How to Direct Your Own Education

Since school is a place where many of us have our rights violated and where we lack academic freedom, some of us have chosen to educate ourselves without attending school. It may seem like there are not many options available besides school, especially without financial means. However, students who dictate how, what, and when they learn, otherwise known as “self-directed learners,” have the world at their fingertips. Contrary to the stereotype of “dropping out,” there are infinite options for what you can do outside of school. Many of these options are accessible to youth of any economic background; a large portion of unschooling families make less than $25,000 a year, although there has not been a study done with a large enough sample size to give an exact percentage. Unschoolers learn through life – independently studying, adventuring, pursuing personal passions, and doing whatever else they put their minds to. You can even form your own learning network that is tailor made for your community’s needs. There are various options for self-directing your education, including Unschooling, Self-Directed Education (SDE) Schools, and SDE Homeschool Centers.

Become an unschooler

Unschooling is a form of self-directed homeschooling, in which the learner freely chooses all of their activities. Unschoolers can use the many resources available, including community classes, tutors, internships, community colleges, jobs, YouTube, online classes, webinars, friends, and any other activities you can think of. The options are endless for how unschoolers choose to learn and use their time. Homeschooling is legal in all 50 states, with some regulations, which vary depending on your state. Look up your state’s homeschooling laws here.
Unschoolers tend to pursue whichever personal projects, passions, and interests they feel drawn to. When you were in school, what did you always feel like doing but never did? Do that. And when you feel like it, move on to something else.
Even if you feel like you are not investing any effort in learning, most things we know, such as language, which we often taken for granted, we learn organically from life experience. For youth who unschool from an early age, this often applies to essential skills such as reading. Meanwhile, many schooled youth resist being forced to learn and end up missing many of those essential lessons.
You can study on your own, using whatever resources you see fit. Unschooling can be categorized as a form of homeschooling, which is legal in every state, though speciﬁc restrictions on forms of homeschooling vary by jurisdiction. You can even combine, to an extent, unschooling with other conventional educational methods, such as attending school. The internet makes this easy, with endless opportunities for both formalized classes and independent research. Some examples of resources for independent learning include: sites which offer MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses), YouTube, libraries, books and articles available for free online, and open source projects. There are many opportunities for using community resources, such as computers at public libraries, and free WiFi at cafes and other businesses.
You can find a way to raise money and fund your other projects.
Organizations such as the Peer Unschooling Network make finding and recruiting other unschoolers in your area accessible.
Additionally, you can travel. While you’re traveling, you can also make money by performing and doing odd jobs. You will need permission to perform on private property, and depending on the jurisdiction you may need a permit to perform on public property. You can find additional resources for street performance on roadjunky.com, Nomad Wiki, busk.co, and Busker Central.

Attend a self-directed learning environment

Self-Directed Education (SDE) Schools is an umbrella term for any SDE-aligned registered school that fulfills the legal requirements of going to school. Many SDE schools serve young people for all of their schooling years, but some are specifically designed for older or younger young people. If you attend an SDE school, you do not have to be registered as a homeschooler. There are many individual SDE-aligned school options, and you can see a fuller list, organized by location, here (please note: this list also include SDE homeschool centers and co-ops, which are not legal schools, more on that below). Some of the most common SDE schools include Agile Learning Centers (ALCs. Please note that some ALCs are homeschool learning centers, but many are registered schools), and Democratic Schools (sometimes called Sudbury Schools or Democratic Free Schools.) SDE schools commonly charge tuition, but many have sliding scale and tuition assistance options, and strive to make their schools accessible for anyone who wishes to come.
SDE Homeschool Centers and Co-ops. These are learning centers that are open to homeschoolers, but they are not legal schools and therefore those attending them must be registered as homeschoolers. There are many different types of homeschool centers, but one well-known example is Liberated Learners Centers. Liberated Learners centers are dedicated to supporting young people to leave school and show their parents there is another path to happiness and success. Most Liberated Learners centers are specifically for teens, but some of them are accessible to younger ages as well. See below for advice on starting your own homeschool center or co-op.

How to form a learning network

Unschooling does not need to be a solitary process. If you like learning alongside other people, but don’t have a self-directed school or learning center near you, you can form deinstitutionalized learning networks that can be whatever you want them to be. Assemble your friends and create something that has everything you like about school, without the parts you can’t stand.

Education theorist Ivan Illich, writing in 1971, pictured networks which anyone can use to access volunteer professional educators. This can easily be achieved using the internet, making the internet a sort of school.
Psychologist Peter Gray describes “community centers, open to everyone, where children–and adults too, if they wish–can come to play, explore, and learn.” The closest centers that exist today are libraries and enrollment programs such as agile learning centers and liberated learners centers which do not turn anyone away for an inability to pay fees.
You can organize your friends to help your local community. John Taylor Gatto’s junior high class lobbied for the building of a monument and turning their schoolyard into a farmer’s and dry goods market that served a quarter-million households and earned the school hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. Imagine what they could have accomplished if they didn’t have to worry about mandatory classes.
If you don’t like being inside, you can form an outdoors learning group. Many youth already learn outside; children are taught outside in many developing nations, and schools without physical boundaries are beginning to appear in the US.
Depending on your circumstances, you might take advantage of a wealth of social media platforms such as the Peer Unschooling Network’s FriendFinder, or create recruitment materials to distribute around your neighborhood.
For more resources on how to find or create a learning network, see Alternatives to School.

What to do if your parents won’t let you leave school

Some parents will not, at least initially, support your desire to unschool. The best course of action is to try and win the support of your parent(s) and/or legal guardian(s). Some strategies to try include, but are not limited to:
- negotiating reduced time spent in school or completing homeschooling assignments
- working slowly to move toward unschooling gradually occupying a greater percentage of your education
- leading with questions which utilize concerns and objections in order to guide them toward yours, rather than directly attacking them with your opposing viewpoint
- presenting a variety of unschoolers’ anecdotes.
- providing a list of people parents can speak with that has experience with unschooling
- providing them with a list of articles, books, etc, that promote unschooling
Remember that many people’s opposing beliefs only grow stronger when you exclusively present opposing facts without using anecdotal examples or counterarguments. It may take more than one attempt to convince your parent(s) and/or legal guardian(s) to support you, so try to keep the discussion open. Unfortunately, given current laws, it is very important to have your parent(s)’ and/or legal guardian(s)’ support for your decision if you are not emancipated.
If you repeatedly are unable to garner support at home, and you attend school, propose what you would like to do to your teacher(s) and/or school administrator(s). Though it is unlikely that you would gain permission to occupy the building for several hours per day and not participate in any of the prescribed program, you may be able to negotiate a portion of the day to study independently, which is greater than that which other students at the school receive. Keep similar strategies for talking with your parent(s) and/or legal guardian(s) in mind, and also create as detailed of a proposal as possible, which describes your current interests, potential independent projects, and contains a variety of information on self-directed learning, in order to show initiative. Depending on your individual strengths and weaknesses, the proposal could either be written, spoken as a speech, or a presentation which combines the two, and which may or may not include visuals. Like gaining support from the home, moving toward an unschooling model within a school may take multiple attempts. You might have to involve those legally responsible for you for your school not to ignore your request, but you might end up with support from a relevant employee at your school.
There exist a host of laws pertaining to truancy, running away, disturbing the peace, and incorrigibility, which limit your rights to simply refuse to comply with obstacles to unschooling imposed by those possessing legal power over you. See How to unschool for advice on navigating a lack of access to internet and/or electronic devices.
If you cannot convince your parents to unschool, one option for the best access to unschooling is to become emancipated, giving you legal independence from your parents. Your ability to become emancipated varies based on which state you’re in. However, emancipation tends to harbor various legal restrictions depending on your jurisdiction, requiring a court order and sometimes parent approval. Depending on where you live, you may need to demonstrate at least one of the following, including, but not limited to: proof of marriage, ﬁnancial independence, or proof that you no longer live with your parents. There is also usually a minimum age one must reach in order to pursue court approval for emancipation, and in some states the mandatory school age is higher than the emancipation age meaning that once you’ve been emancipated you may need to move to a different state in order to leave school. Emancipation may make unschooling easier even if your parents are supportive.
For a more elaborate guide on how to unschool yourself, see The Teenage Liberation Handbook by Grace Llewellyn.

Concerns about mental health, neurodivergence, and other types of disability

You might think that unschooling is impossible due to any number of conditions which may affect your life. But since conventional schooling tends to cater almost exclusively to neurotypical, able-bodied learners, without any history of trauma, with few and difﬁcult to obtain accommodations for learners who deviate from the norm in any way, unschooling may be a much better alternative for your education. If you unschool, you get to customize your education to meet your needs.
You have much more control over the medium of learning, content, setting, people, schedule, and tools which work best for you, and do not have to encounter school-speciﬁc situations, such as timed exams, which often highlight weaknesses in an embarrassing way. For instance, you may choose to exclusively consume information using audiobooks, or perhaps prioritize a special interest. Appointments with specialists and/or for necessary medical procedures will also become easier to coordinate without the hassle of obtaining excused absences from school, or having to suddenly fall behind due to unexpected health needs. You can also focus much more on your strengths, and avoid the limitations which come from classiﬁcation as a special education student. The beneﬁts of the increased ﬂexibility of unschooling are endless.
Online literature on unschooling often claims that students will learn to read when they see ﬁt, without any additional help. Often, but not always, this is true. You may be wondering what happens if you would like to learn to read, or feel that your literacy is poor, but have struggled to do so, perhaps due to a learning disability, such as dyslexia. You can supplement your learning with the help of a trusted person who spends a lot of time with you, such as the Orton-Gillingham Approach. Additionally, utilize targeted facilities to supplement your education. These are both popular approaches. It is also possible to explore the possibility of working with current mental health or healthcare provider(s), as well as family to integrate any additional support and compensation techniques into your self designed learning program. Though there are no guarantees, it might also behoove you to research ways through which you qualify for ﬁnancial assistance if relevant services, devices, and professionals are currently unaffordable. You can also ask for feedback and mentorship on approaching the tasks you wish to accomplish via unschooling. Look for ways to be connected to communities of people who share your experiences. Remember that unschooling does not need to be an endeavor you pursue completely alone. Don’t be afraid to ask for help in this process, and don’t be afraid to decline assistance where it is not needed.