Schooling Yourself

Each year more and more students drop out of school in order to educate themselves. According to the National Home Education Research Institute, the number of students in the U.S. who homeschool has grown by 7-15 percent a year for the last several years; around 1.9 million people were homeschooled during the 2000-2001 school year.

These students are turning to alternative education for a variety of reasons: some to pursue artistic or athletic interests, some for religious reasons, and some because they simply believe that they can learn more if they aren't sitting in a classroom all day.

"Dropout", "homeschooler" or "unschooler?" What's the difference?

There are no precise definitions for the terms "dropout," "homeschooler," or "unschooler," but each one has cultural and political connotations that set them apart. The term "dropout" carries the baggage of failure, hopelessness, drugs, and violence. A 1999 report by the U.S. Department of Education indicated that compared to high school graduates, dropouts are likely to earn less money, collect unemployment, receive public assistance, and be single parents.

The term homeschooler carries a different set of baggage. Homeschoolers are stereotyped as coming from the upper-middle class and being sheltered. Many are pulled from school by their parents for religious reasons. But there are many homeschoolers who don't fit this description.

Patricia Lines of the very same U.S. Department of Education that thinks badly of dropouts praised homeschoolers, saying that they "are asserting their historic individual rights so that they may form more meaningful bonds with family and community."

"In doing so," she continues "they are not abdicating from the American agreement. To the contrary, they are affirming it."

Recently, some very motivated and highly-skilled people are dropping out. These people want to show that dropping out isn't just something that happens to you when you can't handle school anymore: it is a choice that can be made in order to improve your education. Some are actually re-claiming the word "drop out." Others just call themselves unschoolers.

Homeschoolers are usually taught by their parents from state-certified curriculums. Unschoolers, on the other hand, teach themselves without a traditional curriculum. Unschoolers tend to be more politically opposed to the educational establishment than homeschoolers, and they tend to be more motivated than your average dropout. Unschoolers consciously and independently decide to leave school, usually in middle or high school. For some, leaving traditional school is an act of protest against the education system.

	"Homeschoolers are usually taught by their parents from state-certified curriculums. Unschoolers, on the other hand, teach themselves without a traditional curriculum. Unschoolers tend to be more politically opposed to the educational establishment than homeschoolers, and they tend to be more motivated than your average dropout."

Unschooler Sarah Shapiro wrote of her decision to leave school: "I heard echoes of many a summer's end walking into a bookstore or a library as if it were a candy store, glancing longingly at all the books I want to read, and knowing that school would take up all my time instead."

I had a similar problem. For many years I felt that devoting myself to school was the best way to reach my life goals. In elementary and middle school I loved the satisfaction and praise I could win by succeeding at the things my school deemed important. By the time I quit traditional high school, however, I was an unhappy A and B student who aspired to do great things but lacked the time and the freedom of mind to do them.

Finally, when I was in tenth grade, I learned of a growing movement of "unschoolers" who believed that the essential lessons in life -- dedication, self-direction, and independent thinking - can be learned better outside of school.