Unschoolers learn what they want, when they want

By Jacque Wilson, CNN
Aug. 05, 2011

This is the greatest schooling philosophy by far, better than homeschooling, better than Montessori. It's anarchism, whereas schooling is central planning. - ChrisSix-year-old Karina Ricci doesn't ever have a typical day. She has no schedule to follow, no lessons to complete.

She spends her time watching TV, doing arts and crafts or practicing the piano. She learned to spell by e-mailing with friends; she uses math concepts while cooking dinner.

Everything she knows has been absorbed "organically," according to her dad, Dr. Carlo Ricci. She's not just on summer break -- this is her life year round as an at-home unschooler.

"It's incredible how capable she is," Ricci said in a phone interview from his home in Toronto, Ontario. "And I think that all young people are that capable ... if you don't tell them they can't or they're not allowed, they surprise us in a lot of ways."

Ricci is professor of alternative learning at Nipissing University and an advocate of unschooling, a concept that's gaining popularity in both Canada and the United States thanks to frustration with the current public education system. In unschooling the child is in control of his/her learning. They are free to decide what they want to study, when they want to study it.

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