In a cozy Coventry home on a Tuesday morning, three children are busy creating clay seal pups on the dining table. Four-year-old Zephan’s seal resembles an airplane, while ten-year-old Noah and thirteen-year-old Josiah carefully mold the creature’s flippers. Naturally, a book on seals lies open on the nearby sofa. The inspiration for their morning activity came from their term-time holiday spent observing seal cubs on the Pembrokeshire coast.
While other school-going kids must stay glued to their desks, these boys enjoy the freedom to take their day in whichever direction they choose. Zephan heads off to create a den, Noah tucks into his Lego and Josiah decides to express his creativity with some painting.
This is "unschooling" in action- a concept that takes home education a step beyond because children decide what, when, and how they’d like to learn. Unlike conventional schooling or other types of home education, there is no imposed curriculum, learning, or testing. The children are in charge of the pace and agenda, and the aim is to learn through daily life experiences.
For mother Alice Khimasia, whose four boys (Zephan, Noah, Josiah, and 14-year-old Elias) in Coventry all participate in unschooling, this approach is the perfect answer to the travails of formal schooling. She admitted being concerned when, in his third year of school, Elias lost his spark and appeared anxious and downcast. She’d always considered home education as strange, but together with her husband, Kaushil (who is a supply teacher), they researched and dabbled with the idea. "Then came a snowy day in January 2010: ‘It was the most beautiful day, clear and bright,’ she recalls. ‘The boys were so excited when they woke up. So I rang school and said: ‘The boys won’t be in today, we want to play in the snow!’ And we didn’t go back.’"
Unschooling originated in the counterculture of 1970s America as autonomous, child-led or delight-directed learning, and has since proliferated worldwide. Unfortunately, no accurate statistics exist on how many children in the UK are home educated, leave alone unschooled, given no legal obligation exists for parents to register their children. However, in 2015, a poll suggested that 36,609 UK children were home-educated, a number likely higher today.
Anecdotally, parents who are leading their kids out of structured school to unschool them are increasing, as stated by Simon Webb, author of "Elective Home Education in the UK." "You can see that’s the trend, to not have to teach them as they do in school."
Khimasia’s children enjoy their days exploring the world around them. In addition to the ancient Egypt fascination of Zephan, Noah’s love of the Bloodhound land speed record car, Josiah’s art, and Elias’s engineering, they attend a woodwork class with some pensioners, have an allotment, and enjoy swimming with other home-educated children. Khimasia, a trained teacher, had to alter her approach to accommodate unschooling. "I’ve had to let go of a lot of my thinking. I’m more of a mentor, encouraging the boys to have a vision and to undertake their projects."
According to a 2013 study by Peter Gray, a Boston College professor who analyzed the outcomes of seventy-five adults who had been unschooled as children: "Unschooling benefited them for higher education and careers by promoting their sense of personal responsibility, self-motivation, and a desire to learn."
Elias, Khimasia’s oldest son, personifies an independent-minded young man as he tinkers with the hydrogen generator he has constructed in his workshop in their backyard. Standing at only 14 years, he has opted to reintroduce formal education into his life, attending an engineering academy to attain GCSEs, confident that they will lead to a career in the automotive industry. He feels that unschooling has instilled in him a problem-solving aptitude, time, and space to pursue his passions. "My teacher described me as the ‘Google of engineering’ because I’ve had experience building, designing, and inventing things."
Gray’s study revealed that while the majority of participants had positive experiences with unschooling, a few were dissatisfied due to coming from socially isolated and dysfunctional families. One participant from the UK disagreed with the concept of unschooling, stating it was an easy way for ill-equipped parents to raise their children without the need for active participation in society. This individual expressed regret for not receiving a formal education and for not having a solid life plan.
The law assigns the responsibility of a child’s education to parents, but local authorities have a legal obligation to ensure that all children receive a suitable education. To achieve this, the Local Government Association desires the power to compel parents to register their home-schooled children and the right to enter homes and observe the quality of education provided. However, some home educators argue that local authorities possess extensive powers that remain untapped.
Lewis James from Rotherham shares his experience of having received a suitable education without actually learning anything when he was taken out of school at the age of 11. Despite receiving annual visits from local authority inspectors who signed off on his education’s adequacy, he mainly spent his time drawing and moulding with Plasticine. His mother justified this as a result of the stress caused by his uncle’s car crash. He attempted to seek employment at the age of 16, but the lack of qualifications and work experience limited his options. At the age of 17, he joined a vocational school to learn wall and floor tiling and subsequently worked as a cleaner. With financial assistance from the Prince’s Trust, he became an illustrator and a young ambassador for the trust in 2015, appearing at various events to recount his journey from disengaged youth to a successful entrepreneur.
While Khimasia benefited from annual inspections without incident, Julie Coles Bunker views them as invasions of privacy. Bunker, who lives in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, withdrew her three children from school and unschooled them at home when they were 13, 11, and 8 years old. For her children, having an inspector interview them and ask questions felt like an intrusion. To protect their privacy, Bunker chose to provide written information instead.
Dr. Helen Lees, senior lecturer in education studies at Newman University, Birmingham, acknowledges that some families may dislike state intervention. Nevertheless, it is necessary to modify the inspection process to benefit parents and children. Dr. Lees believes it is reasonable for carers to explain their methods of engagement and ensure that they are efficient in imparting knowledge without being intrusive or offensive.
Khimasia’s goal is for her children to become passionate, independent learners who understand that any subject they wish to study is accessible. She believes that a child will learn when presented with a platter of fascinating ideas.
Author
