redefining problematic unschooling
education destroys the economy of home and community. These are left weak and vulnerable when people are no longer useful to one another. As this vulnerability grows, people fall into dependence on exterior economies and organizations. The local schools have no use for the local community ...
⸺ prakash & esteva, escaping education
there is widespread concern regarding a specifically american and libertarian brand of unschooling known as radical unschooling. this is due to its leanings toward a radical individualism that often perpetuates the same forms of violence against the community as schools do.
unschooling, like deschooling, should act as a critique of compulsory school, give trust to natural and self-directed learning, view learning as a lifelong process, emphasise real-world experience, and support decentralised learning networks and systems. however, this doesn't add up to much if community isn't a core principle, such as with radical unschooling.
another possible unschooling philosophy could rebuke the primary concern of autonomy and freedom of the child in place of encouraging regenerative lifeways through our connection to one another and our immediate environment. learning would still be self-directed, but the community becomes an inspiration for curriculum. it could reject the western nuclear family for an intergenerational and localised community (community as extended family). And it could focus less on parental facilitation (or lack thereof) as a power structure and more on communal and elder-mentor learning webs.
a meaningful synthesis is possible between unschooling and deschooling. one can begin unschooling within the family while also moving toward deschooling in the broader sense: reconnecting with land, elders, mutual aid, and the shared cultural rituals of learning.
both deschooling and unschooling are focused on alternatives to school. Unschooling is a methodology beyond the walls of the school, where deschooling is a movement toward being in and with a community that rejects traditional schooling on decolonial and anticapitalist grounds. deschooling is inline with the deinstitutionalisation of education. deinstitutionalisation shouldn't mean abandoning the concept of community.
here are five ways unschooling can become more communal, shifting from a hyper-individualised model toward one that regenerates shared learning, mutual aid, and ecological belonging:
1. co-create learning commons
turn isolated homeschooling into shared community resource spaces.
form local unschooling hubs or “learning circles” where families, elders, and neighbours pool tools, books, land, and time.
use libraries, community kitchens, urban gardens, or open studios as living classrooms.
think: free school meets makerspace, where learning flows in all directions.
2. reintegrate elders and non-parents
break the parent-child bubble by honouring broader webs of care and skill.
invite elders, artisans, farmers, and storytellers to share knowledge through informal apprenticeships or intergenerational gatherings.
value oral knowledge, embodied craft, and local memory just as much as academic content.
this restores what prakash and esteva call “intergenerational conviviality”—learning as relationship.
3. embed learning in communal rhythms
let festivals, seasons, and daily work shape the curriculum.
replace artificial schedules with rhythms of the garden, kitchen, moon cycle, or cooperative work.
allow children to participate meaningfully in community life: preparing shared meals, caring for animals, co-organising events.
learning happens with others, not just beside others.
4. practice mutual aid, not just mutual interest
move beyond co-ops focused on convenience to ecosystems of reciprocity.
create systems where families trade skills, host each other’s kids, or form pods for shared projects—especially cross-class, cross-cultural ones.
design learning activities that contribute to the community (e.g. mapping local plants, building a tool library, oral history interviews).
centre values on care, not just autonomy.
5. deschool the adults, too
learning is not just for children—it’s a whole-community transformation.
host reading groups, repair workshops, kitchen skillshares, or land walks where everyone learns together.
encourage parents to unlearn competitive parenting, achievement metrics, and privatised childrearing.
as esteva and prakash argue, deschooling is the deinstitutionalisation of the mind, requiring collective healing and imagination.
🌾 a closing thought
communal unschooling isn’t about self-determined or community-derived curriculum. it’s a way of living, where education arises from being together in place, with shared responsibility for one another’s growth. it isn't about the individualist wild-child or the family, it is about how we interact as individuals in a community, which is too often forgotten as the most important space for learning.