Unschooling - a view from the corporate office

I had the honor and privilege to speak at the Northeast Unschooling Conference (NEUC) in Wakefield, MA, last weekend. Below is a segment of the talk (it was 45 minutes, so it seems a little long to blog the whole talk). The talk was targeted at unschooling Dads; however, it's really relevant for the breadwinner in the family, regardless of gender. It speaks of my early experiences as unschooling Dad. In it, I speak of my wife, Christine, who led me into unschooling; my daughter, Kimi, 15, whose experience in school encouraged the decision; and my son Shaun, 13, who has grown and prospered as an unschooler despite my initial reaction that he should remain in school. The story focuses on the consequences of the fact that I've been in corporate jobs from the time Christine and I got married through today; this has remained constant from the time we sent the kids to school throughout our unschooling experience.

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I am celebrating 6 years as a radical unschooling Dad. Christine and I had a few opportunities earlier this year to really speak out publicly about our thoughts and feelings towards unschooling, and I’m proud to say that I had no question in my conviction on the unschooling way of life. I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the past few years talking with many people outside of the unschooling community, explaining and, at some level, defending unschooling, which I think has helped me tremendously. I’ve been to at least a dozen different SSUDs sessions at conferences around the country listening to the questions and concerns of Dads, and hopefully contributing some answers. How did I get from that Dad who was struggling to one who is a strong proponent of unschooling? I think I can finally articulate the challenges that I faced in the first couple of years and how we as a family got around them. I think that these challenges are shared by other Dads who have come to unschooling in the same manner I did, and maybe our resolutions to them may help those Dads and their families.

One challenge was that while our family life changed, my life didn’t change very much. Another was that while Christine’s and the kids’ lives changed, some of their expectations about our financial situation didn’t change. Yet another was that for a while, our lives diverged – we grew further apart instead of closer together. And last – well, I’m a guy, and that means I have some challenges that are endemic to my gender. Let me explain these a little more.

My work days, and so much of my life, didn’t change drastically from when we had the kids in school. I do feel like I was enlightened by this unschooling path, but I couldn’t see the full picture. My life was still rooted in that corporate world, and I was doing pretty well. And while Christine and the kids were leading this unschooling life, they didn’t change their expectations around what we could do and afford. We had a pretty nice home in a nice town with some nice things, and now there were more opportunities to travel, take field trips, eat out, shop, and explore their passions. This included purchasing books, and craft materials, and toys, and video games, and iPods, and – well you get it. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to point out a flaw; let’s face it, we were living in suburban Boston, and I had a nice job in a high tech company, and we had a house we liked in a town we liked, and we could afford to do some things we wanted. But when you put these together, you could see that the pressure on me as the breadwinner didn’t change. It didn’t really occur to me to ask them to change their expectations – the reality is that only a pretty drastic change was going to make a real difference, and none of us were in a frame of mind where we could just up and move, I don’t know, to somewhere like Asheville, NC, and start over again. Our lives were in Massachusetts, and we were quite happy with that.

I was still away from home up to 12 hours per day just as I was when the kids were in school, but now that Christine and the kids were together most of the time I was away, I was really the odd one out. When you’re together in the moment, you can see things happen – you can see the kids watching TV for a full day and appreciate how positive it was for them. But it was more difficult to hear about it and easily come to that same conclusion – not while your mind is clouded by the realities of your own life. It didn’t take long for the ‘inside jokes’ to appear – lines from movies, or TV shows, or from funny events of the day. I didn’t like not being on the inside. Then there were times when I would come home while they were in the middle of something, and they couldn’t tear themselves away. So I ended up eating dinner on my own, sometimes because they ate 3 hours ago when they were hungry and on their own schedule. I’m not on that schedule, but instead I’m still on the old schedule where I eat dinner when I get home.

Let’s not forget that the kids are ‘deschooling’ at this time – and the right thing to do is to let them handle things in the way that was best for them at their own pace. This was all new to us – we had never seen deschooling that up close and personal. Here are some of the natural consequences for me to all this – I’m staying close to my comfort zone to make things simpler; I’m struggling with this huge change in one part of my life, but not the rest of my life; I don’t have the same common ground with the kids, where previously at least I had the common experience of having gone to school, and I could remember some of the math or history or other facts that they were learning at the time. So, for a while, we started growing apart, living our separate lives, each ‘side’ not fully understanding what was going on in the other side’s life. Now, add to this fact that I’m a guy – and I’m generalizing here, so no offense intended – so I’m not searching out support groups, I’m not reading the message boards, I’m not getting books and magazines, and I’m not always sharing my feelings. At this point, I can only attend one conference per year – I can’t take as much time off work as I want to, after all – so my opportunities for outside guidance and help are limited. At the same time I’m trying to have a life. There are football games on Sunday, and racquetball matches on Saturday, and lots to do around the house and yard.

Oh, and add to this one other little fact – as I mentioned earlier, it was Christine who discovered and researched unschooling, and who was passionate about it. So I’m starting out a year behind her, and she’s moving faster than I am. So every day I’m falling just a little further behind.

As radical unschoolers, we had the extra effect of the changes in our lives being not only around the educational philosophy for the kids, but also for the way we lived our lives.

As an new unschooling Dad, based on where I came from, and where I was spending most of my time, and where the rest of the family was at this time, I hope you can see that this can be a little overwhelming. Dual lifestyles, conflicting priorities, unanswered questions, and general upheaval in my life – these can all cause a bit of stress in one’s life.

Some of you who have been at this for a while now are probably thinking, hey, there are solutions for these issues you bring up. Get out of the corporate life! Get more involved in the kids’ lives! Change your financial lifestyle – downsize! Get involved in the Yahoo! groups and learn! Yep – I know that now. And so does the family. But to go from where we were at the start and to do all those things – wow! Huge changes! And we didn’t consider all of them at the time, and we weren’t ready for them either. Some of you got my comment about Asheville earlier – we’re planning to make the move down there sometime really soon now, and it’s been more than a year in the making, with a final decision made a month or two ago. I’m ready to dive headfirst into the unschooling lifestyle for myself – I want to find something that I’m passionate about, something that doesn’t require me to work 50-60 hours per week and travel enough to achieve Gold status on an airline and a hotel chain, along with enough miles for a free ticket on 3 other airlines. But that has not been an easy decision for the whole family, as we all need to make different sacrifices.

I ended up doing a bit of soul searching during this time. I ended up taking a couple different approaches to find answers. One approach was reaching out to others in the unschooling community, especially the Dads. It was powerful to talk to someone who was able to say, “I’m in a situation similar to yours; I had the same concerns and questions; here’s what I’ve learned and realized over the years to see how unschooling works.” Additionally, talking to a variety of Moms, kids, and young adults, and getting their viewpoints and sharing their experiences, helped a lot. There were a lot of one-on-one conversations where I could share my concerns. There were also talks with others who were just starting out, and trying to assuage their concerns about unschooling helped me to realize the ways in which it was working for us.

Let me highlight some of the help that I received from my unschooling friends. During a couple of the early conferences, I was bugged by answers I heard from other parents to a couple of the questions that I think many Dads share. The first question was about the change in the lifestyle. In its simplest form, the issue was around cleaning the house – it used to get cleaned, and now it doesn’t. So I get home, after a long day at work, and the kids have been doing “whatever” and there’s a mess on the kitchen table and the living room looks like a toy box exploded, and the dishes are piled up in the sink. What to do? The answer I often heard from the other radical unschooling parents at conferences, and hated, was “You just need to get over it, and move on. If having a clean house is important to you, then you clean it.” Sometimes, the answer was “Let go of your pre-conceived notions of what family life is supposed to be – change your priorities.” Huh? What does that mean? I felt that was a brush off answer, and when I heard that answer in Dad-oriented gatherings (especially the SSUDs sessions) I could see the eyes rolling back in the heads of the newer Dads, or the ones who really had that question. It took me a couple of years to really get to the bottom of this one. You see, what I was really feeling was a couple of things – first, I was being left out of the amazing new lifestyle; second, I felt that I was now not a full member of the family. My needs were not being respected or met! So, as we were trying to follow this new lifestyle, allowing everyone to follow their passions, and not forcing any unnecessary rules on people, we needed to do this as a full family. I needed to find ways to participate in the lives of my family, and just as importantly – I can’t stress that enough – my family had to count me in as an equal, and my needs had to be just as important as theirs. Once this became clear to us all, we were able to get past it – because, you see, if it *is* important to me that there be some cleanliness to the house, then this need should be respected just as any other need. Just because it seems to cling to the ‘old’ way of life doesn’t make it less valid; after all, my life, by mutual choice of the entire family, is still dominated by this ‘old’ way of life. It took a little bit of time, but we got together as a family and talked. We gained a greater understanding of respect for each other. We focused on what was important to the others in the family – not questioning why, but acknowledging the identification - and then we worked to honor those needs. This helped all of us – not only did I find more of my needs being met, but we were all able to better meet the needs of the others in the family. It allowed us to be open and honest with each other. Things aren’t perfect, but they’re really good, and no one is ashamed to tell the others what their needs are and we expect that the others will do what they can to accommodate. This has allowed me to stop feeling left out (although I still don’t get all the inside jokes), and enjoy my time with the family more when we’re together.

The second question that still nagged me, and as I observed, nagged other Dads, was around the issue of our kids’ future employment. How do I know that my kid is going to be able to support himself as an adult? How would my child support her family? And how would I not have to work through my retirement years to support them? Again, the answer was unsatisfactory – “trust your kids; by pursuing their passion they’ll make a living.” Sorry, but as someone who followed the school-college-corporate job path that isn’t very comforting. I’m thinking that no one is going to hire my son to play video games or hire my daughter to read Harry Potter books. Trust them? I trust them! What does that have to do with them being able to support themselves and their families? I continued searching for answers and I learned several things. A wise unschooling Dad shared some of his wisdom. The first nugget – most unschoolers would not be looking for a corporate job, but would be looking to become entrepreneurs. For that, they needed most importantly to find a passion, and then find a way, through an apprenticeship, or an internship, or a partnership, or self-education, to learn all they can about that passion. Then, they can start their own business, or join an existing small business, to get to do what they want. The second nugget is that out of the respect and love that unschooled young adults share with their parents, they don’t want their parents to have to support them their whole lives – & in fact, they want to be self sufficient. Wow! These were breakthrough ideas for me! On these issues and others like them, the unschooling community really came through for me.

The other approach I took to finding answers to the bigger questions was to make a series of observations of my life. I’ve shared some of the situations I experienced at work – especially as a manager. I started to see significant parallels between unschooling and successful management. I considered how I was treating my staff, and how I was making decisions and providing advice about their advancement, and I saw a huge convergence between my management principles and unschooling principles. Encourage people to follow their passions; provide different ways for people to learn; provide guidance, not lessons; treat people with respect; allow for different perspectives on how someone got right here, right now. All of these principles guided my work life, so how could I not see how they should guide my personal life? I’m not saying that I should treat my family as if they are my staff, but I am saying that I shouldn’t treat my work staff better than I treat my children. I am able to see the different context – I am looking to increase performance at work, but I’m looking to increase happiness at home. Still, the parallels are there.

During the six years we’ve been unschooling, I have seen the development of my children into happy, engaging, respectful, bright young adults. I have the pleasure of being with other unschooled kids, and we have a number of friends and family members who are not unschoolers, and I have seen the development of both sets of kids over the same period of time. I have, in front of my eyes, indisputable proof that unschooling works. I didn’t see all those concerns that I had in the early years materialize. Unschooled kids are just as ready for the adult working world as their schooled peers; in many ways, they are more prepared.

But how will they learn .......

Based on the feedback we have been getting from our appearance in the media, a few of the big concerns voiced by parents who follow a more traditional education process include:

- Socialization
- Following rules
- Learning how to do things you don't want to do

One interpretation of these concerns:

- 'Socialization' - if you homeschool or unschool your kid, they will spend all of their time at home, and will not meet anyone else who doesn't live with them.

- 'Following rules' - especially if you are a radical unschooling family, then kids will never see any rules, and therefore will never be able to understand and follow rules.

- 'Learning how to do things you don't want to do' - if you unschool, and kids are able to make educational choices, they will never be presented with a situation where they have to do something they don't want to do.

I found that the answers that I gave to these questions didn't seem to satisfy those asking them, so I tried to think about it a little more - from the perspective of the person asking the question. While I don't feel the need to defend the choices we've made for our kids, I do think it would be helpful for others to understand some of what we're living.

1. The socialization aspect of schools that are touted as advantages are "spending time with other kids your own age, learning how to deal with people you don't like, and interacting with a variety of adults." My concern that this definition of socialization is not really applicable to the real world. Specifically:
a) In school, you are forced to spend most of your time with kids who are exactly your age (plus or minus 6 months, except for a small number of kids). In the real world, you don't have to spend your time with people your own age. You can, but you don't have to.
b) In school, you are spending time with a pretty homogeneous set of kids - you're all from the same town or area, which means you already have a lot in common. In the real world, you are rarely with a group of people who have that much in common. Our kids spend a lot of time with other kids (of a variety of ages) in many different settings - classes, activities, gatherings, family get-togethers, etc. They relate well with kids of all ages. For us, that is much better socialization than what they would get in a classroom.
c) In school, all adults are authority figures, and kids have to treat them as such. Note that this is not the same as treating them with respect. In the real world, adults can be peer-like to kids; in other words, they can talk to them about varied topics, and interact with them in many ways, without the fear of punishment. They interact with adults all the time, and have learned to respect them as people; in addition, they have many opportunities to interact with authority figures, and they have easily learned to respect them. In fact, respect is one of the core values that we've imparted on our children.

2. Many of the specific rules (raising your hand to speak; asking for permission to use the bathroom; having no choice about what you'll do each day) are not true in the real world. Now, for some jobs - I'm thinking factory work, as one example - you may find these same conditions; but who amongst us as parents want our kids to strive to work in that kind of job? Most parents imagine their kids as doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists, business professionals - all jobs where the you set your own hours (based on criteria that is important to you personally); where you are expected to creatively solve problems or provide goods and services; and where you are expected to 'think outside the box' by, to a large extent, going against the common thinking in order to innovate your way to success. This is not what you learn in a school setting - in fact, it is truly the exact opposite.

3. I think 'learning how to follow rules' has two aspects to it. First, you have to learn how to do things you don't want to do. In the real world, this seems to translate into the fact that in your job you will have to perform tasks or assignments that you don't like. What seems to follow in this line of thinking is that if there is something that a person likes that there will be no aspect of it that s/he doesn't like. As a simple example, my daughter likes specific foods that are not always available in the grocery stores where we shop. In order to make sure she gets what she wants, she has to come shopping with us. Grocery shopping is not fun - she doesn't enjoy it at all. However, in order to get what she wants (food), she does something she doesn't like (shop). Did she have to learn it? Well, the real world presented her with a situation, and she addressed it. This happens all the time for kids and adults. These kinds of examples are way too numerous to list.

The second aspect of learning how to follow rules is that if you don't have a structured environment that you won't learn how to follow rules. There is an implication that without putting a kid in a structured environment that they will never see any rules. In the real world, there are rules all over the place. We have mentioned several times that we have no arbitrary rules, and that we use some basic principles to guide our behavior. For example, we respect each other. That means, by definition, that one kid can't do something that will upset the other. It should be straightforward to translate that into behavioral guidelines that are the equivalent of rules, without having to list the rules. So, if playing the drums is going to interfere with the person already reading in a room, then drum playing is out right now. What is most interesting about that is that it causes negotiations between the kids so that they are both able to do what they want; this is much more valuable (and useful in the real world) than a simple rule that says no drum playing. With respect to an issue that is of great concern to others: if the kids don't have a set bedtime, and aren't forced to get up at a certain time, how will they ever be able to get up and hold a job? Well, I'm confused as to why someone would have to 'learn' to get up early. However, as a couple of real world situations - first, on a regular basis, our kids or family have activities that require the kids to get up. We don't have a bedtime or a regular wake up time, but if we need to get up early, then we do. Both kids get up at whatever time they need to when it's important for some reason; either something they want to do, or something they need to do. Our favorite example is that the kids both go to a fantastic summer camp called Wizards and Warriors (learn more about it at www.guardup.com). During the 2 weeks, they have to be in bed by 10pm and get up every morning at 7am. For the week leading up to the camp, the kids get up progressively earlier each day in anticipation of the camp; and for the entire 2 weeks, they get up at 7am with no problem. How do we explain this? It's pretty simple - there is a reason for the early wake up, so they wake up.

The belief that without school, kids cannot possibly be socialized, be able to do tasks that they don't want to do, or follow rules, seems quite unfounded when you look at the way the real world must exist. Now, I will agree, that if we lived in such a way as to keep our kids completely away from society, and have a homestead large enough so that they would never have to interact (and therefore interrupt) each other, and we spent no time whatsoever with the kids to provide them with guidance and values, they could miss out on all of that; why anyone would assume that we did that, or that we could even do that living in the suburbs, is beyond me (especially in light of the fact that we put our kids on TV).

What we wish the media shared about us...

We’ve been proactively exposing our kids for years to the many different ideas & things that exist in the world & they do choose to learn about interesting & complicated stuff, such as mythology, forensic science, geography, geology, opera, Shakespeare.  They have been reading since they were little - before school-age - & read every single day from numerous types of literature.

Kimi & Shaun can learn organically or formally - it’s their choice how they get their information.  They didn’t need classes to learn those things already mentioned as well how to swim, ski, hike, climb rock walls, read, figure out math problems, type, spell & write.  Things they have chosen to attend classes for include zoo school, a NASA simulation, sword fighting & historical weapons, gymnastics, Japanese culture, French, creative writing & robotics.  

There are a large number of radical unschoolers who are currently in college or already part of the work force.  They are positively engaged in society, not lost souls who can’t hold a job or take care of themselves.  Most 13 or 15 year olds don’t feel ready for college, no matter how they are being educated, so judging unschoolers differently is hypocritical.  Our kids will pursue whatever form of higher education they want because of specific goals they have set for themselves, not just because that’s what everyone is supposed to do.

There is a huge difference between no rules and no arbitrary rules.  When rules feel arbitrary people of all ages will fight back, sometime subtly, sometimes blatantly.  Our family “rules” are actually principles, with trust, respect & honesty always supporting the decision-making process.  As they internalize these principles, they are armed with the character tools needed to make logical, informed decisions and behave with honor and integrity, no matter how amazing or mundane the task.

Typical day?  Fortunately, unschoolers don't have a monotonous routine 5 days a week, 9 months out of the year!  "Typical" depends on the type of day.  

When we’re traveling, we have places to visit & things to do based upon whether the place is new to us or not.  This could include going to museums, zoos, national parks, cities, beaches, or musical or theatrical events.

When we’re home, the kids have various activities that they are engaged in, which could be done alone, with each other or us, or with a group of friends.  Activities include reading about, researching or exploring something that they are currently interested in, socializing with friends, working on projects, running errands or helping around the house.  Some days they have their classes to go to.  It varies & they are always busy & engaged in some activity.

Our kids are thoroughly engaged in their community - not being in school frees them to interact with many different people, doing different jobs, of different ages & backgrounds.  Their friendships & acquaintances provide them with a wider point of view of life styles that are different from their own.  The issues of bullying, cliques & negative peer pressure are not a part of their lives - they can't imagine why people would treat others that way.

Why can't learning be a joyful thing?  Why do so many people want children to "endure" - what does that say about their own lives?  And why do so many people think so little about the capabilities & work ethic of children, teens & young adults?  If so many are so lazy, well, were they unschooled or schooled - & if they were schooled (which we all know most were) then how can you attack unschoolers instead of the school system that begot these "lazy" adults?

I'm not saying the public school is all bad, even when it doesn't have a 100% success rate.  There are families that are not equipped, for various reasons, to unschool their children.  But the system is far from perfect.  Unschoolers are not perfect, but somehow we are expected to do better than what the school system is able to do.  I hope that those families looking for alternatives can find useful, factual information to help them make decisions that enhance their lives & the lives of their children.