Unschooling
Proponents
of unschooling would take issue with it being called a method at all, since a
rejection of the notion of educational methods is at the centre of this approach
to learning.
Many of the foundations on which the unschooling approach is based are drawn from the writings of John Hunt, who was born in New York in 1923 and in the mid 20th century was one of America's foremost education thinkers and a proponent of school reform. Eventually he came to the conclusion that the model of teaching children in schools was inherently flawed and that home-based experiential learning, free from structured lessons and the notion of subjects was a superior approach.
"It's not that I feel that school is a good idea gone wrong," he said, "but a wrong idea from the word go. It's a nutty notion that we can have a place where nothing but learning happens, cut off from the rest of life." [source]
Philosophy
John Holt believed that many home schooling methods were little more than the creation of 'mini-schools' in the home, and that such an approach missed the point and did not take the idea of home schooling to its logical conclusion - which he called 'unschooling'.
Unschooling is sometimes called 'natural learning', 'experiential learning' or 'independent learning'. The central philosophy is that children learn best in the world, by living, rather than through a structured system of lessons, defined subjects or set curricula. Unschooled children learn all the time, not in lessons but by using everyday activities as a conduit to natural learning which moves at a pace set entirely by the child.
Those unfamiliar with the concepts can see unschooling as simply letting children run wild, but in fact a closer look at what happens in families using this approach gives lie to this idea. While it is true, if unusual, that some unschooled children will reach the age of 10 or older without being able to read, the same child may be an authority on astronomy or have a remarkably in depth understanding of mechanics. Reading and other skills will come when the child perceives a need to use them as tools.
Goals
The aim of unschooling is to harness the natural enthusiasm of the child for learning and to create well rounded, independent, individuals who have the knowledge and experience they need to make their way successfully in the world, following a path that is suited to their abilities and aligned with their interests rather than one that is dictated to them from outside.
Practical Implementation
It is difficult to define how unschooling is implemented as each family, each child and each parent will have their own unique experience of it. Essentially there is no scheduled learning, no curriculum, no text books, there are no set goals and no outside standards applied. Learning is child led, with the role of the parent being to facilitate the child in following his or her own passions and interests.
This can seem like a recipe for anarchy, but rarely is. Children are naturally curious and able to learn from their world without any formal teaching being necessary. Take the situation of children playing with, for example, a train set. They will learn about movement and mechanics, they may become interested in trains generally, with that interest leading them to enquire and learn about the history of transport or about individuals involved in the design of trains. While subject labels will not have been attached to any of this learning, it is clear that simple play could easily lead to practical acquisition of knowledge about history, geography, science and biography.
Often the most difficult thing about moving to unschooling is the trouble that parents have in letting go of all notions of subjects as discrete and, many unschoolers would say, artificially divided fields of knowledge, and adopting the notion that learning is everything a child does. It is a misconception that "book learning" is somehow banned in unschooling, this is not so and the contrary is often the case with children motivated to read in order to experience the pleasure in reading they observe in their parents, and free to read whatever they want, whenever they want.
A common question is what happens when or if a child wants to pursue a career that requires academic qualifications - how are they to gain access to them? The answer is that unschooled children decide themselves what they want to do, so if acquiring an academic qualification becomes important to them, they will work to do that and it is the job of parents to support and facilitate their choice.
More Information
It is not easy to find an authoritative source of online information about unschooling, but this site has a large number of contributions from parents and children and gives a good feel for what they experience.
There is more to be learned from books about unschooling
Sudbury Valley School takes the concepts of unschooling and puts them back into a school setting - albeit a school about as far from the traditional model as it is possible to get.