'Unschooling' Lets Children Dictate Their Learning

(CBS4) - Who needs textbooks and lesson plans? Some parents say children should decide what they learn, not teachers. That's the basis of a controversial educational philosophy known as "unschooling", a movement that's gaining traction across the country.

Seven year old Elijah Parent and his 6-year old sister, Sadie, are bright, curious and eager to learn. But, their learning won't take place in a classroom or come from a prepared curriculum. Instead, it's all about what they want to learn.

"That's the most beautiful thing; you can teach a child how to seek out information that they want, so they can fill themselves with the knowledge they desire," said the children's mother, Sarah Parent.

Sarah and her husband, Chris, both have master's degrees and believe in the value of a good education. They just have a different philosophy on how that should be accomplished.

"It's not that we are opposed to textbooks and workbooks, it's whatever way the child learns is the most important piece of this," Sarah said.

Unschoolers believe in an unstructured education. They let the children dictate what they want to learn, how they want to learn it, and when. The idea is not to force them into learning what they don't want to know.

The way Sarah explained it, "The basics will come and everything we need to know will come in our lives as long as we foster that confidence and that independence."

But, Dan Miller, who worked as a school psychologist for 25 years, said when children are taught only what interests them, they end up with holes in their education.

"It works very, very well with young children. But as they start getting into first grade and beyond, they need more structure," claimed Dr. Miller. "Without that education, they're really going to be at a disadvantage down the road."

But the Parent family disagrees. "This [unschooling] doesn't prohibit a child from moving into a college, but it does allow them to pursue what's more interesting to them," Chris Parent said.

Melissa Norcross is the mother of seven children, and has been home-schooling for more than 20 years. She agrees that unschooling could be useful when kids are young, but still believes in some form of formal education.

"When our children are small, we might give them a little more freedom to follow their interest a little bit, but even then, we're still using textbooks and curriculum," she said.

Under the home-schooling curriculum that Norcross uses, two of her kids became National Merit Scholars and graduated from college with 4.0 GPAs -- success Norcross ties to discipline and structure.

"If you have your child, you say 'You want to eat ice cream or broccoli?' they're going to choose ice cream every time, but the broccoli is good for them," she theorized. "So I think there are some things that won't be as fun to study, but they're important for the children to learn."

"We're not interested, per se, of saying my kid could match your kid in a test," said Chris Parent. "If that's the answer someone was looking for, I'd say you're looking in the wrong place because that's not our goal."

So, what happens when unschoolers grow up? Nicole Ofeno and Emily Williams were both unschooled until they were 18.

"Anything I wanted to learn, I would tell my mom 'I want to learn about this'," said Ofeno.

Ofeno now works as the curator for a small art gallery and said she's very happy with the education she received.

"I think it's this phenomenon that not a lot of people understand -- that kids really want to learn these things," she said. "There was never a desire in my mind to not want to know how to do math."

Emily Williams began modeling at the age of 14 and continues to travel the world for work.

"I mean someone could look at me and say I didn't graduate high school, I never went to college," she said. "What am I, nothing? There is no chance for me to be successful, but I beg to differ."

Unschoolers say their success lies in happiness and having a passion for what they do. That's the primary motivator for the Parent family.

"We want them [their children] to be happy, and that's our biggest goal," Sarah Parent explained. "And if they're happy right now in this moment, right now and the next day, then we've done our jobs as people."

So is unschooling legal? By law, children six and older must be in school. However, parents can legally decide to provide in-home education and unschooling falls into that category.