Despite the major power outage in the middle of Christine's presentation, everyone had good time!
Living the Unschooling Life is Christine Yablonski & Phil Biegler’s Radical Unschooling blog – combining all of our previous blogs into one convenient location. Here we discuss radical unschooling principles & share own our journey of living, laughing, loving & learning as Radical Unschoolers!
What Radical Unschooling Means to Us
First, let’s describe “unschooling”, which is commonly thought of as one way to homeschool. Unschooling can be described as life-long self-determined learning. When someone learns something, in a way that is actually retained, they need to be intrinsically engaged in that thing. When someone tells you, “Your need to learn this…”, when you are not interested in it, you may find that you can force yourself to learn enough to pass whatever testing method they use to prove your knowledge, at least initially, but you will probably not retain that information because it wasn’t meaningful to you – your brain isn’t working to create the strong connections to other things you already know because you are not truly engaged or motivated to do so.
Kids are natural learners – I remember my daughter memorizing complex dinosaur names at the age of 3, not because one of us made her do it but because she was genuinely interested in them. The same thing happened with our son at the age of 5 when he discovered a passion for the solar system. At age 7 he got into a debate with a staffer at the Sydney Observatory about planet classification. He knew his stuff well enough to have this conversation with an adult not because I quizzed him but because he wanted to understand it.
Very often, it is well-meaning adults – parents, educators, who get in the way of kids’ learning processes by telling them what they should know, when they should know it & how they should prove it. In fact, this education method ends up squelching true learning.
At the same time, unschooling doesn’t mean one never uses more traditional methods of learning, such as going to classes, reading text books or studying something complex. What it does mean is that this doesn’t have to be the only method of learning – in fact, it probably is only necessary for sophisticated material or specialized skill sets. My kids have learned some pretty amazing stuff from rather unexpected sources – & that is the beauty of unschooling – that learning opportunities are everywhere & that the love of learning can be life-long.
So where does the “Radical” part come in? Radical Unschooling means moving past the “schooling” aspect entirely. It’s not just about how we home school but how we as a family live together, grow together & make our way in the world together. It’s about being fully engaged in your children’s lives. It’s about helping them explore the world around them – not because they might “learn something” but because it makes life so much better. It’s about honoring & trusting their abilities & passions, knowing that these will lead to a richer life.
For our family, there is no distinction between unschooling and radical unschooling – the trust & respect we have for their ability to learn continues into all aspects of their lives. They are the authors of their life story – we are the guides that keep them safe & point out all of the cool stuff along the way.
Living the Unschooling Life
How Long Have We Been Radical Unschoolers?
Officially, as in using the label, since 2004 – we were exploring it when we attended the Live & Learn Conference in Peabody MA. We left the conference fully committed to being Radical Unschoolers!
Interestingly, we were always living the radical unschooling principles with our children – we called ourselves “attachment parents” when they were littles because it was the label that most closely described what we did. We didn’t know that homeschooling could legally be done as radical unschoolers until sheer frustration led us to it. Earlier that year, we experienced our “last straw” moment. We were planning our trip to Australia in April & wanted to get the kids’ classwork so they could complete it while away. That was against school policy. Then we offered to come in after the trip to do a Show-&-Tell about everywhere we were going to be exploring while in Australia. Unfortunately, they couldn’t allow it because there was no time in the curriculum to include it. How sad, we thought, that a unique opportunity presented itself but there was “no time” for it. As I mentioned above, we were already interested in homeschooling the kids & when I read about Radical Unschooling I was flabbergasted. Here was an educational & parenting philosophy that made sense! And we could do it legally as homeschoolers. Oh, what a joy it was when we discovered we could do this!
Phil, Christine & Shaun @ Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, Australia (photo by Kimi!)
When Did We Start Blogging?
Our first blog was Unschoolers on the Road – a travel blog that chronicled our RV tour of the country from August to October, 2006. We planned it around the Albuquerque Live & Learn & it was an amazing adventure.
Shaun & Kimi on Top of the World!
Soon after, I decided to create a personal blog. Several of my RU friends were already doing this, & I thought this would be a great way to keep in touch between conferences. Little did I know that Facebook was about to explode onto our social lives!
In the spring of 2010, our family was approached to be profiled as Radical Unschoolers by the Good Morning America show. We spent weeks talking with various producers, explaining our philosophy, what our kids’ interests are, our travels, etc. When taping day arrived, we spent hours with the crew & Juju Chang, sharing our lives with them. They asked us to stage certain things such as sitting in front of the TV together, hanging out in the kitchen, looking at our seedlings & touring the interior of our motorhome. In the end, though, they chose to ask questions from a “school point-of-view” – questions that don’t really apply to our lives because they don’t involve school. They edited out our explanations, sticking with sound-bites that were unclear or made us sound ridiculous. We were very disappointed when we saw the final segment on TV that Monday morning.
Christine & Phil on the Good Morning America Program
Fortunately, our friends in the RU world know how to rally! They signed onto the ABC message board &, with extreme clarity & intelligence, countered the horrible comments people were leaving there. A few hours later, Juju called us & asked if we would be willing to fly to NYC & appear on the next day’s show so that we could address some of the misconceptions about us. Hesitantly, we agreed. And we’re so glad we did. George Stephanopoulos apologized to us at the beginning of the segment. We clarified many of the points that were lost in the original segment. When the interview was over, Robin Roberts began to ask many more questions. She told us that now that she had seen us in person, she felt she understood radical unschooling better & didn’t feel as negatively towards it. Huzzah! We so appreciated her saying that to us!
Later that day we were contacted by the Joy Behar Show & ended up taping an interview with her at CNN Studios before flying back home. She asked questions that, although still from a school point of view, built upon what we actually said & she was respectful the entire time. Again, a big step in the right direction.
These TV appearances led to several radio interviews around the country. Always our goal was to demonstrate that radical unschooling is a very logical approach to parenting & education. Following all of this media attention, we were asked to talk about Radical Unschooling as speakers at the Life is Good Conference & in a circle chat at ARGH. Buoyed by these opportunities, we decided to create a bigger, more improved blog. We want people to understand why we chose Radical Unschooling. We want to be able to discuss all of the many aspects that make up this way of life. Having a blog, as well as our Facebook page Living the Unschooling Life, gives us the opportunity to connect, discuss & share our radical unschooling lives with others who want to do the same.
One Big Happy!
Thank you for joining us in our journey!
~ Christine, Phil, Kimi & Shaun
