Why the "un" in schooling?
The definition of unschooling starts with understanding the definition of schooling, and the difference between schooling and education. We must know what something is before we can understand how attaching the prefix ”un” to it alters its state or function.
As educator John Tylor Gatto explains, “To have an understanding of unschooling you have to have a pretty clear idea that schooling and education are not the same thing, they’re not even distantly related, although superficially they look like the same thing. Schooling is submission to the instructions of other people, almost always people you don’t know. Classroom teachers, for example, don’t select what they school you in; they transmit orders. From whom? The principal? No; he takes orders, too. From the superintendent? No; he takes orders, too. From the state department of education? No, absolutely not. They take orders, too. So your first problem really, coming to terms with the variety of things unschooling is, is to come to terms with the fact schooling is a rather mysterious process which virtually no one understands its source or the rationale for doing it… Schooling has some value, it just doesn’t have supreme value… You can be schooled to do a lot of things, but you can’t be educated to take control of your lives.”
There are as many concepts of education as there are concepts of schooling. Whereas the value of education is universally accepted and promoted, not so with schooling. Yet, it is somehow easier to classify and characterize types of schooling than education. (Effective Schooling; Successful Schooling; Public Schooling; Private Schooling; Homeschooling; Unschooling; Deschooling).
Education appears to be too broad a term for too many.
“Education is a word that we use so variously that it picks out nothing very clear.” (Carson, 1984, p. 41) “The concept of education is too vague to admit of precise characterization, hence further analysis is futile. In its place is offered analysis of the concept of schooling.” (Carson, 1984, p. 41)
“[W]hat is properly understood by the terms “educational” or “educated” by competent users of English is so varied, even when reference is ostensibly being made to the same activities and individuals, that an analysis can only lay universal claim to conditions or characteristics if it is very loose. But if the characterization is too loose, it ceases to help us distinguish genuine instances of educational activities and educated people. (Carson, 1984, p.42)
Philosophically, concepts of education fall into two main categories: education as learning, and education as schooling. Progressive educators believe that education and schooling are opposites with radically different objectives, that education is a process of learning best served by a bottom-up approach. Traditional educators believe that education and schooling are one and the same thing, a system of schooling that implements various top-down methods of instruction.
“Musings about the concept of education are not, therefore, simply idle – at least not for those concerned about what is being done to children in its name.” (Carson, 1984, p.42)
Two fundamental beliefs stem from – and inform - the education and schooling camps: 1) children are capable of deciding for themselves their mode of education from a very early age (birth), and should be free to choose how they learn and live their lives, and 2) children must be schooled according to the best instruction available; they cannot be trusted to learn by themselves, and others (parent or teacher) decide how they should live their lives.There are various organic approaches to education and learning, from educational reformer Marietta Pierce Johnson’s 1907 The School of Organic Education (now The Marietta Johnson School of Organic Education) in Fairhope, Alabama, to Québec author Léandre Bergeron’s recent For the Sake of Our Children’s approach, “on a life led respecting and trusting children”, and all the homeschooling, unschooling and alternative methods in between.
Unschooling and homeschooling are not the same mode of education or activity, and often represent divergent goals. Though the former can, and often does, take place at home, the latter often precludes the former. Homeschooling can parrot mere instruction-centred schooling, while unschooling could conceivably take place in a school environment that favours approaches to learning over systems of teaching.
John Taylor Gatto asks: “Do we really need school? I don’t mean education, just forced schooling: six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year for twelve years. Is this deadly routine really necessary? And if so, for what? Don’t hide behind reading, writing, and arithmetic as a rationale, because [3] million happy homeschoolers have surely put that banal justification to rest. Even if they hadn’t, a considerable number of well-known Americans never went through the twelve-year wringer our kids currently go through, and they turned out all right. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln? Someone taught them to be sure but they were not products of a school system.”
Works Cited
"John Taylor Gatto on Unschooling - Part 1." YouTube. 9 Sept. 2010. Web. 6 Dec. 2015.
"Online Etymology Dictionary." Online Etymology Dictionary. Web. 6 Dec. 2015.
Carson, Scott A. "Education and Schooling." International Review of Education 30.1 (1984): 41-55. Print.
"School of Organic Education." School of Organic Education. Web. 6 Dec. 2015.
Gatto, John Taylor. Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling.
Gabriola Island, B.C.: New Society, 2009. Print.
Bergeron, Léandre. "For the Sake of Our Children by Leandre Bergeron." For the Sake of Our Children by Leandre Bergeron. The
Alternate Press, 2009. Web. 6 Dec. 2015. <http://www.naturallifebooks.com/books/For_the_Sake_of_Our_Children.htm>.