School choice

Classical or Unschooling?

The difference between Classical and Unschooling is mostly one axis: where the curriculum comes from. Classical sits firmly toward a fixed body of knowledge, set in advance; Unschooling sits firmly toward it emerges from the children. They agree, more than most people expect, on who else is there. Neither is the correct one. What follows is what each asks of a parent, and where the difference actually shows up on a Tuesday.

Classical

A specified body of knowledge, taught in a deliberate order, on the argument that you cannot think critically about something you do not know. The trivium stages it: facts and memorisation while memory is easy, then logic, then rhetoric. Often Latin, usually history in chronological sequence, and always explicit instruction from the front.

What it asks of you

  • Comfort with memorisation and recitation, which are unfashionable and central here
  • Accepting a canon, and that choosing one is a value judgement however old it is
  • Homework, and a household that supports it
  • Checking which tradition a given school belongs to — the name covers a wide political range

Unschooling

Home education without a curriculum. There is no sequence and no subjects; a child learns what they are pursuing, when they pursue it, with an adult whose job is to make resources and people available. Holt's argument is that children learn constantly and that schooling mostly interrupts it. It asks the most trust of any position in this instrument and offers the fewest reassurances along the way.

What it asks of you

  • Sustained nerve with no milestones to check yourself against
  • Constant availability — it is less structured than home education and not less work
  • Meeting the legal requirement wherever you are, which varies enormously
  • An honest distinction between this and neglect, which only shows up in what the adult is doing
Side by side

Where they differ

Classical is the filled marker, Unschooling the hollow one. Widest difference first.

L4Where the curriculum comes from
it emerges from the childrena fixed body of knowledge, set in advance

Classical sits firmly toward a fixed body of knowledge, set in advance; Unschooling sits firmly toward it emerges from the children.

L1Who directs the day
the child chooses what to dotimetabled, and directed by adults

Classical sits firmly toward timetabled, and directed by adults; Unschooling sits firmly toward the child chooses what to do.

L5What a teacher is
a guide who steps backan authority who instructs

Classical sits firmly toward an authority who instructs; Unschooling sits firmly toward a guide who steps back.

L3Measuring it
no grades, no testsgraded and tested regularly

Classical sits toward graded and tested regularly; Unschooling sits firmly toward no grades, no tests.

L2When formal academics start
when the child is ready, and late is fineearly, and ambitiously

Classical sits toward early, and ambitiously; Unschooling sits firmly toward when the child is ready, and late is fine.

V3What it is for
childhood is the pointit should set up university and a career

Classical sits toward it should set up university and a career; Unschooling sits firmly toward childhood is the point.

E1Mixed ages
classes of the same agemixed-age groups

Classical sits toward classes of the same age; Unschooling sits toward mixed-age groups.

E2Outdoors and the body
learning happens at a tableoutdoors and hands-on is the point

Classical sits toward learning happens at a table; Unschooling sits toward outdoors and hands-on is the point.

E3Technology at school
kept out until latebuilt in from the start

Classical sits firmly toward kept out until late; Unschooling sits between the two.

C1What the family can put inwhat your life allows
school has to run without the parentsbeing in it, daily

Classical sits between the two; Unschooling sits firmly toward being in it, daily.

V1A view of the world
school should stay neutralschool should teach a view of the world

Classical sits toward school should teach a view of the world; Unschooling sits between the two.

Where they agree

Usually more than the argument between them suggests.

  • Who else is there. Both sit a little toward a community that shares our values matters most.

Neither of these is the correct one

Which fits depends on what you value and on what your week actually allows — and the second of those is the half nobody writes about. The questionnaire scores both.

See which one you are already doing