Self-education (i.e. autodidacticism/autodidactism, unschooling, self-directed learning, self-learning) is a concept new to many of today’s individuals. Despite the natural prominence of self-directed learning, modern schooling is widely accepted as being the best method of education. But before the wide-spread establishment of schools, it’s safe to say that self-education was the norm. That has changed.

Certain disciplines, such as the sciences and religion, have a long history of academic institutions, but modern schooling began 250 years ago. In the 18th century, Prussia declared education a responsibility of state. Within thirty years, all schools and universities in the Kingdom of Prussia were state institutions. Compulsory education spread across the world, and in 1918 Mississippi was the last state in the US to pass a compulsory attendance law.

In 1960, less than 50 years after Mississippi declared compulsory attendance, Paul Goodman published Growing Up Absurd, in which he criticized compulsory education. The book became the first among many during what is now called the deschooling movement.

Ten years later, Ivan Illich published Deschooling Society. Illich supported the idea of self-directed education, and he criticized the ineffectiveness of modern schools.  He wrote that school confuses teaching with learning, diplomas with competence, and processes with substance. He also argued that schools prevent students from realizing their natural curiosity and instead make students focus on delivering what the teacher wants. One of his main points was that creative and exploratory learning can’t be forced, and requires an individual’s own initiative. Much of his writing can be found online, along with Deschooling Society.

John Caldwell Holt, an educator and prominent critic of compulsory schooling, said that compulsory education violates every individual’s right to freedom of thought. His first book, How Children Fail, was published in 1964, and was based off his first decade of teaching. His radical assertion that children failed not despite of schools, but because of them, brought him to public attention. After publishing Instead of Education: Ways to Help People Do Things Better (1976), Holt came into contact with families educating their children at home, and became an advocate for homeschooling. Holt was clear that as a whole, he felt schools were fundamentally flawed. He was of the opinion that coercion was not required in education, and that children will learn if given the freedom and the resources. His line of thought is now known as unschooling.

Another educator, John Taylor Gatto, was a teacher for nearly 30 years and appointed New York State Teacher of the Year in 1991 before he retired. Gatto argued that schools are designed to provide an obedient, working population. He claims that real education in not school’s purpose, since a well-educated population would be difficult to maintain. Gatto has published a thorough analysis of the American school system and its history in the book The Underground History of American Education. The book can be found online.

Today’s rising interest in self-education is supported by the evidence brought forward by dozens of critics of modern schooling. The growing number of critics and lack of success in schools have opened up the opportunity for people to discover an alternative to compulsory education. Many critics have the same solution: people can learn on their own, without instructors.

Each of us have a personal history that brought us to the decision to unschool. What’s your story?