I recently asked on my Facebook page if anyone had any questions, and you guys delivered, both on Facebook, and through email. I got a good handful of questions I’m going to answer over the next several weeks, and this is the first.

How do you explain going to school with structured classes yourself, after unschooling your kids? (to your own kids, other kids, other parents)

I feel like I can’t answer this question without first addressing the role that college may play in an unschooling life, regardless of whether the student is a parent or a child.

College and unschooling are not incongruent. Let me start there. Plenty of unschoolers go to college. Some start taking classes in their early teens. My own 16 year old was in the process of applying to the local community college before Covid hit.

One of the great things about unschooling is its celebration of options. Just as I don’t view college as the be-all, end-all, I also don’t discount it. It’s just one of many paths a child (or adult, for that matter) may choose to take. As they get older, unschoolers may choose to enter the workforce, to travel, to start a business, to learn a trade, or, yes, to go to college. All are worthy. All are valid.

Having said that, I think people get confused about the role traditional classes may play in an unschooling family. My kids have all chosen to take classes at various points in their life…. from dance to music to small engine repair. Unschoolers generally aren’t strangers to learning in mainstream ways, which seems to surprise people.

A few years ago, I posted a blog that included a piece of crocheting I had done. It was lying on top of my open planner, where I keep track of all my day to day to-do’s. Someone left a comment that read:

Just curious…if you are an unschooler then why do you have a planner with lessons in it?

The comment was fair, if a little accusatory. Bad unschooler! You’re not unschooling the right way! The fact is, there are a million reasons why I might have had a planner with lessons in it. Maybe it was the time when my daughter wanted to “try school” and asked me to make up a schedule for her to follow each day. (That lasted about a week). Maybe it was when we were spending time at a local Free School, and they’d planned a different activity each day. Or maybe it was when my oldest was taking the engine repair class, and he asked me to help keep him on task. Alas, it was none of those things. It was because I’d just gone back to college, and needed a place to keep track of my tests and assignments.

Which brings me back to the original question.

In 2017, I went back to college. I’d always wanted to pursue a degree in psychology, but I was pushed encouraged to study writing instead. I went off to college straight from highschool, but I’d only completed a couple of years before deciding to take time off to have babies and eventually homeschool. Some 23 years later, I found myself in therapy learning to live with bipolar disorder, and the experience made me realize how badly I wanted to go back and finish what I’d never started: a psychology degree. I was 43 when I went back, and 46 when I graduated (just a few short weeks ago!) When the world isn’t upside down with Covid, I want to go back for a nurse’s degree, and eventually become a psychiatric nurse practitioner. All those things require college, and a lot of it.

If my kids wanted to pursue something that required college, I would support it. When I wanted to do something that required college, my kids supported it. They’re seeing their mom do something that’s been a long time in the making, and I am crazy proud of that. They’re seeing their mom work hard at something that’s important to her, and I’m crazy proud of that too. They’re seeing their mom decide on her own unique path, and take the steps to follow it, which is at the very heart of unschooling.

So how would I explain it, to anyone who asked? I had a goal, and I’m pursuing it. No more simple nor complicated than that.