Unschooling in Canada

This was my first time hearing the word, “unschooling”, and reading this article about it was really interesting for me.  Unschooling is a new way of education in which the kids don’t go to a regular school, and study at home.  The difference to homeschool is that they don’t follow the curriculum set by the province and the students learn whatever they like whenever they want.  They have no curriculum, no homework, and no tests.  The way they actually learn varies from family, and I think it’s interesting because they can use the way which best suits their children.  For example, one way is to connecting real life and learning.   A trip to the grocery store will be a math lesson, and skipping stones can turn into a lesson about angles and velocity.  Another way is to connect learning to the things which the child is interested the most at that time.  If the child’s interest in Egypt led to reading a biography about King Tut, researching pyramids and reading a fictional story about mummies.  I think this variation of educational methods is one of the benefits of unschooling.  The best way of learning differs from person to person so this could be a huge benefit that regular school or homeschool can’t or difficult to provide.  For example, in a usual lecture type education, using only practical based learning is difficult.  This can maximize the efficiency of learning for the individual, and there is a clear benefit.  They can learn faster, and better.

The other benefit is that the child will have more responsibility for their learning and they will learn better, and with pleasure.  The child can choose what interests them, and they learn better when they are subjectively and willingly learning, far better than being forced to study.  I think this is really important especially nowadays when the discussion about “why do we learn?” has become great.  In my home country, Japan, a lot of students are questioning the reason to learn, but they are just only told: “It’s necessary to get into a good university and get a good job”.  This is not a problem only for Japan, but also for a lot of countries in southeast Asia, such as China and South Korea.  If they can learn to take responsibilities about what to learn and why the complicated learnings in high school will not be a really heavy thing.

There may be an argument that students will not be able to develop their social skills through unschooling, nut those skills will be naturally trained through interacting with their parents, siblings, neighbors, and many more.  In addition, they can have a group to do field trips or many more collaborative activities, just like the homeschoolers are doing.  There may also be an argument that it is also important to learn a certain amount of cultural capital about your country and school is an opportunity for governments to build patriotism, but I don’t think this is an important argument here.  You will learn a lot about your own culture through the community.  For example, being involved in a traditional festival held in that area will teach the children about the history behind that, and the importance of it.  The opportunities of being involved will be the same for children who are doing unschooling and children who are going to school.  In addition, I think that governmental patriotism is unnecessary for children to learn.  In my own country, Japan, we did it too much and it ended in a disastrous result.  The heart to love and to be proud of their own country can be taught in multiple places in multiple ways, and it doesn’t need to be school.

However, there are some negative points about unschooling.  First is that this type of education is only available to the middle class or upper middle class.  A mother or a father needs to be a full-time mom or dad, so for a family which both parents are working, this way of education is impossible.  Also, in order to teach, the parents themselves need a certain level of knowledge, so if they have a lower level of education, it’s difficult and this situation is often seen in lower classes.  If the upper class or the upper middle class only benefits from this, the economic disparity will be even bigger.  It will create a vicious cycle for the lower class, and it has a crucial impact on them.  It is proven that economic inequality has a prejudicial effect on health.  For example, life expectancy in the US varies by as much as a staggering 30 years.  This is not a problem which could be ignored.  Therefore, we need to look for a way to allow everyone to get the same advantage. 

Stein, Stacey. Unschooled kids learn what they want – no curriculum, no homework, no tests, The Globe And Mail, September 2, 2018, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/article-unschooled-kids-learn-what-they-want-no-curriculum-no-homework-no/. 17 Jan 2019.

Brown, Dana. Inequality is killing us — literally, THENEXTSYSTEMPROJECT, August 16, 2017, https://thenextsystem.org/learn/stories/inequality-killing-us-literally. 18 Jan 2019.