As modern schools became bastions of compliance for secular ideology, the home education movement in Alberta grew. Wanting to preserve their faith from erosion, many parents chose to escape schooling, entrusting dedicated home education providers to support their programs, as parents believed these providers held a common objective of faith in God. However, with home education being funded in Alberta, the character of home education began to transform into being more of an industry than a ministry as nearly every school began providing for home education with the intent of increasing cash flow.

Along with the increasing number of home education providers came the natural advancement of public curriculum. Taking advantage of parental ignorance and its associated fears, the normalization of secular programming started to win the day as many of the formerly dedicated faith-based providers began to offer government programs. The two primary motivations for doing so should be obvious. The first is that attracting students who believed in the need for government programs meant more money. The second reason, which often escapes parental notice, is that increasing public programming resulted in more funding.

It is by far in the best financial interest of schools to provide increasing amounts of secular public programming. Knowing this should cause us to question why the government would fund its secular programming at a higher level than traditional Christian programming. The answer should be obvious: it is the advancement of secular ideology in direct opposition to faith-based programming.

Exposing that schools have always had a hidden agenda of compliance toward something and that modern day schools aim to instill compliance within a Godless secular society, begs us to question why any home education board or parent would want to bring that ideology home. If parents are keeping their children home to assure compliance with God’s will, why would any believer, whether board or school, want to use curricular programs in direct opposition to that goal?

With the advent of the normalization of school programs in the home, the home education movement became corrupted by its own money-driven motivation and drifted to advancing another form of compliance: that of normalizing, accepting, even Christianizing public secular programs in opposition to advancing parental authority and freedom. Parents need to beware of being drawn in the opposite direction of their original motivation of obeying God.

Last time, we ended by questioning the ultimate goal of modern schools. As long as there have been schools, there has been an overarching motivation toward some sort of universal compliance. Perhaps some of these motivations have been of a good nature, but then again, whenever something becomes mandated by government, the objective should be suspect.

The best way to evaluate the potential motivation of a school is to ask a simple question: What part does God have in the overall program? While the Jesuits may have originally had God in mind, the compliance objective was toward a particular expression of faith or doctrine which was essentially nothing more than indoctrination. Since then, all schools have had precious little to do with God, especially since the social revolution of the 1960s.

Needless to say, public schools which advance themselves as neutral will most certainly not have faith in God as a central tenet of their existence. Separate, mostly Catholic, schools are also not likely to be advancing faith in God, at least not from an academic perspective since they use the very same curriculum as public schools. Private schools aren’t much different. Most use the secular public school curriculum or a facsimile thereof, and operate with a fear of funding shortfall. Most alternative schools and charter schools also follow government-mandated programming, all of which has little to no place for the advancement of faith in God.

That leaves us with homeschooling. I may perhaps have been blind or naive when we started home educating nearly thirty-five years ago, but I believe the very reason the home education movement got started was that parents wanted to escape the Godless secular public education system, and many had come to understand that the separate Catholic system was really no different. Parents wanted to reincorporate God into the education of their children. To address this goal, private schools came into existence, and they also provided the child-care aspect of schools that parents had come to expect. However, with government funding came the expectation of following Godless government programming.

When my wife and I got seriously involved with the home education “industry” as facilitators, and later as home education providers under a private school, I initially found a sort of camaraderie among providers and staff. However, it did not take long before the central focus and the competition for students started to take on embarrassingly un-Christian-like characteristics.

The “best” dictionary definition of school is: “An institution or place where people, typically students, are educated, instructed, and taught, often by teachers, to acquire knowledge, skills, and understanding to function in society.” At first brush, this definition seems to be accurate and non-threatening. However, it may be a good idea to look into the history of compulsory education before coming to any foregone conclusions about what school was and what it has come to be.

Like many modern institutions, the school concept has its roots in Christianity. Although I am not sure how things came to be, Sunday school was initially a class held either before or after a church service to help parents to teach their children to read. An old Catholic order called the Jesuits was among the first to create day schools but they had an ulterior motive. They wanted to entice children of Lutheran families back to the Catholic fold, as their parents could not be convinced to do so during the reformation period. They knew they would have a better chance with children than adults, and they continue to this day as proselytizers of the Catholic doctrine. An interesting aside about this school – other than the fact that parents volunteered to have their children attend – is that the mostly illiterate students started attending after puberty. They learned much, much more than what is learned in our modern twelve-year schooling program, and they were ready for seminary, college or university in less than three years. Makes one question how the twelve years to certification ever got started and why it continues to exist.

Compulsory education was not really a thing until the mid 1800s. It was started in Prussia (now Germany) to instill military-style compliance in students. This was obviously successful when one considers this country started both the first and second World Wars.

Seeing that the early compulsory schools in Germany were successful, American industrial capitalists brought the concept to the United States, even going so far as to fund it so they could create a compliant workforce to man their factories. This was not initially accepted by parents who wanted to maintain their agrarian, family lifestyle, but eventually school came to be a desired institution. At this point, the government got involved.

The initial Sunday schools were dedicated institutions of learning, however the Jesuits, Germans, American industrialists and governments all had a different objective in providing school: universal compliance toward something. Making it compulsory greatly increased the potential for achieving this goal. This begs the question: what could be the compliance goals of modern schools?

Before diving deeper into our discussion, we should ask ourselves what it is that we are trying to “undo” or escape when we talk about “unschooling.” Before we begin, let me tell you a funny story.

I was once invited to preach at an evening service; the pastor asked me to speak on what the Bible has to say about school. It turned out to be the shortest sermon in history. I was introduced, got up, went to the podium, announced the topic the pastor had asked me to cover, opened my Bible, took a minute, then looked up and said, “Nothing.” I returned to my seat, causing a bit of discomfort in the congregation. A few moments later, I returned to the podium and stated that since the Bible has nothing to say about school or schooling, I would instead talk about what the Bible has to say about education. Once again, I repeated the exercise of opening the Bible, announcing that there was nothing in it about education, closed it and sat down. By now the congregation was a little more at ease, but still not quite sure what was going on. I returned to the podium and announced that while the Bible has virtually nothing to say about school, schooling or education per se, it does have much to say about parents and parenting. Our remaining time together was instructive, and I believe the folks in the congregation got the message that we often justify what we don’t understand by reading it into the Bible.

Even though public school, schooling and education have come to be a focus in every country of the world, it should be noted that the word “school” is not mentioned in the Bible other than the one reference found in Acts 19:9 where it talks about the Apostle Paul reasoning in the School of Tyrannus, which was a private lecture hall owned by a fellow called Tyrannus and not an actual school.

There may be the occasional reference to a schoolmaster in some translations, but in every case the word mentor would be a better fit when considering what the terms school and schoolmaster have come to mean. From this, it should be easy to conclude that school is not a biblical concept. However, in fairness, there is also no reference to cars, computers or cell phones. As with these items, schools are a relatively new concept, yet they’ve been around long enough for most people to believe they always have been.

Hopefully by now, you have come to the conclusion that the reason we end up believing what we do is that we don’t question or test what we have come to believe or why we believe it is true. We just act in accordance with the way we were raised and the things we have been taught and have experienced. While we individually have the capacity to think independently, we usually unquestioningly continue with the established narrative and status quo we have come to, even if we don’t understand how or why.

While we all desire the easiest path to accomplishments, there is an assumption of saving time and/or energy by simply going with the flow. We should actually consider the inherent danger of taking this path of least resistance, knowing that things can only flow downhill. We inadvertently and unquestioningly end up as part of the problem until we stop and ask ourselves where we are going and why. This is the first and most important question we can ask regarding anything and it should come at the beginning of any unschooling journey, although most people will learn along the way.

Now, let me ask you a few more questions to challenge you in your thinking.

There are certainly many more questions that need to be asked and answered, but by now I am sure you are getting the message. School is designed to have you think in a certain way in order to participate in man’s world. Desiring to be and to raise independent critical thinkers is to serve notice that you will not be told what to do or allow yourself or your children to be indoctrinated. This is what unschooling is. Not a removal from school, but an escape from school secular ideology and a return to faith in God, with a focus on the family and the freedom unschooling brings.

Pontius Pilot is famous for having asked a question likely everyone has asked at some time in their life: “What is Truth?” Avoiding a long dissertation on what truth is, we need only point out two things. While the word truth is most often used in a singular context, the opposite can be said of untruths commonly known as lies. The other thing of note is that truth is the only way that lies can be exposed as such. Also know that what we believe, whether true of false, will ultimately default as truth in our minds.

We are who we are and believe what we believe as a consequence of everything we have experienced in life. We are given the choice between freely acknowledging God or willingly succumbing to a particular narrative leading us away from Him. Because most individuals have experienced some form of school, we naturally accept, normalize and even Christianize its tenets. However, if school-based approaches to education are based on a secular, humanistic premise, does employing school methodologies in alternate, Christian or home schools really change anything? To illustrate, if your van is broken, is it less broken if dragged to a service station, church parking lot, or home? Of course not, but this is precisely what happens with education.

While the school system is becoming increasingly famous for its dysfunctions, many folks think employing it in a different place or in a different way will make it better; but as previously mentioned, is it really an improvement or simply a better place to continue with bad pedagogy? Moving venues does not change anything. The van is still broken.

More questions:

The biggest question is, who is ultimately responsible for a child’s well-being, and should this responsibility be abdicated to another?

Having established the importance of having a faith foundation, it is important to understand how this actually looks within an unschooling program. If faith in God is the main reason for unschooling, then it should go without saying that the first requirement is to relax. If you believe in God and that He gave you the creative ability to produce His children, then we can trust that He will not need man’s education methodologies and pedagogical techniques to accomplish His will in their lives. I repeat, trust God and relax. You need to take responsibility, but you should not fret.

Perhaps the best way to undo the school mentality ingrained in your educational mindset is to ask a series of questions which I will leave you to ponder. As you do, keep in mind that there are two pathways provided to all of us: The first is the broad, straight way adopted by the majority that ultimately leads to second best. We will refer to this road as man’s way.  The other, God’s way, is the narrow, winding road taken by risk takers and believers with the ultimate destination of greater temporal and eternal fulfilment.

As you read the following questions, ask yourself whether the answer is man, God, you as the parent, or simply yes or no. Let’s begin.

There are many more questions that can and should be asked. More next time.

You have probably already discovered that schooling doesn’t deliver as promised or that what is being accomplished at school is not in keeping with the goals and aspirations you have regarding your children’s education. This is likely why you have determined to keep your children home and why you are watching this vlog.

While unschooling is often advanced as simply keeping children home rather than sending them to school, it is much more than that. If all you do is replace a school environment with a school mindset at home, you haven’t really changed much other than being intimately involved with systemic failures. Put another way, repeating what you intrinsically know is not working only makes for a better bad.

To fully comprehend what unschooling is, we have to dig deep into our subconscious and understand the foundation upon which we base our decisions. It should be obvious that we have lost faith in the school system because it is most likely based on a premise that you disagree with in the first place. That is, the foundation of school-based approaches to home education is training our children to be good, productive citizens of a world in which there is nothing other than man and his accomplishments. Not that this is necessarily wrong but it reflects a short-term, temporal vision. Although not everyone will fully comprehend the importance of seeking an ultimate destination beyond this world, all practitioners of unschooling are unknowingly putting faith in a child’s inherent capacity for learning. In other words, we are all putting greater innate faith in God’s creative abilities than in man’s claim to knowing what children need and the processes by which they are programmed into serving man rather than God.

The first verse of the first chapter of the first book of the Bible is: “In the beginning, God.” Therefore, having faith in God is a very good place to start in life. It is the same with an unschooling program. Having faith in God means working with Him and using His directives to develop what He has created in order to enable His children to find their place in this temporal world. We do this with a vision for each child’s eternal destiny.

Placing your faith in God is where you should start your unschooling. Stop believing man knows what to do with God’s creation and put an end to encapsulating children in man’s temporal, God-less world. Start by desiring to set your children free from man’s expectations so they can be what God has created and what He expects.

Welcome to the 2025-26 academic year. For those of you already subscribed to this channel, thank you for your support. If you are not yet subscribed, may I suggest you do that so you catch all the editions of this series. I believe I am also supposed to ask that you “Like” what you see here, but you wouldn’t likely be subscribed if you didn’t!

There seems to be a new, or shall I say renewed interest in unschooling of late. As more people are exploring this educational option, more misunderstandings as to what unschooling really is or how it is conducted are also rising to the surface. This can be expected, as whenever something outside of standard accepted practices is brought forth, there are objections to it. My focus this year will be to address some of the fears, concerns and confusions surrounding unschooling with the hope of helping each of you to relax and trust that unschooling is not only what was done before the advent of compulsory schooling, but truly is the best and most common-sense option for rearing and preparing children for life. While the future may be hard for us to fathom, there is One who can and does see it, and I can assure you it is not the government, unless of course your understandings are confused or your intentions are bad.

Before getting started on this journey of discovery, let’s get one thing straight: Your children are fine just as they are, where they are. No need to fix anything. No need to worry about programming; when or how to start; what approach to use; what expectations to have; or for that matter, starting at all – because your unschooling educational journey actually got its start the day your child was born. Just because they are now a few years older doesn’t mean you need to change your educational approach. Keeping them home rather than sending them to school is not only wise but beneficial to both parents and children. “Homing” beats “schooling” or better yet, unschooling is really nothing more than breaking free of school-based approaches so that every child’s education can be truly unlimited.

Welcome to Education Unlimited Academy and to its sister organization, Activities Unlimited. Welcome to unschooling.

An interesting series of movies from the 1980s entitled Back To The Future ends with a noteworthy remark. After having experienced a futuristic vision and returning to reality, the young lady asks the inventor of the time machine why a document taken from the future seems to have been erased. The answer is simple. It’s because the future has not yet been written, as it depends on what decisions are made in the present. The inventor then admonishes the young couple to make sure today’s decisions are good ones so the future provides good things. I would like to end this year’s vlog series with the same advice.

Our many years of experience in home education have taught us there are generally two main issues at work in determining our future and that of our children. The first is how often we fail to question the information being presented to us. For instance, when challenged with the need to have a government approved high school diploma, few ask why. If the question is asked, families are usually provided with an exaggerated example of ignorance by those who see themselves as experts. Hardly the kind of information upon which anyone should base potentially life-changing decisions. Many decisions are ill-informed.

The other problem is a general lack of foresight. Most decisions are based on the immediate. A good example of this is when parents decide to put their children back in school after discovering that trying to replicate school at home doesn’t work.  Rather than questioning why school-based approaches to education don’t work, families try and then fail to make the same approach work at home – something akin to trying to fit Chev parts into a Ford car.

The stories I shared with you this year were intended to do two things: I trust you were entertained, and I pray you were informed regarding how to work with God in developing what He has already created in each child. Question everything and think about your decisions because your future and that of your children is at stake.

Have a great summer.