Why? Because only when you try to be something that you aren’t do you really understand who you actually are. A healthy amount of pressure from others to be something different is what gets us to stand up and say, NO! I won’t obey!

But the power to stand up and say no to something also means that whenever we let someone put us down, make us feel bad, or act in a way we don’t want to, it’s because we are giving them the power to do so. We are just as responsible as they are.

Which sounds bad, but I promise you it isn’t. Who would you rather be: a powerless victim, or someone with the power to turn the situation around after accepting responsibility for your role in a bad experience?

When I was still in school I was pressured by my classmates to be someone different. I changed the way I spoke, I changed the way I dressed, and I did my best to be “acceptable.” It sucked.

After I got out of school, the biggest change I went through was accepting responsibility. When I look back, I see that the person that bullied me the most was myself. I pressured myself to conform to what my peers wanted. I didn’t let myself be who I wanted to be. I let myself think it was okay for bullies to treat me the way they did.

Getting over that meant forgiving myself. I forgave myself for trying to be perfect, for not being assertive, for valuing the acceptance of people I didn’t like over my own happiness, for spending time with people that made me uncomfortable. Forgiving myself was like a breath of fresh air. I have the power, not the bullies.

Do you?

Last spring, if I had stayed in school and been a normal kid I would’ve graduated from high school. This fall I probably would’ve started a college program, or perhaps taken a year abroad or worked for a year to save up money.

But I didn’t stay in school, and my life didn’t take that path. In February I came home to Finland after 3 months in the USA. From May to August I worked selling produce for my parents. Since then the craft business I have with my mom has been my focus. If my life was normal and I had stayed in school, none of those things would’ve happened.

But let me get to the point: People no longer assume I’m in school.

They assume I’ve graduated. Not being in school is okay.

Yes! Talk about liberating!

But it raises a point: school ends. Even if you go to school for 20 years, eventually it’s over and done with. People move on and live their adult lives. Some of us go really wild and rethink the way education works, and then when we have kids we become unschoolers and homeschoolers.

But what about me? What about other adult unschoolers? At 19 school-goers are done with basic schooling. Is telling people “I’m an unschooler” really going to get the right message across? I mean, really, a 19-year-old not going to school isn’t much of a shocker.

Other people get to say “I was homeschooled” and “I went to school.” The whole point with unschooling is that we’re life-long learners, but the thing is that unschoolers become adults and do things with their lives, too. Eventually we learn enough to step out into life on our own. Our life is no longer focused on becoming independent adults, and is instead focused on being adults.

To say it more clearly, our lives stop being about being an unschooler. We become entrepreneurs, parents, husbands, wives, doctors, authors, and whatever else our lives lead us to. We no longer answer the question “What do you do?” with “I’m an unschooler.”

And you know what? That distinction is important.

And you know what else? Forget about the word unschooling.

Please, raise your children and give them free reign in their learning. Support their curiosity, explore the world with them, deschool yourself, and make their learning environment organic and healthy. Call them unschoolers, if you like that choice of word. Be an unschooler, just like parents who homeschool their kids call themselves homeschoolers.

But are we unschoolers for life? I don’t think so. Are we life-long learners? Heck yes!

When it comes down to it, we call life-long learning “unschooling” to give it a place in the system. We only give it a word to distinguish it from school and other forms of homeschooling. It’s like how we call naturally grown food “organic.” A couple hundred years ago, “organic” food was just food.

Am I still an unschooler? No. Am I a life-long learner with a DIY and take-charge attitude? Yes. I mean, think about it. Do we call vegetarians uncarnivores? No, we don’t, because that would be silly.

So without further ado, I bid adieu to unschooling. Unschooling, you’ve been helpful and changed my life for the better, and I thank you, and I’ll spread your word, but it’s time for us to part.

Life awaits!

P.S. In case you’re wondering, Adversarian is still going to be an “unschooling” blog about living a curious DIY life, but with just a couple word changes. You’ll see words like assertive, autodidact, take-charge, and all sorts of other positive life-long learning phrases. Don’t miss out on updates! :)

This is a collection of songs I enjoy more as an unschooler. Some of the songs are about oppression in schools, some are about freedom, some are about reform, but all of them make me think about unschooling, and reaffirm my decision to leave school. I’ll be listing each song with a Youtube video, my favorite lyrics, and maybe a comment or two. (Please note that a few of the songs have swears and other possibly offensive language.)

Enjoy!

Little Things

This song both reminds me of two things: how liberating it is to be an unschooler, and that despite the negative memories, I wouldn’t be the same person today without my years in school, for better and for worse. I appreciate unschooling all the more for it, that’s for sure!

Yeah, this song is dedicated
To every kid who ever got picked last in gym class
To every kid who never had a date to no school dance
To every one who’s ever been called a freak

Flowers Are Red

This is a sad story about a boy’s creativity being stunted by his teacher. It can be taken very or a little less literally. It reminds me of how much more freedom I have to explore things the way I want to now that I’m an unschooler.

Time went by like it always does
And they moved to another town
And the little boy went to another school
And this is what he found
The teacher there was smilin’
She said…Painting should be fun
And there are so many colors in a flower
So let’s use every one

The Logical Song

I love that this song uses the word radical, which is used so often in connection to unschooling. And I interpret the question he asks as a bit ironic. I mean, really, is it honestly so strange to learn in a natural way? Unschooling isn’t radical – school is!

I say, “Now what would you say for they calling you a radical
Liberal, fanatical, criminal?”
Won’t you sign up your name? We’d like to feel you’re
Acceptable, respectable, presentable, a vegetable

Wake Up Everybody

This song has a bit of a religious overtone, but the title agrees with my thoughts about school: people need to wake up and realize there’s a better way.

Wake up all the teachers
Time to teach a new way
Maybe then they’ll listen
To what you have to say

Uprising

Schools can try their best to control us, but we have a special weapon they can’t take away from us: NO! I won’t obey!

They will not force us
And they will stop degrading us
And they will not control us
We will be victorious, so come on

School

This is by the same artist as “The Logical Song”.

After school is over, you’re playing in the park
Don’t be out too late, don’t let it get too dark
They tell you not to hang around and learn what life’s about
And grow up just like them, won’t let you work it out
And you’re full of doubt

Take the Power Back

“I’m inferior? Who’s inferior?” speaks to me the most. We need to stop blaming ourselves for our so-called shortcomings. The problem isn’t the students, it’s the system.

The present curriculum
I put my fist in ‘em
Eurocentric every last one of ‘em
See right through the red, white and blue disguise
With lecture I puncture the structure of lies
Installed in our minds and attempting
To hold us back
We’ve got to take it back
Holes in our spirit causin’ tears and fears
One-sided stories for years and years and years
I’m inferior? Who’s inferior?
Yeah, we need to check the interior
Of the system that cares about only one culture
And that is why
We gotta take the power back

Another Brick in the Wall

This is a classic, and for good reason!

We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it’s just another brick in the wall.
All in all you’re just another brick in the wall.

Ridin’ Solo

This song is about being single and getting out of a relationship, but I think the lyrics are appropriate for the experience of leaving school and learning “solo” as an unschooler.

Now I’m feeling how I should,
never knew single could feel this good, oh,
Stop playing miss understood,
back in the game, who knew I would, oh,
So flex how I spread my wings, loving myself makes me wanna sing

Brain Damage

Rapped by Eminem, this song is about being bullied in school. I interpret some of the lyrics as touching onto how school administration and well-meaning parents can add to the bullying by misunderstanding, and how children blame themselves and think they’re the problem.

The principal walked in (What’s going on in here?)
and started helpin him stomp me
I made them think they beat me to death

I Will Follow You into the Dark

Most of this song has little to nothing to do with school or unschooling, but one verse always makes a little thought in my head cheer, “Good riddance!”

In Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule
I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black
And I held my tongue as she told me
“Son fear is the heart of love”
So I never went back

School Days

There’s always life after, and especially without, school. I can only take a deep breath, sigh in relief, and enjoy the music of life.

Soon as three o’clock rolls around
You finally lay your burden down
Close up your books, get out of your seat
Down the halls and into the street
Up to the corner and ’round the bend
Right to the juke joint, you go in

What songs make you think of unschooling?

It isn’t, but after finding this diary entry and seeing how far I’ve come in so little time, I don’t hesitate to say I’m in quite a different position in life now. For one, the anguish that I felt when I wrote this isn’t there anymore—at least, it’s not for myself.

This entry, dated about a year before I started unschooling, brings me back to the climactic point in my life when I realized my problem wasn’t just my school and it wasn’t just me, it was something that was effecting everyone. I wrote this half a year before I came to understand what unschooling was. I almost wish I could hug the Anna I was back then and tell myself things would turn out all right.

Then again things did turn out pretty well, without me doing some sort of crazy paradox-creating time-traveling supernatural feat— in fact, let’s skip my time travel fantasies and get to the diary entry.

Without further ado, I introduce you to pre-unschooling Anna, age 15:

*****

A lot people think that just because I’m aware of my intelligence that I think I’m better than everybody else.

It isn’t true.

Sometimes it’s quite the opposite. I’m lucky enough to have supportive parents but it’s still difficult. I’ve always been battling school, even when school was something enjoyable and not something that had to be done.

Teachers keep asking me why I’m in such a hurry, why I want to grow up so fast. It’s not my fault I learn faster. It’s not about learning everything in the world, or being ahead of everybody else. It’s about doing something I enjoy.

If someone enjoys drawing, you wouldn’t force them to draw stick figures and nothing more, would you? How would they get past that skill level if they’re not allowed to try anything else? If someone gets the impression that that’s all there is to drawing, why would the interest continue, let alone grow?

What about running? Would anyone force someone with the motivation, interest and skill at running to only walk the track? Without training, how are they supposed to keep up their skill?

Not letting someone use their abilities, no matter their age, is like buying a racecar so you can drive it to your neighbors or even not drive it at all.

I’m not in a hurry to become an adult. I don’t think that I’ll be ready for the world just because I read a few books and understand a bit more regarding physics or history, or whatever it may be. I’m just tired of people telling me I have to wait, when I’m ready for something now. I don’t want to learn in order to get good grades in school. I don’t want to impress somebody with how much I know. I just want to learn, for the sake of knowledge.

Whenever I bring up excelled courses in schools I always get the same story. “If you concentrate on the course everybody is getting, then you can get an easy grade.”

Why is getting an easy grade supposed to appeal to me? What’s appealing about sitting through hours of repetition, hearing the same questions over and over because no one’s paying proper attention? Why do I have to take nine months out of my life every school year in order to get information I could’ve learned on my own in three months?

School frustrates me. When I was younger I loved it. It was the holy place of learning, where I was allowed to grow and get as much out of it as I could. Eventually, I learned that it didn’t work that way.

Schools have to be neutral. They have to focus on the average student so the system works. So much effort has been put in supporting those falling behind that students with higher academic potential have to reach that on their own. How fair is it that I have to spend six or more hours waiting, in order to get home to actually learn something? No matter the subject, I learn faster. Even if my level is even with the beginning of a school year, I’ll be way ahead within a couple weeks.

My brain doesn’t get enough stimulation in a school environment. An average student wouldn’t be put in a classroom several grades below him, so why are kids ahead of the group forced to stay in grades far too low for them? Aren’t schools supposed to be about learning? So why are grades divided into meaningless groups according to age?

Why should a teacher have to work with at least three levels of skill in one classroom? Wouldn’t it be easier if grades were divided according to skill?

It feels like people don’t really question the way schools work anymore, about whether or not the system needs to change after all the years it’s been used.

There are, of course, alternatives to public schooling that don’t work with the same system, but most schooled children don’t know about those alternatives until later on. Students don’t have much of a choice, and they’re fed knowledge without understanding why they’re learning things or what it even is that they’re learning.

The most frustrating part about school is that so much time is put into “teaching” children how to learn! after school dulls them from being able to use their own independent thinking.

Babies learn from birth. A child doesn’t need to be taught how to learn something. Saying something abstract and important sounding to a child—the line “because you need to know this when you’re older” comes to mind–won’t cut it. Everyone knows how curious children are.

Why do they need to know those specific things? What’s the point in learning it now and not when the child is older? Why in this order? Why is so much of the material repetition?

If something has to be repeated so many times, doesn’t it mean that there was something wrong in the understanding of it in the first place? Why will repeating it change anything?

I’m not saying that I hate schools. I love the idea of them, the fact that there’s a place where children learn and grow into the world. I just think there’s a lot that needs to be changed in order for it to actually do that. In order to learn, a child has to ask questions. Yet in school, it’s the teacher that asks the questions. Trying to teach something that the child isn’t interested in will not work. There is no teaching, there’s only learning. It’s a question of either forcing information on someone or guiding their natural curiosity. Schools unfortunately focus more on the former, and expect most children to learn the same way.

But school’s just an ideal. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, after all, if life was so simple that we could divide it into boxes and say, “from ages five to eighteen children will prepare themselves for life.” And bam, so many problems would be solved.

But the problems aren’t solved, or even well hidden. They just keep getting worse.

I can’t wait to get out of this mess.

*****

In the three years since I wrote this, I’ve come to realize an even better, magical problem-solving solution: NOT putting life in boxes. Just go with the flow, and stop listening to chest-puffed politicians and school boards in D.C. who don’t give a smudge about what kids think. And it works.

I love the realizations deschooling and unschooling bring.

What would you say to your pre-unschooling self?

I love books.

Seriously: I can’t go to the library without picking up at least a couple more books to bring home. Trust me, I’ve tried. It just doesn’t happen.

These are my favorite sites for finding free books online, whether it be classical novels like Jane Austen’s Emma or philosophical pieces from great minds like Plato or Artistotle. Whatever your tastes, I know you’ll be able to find a book you enjoy.

My Favorite Digital Libraries

Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg has an astounding 33,000+ books online. It can be a bit overwhelming! An easy way to start wading your way through is to check out their Top 100 list.

Google Books

What I love most about Google Books is how visually appealing their content is. Instead of just plain text, you get something that looks a lot more like the original book! You can narrow your search down to free books by going to the Advanced Book Search page and choosing “Full view only.”

Online Literature

Online Literature has simple, straight-forward organization and lots of great authors. They have some 3000 completed works online, plenty of short stories and poems, and a forum.

Wikibooks

Wikibooks describes itself as “the open-content textbooks collection that anyone can edit.” There are over 2000 completed books covering nearly every topic, and many more are in the works.

ManyBooks

Manybooks boasts a digital library of nearly 30,000 books. Many of the books are also on Project Gutenberg (the two sites are affiliates), but ManyBooks has a much more pleasing design. Plus I like the ability to review books right on the site!

Authorama

Authorama has a short but sweet list of books that are in the public domain. I was happy to find Flatland on their list.

The Internet Archive Text Archive

The people at the Internet Archive have a text archive with a list of over 2.5 million ebooks, books, and other files. The majority of the content is rather obscure, but they still have a few gems we can all enjoy.

Happy Reading!

These are just a few of the many sites around for free books. If you’re interested in looking for more books online, I’d recommend this list of places to get free books at Fried Beef. Let me know if you have a favorite source for books yourself!

Enjoy your reading! :~)

George Haines (@oline73 over at Twitter) asked me to do a quick email interview about my opinions on education and unschooling, and I was happy to oblige.

You can find the interview here: part one; part two.

You should check out his other interviews; hearing what students have to say about school is refreshing. I’m glad George was interested in adding my unschooling values to the mix. :)

Go check out the interview and let me know what you think!

Those of us that have gone to school know the drill.

Literally.

Students have to go through an endless amount of repetition. Teachers bring up the same topic, again and again, in an attempt to cram their students with the right recipe of information. It’s just part of the way schools work.

When it comes to lifelong learning, focusing on repetition and drills is a bit like trying to build a pyramid from the top down.

A dictionary will tell you that memorizing something means you’re learning it by heart. Resourcefulness comes from using a number of resources and aids, instead of just relying on your memory.

Memorization and resourcefulness are the differences between someone who knows what he’s been shown in the past and someone who knows how to learn more in the future. Knowing how and where to find information is important.

Let me go back to the pyramid I spoke about. Like I said, memorization alone is like building a pyramid from the top down. You might’ve guessed how it should be built: from the bottom up, with a sound and solid foundation.

In learning, our solid foundations come from our resources. If all our learning comes from the same resource (school, for example), then our pyramid’s foundation will be small. Instead, our learning is best when it comes from a variety of resources.

I like to call my way of remembering information “knowing it exists“.

It’s a lot like remembering your favorite recipes. After finding a resource useful, you keep it at hand. When you want to know something, you use your new resource. The more you use a resource, the more you remember.

Would you prefer to have a resource prove itself to be useful, or spend days memorizing something you might never need to know again?

Today I played a game: I asked questions inspired by the things around me.

The result? A list longer than even I had expected. I stopped playing after a few dozen questions, but the game does prove a good point: we can learn everything we need to know just by paying attention to what is around us.

Why is learning from your environment better, though?

That’s easy to explain.

Let’s say two children are learning about chlorophyll at the same time. The difference is that one child is coming across it through school, and the other child is curious about her environment.

Now, the child in school (let’s call him Jimmy) is being told this information by his teacher and his textbook. The facts are presented to him in a very concise, step-by-step way. Jimmy hasn’t thought about plant color before.

The unschooler (let’s name her Jill) is out having fun in the park with her family. Jill looks at the trees before she asks why leaves are green. Her parents explain and they have a conversation about it.

Both children are told the same information, but I’ll tell you why Jill is at an advantage:.

- She’s enjoying herself. By having a positive experience, the learning becomes a happy experience, too.
- She’s shown she’s ready to learn by asking a question. Being told something doesn’t mean you’re going to (or even want to) learn it.
- She has a hands on example. She might even grab a few leaves to press as souvenirs.
- She’s encouraged to ask questions. Jimmy could leave his class wanting to know more. He might even be punished for asking questions out of turn.

Most of all, Jill has an advantage because what she’s learning is relevant to her life. She can relate to what she’s learning and she can understand how the information affects her.

Who will learn more: the child who is told to listen and repeat what he’s been told, or the child who is encouraged to seek new information? Which would you rather be?

Share your thoughts in the comments!

Unschooling brings up a lot of choices. You choose what you learn. You choose when you learn it. You even choose why you learn it.

What does choice really mean, though?

It means you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Whatever you’re doing, you’re doing the things you want to do. Yes, even chores. Yes, even painful, embarrassing experiences.

How does that work?

We do things that we aren’t passionate about for the same reasons we do anything else. We do what we do because we want to. You want clean dishes to eat your food on. You want clean clothes to wear. You go through painful experiences to mourn, forgive, apologize and get over your fears. Because you want to. Because you choose to.

A lot of skeptics question unschoolers and their ability to discipline themselves to learn what they have to. The question is, when you see the world through the eyes of wanting to vs having to, do we still need self-discipline?

What do we have to learn that no one wants to learn? Is there something we need to know, that we can’t motivate ourselves to learn without strict discipline and force?

I doubt it. Whatever we need to know, we’ll want to know.

What does choice mean to you?

Here’s a review of the top five posts so far, in case you missed them. There’s lots more to come, and I have a few extra special goodies up my sleeve. Stayed tuned for upcoming freebies! (It’s a surprise!)

10 Skills You Practice By Playing Video Games
Video games have a bad reputation, but they use your brain more than you think.

Self-Ed 101: 5 Reasons Why You Should Unschool
The most common reasons for unschooling.

Empowered Learning: Unschoolers Are In Charge of Their Education
There’s a certain power in being responsible for your own learning.

Leonardo da Vinci the Unschooler
We’ve all heard about Leonardo da Vinci, but did you know he was self-educated?

Self-Ed 101: Deschooling
Deschooling is the first step to unschooling. Find out how you can ease the process.

Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss out on new posts and cool stuff. If you want to chat you can find me on twitter and on facebook.

Happy learning!

Have an unschooling blog? Why don’t we exchange guest posts? Send me an email at contact@adversarian.com, or use the quick and easy contact form.