What is the Difference Between Homeschooling, Unschooling and Deschooling?

The new reality of many families now is having school at home. Can we call this “homeschooling”?

In the face of the school closures due to the contingency of the coronavirus pandemic, both parents and children face the enormous challenge of adapting to home teaching. For families who already have practiced homeschooling, this transition will not present many changes; however, for those families whose children have been in a traditional education environment, these weeks of quarantine have been certainly challenging.

Jeanne Faulconer, Director of Brave Writer’s Homeschool Alliance and an expert lecturer on home education, explains that it is normal for children to refuse to do activities suggested by parents because they “do not do it that way at school.” The temporary shift from parent-child to teacher-student is challenging for both parties, including those for whom teaching is their profession. Parents have to serve both roles at the same time. For them, it is reasonable to worry about their status as a “temporary educator” and feel restless or anxious about how their effectiveness as a teacher might affect their children’s performance going forward. However, the opposite may happen; some parents may lack time, resources, or interest in educating their children at home and leave them on their own.

It is also common for children and adolescents not to know what to do with themselves without their usual schedules and routines. Besides, it is normal for them to be nervous about their grades, assignments, or academic performance, as well as learning without being distracted by their environment.

Homeschooling vs. Unschooling vs. Deschooling

With the current situation experienced around the whole world due to COVID-19, it is essential to talk to children and explain to them that it is reasonable to feel that homeschooling is an intrusion and that adapting to the new dynamic is challenging for all members of the family. However, it is a normal process, and it is called deschooling.

Although deschooling focuses on the transition of leaving traditional and institutional schools to focus on “homeschool emergency teaching” due to the situation of COVID-19, this is a reality that 95 % of children in Latin America and the Caribbean are living daily. Knowing about deschooling helps parents have realistic expectations about how their children adjust to homeschooling in the face of this temporary reality. Faulconer offers several tips so that families can adapt more easily to this situation.

When a child or teenager leaves institutionalized school to receive education at home, known as homeschooling, he or she has to go through a process that is known in the educational community as “deschooling.” Unlike homeschooling, deschooling is a period where the student adapts to his new environment and way of learning, away from teachers and other students. Jaqueline Wilson, author, educator, and consultant on the subject, describes this stage as a “period of decompression when traditional public school education changes to another method, such as home school.”

On the other hand, within home education, there is also “unschooling”” which refers to an educational method within homeschooling. This is called unschooling, as it is a more natural learning process. Wilson describes it as “child-led learning or natural learning.” Also, she adds that “with a lack of schooling, children take the lead in what they want to learn and how they want to learn.”

It is essential to be aware that learning will not look the same as in school. This is an excellent opportunity to invite children to express an opinion about how education in the home can be improved to overcome this stage faster. On this point, Faulconer specifies that some children may find deschooling to be overwhelming, feeling that they do not learn as much or at the same pace as in school. In contrast, others immediately want to participate in the new homeschooling learning model.

Above all, it is necessary to give the child time to learn and adapt to see their parents in the role of temporary educators. They are used to seeing another adult in that role, so it can take them some time to take seriously the idea that they have to learn math, for example, from their mom or dad.

Tips for the deschooling stage

• Create, build, and engineer: Quarantine is a good time to motivate children to do art. Whether it involves telling stories, writing them, drawing, or making things, it is the time to let kids release their creativity and discover that you can learn in many different ways.

• Get close to nature: If you have access to a garden, let children plant seeds and watch them grow. If a garden is not at hand, children can learn different plants by name and identify insects or birds. If you do not have this space at home, you can still plant something small indoors, such as the experiment of fermenting a bean in cotton.

• Get moving!: Whether dancing to their favorite song or following the moves of exercises on the internet, children and teens must not sit around all day.

• Acquire the habit of reading: According to Faulconer, the period of deschooling is an excellent time to encourage a passion for reading in children. She recommends reading in comfortable spaces, such as on the sofa rather than on a desk or table, to make it less formal. Also, children need to see parents reading for pleasure, whether they are reading novels, magazines, news, or anything else. Let the child know that he or she is not limited just to school obligations.

• Watch documentaries and educational television together: Now that there is more time together at home, take the opportunity to watch channels like The History Channel, Discovery Channel, and documentaries or educational series on platforms like Netflix. Faulconer even mentions that she has known of cases of children learning through the “Mythbusters: Myth Hunters” program because it promotes the scientific method, proving that education has many forms. One never knows what may interest children. Besides, doing this can bring the family together.

• Use the internet: Whether it is to watch TED Talks, learn something new online, take a virtual walk through a museum, or research a topic of interest, the internet is an excellent tool for children. It is also a good time to monitor their online presence and teach them about internet security and accountability, which children can also do while playing.

• Do household chores: Because children are not used to being at home most of the day, many of them may not be aware of how they can help keep the home functioning, going beyond their chores like making the bed or washing their dishes. Deschooling is a stage that can also be used to discover recipes based on ingredients found in the home, plan meals, cook together, and help them feel like they are contributing to household chores in addition to learning fundamental skills.

• Connect with close relatives and friends: Children may feel an emptiness from not being with their peers, teachers, and others with whom they spent their days before. However, deschooling is a great time to cultivate family relationships and focus on giving priority to the quality of these moments rather than quantity. Faced with the reality of having to be at home, parents also have an opportunity during deschooling to discover how their children learn, their areas of interest, and their strengths and weaknesses.

The reality that millions of families who are at home are confronting right now and trying to continue their children’s education, parents need to recognize that it is OK for children and teens to have trouble adjusting to learning at home. This will help them have realistic expectations about their performance.

Paulette Delgado

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This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0