Natural Learning and Unschooling - Home Education Network

August 28, 2015

Informal Learning

by Alan Thomas Infants start learning informally from (or before?) birth, mainly through interaction with the mother or other caregivers. Part of this is learning how to behave in culturally appropriate ways, e.g., how to deal with emotions, how to interact with others in the family and wider community, and the acquisition of cultural values and attitudes. This alone requires a vast amount of […]

August 28, 2015

Natural Learning in Action

By Susan Wight Natural Learning is not ‘Doing Nothing’ Confession time: Sometimes I get ‘the guilts’ and think I’m not really educating my children at all. This feeling usually creeps in following someone’s wide-eyed response when I tell them that I home educate. “Wow, I could never do that! You must be so organised!” The overawed responses vary but the words ‘busy’, ‘dedicated’ ‘organised’ […]

August 28, 2015

Jean Lave’s Problem

by Dr John Peacock Jean Lave had a problem. She knew that the best scholarship said that schools were better than other places of learning because in schools skilled professionals taught general principles that were objective and unbiased because they were not dependent upon particular contexts or situations. That same scholarship said that other sorts of learning, such as go on in the home […]

August 26, 2015

Special Needs or Just Special

It was going to be his first day on the mountain and my old anxieties were creeping in. With his brand new snowboard tucked under his arm and his first-ever season lift ticket hanging from his neck, my 12 year old son, Conor, was off on an adventure of his own choosing. He seemed to be ready to tackle it all, but I wasn’t […]

August 19, 2015

60 Minutes Segment on Unschooling

This was aired in 2014 and republished as part of the 60 Minutes archive in 2020. Also available ‘Extra minutes’ are on YouTube Channel 9 Mornings with Sandra Dodd The Clark family were interviewed with The Chronicle and the website contains a video with them as well Issue 140 of Otherways magazine carries stories from both Carleen Sing and Rachel Clark and their 60 […]