What's the difference between "Unschooling" and "Radical Unschooling"?

The short answer to this question is: They are the same thing.

However, there is a common misunderstanding of these two terms, that is being repeated with an increasing frequency - meaning that a longer answer to this question is necessary.

In various pages online, we see the idea presented that there are two separate branches of unschooling philosophy: “Unschooling” (understood to consist of giving children freedom and autonomy in their academic learning), and “Radical Unschooling” (which extends freedoms to other areas of life such as food, bedtimes, TV and video games etc.).

This presentation of the difference between “Unschooling” and “Radical Unschooling” is a recent creation (by Dayna Martin, in around 2011).  It does not reflect either term as they were originally introduced and used for decades before.  It is also problematic, in ways that I will explore below.

Let’s start by looking at where these two terms came from.

Unschooling

The term “unschooling” was originally coined by John Holt in the 1970s, and referred primarily to a non-coercive approach to education.  While he began by looking at the sort of learning that happens in schools, Holt clearly saw that learning opportunities exist throughout life, and that in order to offer children freedom in their learning, we should offer them as much freedom across their lives as we can.

For example, when he visited Summerhill school in the UK, one of his criticisms was of the fact that children were not free to leave the campus, and walk into town; and his later writings such as “Escape from Childhood” are full of concern for the rights and freedoms of children, going far beyond what is traditionally thought of as “education”.

In other words, John Holt’s original vision of “unschooling” was about far more than simply academic freedom.

Radical Unschooling

As the homeschooling movement grew, John Holt’s concept of unschooling was gradually diluted by parents who adopted some of his ideas around academic freedom, but could not see the value in offering broader freedoms.  By the 1990s, the term “unschooling” was being used to refer to such a diverse range of approaches to home education, including some that were semi-structured or project-based, that the term was becoming virtually meaningless.

Writing on AOL message boards at this time, Sandra Dodd, Joyce Fetteroll, and others, started to use the term “Radical Unschooling” to distinguish their undiluted approach to unschooling from some of these other, more diluted, approaches.  They have kept the term to this day, and others have adopted it too.

But “Radical Unschooling” isn’t, and never was, something fundamentally different from the plain, vanilla “unschooling” that John Holt advocated.  It consists of the same broad ideas, applied to the same areas.  If you read Sandra Dodd or Joyce Fetteroll, you will see that they often use the term “unschooling” without the radical modifier, and they do so in many contexts, including those that concern aspects of “life” as opposed to “learning”.

For them, as for John Holt, plain, vanilla “unschooling” is about all aspects of a child’s life.

A shift in terminology

In the last few years, Dayna Martin has started using the term “Radical Unschooling” to describe her approach to education and parenting, and succeeded in generating considerable publicity around it.  Again, there are individual differences from other unschooling writers, but there are many similarities between her ideas, and those of John Holt and Sandra Dodd, so it’s reasonable that she uses the term “Radical Unschooling”.

What is novel, however, is her understanding of the relationship between “Radical Unschooling”, and plain old vanilla “Unschooling”.  In a major break from previous writers, she presents a position in which “Unschooling” and “Radical Unschooling” are two distinct philosophies, the first concerned only with academic learning, the second with broader lifestyle choices, including TV, food, bedtimes etc.

Dayna Martin’s profile mean that her definitions now feature prominently in google searches for the term “Radical Unschooling”.  As a result, her idea that “Unschooling” and “Radical Unschooling” represent distinct philosophies is starting to gain ground, and to be repeated elsewhere.  It is noticeable that many people who have learned about unschooling within the last few years understand the “radical” modifier to indicate a shift in scope from “just learning” to “all of life”, whereas those who have been unschooling for years are often quite unfamiliar with the terms being used in this way.

Why is this a problem?

This shift in terminology is unfortunate.  It creates the impression that there is a separate form of unschooling, consisting of “Un-Radical Unschooling” or “Education-only Unschooling”, under which parents could give children academic freedom, but continue to impose strict controls on their children in other aspects of life.  Indeed some may imagine that this was what John Holt’s ideas amounted to, and that the extension of these ideas of freedom to the rest of life was the invention of Sandra Dodd, Dayna Martin, or some other recent author.

The problem with “Education-only Unschooling” is not that such an approach to raising children is wrong in itself (that could be debated, but it’s a different topic) - but rather that it fails to incorporate some of John Holt’s most fundamental insights about children’s learning, and as such really cannot be described as a form of “unschooling”.  For unschoolers, learning is inextricably linked with life, and this means that it is not possible to give a child freedom in their education, without also giving them substantial freedom in terms of what TV they watch, what games they play, what they eat, and how and when they sleep: to restrict or control these things is inherently restricting and controlling their learning.

Parents do not have to accept these ideas - many do not - but if they do not, they are rejecting a major part of John Holt’s thinking, and would therefore be wrong to describe their approach to education as “unschooling”.

Unschooling is - and always has been - about the whole of a child’s life.  There are no boundaries within which learning happens: learning happens all the time, and out of myriad different influences.

The UK Unschooling Network believes in the value of giving children choice and freedom in all aspects of their lives.  Everyone who identifies with these ideas is welcome.

Unschooling Ideas through History

Many ideas about learning and education that are similar to unschooling date back thousands of years, and have been shared by thinkers, writers, artists, scientists, parents and business leaders alike.  Here are some examples:

“Do not train children in learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.”

Plato (428 - 348 BCE)

“While bodily labours performed under constraint do not harm the body, nothing that is learned with compulsion stays with the mind”

Plato (428 - 348 BCE)

“I hear, I forget; I see, I remember. I do, I understand.”

Old Chinese proverb

“Just as eating contrary to the inclination is injurious to the health, so study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.”

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519)

“To develop a complete mind: study the science of art; study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else."

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519) And there be also some things both pleasant to be known, and as it were peace to children's wits, which to learn is rather a play than a labour. Howbeit childhood is not so weak which even for htis is the more meet to take pains and labour because they feel not what labour is. Erasmus (1466 - 1535)

“Bring not up your children in learning by compulsion and feare, but by playing and pleasure.”

Roger Ascham (1515 - 1568) (tutor of Elizabeth I)

"You cannot teach a person anything; you can only help him find it within himself."

Galileo (1564 - 1642)

“Nothing should be taught to the young… unless it is not only permitted, but actually demanded by their age and mental strength.”

Comenius (1592 - 1670)

(on learning to read)

“Great care is to be taken that it never be made a business to him, nor he look on it as a task. We naturally… even from our cradles, love liberty and have therefore an aversion to many things for no  reason but because they are enjoined to us.”

John Locke (1632 - 1704)

"Every boy learns more in his hours of play, than in his hours of labour"

William Godwin (1736 - 1856)

"Communicate knowledge, without infringing, or with as little as possible violence to, the volition and individual judgement of the person to be instructed."

William Godwin (1736 - 1856)

“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”

Frederick Douglass (1818 - 1895)

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education”

Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”

Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)

"What we call education and culture is for the most part nothing but the substitution of reading for experience, of literature for life, of the obsolete fictitious for the contemporary real."

George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

“From a very early age, I’ve had to interrupt my education to go to school.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

W.B. Yeats (1865 - 1939)

“Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.”

Beatrix Potter (1866 - 1943)

“Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.”

Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

“We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought”

Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

“The only time my education was interrupted was while I was at school.”

Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965) "It is ...nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiousity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wreak and ruin. It is a very grave mistake to think that he enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. " Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

“I never teach my pupils, I only provide the conditions in which they can learn”

Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

“It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education”

Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”

Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973)

(on children)

“You may strive to be like them,

but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.”

Khalil Ghibran (1883 - 1931)

“Neither comprehension nor learning can take place in an atmosphere of anxiety”

Rose Kennedy (1890 - 1995)

“When a subject becomes totally obsolete, we make it a required course.”

Peter Drucker (1909 - 2005)

“Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.”

Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)

“Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker.”

Stanley Kubrik (1928 - 1999)

“I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students”

Carl Sagan (1934 - 1996)
“You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over”

Richard Branson (1950 - )

With thanks to the following sources, from which some of the above quotes have been taken:

https://www.diygenius.com/unschooling-quotes/

http://www.lifelearningmagazine.com/quotes-about-unschoolin…

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Education-Very-Short-I…/…/0199643261

Research that Supports Unschooling

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Children from more caring, less controlling parents lead happier lives.

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Parents who notice and respond to children's needs and preferences are most successful in supporting the the development of social skills.  There are also positive impacts on academic skills. 

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Social and mental health benefits from gaming. 

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What really motivates humans?   The desire for autonomy, mastery and purpose.


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Minimally invasive education.

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The negative effect of over-bearing, controlling care giving on self-efficacy.

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The benefits of gaming.