As shown in the previous installment, schooling is an extremely poor practice for building a culture of liberty. Parents who've begun building that culture at home through attachment and positive discipline will find schooling to be a major counter-productive step in the socialization and enculturation of their children toward liberty. Instead, such parents should educate themselves on the philosophy known as radical unschooling. Not only does it meet the psychological and intellectual needs of children better than schooling, but it's also the best way to continue building a culture of liberty.

Child-led Learning

Unschooling is the philosophy that says that children learn best when they are focused on what interests them most. Rather than following someone else's plan for learning, unschoolers are given the freedom to explore the world around them in their own way and on their own timescale. Both knowledge and wisdom are obtained as a matter of living joyfully alongside the necessary resources, which include both people, beginning but not ending with mom and dad, and things. Unschoolers usually have unlimited access to the resources around them, which allows them to spend sufficient time learning or doing the things they find interesting. Because unschooled children are in complete control of their lives and their focus, they are naturally socialized into expecting such liberties in the future. My own children show remarkable assertiveness when the liberties they've been granted are being encroached.

Rules vs. Principles

What separates radical unschooling from unschooling is the former's focus on principles over rules. Rules are arbitrary and dictated, and may or may not be based on wisdom, but principles are a matter of reason and discovered through respectful dialogue and negotiation. Going to bed at a certain time and place, eating all of one's food, doing chores on certain days, et cetera, are rules usually imposed on children by their parents. Contrary to rules like this, radical unschooling parents would discuss each of these things with their children, respectfully explaining why one should or shouldn't do this or that as it concerns each, and then let the child choose his own course of action.