Watch What If..... 5 minute animated overview of Unschooling School

​There is an urgent need to transform all schools into spaces that nurture the natural abilities of children and youth to learn as they grow. Humans have thrived because we learn, not because we teach.  Our world needs creative problem solvers who understand how they learn, how to communicate, and are adept at collaboration. So how do we change an education system that was partially designed to mimic the factory model, in order to produce obedient workers? We demand an education model that ignites our inborn abilities, and a system that provides spaces, tools, and support to allow children of all ages to do what they naturally do; educate themselves.

Of course, we can create alternative schools that are self-directed and we can demonstrate that allowing kids’ ownership of their education leads to success. We can and we have. But the system itself has not changed.

Three key realities thwart the opportunity for this change:

1. Not all kids can attend these enlightened schools.
2. We already pay for public education.
3. Not all parents are able to unschool at home.

So what if we made space for change within schools by choosing not to comply with the age-segregated, curriculum-driven, testing, grading, and homework-laden structures? What if we insisted that our children be allowed to choose what they want to do at school? What if we let them know that there are lots of different avenues to gain acceptance into College or University or start careers?  What if we revealed to them that marks on a transcript are only one of many options?

"To foster children who will thrive in today’s constantly changing world, we must entrust them to steer their own learning and development." - ​Peter Gray, Free to Learn

Thus Unschooling School: an initiative to create an alternative to school, within schools.

UnschoolingSchool.com will:

• Provide tools, coaching, and create a community so parents, students and educators can continue to participate in the public system, while firmly resisting its unnecessary regimen and coercion.
• Help parents/kids look at school as a smorgasbord of resources to choose from based on curiosity and passion.
• Furnish parents with the courage to trust their kids and allow them to opt-out of lessons, homework, and testing, and instead give them the freedom to spend time at school doing more of what they enjoy.
• Outline a new designation for students: The Free Learner (or FL). Similar to LD, students designated FL will also require accommodation in the class and school. The accommodations will vary and depend on the wishes/interests of the FL child and parent(s).
• Share worksheets and templates that explain what the Free Learner designation means and what accommodations their child will require.
• Become a forum for FLs, their parents and enlightened educators to network, share ideas and help build the Unschooling School community, eventually creating Unschooling-Schools everywhere.

​Unschooling School is about stepping outside the dominant narrative around Education and into a new one. A narrative where schools are viewed as centers full of resources, facilities, materials, and experts to be utilized by kids to help them in the process of educating themselves. It is all there, we just need to change how we use it. That change starts with putting the learner in charge. It starts when we insist that schools behave in accordance with their rhetoric, “children are at the centre of all we do”!

To better understand what we mean we encourage you to spend some time with our friends Dr. Peter Gray, Alifie Kohn and Sir Ken Robinson and with schools like Sudbury Valley, academic journals like JUAL (the Nipissing University Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning), organizations such as AERO (Alternative Education Resource Organization),  ASDE (Alliance for Self-Directed Education) and movements like The Quest for a Just Society and FHREE (Full Human-Rights Experience Education). Looking into the research, writing, videos and stories of any of these individuals and groups will lead to a plethora of information and a whole world that, in all likelihood, will have you conclude that Unschooling School is an idea whose time has come. 

Unschooling School has supplied a lightbulb that I hope keeps flashing above my head. It is such a perfect concept and completely turns my thinking right side up.
- Carl Rust, Author: Get Out of the Way and Let Kids Learn

Classroom Connections has been working to revolutionize the K-12 education system for over 20 years. 

Until COVID 19 we were planning to launch a tuition-free Sudbury Valley type school in Toronto. However, because the economic situation post-pandemic is not likely to be one where fundraising for a new kind of school will fly, we have started to rethink our strategy.  We already pay for public education, why don’t those of us who no longer buy-into the Current Education Regime band together and encourage the system to change, simply by insisting that students have the right to choose what, how and with whom they learn?

Join us and help unschool school!

For a great conversation call: Heather MacTaggart at 416-219-4130.