The Unschooled Life by Lizi Gambell

I was given a copy of this book for free, in exchange for an honest review.  As someone who unschooled/s her child(ren), I was interested to read Lizi's take on it.

The blurb says:

Are you considering home education? Are you curious about unschooling?

The Unschooled Life combines personal storytelling with advice and guidance for any parent on a home education journey. In this book, Lizi Gambell tells how her eldest son became deeply unhappy at school, and how things transformed when they left the system and started to build their own learning life. Lizi shares the ups and downs of this decision, including the process of confronting her own conditioning, and the wonder to be found in learning alongside her children.

The Unschooled Life includes chapters on:
Developing your Education Philosophy;
Juggling a family and work with self-care and wellbeing;
Coping with other peoples’ questions and criticism;
Tackling screen time and the lure of new technologies.

Using anecdotes from her own life, Lizi shows how a real family can develop a holistic approach to education and parenting, and live happily outside the box! Lizi is a remedial hypnotist, with a deep interest in the mind, self-confidence, and overcoming anxiety. In The Unschooled Life, she brings this unique perspective to the opportunities of unschooling.

If you are looking for a how-to of home education in general, this isn't the book for you. There just is not enough information about the technical side of where to start and who to contact (if indeed anybody) if you decide to home educate. There are some useful parts, but primarily this is a book about Lizi's personal journey.

If you are looking into unschooling, I would say this book is more useful.  Unschooling is a sub-type of home education where you follow the child's interests and natural curiosity, rather than imposing a curriculum or formal work on them.  This is what I did with my girls, allowing them the freedom to learn in their own way and own their own education.  Though much of the book is about Lizi's approach to home educating her children, it is good to read a real life example of unschooling in action, and if you are concerned that this approach is neglectful or too hands-off, then this book will reassure you.

The book itself is very easy to read.  Lizi writes as if you're a friend, so it is informal in style, with plenty of anecdotes and stories that reiterate what she is saying.  If unschooling is new to you, then I can see this book being an easy intro to the topic.  At the end of the book, there are also plenty of 'further reading' to choose to dig deeper if you think unschooling would be right for you and your family.

My main criticism of the book is the final topic on screens.  As Lizi mentions that she follows Sandra Dodd and has read Sandra's Big Book of Unschooling, I was expecting Lizi to be considered a Radical or Whole-Life Unschooler, but the chapter on screens suggest that she is not as she does impose arbitrary limits (imo). Screens and various new technologies are not a problem.  By giving children broad and various opportunities, they will self-regulate and learn loads whether using technology or otherwise. Am I a radical unschooler? Ideally I would be, however, we did implement bedtimes, after years of not having one, when my children were dancing more in the evenings and not recognising their own tiredness cues. I don't know if that technically makes me a not radical unschooler, but at my point in life I don't really care. Rather than Sandra Dodd, I tended to follow Joyce Fetterol's Joyfully Rejoycing and would recommend her to people looking to unschooling.

Overall, this book shows the joy that Lizi has for her family and seeing her children learn naturally as part of an unschooling lifestyle. For people new to the idea of home education or unschooling, this lighthearted book will give you a positive, but realistic, view of how children can effectively learn outside the institution of school.