Unschooling
Encyclopedia
Unschooling is a range of education
al philosophies and practices centered on allowing child
ren to learn
through their natural life experiences, including play
, game
play, household
responsibilities, work experience, and social interaction, rather than through a more traditional school curriculum. There are some who find it controversial. Unschooling encourages exploration of activities, often initiated by the children themselves, facilitated by the adults. Unschooling differs from conventional schooling principally in the thesis that standard curricula and conventional grading
methods, as well as other features of traditional schooling, are counterproductive to the goal of maximizing the education of each child.
The term "unschooling" was coined in the 1970s and used by educator John Holt, widely regarded as the "father" of unschooling.
While often considered to be a subset of homeschooling
, unschoolers may be as philosophically estranged from other homeschoolers as they are from advocates of conventional schooling. While homeschooling has been subject to widespread public debate, little media attention has been given to unschooling in particular. Popular critics of unschooling tend to view it as an extreme educational philosophy, with concerns that unschooled children will lack the social skills, structure, and motivation of their peers, especially in the job market, while proponents of unschooling say exactly the opposite is true: self-directed education in a natural environment makes a child more equipped to handle the "real world."
is an inefficient use of the children's time, because it requires each child to learn a specific subject matter in a particular manner, at a particular pace, and at a particular time regardless of that individual's present or future needs, interests, goals, or any pre-existing knowledge he or she might have about the topic.
Many unschoolers also believe that opportunities for valuable hands-on, community-based, spontaneous, and real-world experiences are missed when educational opportunities are largely limited to those which can occur physically inside a school building.
, "It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated", and in the words of Holt:
It is asserted that this ability to learn on their own makes it more likely that later, when these children are adults, they can continue to learn what they need to know to meet newly emerging needs, interests, and goals; and that they can return to any subject that they feel was not sufficiently covered or learn a completely new subject.
Many unschoolers disagree that there is a particular body of knowledge that every person, regardless of the life they lead, needs to possess. They suggest that there are countless subjects worth studying, more than anyone could learn within a single lifetime. Unschoolers argue that, in the words of John Holt, "[I]f [children] are given access to enough of the world, they will see clearly enough what things are truly important to themselves and to others, and they will make for themselves a better path into that world than anyone else could make for them."
Others have pointed out that schools can be designed to be non-coercive and cooperative, in a manner consistent with the philosophies behind unschooling. Sudbury model schools are evidence of schools that are non-coercive, non-indoctrinative, cooperative, democratically run partnerships between children and adults, including full parents' partnership, where learning is individualized and child-led, and complement home education.
's term "deschooling", and was popularized through John Holt's newsletter Growing Without Schooling
. In an early essay, Holt contrasts the two terms:
At this point, then, the term was equivalent with "home schooling" (itself a neologism). Subsequently, home schoolers began to differentiate between various educational philosophies within home schooling. The term "unschooling" became used as a contrast to versions of home schooling that were perceived as politically and pedagogically “school-like.” In 2003, in Holt's very influential book Teach Your Own, originally published in 1981, Pat Farenga, co-author of the new edition, provided such a definition:
In the same passage Holt stated that he was not entirely comfortable with this term, and that he would have preferred the term "living". Holt's use of the term emphasizes learning as a natural process, integrated into the spaces and activities of everyday life, and not benefiting from adult manipulation. It follows closely on the themes of educational philosophies proposed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
, Paul Goodman
, and A.S. Neill.
After Holt's death and the cessation of GWS, there was no longer anything resembling an authoritative voice of the unschooling movement. A very wide range of unschooling practitioners and observers defined the term in various different ways. For instance, the Freechild Project
defines unschooling as:
New Mexico homeschooling parent Sandra Dodd proposed the term "Radical Unschooling" to emphasize the complete rejection of any distinction between educational and non-educational activities. Radical Unschooling emphasizes that unschooling is a non-coercive, cooperative practice, and seeks to promote those values in all areas of life. Catherine Baker and Grace Llewellyn emphasize unschooling as a process initiated and controlled by the learners (as opposed to their parents). All of these usages share an opposition to traditional schooling techniques and the social construction of schools. Most emphasize the integration of learning into the everyday life of the family and wider community. Points of disagreement include whether unschooling is primarily defined by the initiative of the learner and their control over the curriculum, or by the techniques, methods, and spaces being used.
, which is the education of children at home rather than in a school. Home education is often considered to be synonymous with homeschooling
, but some have argued that the latter term implies the re-creation of school in the context of the home, which they believe is philosophically at odds with unschooling.
Unschooling contrasts with other forms of home education in that the student's education is not directed by a teacher
and curriculum
. Unschooling is a real-world implementation of "The Open Classroom" methods promoted in the late 1960's and early 1970's, without the school, classrooms or grades. Parents who unschool their children act as "facilitators," providing a wide range of resources, helping their children access, navigate, and make sense of the world, and aiding them in making and implementing goals and plans for both the distant and immediate future. Unschooling expands from children's natural curiosity
as an extension of their interests, concerns, needs, goals, and plans.
Not Back to School Camp
is an annual gathering of over 100 unschoolers ages 13 to 18. The camp is directed by Grace Llewellyn
, author of The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education
.
also place a great deal of importance on student control of learning. This includes free democratic schools, like the Sudbury Valley School
, Stonesoup School
and 'open learning' virtual universities.
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
al philosophies and practices centered on allowing child
Child
Biologically, a child is generally a human between the stages of birth and puberty. Some vernacular definitions of a child include the fetus, as being an unborn child. The legal definition of "child" generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority...
ren to learn
LEARN
LEARN may refer to:* Law Enforcement Agency Resource Network, a website run by the Anti-Defamation League* LEARN diet, a brand name diet product...
through their natural life experiences, including play
Play (activity)
Play is a term employed in ethology and psychology to describe to a range of voluntary, intrinsically motivated activities normally associated with pleasure and enjoyment...
, game
Game
A game is structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements...
play, household
Household
The household is "the basic residential unit in which economic production, consumption, inheritance, child rearing, and shelter are organized and carried out"; [the household] "may or may not be synonymous with family"....
responsibilities, work experience, and social interaction, rather than through a more traditional school curriculum. There are some who find it controversial. Unschooling encourages exploration of activities, often initiated by the children themselves, facilitated by the adults. Unschooling differs from conventional schooling principally in the thesis that standard curricula and conventional grading
Grade (education)
Grades are standardized measurements of varying levels of comprehension within a subject area. Grades can be assigned in letters , as a range , as a number out of a possible total , as descriptors , in percentages, or, as is common in some post-secondary...
methods, as well as other features of traditional schooling, are counterproductive to the goal of maximizing the education of each child.
The term "unschooling" was coined in the 1970s and used by educator John Holt, widely regarded as the "father" of unschooling.
While often considered to be a subset of homeschooling
Homeschooling
Homeschooling or homeschool is the education of children at home, typically by parents but sometimes by tutors, rather than in other formal settings of public or private school...
, unschoolers may be as philosophically estranged from other homeschoolers as they are from advocates of conventional schooling. While homeschooling has been subject to widespread public debate, little media attention has been given to unschooling in particular. Popular critics of unschooling tend to view it as an extreme educational philosophy, with concerns that unschooled children will lack the social skills, structure, and motivation of their peers, especially in the job market, while proponents of unschooling say exactly the opposite is true: self-directed education in a natural environment makes a child more equipped to handle the "real world."
Children are natural learners
A fundamental premise of unschooling is that curiosity is innate and that children want to learn. From this an argument can be made that institutionalizing children in a so-called "one size fits all" or "factory model" schoolSchool
A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...
is an inefficient use of the children's time, because it requires each child to learn a specific subject matter in a particular manner, at a particular pace, and at a particular time regardless of that individual's present or future needs, interests, goals, or any pre-existing knowledge he or she might have about the topic.
Many unschoolers also believe that opportunities for valuable hands-on, community-based, spontaneous, and real-world experiences are missed when educational opportunities are largely limited to those which can occur physically inside a school building.
Children do not all learn the same way
Unschoolers note that psychologists have documented many differences between children in the way that they learn, and assert that unschooling is better equipped to adapt to these differences.Developmental differences
Developmental psychologists note that children are prepared to learn at different ages. Just as some children learn to walk during a normal range of eight to fifteen months, and begin to talk across an even larger range, unschoolers assert that they are also ready to read, for example, at different ages. Since traditional education requires all children to begin reading at the same time and do multiplication at the same time, unschoolers believe that some children cannot help but be bored because this was something that they had been ready to learn earlier, and even worse, some children cannot help but fail, because they are not yet ready for this new information being taught.Learning styles
People vary in their "learning styles", that is, how they prefer to acquire new information. However, research has demonstrated that this preference is not related to increased learning or improved performance. Despite the lack of evidence, many continue to believe that students have different learning needs. In a traditional school setting, teachers almost never allow an individual student to be evaluated any differently than any other student and while teachers often use different methods, this is sometimes done haphazardly and not always with specific regard to the needs of an individual student.Essential body of knowledge
Unschoolers often state that learning any specific subject is less important than learning how to learn. They assert, in the words of Aleck BourneAleck Bourne
Aleck William Bourne was a prominent British gynaecologist and writer, known for his 1938 trial, a landmark case, for performing an illegal abortion on a 14-year-old girl rape victim. He later became an pro-life activist....
, "It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated", and in the words of Holt:
Since we can’t know what knowledge will be most needed in the future, it is senseless to try to teach it in advance. Instead, we should try to turn out people who love learning so much and learn so well that they will be able to learn whatever needs to be learned.
It is asserted that this ability to learn on their own makes it more likely that later, when these children are adults, they can continue to learn what they need to know to meet newly emerging needs, interests, and goals; and that they can return to any subject that they feel was not sufficiently covered or learn a completely new subject.
Many unschoolers disagree that there is a particular body of knowledge that every person, regardless of the life they lead, needs to possess. They suggest that there are countless subjects worth studying, more than anyone could learn within a single lifetime. Unschoolers argue that, in the words of John Holt, "[I]f [children] are given access to enough of the world, they will see clearly enough what things are truly important to themselves and to others, and they will make for themselves a better path into that world than anyone else could make for them."
The role of parents
The child-directed nature of unschooling does not mean that unschooling parents will not provide their children with guidance and advice, or that they will refrain from sharing things that they find fascinating or illuminating with them. These parents generally believe that as adults, they have more experience with the world and greater access to it. They believe in the importance of using this to aid their children in accessing, navigating, and making sense of the world. Common parental activities include sharing interesting books, articles, and activities with their children, helping them find knowledgeable people to explore an interest with (anyone from physics professors to automotive mechanics), and helping them set goals and figure out what they need to do to meet their goals. Unschooling’s interest-based nature does not mean that it is a "hands off" approach to education; parents tend to be quite involved, especially with younger children (older children, unless they are new to unschooling, will often need much less help finding resources and making and carrying out plans).Criticism of traditional school methods
According to unschooling pioneer John Holt, "...the anxiety children feel at constantly being tested, their fear of failure, punishment, and disgrace, severely reduces their ability both to perceive and to remember, and drives them away from the material being studied into strategies for fooling teachers into thinking they know what they really don't know." Proponents of unschooling assert that individualized, child-led learning is more efficient and respectful of children's time, takes advantage of their interests, and allows deeper exploration of subjects than what is possible in conventional education.Others have pointed out that schools can be designed to be non-coercive and cooperative, in a manner consistent with the philosophies behind unschooling. Sudbury model schools are evidence of schools that are non-coercive, non-indoctrinative, cooperative, democratically run partnerships between children and adults, including full parents' partnership, where learning is individualized and child-led, and complement home education.
History and usage of the term "unschooling"
The term "unschooling" probably derives from Ivan IllichIvan Illich
Ivan Illich was an Austrian philosopher, Roman Catholic priest, and "maverick social critic" of the institutions of contemporary western culture and their effects on the provenance and practice of education, medicine, work, energy use, transportation, and economic development.- Personal life...
's term "deschooling", and was popularized through John Holt's newsletter Growing Without Schooling
Growing Without Schooling
Growing Without Schooling was a homeschooling newsletter, focused primarily on unschooling. It was founded in 1977 by educator John Holt, and was published in Boston, Massachusetts. Reportedly the first such publication in the United States, it was read worldwide, and helped to catalyze the early...
. In an early essay, Holt contrasts the two terms:
GWS will say 'unschooling' when we mean taking children out of school, and 'deschooling' when we mean changing the laws to make schools non-compulsory...
At this point, then, the term was equivalent with "home schooling" (itself a neologism). Subsequently, home schoolers began to differentiate between various educational philosophies within home schooling. The term "unschooling" became used as a contrast to versions of home schooling that were perceived as politically and pedagogically “school-like.” In 2003, in Holt's very influential book Teach Your Own, originally published in 1981, Pat Farenga, co-author of the new edition, provided such a definition:
When pressed, I define unschooling as allowing children as much freedom to learn in the world as their parents can comfortably bear.
In the same passage Holt stated that he was not entirely comfortable with this term, and that he would have preferred the term "living". Holt's use of the term emphasizes learning as a natural process, integrated into the spaces and activities of everyday life, and not benefiting from adult manipulation. It follows closely on the themes of educational philosophies proposed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...
, Paul Goodman
Paul Goodman (writer)
Paul Goodman was an American sociologist, poet, writer, anarchist, and public intellectual. Goodman is now mainly remembered as the author of Growing Up Absurd and an activist on the pacifist Left in the 1960s and an inspiration to that era's student movement...
, and A.S. Neill.
After Holt's death and the cessation of GWS, there was no longer anything resembling an authoritative voice of the unschooling movement. A very wide range of unschooling practitioners and observers defined the term in various different ways. For instance, the Freechild Project
Freechild Project
The Freechild Project is a nonprofit organization focused on creating connections between adults and young people through programs, technical assistance, publications, training, and curriculum. Adam Fletcher is the director, and the project is located in Olympia, Washington...
defines unschooling as:
the process of learning through life, without formalized or institutionalized classrooms or schoolwork.
New Mexico homeschooling parent Sandra Dodd proposed the term "Radical Unschooling" to emphasize the complete rejection of any distinction between educational and non-educational activities. Radical Unschooling emphasizes that unschooling is a non-coercive, cooperative practice, and seeks to promote those values in all areas of life. Catherine Baker and Grace Llewellyn emphasize unschooling as a process initiated and controlled by the learners (as opposed to their parents). All of these usages share an opposition to traditional schooling techniques and the social construction of schools. Most emphasize the integration of learning into the everyday life of the family and wider community. Points of disagreement include whether unschooling is primarily defined by the initiative of the learner and their control over the curriculum, or by the techniques, methods, and spaces being used.
Complementary philosophies
Radical unschooling families may incorporate the following philosophies into their lifestyles. Each philosophy shares the ideals of cooperative partnership and mutual respect.{cite}- Nonviolent CommunicationNonviolent communicationNonviolent Communication is a communication process developed by Marshall Rosenberg beginning in the 1960s. NVC often functions as a conflict resolution process...
, a method of communicating that aims to increase compassion and clarity. - Unconditional ParentingAlfie KohnAlfie Kohn is an American author and lecturer who has explored a number of topics in education, parenting, and human behavior...
and Punished by RewardsAlfie KohnAlfie Kohn is an American author and lecturer who has explored a number of topics in education, parenting, and human behavior...
, parenting and education books by Alfie Kohn. - The Continuum ConceptContinuum conceptThe continuum concept is an idea relating to human development proposed by Jean Liedloff in her 1975 book The Continuum Concept. According to Liedloff, in order to achieve optimal physical, mental and emotional development, human beings—especially babies—require the kind of experience to which...
, Attachment ParentingAttachment parentingAttachment parenting, a phrase coined by pediatrician William Sears, is a parenting philosophy based on the principles of the attachment theory in developmental psychology. According to attachment theory, the child forms a strong emotional bond with caregivers during childhood with lifelong...
, and Attachment TheoryAttachment theoryAttachment theory describes the dynamics of long-term relationships between humans. Its most important tenet is that an infant needs to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for social and emotional development to occur normally. Attachment theory is an interdisciplinary study...
, theories and practices attempting to encourage the child's development. - VoluntaryismVoluntaryismVoluntarism, or voluntaryism, is a philosophy according to which all forms of human association should be voluntary. This moral principle is called the non-aggression principle, which prohibits the initiation of aggressive force or coercion...
: is a philosophy according to which all forms of human association should be voluntary as far as possible. Consequently, voluntaryism opposes the initiation of aggressive force or coercion.
Home education
Unschooling is a form of home educationHome education
Home education is a collective term used in the UK to describe education provided otherwise than through the schooling system. Parents have a duty to ensure their children are educated but the education legislation in England and Wales does not differentiate between school attendance or education...
, which is the education of children at home rather than in a school. Home education is often considered to be synonymous with homeschooling
Homeschooling
Homeschooling or homeschool is the education of children at home, typically by parents but sometimes by tutors, rather than in other formal settings of public or private school...
, but some have argued that the latter term implies the re-creation of school in the context of the home, which they believe is philosophically at odds with unschooling.
Unschooling contrasts with other forms of home education in that the student's education is not directed by a teacher
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
and curriculum
Curriculum
See also Syllabus.In formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults...
. Unschooling is a real-world implementation of "The Open Classroom" methods promoted in the late 1960's and early 1970's, without the school, classrooms or grades. Parents who unschool their children act as "facilitators," providing a wide range of resources, helping their children access, navigate, and make sense of the world, and aiding them in making and implementing goals and plans for both the distant and immediate future. Unschooling expands from children's natural curiosity
Curiosity
Curiosity is an emotion related to natural inquisitive behavior such as exploration, investigation, and learning, evident by observation in human and many animal species. The term can also be used to denote the behavior itself being caused by the emotion of curiosity...
as an extension of their interests, concerns, needs, goals, and plans.
Socialization
Concerns about socialization are often a factor in the decision to unschool. Many unschoolers believe that the conditions common in conventional schools, like age segregation, a low ratio of adults to children, a lack of contact with the community, and a lack of people in professions other than teachers or school administration create an unhealthy social environment. They feel that their children benefit from coming in contact with people of diverse ages and backgrounds in a variety of contexts. They also feel that their children benefit from having some ability to influence what people they encounter, and in what contexts they encounter them. Unschoolers cite studies which report that home educated students tend to be more mature than their schooled peers, and some believe this is a result of the wide range of people with which they have the opportunity to communicate. Critics of unschooling, on the other hand, argue that unschooling inhibits social development by removing children from a ready-made peer group of diverse individuals.Common concerns
- Children may receive a sub-standard education from non-credentialed, uneducated caregivers.
- Children won't learn the things they will need to know in their adult lives.
- A child may not learn the same things a regular-schooling peer does, unless an educational professional controls what material is covered.
- Because schools provide a ready-made source of peers, unschooling children will have to have other ways to make friends in their age group.
- A child's only opportunity to experience people of other cultures and worldviews would be in a religious community, scout group, sports teams, etc. If a child isn't exposed to anything "extra", they might not be exposed to other socio-economic groups.
- Fear that a child may be completely unmotivated and never learn anything on their own if raised in a non-manipulated environment.
- A parent may fear they do not have the parenting skills required to guide and advise their children in life skills or help them pursue their interests.
Organizations
A relatively new phenomenon is the unschooling, homeschooling, or self-directed learning center.Not Back to School Camp
Not Back to School Camp
Not Back To School Camp is a summer camp founded in 1996 by Grace Llewellyn, the author of The Teenage Liberation Handbook.NBTSC attracts teens from all over the U.S., Canada, and other countries. It offers campers support in perusing varied avenues of education by connecting them with a pool of...
is an annual gathering of over 100 unschoolers ages 13 to 18. The camp is directed by Grace Llewellyn
Grace Llewellyn
Grace Llewellyn is an American educator, author, and publisher. Her work in the fields of youth liberation, unschooling and homeschooling is widely-regarded. She is the founder of and founder/director of .-Biography:...
, author of The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education
The Teenage Liberation Handbook
The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education, originally published in 1991 by Grace Llewellyn, is a book about unschooling. Inspired by John Holt's educational views among others, the book encourages teenagers to leave full-time school and let their...
.
Other forms of alternative education
Many other forms of alternative educationAlternative education
Alternative education, also known as non-traditional education or educational alternative, includes a number of approaches to teaching and learning other than mainstream or traditional education. Educational alternatives are often rooted in various philosophies that are fundamentally different...
also place a great deal of importance on student control of learning. This includes free democratic schools, like the Sudbury Valley School
Sudbury Valley School
The Sudbury Valley School was founded in 1968 in Framingham, Massachusetts, United States. There are now over 30 schools based on the Sudbury Model in the United States, Denmark, Israel, Japan, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. The model has two basic tenets: educational freedom and democratic...
, Stonesoup School
Stonesoup School
StoneSoup School is a progressive, alternative private school located in Crescent City, FL. It is a member of the National Coalition of Alternative Community Schools.-Overview:...
and 'open learning' virtual universities.
Prominent unschooling advocates
- John HoltJohn Caldwell HoltJohn Caldwell Holt was an American author and educator, a proponent of homeschooling, and a pioneer in youth rights theory.-Biography:...
- Sandra DoddSandra DoddSandra Dodd is an unschooling advocate. Her articles have been published in homeschooling journals , in her self-published book "Moving a Puddle", and are available on her personal website...
- John Taylor GattoJohn Taylor GattoJohn Taylor Gatto is a retired American school teacher with nearly 30 years experience in the classroom, and author of several books on education...
- Ivan IllichIvan IllichIvan Illich was an Austrian philosopher, Roman Catholic priest, and "maverick social critic" of the institutions of contemporary western culture and their effects on the provenance and practice of education, medicine, work, energy use, transportation, and economic development.- Personal life...
- Grace LlewellynGrace LlewellynGrace Llewellyn is an American educator, author, and publisher. Her work in the fields of youth liberation, unschooling and homeschooling is widely-regarded. She is the founder of and founder/director of .-Biography:...
- Wendy PriesnitzWendy PriesnitzWendy Priesnitz is a Canadian alternative education and environmental advocate. She was leader of the Green Party of Canada from July 1996 to January 1997, when she abruptly resigned....
- Catherine BakerCatherine BakerCatherine Baker is a French journalist and unschooling essayist. She has also more recently written against the whole prison system, arguing for a complete abolition...
- Andrew Seaton, PhD
Adult unschoolers of note
- Astra TaylorAstra TaylorAstra Taylor is a Canadian-American documentary filmmaker and writer, best known for her 2005 film, Zizek!, about the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, and for her 2008 film, Examined Life....
, filmmaker - Sunny TaylorSunny TaylorSunaura "Sunny" Taylor is an American painter and activist for disability and animal rights. She currently resides in Oakland, California, and has taught classes at the University of California, Berkeley....
, painter and disability activist (also younger sister of Astra TaylorAstra TaylorAstra Taylor is a Canadian-American documentary filmmaker and writer, best known for her 2005 film, Zizek!, about the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, and for her 2008 film, Examined Life....
) - Peter KowalkePeter KowalkePeter Kowalke is an American unschooling advocate best known for his work on grown homeschoolers and the lasting influence of homeschooling. He produced and edited Grown Without Schooling , a documentary about homeschooling, and has been a columnist for , Home Educator’s Family Times and Life...
- Alex Olson, professional skateboarder and model
- André Stern, musician, composer, luthier, journalist, and writer
- Allison and Catherine Pierce from The PiercesThe PiercesThe Pierces are an American New York-based band consisting of sisters Allison Pierce and Catherine Pierce .-Childhood:...
, and Michelle BranchMichelle BranchMichelle Jacquet DeSevren Branch is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist and actress. During the early 2000s, she released two top-selling albums, The Spirit Room and Hotel Paper, and was subsequently nominated for the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 2003...
, singers
See also
- School-at-home
- Anarchistic free school
- AutodidacticismAutodidacticismAutodidacticism is self-education or self-directed learning. In a sense, autodidacticism is "learning on your own" or "by yourself", and an autodidact is a person who teaches him or herself something. The term has its roots in the Ancient Greek words αὐτός and διδακτικός...
- Taking Children SeriouslyTaking Children SeriouslyTaking Children Seriously is a parenting movement and educational philosophy whose central idea is that it is possible and desirable to raise and educate children without either doing anything to them against their will, or making them do anything against their will.It was founded in 1994 as an...
- Alternative schoolAlternative schoolAlternative school is the name used in some parts of the world to describe an institution which provides part of alternative education. It is an educational establishment with a curriculum and methods that are nontraditional...
- Gifted educationGifted educationGifted education is a broad term for special practices, procedures and theories used in the education of children who have been identified as gifted or talented...
- Montessori methodMontessori methodMontessori education is an educational approach developed by Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori. Montessori education is practiced in an estimated 20,000 schools worldwide, serving children from birth to eighteen years old.-Overview:...
- Special educationSpecial educationSpecial education is the education of students with special needs in a way that addresses the students' individual differences and needs. Ideally, this process involves the individually planned and systematically monitored arrangement of teaching procedures, adapted equipment and materials,...
- Deschooling SocietyDeschooling SocietyDeschooling Society is a critical discourse on education as practised in modern economies. It is a book that brought Ivan Illich to public attention. Full of detail on programs and concerns, the book gives examples of the ineffectual nature of institutionalized education...
- Waldorf Education
- Democratic SchoolDemocratic schoolThis is a comprehensive list of current and former democratic schools. Most of these were modeled on the Summerhill School, the oldest existing democratic school founded in 1921...
- Sudbury Valley SchoolSudbury Valley SchoolThe Sudbury Valley School was founded in 1968 in Framingham, Massachusetts, United States. There are now over 30 schools based on the Sudbury Model in the United States, Denmark, Israel, Japan, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. The model has two basic tenets: educational freedom and democratic...
- UnCollegeUnCollegeUnCollege is a social movement started by Dale Stephens whose goal is to change the notion that going to college is the only path to success. Dale advocates home schooling at the College level, and started a website, uncollege.org to help self-learners network, trade tips, and find...