There’s so much confusion around the terms “unschooling” and “child-led” that I’m tempted to use a different term for what we do: “curiosity-driven homeschooling.”
By that I mean that sometimes his interests lead, other times I’m “curious” to see his reaction to a new idea or topic. It may be something tied to mainstream education standards (learning parts of speech) or completely unrelated (learning about stuff in the news). If he latches on to the main idea or a related one, then it’s full-steam ahead. If not, then we adapt the content or the approach to fit his age. Or we table the topic for later.
Since our household is comprised of die-hard lifelong learners, it makes sense that we share the reins. A curiosity-driven approach allows that to happen naturally and easily. In fact, if we were to change up and send him to school at some point, I’m confident that we’d continue curiosity-driven in some way, shape or form through afterschooling.
Explore More:
• Futurist Thomas Frey has a great post from earlier this year on how curiosity-driven approaches might change mainstream education. I think he may be right.
• Christina Pilkington’s Interest-Led Learning is another blogger/home educator with a similar approach to mine.
• UPDATE: The morning after this entry posted, Penelope Trunk shared her thoughts on homeschooling vs. unschooling.
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Agreed!