Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work is a monograph that resists traditional academic classifications. Part memoir and part how-to book, unschooling parent, podcaster, and influencer Akilah Richards draws on her own lived experiences as a Black mother to write about her family’s journey into deschooling and unschooling, and to give practical advice relevant to people at various stages throughout that journey. Richards provides accessible vocabulary to theorize unschooling not merely as a practice of granting children autonomy, but also as a process of liberation and decolonization rooted in social justice. Released at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, this text still provides much needed interventions into the culture of unschooling, tackling head on issues of race and gender that remain marginal in mainstream discourses on unschooling. The book is presented chronologically, addressing concerns at each stage of the deschooling process, and introducing relevant vocabulary that may be unknown to a popular audience.
This research, conducted in France, investigates the informal acquisition of literacy among unschooled children outside formal instruction. Grounded in Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, the research examines the interplay between familial, cultural, social, and digital influences on literacy development. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven unschooling families, encompassing 24 children and young adults aged 3 to 22 years. The findings reveal that literacy development occurs as a sociocultural process, shaped by the interactions within the child’s ecological environment, including parental attitudes, family dynamics, and community involvement. The results challenge the traditional notion of critical periods for literacy acquisition, highlighting that children develop literacy at diverse ages and through various pathways. Digital tools, particularly video games and interactive media, emerged as significant facilitators of literacy, providing immersive and context-rich environments that foster reading comprehension, writing skills, and vocabulary. This underscores technology’s evolving role in informal learning. While the study emphasizes the autonomy of children in unschooling contexts, it also highlights the essential role of parents in shaping environments conducive to learning. The findings underline the need for further longitudinal studies to explore the nuanced interactions between digital tools, informal learning and ecological factors across diverse cultural and family structures.
The first part of this exploratory research describes, through the eyes of mothers, the lives of unschooling families in France, before and after the separation of the parental couple. How do they cope with the effects of separation, once they become single-parent families, particularly in relation to education? What place is given to their voice and that of their children? Are they heard and listened to?
Through interviews with children, educators, and parents, this article provides a picture of a democratic school in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood. A rare example in NYC, Pono’s philosophies, practices, and pedagogies provide a model of education that fosters child-centered empowered learning, supports community building and strong relationships, and counter-hegemonic strategies. Not without challenges, Pono, is not a panacea, but rather a case study in what is possible when we approach education from a truly child-honoring lens and a belief that education is a true means of transformation.
Home education is an alternate form of education that takes place outside formal schooling with children of school-going age. Parents take primary responsibility for their child’s education, using an approach that is framed by the family’s life philosophy. In this study, thirty parents from a home education network in a South African township provided insight and information on their context, experience and highlighted the importance of the network in their home education journey. The research, framed by the social capital theory, adopted a mixed methods approach to collate both qualitative and quantitative data via a questionnaire. A convergent design was used in the data analysis of the overall results. The results provide perspective and understanding of home education in this historically marginalised cohort. It demonstrates the social capital inherent in the group in terms of trust, reciprocity, shared norms and values and the importance of identity and community support in the group. The study recommends further research for a deeper understanding of the dynamics of the group as they provide a unique and valuable voice in the realm of home education both nationally and internationally.
This article seeks to contribute to the discussion of Jewish-Arab dialogue in the Middle East in general and the Israeli-Palestinian context in particular by exploring the adoption of philosophical communities of inquiry pedagogy based on a pedagogy of searching. Briefly reviewing the teaching of history as an example of the problematic pedagogy espoused in the Israeli education system (excluding the West Bank and [occupied] territories) that serves both Jewish and Arab students, it then sets out a model of joint dialogical-search pedagogy designed to construct a “community of equal participants” in a non-egalitarian world in order to strengthen pupils’ civic-democratic foundations. Finally, it discusses the way in which Philosophy with Children with young Jews and Arabs/Palestinians can encourage dialogue that bases mutual understanding on their shared pain rather than a resolution of the national conflict.
Since modern art tends to be enigmatic and elusive at best, the public feels discouraged to seek out new artistic paradigms. Many new and alternative music genres, therefore, have failed to challenge conventional music paradigms, ultimately failing to infiltrate public school music curricula. In Toronto's music scene, however, there have been several musical genres which have advanced the limits of conventional musical boundaries, particularly New Music and Acoustic Ecology, respectively represented by compositions such as "Made in China," by Toca Loca, and "Streetcar Harmonics," by Andra McCarthy. New Music is concerned with providing new listening tools to appreciate altered musical boundaries, whereas Acoustic Ecology focuses upon appreciating sounds in relationship to life and society. Ultimately both genres separately advocate cultures which strive to present an alternative way of listening to sound (be it music or soundscape), as well as challenging conventional musical paradigms, reinventing the notion of contemporary music, and questioning the boundaries of what 'music' really is, which has huge implications for music education.
Teacher self-concept and perceptions of andragogy were identified with the propositioning thought that teachers of Alternative Learning System (ALS) are stable and positive individuals who best value and deliver the tenets of andragogy and ALS in general. In this study, ALS teachers in Northern Mindanao, Philippines manifested that they have high teacher self-concept and high andragogy perceptions. It is established that there is significant correlation between the two constructs. Further, it was gathered that there are no significant differences in teacher self-concept and andragogy perceptions among the ALS teachers according to their demographics, except on age.
The prevalent thinking is schooling, and education are the same. This, however, is not true. One can be educated without being in school. Unschooled can help people understand that. This book aims to shed light the not-so-familiar concept of unschooling. The author, Kerry McDonald, is an education policy writer and an unschooling supporter. She even does it with her own family. A proud mother of four unschooled children, she is an adjunct scholar at the Center for Educational Freedom at the Cato Institute. Composed of 11 chapters, Unschooled is an eye-opener to an alternative route to the common mode of education—and a great resource for educators, parents, and other stakeholders.
As an educator who has always embraced and championed alternative methods of learning in the classroom, it has been a sincere pleasure editing this special issue of JUAL (Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning). Kudos to Dr. Carlo Ricci (founder and principal editor of JUAL) for providing me with such a wonderful opportunity! When it comes to alternative methods of pedagogy, the arts have always figured centrally. Creativity, imagination, innovation, and ingenuity are just a few of the words that come to mind when I think about the inherent value of not just teaching about the arts, but also using art-based approaches as a tool for general teaching. In this special issue of JUAL, we have many interesting thoughts and perspectives from scholars of diverse backgrounds.
I graduated high school and moved across the world from Toronto to London when I was eighteen to begin a three-year LLB program. I am now in my second year and have spent time reflecting on the way I grew up. I was unschooled for kindergarten and did not attend school until I was in grade one. Unschooling is a learner centre democratic approach where the learner is empowered and entrusted to make their own decisions. When I was unschooled, I was able do what I wanted and how I wanted every day. One day I woke up and wanted to write a story and the next I wanted to learn how to do a cartwheel. The only person I had critiquing my work was myself, and that was enough to motivate me to keep learning. When I started public school, it was a foreign concept to me that I would be told what to do, how to do it, and that I was going to be assessed on how well I did it. Eventually it became difficult to be proud of myself or satisfied with my work until I got the validation from a high grade and assignments became stressful rather than enjoyable. Furthermore, I felt like it created a competitive environment between classmates and created a toxic space for young children to grow up in. Ultimately, my independence and self-confidence were adversely affected. The goal of this autobiographical narrative research paper is to share my school experience from primary school to law school, to share how I continue to learn things without grading, which is something that has stuck with me given my unschooling experience.
This paper is a self-study between an Assistant Professor and a Teacher Candidate as they curated an arts-based installation as part of an Alternative Settings Placement at Trent University School of Education in Peterborough, Ontario. The installation focused on the legacy of residential schools, with Teacher Candidates creating artifacts that represented their learning and commitment to truth and reconciliation. The results of this project include analysis of the authors’ interactions throughout the project under the themes of pedagogy, problem solving, and personal growth. This project is significant to education, exploring alternative teaching placements, faculty and teacher candidate mentorship, and using arts-based creation methods for awareness and activism.
In this arts-informed piece, I envision an encounter during the Spirit Moon. My Indigenous worldview reminds me that all things are interconnected in my culture as I move around the medicine circle in the physical world from the west to the north direction. Visioning our ways with All My Relations.
Sound Connections: Composing educational music is a multi-year, multi-site research project in which professional composers composed new music for young musicians. This article focuses on teachers' reflections on the students' learning through their participation in the project. The teachers listed specific rhythmic skills needed: percussive sounds below bridge; tremolo (pulsating rhythm); pizzicato; accented syncopation; varied and complex rhythm patterns; pivoting from notes of different durations; quick string crossings; tempo contrasts; and body percussion. Bowing skills, such as bow placement and articulations, were also required for the newly created compositions. First and third position fingerings, including the half position involving quick change patterns for accidentals, were essential. The jazz slide, portamento, and swells on long notes needed to be learned. Harmonics, both artificial and on open strings, also had to be taught. Further, exaggerated slow tempo (unison breathing) and quick tempo and metre changes had to be learned. Whole class (ensemble), group (sectionals) and independent work, research and practice were assigned. These were shaped through lectures, workshops, seminars, and individual conferencing. Demonstration occurred through teacher/peer modelling and watching videos. Drills and rote learning applied to practicing and memorization. Isolating problems and chunking were used to add more complex goals in progressive terms of easy to difficult and slow to fast. The findings will be interest to composers writing music for young musicians, teachers of strings in classrooms and private music studios, and to those teaching music composition in school and post-secondary settings. Keywords: educational music; music creativity; music learning
This paper explores the use of an arts-based assignment, the creation of a digital story, in a mandatory Diversity and Inclusion course for Bachelor of Education students (future educators). Our paper explores the rationale for using experiential learning to develop students’ social justice self-efficacy to counter dysconsciousness and outlines the process we implemented to scaffold the students’ creation of their digital stories. It is our belief that through the creative, interactive, and reflective process of an art-based assignment, TCs become cognitively, somatically, and emotionally absorbed in a process that encourages critical awareness and, ultimately, transformation.
In this article, the author offers a reading of selected works by Jiddu Krishnamurti and Vine Deloria Jr., discussing their intersections and tensions. Both Krishnamurti and Deloria were public intellectuals fundamentally concerned with human liberation, but they approached that liberation in ways that might be perceived as mutually exclusive. This perceived mutual exclusivity, however, is often based in readings of Indigenous sovereignty as a project of recognition by settler states rather than as a project of refusing those same settler states. When sovereignty is understood as emanating from a relational Indigenous worldview, there is alignment within the thinking of Krishnamurti and Deloria and, more broadly, the possibility for a future of mutuality between Indigenous and diasporic peoples.
Using a personal life narrative, I present how my approach to education developed. Although I have had many influences, here I highlight how aspects of my insights align with the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti. These are not incidental, because I once worked at a Krishnamurti school and conducted academic studies of Krishnamurti’s teachings. Therefore, resonances between such life experiences and how I approach education are inevitable. In synchronicity with Krishnamurti’s approach is my understanding that life is the universal teacher, the world itself the ultimate school, and we are perennially students. However, if one can realize that the nexus for all these is the reality of the present moment, the “what-is,” learning is optimized. Dropping our attachments to what we have already learned, or what we might achieve, offers us the freedom to explore what is unfolding around and within us at each moment.
I am delighted to present this special issue on Jiddu Krishnamurti for the readers of the Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning.
For this article, I have adapted a talk I gave for an online conference centering around Jiddu Krishnamurti’s scholarship to address the theme of “a world in crisis.” I share a narrative of my experience discovering Krishnamurti’s work by way of introducing the idea of innate human intelligence as distinct from the mind-led intellect. This distinction is critical to our understanding of how we perceive the world, demonstrating that there are two ways of knowing: one is conceptual, and one is actual, we could say, or beyond concepts.
If one is wondering how to really create change in the world, then The Future of Humanity (1986) is a great place to start. It showcases two dialogues between Indian educator and philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti and theoretical physicist David Bohm. In the review of this book, the author explores why this tiny, short book is so powerful, especially for those with questions and concerns about formal education systems as they exist today, and the future of the world itself.
