A reading list

It's dangerous to go alone, part 2

Let’s start with Idzie Desmarais’ blogpost Unschooling 101, which conveniently proposes a better definition of unschooling than I could have hoped for in my previous post. It also conveniently responds to many of the fears you wrote about, particularly ones in the form of “What if I fuck up my kid?” (Answer: you’re probably not gonna fuck them up worse than conventional schooling will.) It’s worth checking out the rest of Idzie’s blog too, where she writes about various topics from the perspective of a grown unschooler.

The next two are cheating a bit, since I know you’re already reading them. Perhaps this could be a preemptive book club discussion.

Trust Kids! is an anthology of stories, essays, conversations, manifestos, and cyphers centered on youth liberation, which also explores adjacent themes such as anarchy, decolonization, disability, communal child-raising, and school abolition. Some contributions are fun and vibrant, others solemn and anger-inducing, others absolutely brain-rewiring. I still find myself thinking about and processing Toby Rollo’s Childing the World which reframes patriarchy, ableism, white supremacy, etc. as rooted in childism. Unschooling is often mentioned, but it’s just one instance of a broader set of topics. This book has greatly shaped, and yes radicalized, my stance on these topics, as I think about my role in helping L grow into the person she is and will be.

Naomi Fisher’s Changing Our Minds, on the other hand, deep-dives into the many ways that conventional schooling fails certain children and certain learning styles, from more of a clinical-psychology angle. It is useful as a compilation of copious scientific evidence pointing out the deficiencies of conventional schooling, anchored in Fisher’s own experience as a psychologist working with school-kids who’ve been failed by schooling.

However, it didn’t make me any more convinced that unschooling is a path worth pursuing. As a parent, it’s already impossible not to notice the magic in how a young child learns new things without being taught; we don’t need clinical psychology studies to tell us. So it feels deeply troubling to switch that with an authoritarian education system that children haven’t consented to. And for me, Fisher doesn’t go far enough. She acknowledges that some kids with certain learning styles do thrive in school, and stops short of criticizing school as a path for them. But unschooling doesn’t prohibit anyone from choosing to learn within a structured environment of mechanical exercise and evaluation if that works for them; the key is having the freedom to choose. Until we are all free, we are none of us free.

Freedom brings me to Raising Free People, part memoir of Akilah Richards’ journey unschooling her two kids, and part examination of that journey through the lens of Black liberation and decolonization. This perspective is why the book appears on so many unschooling reading lists; not only are the vignettes a great view into unschooling in practice, Richards also brings a much-appreciated voice to a literature that is, unquestionably, pretty white. Raising Free People is one of the few books discussing unschooling as part of a practice of healing from generational trauma and patterns of harm, tackling thorny topics such as corporal punishment and Black excellence.

Richards is also an engaging and entertaining writer, her conversational tone almost beckoning you to sit at her dinner table. This is even more apparent on her podcast, Fare of the Free Child, kind of a companion to the book where she chats with guests to dive deeper into particular aspects of unschooling. There are… SO many episodes, yes, so again you gotta dig; here’s one (YouTube link for auto transcript) about applying an unschool-ish mindset to a hybrid of homeschooling, unschooling, and traditional school.

Another podcast-adjacent recommendation that’s been on my mind is Lucy AitkenRead’s channel. Particularly this interview with two unschooling moms of neurodivergent kids, which starts with a critique of Waldorf before turning into a conversation about how freedom isn’t equivalent to a free-for-all, and how an SDE center has to embrace change in order for learners with different styles and values to be in community with one another.

(There are also a few “usual suspects” in this space that I’ve only engaged with cursorily, but are worth mentioning: Wendy Priesnitz’s Learning from John Holt, the ongoing treasure trove that is Tipping Points magazine, the œuvres of Peter Gray, Alison Gopnik, Alfie Kohn.)

Lastly, one recommendation that isn’t even out yet: I’ve been keeping an eye on Learning and Liberation, a documentary series by two unschoolers that showcases different unschooling implementations across the US. They ran a fun crowdfunding campaign and seem to be having a great time road-tripping and shooting footage. And plus, it’s always nice to support young unschoolers attempting ambitious projects.

Note that this list intentionally shifts from “serious” full-length books to shorter, more conversational media like podcasts and YouTube channels. Past a certain point, I've gotten less out of popular-academic writing that espouses SDE and unschooling in theory, and more out of media that digs into the messy realities of how people implement unschooling. The latter often isn’t neatly packaged up in book form, so it can entail going through a lot more material to distill out the valuable take-aways.

One book that I will probably pick up sometime is Matt Hern’s Everywhere All the Time, which I think of as a spiritual predecessor to Trust Kids! — it’s also an AK Press anthology, and Hern wrote Trust Kids!’s foreword.

For a gentler prompt going forward, check out Lucy AitkenRead’s account of what a typical unschooling day might look like with younger children. Does this make the whole thing feel more concrete and attainable? Or more out-of-reach and out-of-touch?