What is unschooling?

What does it have to do with Libertarians?

The short answer to the first question is: child-led learning.

What does it have to do with Libertarians?

You might also want to read " Unschooling Comfort Level"

Kicking the Habit

by Paul Schmidt

From The Freeman July 1996.
© 1996 The Foundation for Economic Freedom Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533 email freeman@westnet.com

• Should you let your teen go to school if he really wants to?

Keeping Children Safe:

A Parent's First Responsibility

Government schools are the outgrowth of the child labour laws of the last century. Once it became illegal for children to be employed, something had to be done with them to keep them from becoming unruly and getting into mischief during those long days with nothing to do. So they were put into schools, purportedly to learn, but in reality to keep them off the streets and the labour market until such time as they were virtually adults.

The quotation at the beginning of this essay ["There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison." -- William Glasser] exposes the lie behind the idea that schools are primarily for learning. If that were indeed the case, students could either (a) leave when they had completed the curriculum, or, (b) continue learning far beyond the curriculum in the same time if they had that ability. As the situation is now, school serves only the median intelligence level; slow learners get left behind and fast learners lose interest through boredom. ....

More proof, if it were needed, that school's purpose is to keep children out of circulation, in effect to "babysit" them, is that while attendance is compulsory, appropriate behaviour while at school is not! Logically, students should either be forced to attend and to behave, or they should be free not to go at all. And of course it is the second alternative which is the only one that would exist in a free society.

Non-Coercion and Unschooling

As a libertarian unschooler, I don't want my son to perform or learn simply to please me, but I know he may lose interest if I don't respond. For instance, it has long been his goal to make me laugh (sincerely) at his jokes, but yesterday, at 12.5 he decided he would never tell me a joke again because I won't laugh and my strictures on laughing at a joke--that it make sense--are too severe. I work at treating my son as an equal. Just as I wouldn't laugh at a dumb joke an adult makes, so I won't laugh at inanity in my son.

On the other hand, I know encouragement and smiles help when he's doing something new, just as my husband, in his new clay modelling hobby, comes upstairs bearing his clay tableau every hour for my assurances. It is not coercive to tell my husband or son he is doing a good job, especially since I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it.

This is known as external motivation. Some people think there is something wrong with it. I suspect they never realized they had been doing things to please other people until they read Alfie Kohn's Punished by Rewards after which, all of a sudden, they felt their entire lives were shams. The only way to rectify the perceived wrong is to condemn any external motivation as evil--in this case, by slightly twisted logic, the evil of coercion.

"It is quite likely you have unknowingly contributed to her being coerced in this area. Most of us are hard pressed not to pass on our problems of this sort to our children in the form of subtle approval and disapproval, or the like."
--from a non-coercive parenting list

Non-initiation of coercion is a tenet of libertarianism. It means that a libertarian will not initiate violence or force someone to do something unless the other party started it. If you hit me, I don't have to turn the other cheek, although I have done and might do so again if I run into another hypocritical Bible quoting missionary.

Another important aspect of libertarianism is the idea of free markets coupled with laissez-faire capitalism. Such theories may seem too "macro" for a family, but through the sociological lens of exchange theory, I hope I can explain how market principles apply.

If I do something nice for you it is either with the expectation that I will get something in return or because it does something positive for me (makes me feel virtuous). Turning the other cheek in the above instance made me feel "holier than thou." All social interaction can be seen as an exchange of physical or psychic goods.

When we take a baby into the house, we have to do everything for it, wipe, diaper, feed, clean, play, etc. In exchange we get the warm cuddly feeling we get when we play with a puppy amplified a thousand times. When the baby first smiles and seems to recognize us, we feel as if we must have done something so right as to be marvellous.

Over time, the baby grows into a toddler who can dress and "do" for herself in small ways. She responds to our gestures with soft, wet kisses and hugs, but even at this age, it is time to teach her to start fending for herself. Personally, I couldn't handle it, but my neighbor handed sharp knives to her children when they were three and instructed them on how to pare vegetables. Small children can clean up their own messes and from a very early age, we parents need no longer act as round-the-clock slaves to our children's every whim and fancy, spoken and unspoken.

Some of those who see coercion in everything, think it is coercive to expect one's children to pull their own weight. They claim that expecting messes to be cleaned is an adult imposition. There are many arguments against this, but the most libertarian one is that a mess diminishes my property and no one has a right to do that. Other arguments are based on the idea that one of our jobs as parents is to teach our children to get along in the world of adults and since adults generally prefer not to live out in the corn-cob filled pigsties, teaching children to clean up after themselves will help them fit in.

Of course, it could be said that the goal of homeschooling is anathema to fitting in and there would be a valid point there, so I'll stick with the idea that not cleaning up a mess interferes with my property right. It is, in essence, the initiation of violence against me.

Hard to think about your children that way? Perhaps. I have a very warm, loving relationship with my son and one reason for it, I believe is that I try to apply the principles of Frances Kendall's Super Parents Super Children to my child raising/homeschooling.

I mentioned it in passing, but it is of vital importance to treat your children, as Kendall says, as ordinary people with limited experience. If a friend visits and drops a plateful of spaghetti marinara, you wouldn't yell at her. If your friend just sat there expecting you to clean up for her, you might want to re-evaluate the friendship. The most likely scenario, however, is that you'd help your friend by handing her the appropriate towels or, perhaps, getting down there with her and scrubbing. There's no reason to behave differently when a child makes a mess.

Following this line of thinking, there is no excuse for mandating bedtimes. If the child discovers he is tired the next day, you can explain that this would be mitigated by going to sleep earlier, but the child has a right to go to sleep when he wants. However, he doesn't have the right to keep you up, just because he wants to stay awake until the end of Conan O'Brien.

As a parent you have accepted the obligation to feed, clothe, educate, and house your child until he reaches maturity or until the government considers the child to be an adult. This doesn't mean you have abrogated your rights. Nor does it mean the child can demand food and clothing from you without giving in return.

There are many jobs involved in running a family from earning money to cleaning, cooking, and going on errands. Expecting a fair share from each member of the household isn't unreasonable or coercive. It is not, however, reasonable to sit in your lounge chair watching televsion and expect your child to change channels for you. You should pay your child if you want him to wait on you. But work that sustains the family is different. Since presumably the children want cooked meals, you can expect meal preparation help from your children. In our case, since our son refuses to learn to use a knife, we've had to make alternative arrangements. Given the choice of dishes or the floors, he picked weekly floor washing. Our chore tradeoff list is subject to negotiation. In another household--or another year in our's--scrubbing the bathroom or doing the family laundry might seem a suitable trade, although laundry need not be a family production since modern American four-year olds have been known to take care of their own laundry.

In our household, my husband earns the money. I do the budgeting, pay the bills, do the cooking and most of the cleaning. I expect my son to pull his weight by living up to his end of the cooking/cleaning bargain. If he prefers not to, I am prepared not to cook specially for him. Since he has fussy tastes, all that means is I prepare dinner to my husband's tastes or mine. My son won't eat it but will be stuck eating crackers for an evening or until he does his share of the work.

Some people say this is coercive, but I'm not initiating violence or destructive behavior, nor am I denying him food--he's welcome to learn to use a knife and fix his own food. It is coercive to be obliged to slave after others day after day without getting some return. Besides, it's important that homeschooled children learn to do the chores that make a household run smoothly.

Unschooling libertarian style means allowing your child to study what he wants and when, but it doesn't mean he can play the trombone in the middle of the night or study the effects of fire by setting one of your mattresses ablaze and it certainly doesn't mean you have to live a life of sacrifice. Having one's children happy, useful, productive, and beside you is one of the homeschooling life's greatest rewards.