My neighbor Bridget can\u2019t stop thinking about the Everglades, the Grand Canyon, and Big Bend. \u201cI want my nugget to know these places right from the start,\u201d she says of her newborn daughter. \u201cI keep thinking the National Parks should be her school.\u201d<\/p>\n
My sister Melody calls in a panic about her 14-year-old. \u201cDakotah came home from ninth grade today and told me he can\u2019t take one more minute of the boredom and their stupid rules,\u201d she says. \u201cHe says if I don\u2019t homeschool him, he\u2019s going to drop out!\u201d<\/p>\n
These three are confronting an education landscape very different from the one they\u2019re familiar with. The vast majority of Americans<\/a>, about 90 percent of us, grew up going to the public school down the street, or maybe the private school across town. If we knew anyone who was homeschooled or otherwise not going to a school, we probably thought they were, well, weird.<\/p>\n That all started to change with this new century, with the introduction of virtual schools and the evolution of homeschool laws around the country. But the COVID-19 pandemic was the Big Bang, introducing literally every American family with school-age kids to a different way of learning overnight.<\/p>\n While many parents couldn\u2019t wait for Zoom- and pod-schooling to be over and for education to \u201cget back to normal,\u201d a subset found that their kids did better outside the conventional classroom \u2013 learned more, were less anxious, didn\u2019t hate what they did all day.<\/p>\n Others were horrified to witness the one-size-fits-all rote learning that was part of their child\u2019s classroom routine, and figured they could do better. Still others couldn\u2019t abide the book bans and transgender backlash that arose after the pandemic – or in some cases, felt these didn\u2019t go far enough.<\/p>\n Today, the number of students who are homeschooling<\/a> has risen to 3.2 million, up from around 2 million before COVID. Virtual schools report<\/a> enrollment notching up by 10 percent a year. There are 100,000 microschools \u2013 21st-century one-room schoolhouses<\/a> \u2013 serving an estimated one million students, and a growing number of families are mixing and matching from all of the above.<\/p>\n Having spent the past three years researching these trends, I\u2019ve seen up-close what happens when a parent begins to question whether traditional school is right for a particular kid.<\/p>\n Everyone has an opinion: In-laws, exes, grandparents, neighbors, and of course, the children themselves.<\/p>\n That\u2019s when it\u2019s useful to have a field guide to the various flavors of unconventional education and a handful of tips from those who have gone before.<\/p>\n (Left to right) Gisela Hernandez-Qui\u00f1ones and Eddie Qui\u00f1ones have chosen a mix of homeschooling and private schooling for their three children. Photo: Courtesy of the Hernandez-Qui\u00f1ones family; Amber O\u2019Neal Johnston and her family make outdoor exploration part of their homeschool experience. Photo: Nicole Eliason<\/p><\/div>\n Strictly defined, this is education in the home by a parent. In practice, though, homeschooling is becoming increasingly diverse, with some families following full programs like Classical Conversations or the Charlotte Mason Method while others mix and match curriculum products, online classes, and face-to-face learning through homeschool co-ops with other families.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also no longer a purely white, hetero pursuit:<\/a> These days, a small but increasing number of homeschooling parents identify as LGBTQ+, while Black and brown families represent the fastest-growing homeschool populations.<\/p>\n Inclusive practices and materials are on offer from trail-blazers like Gisela Quinones of Latinos Homeschooling and Amber O\u2019Neal Johnston, author of Soul School<\/em> and A Place to Belong.<\/em><\/p>\n Tristan Manzolini with her three children, who learn through an unschooling approach. Photo: Tristan Manzolini<\/p><\/div>\n In this offshoot of homeschooling, also known as self-directed education, learning follows the child\u2019s interests rather than being strictly organized by adults into subjects and grades.<\/p>\n Unschoolers range from purists who never touch linear curriculum to more relaxed practitioners who stir in some direct instruction or an online class as needed to fuel the child\u2019s study of, say, dragons across cultures or the science of soccer.<\/p>\n Parents like Tristan Manzolini have found that the fully personalized, highly flexible unschooling approach is well-suited for kids with special needs, like her youngest who was dual-diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Oppositional Defiant Disorder.<\/p>\n When your homeschool is an RV rolling from one learning destination to another, that\u2019s roadschooling. If you and your kids are sailing around the Caribbean, studying astronomy on board and poetry in port, that\u2019s boat-schooling. And if you swap the camper or boat for frequent flier miles and Airbnbs across Europe, Africa or Latin America, that\u2019s worldschooling. Taken together, these forms are estimated to involve tens of thousands of families, with the number growing along with remote work opportunities for parents.<\/p>\n The origin of these multi-age, 15-20 student learning centers may be the pandemic pod, but the sector has taken on a life of its own. Today there are microschools for special needs, for athletes, for outdoor learning and for STEM, many founded by former teachers. Microschools are typically private and parent-pay, though public school districts are beginning to get into the act by launching microschools of their own.<\/p>\n Since long before the pandemic, students in 40-plus states have had the option of enrolling in free public online schools, with state-certified teachers, standards-aligned curriculum, and lots of flexibility around time and space for learning. There is also a universe of private-pay virtual schools available to students anywhere in the U.S. and around the world. All combine online curriculum with live interaction between students and teachers, plus extra-curricular activities online and IRL.<\/p>\n Parents who seek a fully customized education for their kids are now \u201cunbundling\u201d school and replacing it with a curated melange of learning experiences from all of the above categories, plus community resources such as music lessons and local internships. Some are turning to \u201cNavigators\u201d to help tailor the mix for each child.<\/p>\n A prudent first step for anyone exploring unconventional education is to check state law governing homeschooling and compulsory school attendance. The Home School Legal Defense Association\u2019s online map provides a good overview of the many variations across all 50 states and Washington DC.<\/p>\n Depending on where they live, parents may have access to an Education Savings Account (ESA) that provides public funds for unconventional learning experiences. And beginning in 2027, a new federal tax credit scholarship program may provide extra funding for supplementary learning even for students enrolled in public school. EdChoice.org<\/a> provides a useful state-by-state guide.<\/p>\n Like Tristan Manzolini, parents of students with disabilities are drawn to unconventional education when they feel the traditional school setting isn\u2019t adapting to their kids\u2019 unique needs. They\u2019re willing to exchange public school \u201dspecial ed\u201d services for a more personalized environment, and then seek out a la carte therapies near home instead.<\/p>\n The Internet makes it easy to find families who are practicing each of these forms of unconventional education, and often to connect with them in person through conferences and local gatherings. Find your peeps, ask lots of questions, and lean on others like you for support.<\/p>\n While young people like my nephew Dakotah often drive unconventional education choice, a surprising number of parents catch the homeschooling or microschooling bug only to find that their kids say they\u2019d prefer to stay in traditional school. Those who have been down the path offer this as a bottom line: Make any decision about education a family decision.<\/p>\n A field guide to unconventional education: homeschooling, unschooling and more <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17707,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,224],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2026","category-fall-2026-columns"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17664"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17908,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17664\/revisions\/17908"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Field Guide to Unconventional Education<\/h3>\n
Homeschooling:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/homeschool-montage-750.jpg\")
Unschooling:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Tristan-Manzolini-and-Family-750.jpg\")
Roadschooling:<\/h3>\n
Microschools:<\/h3>\n
Virtual Schools:<\/h3>\n
A La Carte Learning:<\/h3>\n
Tips from the Field<\/h3>\n
Check the law:<\/h4>\n
Explore funding:<\/h4>\n
Consider neurodiversity:<\/h4>\n
Find your community:<\/h4>\n
Talk to your kids:<\/h4>\n
Mickey Revenaugh is the author of School\u2019s Out: Why Families Are Choosing Unconventional Education<\/a>,<\/em> from Johns Hopkins University Press. She co-founded Connections Academy, a leading public virtual school network; helped launch the E-rate program to connect American schools and libraries to the Internet; and served as editor of Instructor<\/em> and other magazines for educators at Scholastic.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"