Welcome to the UK Unschooling Network Blog

...a blog linked to the Facebook group of the same name.

This blog is for anyone who is interested to know more about Unschooling. 

Unschooling is a word that was coined to describe an educational method and philosophy that advocates learner-chosen activities, whole life experiences and successful family relationships as the best way to learn and thrive.

The Facebook group linked to this blog is for parents who are interested in home educating their children though unschooling.   If you are a parent interested in unschooling and would like to join the Facebook group, please do apply by writing to one of the administrators of the group, explaining why you wish to join.

Challenging the Notion of Arbitrary v. Non-arbitrary Limits

In the UK Unschooling Network, we take the view that if unschooling is to keep up with new developments, eg: in learning theory, epistemology, (and yes, there has been developments in this in the last decade), ethics, neuroscience and lessons learnt from the practice of unschooling, the theory should always be open to the adoption and incorporation of the best possible ideas.

Of course, we won't throw away our current best theories for worse ideas, and indeed our principles haven't changed much since we wrote them in about 2016, (though we have added a bit on childism).

Despite holding on tightly to our best ideas, we will take on board better information, that contains better explanatory power:

As a side note, this concept of explanatory power being about preferring the theory that is hardest to vary, is, to our knowledge, THE latest development in epistemology. How to chose the best explanation out of a bunch of competing explanations is explained here - a great TED talk of huge value for everyone.

Anyhow, this open approach to unschooling theory fits with other good theories of how knowledge grows, and is similar in many regards to the scientific method, though of course, philosophical ideas such as unschooling cannot be falsified as you would test a scientific idea:

So why is this all a pre-amble to the discussion of the validity of arbitrary v. non-arbitrary limits. Well, the thing is, in keeping unschooling theory open to critique, we implicitly acknowledge that even our seemingly best ideas (unschooling theory) may not be right, ie: we can never be sure that our ideas are the best most truth-like ones. This of course, makes sense, given the iron barrier between reality and the representation of it in our brains (and all that quite aside from the truly weird real nature of reality - quantum physics and all that).

So logically given our uncertain grasp of the nature of reality, we must accept that we cannot be sure of the boundary between arbitrary and non-arbitrary limits.

You might be asking, "Really? What is the point of all this?" Well, the danger of assuming that we know the difference between arbitrary and non-arbitrary limits is that it may well mean that in assuming a limit non-arbitrary, we fail to look for ways around it.

Edison had to test thousands and thousands of materials, including over 6,000 types of plant growths, before he found that the best substance for a filament was carbonized cotton thread.

There are times we have to keep going and really work at breaking down the notion of non-arbitrary. It prompts us to be creative about solving problems, even if this involves merely a change of mindset.

So how can we decide if our practice is unschooling or not?

One key characteristic of unschooling that we make in this group is not between eliminating arbitrary limits and acquiescing helplessly in the face of non-arbitrary limits.  Rather we strive to find a way to tackle all limits one way or another, whether this be through solving a problem in a radically new way, or simply through a change of mindset about the problem. 

One other key determining distinction that demarcates the practice of unschooling from not unschooling is that unschoolers strive to be non-coercive. They do this because they recognise that coercion inhibits learning, rationality and creativity. 

Even better, unschooling is not just about that - avoiding coercion is just a baseline. Unschooling is also about building loving connection, respect and trust, and about striving to bring joy to the world.