Unschooling With Big Brother Watching

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The end of the another homeschooling year is upon us and with that comes a visit from our home education manager. So what is it like to be unschooling with big brother watching?

If you are new to our blog, we are an unschooling family with 4 children who are currently school aged.

We consider ourselves unschoolers from birth – having never used a textbooks or felt the need to fit our children into the boxes defined by provincial curriculum.

Many unschoolers, and many homeschoolers in general, do not appreciate having their learning overseen by someone representing their government. I fully understand this concern and want to share our experience as we do live somewhere with a certain level of supervision.

Who Is Big Brother?

Big Brother is the supreme ruler of Oceania, the leader of the Party, an accomplished war hero, a master inventor and philosopher, and the original instigator of the revolution that brought the Party to power. The Party uses the image of Big Brother to instill a sense of loyalty and fear in the populace. The image appears on coins, on telescreens, and on the large posters which are plastered all over the city with the slogan “Big Brother is watching you.” While these facts are undisputed, much of the rest of Big Brother’s nature is undefined and subject to change, even within the reality of the novel. In fact, part of Winston’s job is to go into old articles and change what Big Brother said in the past to match what he says in the present. Big Brother is merely a convenience that suits the current goals of the Party.

Spark Notes for the novel 1984 by George Orwell

Homeschool Big Brother

In our circumstance, unschooling with big brother watching means the provincial government and a school board being apart of our homeschooling. The people assigned to supervise you and keep you in line.

Depending on where you live, you may have different laws around homeschooling.

Some locations do not supervise homeschoolers at all. You send your intention in to your school board to inform them that you child will not be attending school. That is it (some places may not even need to do that).

For others, like where we live, the government has different levels of involvement with homeschool students. Some places require testing and/or attendance to be taken, others need lesson plans submitted. There may be other requirements as well.

You will have to do you own research as to what the legal requirements are for homeschooling in your area.

Our Experience As Unschoolers

For us, as homeschoolers, we need to register with a homeschool board. It is similar to a public school board but is specifically for homeschoolers. Our board then assigns a home education manager for each family.

There are different types of homeschooling where we live.

• Traditional (parent led)
• Shared (part teacher, part parent)
• Distance Learning (school controlled)

I can only share my experience as a traditional, parent-led, unschooling family.

The job of the home education manager, sometimes called facilitators or supervisors, is to keep track of the students and make sure they are meeting certain requirements. We submit learning plans and have 2 meetings each year with them. We are also lucky to live in a place that offers funding for home educating families. Our home education manager approves our funding. They are also there to act as a support system. We do not rely much on our home education manager for support but I know other families do.

Our Home Education Manager

First off, I just want to say that we love our home education manager.

She is a caring and compassionate person who really cares for all of the students she supervises.

We have had a few other people overseeing our unschooling adventures and not all of them were as pleasant to deal with as our current one. We have worked with her for many years now and feel very respected. But I know this is not the experience that everyone has. We have changed homeschool boards 3 times, so I get it.

Big Brother Meetings

We have two meetings each year with our manager – one at the beginning of the school year and one in the Spring.

The first meeting of the school year discusses our proposed learning plans, allows us to ask any questions we may have, and set goals for the year ahead.

Throughout the year, we can contact our manager if we have any concerns or questions. We also update our learning plan as things change and evolve. These are living documents and not set in stone at the beginning of the year.

During the spring visit, the child/student is able to share their work and we discuss the progress that is being made. Our school board says that this meeting is a celebration of learning – which is something I really appreciate. They are not judging based on test scores or submitted projects. It is up to the family to show that the children have grown and developed on their own timeline.

In years past, these meetings have been a lot more stressful because I felt the need to prove that my child did what the supervisor expected on a child that age. I really felt that big brother was putting pressure on me to perform. The experience was not a positive one. If all facilitators were like that, I would have wanted to move to somewhere without big brother watching. Luckily, this was not our first facilitator and we knew it was not the norm.

With our current manager, I never feel like that.

I feel like we are sharing our love of learning with a friend.

Unschooling With Big Brother Watching

So why is this such a negative thing?

Why wouldn’t you want someone, like our amazing home education manager, supporting you on this journey?

Well, the most obvious answer is that not all facilitators are as awesome as ours.

We had one facilitator who just didn’t seem to understand unschooling. Most of her students were shared responsibility students and she really focused on the provincial curriculum as the way students learn.

I felt like I spent most of the time in our meetings (we had 3 meetings that year), defending our choice to unschool and explaining to her how day to day experiences could be such valuable learning experiences. She just didn’t get it – or didn’t want too.

Needless to say, we requested a different facilitator the next year.

What about testing?

Also, depending on where you live, you may be required to test your children.

It is my personal belief that standardized testing does not necessarily show what a student has learned – especially in a neurodivergent population.

I have 2 children who, I assume, would not do well on tests. This is not the time nor the place to discuss why this is the case but, long story short, both are learning about topics well above grade level but have limitations that would hinder their performance in a stressful, test situation.

We use many other methods for assessment, as required by our schoolboard. Observation and discussion are perfectly valid forms of assessment and ones that we choose to use primarily.

Other Reasons To Not Want Supervision

There are many reasons why people may not want their homeschool journey supervised.

A big one is religious freedom – whether this is the right to teach your children based on your religious beliefs or, on the other side of the spectrum, to teach your children without any religious overtones.

Other people find it very oppressive to be forced to use curriculum required by their local laws in their homeschool.

Some places also require you to take attendance and complete x number hour or x number days of dedicated school work. This does not work for all families – especially unschoolers. It is not because unschoolers do not put in as many hours as other homeschoolers but it may just be harder to document and verify for big brother.

And some people simply do not want the government involved in how they educate their family and live their lives. They do not want to be told how or why to education their children in certain ways. They do not want to fit into a box that the government has arbitrarily decided was beneficial for the population at large. The motives and ethics of the government can be called into question.

Do you have other reasons why you would know what to be unschooling with big brother watching? Let us know in the comments.

Should You Still Homeschool?

So now, the ultimate question…

Should you still homeschool if you live in a state where big brother is watching?

Only you can decide. We all have different reasons for homeschooling and different reasons to not want big brother watching our every move.

You will have to decide if the pros outweigh the cons, and if not – what are your other choices? Perhaps moving to a different area without these eyes on you in an opportunity…

Whatever you decided, I wish you the best of luck on your journey. Tag us on Instagram and show us what you are up to on you homeschool journey.