A lot of people ask me about why I think 'unschooling' is the foundation for all powerful education models - now and for the future. A lot of people think unschooling is just about not sending the child to school and not following a well-planned formal syllabus (like in homeschooling). They have trouble imagining what their child would do all day (particularly since the primary role of schooling is as a baby-sitting service). I would like to suggest that all unschooling starts with three deep listenings. The first listening is to listen to the curiousity and creativity of the child. The child is not an empty vessel to be filled or molded; they have agency. Also, anyone who has multiple children can understand that each child in the family is unique. They don't all learn or behave in the same way. This is so simple and obvious that it is hard to imagine how the pundits of modern schooling could have gotten it so so wrong. There is no 'average' student. Part of the reason driving this absurdity is the philosophy of the banking paradigm, part of it is the obnoxious classroom sizes and timetable, and part of it is because of the standardized, dumbed down examination system. What if the students had time to listen to their own inner voice, connect to their intrinsic motivation and to go deeper into the projects of their interest?
The second listening is to listen to the local context. This has many levels from local culture, local economy, community needs, local ecology to personal emotional and socio-spiritual daily events like birth, death, weddings, etc to the needs of people and other beings around you. The material context is continuously creating a lot of challenges, relationships and meaningful opportinities for our learning. Unfortunately, schools have for the most part ignored local context and they discourage students from exploring the local place-based content that emerges from the local context. We have been taught to ignore bio-regional learning. What if local context could help inform the content, the process and expand the web of learning spaces that are to be engaged with?
The third listening is to listen to whispers of unlearning. As adults (parents and teachers) we have many conditionings (such as competition and comparison), traumas, insecurities, etc. which we consciously or unconsciously impose on children. Oftentimes, we are not even aware of these. This implies that unschooling is not only for children, it is an invitation for the parents, educators and other community members to reflect on themselves as well. As one start into this conversation, I invite adults to think about the 10 lies their school taught them.
These days school reformers are too busy imposing their tech solutions 'to fix' the existing game or to fix the 'flawed' student according to some abstract 2D plan. Unschooling is an invitation to let go of the pre-cast molds and be more fully present to the child as a co-learner.
