By Gillian Graham

Staff Writer

“You go out in the world and learn what you can and do what you want to do.”

That, said Olivia Bradstreet, is the basic philosophy behind unschooling.

While the majority of her peers settle back into high school classrooms for another year of instruction, Olivia Bradstreet and her brother, Adam, continue to learn as they always have: by drawing from life experiences and their own interests to learn what they need – and want – to know.

The Bradstreets of Old Orchard Beach are among the nearly 5,000 Maine students who are educated outside of the traditional school setting. Homeschooling and unschooling families may choose to educate their children at home for different reasons, but they have a common desire to provide the best education possible, said Amy Bradstreet, whose children have always been unschooled.

There were 4,777 students registered with the state and local superintendents of schools for homeschooling as of July 19, according to the Maine Department of Education. That number represents a decrease of nearly 200 students from the previous year, though the number of homeschool students has stayed been between 4,094 and 4,998 since 2004.

Nationally, an estimated 1.5 million students were homeschooled in 2007, the most recent numbers available from the U.S. Department of Education. There was a 2.2 percent rise in the number of homeschoolers from 2003 to 2007, according to the department.

According to 2003 and 2007 National Household Education Surveys, the top reasons parents chose to educate their children at home were concern about school environment (88 percent), to provide religious or moral instruction (83 percent) and dissatisfaction with academic instruction available at other schools (73 percent).

Homeschooling is legal across the country, though requirements vary state to state. In Maine, parents who intend to homeschool their children must submit to the state a notice of intent, according to Edwin “Buzz” Kastuck, school approval and homeschooling consultant for the department of education.

Kastuck said families are required to provide 175 instructional days to children, but otherwise there are no requirements about curriculum. Each family undergoes an annual assessment, either in the form of a standardized achievement test or portfolio review by a certified teacher.

Maine does not award diplomas to homeschool students. Some parents make their own transcripts and diplomas, while others enroll their children in adult education diploma or general equivalency degree programs, Kastuck said. By law, homeschoolers are allowed to participate in curricular, co-curricular and extra-curricular programs at public schools, he said.

Amy Bradstreet said Maine’s requirements for homeschooling and unschooling families are relatively simple compared to other states. Each fall, the family submits a letter of intent to the Maine Department of Education to notify officials they plan to continue educating the children at home.

The family meets each spring with a certified teacher who reviews a portfolio that documents what work Olivia and Adam Bradstreet completed throughout the year. The teacher signs off on the portfolio and documentation is sent to the department of education, Amy Bradstreet said.

Amy Bradstreet and her husband, Alex, discussed the idea of unschooling before they were parents. After their children were born, they were attached parents who didn’t want to send them to daycare, she said.

“As they got older, it seemed natural to segue into unschooling because we like the children and I think they like us,” she said. “We weren’t interested in shuffling them off somewhere else. We enjoy learning together and having a life together.”

Olivia Bradstreet, 14, said people often ask her what unschooling is and why she does it. She said it is not uncommon for a stranger to question her about her education, sometimes in a hostile or confrontational manner.

“Usually when I say I’m an unschooler, people will go ‘you mean homeschooling?’ I say it’s slightly similar, mostly in that you’re not in school and you’re home sometimes. I usually say, though, that you’re not trying to recreate school in the home. That is the huge difference between homeschooling and unschooling,” she said. “Unschooling is more free learning, learning through living; it’s the innate philosophy that people learn through life and that they have a love of learning.”

Amy Bradstreet said her role is a facilitator, not a teacher. The family practices strewing, where they leave bits of information of interest around the house. She said she shares with her children interesting articles or ideas to stimulate discussion around the dinner table.

“It’s been a really interesting boost to our unschooling,” Amy Bradstreet said.

When Amy Bradstreet heard many unschoolers where interested in the video game Minecraft, she pointed it out to 12-year-old Adam Bradstreet. Minecraft allows players to construct objects out of textured cubes in a 3-D world.

Adam Bradstreet said for the past six months he has been fascinated by the game, which allows him to interact with a community of people from across the globe. He also has been spending a lot of time recently studying filmmaking and working on his own projects.

Olivia Bradstreet is active with Blunt Youth Radio at WMPG, where she recently developed a show about unschooling. She said her main interests right now are social justice issues, working toward equality and learning to play acoustic guitar.

There have been times people question how unschoolers learn about topics that may not interest them. Olivia Bradstreet said she and her brother both learn things such as math as they need and want to.

“I’ve had periods where I’m very interested in doing math. When I was six, I loved math. I’d ask for workbooks and I’d go through them. I was happy doing that,” she said. “Then I wasn’t as interested, but it didn’t really matter because what I was interested in at the time didn’t really involve math. It wasn’t a necessity for me. But when I needed to know how to do something else, I learned how to do it even though it wasn’t my passion.”

Like Olivia and Adam Bradstreet, 12-year-old Angelie Cote of Kennebunk enjoys exploring her passions instead of studying exactly what she is told. Cote went to public elementary school but by third grade it became obvious to her mother, Julie Dickerson-Cote, that it wasn’t the best learning environment for her daughter.

“It wasn’t bringing out the best in Angelie,” Dickerson-Cote said.

The family decided to try homeschooling for one year to see how it went. It went so well they haven’t stopped.

“Every year we love it better,” Dickerson-Cote said. “It’s such a unique opportunity to customize her education. When she gets excited about something we can really hone in on it.”

When she was in public school, students had to do a lot of “busy work” and didn’t always have time to master one skill before moving on to the next, Cote said. She prefers to learn about a topic for as long as it captures her interest. 

Each year, Cote and her parents pick out curriculums from different companies that best fit her learning style. She currently is using the Rosetta Stone program to learn Spanish. She also studies subjects such as math, science and social studies.

While Cote relies on some textbooks, she also looks to the community to expand her learning experiences. Dickerson-Cote combs through newspaper event listings to find activities such as writers’ workshops at local libraries.

Cote, who is writing a book from the point of view of her dog, Lilly, was the only child at a recent York Public Library workshop with a published author. She said the workshop allowed her to share her work and get feedback from other writers.

Cote also has gone on field trips with other homeschoolers, including one day spent at a candy store learning about the science of making chocolate and aspects of the retail business.

“It was really fun. I knew it was special. If we were in a public school we would never have been able to do that,” she said. “A lot of people think homeschoolers are cooped up all day, but we get around a lot.”

“We really want her to learn about life skills,” Dickerson-Cote added.

Dickerson-Cote said her role as a homeschooling mother is not to be an expert on each subject, but help her daughter find the resources she needs. To that end, Dickerson-Cote said it is important to network with other families for ideas and support. She created a homeschool networking group that meets the first Monday of each month at Kennebunk Free Library.

Amy Bradstreet said she also sees the importance of networking with other families who unschool or homeschool their children. The family each year attends the Northeast Unschooling Conference in Massachusetts. Olivia and Adam Bradstreet also take occasional classes with other unschool or homeshcool students.

Amy and Alex Bradstreet created the online Maine Unschooling Network because there seemed to be a need for a place to provide information for families of teenagers, she said. They also will attend the “not back to school” picnic at 1 p.m. Monday at Fort Williams in Cape Elizabeth. All homeschoolers and unschoolers are invited to the potluck event.

Though Olivia and Adam Bradstreet agree it is sometimes annoying to answer strangers’ questions about unschooling, they said they enjoy their lifestyle and have never wanted to attend public school.

“Sitting in front of a teacher is not the same as learning,” Olivia Bradstreet said. “It’s the experience, it’s what you take away from the experience. That’s what learning is.”

Staff Writer Gillian Graham can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 220.