Unschooling, Homeschooling, and Schooling Alternatives with Kerry McDonald

Career Bound by Praxis

Kerry McDonald is a Senior Education Fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education, Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute, and author of Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom (Chicago Review Press, 2019).

In addition to her regular column at Forbes.com where she spotlights innovative K-12 learning models, Kerry's articles have appeared at The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, NPR, Education Next, Reason Magazine, Entrepreneur, and the Journal of School Choice, among others.

Her research interests include homeschooling and alternatives to school, self-directed learning, education entrepreneurship, parent empowerment, school choice, and family and child policy. Kerry has a master's degree in education policy from Harvard University and a bachelor's degree in economics from Bowdoin College.

You can find her at fee.org/kerry and follow her on Twitter @kerry_edu.

-----

Questions discussed in this episode:

- Where did your passion for education, in particular, education policy and alternative education, come from? When did it all start for you?

- You've been studying education for a while. What are some of your most important takeaways about education, and in particular traditional education vs. alternatives?

- When and how did you first become interested in homeschooling? And also unschooling?

- Some definitions – what's the distinction between homeschooling and unschooling?

- Why did you choose to "unschool" your own kids? Did you start by unschooling, was it an evolution to unschooling?

- How does homeschooling/unschooling/self-directed education prepare people for the real world?

- What lessons from the unschooling approach can people apply to their own educations, even if they've already graduated?

- What are the biggest myths people believe about education is/how it should be approached?

- A lot of controversy has been swirling around homeschooling lately – in your opinion, why are some people so mad/hostile toward homeschooling?

- What are some of the most exciting opportunities technology is opening up for education?

- You've built an awesome brand talking about education – which you're clearly passionate about. What's your top piece of advice for people who aspire to become experts in their own area of interest?

- What's your best advice to parents who've made the shift to homeschooling?

Follow on Twitter @kerry_edu or check out her book, Unschooled. Any other piece of content you'd like me to share?

-----

Kerry recently wrote about education models that might gain traction due to COVID: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerrymcdonald/2020/05/11/four-k-12-education-models-that-may-gain-popularity-during-covid-19