Autonomous learning/ unschooling. When does it not 'work'?

This post was inspired by one of Manda's at It is the Journey.

So when does autonomous learning (unschooling) not 'work'?

I do feel a responsibility, having waxed lyrical over the years about the easy success of this learning method for my family and having now read this post of Manda's, to write about the potential downside of the method and the factors that can make it fail to be effective.

Firstly, if any of the significant adults involved in a child's education have career or achievement ambitions for the child, this would cause problems because even if it went unsaid, the child would probably sense a certain pressure to either comply with or rebel against the adult's wishes.

If any of a child's thoughts, time or energy are spent on either complying with or rebelling against an influential adult's perceived wishes, this detracts from the autonomous learning process.

So if, as a home-educating parent, you're thinking about making the decision with your child to embark on autonomous learning, you do need to examine yourself and any other closely involved people, for ambitions regarding the child. I think you need to be asking the following questions:

• Is it important for you that the child does 'well', in education and in life?


• If so, what do you define as 'well'? Financially 'well'? Academically 'well'? Emotionally 'well'? I think it's necessary to look into your wishes for the child in detail and the reason you wish them.


• How much of your help do you think the child needs to attain success? Again, I think you need to look at your own definition of 'success' and try to work out why you think that way. Success means widely different things to different people. Your child's definition may vary from your own. Should you inflict your definition onto your child?


• If your child is going to need your help, do you trust your child to ask for it? Do you trust yourself to wait until s/he does? (Most parents - myself included - find this bit really difficult! But it's a very important part of the process.)

At the bottom of my decision to allow my children's education to be autonomous lies a deep-seated belief in their unique identity and destiny, and their human right to fulfill this, despite what I or other people may wish for them instead. Yes of course I'd like them to attain 'success' in most conventional senses of the word - or would I?

Do I want them to be wealthy, even if it means they're unhappy? Of course not. Would I like them to be famous so that I can be proud and bask in their reflected glory? Absolutely not. Do I rate my success as a parent by what people think of my children's activities and achievements? No, and it's lucky that I don't, because most of their contemporaries appear to be - on paper - more 'successful' than them.

I consider my job as the children's residential parent to be primarily that of nourishing and protecting their right to be themselves, whatever that means, and I think it's that kind of thinking which is essential for autonomous learning or unschooling to work. (Both terms: autonomous learning and unschooling, mean the same thing. The term you use usually depends on which side of the Atlantic you're on, but they're totally interchangeable in my opinion.)

So, to be clear about this: if there's a significant adult who is closely involved in the children's education trying to impose their own ideas about learning and success, I think the autonomous method will probably fail to provide a sufficient education. This is partly because of the fragile nature of curiosity, without which a child has no will to find anything out and partly because personal ambition depends on the freedom to carve one's own path through life.

Being the parent of an autonomously home-educated child does NOT mean doing nothing. Most of my children's learning involves me in some way or other, even now that some of them are beyond the age of compulsory education. But the impetus to learn something or to develop a skill always, always comes from them, never from me.

Over the years I've gauged the success or failure of their education in terms of whether or not they're curious, motivated and happy and they've demonstrated healthy amounts of all three. Now that the boys are approaching the age in which they have to earn money sometimes, I can finally ask myself whether the original benchmark standards I used at the beginning when I made the decision have been reached:

• Are the children themselves happy with 'where they're at'?
  - I ask them regularly and they unanimously say yes.


• Are they able to earn money when they need to?
  - The boys have both proved time and again that they can easily do this.


• Are they able to earn money by doing work they enjoy?
  - Ditto. They've both earned good money by just doing what they'd have been doing for free anyway.


• Do they have the skills to change their situations if they so wish?
  - Ohhh yes. Again, they've both proved that this is definitely the case.

And that's it: all I wanted their education to provide for them. On that basis, by our standards here it's been 100% successful - but only because of the factors listed above.