School choice

Home education or Unschooling?

The difference between Home education and Unschooling is mostly one axis: who directs the day. Home education sits between the two; Unschooling sits firmly toward the child chooses what to do. They agree, more than most people expect, on mixed ages, what the family can put in and money and distance. Neither is the correct one. What follows is what each asks of a parent, and where the difference actually shows up on a Tuesday.

Home education

Education at home with a structure you choose — bought curriculum, your own sequence, or a co-operative with other families. It gives complete control over pace, content and values, and it converts one parent's time into the school. The outcome research is genuinely good and almost entirely drawn from self-selected families, so it should be read as what is possible rather than as what is typical.

What it asks of you

  • One adult's working life, in most arrangements
  • Building a social world deliberately, since it does not arrive with the building
  • Teaching subjects you are not confident in, for years
  • A plan for the transition back, if there ever is one

Unschooling

Home education without a curriculum. There is no sequence and no subjects; a child learns what they are pursuing, when they pursue it, with an adult whose job is to make resources and people available. Holt's argument is that children learn constantly and that schooling mostly interrupts it. It asks the most trust of any position in this instrument and offers the fewest reassurances along the way.

What it asks of you

  • Sustained nerve with no milestones to check yourself against
  • Constant availability — it is less structured than home education and not less work
  • Meeting the legal requirement wherever you are, which varies enormously
  • An honest distinction between this and neglect, which only shows up in what the adult is doing
Side by side

Where they differ

Home education is the filled marker, Unschooling the hollow one. Widest difference first.

L1Who directs the day
the child chooses what to dotimetabled, and directed by adults

Home education sits between the two; Unschooling sits firmly toward the child chooses what to do.

L2When formal academics start
when the child is ready, and late is fineearly, and ambitiously

Home education sits between the two; Unschooling sits firmly toward when the child is ready, and late is fine.

L5What a teacher is
a guide who steps backan authority who instructs

Home education sits a little toward an authority who instructs; Unschooling sits firmly toward a guide who steps back.

L4Where the curriculum comes from
it emerges from the childrena fixed body of knowledge, set in advance

Home education sits between the two; Unschooling sits firmly toward it emerges from the children.

V3What it is for
childhood is the pointit should set up university and a career

Home education sits between the two; Unschooling sits firmly toward childhood is the point.

L3Measuring it
no grades, no testsgraded and tested regularly

Home education sits toward no grades, no tests; Unschooling sits firmly toward no grades, no tests.

Where they agree

Usually more than the argument between them suggests.

  • Mixed ages. Both sit toward mixed-age groups.
  • What the family can put in. Both sit firmly toward being in it, daily.
  • Money and distance. Both sit a little toward free and local, or it is not an option.
  • Technology at school. Both sit between the two.

Neither of these is the correct one

Which fits depends on what you value and on what your week actually allows — and the second of those is the half nobody writes about. The questionnaire scores both.

See which one you are already doing