'Unschooling' broadly involves letting students learn by pursuing their interests and asking questions instead of following a rigid curriculum
Shannon Bream sits down with families who chose homeschooling over traditional education
‘Fox News Sunday’ host Shannon Bream explores the benefits of homeschooling as Americans' fate for the U.S. education system continues to slip.
One TikToker left viewers stunned – and irate – with a revelation.
"We don't teach our children anything," Mami Onami, a spiritual influencer with over 260,000 followers on the popular short video sharing platform, said.
"Everything they learn is in response to either their interest or their questions. We have no curriculum, we have no school hours, we really just respond whenever they want to know something."
Flipping through her 6-year-old son's notebook, showing viewers where he had written words like "egg," "jar," and "lion" on his own, she elaborated on her rationale.
"If you do not like this idea of sending your kids away for 40 hours a week and then wondering why they have no energy to do anything else, if you are not into your kids conforming, trust that you can follow their interests, and they will learn everything they need to learn."
Unschooling – which is another form of homeschooling – became more popular following the COVID-19 pandemic. (iStock)
The video, posted in late May, quickly amassed a slew of vitriol from its hundreds of thousands of viewers, many of whom took exception to the method by calling it a disservice to her children or a form of neglect.
"This is such a disservice to the child. Holy hell. He should be further than this at 6," one user critiqued.
Another chimed in with the comment: "You’re crippling your children. It’s fine if you want to keep them ignorant and at home forever. Personally, I want better for my kids." While a third, who also homeschools her children, called the method "concerning."
"I'm so curious what state you're in & the regulations," she added.
Onami practices something known as "unschooling," a learning method that was originally coined by scholar John Holt in the 1970s but has taken off in recent years, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic forced children and teens out of the classroom and into the comfort of their own home to learn.
According to a piece published by Rolling Stone last month, parents have dedicated Facebook groups to unschooling, influencers like Onami have shared their unschooling experiences with their social media followers and "searches for the term on Google… have almost doubled over the past two years."
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Unschooling encourages kids to pursue activities and interests they choose to expand their knowledge instead of operating under the guidance of a rigid curriculum. (iStock)
In unschooling, a parent becomes a facilitator of learning instead of assuming a direct instructor role as a teacher might, according to Dr. Gina Riley, the program director of Adolescent Special Education program at CUNY's Hunter College in New York City and a researcher who focuses primarily on unschooling, homeschooling and self-directed learning.
The method and outcomes can look different for everybody, though, she said.
"Unschooling is just a form of homeschooling," Riley explained to Fox News Digital on Tuesday. "There's no curriculum, there's no assessment except for authentic assessment of learning, and it's based on a child's strengths and contrasts, but that doesn't mean that a child doesn't get exposed to optimal challenge either."
Riley has authored several books, book chapters and scholarly articles on the topic. In the process, she engaged with multiple adults who were formerly homeschooled or unschooled as children, many of whom, she said, had positive outcomes.
"Out of the 75 [unschooled adults involved in a 2015 study], there were only three that said they had a less than optimal experience," she said. "All of those three had advanced degrees and all of those three also lived in ultra religious households, but you hear unschooling success stories all the time."
Riley's son, who was also unschooled, is one example of a positive outcome.
His first day of actual school was college, but, before that, he spent his developmental years volunteering, meshing with the community, reading and gaining expertise in a series of skills.
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"It was a time of learning for him. It was a time of being able to explore the world, maybe in a sense where other people hadn't," Riley said.
He's now a 28-year-old editor at a major publishing company, owns his own music education business, and is thriving.
"From the outside looking in, I think what we did seemed different, and I think from the inside, it just seemed like a choice we made for our family," she continued.
"I actually unschooled as a single working mother for most of the time I unschooled, so I was working, going to school, and I was unschooling my son at the same time."
She noted the blowback Onami experienced after going viral for her choice is nothing uncommon, remarking that the "No. 1 challenge" to adopting and keeping this learning method is the criticism families receive for daring to do something different.
Onami told Rolling Stone in an article published last month that she realizes unschooling doesn't work for everyone, but she believes it is best for her children and complements her wishes to prevent them from conforming with society.
"To have a bunch of people on the internet say that my son is stupid, that I'm a negligent parent and people should call CPS on me – that really hurt my feelings at first," she told the outlet. "[But] I'm not going to listen to a comments section about how to raise my kids. That would be like trusting the comments section on where to invest your money. You would really only have yourself to blame if it didn't work."
Some commentors came to Onami's support on the post, with one sharing their own experience by writing, "I've been free schooling for 2 years, my daughter is 8, she's brilliant."
Another wrote, "When we did the state sanctioned homeschool curriculum my kid cried if I asked her to write more than one sentence. Now that we unschool she spends hours writing fan fiction."
A third said, "16 year unschoolers here! One of the best decisions ever. I have four responsible, brilliant, creative, successful kids—2 adults and 2 teens. It works!"
Taylor Penley is an associate editor with Fox News.
