Unprocessed: What Unschooling Means to Me

It may surprise you to learn that unschooling does not mean very much to me. I spent the first eighteen years of my life unschooling, then Mom wrote a book about unschooling, then I wrote a few things about unschooling. And yet, most of the time, I don’t really care.

I write this because I suspect that this feeling is widespread among unschooling alumni. Current unschooling families may assume that they can’t find alums online because we are too few, but our numbers are certainly growing. Nevertheless, our email lists are largely silent, and our homepages fall into disrepair. Unschool alums meet, and the meetings go like this:

“Hi, I was unschooled.”
“Hi, I was unschooled, too.”
“Wasn’t it great?”
“Yeah, sure was!”
"Aren't we wonderfully happy and independent?"
"Yep!"

Then maybe we can share a story about how we transitioned from our family of origin into adult life, or how it was so great to be able to go to amusement parks during off-hours. (Unschool alums who are raising their own children could probably talk for a bit longer, but I can’t attest to that.) Then the conversation, largely, is over, unless we have something else in common. It doesn’t seem to be the same with more traditional homeschoolers, who can discuss kitchen-table math, various curricula, the benefits of having seven siblings, and Laura Ingalls Wilder. I’ve seen your “You Might Be a Homeschooler If…” lists, so don’t try to deny any of this.

Unschoolers can understand some of that list, to be sure. For example, I’ll beat any of those homeschoolers at Little House trivia (the books, of course). We unschoolers may even develop our own joke list. But it would be very short, and wouldn’t carry us beyond five or ten minutes of small talk.

Why?

When we try to discuss our childhoods, we run into a problem because they were all so different. I can talk about how nobody knows precisely when or how I learned to read, how I immersed myself in biographies of Catherine the Great (looking back, I wonder why I didn't actually retain much Russian history), and how I ran a bulletin board system. Other unschool alums may recount an obsession with skateboarding, building a cabin, drawing, or electrical engineering. Then, our respective eyes glaze over.

As unschoolers, our childhoods are about us, not about our curricula. We each have a highly individualized experience. Consequently, I can get along much better with a fellow computer geek than with a fellow unschooler. We simply can’t talk about unschooling in the same way that homeschool alums talk about homeschooling.

Traditional homeschooling—working with a curriculum—is actively doing homeschool. The family plans, schedules, teaches, grades, records, and so on. One cannot be unaware that one is being homeschooled.

That is not the case with unschooling. How does a family actively do unschool? We do things, not for the sake of unschooling, but for their own merit. We go to a museum to view art, not because it’s "educational." We count our change at the store and look up a word in the dictionary. We don’t do those things for math and English, but because that clerk stiffed us a dollar last time, and we forgot what “lacuna” meant again. We’ve been taught how to do these things as apprentices to life, not as students. The things that we learn always have real-life applications, or we would have no use for them, so they “take” better without repetition. If our knowledge doesn't have a real-life application, we learned it because it was our passion to do so.

So, what can I say about my experience with unschooling? Not much, but I can tell you a bit about the chemistry of a tropical fish tank while fixing your computer. Those things have been important to me, but unschooling never was.

That said, it would have been mightily inconvenient to have to interrupt all of the aforementioned learning just to go to school.

Wait, let me back up—there's a paradox here for me: I'm truly grateful to have been unschooled, but I'm uncomfortable with being an unschooling advocate because I know that my experience is only anecdotal evidence that unschooling works. I was never "sold" on the concept; my parents were. Objectivity appeals to me, so I generally form opinions by assembling evidence and trying to reach a logical conclusion. If I support unschooling, I have to do it backwards, because I already know the conclusion: unschooling = good. Then I feel dishonest, cherry-picking evidence that will support the conclusion I've already reached through the way I feel about it. Ick. I don't know for sure that I'm a better, happier, more successful, or cuter person than I would have been with a schooled childhood.

So, when Danielle asked me whether I'd be interested in writing a column for Connections, I did a little more soul-searching. I had to figure out whether I had enough to say about unschooling. Then I realized that I probably won't be writing about unschooling, I'll be writing about myself. I'm going to settle into this role of being a case study. I'm another piece of anecdotal evidence. I'm going to muse about my life experiences and tell you stories without attempting to duplicate the literary efforts of all of the wonderful unschooling parents out there who can answer your questions about childrearing.

And, of course, another unschooling alum might have a completely different philosophy.

Originally published citation: Laurie Chancey. 2007. "Unprocessed: What Unschooling Means to Me." (Feature article). Connections: ezine of unschooling and mindful parenting Issue 7: June. http://connections.organiclearning.org.

Unschooling Revisited

Mom is invited back on The Story to debate about educational philosophy.

In February, Dick talked with Valerie Fitzenreiter about educating her daughter, Laurie Chancey, at home. Valerie allowed Laurie to study whatever and whenever she wanted. Laurie is now pursuing a PhD in sociology.

That program generated a lot of response from listeners, one of whom was Kate Walsh.

Kate is a retired teacher, who was less than enthusiastic about the idea of unschooling: "How charming, for people who don't need, or dismiss the aspect of, general education."

Kate joins Valerie in conversation with Dick today.

Is our solution to take all of the children out of school and have them all stay home? Of course not. Who in the world can do that? I'm asking you Valerie to think about using your great intelligence, and your creativity and your love for children to help other children too, so that some children can have the benefits that your daughter had.
-Kate Walsh to Valerie Fitzenreiter

Unschooling Revisited

School? Not

Mom and I are interviewed on the radio about my unschooling childhood.

The U.S. Department of Education estimates that over a million children are homeschooled and research shows that number is on the rise.

Less research has been done on a newer branch of home learning, known as "un-schooling." As many as 20,000 children who do not go to school, and follow no formal curriculum at home, could fall into this group.

Laurie Chancey and her mom, Valerie Fitzenreiter

Valerie Fitzenreiter's daughter Laurie never spent a day of of her childhood in a traditional classroom. When she was pregnant with Laurie, Valerie read a book called "Summerhill," about a progressive school in England where students were given such a vast amount of freedom they weren't even obligated to go to class. It changed her philosophy on parenting forever.

If Laurie wanted to spend the entire day reading a book or playing computer games, Valerie allowed it.

I remember growing up feeling like I could try school if I wanted to. But I never remember wanting to.
- Laurie Chancey

Dick talks to Valerie and Laurie about life in an un-schooled household.

School? Not

Endless Summer, by Sarah Karnasiewicz

...

Laurie Chancey, now 25, was entirely unschooled until college -- and remembers how frightening the early years felt for her and her mother, Valerie Fitzenreiter. Living in rural Louisiana, they were true renegades, cut off from a larger unschooling network that exists on the coasts and under relentless criticism from family and neighbors. When Laurie was 6, a relative turned her in to the truancy board, prompting a series of threatening phone calls and angry letters. But Valerie, who went on to write an influential book about their experience, "The Unprocessed Child," remained unwavering. "Mom had been so bored in school and after reading 'Summerhill,' she decided she would unschool me before I was even born. It was amazing, but she just had this complete faith that I would learn what I needed to learn when I needed to learn it, in the face of everyone's opposition," says Laurie. "Finally, when I started to reach my mid-teens, other people could see that I wasn't an idiot and I'd be OK."

...

Read the rest of this article at Salon.com

A Reason for Cursive Writing

I've seen lots of concern voiced about unschooled children writing in cursive. Can they? Will they ever? Do they need to? Does print look childish? Don't they have to learn cursive to write notes?

Well, I never had a problem taking notes in college, and I have stated before that I cannot write anything in cursive except my own name. I played with writing cursive some when I was little, but I abandoned it as boring and useless. Here is an example of my own handwriting. I just dashed this off and scanned it. Wow, isn't it conceited of me to think that people are interested in what my handwriting looks like?

However, I have been forced to revisit my opinion that cursive is useless. There is actually an activity in life that requires one to write in cursive and I want to let everyone know who is headed for graduate school so they can be prepared for it.

In December of 2003, I took the Graduate Record Examination (GRE). Meant to last for several hours, the GRE tests on verbal, quantitative, and analytical writing skills and is a common requirement for admission to graduate school. The test is taken entirely on a computer in the testing center, including the analytical writing portion, for which a basic word processing program is used.

I had studied for nearly a month beforehand, reading books on test taking strategies and taking sample tests until I thought I was sufficiently prepared. I arrive at the testing center promptly at 8:00am and the proctor hands me a form. She tells me that I must rewrite the statement on the top part of the paper and that I must NOT PRINT.

I was already a bit nervous and I didn't need a complication like this to mess me up. I told her that I didn't write in cursive, and she said that she was just supposed to tell me that the testing center would not accept printing and that I should just do my best. The statement was a good-sized paragraph that basically said that I would not discuss the test questions with anyone else. I guess it was a more robust legal contract if the test-taker rewrote the entire statement in writing that could be proved to be his or her own.

I weighed my options. I could put up a fight, but that wouldn't get me anywhere because it would only upset me further and the proctor obviously had no power to change the rule. Or I could really try to write the paragraph in cursive, which would satisfy the testing center's requirements, but it would take me a long time and defeat the very purpose behind the requirement to write in cursive.

I decided to fake it. I labored over that stupid paragraph. At first I tried to honestly write in cursive, then realized that I didn't even remember how to form some of the letters, so I started inserting random loops. The finished product was somewhat legible and definitely recognizable as a replication of the statement.

I was unsettled and a bit humiliated by the incident. I had taken care to relax, eat well, and get a good night's sleep so as to be in a good mood and fresh for the test, but the statement shook me. I had to carefully calm myself before proceeding with the test and ended up doing well, but it was still incredibly frustrating.

To others who may find themselves in this situation: I don't know that it's worth it to learn cursive just to sign a confidentiality agreement that no one will see, you could just fake it like I did. No one ever said that I didn't do an adequate job of reproducing the statement. Many people don't have very legible handwriting anyway, so I don't think the powers that be will notice if your cursive is bad. So if you don't write in cursive, you should be prepared for the possibility that you will be required to do so and learn enough to at least fake it convincingly without getting upset.

So what are my feelings now, you ask? I still believe that cursive is useless. I think that everyone should be able to sign his or her full legal name, and strive to make everything else legible. Throughout college I saw many professors struggle to decipher other students' handwriting and sometimes even refusing to grade illegible essays. Those students were not printing. No one ever has trouble reading my handwriting, unless I'm in a hurry, then my "a"s tend to look exactly like my "2"s. College assignments aside, I've heard countless people say that they can't even read their OWN handwriting sometimes. That's not exactly functional. Besides, everything important is typed nowadays.

Handwriting is a very personal thing. It's absolutely ridiculous to grade penmanship or insist that it look a certain way. The individual shapes his or her own writing. I remember making conscious decisions about the way I formed certain letters. I wanted my lower case "a" to look the way it looked in books, so I started forming it that way (see above example). I knew that my upper-case "I" looked exactly like my lower-case "l" but I decided to keep it that way because it was too time-consuming to make three slashes with the pen instead of one. I also decided to form my "4"s with an open top instead of a closed top. There's no logic in this one, because it takes more time and doesn't end up looking like a book typeface, but I just liked the way it looked better.

Bottom line, if the only reason for teaching children cursive is that they might one day take the GRE, it's not justified. And that, thus far, is the only reason I have encountered. Teachers, leave them kids alone.