A recent article in the Toronto Star focused on a family that is committed to “unschooling” their two boys. The two children featured in the article, aged ten and thirteen, do not attend a formal school and receive little direct instruction at home. The unschooling approach has been described as an “extreme approach to homeschooling,” it is focused on self-directed learning where children are deeply immersed in their surrounding community. The boys’ father, Ben Hewitt, discussed the approach to education he and his wife Penny have implemented with their sons. Hewitt noted that as a society “we base a lot of our assumptions about education on what children are supposed to be getting from a standardized curriculum, rather than what they are actually getting… But for me, calculus and physics are not required to be a functioning member of society.” What do you think about the “unschooling” approach?

To read more about the Hewitt family and unschooling see the Star article: http://www.thestar.com/life/parent/2015/03/01/why-one-family-practices-unschooling.html