Back to Unschool

The pandemic has at least doubled the number of families who are homeschooling to around six percent of the school-age population, but even that increase pales before the 94 percent of students who remain enrolled in a school system that calls for reform every few years yet remains much the same as it always has. Rather than change school to fit our pandemic response in creative ways, school made us change our homes into remote conventional schools.

Schools could have helped families by shifting their focus from the needs of the academic schedule to the real-world needs of children to socialize, explore, play, and exercise. Europe was hit by Covid before the United States and, particularly in Scandinavia, it was noted that children didn’t spread the virus as much as adults and schools could open if they used more outdoors activities. But our schools prefer classroom instruction at the expense of all the other modes of teaching and learning available, a trend that accelerated years ago when public schools began reducing time for lunch, recess, art, and physical education to increase classroom instruction time.

The emphasis on doing school like we always have during the pandemic has caused children’s health and safety to be severely affected. Reports of increasing mental illness, despair, burnout, loneliness, and suicidal tendencies among schoolchildren during the pandemic continue to mount. Meanwhile, school officials lament that students are now months behind in their schoolwork and are prioritizing more class time and tutoring to make them catch up.

To me, the irony of the situation is one of socialization, which schools conflate with classroom attendance. Schools could have helped families by shifting their focus from the needs of the academic schedule to the real-world needs of children to socialize, explore, play, and exercise.

Using public schoolyards, playgrounds, sports arenas, and parks as gathering spots for children, parents, and school personnel would have filled a great void for our young during the pandemic in the United States. Just because something isn’t being taught to you doesn’t mean you aren’t learning: team sports, cooperative games, and strategy games are just some outdoor activities that nurture people’s learning and competence. Camp counselors, naturalists, gardeners, fitness trainers and local businesses could also be engaged to help make the outdoors more accessible to children during this time. These outdoor events could have happened while school officials and unions negotiated, and scientists figured out how the novel virus spreads during the past two years. If schools agreed that the health, emotional, and social needs of children were at least as important as classroom instruction during the pandemic we may not be seeing as many stunted and hurt young people as we do now.

The outdoors has proven to be a safe place as the pandemic plods on, yet the idea that important learning only happens indoors, in a school classroom, keeps us from considering other ways that people learn and grow. Homeschoolers have long used public parks and communal spaces to socialize and hold events and classes for children, as do some alternative schools. Green Schoolyards America rose to the challenges of the pandemic by supporting schools “to move their classes and programs outside as a way to address the COVID-19 pandemic,” but most schools and teachers’ unions did not attempt to do so. A few school districts successfully stayed open, showing that one size does not fit all when it comes to closing schools, so a more regional or district-wide approach to limit viral contagion is called for rather than complete lockdowns.

Further, the pandemic shows that childcare is more vital than school instruction: instruction can always be caught up in weeks or months by learners if they want or need it. Feeling safe, having friends to be with, and being cared for is vital for a child’s growth, and the lack of those basic human needs can take years to heal, if at all.

The pandemic has made it clear that we, as a society, care more about making a school run on its academic schedule than letting children learn and play together during a worldwide crisis. It has also made clear to more parents that unschooling is a good option when conventional schooling fails their children.