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 😋 

Last year just around this time, we did not make it to England. Paperwork not in order. We had another great summer adventure, and it was all good. B…Read more
Moving through the day, we had to get practical things done and place the vehicles at the station for campers, watch a documentary, and go for a walk…Read more
I am unsure why I keep writing these small stories about our travels. Some days it seems like an unnecessary chore. Writing every day about what happ…Read more
All the little things. The little things that are actually big. We did them. All day long and very far into the late evening. So it goes sometimes. …Read more
This time we had a plan! No loud music, no big crowds. We went out to see the Gentfest, but the focus was to find street artists, street musicians, s…Read more
We have friends everywhere, except where we don’t - so we go there to make new ones. A bit overwhelmed by the ones we already have, and now holding a…Read more
A thing I find beautiful is the people! Marjan is the sister of a friend we have in El Vendrell. Marjan always said: "Just come over if you are ever …Read more
We found a campervan park at a harbor in Holland. It was full of roses and other flowers, someone attended them beautifully, harbors are always beaut…Read more
We visited the science museum Universum. It is a good one of its sort, with only one downside - the lack of oxygen! Would they please open a window?!…Read more