Unschooled ― Raising Curious, Well-educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom

Education has become synonymous with schooling, but it doesn’t have to be. As schooling becomes increasingly standardized and test driven, occupying more of childhood than ever before, parents and educators are questioning the role of schooling in society. Many are now exploring and creating alternatives. In a compelling narrative that introduces historical and contemporary research on self-directed education, Unschooled also spotlights how a diverse group of individuals and organizations are evolving an old schooling model of education. These innovators challenge the myth that children need to be taught in order to learn. They are parents who saw firsthand how schooling can dull children’s natural curiosity and exuberance and others who decided early on to enable their children to learn without school. Educators who left public school classrooms discuss launching self-directed learning centers to allow young people’s innate learning instincts to flourish, and entrepreneurs explore their disillusionment with the teach-and-test approach of traditional schooling.

Kerry McDonald is an education policy writer whose articles have appeared at Forbes, Newsweek, NPR, Reason, Education Next, City Journal, and Natural Mother and Green Child magazines, among others. She has a BA in economics from Bowdoin College, a master’s degree in education from Harvard University and is a board member at the Alliance for Self-Directed Education. The mother of four never-been-schooled children, McDonald lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts and blogs at WholeFamilyLearning.com. Peter Gray, PhD, is a research professor in Boston College’s Department of Psychology.