Leaving School: The Case for Unschooling

I remember first grade, the bright-eyed kid I was walking through the gates of the school. Turning to the kid behind me, asking you wanna be friends? all excited. I don't remember exactly how that faded, but it did. Like it does for every kid. The excitement goes away and you, in turn, grow weary. You become tired from the long hours you could have spent playing outside, which were really spent sitting at a desk, listening to grown-ups tell you what to think, what's important in this world. You grow burdened with all the work load, growing heavier each year, so that you end up waking at 6 to go to school and going to bet at 10 in the evening, after you've finished your last bit of homework.
Exhausted.

I remember reading an article by Peter Gray (one of the greatest advocates for unschooling and freedom for children, author of the excellent Free to Learn) which began in a wonderful way:

Imagine a job in which your work every day is micromanaged by your boss. You are told exactly what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. You are required to stay in your seat until your boss says you can move. Each piece of your work is evaluated and compared, every day, with the work done by your fellow employees. You are rarely trusted to make your own decisions.

[...]School, too often, is exactly like the kind of nightmare job that I just described; and, worse, it is a job that kids are not allowed to quit.

When I was fifteen, I quit. I just stopped going to school.
There, I said it. No, I didn't quit school so I could indulge my drug habit or to spend all day binge-drinking with other 'lost' children. And I did not join a cult, or become part of the sex industry.
You know what I did? I read. Tens of books, hundreds, thousands. That's the reason I left school, because my habit of reading was getting in the way. I was doing three or four books a week, and most of the time I was at school was spent reading anyhow. So I said to myself what's the sense? This is clearly not for me.

I left because the teachers there allowed me to sit at my desk, nose in some book, when they should have been teaching me. They let me read because they knew I was a smart kid, never without an answer when they called on me, and because I didn't bother them. We worked on mutual avoidance.
I left school because of the reasons listed above.
And I allowed myself to become what I had always been, in my heart.
An unschooler.

What is unschooling?

I still get that question often. It's kind of sad that it's such a little-known thing that people have no idea what it means. So let me translate it for you.

Unschooling is typically regarded as a branch of the larger, more known movement called homeschooling. They are both based on the idea that you – the parent – are capable of education your own child.
Whereas homeschooling entails a structure similar to that of the school system (studying subjects such as Math or English and taking quizzes), unschooling means learning by doing. It's usually child-directed learning, doesn't follow a structure or subjects, but focuses on the student's interests. For example if you're into building, you won't spend an hour doing Math, but hammering away. And so on.

As I said, I love to read, so I spend a good amount of time reading. And writing (I want to turn writing into a profession someday). I write both stories and articles on Steemit. I regard Steemit a huge unschooling opportunity, for me, it's like journalism unschooling, in the sense that you get to write whatever in the world you want. Literally anything that goes through your head. And people read your material. People all over the Earth read your words. And you sometimes get paid for it. And I learn tremendously from that. About myself, about the people I meet...

As an unschooler, I learn by being, which I believe is natural. We were built so that it's normal for us to learn things and acquire skills. I learn through the things that interest me, because they motivate me to learn. And I learn without an effort, just as it should be. I learn because the knowledge comes naturally.

How I learn?

I read and learn about the world around me and about myself, because I see what inspires me, what touches my heart, the way I judge certain situations in a book hint as to how I'd judge them in real life. I learn new words, new phrases. I learn about new places and people. So it's History, English, Psychology, Geography and Philosophy – all thrown up in one.

I adore the theater. I go to see plays every chance I get and I note, with growing dismay, that you rarely see young people in theaters anymore. I went to the biggest theater in town and saw only white hair around me. I love the theater because it challenges my imagination, my mind, it allows me to play and wander into imagined worlds. I love the theater because I love to act, for the same reasons. I learn about myself and meet people, who in turn show me different points of view and come up with wonderful, new ideas.

I travel. Extensively. To big places and to small. I see architecture, I organize my trips to include all of my favorite historical sites – cathedrals, museums, tombs, towers, castles. Also, I love languages, so besides studying them at home, on my own, I go to the home of a specific language and enjoy it in full glory.

I live, that's how I learn.
I let the world around me by my teacher.
And I couldn't be happier.