Summer: Time to ‘Deschool’

Encourage your children to reengage with their interests and the world around them, and watch them shine

Summer is the ideal time to reconnect with your kids, listen to them, play together, and get to know what their current interests are and what lights them up inside. Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock

If you are a parent of schoolchildren approaching the glorious summer break, might I suggest you use the time to reap the many benefits of deschooling.

Deschooling is a process familiar to many homeschoolers during which you and your family shake off and let go of the many notions, assumptions, and beliefs about learning that have been impressed upon you and your children by school.

We’ve all been taught, for example, that in order to learn and become educated, you have to go to school. A cursory glance at many great scholars and achievers throughout history proves otherwise—as does any independent learning by you or your children.

Some argue that our modern-day public school system actually impedes learning and is, in reality, detrimental to education. (To learn more, look into the work of John Taylor Gatto, a New York City and state teacher of the year who shared his eye-opening experiences; or simply consult the alarming data measuring literacy rates in the United States.)

The truth is, one doesn’t need school to learn. Summer is an opportune time to uncover that spark of curiosity, that joy of learning that your children may have exhibited when they were younger—before they went to school.

Benefits of Deschooling

Quite the opposite of the so-called “summer slide,” deschooling for the 10 or 11 weeks of summer break will allow your children to remember the natural processes of tinkering, exploring, reading for enjoyment, using imagination, creating, building, designing, inventing, pretending, and playing. These are the activities that, when self-directed, result in immeasurable learning opportunities.

When allowed the freedom to partake in these rites of childhood without pressure or coercion, your children will be free to experience their innate enthusiasm and curiosity that school tends to leave little room for.

How to Deschool

Deschooling is simple and joyful.

Let go of the hustle and bustle of the school year schedule and become one with the calm of summer. Reconnect with your kids. Spend time with them, listen to them, play with them, and get to know what their current interests are and what lights them up inside. In essence, do all the things your children are naturally inclined to do when they aren’t in school.

Rather than screen-centric activities, encourage ones that engage their minds and hearts. Spend lots of time outdoors and in deep conversations with your kids. Listen to and watch them closely. Notice how their innate curiosity begins to reengage with the world and how the drudgery of school becomes a distant memory. You’ll feel like you’re doing a lot of nothing but will likely at some point find yourself astonished at how much they’re learning without the “help” of school. That’s when you’ll know deschooling is working.

Visit the library and bookstores, and stock up on a feast of delightful reading. Enjoy an audiobook here and there. Play music. Watch documentaries. Go to the park. Swim in the ocean. Start a project just for fun.

Amid it all, your child is going to learn things. And so are you.

You’ll know deschooling is working when you witness your child’s true self shining through brightly once again. You’ll experience the joy of deschooling when you stop worrying about your child’s reading level or what the other kids are learning in their grade. You’ll understand the deep benefits of deschooling when you begin to ask yourself how you were ever convinced that conventional schooling was the only way for your kids to learn.

Deschooling, simply put, is letting go. Take as long as you need.