I witness many messages everyday on various homeschooling groups. Everyone is asking the same question - how do we start homeschooling? what curriculum do we follow? How do we start teaching our children? Almost all of these inquiries come from parents who have jumped into 'taking their children out of school' without giving too much thought on the homeschooling approach. The underlying thought in most parents is - we can teach our children at home. Why should we pay fees to the school when they are going to make us do all the work?" And they dive directly into it without even understanding the homeschooling spectrum.
So here I am touching a bit on it's history and sharing how my understanding evolved through the years.
History of homeschooling in India can be traced back to the Gurukul system when the child would stay at his Guru's home learning and acquiring skills and knowledge. Some Guru's housed around 10 to 12 children at a time. Learning was not just a study of the scriptures, it also included daily processes of cooking, cleaning, household chores, tending to gardens, livestock, farming etc. During the British Era, many Britishers who resided in India homeschooled their children. They brought in tutors from their homeland to teach their children. Later post independence many expats preferred to homeschool their children until 'international schools' were established. Among Indians we have examples of Dr. Pandita Pamabai, Savitri Phule, Anandi Gopal who were self taught or educated at home as in those days Indian schools did not accept female students. Post independence the popular trend was to enroll children in schools and efforts concentrated on enrolling all children in schools. So children who had never enrolled in schools and those who had dropped out were labeled as 'out of school children' or school drop outs and not as 'homeschooled' children.
It was the year 2001, when I first met a homeschooling family in Goa. Janani and Commander Narayan had two boys aged 10 and 7 at that time. Commander had quit the Navy and had started a fortnightly newspaper called Vasco Watch. I was newly married at that time and my husband drew illustrations for their paper. I remember Janani telling me, "Homeschooling is very different from schooling. You do things differently from the way they are done at school." When Commander and Janani visited us when we were in Mysore - she shared with me her secret - she said engage with your children, be with them, enter their world and see how learning blossoms (these are not her exact words - they are para phrased by me). Her children are grown up independent individuals today.
Talking to Ruchir about a year ago was an eye opener for me. Ruchir has just announced the arrival of his son and is in his early thirties. He runs a successful Graphic Design Company along with two friends. He has never been to school. He did not follow any text book or curriculum to learn. His childhood was spent in the wilderness - in villages. The village children were his playmates and co-learners. They discovered and learnt by living life freely. For him and his family as I understand - homeschooling was all about learning by being in nature and among people.
I heard the term unschooling for the first time when I saw the poster on a camp for homeschoolers, unschoolers and self directed learners. I didn't understand the term at that time. A couple of months later - Dola's session at LSUC 2017 at Bangalore helped me understand 'unschooling and how it is different from homeschooling. Dola's Facebook group Unschool India, Zakkiya Ismail's blog posts on unschooling and unschooling-as-social-change , Pam Larrichia's blog Living Joyfully and her book, 'What is Unschooling' has brought in more clarity and we as a family felt connected to the philosophy and approach of unschooling. This is what we have been following since we started this journey about three years ago.
I learnt so much by just connecting and spending time with many other families - Vidhi and Manish, Jim and Pashwa, Sumi, Deepali, Natasha, Siddharth and Smriti, Mohit and Bhavana, Seema, Purva, Vaishali and Ashutosh, Pradnya and Sameer, Sanjeevani and Shekhar so many others helped me in this journey. I not only learned from them - they became my friends - my tribe...my community.
Recently, I got to know a homeschooling mom Amruta. Her approach, enthusiasm and excitement about homeschooling and her child reminds me of Janani. She is so involved with her child and his learning and together they have created a world of curiosity, interest, inquisitiveness and learning. Her Facebook page Homeschool diary brings out the essence of creating a learning atmosphere that takes guidance from the child and his curiosity.
Today I understand the homeschooling spectrum to be very large. One one end of the spectrum is homeschooling as originally understood and on the other end is radical unschooling.
Homeschooling - The entire spectrum of 'living life without school' is commonly known as 'homeschooling'. While on one end - parents create a 'school at home' where the child has no say in what they are learning on the other end children experience complete freedom in making choices about their life and learning. Families adopt different shades of both the extremes. I prefer to call this school at home - as home based schooling or schooling at home. My friend Siddharth Maskeri calls it - House Schooling.
Thus in this home based schooling - the parent creates a school atmosphere at home usually without the consent of the child. The parent here plays the role of a parent, administrator, teacher, housekeeper, examiner and assessor of knowledge. Parents buy curriculum or hire tutors to teach and do not let their children be their guide.
Most parents these days are liberal and do not force learning on children. Some use a curriculum and text books to support them and yet let learning is paced on the basis of the child's interest, curiosity, needs and ability. These parents believe in connection with their children and believe that together they can create a learning environment at home. This is what Amruta and her family follow. This for me is homeschooling.
World schooling or Road schooling - Families that have opted for a life of travel and keep travelling to different places are known as world schoolers or road schoolers. For them their travels bring in learning. Some do follow a curriculum but most rely on learning from life, nature, local communities and their current needs. A family from South Africa that I share a special bond with and have hosted a couple of times, followed a life of world schooling for a couple of years, before they headed back to their home country. They majorly followed principles of unschooling while traveling around the world.
Unschooling approach is adopted by parents who believe that their children are individuals who can think, feel, reason and make meaning of the world around them. Unschooling parents believe in the freedom and autonomy of their children and is pro-choice. Children can make their own decisions and own the consequences too. Consequences are not mistakes or triumphs...they are simply results of their actions that teach them many lessons. The parent doesn't consider themselves to be in a position of control or authority. They believe that children are equal partners in their journey. Learning is natural and all children learn naturally. Their children self direct their learning. Unschoolers are not dependent on syllabus or curriculum. They use multiple resources for learning that is directed by the children themselves. They believe that children have a right to consent and their voice is valued.
A few parents do not like the term 'unschooling' and prefer to call themselves life long learners, non schoolers, living without school. Radical unschoolers differentiate themselves from unschoolers too. according to them while in unschooling choice and decision making is limited to learning, the radical ones extend this to their entire life i.e. all life choices.
For new entrants all these terms might get confusing. What we learnt along our journey is to not try to fit into any of these labels. As I said in the beginning, we all need to create our own learning journey based on our personality types, family dynamics, learning approach and our ways of life. A word of caution to everyone - avoid making the choice to opt out of school without understanding the essence of living life without school. Reflect by asking yourselves the questions - why do you want to opt out of school? What are your beliefs about parenting, learning and children? Be open to experiences. Experience what they do to you and your children? How does this impact you all and let your insights guide you. Read more and learn from observing your children...They are your best teachers.
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