Unschooling is a very simple philosophy on education. Whilst schooling is an extremely complex undertaking by governments, teachers, parents and students the hardest bit of unschooling is letting go of preconceived ideas about education and embracing it - this is called deschooling. In Australia we quite often refer to unschooling as natural learning. This term appeals to many of us because it is less provocative and in some ways it lends a more positive angle to this homeschooling approach.

The theory is that a child will naturally gravitate towards learning, and that with the support of a parent they can teach themselves to read, write, do mathematics, learn science, history, music, languages and countless other topics. Unchooling in practice involves removing planned curriculums from learning and although that may sound impossible the results speak for themselves. Anecdotal evidence is spread far and wide across the internet and the criticisms of unschooling are not from people who have ever tried it.

Unlike in school curriculums, natural learning does not divide lessons into subject matter. For example an unschooling child uses reading a book about Ancient Egypt as both literacy and history and they may be inspired to create to artworks in an Ancient Egyptian style or maths by building a pyramid from lego or cutting one out of cardboard, or astronomy or agriculture, or just about any other topic. The possibilities are endless when there are no limits and no set destination!

Natural learners believe that all of life is learning and children naturally absorb useful lessons. Reading a bus time table is maths, cooking is science and maths, building a sand castle is art, grocery shopping is economics and financial management, building a garden bed is geometry, gardening is sustainability.

Unschooling is simply harnessing a child's natural drive to learn and become an independent, functional adult. When a baby is born it watches everything its parents do. She or he learns to walk, talk, and socialise because of their need to align themselves with other humans not because they are taught. In the very same way that they learn these basic but intrinsic skills they can learn to read and write, after all reading and writing is a natural extension of the language they have already absorbed.

Understandably, this method of learning which on the surface appears quite uncontrolled, causes a lot of controversy. The framework of our society is based on our education system so a lot of faith is placed in the teachers, the curriculum, the testing and the scores, however at the same time there is no shortage of evidence that this structure is failing.

Critics of unschooling often say things like "children hate maths so they will never learn if you don't make them" however children teach themselves to count (they sing counting songs, they see their parents counting, they watch sesame street) before they enter schools, and those that don't enter schools are naturally driven to continue with mathematical exploration.

They need to do maths to share a bag of lollies, to work out how long it will take them to save their pocket money to buy a sought after item, to read a bus timetable, to cook, read the time on a digital or analogue clock, and countless other daily tasks. Mathematics in schools is taught as sums, mathematics in unschooling is absorbed by the daily application of mathematical skills. Unschooled children never grow to hate maths the way schooled children do because to them it is contextual and it makes sense, they are never judged or tested or compared to other children based on their abilities so they simply keep absorbing the skills they need to function in modern society.

It is understandable that unschooling or natural learning can seem dubious at best and irresponsible at worst, however people can see their own children learning to walk and talk so criticisms of unschooling are contradictory in the face of this. The idea that schooling is necessary is a modern one, in fact schools have only been prevalent for a very short period in history, and prior to schools our society was doing just fine!

It is crucial for parents to deschool themselves when they begin to unschool their children, one of the greatest reasons for "failure" or quitting is that parents fail to let go of their long held beliefs about institutional learning. Deschooling as an adult can be complex in that it involves rejecting the way many of us gained our own education. Unschooling isn't about rejecting the education you received or the education millions of children are currently receiving, it's about creating a new pathway for your own children, giving them the freedom to make their own future!