn about unschooling (along with inspiration from Kelly Lovejoy's Live and Learn conferences based in the US) led me to host an annual unschooling conference in the Toronto area. With six years of the conference under my belt, my goal remained firm: to bring unschooling families together face to face in a relaxed and supportive environment that is conducive to learning more about unschooling, not only from the speakers but also from each other.
I've had the idea for this book in my head for a few years, but I wasn't comfortable taking the next step. I wanted to share my learning journey, but I didn't feel like I was experienced enough to speak with conviction; I didn't feel it in my bones. Every year or so when I read over the outline, I liked it more and more. But when I took a look at it again in the fall of 2009, I felt absolutely and wonderfully overwhelmed with all that I had to say about these ideas. It was finally time to write and I dove in.
So here's what I've learned.
What Is Unschooling?
When I first became a parent I was woefully unaware of my options when it came to my children's education. School is mandatory, right? That's why there are attendance laws and truant officers. I didn't know anybody who had questioned that. Public schooling was the one and only way for children to learn, (except for private school, but that was an expensive and out-of-reach option). The kids went to public school and I worked hard to make the best of it for them.
Then I came across the concept of homeschooling—kids learning outside of school (usually based out of their home, though sometimes out of the family's RV or boat). I was thrilled to discover that the school system was not the only legal option available in Canada (or in many other countries). We had a choice! This was a profound realization for me, and has been for many parents. You have a choice.
As parents, whether you choose public, private, or alternative school, homeschooling or unschooling, the act of making a conscious, well-informed choice regarding your child's learning environment is a crucial step. It is part of your journey as their supportive partner in life.
And remember, any choice you make now is not cast in stone. You can change your mind as your experience grows and/or your circumstances change. That's what happened in our household, and our children left the school system when they were nine, seven, and four.
The purpose of this book is to help you understand some of the basic principles behind unschooling—a style of homeschooling. Homeschooling generally encompasses methods of educating children in lieu of school. Often it means the children's education is dictated by the parents instead of by teachers, typically using purchased curricula or parent-designed unit studies. Then what is unschooling? Unschooling is, at its most basic, about learning without a curriculum, without a teacher-centred environment, but sometimes the concept is easier to define by what it's not. It's not school-at-home, a re-creation of the school environment with a low student-teacher ratio around the kitchen table. And it's not about leaving your kids to fend for themselves, far from it. It is about creating a different kind of learning environment for your children. An environment based on the understanding that humans learn best when they are interested and engaged, and when they are personally involved and motivated. Creating an environment conducive to real learning is very difficult if someone else—parent, teacher, or curriculum developer—is dictating what a person should be learning at any given time. But drop that outside control over the child and learning truly comes naturally. As the late John Holt (1983, 293), educator and unschooling advocate, notes so succinctly, "Fish swim, birds fly; man thinks and learns."
In addition, once you experience unschooling, you realize that there is much more to it than just dropping curriculum. It becomes a learning lifestyle—one where parents and children together enjoy exploring their interests and passions, learning along the way; one that evolves to inform your outlook on just about any situation that arises. Some like to call it life learning because what you are doing is learning through living. It revitalizes your relationships with your children. You will come to see that learning is often handicapped when confined to a classroom and a curriculum, but exciting and ubiquitous when children are given the freedom to explore their world. And soon you begin to glimpse the true nature of unschooling unfolding: living joyfully and passionately as a family, and building lifelong relationships in an environment where your children are free to discover and to grow into the people they were born to be.
Unschooling is a unique process for each family, and for each child. That may be why explaining unschooling is so straightforward and so difficult at the same time; the implications of that simple phrase learning without a curriculum are profound and life changing. This book is about exploring the ideas—the paradigm shifts—that will help you understand unschooling.
Learning about Learning
You take advantage of a quiet moment and call your best friend for some adult conversation. After a brief exchange of pleasantries you both sink into some serious conversation. Sharing with her your yearning to learn to sew, she promptly encourages you, "Take a class!"
I'd like to share, up front, a few thoughts about how you might approach this book. As a first step, pay attention to the learning process that you are going through as you learn more about unschooling, as you read this and other books, browse websites, or meet up with other unschoolers. Use part of your mind to watch yourself objectively. Ask yourself how much you remember from your school career. Ask yourself how you prefer to learn day-to-day things now. The answers will help you to understand the learning process itself and to be open to seeing it in your children. How are you learning about unschooling?
Let's take an example. What are your options if you decide you want to learn how to edit your digital home videos? There are lots of ways to approach it. You could sign up for a class in your area. You could do a bit of research and choose some software, or download a demo and start playing around with it. Maybe you like to read through the user's manual before you get started, or just reference it when you are trying to figure out something specific. You could search for online help videos or support forums for that software. Maybe you know someone who has already done this and you could ask them to show you how to get started. There are many ways to learn something; a class is just one of them. Which ways work best for you?
What I learned about myself when I was a computer program developer, was that the classes I took (at the behest of my employer) were one of the least helpful ways for me to learn a programming language. The first day of a course was often useful, showing me around the software interface and introducing me to the basics of the language syntax, but the rest of the week I was often bored to frustration while programming answers to made-up sample exercises that were inevitably not much use outside the classroom. The real learning started once I got back to the office and started applying it to real-life business situations. With manuals strewn around my desk, I'd likely join an online forum or two to read through others' questions or post my own as needed, check out online programming tutorial sites, all the while making progress on what I was actually trying to accomplish. And if I didn't use the language soon after, either personally or at work, what I did pick up during the course was soon all but lost. So learning things as I come up against them in my life, as they help me accomplish something I'm striving toward, has served me very well.
This book will take you from the ideas behind unschooling through the extension of these ideas into day-to-day living. It is key to understand that unschooling is not just a different set of rules to live by. You can decide you don't like the school rules (written and unwritten) and you want something different for your family, but if you interpret the unschooling ideas presented here as just another set of rules and implement them without thought and awareness, life will most likely feel out of control for your whole family. Don't just skim through the ideas, as logical as they may seem on the surface. Really live with them. Let them percolate in the back of your mind as you go about your day. Recall your own learning experiences, in school and out, and see how they compare. It will take work on your part to deeply understand these concepts and bring them into the everyday life of your family, but it will be truly rewarding.
And one other note, if you are coming to unschooling from negative school experiences for you or your child, try to take any negative energy that you have and focus it on learning more about unschooling. It can be challenging to work through negative experiences, but that energy is wasted if it's focused on the past. Use it to help you learn and move forward. The reasons for choosing unschooling will change over time as you learn more and gain more experience seeing your kids learning and growing. As negative school experiences fade in your memory, more lasting and positive reasons to unschool will blossom. One day you'll look up from the book you're reading or the game you're enjoying with your children and it will hit you: you are unschooling!
