Review

Since beginning my journey into homeschooling, I’ve been fascinated by the many different philosophies of home education.  I’ve been stretched and challenged. The way I understood education before now has been narrow. I accepted that the way I was educated—public school, lecture and textbook fashion—was the right way. I now see that isn’t the case. There are many approaches that allow us as home educators to tailor our lessons to the needs of our individual children. I embrace that now, and yet, some philosophies still make me uncomfortable. Unschooling is one of those philosophies. I find it fascinating, but a little scary too.

For the person who doesn’t know what unschooling is, let me try to define it as I understand it. It is student directed in its approach. A parent’s role is more of a facilitator, someone who gently introduces subjects, encourages natural affinities and is available to answer questions and give guidance, but the child is the one who pursues the study. There is limited testing, and real-life, hands-on experiences are encouraged.

All of this sounds well and good until you realize that this may mean your child doesn’t read until he shows an interest in reading, which can occur anytime between ages 4 and 9. It also means that structured curriculum is rarely used and that if your child is uninterested in a particular subject—say, the Civil War, chemistry or Shakespeare—then the subject may be reintroduced later, explored from a different angle or even skipped altogether. I admit, that last option makes me nervous.

But as I opened Mary Hood’s The Relaxed Home School: A Family Production I wanted to keep an open mind. She is an expert on the subject of unschooling, and I really wanted to discover what she had to say on the subject. What I found was interesting. In her book, she shared the way she educated her five children, and there definitely is an inviting, unintimidating feel in her style.

The Hoods are obviously a creative family, and I applaud them for encouraging such a creative atmosphere in their home. Hood describes the art and music learning centers that she has set up in her home. The music center is full of instruments and other materials that allow her children to explore music—books on composers, CDs and more. The art center has all that a blossoming artist could desire—materials, crafting supplies, books on drawing, etc. As the mother of a creative child, these centers interest me and while I have some of this in my home, Hood takes it to another level. Her book, How to Set Up Learning Centers in Your Home, explains this even more, and I look forward to reading it.

I also appreciated Hood’s relaxed approached to her children’s milestones. Sometimes as parents we can buy into the belief that our children should be doing x, y and z in this time frame. When they don’t, we can be plagued with fear or doubt or the desire to “fix” them. Hood’s laid back style, which seems to say, “Don’t worry. Don’t push. Just let them move at their own pace,” is refreshing. It’s like sitting down to tea with a good friend who has been through the trenches of parenting and come out the other side without too many scars.

Take the subject of reading. Hood doesn’t believe it’s necessary to spend money on expensive curriculum just to teach a child to read. Her solution: simply read to them. With time, patience and gentle persuasion, your child will read. She also admits that children can approach reading differently. While most of her children learned phonetically, one learned by “memorization and learning the shapes of the words.” Again, that takes the pressure off to hear that different approaches work for different children, even in something as basic as learning to read.

As I read The Relaxed Home School, I came to understand better the attraction of unschooling. I can see that if you have a naturally curious child—and most children are naturally curious—that unschooling can hold some appeal, and few can argue with Hood’s reliance on living books. This definitely resonates with homeschoolers across the philosophical spectrum. The challenge came at the end of Hood’s book in the chapter “Answering the Critics.”  Personally, I wouldn’t be comfortable having to scramble to justify my children’s educational pursuits or make an educational “quilt” from their random, or organic, endeavors. I want to know what exacting my children have been studying and have a roadmap for them.

But more than that, I came away from The Relaxed Home School with a nagging fear that Hood’s approach would appeal to the lazy and disorganized part in all of us. I have already discovered that homeschooling isn’t for the faint hearted and while there is merit to allowing children to pursue their natural inclinations and giving them a say in their education, I’m not convinced that they need to be given the reigns to such a large degree or that I, as the parent, need to be merely their coach. This may work for some parents and even some children, but those are probably the exception, not the rule.

That said, Hood gave me lots to think about. While I wouldn’t consider myself an unschooler by any means, I do think that like all of the philosophies, unschooling makes some interesting points, and I look forward to learning more from Hood and other unschoolers.