Continuing our look at education in a stateless society, lets examine homeschooling and unschooling. Because of the similarities between the two, I’m going to present both in this post, rather than repeat myself. Both home and unschooling are very student driven, giving focus to each individual students needs. The parents, who will act as instructors, are very involved in the child’s education, which is more difficult when the children are sent to an outside school. Home/Un-schooling also has an incredibly low cost.
The student focus is possible because of the incredibly small class size. Two teachers, and only the students they produce. This is a great help with topics the student finds difficult, the parent/teacher can take as much time as is needed to instruct the student in the topic, as there is no worry about holding the rest of the class back. The entire curriculum can be centered around the students interests, which is the surest way to make them want to learn.
Parental involvement shouldn’t be overlooked either. While the curriculum can be centered around the student, the parent acts as a guide, directing the overall course of instruction, and helping to build new topics onto older information. School is also never quite out. Educational games, family vacations, and plain old conversation are all opportunities to instruct, and to learn.
As for cost, it’s mostly going to be the costs of raising a child anyway. Add in a few textbooks, which could be traded with other parents, bought used, or bought new then later sold. Of course homeschooling or unschooling anticipates that one parent will be home to raise and instruct the student, but there’s no reason that can’t include working from home if the income is needed. There’s also no need to pay for things like classrooms, computer labs, gyms, libraries, or the various other things that a school needs.
With a student driven curriculum, high level of parental involvement, and low cost, homeschooling or unschooling may just be the chosen method of education without the state. Again I can’t emphasize enough that there’s no need for money to be taken by force from anyone to pay for this, or any other service currently a function of the state.
