The days are about to look very different for most parents in a few weeks as schools let out for the summer.
But for Christina Franco, 39, summer days in her upstate New York home are no different than any other day during the school year because her five kids are “unschooled.”
Instead of going to traditional school or following a homeschool curriculum, Franco’s children decide what they want to learn every day.
For her three younger children, who are 5, 6 and 9, that typically means playing outside for most of the day. For her 13-year-old, it means drawing or practicing the drums for hours a day. Her 17-year-old is preparing for graduation while working as a lifeguard.
Whenever her kids are ready to learn, Franco plans a lesson or a field trip to museums, historical sites or mountains nearby. But there are no grades, no tests and no curriculum.
“My goal for them is for them to love learning,” Franco said. “It’s realizing you can educate your child beyond the school model.”
Unschooling videos have amassed millions of views on social media as fascination with the educational movement grows. Even Kourtney Kardashian said sending kids to school felt “so dated” while speaking with her sister during a recent episode of the “Khloe in Wonder” Land podcast. Some parents say their children are thriving in the unschooling environment, fueling their confidence and desire to learn.
But not all students find success in unschooling. Some former students say the lack of structure and accountability can lead to educational neglect if parents don’t have the resources to make it work. Some kids who were unschooled feel they were left unprepared for adulthood and had fewer career opportunities.
“It takes an incredible amount of time, resources and energy to do it well and there is an equity problem to that,” said Jonah Stewart, interim executive director of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, who was homeschooled. “While we see many important and very beneficial uses for (home education), there are situations where it can be used for neglect and abuse.”
Self-directed education, commonly known as unschooling, is a form of homeschooling that is based on activities and life experiences chosen by the child, according to the Alliance for Self-Directed Learning (ASDE), a nonprofit dedicated to increasing awareness and accessibility to unschooling.
Education experts say parents and caregivers unschool differently. Some take a few pages from the homeschooling curriculum and carve out lessons for their children. Others attend micro-schools or “free schools,” where unschooled children are grouped together in a “nature school” or “outside school” under the guide of parents or teachers, said Daniel Hamlin, associate professor of education policy at the University of Oklahoma.
Some parents dive into unschooling with no structure and don’t initiate any semblance of traditional education unless explicitly asked by their children.
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“The thing we all have in common in unschooling is that the young person is in charge and has the autonomy of what it looks like and the parent is the support and guide,” said Bria Bloom, staff member and organizer at ASDE. She was unschooled growing up and is now unschooling her two children, who are 14 and 2.
There are various reasons why parents and caregivers decide to unschool their children. Many say it’s to shield them from the bullying and violence that sometimes play out in a traditional educational setting. Some don’t want their children to be forced into learning things they don’t find interesting. Others say they don’t trust educators to focus on their children if they have special learning needs.
While some parents claim unschooling produces happier students, Hamline said more research is needed.
“People come into this topic with their own biases in mind. People have these presuppositions about whether it’s good or bad and the reality is that it’s a very dynamic and diverse sector of American education,” Hamline said. “There’s all this change happening and there isn’t a lot of good data to lean heavily into one perspective or the other.”
Unschooling may work for some families but some argue it’s also vulnerable to unintended consequences such as abuse and educational neglect.
Erin Lauraine, 42, was unschooled throughout her childhood and adolescence in Las Vegas. Although her parents called it “homeschooling,” she said there was no curriculum, benchmarks, tests or progress reports.
Instead of schoolwork, Lauraine filled her day with doing household chores, watching cartoons and working at her parents’ manufacturing plant.
It was “absolutely” educational neglect, she said.
“It took me a long time to admit that,” said Lauraine, who now lives in Dallas. “I was denied access to an education and denied access at an age when my brain was primed to learn.”
Laws to prevent abuse and neglect when a child is educated at home, whether it’s unschooling or homeschooling, vary widely from state to state, said Stewart, from the Coalition for Responsible Home Education. In New York, Franco is required to notify the superintendent of the intent to homeschool, compose and file instruction plans and turn in quarterly reports about her unschooled her children.
But about a dozen states don’t have any safety nets to ensure a child receives a proper education, Stewart said. Parents aren’t required to notify the school, provide instruction plans or send in regular assessments.
Families can also skirt around state laws by enrolling children in certain “umbrella schools,” which offer a way for parents to meet compulsory attendance laws, Stewart said. While some umbrella schools can help with recordkeeping and submitting state paperwork, most don’t provide academic oversight or accountability.
The lack of check-ins with the student or family also makes it harder to provide social services, Stewart said.
“A lot of social services work is predicated on continued engagement,” she said. “When the opportunity for contact is foreclosed, the odds of that family receiving the intervention it needs are lower.”
While Franco’s oldest son flourished academically, she said the social pressures of middle school weighed him down and eroded his confidence. That weight lifted once her son left traditional schooling in seventh grade and began unschooling.
After graduating, Franco’s son plans on taking a gap year to figure out his next chapter. He’s considering an apprenticeship as a mechanic or college for a mechanical engineering degree.
“I encouraged him that he doesn’t need to make the decision, right now,” Franco said. “He realized he can learn anything he wants to learn.”
While her son’s future appears full of possibilities, Lauraine and other former unschooling students felt lost entering adulthood.
Lauraine knew how to operate a blowtorch and balance her parents’ checkbook, but she didn’t know who she was and what she wanted to do with her life. Adulthood “was pretty terrifying,” she said.
“It was really trial and error trying to figure something out,” she said. “(My parents) prioritized the practical experience but didn’t understand the psychological consequences of adulthood-type exposures on kids and the meaning put into those experiences.”
Lauraine eventually got her GED when she was 35, which she said was an emotional experience, and graduated this year with her bachelor’s degree in behavioral science.
She commends parents who want to take a proactive role in their child’s education, but advocates for stronger state regulations to prevent educational neglect.
“My entire life is being a late bloomer,” Lauraine said. “I don’t believe my parents are bad people. I believe that their intentions, while they were good, were really shortsighted.”
Adrianna Rodriguez can be reached at adrodriguez@usatoday.com.
