Why we want to unschool, alternatives to school and revisiting our pre-kids thoughts

Exactly 5 years ago I wrote a post called “Kids should learn through play – Why I would never put my kids in schools”. The post was done around 1,5 years before we got our first child and even before we started planning having kids.

One thing is having principles and dreams, another is living it and doing the hard work it takes. I wanted to re-visit the article I wrote 5 years ago and compare those early thoughts with how we feel now with real life and practical experience.

I won’t hide the fact that my very early thoughts on alternatives to school came from disliking the traditional school system, my own experience with that system and the feeling that the system is completely outdated and broken. In the last 5 years I have come to the conclusion that my focus has to be on the positive things in the lifestyle that we proactively choose and design and less so on what we are saying no thanks to.

I still think that the system is completely broken and I still have all those opinions I wrote about 5 years ago. I’m still a little pissed that there is no normal, broadly accepted alternative to having +20 kids sitting still all day in a classroom.

Some of these real-life experiences, combined with our thoughts on education in general, makes us even more sure that we have taken the right direction. As mentioned, one thing is having some dreams another thing is doing the work. That we still feel so sure about this lifestyle in the middle of the hard work is really a great feeling and for me it has been a great lesson in trusting my intuition more.

There are plenty of positive things to mention, but let me highlight a few of the things we like about free learning and life without daycare and school:

• Our kids get to develop in the pace that is correct for them
• We have no forced structure, so we have to make our day-to-day structure from scratch. It’s not easy, but it’s a great learning process about how a day is best for us
• We know where our small son is in his development and we do not live separate lives for 6-8 hrs per day
• We have the freedom to do what is exactly right for us as a family right now. For example traveling for 6 months as we do now
• Living truly in balance with your values (and sharing those values) attract people with similar values and we have been so, so lucky to meet many interesting people because we have this lifestyle.
  • I feel so lucky and excited that my kids will grow up with their family having a lot of friends that think different, live authentically and do exciting this
• We can dig into any interest that may occur in our kids’ heads and spend unlimited time on it
• We are able to spend our best and most energetic hours together and not just in the weekend
• Our brains get rewired to be more creative, able to play and focus on what is most important and not just money and prestige

When I wrote the post in January 2017 my head was not full of specific solutions and alternatives to normal school. It was still so far out in the future, so I didn’t have to have all the answers. We still don’t, because there is no single, correct answer. There are hundreds of ways to live, but as the kids get older we probably need a bit a bit more of a steady community.

Some of the ideas we have come by, imagined and think could be interesting for our family to try is:

• Creating or joining a playgroup with other unschoolers (we already did that before traveling)
• Building some kind of learning center in Copenhagen where unschoolers can come for some hours every day
• Building a microschool with 4-8 kids
• Creating a group of unschooling families with other people that are self-employed or work creatively, create a coworking space + space for the kids together and then take turns creating adventures for kids.
• Finding a special project or school somewhere in the world and joining it for a period. This could for example be The Green School in Bali, but there are many others
• Teaming up with a group of worldschooling families to travel together for 1 year
• Team up with other unschoolers to hire an instructor for 2-3x per week to arrange trips
• Build small “semesters” based on topics our kids are interested in right now and inviting other unschoolers to join
• Living in a coliving setup where there are more community during the day
• Living in a more traditional community, like in a tribe, for a period

5 years ago I would not have been able to predict how day-to-day would be and if we could actually walk the talk. Combining being full-time with kids and work is hard. We don’t just want to make a living, we have ambitions that we are 100% going to fulfill. At the same time we could change our live completely in a few weeks and send our kids in daycare. So if it feels hard, an easier solution is readily available.

For us it feels like a true adventure. A real adventure is something that gives you a deep sense of purpose, but a real adventure is also HARD. 5 years ago we had some dreams. Now it feels like we are living that dream and that we are on one big adventure that will just get wilder.