Back

What is that unschooling thing? | Day 169 of my 2023 Journal

Cecilie Conrad·Jun 19, 2023· 2 minutes

🇩🇰 Also available in Danish 🇩🇰

On some days of my travel- and reflection journal, there is not much to talk about.

I can not keep sharing how green the Swedish forest is in the summertime or how I, yet another day, failed to see a moose.

We are enjoying the peace and don’t even want to go on day trips or hikes.

Still reading books, cooking meals, having conversations, and swimming in the lake.

It is still precious.

But of course, there is thinking.

There is always thinking.

I heard a podcast with a statement that got me thinking:

“At that point, we were completely unschooling. She wakes up, and she decides what she wants to learn today.”

You see, this sounds, to me, not like unschooling at all by no means.

It sounds like a maybe very freestyle form of homeschooling, but still, a life where the children are supervised by the adults who ensure they learn.

True unschooling is a lifestyle where the whole idea of school has been removed from the equation, the idea of “you have to learn” and the idea of the curriculum. Both. Both need to go in order for it to be unschooling.

You see, learning is a byproduct of living.

Anything we do voluntarily has a challenge, and therefore we grow.

We learn.

If there were no challenges, it would not be fun.

There is no way a meaningful life will not leave us smarter every day.

The difference for the unschooled child is that the child is not expected to learn anything in particular, not even DO anything in particular. In our family, we all pursue our hobbies, do what we LIKE to do, and find meaningful.

This can be hard to see on the surface. On the surface, it all looks just like a weekend. But it is not. We don’t do weekends. We just live — every day.

Love and light

Cecilie-Underskrift-300x133

Cecilie Conrad

🇩🇰 Also available in Danish 🇩🇰

 

Thank you for reading
I would love to hear from you. Listen to your thoughts and reflections - or praise :) It is often emotional to share our life like this, and we get very happy when we get feedback from you. So feel free to share a comment below 😋 

Is the smartphone really ruining the lives of tweens and teens? Do we need to protect them by keeping them away from the tool? The movement out there…Read more
Dinner tables, car rides, bedtime chats, café corners—this episode dives into the real places where unschooling lives and grows. Cecilie Conrad, Sand…Read more
A morning reflection from Budapest on trusting life’s intensity, receiving what we need, and surrendering to the beauty hidden in challenges. Read more
What’s the value of doing the same thing more than once? In this episode, Cecilie Conrad talks with Sandra Dodd and Sue Elvis about repetition in lea…Read more
Sandra Dodd, Sue Elvis, and Cecilie Conrad come together to discuss their personal journeys into unschooling, focusing on natural learning, curiosity…Read more
Unschooling challenges the need for tests and timelines. Cecilie Conrad, Sue Elvis, and Sandra Dodd explore trust, natural learning, and letting go o…Read more
Barcelona wasn’t sunsets and music. It was rain—21 out of 23 days of it. It was getting sick, the dogs getting sick, and working on personal projects…Read more
Street art is such a bold and brave form, throwing it up there in the shared space, creating a comment or a decoration or a critique or a combination…Read more
How kids learn math naturally through games, daily life, and problem-solving—without textbooks or worksheets. A deep dive into unschooling and real-w…Read more