'Unschooled' children have no schedule, follow interests; learn from playing video games and reading

"Unschooled" children learn by playing video games and researching their own interests, rather than following a set curriculum. 
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A MOTHER who is part of the "unschooling" movement says her children don't need to go to school and are learning by playing video games and visiting the park.

Maryanna Jacobs, from Gorebridge, Scotland, is raising her daughter Rio, nine, and Bryden, eight, as part of the ‘unschooling’ trend, which rejects traditional education in favour of letting children set their own schedule and follow their own interests, reports the Daily Mail.

Instead of sitting at school desks and working through maths or English lessons, her children learn through “life experiences” like playing Minecraft or Scrabble, doing magic tricks, reading favourite books and collecting feathers in the park, says Ms Jacobs.

"It's hard to explain how natural learning works, but I trust that it works because I can see that it works,” she told the Daily Mail. Both children can read and write, and Ms Jacobs believes they are more advanced than other kids their age who attend school.

Ms Jacobs, who lives with her disabled partner Allan, doesn’t believe in schedules or routines, and says the family wakes up, eats meals and goes to bed when they please.

“Both the kids have learnt numbers, words and how to type through their computer games, and they’ve learnt a lot about computers too. They’ve learnt maths through things like shopping,” she says.

“Numbers are always going through Bryden’s head, he’s fascinated with clocks and timetables. Rio is more of a words person, she learnt through games like Scrabble and Monopoly. They’ve learnt about birds, trees and rocks just by being outdoors.”

Ms Jacobs says she is raising her children to be "free-thinkers" and hopes they will grow up to be entrepreneurs who define their own notion of success.

Her daughter Rio tried school once but only lasted eight days in a classroom before becoming frustrated and deciding she’d rather be ‘unschooled’.

“She told me she wanted to try it so we took her out and bought the uniform and the bag,” says Ms Jacobs. “She went to bed early, set her alarm and got herself up in the morning. None of the children could believe she has never been to school before.”

Ms Jacobs, who dropped out of school and has no educational qualifications, says that she does her best to answer her children’s questions, but that they also go online to research answers.

Homeschooling is legal in the UK, the legality of “unschooling” is a grey area, with the government saying school-age children must receive a suitable full-time education.

Ms Jacobs believes their untraditional lifestyle has made them closer as a family, and is setting her children up for future success, thanks to their ‘free-thinking’ lifestyle.

“I’m bringing the kids up to be free-thinking entrepreneurs who don’t have to work for someone else if they don’t want to and don’t feel they have to ‘be something’ when they grow up,” she says

“I hope that they’ll follow their passions and their interests, just like they do now and that will drive them to make success in their life, in the way that suits them, not anyone else.”

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