{{short description|Transition from the school system to homeschooling}} '''Deschooling''' is a term invented by Austrian philosopher Ivan Illich. The word is mainly used by homeschoolers, especially unschoolers, to refer to the transition process that children and parents go through when they leave the school system in order to start homeschooling.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Learn The Difference Between Unschooling and Deschooling|url=https://www.time4learning.com/blog/new-homeschooler/learn-the-difference-between-unschooling-and-deschooling/|access-date=2020-11-29|website=Time4Learning|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":4" /> The process is a crucial basis for homeschooling to work.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Deschooling: Starting Out Right at Home|url=https://www.thehomeschoolmom.com/homeschooling-101/deschooling/|access-date=2020-11-29|website=TheHomeSchoolMom|language=en-US}}</ref> It involves children gradually transitioning away from their schoolday routine and institutional mentality, redeveloping the ability to learn via self-determination, and discovering what they want to learn in their first homeschool days.<ref>{{Cite web|title=What is Deschooling?|url=https://observatory.tec.mx/edu-news/what-is-deschooling|access-date=2020-11-29|website=Observatory of Educational Innovation|language=en-US}}</ref>

== Process == The amount of time this process takes can vary, depending on the type of person the child is and how much time they spent in the school system.<ref name="time4learning.com">{{Cite web|title=What, When, Why & How of Deschooling|url=https://www.time4learning.com/deschooling.html|access-date=2020-11-29|website=Time4Learning|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite web|last=Buehler|first=Antonio|date=2017-05-31|title=Deschooling: How Long Does it Take?|url=http://www.abrome.com/blog/2017/6/1/deschooling-how-long-does-it-take|access-date=2020-11-29|website=Abrome|language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=MaryEllen|date=2012-08-31|title=Deschooling: Important Homeschooling Step Or Useless Buzzword?|url=https://www.offthegridnews.com/how-to-2/deschooling-important-homeschooling-step-or-useless-buzzword/|access-date=2020-11-30|website=Off The Grid News|language=en-US}}</ref> The process may affect the behavior of different children differently. Especially in the first days of deschooling, it is often the case that children mainly want to recover from the school surroundings and therefore will generally sleep very long and refuse any kind of intentional learning and instead search for substitute satisfactions like watching TV or playing video games, very similar to the behavior during early school holidays.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Deschooling and Decompression – Home Education Network|url=https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/deschooling-and-decompression/|access-date=2020-11-30|language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|date=2020-02-06|title=Homeschool 101: What to expect when deschooling|url=https://raisingroyalty.ca/homeschool-101-expect-deschooling/|access-date=2020-12-01|website=Raising Royalty|language=en-US}}</ref> Further in this transition process, children may feel bored or may miss the daily structure,<ref name="time4learning.com"/> until they eventually find out how to make use of their time and freedom<ref name=":3" /> to find interests. In the best case this results in them voluntarily informing themselves about certain things they are interested in, whereupon homeschooling can start.

This step is often considered a recreation stage or a process of "healing" from the school environment. Many followers of the modern homeschool movement consider this step necessary because they find that the school system can damage a child's innate creativity, curiosity, and willingness to learn.<ref name=":3" /> They claim that in school most children only study under unnatural extrinsic pressure like grades, instead of for themselves, and that what, when, how, and with whom to learn is always predetermined instead of self-determinable there.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web|date=2014-02-25|title=From School to Homeschool: What is Deschooling?|url=https://www.thehomeschoolmom.com/school-homeschool-what-is-deschooling/|access-date=2020-12-01|website=TheHomeSchoolMom|language=en-US}}</ref>

==Background== Deschooling is credited to Ivan Illich, who felt that the traditional schooling children received needed to be reconstructed.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=http://www.davidtinapple.com/illich/1970_deschooling.html|title=DESCHOOLING SOCIETY|website=David Tinapple|access-date=2018-11-19}}</ref> Illich believed that schools contain a "hidden curriculum" that causes learning to align with grades and accreditation rather than with important skills.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Weston|first=Anthony|date=1996-01-01|title=Deschooling Environmental Education|url=https://cjee.lakeheadu.ca/article/view/491|journal=Canadian Journal of Environmental Education|language=en-US|volume=1|issue=1|pages=35–46|issn=1205-5352}}</ref> He believed that modern schooling is focused on growing schools as an industrialized system,<ref name=":0" /> a toxic industry that specializes in what families should be capable of forming themselves, namely education. According to Illich, schools align success on paper with academic excellence. As a result schools, grades, and diplomas give false assurances that the students have become knowledgeable in a certain educational concept.

John Holt was an educator who also believed in deschooling. His thoughts were closely aligned with Illich because neither was convinced that school was where students learned everything they needed to know.<ref name=":0" /> Instead, they emphasized that students learn consistently through other means, such as exposure to the natural world.<ref name=":0" /> Illich and Holt saw schools as being insufficient because of their focus on "skill drill" instead of other methods of learning.<ref name=":0" /> Additionally, theorists of deschooling saw education as maintaining the social order.{{elucidate|date=April 2023}}<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|last=Zaldívar|first=Jon|title=Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory |chapter=Social Imaginaries and Deschooling |date=March 2016|pages=1–5|doi=10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_384-1|isbn=978-981-287-532-7}}</ref> Therefore,{{non sequitur|date=April 2023}} they wanted to "denounce the monopoly that traditional education institutions held on education and learning."<ref name=":2" />

==Unschooling/deschooling society== "Deschooling" a person does not mean prohibiting people from learning or studying in schools. In Illich and Holt's unschooled society everybody would have the choice of whether they attend school. Rather than being forced to go to school, taking a test before entering a school, or being denied the opportunity to learn a desired topic, people would be free to choose how they learn.<ref name=":1" /> According to John Holt, an advocate for unschooling, "a deschooled society would be a society in which everyone shall have the widest and freest possible choice to learn whatever he wants to learn, whether in school or in some altogether different way."<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Routray|first=Sailen|date=2012|title=Deschooling Society|journal=Contemporary Education Dialogue|language=en|volume=9|issue=1|pages=85–104|doi=10.1177/097318491100900105|issn=0973-1849}}</ref>

== See also == * ''Deschooling Society'' * Anti-schooling activism

== References == {{reflist}}

== External links == *''[http://www.abrome.com/blog/2017/6/1/deschooling-how-long-does-it-take Deschooling: How Long Does it Take?]'' *''[https://www.homeschool.com/articles/deschooling-why-its-so-important/ Deschooling]'' on www.homeschool.com *''How to Transition from Public School to Homeschool'' on Wikihow

Category:Education theory Category:Alternative education Category:Homeschooling Category:Lifestyles Category:Philosophy of education Category:Pedagogical movements and theories