One of the worries that is often raised by those who don't know about the respectful and enabling nature of unschooling, is that the unschooled young person will not have a chance to explore the world beyond the world of their parents. This particular criticism is very hard for unschooling families to take seriously, being so dramatically wrong in the experience of so many of us!
Unschooling parents know that it is their duty as educators to provide a rich range of learning opportunities for their children, but very often the young person somehow finds their own path entirely, pursuing an interest that their parents had never offered and about which their parents know next to nothing.
Members of the UK Unschooling Network Group provide fascinating, inspiring, diverse testimony to this effect:
Over the years I tried a structured approach, semi-structured, I tried lists, charts, everything and my son didn't have any interest in anything. When I learned about unschooling and decided to back off a bit, he heard an old song and decided to play the bass. I listened to the song and could barely hear the bass line, my ears went to the lead guitar and vocals, but he was really in tune with the bass. He bought one with his birthday money and taught himself to play it completely on his own. He just played different notes until he found one that sounded the same as the song, then started to find the next one and so on. He's learned loads of songs this way. He also decided to learn to skateboard.
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My daughter's fascination with Korean pop led her to a deep and enduring interest in Korean drama - she doesn't seem to just passively watch them either, it's on a deeper level - she takes a very analytical approach to her viewing and has entire notebooks with thoughts on it. It has also led onto a wider interest in Korean culture. The interest in Korean drama started with Korean pop when a friend played her a song.
Her other great interest that didn't come from me is in Psychology - she picked up a psychology book she saw in Sainsbury's and became very interested in mental health and also criminology from a psychology perspective.
As for my son, I could mention so many! It's a new interest every couple of months - basketball at the moment - this involves playing it most days currently and he also watches/researches online all the rules, how to improve etc. My son said his recent basketball interest came from a memory of a group we used to go to where they did basketball (among lots of sports) - so I'm thinking that kind of did start with me because I suggested the group when they both wanted to try lots of sports?
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Mine wanted to learn Mandarin at age 3 and has maintained that interest in China and learning Mandarin, now 11 years old and has an interest in politics and philosophy (he is working towards this GCSE), taught himself magic tricks and illusions and became interested in psychology and how the brain works and has started two small businesses and now set up his own you tube channel for kids. None of which he would have had access to in a school setting.
Oh to add he also has a keen interest in herbs and healing and bushcraft and survival which came from learning ancient history, again none of which would have been available at primary school. Ah and he has had a long standing fascination with space and physics and was invited to be part of the local adult astronomy club where he is an active member. Again not something available in school.
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I know nothing about Minecraft or coding. My son has taught himself by experimenting and researching Youtube. Now he is creating his own games in Scratch and is playing and sharing with other Minecraft fans around the world!
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Mine has discovered he's very good on a bike and at gymnastics! Neither are hobbies of mine! Also a serious talent for word games (he likes Wordscapes, which gives you a jumble of letters from which you have to make as many words as possible... he's 7 in January and yesterday's words included 'league' and 'receive' and 'eluded' along others!)
An interest in Spongebob and My Little Pony has led to art projects and imaginative story writing plus map creations. His love of cars and machinery has led to some amazing lego constructions including a combine harvester with hidden engineering and he can recognise many cars and trucks from the shape or light clusters/grill.
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We have unschooled for 4 and a half years - my eldest, Daisy, is now 13 and has taught herself sewing, crochet, gymnastics and aerial skills in the garden (and then started going to groups with proper silks and hoops, and qualified instructors, not made up ones in the garden...although she still does this too!). None of this is anything I know about or have shown an interest in - it's all off her own back. She is even applying for a local performing arts school because she wants to hone her skills and become a dancer. My younger 2 also do lots of garden gymnastics, and whilst they enjoying doing bits and bobs all the time, haven't found any creative hobbies yet apart from drawing and designing the occasional homemade board games. (Thanks to Louise Gossage).
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Whilst I have been surprised by many of my son’s interests… working towards building his own tree house (that this year I was told, ‘is really an astronomy tower for star gazing’) and his desire to create his own financially successful business from the age of six rank second and first as the most surprising for me. Third would be, and not technically so surprising, cultural celebrations and festivals.
In terms of cultural celebrations and festivals, my son is being raised amongst a group of women, who know the value of friendship, family, who work hard at their relationships and who model successful interracial relationships - English, Irish, American, Afro-Caribbean, Polish and Welsh (some of which are long-distance). It really isn’t that surprising our friendships have not only led to a language rich environment but also innumerable ways to celebrate each other in culturally appropriate ways.
More surprising though, is his creation of new family traditions and from such simple experiences like eating home-made mince pies while creating environmentally friendly Christmas decorations and watching seasonal family favourite movies while decorating; experiencing Manchester’s Chinese New Year celebrations and watching Jin Long Culture and Performing Arts New Year extravaganza at The Whitworth with Home Ed friends; visiting family friends for T¢usty Czwartek (aka Fat Thursday/doughnut day) and Smigus-Dyngus (aka Wet Monday) to more demanding experiences like planning, budgeting and creating a Thanksgiving celebration for our American neighbours and catering a breakfast feast for a friend’s weekend getaway.
As a result my son’s interest in cultural celebrations has moved his attention from buying and owning things to an intention of exploring cultural celebrations at a deeper level - leading to the realisation of the impermanence of human existence, time passing and child appropriate ways of demonstrating that understanding. A perfect example of which would be this year’s creative approach to a calendar, where he rebuilds a Lego calendar every month to show the days of the week, number of days each month and celebrations. This month’s (November) depicts his proposed birthday lockdown celebrations, Dia De Los Muertos (thanks to the movies CoCo and The Book of Life) and Guy Fawkes Night. Last month’s focus was the Pagan celebration of Samhain.
It is my son’s perception that he is a ‘master builder’ (term coined by Lego), which has in no small way made his interest in a tree house bigger (and when I say bigger, I mean Arecibo observatory sized cum Harry Potter style) and his ability to design and build things from an early age. Meaning my son’s ability to build a tree house is no surprise as it can be tracked back to his early use of Duplo and wooden blocks to build the tallest towers from age two through to… using cardboard boxes to help build a size appropriate castle fort with working drawbridge at age three to… creating the most intricate Lego builds to go with his oral adventure stories from age five to… reading book series and movies like the Captain Underpants series at age six which began the tree house’s adaption of form and function to… the development of a wildlife garden (at the front of our new home) at age seven and its subsequent redesign to increase wildlife friendly plants, habitats and natural materials at age eight where natural materials options were considered for his master build.
To some degree it is also not so surprising that his tree house idea has repeatedly been improved upon by his everyday life experiences. Like his Forest School experiences out and about discovering the wonders and delights of all that nature has to offer (plus the best trees for his idea); his environmental concerns for the planet from current affairs and a low income family ethos of refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle or repair. Additionally, his growing loving of literature, movies, Lego (e.g. Harry Potter series) and this year’s pandemic lockdown resulting in nightly neighbourhood walks (whilst observing the phrases of the moon and discovering the history behind them) has organically led to the adaptation of his tree house into an astronomy tower. A space, all of his own, for us to watch the sky at night he told me. Just like when he first did at his local astronomy club age seven, where he also got to observe and touch an actual meteor.
What is immensely surprising to me, is not only has his interest in building a tree house never waned despite the passing years (it was 2017 when he planted a tree seed and declared this was the tree he would use to build his tree house) but also, how each new layer of knowledge and understanding gained has been connected to adapt his build to take into consideration the builds impact upon its surrounding environment.
Last but by no means least and the most surprising of all, is my son’s determination to build a business. Surprising, as I have never wanted to be a business owner, am old school - I prefer to work my hours, get paid and head home and most importantly, I do not consider myself in any way shape or form entrepreneurial or creative. I am a product of a generation that was raised to keep the status quo and follow traditions.
Maybe not such a surprise then, that as my son has had to endure far too many significant changes in his early years (the worst of which was his enrolment in a school’s nursery/reception class that was in no way suitable to my son’s needs or interests), he now is attempting to secure his future needs and interests by exploring business ideas. Not just a pipe dream, as my son is continuously exploring business options. These initially centred on creating an irresistible confectionary. A confectionary that is not only unique but also has an appealing selling factor and price point. A confectionary that has been trialed and market researched amongst family, friends and neighbours and was ready (pre-pandemic) for the next step in bringing to his local makers market.
For my son, life is learning and most importantly, life has no limits when it comes to exploring his interests.
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Started learning Japanese at age 9 (ish) due to interest in Pokemon. The game Ghost of Tsushima has also led to interest in Japanese history, geography, language and studying samurai and wanting to make own samurai armour. He’s also building video games and animations on Dreams (this is all my 14 yr old) - Home Ed for 9 years, Unschooled for about 6 years.
Eldest learning violin because of enjoyment of video game music (Last of Us, Assassins Creed).
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My child sat and told us all about super novas, what they are and how they form. He then went on to discuss black holes and the big bang theory. (he is 7 and this has never been formally taught). He very often comes up with little gems such as this.
He is learning to play the keyboard and is now composing his own songs and writing down the notes so he can replay the song.
He loves to read for pleasure as he has never been forced. To him it's something he has naturally picked up from time spent together. I believe once they can read, they can learn anything they wish to. He has been reading chapter books from the age of five and has an extensive vocabulary.
Through reading he has naturally picked up homophones, suffixes, prefixes, grammar, punctuation etc. He naturally understands past and present verbs and has good comprehension of the English language, well above his expected level for his age.
His mental maths is amazing and he can work out how much he has spent in a shop and how much change he needs back. He has a love for maths.
He loves making his own comics and stories and will choose to do this for himself. He has also started his own fact book that he fills with anything that interests him. He writes with purpose and demonstrates his abilities.
His spelling is above his years thanks to reading, Minecraft and using WhatsApp. He also plays a game called Scribblenauts.
He completed ks1 and ks2 science over a year ago just through his natural curiosity and life. He has a far better understanding than what would be taught in schools and some of the knowledge he has isn't taught until GCSE age. The same goes for his geography skills.
He loves history thanks to Horrible Histories and the jousting at Warwick castle.
He does far more physical activity every day. He does formal swimming and gymnastic lessons but as he is free to move about during the day he will naturally run, dance and move.
At first I naturally worried as a parent if he was doing enough. I keep a track of the NC and ticked it off as he demonstrated his knowledge. I soon realised that he was learning above and beyond his 'expected' levels and that children naturally learn in an environment that allows them to freely explore.
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We feel very positive about our children (ages 13-18) because each feels completely engaged with what they are doing. There's room for change in that of course, but right now they are focused and 'working' long hours without needing prompts from anyone but themselves. If I think about it, I only put equivalent hours into my profession when I felt grounded and completely enthralled by it.
The eldest is a self-taught musician. This was a surprise because he showed no particular interest in music beyond skipping round the kitchen table when we had music playing – which is often! At 14 he asked for a guitar and has not put it down since. He was I am sure inspired by the example of a first cousin, also unschooled, who is a master bass guitar player and much else, including a tutor and music producer – he started with guitar hero and also never looked back. We'd always had instruments lying around the house but I had an idea it was worth learning how to listen to music before learning to read it. I remember being put off music totally by reading classical scores and exam taking.
The other two are ballet dancers. It's a gruelling training, daily dance pilates and classes and unremitting fitness – every muscle is accounted for. It might sound as though we put them up to it, but actually our daughter asked to try it aged 8 and then her older brother thought it looked fun and gave it a go too. In character they are remarkably different, but they have the same physical intuitiveness and love for the music and performance. We have been logistics and on a steep learning curve into a world of dance that we knew nothing about.
A point to note, in our area there are as many male dancers (actually more) in the home educating community as there are female. It is an important point to acknowledge I believe, because elements of discrimination and sexual politics around masculinity would not reveal the same parity in schools. I believe many boys at school are put off dance because they will be laughed at or bullied for it.
It is a source of daily wonder for us that our children are so unremittingly motivated and full of energy for what they do. It is a clear affirmation of the unschooling model. We have let them find their own way, all the way listening, supporting, offering. We never taught them to read and spell and yet their language skills are exceptional - they have spent so much time around interesting adults and also a range of people who have inspired them, both young and old. The speed at which they learn is due to the fact they have not been forced to break their own learning interests to suit an imposed school curriculum. They learn and it sticks, their brains are ready.
If I think about the unschooling families around, there is a huge amount to be celebrated – I am in awe of what they are already doing as young adults – students at college, tutor at college, own IT business, silks artist, physics genius, dog walking business, own vegan food take-away company, musician, choreographer, film maker. That's just the close lot of friends I am thinking of.
I also want to acknowledge the importance of computers in the children's lives. They are tools they use in a very refined way. They found this out by being trusted to do so. I could write for hours of course about what they have learned from them, but also and this is still a massive learning process, how they use them for gaming – huge skills acquired, friends from around the globe, excitement, hilarity and beautiful moments of unwinding from their full-on working days.
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Japanese bullet trains - from age 2 - Shinkansen in particular. Actually any bullet trains.We know the names, speeds and countries of all bullet trains at age 5. Oh and he came up with an alternative electric vehicle charging approach during play with his hot wheels. Initially was using my circular knit needles as charge nozzles then built a charging garage where the roof charges parked vehicles out of a shoe box at age 4. All for his hot wheels.
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My son is passionate about football and sport in general. That has led to learning all about mindset, nutrition, tactics and so much more. He reads adult books about the subjects and then finds another book for the counter argument or opinion. Being at home means he can do his own football training during the day and go for a run whenever he likes. He is a very motivated and hardworking individual.
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We have really embraced unschooling during lock down and now at the end of our 4th year of home Ed. I've been teetering on the edge but felt lock down needed to be entirely child led and unschooling.
My daughter just turned 12 and has designed and created her own business this last 8 months. Her baking and cooking skills are off the scale easily as good as mine and probably better. She's designed and planned a range of foods and chocolates and has sold loads to friends and neighbours. The shy child who won't talk to anyone enlisted a friend and went round knocking to see if anyone wanted Halloween treats and sold £15 worth, a few people paid her double because they were so impressed with how good they were. (she didn't tell me she was knocking on doors which as we had moved to tier three at the time was rather cringy!) but also amazing because it just showed how capable she is when she's really embracing her natural skills and talents and passions.
She's clearly focused on what she wants as a food related business, has been studying and gained certificates in food hygiene and her project work is easily more detailed and thorough than my food tech gcse and I got a B!
My son is obsessed with lego and has had congratulations from lego about his own designs. His long term dream is to design for them and at the age of 9 has vision and skill I can only imagine. He has now turned that into writing and drawing and his reading has appeared out of nowhere.
My youngest is nearly 6. But through this he has suddenly showed he can read and write really well which just seemed to appear!
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We still very new to it, but my 6yo's absolute favourite activity is imaginative play with her stuffed lions. She is a big Lion King fan, but as we are playing up to 3h every single day, the story lines change to incorporate Frozen and every other story she's come into contact with, to fantastical storylines that I am sure could be made into books. As we are playing in my native language, she has also learned so many new words and expressions in it. When she went to school, this type of play was forgotten and we simply would not have time for it.
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My 3 year old has a tattoo fascination. It started with watching Moana. She was intrigued by Maui having a body which tells his story. She now uses face paints to make her own stories on her body. It has helped her explore everything from family members and identities to regional customs. She can be shy with strangers but if she sees they have a tattoo she asks them what their story is. It's an incredible ice breaker for her and the adults are all pleasantly surprised to have a meaningful conversation with a 3 year old.
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My daughter fell ill and could not move around or do the exercise she loved, so she picked up a guitar...6 years later she has galloped through the grades and is now studying for her Diploma and looking forward to music college. Had she been at school, that would not have happened, as she would have been forced into doing other things with her time. As it was, she dedicated her days to being better skilled at what she loved; her whole timetable (self imposed) was arranged around her one true love of guitar. That is how professionals are made: they self-shape, motivate and dedicate.
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Figure skating. My daughters love it. They also do dance, gymnastics and climbing - mostly in order to improve their skating skills. I have the coordination of a confused giraffe.
My 12 yr old son loves maths and science and is studying for his GCSEs, because he wants to 🥰 They are not subjects I excel at, but I love facilitating his learning!
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My son is 11 and very recently has become fascinated by reptiles. I think this may partly have come from watching Australia Zoo on YouTube. We have spent the last few weeks researching reptiles, and visited a reptile shop a couple of times to have a look. We talked about nocturnal vs diurnal, ease of handling, whether we really wanted a freezer full of frosted mice (!) and finally decided to buy a blue tongued skink which we went to collect yesterday. We have set up the viviarium, he has prepared food for it, we have looked into the best thermometers to buy and it has settled in happily (if reptiles can be happy.......)
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Making kombucha and cooking.
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Minecraft led my son (then aged 12) to become fascinated with architecture around the world - different styles and so on. He found iconic buildings from around the world designed in Minecraft, had a go himself, and then this led to him finding these buildings on google maps. He then started looking into various architectural styles across countries and over time, and investigated reasons why those styles were popular/practical etc. He found a fascination with “brutalist architecture” (which tied in with his interest in the Soviet Union and communist era). We found a company online that provides templates for paper models of that style of architecture and he has made quite a few. Discovered which buildings in London were of this style and went to see them, as well as other interesting buildings, looking at their age, purpose, materials used, etc.
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Horse riding, space and paleontology.
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Spiders - tarantulas to be specific! My youngest now 10, has been fascinated with bugs and spiders since coming out of school at 5 and adores learning about them. About a month ago he got his first Mexican Red Leg tarantula. The guy in the shop was so impressed with all his knowledge about them, husbandry and even knowing their Latin names. I am so not a spider person lol! But, he is absolutely sure he wants to be an arachnologist so I will continue to support his journey - even if that means having a tarantula or two in the house 😉 (He's currently planning his next one for Xmas lol!)
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Thanks to home education/unschooling, my son developed his own physio/OT and SALT programme. In school my son was spending time working on things his body and brain were not ready for, he has cerebral palsy and anxiety. Once out of school he began to chose activities which both fired his imagination and provided exactly the kind of repetitive physical movements he needed. Firstly he taught himself guitar from watching his favorite singer playing and singing along for literally hours each day for 18 months. We saw big improvements to his fine motor skills, strength and speech clarity. Next he focused on football, again spending 6 hours a day practicing his skills. He went from frequently tripping to a confident mover after this 6 month passion started to wane.
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We've been home educating for 2 years and unschooling for the last 18 months. My 13 year old son was in the middle of setting up a business when lockdown came along. Unable to contact potential customers he announced that he was writing an animation TV series. He hasn't stopped writing since. He can bring in all the subjects he loves, animation, comedy and history. The research he has done for his writing has practically covered every subject even maths. He's just about to do his first GCSE exam this afternoon in business studies.
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My eldest (17) is now at college studying Health and Social. When at home over the last few years she appeared to spend a lot of time just watching TV repeats and Youtube Vloggers.
She was actually studying health and social care in depth. She was exploring other people's experiences of family life, and raising a family and all the social issues involved with that.
Rewatching and rewatching shows such as Call the Midwife and House, and following up to know more about medical jargon, different conditions, treatments, and social issues.
My youngest has taught me that an interest is not always what you think it is. She seemed to be interested in lots of things - leaves, rocks, owls, most recently moss etc. But my attempts to follow up fell flat - because she wasn't actually interested in their biology or the science etc. Rather she has an all encompassing passion for visual and textural elements which feed into her art. All the disparate things that have caught her interest weren't actually separate at all.
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Reptiles, marine life and birds. Oh my life the birds! Originally nothing interested me less than birds, but my 10 year old can tell you from a great distance what a bird is, whether it's endemic, native or introduced, whether or not it's flightless, nocturnal, diurnal or crepusculer, what it eats, what size it's eggs are, whether it's endangered...even what it sounds like and how it reproduces. She always has her bird watching book in her bag and her binoculars around her neck. Suddenly I don't find birds so uninteresting as you can't ignore the immense passion that flows from her. Although they still all look like pigeons to me. We've spent this year in New Zealand where they have an incredibly rich ecology with a massive amount of unique, endemic bird life and she soaks up any scrap of information about birds (and Tuatara!) everywhere we visit. This in turn feeds her knowledge of ecosystems, Maori language, humans impact on the environment...it really is incredible.
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Our daughter has been home educated all her life. She has directed and led her own learning with me along her side to help facilitate.
As a family we offered many resources and learning experiences to all our children, but nothing was compulsory, we did not have any timetables or follow any particular curriculum. Our children were instead encouraged to follow their interests and passions.
Our daughter's dream is to pursue a career in musical theatre and to that end she has and still does spend the majority of her time working towards that goal. That goal does not include meaningless GCSEs or any kind of 'just in case' learning, but rather mastering the skills required to pursue that dream.
Her next step, musical theatre college, where 1000's of young people apply for a handful of places.
The results...
5 auditions at musical theatre colleges across the UK
5 places offered!
Decision made - off to London to study in September.
It has been a privilege to accompany my daughter on her home education journey, I have enjoyed and learnt so much with her along the way. And as that chapter draws to a close I look forward with much excitement to seeing where the next stage of her journey takes her.
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Our son has been home educated all his life. He has directed and led his own learning, with me along by his side to help facilitate.
As a family we offered many resources and learning experiences to all our children, but nothing was compulsory, we did not have any timetables or follow any particular curriculum. Our children were instead encouraged to follow their interests and passions.
As a small child, he appeared to be the least academic of our children and liked to fill his days with Lego, construction kits, K'nex, Roblox, minecraft, marble runs and similar types of play.
He did not learn to read until almost 8 years old and only decided to start getting to grips with writing at 12 years old. However, he then chose to take GCSE maths, physics and computer science a year early, completed English, History and AS level computing a year later and then went onto to college to further study computing.
Today is results day!
I'm so proud of our boy, that despite a difficult end to the course studies with the outbreak of COVID - he has achieved a ...
*** Triple Distinction Star in his BTEC level 3 Extended Diploma in Computing *** 🤩
As one of the college's 'top students' (their words) - he has also been asked to contribute to their press release.
It has been a privilege to accompany my son on his home education journey, watching him discover, learn and grow, developing his own unique style.
I have enjoyed and learnt so much with him along the way. He has taught me so much about how children learn and flourish, if we just trust them to guide us.
I look forward with much excitement to see where he goes on the next stage of his journey.
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Thank you to all the members of the UK Unschooling Network who provided the above testimony.
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